Defending Freedom: Fighting to Preserve 250 Years of Liberty

Defending Freedom: Fighting to Preserve 250 Years of Liberty

Host: Dr. Isaac Crockett

Guest: Jordan Sekulow

Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 6/12/26. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.

Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.

Isaac Crockett:

Well, welcome. Thank you for tuning in to this Friday edition. I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett, joined by my co-host, regular host of this program, The Honorable Sam Rohrer. In just a moment, it’s going to be my honor to introduce you to our special guest. I guess the legendary maybe would be a good way of introducing him Jordan Sekulow from the American Center for Law and Justice. But as our nation is marking the 250th anniversary this year, we’re focusing on the theme of defending freedom today. And we want to look at what it takes to preserve the freedom that we have. With that, Jordan Sekulow, thank you so much. I know you have a huge schedule, super busy. Thank you for taking the time to be on this program with us today.

Jordan Sekulow:

Yeah, thanks for having me and then let me talk about the work that we do at the ACLJ. So thank you.

Isaac Crockett:

Well, Jordan, you’re the executive director of the American Senator for Law and Justice. A lot of people know of you, of your dad, Jay Sekulow, and the work that’s going on, especially those who listen regularly to our program. They’ve heard Ben Sisney and Sherry R. Gill and several others are friends of theirs that work with you. But we do want to get into that work that is going on and why it’s so vital for a nation like America, I believe the freest nation in the world, that we need to stand together as Christians, as a community, face these threats to our liberties and powerful global work that’s going on. That’s one of the things that I didn’t know a few years ago was how much work you guys are doing, not just in the United States, but all over the world. And so I’ve been looking forward to this and having you on.

Thank you for joining us and welcome to our program. It feels like I already know you because I know so much about you and the ACLJ. But as the executive director there at the ACLJ, can you tell us a little bit about your role and the different ministry and work opportunities there and how it really connects to this legacy that the ACLJ has, the legacy that your dad really started a number of years ago?

Jordan Sekulow:

Sure. So kind of growing up in this movement, before there was even an ACLJ, there was a smaller organization called CASE and it handled a couple of the early Supreme Court cases that my dad did. I was, I think at the time the first one, maybe five years old, six years old, so very young. So that just kind of gives people an indication of how long he’s been doing this. As you know, in any kind of ministry or work like this, especially in the nonprofit world, the family usually kind of stays pretty close and you’re exposed to a lot of this that you wouldn’t necessarily be exposed to this world of the law and political stuff at five and six years old or the Supreme Court and kind of that being part of your normal life. And so kind of thinking, well, this is the way things going.

So as I was in undergrad and again focused a lot on, I think what was cool is my parents, neither my mom or dad were really heavily involved in politics directly as they were growing up and really through doing the work that they were doing, they’d be exposed to kind of the early days. But remember the early days in the political world, it wasn’t like the size of the movement is today. We were kind of like the new kids on the block, if you will. And so conservative movements obviously notice, hey, this is a group that we can talk to a lot more directly. They share values, but they’re not necessarily organizing to get the vote out and things like that. So I also kind of got to watch the rise of Christians really engaging public life, but as Christians, not them just, “Well, I happen to be a Christian, but I’m also going to be in politics, but deciding I’m a Christian and I want to be in politics and I want my Christian faith to guide me in politics.” And same thing goes in on the legal work that we do and the attorneys that we have, and some have been on this broadcast, they could have gone the normal route if you will.

That kind of gets back to all of that, that a law school graduate would do. You start off trying to clerk at law firms maybe for a judge and if you’re interested in the government side of things, but not necessarily political, you can go into the much bigger legal bureaucracy that exists and from everything from prosecutors at the local level to the US attorneys, federal level and those offices. Then there’s this other side to law, which again blends your personal beliefs and blends your personal beliefs and your unique training in law. So you’re able to live both at the same time. When you talk to some of our attorneys on here, you’ll realize that one, how connected everyone is within the organization and also that we’ve kind of learned how to chew gum and run on various and expand, not necessarily just by adding bodies, but by adding capabilities.

