Mira Terada, head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, interviewed Stephen Broden, a pastor from Texas who has been actively involved in the public and political life of America for more than 30 years. In the first part of the interview, Mira found out from Stephen who is behind the increased attacks on Christianity and traditional values, who benefits from undermining the rights of believers and freedom of religion, and why it’s time to confront the current government in the United States.
Mira Terada: Good afternoon, dear Pastor Stephen Broden. Thank you for making the time for interview. Please tell our viewers a few words about yourself and your ministry.
Stephen Broden: I am a senior pastor at the Fair Park Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas Church. I founded it back in 1987. We are actively involved in the community. We are engaging in economic help, encouraging through counseling and biblical counseling, families and relationships with others to provide a biblical perspective on life and living within the community. And we’ve been doing that since 1987, so it’s been over 30 years.
Mira Terada: In recent years, Western liberal attacks on Christianity have intensified; traditional values and morals are being destroyed and liberated. Do you think it is possible to identify the source of these attacks? Does the ruling financial-oligarchic and political establishment is related to this?
Stephen Broden: Now we are in a transitional period. Christian ethics is currently under attack. We are moving away from our Judeo-Christian heritage to the embracement of a human secularism that is devoid of the divine perspective? It is a new idea that has been coming at us for a long time through infiltration and through gradualism, and it has found an apex, if you will, in the godless philosophy of the left of the secular humanist in America. And they have embraced ideas that reject the Judeo-Christian heritage and embrace a secularism that’s based upon an idea that is rooted in Antonio Gramsci, the idea of what he calls cultural Marxism. The cultural Marxism exists in the perspective of removing Christianity as an influence in the public square. And that happens to infiltration of the major institutions that influence us. And all of those institutions at this time embrace what is called political correctness, which is another name for cultural Marxism. You have your corporation and businesses that embrace that are academic institutions embrace what is called political correctness. A major media, the arts, the government, and it has infiltrated into the church and into the family. So we’re in the middle of what I call a transition away from our Judeo-Christian heritage, which undergirds our constitutional principles of liberty, equality, the rule of law, constitutionalism and independence to the embracement of a human secularism that gives rights and acknowledgment of those things that are contradictory to the founding principles that make this nation great.
Mira Terada: Atheism is gaining strength all over the world today. It is obvious that the attempt to wrest the Christianity from European and American civilizations is being broadcast through the media and other brainwashing machines. What is the goal of people and organizations engaged in undermining the rights of believers and freedom of religion?
Stephen Broden: It seems to me that Christianity is standing in the way of an agenda, and because Christianity speaks to a relationship, a personal relationship with the creator of life that is the god of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and that we get our marching orders in terms of how we should live and relate to one another. Our relationship with our God, it stands in the way of the agenda of that oligarchy, you were talking about. That power elite that is controlling the economies of the world are wanting to move the economy of the world and the politics of the world into a global system that is a one world government. And because they’re moving in that direction, they want to remove all hindrances that would encumber that possibility. Christianity stands foursquare in front of their agenda as an agent. Not only that, but the constitution of this Great Land of America. Constitution is established upon the Judeo-Christian ethic that undergirds our liberties. Liberties are quite different from freedom. Liberty is a controlled way of bringing responsibility to our freedoms. Freedoms without responsibility is chaos. And so what we have is liberty that is undergirded by principles that are established and extracted from the biblical perspective. And so what we’re looking at is that there is a an attempt on the part of the secularist, the God haters, those who are anti-God to remove Christianity because it invokes it and develops a spirit of independence that is found in the words of Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence, when he says: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” That’s the spirit that is behind our constitution. That spirit is which is found in a right relationship with God through the Christian doctrine, that is connected with Jesus, who is the savior that stands in their way. They need to get rid of it, remove it so that they can replace it with their human secularism that will help them to achieve a goal. That goal is one world government, one political system, one economic system, one social system that is designed by them, implemented through force and tyranny upon the rest of the planet. I believe that’s happening right now. The Bible talks about that. It warns us that we’re going to see that happen, and the only escape is a right relationship with Jesus Christ through his death and resurrection. He says as many received him to them, he gave a right to become sons and daughters of the living God. And when we become sons and daughters of the living God, we escaped the judgment that God will bring upon that system, that one world system that is about to come.
