Faith and Law

As an ordinary high school student in the 1960s, Tom Tarrants became deeply unsettled by the social upheaval of the era. In response, he turned for answers to extremist ideology and was soon utterly radicalized. Before long, he became involved in the reign of terror spread by Mississippi's dreaded White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, described by the FBI as the most violent right-wing terrorist organization in America.In 1969, while attempting to bomb the home of a Jewish leader in Meridian, Mississippi, Tom was ambushed by law enforcement and shot multiple times during a high-speed chase. Nearly dead from his wounds, he was arrested and sentenced to thirty years in the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman Farm. Unrepentant, Tom and two other inmates made a daring escape from Parchman yet were tracked down by an FBI SWAT team and apprehended in hail of bullets that killed one of the convicts. Tom spent the next three years alone in a six-foot-by-nine-foot cell. There he began a search for truth that led him to the Bible and a reading of the gospels, resulting in his conversion to Jesus Christ and liberation from the grip of racial hatred and violence.Astounded by the change in Tom, many of the very people who worked to put him behind bars began advocating for his release. After serving eight years of a 35-year sentence, Tom left prison. He attended college, moved to Washington, DC, and became copastor of a racially mixed church. He went on to earn a doctorate and became the president of the C. S. Lewis Institute, where he devoted himself to helping others become wholehearted followers of Jesus.A dramatic story of radical transformation, Consumed by Hate, Redeemed by Love demonstrates that hope is not lost even in the most tumultuous of times, even those similar to our own.Support the show

Can it ever get better? This is the question Benjamin Watson is asking. In a country aflame with the fallout from the racial divide, is there hope for honest and healing conversation? For finally coming to understand each other on issues that are ultimately about so much more than black and white?A former NFL tight end for the New Orleans Saints and a widely read and followed commentator on social media, Watson has taken the Internet by storm with his remarkable insights about some of the most sensitive and charged topics of our day. Now, in Under Our Skin, Watson draws from his own life, his family legacy, and his role as a husband and father to sensitively and honestly examine both sides of the race debate and appeal to the power and possibility of faith as a step toward healing.Support the show

What we have experienced during and in the aftermath of the tragic death of George Floyd has challenged us to think anew about racial reconciliation. This includes the workplace of Capitol Hill to which we have been called. While this moment in our history has created pain and suffering, it also has the potential of being a catalyst for healing and reconciliation. Capitol Hill, like other workplaces, is fertile ground for loving others and aiding reconciliation. This requires intentionality as we reach out to bridge racial divides. How does the Hill fare in this area and what is our role in personal ministry?What does ministry on the Hill look like when it’s effective in bringing staff and members together from different races and backgrounds? And what are the personal experiences we’ve witnessed and can share?These and other questions will explored by our special guest, D.J. Jordan, and among ourselves as well. These are challenging and difficult issues which require us to collaboratively seek the Lord’s wisdom and guidance. D.J. Jordan is a Vice President at Pinkston, a public relations company.Support the show

Does prayer seem like the only thing you can do after all the handwashing? What if we not only followed the best medical advice but also looked to Almighty God? What if we set aside partisan differences and think theologically in this time of anxiety and fear.Dr. Chad Pecknold, Professor of Historical & Systematic Theology in the School of Theology at The Catholic University of America, Very Rev. Thomas Petri, O.P., Vice President and Academic Dean of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception and Dr. Joseph E. Capizzi, Ordinary Professor of Moral Theology at the Catholic University of America discuss this timely topic.Support the show

Before his service in Congress, Senator James Lankford served students and families for more than 20 years in ministry, including 15 years as the Director of Student Ministry for the Baptist Convention of Oklahoma and Director of the Falls Creek Youth Camp, the largest youth camp in the United States, with more than 51,000 individuals attending each summer.James and his staff enjoy serving people from all backgrounds across Oklahoma. As chairman of the Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management Subcommittee, which covers federal spending, regulatory reform, and the federal workforce, he demands we have a more fiscally responsible and transparent federal government, and our nation remains the world leader. He believes that the federal government has an important role in our nation, but empowered families, individual people, and private businesses grow our economy and pass down our values.James was recognized as the Senate’s top-ranked “Taxpayers Friend” by the National Taxpayers Union for his strong record in support of lower taxes, limited government, and economic freedom. His annual Federal Fumbles report is a must-read in Washington, DC, because of its commonsense solutions to the problems our federal government faces. He has also been recognized by many other organizations for his work toward increased personal freedom, economic growth, and religious liberty.James lives in Oklahoma City with his wife Cindy. They have been married more than 27 years and have two daughters, Hannah and Jordan. He enjoys spending time with his family, working in his yard, and reading.Support the show

Just three weeks after having their first baby, Rachel was diagnosed with a rare spinal cord tumor that threatened her life. The tumor and surgery to remove it left her as a quadriplegic. She and her husband, Taylor, survived months in hospitals, near death, and their return home accompanied by work to regain their family life and movement in Rachel’s body. They will share truths about how to view our suffering in light of the Gospel.Support the show