So we talked about the ACLJ was a conglomeration of groups that some of the kind of early evangelical leaders who were getting into politics, like Dr. Robertson and even some to the extent the Crouch family with TBN, they knew that their audience wanted to hear more about how to engage the community because there were a lot of issues coming to light then that I will be honest about. Speak about the pro- life movement and the Dobbs case, the overturning of Roe versus Wade. Well, I mean, I really watched as a kid as that movement turned from almost primarily Catholic because they weren’t afraid to talk about the issues that may involve … I mean the bottom line is it involves sex. So they didn’t necessarily … And a lot of Protestant denominations just didn’t love … Even evangelical didn’t love bringing that up, didn’t really want to talk about it.

And again, this is a long time ago, but as they got more exposed to what was happening in maybe two blocks away from them if they lived in a city and what’s happening behind those doors and exposing kind of the horrors, that generation grew up with that being told that that was just a normal, quick medical procedure, nothing to worry about. And we still get calls to this day. It’s amazing on our broadcast from women who are probably, I would say, between 60 to 80 plus years old who had abortions during that time period and were told there was no real ultrasound before battles like that going on. They were just told from communities, “Listen, if this happens to you and you’re young and you’ve got your life ahead of you, no big deal. This isn’t a human life. It’s just we’ll rename it a fetus and we’ll call it that.

” And then we all started engaging and I’ll still say, I mean, it’s still I think a day and time where you will … The pro- life movement has fought so hard to get to the point where we are today and you were asking about getting involved in politics, this idea of Christians being engaged, we had told folks, whenever it does happen, we were confident that it would happen. We didn’t know my dad did not know if it would happen in his lifetime or mine, but we saw the scientific evidence finally turning our way as well. So if you did take this faith aspect out of it, or even kind of the basic science of people realizing, okay, wait, we know that if you could be born the earlier you can have children now, yes, there’s still complications, NIC units and things like that, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t be born and live a healthy life.

And so that number continued to be pushed back further and further and what we told people was, “Listen, our number one battle is to really make this a more even battlefield. Roe versus Wade has to go. ” Or else everything, any progress we make will have to meet standards that judges and then justices kind of come up with out of Roe versus Wade. And so we knew, I mean, we knew basically right when the Supreme Court decided to hear the case, we already were preparing and this is before we got the outcome of what happens next. And I’ll tell you, deluge of state legislators and governors calling us

Isaac Crockett:

It’s incredible how far it has come and the ACLJ has been at the tip of the sphere for all of us pro- life and many other protections of our faith. We’ll be right back. Well, welcome back to the program. I’m Isaac Crockett and Sam Rohrer is with me and we’re talking to our guests, Jordan Sekulow of the ACLJ. And Jordan, one of the questions I get sometimes to people who listen to our program or see something online is, “Isaac, why are you making such a big deal out of some of these things? We live in America. We’re the land of the free. We have First Amendment rights. Why are you worried about us losing our freedom?” Maybe there’s like a quick kind of a two minute answer, Jordan too, why does an organization like the ACLJ place such a vital role in a country as free as America?

Jordan Sekulow:

I think it goes back to the founding fathers and when people were asking, “What’s in this Constitution? What kind of nation are we? ” And it’s a democracy of the people as long as you can keep it that way. And I think that was clear this idea is that we were given this gift by our founding fathers who knew that by giving this gift, there was still a lot of work to do in one, seeing it put to reality. And in some cases that would take civil wars in the country with big, divisive issues, but that we still could fall back on this founding document, which again, means nothing by just being on a piece of paper. The words are meaningless if the people in the nation and in the halls of power or the courts, elected officials up to the president of the United States, our intelligence communities all have to, again, follow the basics and also how we have interpreted some of those provisions within the Constitution to make sure that we preserve our Democratic Republic.

And so again, the issues aren’t always the same, but I do think it’s always about trying to, again, tell people, “Oh, you’re not really going to lose this right if we do this. You can still do it in the privacy of your home. You just can’t do it on the sidewalk or you can’t really talk to people. Churches can exist, but that may be where you go for lots of big life answers, but your pastor can’t tell you who he’s voting for. Those kind of issues, I mean, that we are still fighting with every single day and trying to make sure they go from executive orders, which will last as long as a president’s in office to actual statutory language that compliments the Constitution rather than trying to upend the Constitution, as some people might say. So we have to keep fighting every day for what it means to have freedom of speech

Sam Rohrer:

And

Jordan Sekulow:

There’s no guarantee.

Sam Rohrer:

Jordan, I would agree with you 100% and let me come at it from different perspective here and get your thoughts on it. The Lord put me in office for 18 years in the general assembly in Pennsylvania. So I come at looking at where we are from the standpoint of law because in that capacity I was one who made law and then you have the executive branch that is supposed to enforce it, but oftentimes are increasingly making it through executive orders, you mentioned it right now, then you got the courts and you are in there of defending the law. Now we got a 250th anniversary coming up. So there’s a lot of things that people are saying and recalling and all of that. And as I approach the 250th and I put on my law making hat, it does take me to the Constitution. It does take me to the principles of the Declaration of Independence and my biblical worldview does take me to God as the author of rights and all of that.

Just kind of curiosity from your perspective as you are approaching the 250th and being in the capacity as defending the law, just out of curiosity, how are you approaching it from the standpoint of when you guys talk about what we should recall and remember perhaps as we think about the 250th from your perspective as defending the law, what direction are you going

Jordan Sekulow:

To go? Yeah. I mean, I think that for one, it’s so important to have attorneys that are willing to do this work. As I said earlier, you can go one route, but you can also go this route of really being in there. We’re not always against … Sometimes people think with ACLG, you’re always against a government entity, but the reason is because you might be suing a school district or a municipality, not because the people in the state disagree with you and oftentimes there’ll be state attorneys that join your side. So again, it’s kind of this balance where yes, there are times when you’ve got a very hostile … We’ll go to the executive branch and kind of administration to administration at the presidential level and you do have to pivot and we do pivot every … We’re ready to pivot every four years, regardless of what polls are saying, because it can go from that moment where you’re in the room helping to draft laws that you know that you might have to defend in court.

Well, it’s a whole lot easier when you’ve got a friendly administration who understands that too, that we need … What terminology should we use? What terminology should we stay away from to accomplish our goal? Now, everything flips on itself if that kind of political leadership is out and you’ve been dealing with new political leadership, which is really hostile, not just because of your personal politics, but even hostile to your faith and so kind of isolating people out. I think it’s incredible that we get to experience the 250th anniversary, but we do a lot of work around the world and you see how short that is, not for each individual’s lifetime, but it is for a nation like ours, which is, again, one of the strongest, if not the strongest in the world, not because we have the most people, there are countries that are bigger than us and not because we have all the resources and we’re certainly blessed with a lot of them, but because we come at it trying to emulate this Judeo-Christian heritage, which we can’t do perfectly because we are as the Bible tells us, but we try to come as close to it as possible as doing the right thing, doesn’t mean we always will get it right.

And so for my kids, what I think about is they’re now in the age where they’re learning about all of this is to make sure that the America that we have even right now is similar to what they’re going to experience, even with all the changes that are impossible to truly imagine, whether it’s technology and just the different side kinds of connectedness, but I want to make sure that their core foundations, those core foundations aren’t forgotten about. As soon as you forget about them, as soon as you think, “Well, we’re safe, we’re good,” then you’re in real trouble. And what we see is just aggressive tactics, trying to go after churches, finding churches, putting FBI agents into Catholic churches, undercover while we were dealing with a threat from Islamic terrorism, that’s where the FBI put its resources. Again, we’ve seen it widespread. We actually just finished a report for it with the DOJ on the weaponization of the DOJ, prep past DOJ and it was really kind of the Obama administration part two in there who were just … Animosity was not the right word.

They were just going … Whether it was going against your taxes status, trying to silence you out of the political process by scaring you and acting like you shouldn’t be there and treating you really like an enemy and what we always have is you have to be that joyful warrior. There are times you have to be really tough in this world, but at the end of the day, if you are trying to do the right thing and this is a passion which we try to instill in everybody, not just attorneys, not just people who are kind of interested in what’s going on in the world, but if we come together and then we can have groups like ours who can fight in the legal world and in the government affairs world and we’ve launched a C4. So even more directly politically, I think people realize with both me and my dad and brother and those of us who are maybe more of the face side of the ACLJ know the politics, know that we’re heavily involved in that obviously.

Remind people of this, my dad’s first case in the Supreme Court was for a group called Jews for Jesus, very controversial at the time. This is again, late ’80s and the whole idea was could they pass out information on the sidewalk or could you … And so it was really not just about their organization, but the cities had come against them and it was in LA County and they didn’t want to exclude everybody from being on the sidewalk. They just wanted to excuse those Jewish people who happened to be Christians. And so he goes to the Supreme Court, he’s never argued a case there in his life. They called him rude, obnoxious and aggressive in the legal journals at the time right after the oral argument. It takes a few months, you get the decision from the court, nine zero. So what had we been doing wrong before that?