Dr. Charmaine Yoest is a Vice President of the Heritage Foundation, where she leads the Institute for Family, Community and Opportunity. This includes work on domestic policy issues including health care and welfare reform, education policy, family formation, women’s issues and religious liberty. Dr. Yoest previously served in the Trump Administration in the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services. She served as Associate Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) where she directed the component’s intergovernmental, public affairs, and public liaison programs. Charmaine also served as the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services where she provided leadership for the $1.3 trillion Department’s public affairs programs, and coordination of strategic messaging across the 11 HHS Operating Divisions. Her work involved a focus on the opioid crisis, natural disaster response, and health care reform. Dr. Yoest has a track record serving in many facets of political life - in the White House, on a presidential campaign, and leading a national nonprofit. She has appeared as a spokesperson on every major television network and cable outlet, and has been published in the leading national publications. She has provided testimony in front of the United States Congress on multiple occasions. She is also the author of M other in the Middle (HarperCollins), an examination of child care policy. Dr. Yoest began her career working in the White House for President Ronald Reagan in Presidential Personnel and later served as a Senior Advisor to Governor Huckabee’s 2008 Presidential Campaign. She was a surrogate for the Trump-Pence 2016 campaign. She also served as President and CEO of Americans United for Life. During her tenure, the public interest law firm grew significantly, more than tripling its budget and donors. Numerous publications have profiled Charmaine and her work. In a feature piece, The New York Times said that “her personal appeal gives her outsize visibility.”The Christian Science Monitor describes her as “a pragmatic force.”The New Republic describes her as “compelling.” Even Mother Jones described her as “charismatic.” She was featured inTime magazine’s 2013 Thanksgiving series along with Michelle Obama and Rick Warren. Dr. Yoest received her B.A. in Political Science from Wheaton College. Later, she earned an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Department of Politics at the University of Virginia, where she received Mellon, Olin, Bradley and Kohler fellowships and wrote a dissertation on parental leave policy, after directing a national study on parental leave funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Charmaine and her husband are the parents of five children. Their oldest three children have been Division One athletes and include an NCAA champion, four-time ACC champion and a CAA champion. Their son is an Army Officer and Blackhawk Pilot.Support the show

A body of moral principles derived from God’s natural creation, the “natural law” sheds light on right and wrong in human conduct. What does the natural law teach us about virtue? To what extent does virtue require, by its very nature, such supports as faith and community? Listen as natural law expert, Robert P. George, for an investigation into these timely questions.Dr. Robert P. George is McCormick Professorship of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.He has several times been a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School. He has served as Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the President’s Council on Bioethics. He has also served as the U.S. member of UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology. He was a Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States, where he received the Justice Tom C. Clark Award. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Swarthmore, he holds the degrees of J.D. and M.T.S. from Harvard University and the degrees of D.Phil., B.C.L., D.C.L., and D.Litt. from Oxford University, in addition to twenty-one honorary doctorates. He is a recipient of the U.S. Presidential Citizens Medal, the Honorific Medal for the Defense of Human Rights of the Republic of Poland, the Canterbury Medal of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the Bradley Prize, the Irving Kristol Award of the American Enterprise Institute, and Princeton University’s President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching.His books include Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality and In Defense of Natural Law (both published by Oxford University Press).Dr. David Corey is the Director of Baylor in Washington and a professor of Political Science focusing on political philosophy in the Honors Program at Baylor University. He is also an affiliated member of the departments of Philosophy and Political Science. He was an undergraduate at Oberlin, where he earned a BA in Classics from the College and a BMus in music from the Conservatory. He studied law and jurisprudence at Old College, Edinburgh before taking up graduate work in political philosophy at Louisiana State University. He is the author of two books, The Just War Tradition (with J. Daryl Charles) (2012) and The Sophists in Plato’s Dialogues (2015). He has written more than two dozen articles and book chapters in such venues as the Review of Politics, History of Political Thought, Modern Age, Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy, and the Cambridge Dictionary of Political Thought. His current projects, Rethinking American Politics, and Liberalism & The Modern Quest for Freedom, examine the loss of healthy political association in the United States and offer strategies for reform.Support the show

What are the most important lessons to learn from the pandemic? Listen as Chen Guangcheng and William Saunders discuss this question in light of the latest information from sources in China. Click here to view a transcript of Mr. Chen's talk.Chen Guangcheng is a Chinese civil rights lawyer and activist who has been a persistent voice for freedom, human dignity, and the rule of law in his native country. Working in rural communities in China, where he was known as the “barefoot lawyer,” Chen advocated for the rights of disabled people, and organized class-action litigation against the government’s violent enforcement of its one-child policy. Blind since his childhood, Chen is self-taught in the law. His human rights activism resulted in his imprisonment by the Chinese government for four years, beginning in 2006; after his release he remained under house arrest, until his escape from confinement in 2012, whereupon he came to the United States, where he was a scholar at New York University in 2012-13. Mr. Chen is a Distinguished Fellow at the Catholic University of America. William Saunders is a graduate of the Harvard Law School, who has been involved in issues of public policy, law and ethics for thirty years. A regular columnist for the National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, Mr. Saunders has written widely on these topics, as well as on Catholic social teaching. He has given lectures in law schools and colleges throughout the United States and the world. He is the Director of the Program in Human Rights for the Institute for Human Ecology.Support the show

On Friday, April 24th The Trinity Forum and Faith and Law hosted Senior Fellow and history professor Dr. Joseph Loconte to discuss the friendship and legacy of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Loconte highlights how their refusal to become disillusioned and disenchanted in the aftermath of World War I allowed for some of the greatest works of literature in modern history. Their example of resilience and imagination is especially inspiring for us in the midst of this pandemic. We were reminded of the surprising return of hope for those who look up—as Samwise Gamgee says “…in the end the shadow was only a small and passing thing. There was light and high beauty forever beyond it’s reach.”Support the show