We had been too much like cheap that had been led astray. Now we don’t want to always be wolves, but you’ve got to keep your flock safe, if you will. And so fundamentally, they realized that we’re in for a new legal battle, and that’s kind of how it’s gone right then. So it wasn’t about representing presidents of the United States. That’s a great honor that we were able to do two Supreme Court cases for President Trump outside of our work at the ACLJ or the impeachment cases. What I think is remarkable is that God could use someone like my dad who did come from the Jewish faith tradition, born in New York, ends up in Atlanta, Georgia after a bunch of other places they move because of his dad’s work, he becomes a Christian. He had pretty secular Jewish parents and they weren’t really concerned.

Mary’s my mom who was a Southern Baptist Christian and again, didn’t jump right into some political Christian world, jumped right into the legal world and really had a distinction between that. And a group noticed him and said, “You know what? This is the guy we want representing us in court.” So it started at the grassroots level. I will tell you, 95% of the work that we do, if you really talk to all of our attorneys today, it’s for people who to fight this battle would not necessarily have the financial resources to do so. So what we’re there for is not for the presidents of the United States. It’s wonderful that it shows that when you’re working with the ACLJ, you’re getting that level of expertise at no cost, but what we really are offering people is a chance when you feel like you’re wronged and you contact us and we think you were wrong too, that you’ve got the entire ACLJ, people who have represented presidents of the United States at the highest court of the land to represent you and it’s not going to cost you anything.

You just have to be willing to put up your hand. And I will tell you, that’s why we’re always, whether it’s the donor, whether it’s the client, each one of those folks had to say, “You know what? Even if this is going to make me stick out because in my community or my employer or just where my kids go to school, I am going to stand up.” And it takes that one or two people and if you win a cases at the Supreme Court, it changes the whole country.

Isaac Crockett:

That is so important. Jordan Secular from the ACLJ, you could go to aclj.org, see a lot there. We’re going to talk more about it. We’re going to take a quick break to hear from our partners. But what Jordan is saying, righteousness exalts a nation and sin as a reproach. Righteousness builds us up. Let’s talk about that. Welcome back to the program. If you’re just joining us on this Friday edition, we’re talking with Jordan Secullo, the executive director of the American Center for Law and Justice. You can find out all kinds of things, articles and news, information, updates, subscribe to their newsletters at aclj.org. It’s that easy. Aclj.org. I know a lot of you have done that already and you follow what they’re talking about and what’s going on. We’ve been talking about this legacy of how Jordan’s Dad Jay was used of God to start helping people and defending people and that has only grown over the years and they’re at the tip of the spear on so many levels in courts with policymakers looking and defending our freedoms, especially freedoms of religion and it’s neat looking at these liberties.

Before we go back to Jordan talking about those liberties, Sam, I just wanted to give you a chance to give us an update on Liberty and that reminds me of our Liberty Sunday coming up, July 5th. Could you tell us a little bit more about that?

Sam Rohrer:

Yeah, I can. Isaac, for a number of years we’ve encouraged churches and church leaders and all that to take the automatic built-in advantage of our national 4th of July celebration to focus on the aspects from a biblical perspective of what constitutes freedom. Isaac, I think there are far too many people and we certainly hear it in our day today when pride and arrogancy prevail in the political sense that the idea that greatness or freedom comes from the wit of someone’s mind or the efforts of someone or some people, but that’s not what the Lord of God says. Liberty comes when God raises up a nation and God makes it clear that his blessing on nations that come from health to plenty of food to property to wealth, those kinds of things, which God lays out in scripture, Deuteronomy 20, it’s a great place. He said that to Israel, God did, but it really applies to all nations and we are encouraging people that at times build in like the fourth where we talk about our days of independence, that we visit liberty from the way God defines it to be.

So Sunday, July 5th is the Sunday this year that we’re designating as Liberty Sunday and recall it this is the title, Faithful and Freedom: Living for Christ in a Contested Culture. And if someone goes to our website at AmericanPastorsnetwork.net, they will find there it’s a banner that scrolls across the top. There’s a number of things that are there, Sample Sermon, their way to partner with us. There’s a YouTube video that was put together that is of the reading of Max McLean, reading the Declaration of Independence. It’s really fantastic. The Declaration of Independence is there and there’s a number of things that can be found there. So we just encourage people to do that as it comes up, not to dismiss other things that will be happening, but if we don’t start with the source of liberty who is God himself and look at what makes a nation great, that is fearing God and keeping his commands we will miss the entire point of what God would intend us to remember here on this day.

Isaac Crockett:

Well, thank you for that, Sam. And I hope that you’ll go to our website, look at that, share it with your pastor or pastoral staff members. Jordan, at the ACLJ, you guys are doing that too. You’re standing up for what’s right. You’re promoting righteousness in this nation so that we don’t go towards lawlessness and sinfulness that so easily sneaks in. And every day you’re doing things, whether it be in the public school or the workplace or before the Supreme Court of the United States, you’re in there from the lowest up to the highest working and helping Christians. Sometimes American Christians might say, “Well, I don’t really know what’s going on in other places. It doesn’t affect me. ” What would you say maybe to that argument about why we should be aware of what’s going on, where others’ liberties are being trampled on, why we should be praying for that and involved with what you were doing at the ACLG and helping those other believers.

Jordan Sekulow:

So there’s what’s happening domestically and yes, it can be hard sometimes as Americans, especially with some of the work that we do overseas when the idea of … I’m even careful about how I use the language now because of that. I look at it as there’s religious discrimination that goes on in our country sometimes getting close to what you’d call, especially when you’re using very powerful levers of government, whether that’s using the Department of Justice or the legal system to wage what we call law fair against you, it gets pretty close to persecution. And then we see that the work that we do overseas for the majority of Christians and those cases then change rapidly into cases I’d say where on the Western European side it stays and even into the Eastern European side, it stays very much about free speech and those countries have been dealing with going after churches, even church leadership, they’re going after other church leadership to try and keep any kind of political movement from forming out of the church because they know how powerful that can be and they see what happens in the United States, how strong that can be.

But when you go into the tougher places where we’re the minority and sometimes small minorities, sometimes pretty big minorities, they’re not dealing with can they have their faith or not. It’s really about, are they going to be killed? And not always because of an extremist group, but will the government be the one actually carrying out the execution. I mean, you’ve got levels of that kind of persecution work that we do in places like Pakistan, places like India and of course throughout Africa where we’ve done work is that for those folks, they hope and are fighting for the day that they could deal with some of the issues that we get to deal with here in the United States that are battles, but right now they’re just trying to maintain their lives so that there is a Christian church that remains in these parts of the world.

And so sure, I understand that the kind of pushback initially of why do I need to worry about what’s happening outside of my community, but you know what, you just need to look to a few places that you say, “Well, I wouldn’t want to live in a place like that. ” And so you’ll see governments there, places like LA County. Well, we do a lot of cases there in Los Angeles on church buildings and the reason why they don’t want the churches in those areas, even though there’s federal law to protect that is because they’re nonprofits. They don’t pay property tax. And so it can be dollars and kids issues, but then of course they think, well, this church, they’re not going to have enough money to fight back. Or yes, we have this community center and there’s a news church that’s growing so it’s moving out of its old space and needs a new space.

And we let everybody and every other organization use the facility, but if you’re a religious group, can’t use it. And so again, just understand that your community may feel like this is a great, and hopefully it is. There are a lot of communities that are and cities and states that are welcoming to people of your faith and sharing your faith and being able to live it openly to where you don’t have to have that in the back of your mind, but you’d be shocked at how many cases we’re still doing out of Texas or Florida, places that people see as very conservative or Tennessee and it’s not because the state government or the vast population of the state is interested in stopping churches from being built or going after churches for this or that reason or Christian individuals who are outside of a Planned Parenthood peacefully sidewalk counselors that happens in small towns too and smaller cities.

And so we get almost as many cases out of the red states, if you will, as the blue states because there’s always bad actors in whatever state you live in inside government power somewhere. It could be at your city level, you could live in a very conservative state and a lot of them are, you go to their capital cities and most of the time they’re run by a political party or individuals who are fairly hostile to our beliefs. So yeah, it’s like they’re even driving 20 minutes away. So I always say just listen closely to the kind of national effort we run and you’re not just going to hear the same three places over and over. And some places may surprise you that it’s happening in your own backyard. And again, it goes back to there’s always work to be done and some of it is about preservation and then I’d say like the work on the life issue is, we’ve gotten to this round one on Grovers being able to overturn Roe versus Wade.

People say, “Why do you say round one?” Well, because until we did that, there was not really an effort to let people vote in the states. And so there was a rush. Some of those did not turn out so well. We were a group because we’ve been involved in so long. So once we have the ability to start putting in any of these restrictions in place, we’ve got to really educate people because there are too many people who, yeah, even the evangelical churches, the Protestant churches a long time to get with it. There’s going to be plenty of people in that state who aren’t going to understand these constitutional amendments. It’ll be written in a way that’s confusing. We need to now take our time. It took a long time to overturn Roe versus Wade. It’s going to be even harder to beat back the abortion industry, which is how I tell people to always look at them.

They’re a billion plus year organization just in Planned Parenthood alone and we’re still, while we’ve cut off most of their funding under the Trump administration, even with Republican majorities, we only got it cut off for a year. So in the next fiscal year, we’ve got to fight that battle again. I mean, so it’s again, I think some people saw that Roe versus Wade. They think, oh, it’s over. And in fact, it’s actually the fight is just beginning. It’s just a little bit more of a fair fight these days than it was before during the days of Roe versus Wade. So it doesn’t have to always be national issues. You look what most of the casework we do is not, but when we win, especially in the federal courts, we’re winning for everybody. So you’re getting the benefit of that person who put their hand up, who called us and was willing to fight alongside us.

You’re getting that benefit when we win. And as a person of faith, it’s not just them who is winning or their church that’s winning. It’s your church too.

Isaac Crockett:

And it’s so important because these things, whether it’s a law or whether it’s a court case, you’re right. It’s against all of us. We’re brothers and sisters in Christ. What you’re doing is engagement for all of us at your work at the ACLJ and what’s going on from small town to big town. When we come back, we want to look at some of what Jordan talked about with the global impact. Welcome back to our program. Sam and I, it’s been a privilege for us to interview Jordan Sekulow from the ACLJ. And as we again, think about this 250th anniversary of our nation and at the ACLJ’s work in defending truth and justice, helping be a light and darkness, standing for righteousness so that our nation may be exalted and continue to be a beacon of light to the world. It also reminds me of something that I only found out just a few years ago, Jordan, and getting to know Sherry R.

Gill, one of your attorneys that does your international work and that is just that the amazing international work that is being coordinated through the ACLJ. And so you oversee international efforts from Europe to the UN to the ICC, these criminal courts that sometimes are just almost more of a joke than the UN. And you have offices in Israel, Pakistan, you do work in Africa and India beyond. You’ve touched on it just a little bit, but as we wrap things up, here’s another example of America being a light of Christian righteousness to the world. Could you maybe talk about some of those impactful areas worldwide the ACLJ is involved in?

Jordan Sekulow:

Started actually with the Europeans in Western Europe. They saw what we were doing in the United States. They have more access to that and they came, it was around 92, 93. So not too long after the ACLJ had kind of finally formed into the organization today and said, “We want to do something similar here.” And so we have an office that started in, it’s in Strasburg, France. It’s where the European Court of Human Rights is. It’s also where the Council of Europe meets. And so we have been doing work there at a very high level, whether it’s at the International Court of Human Rights, or as you mentioned, the ICC where we’ve represented Israel’s position and also the United States government’s position because both of those countries deny any kind of authority of the ICC and so they don’t recognize it. And because of that, they still don’t want to have these trials go on, which are kind of like mock three, as you said, rougher than any courts you could imagine without anybody there fighting back.

And so we started to fight back in those areas. We started to fight back for the free speech rights that still most Europeans have in some kind of code, whether our constitution is so great that it lays it out so clearly. And then through that work, people saw that, well, if they’re doing the work there, they’re doing the work here, could they help us? And it was Russia next. It was just not long after the fall of the Soviet Union. And unfortunately, since the Ukrainian conflict and the funding and the issues there, that office has had to kind of try and survive on its own. God willing one day, hopefully sooner rather than later, we’re able to get back to the work we were doing there because that was, again, that was the first place that, okay, now we have no idea what’s coming next.

And we’ve got all these new churches popping up, people finally being able to practice their faith, but the government is still unsure of what that means. We’re not kind of unsure of our government. And of course, then you had someone come in who’s still in power like a Putin and kind of play this back and forth with the federal government there and their state government. So not that different from how things are structured here, but of course very different historically where you have a lot of people who are just fired up to be able to practice a faith in.

Again, you learn a lot there. Then people say, “Oh, if you do this in Russia, could you help us out in places like in Africa? Could you help us out in Kenya? Could you help us out in Zimbabwe? Could you help us out in Nigeria?” Especially as one that gets talked about so much with the horrible persecution there, Sudan and the newest country in the world, South Sudan. And so the work is continually and places like Pakistan where Sheharyar is  such a lock on that, that we’re all able to kind of get this whole picture. If you’re at the ACLJ and in my position, I get to see this whole picture of how things are working around the world, what people are facing in different communities, tying that together to make sure we’re telling their stories the right way. One, because we know the power of prayer when people come together all over the world to pray for something.

And two, we know that the persecution of the righteous will always continue. They will always look for new forms to silence our faith. And so that’s why we’re here and that’s why I’m glad and excited about the attorneys we have on our staff who are 22 years old, 23 years old, just out of law school, or maybe in their final year lawsuit, been clerking for us for years that are ready as well to jump into these battles. And it’s really been incredible to see the generations of that at work. And of course through ACLJ action and our presence in Washington DC, we kind of dived into the political world, not with a blindfold on, but because we were getting asked to get engaged in all these other issues and while the C3 wasn’t the best route for that. So we created ACLJ Action as a C4 and it’s really expanded our ability to influence what goes on in elections and what also then goes on in Capitol Hill.

Isaac Crockett:

Real quickly, you mentioned this ACLJ action. Where’s the best place to find more information on that? Do we go to ACLJ.org or is there another place that we could go to get more information?

Jordan Sekulow:

Organization ACLJaction.org for action and you’ll see on there it actually opened us up into a whole new world of issues. Some people might say interesting that you’re getting involved in some of the online issues and some of the issues involving the video games kids are playing and restrictions there and some of the different corporate battles that are going on. And you know what? We think those battles can be just as it will. Sometimes more important in shaping our culture than what our government may or may not be doing on a day to day basis. And so it has. It’s really allowed us to kind of add another quiver, if you will, and because of that, just continue to grow as an organization and bring people in who are experts in that field to again, to really have an impact. So we’re not just winning the cases, but if we’re helping to write the law, which the C4 allows you to get more involved in lobbying and things like that, I say it’s lobbying in a good way.

If the ACLJ guy’s doing it, they are to make sure that the law is written in the best way possible to move forward. We know a lot of these, like we said earlier, if conservatives are doing it, it’s likely going to be challenged in court and you might lose to a district court judge just doesn’t like you and very liberal, but we’re always ready to fight to the next level of court and go that extra mile. But sometimes to even get that far, you’ve got to get the legislation on the books first. And so that’s important whether it’s in state legislatures across the country or in Washington DC. And so ACLJ action was something we wanted to do for probably about a decade, but decided we were at a point where we had the time and the resources to invest and to really build out into an organization that again, was able to compliment the work that the ACLJ is doing and ultimately make it more impactful long term.

Well,

Isaac Crockett:

This is excellent information. Jordan, again, so thankful for what you and the ACLJ are doing in the United States, everything from Washington DC to the public school and town courts and things all the way to the UN and beyond. And as you said that about affecting culture. And Sam, I want to go to you so you can close us in prayer, but that’s something you’ve talked about a lot. So many times Christians say, “Oh, I don’t want to get political.” What we’re talking about is cultural. We’re supposed to be light in our culture. Sam, could you kind of just close our program, talk about that and if there’s time, close us in prayer.

Sam Rohrer:

All right. The words will be brief, Isaac. When Jesus, as you and I have talked about on our TV programs and the beatitudes, Jesus told the disciples then and us now, you are to be salt and you are to be light. All of us, ladies and gentlemen, wherever that is, that means in our homes, that means on the street. Yes, perhaps if God calls into the political office, yes, but it’s in our life and how we think at all times. That is how we need to pursue. And Heavenly Father, may we all be directed in our minds and our heart to consider your example and your instructions to all who trust in you and may it start, Lord, at the first place and that is do we really know you as Lord and Savior Lord, it’s not just in words only, but it is in our deeds and that’s what you have told us to be salt and light in this culture.

In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Isaac Crockett:

Amen. Thank you for that, Sam. Jordan Sekulow from ACLJ and ACLJ Action. Thank you again for taking the time to be on here for talking about what God has done, what he is doing and Lord willing what will happen through the ACLJ, ACLJ action, please pray for them, get involved and be the salt and the light in your world. And until next time, I pray that you will stand in the gap for truth wherever you are today. Thank you so much for this.