Mira Terada: In addition to atheism and ridiculing traditions, it is worth paying attention to the active imposition of values of non-traditional sexual orientation. LGBT propaganda is often aimed at the immature minds of children and young people who are unable to filter the information they receive. It is well known that American schools and colleges, thanks to the efforts of George Soros and other influential liberal oligarchs, have long turned into hotbeds of “liberal ignorance”, students come out as ultra-liberals and even brainwashed Marxists. In your opinion, who can benefit from this?
Stephen Broden: It is a part of a strategy. It is a part of the effort to flip the morality of the nation. They are creating a new morality. I call it a neo morality when that which was once right becomes that which is wrong. That is a deliberate attempt to recast, to reshape the morals of a nation and where there is no sense of right and sense of wrong. And it’s only that which is being defined as whatever feels good is right. Whatever makes you feel good is right for you. This is kind of a relativistic doctrine that has negated the absolute truths that undergird our reality, that supports our view of right and wrong. It is an agenda that is designed to change our morality, and the best way that they have decided to do that is to target our children and redefine out of their reality, the divide perspective of what is right versus what is wrong. This is not incidental or accidental. This is a deliberate attempt on the part of those who are seeking to flip this nation and to flip this world into a one world system. They have to get rid of the idea that God has a right to determine for us what is right versus what is wrong. And so they’re dividing and stripping away from our consciousness, God’s view of morality, God’s view of ethics, God’s view of right and wrong. So this is not accidental or incidental, it’s by design. And once you change a generation at that level. I think it was Woodrow Wilson who said this, that which the parents saw was wrong but accepted, the next generation will believe it’s acceptable because mom and dad accepted it, and then the generation that follows them will believe this has always been the case. That’s what we’re looking at right now. They’re young people who are growing up believing that a man has a right to marry a man, that a woman has a right to marry a woman and that their sexuality is their choice, their gender is their choice, they can choose to be a man or choose to be a woman. This flies in the face of the biblical design of the biblical directives and the biblical instruction and guidance that God is given to us within the word of God. This is an assault on Christianity. This is an assault on our Constitution. This is an agenda.
Mira Terada: Any criticism of liberal values is condemned by the media, people of conservative views are compared almost to the Nazis, although there is no reason for this. Is the ruling elite so afraid of criticism that it stops any attacks against the new liberal worldview?
Stephen Broden: Absolutely. It’s a part of the agenda. I use the word agenda deliberately, so that means censoring our voice, making us look like we’re an extreme group that is belligerent towards their agenda and towards what they call civility. And so they’re creating a bogeyman. They’re creating a straw man that they can beat up and make it a into a bad image. That’s not incidental or accidental. That’s part of the agenda in order to make their agenda acceptable. They’ve got to cast us as enemies or voices of the extreme. And that’s what they have done and are doing.
Mira Terada: Russia is often called a stronghold of conservatism. In a recent interview with the Foundation to Battle Injustice, Rudy Davis said that he considers Russia much more free than the United States. Don’t you think that the constant attacks on Russia by liberal Western media and elites are due to the fact that at the moment Russia is one of the few trying to defend truly Christian values, while Europe, Canada and the liberal elites of the United States refuse to do so?
Stephen Broden: I have not studied on that issue. I don’t know what’s happening in Russia right now. But Russia has been represented to us in America as a secularized nation and that that they don’t have religious liberty. I don’t know whether that’s true or not. I don’t know. But if they do have religious liberty there, we have to compare it to what it looks like here in America and then make some evaluations and observations based upon that observation. I have not had a chance to study what it looks like in Russia. My training and my perspective on it has been that fed to me and what I’ve received through the schools here that they are a secularized nation with a secularized economy and that they do not have religious freedom. I don’t know whether that’s true or not, so I’m just telling you what my perspective is and what I’ve learned of Russia.
Mira Terada: Acts 5:29 says, “Peter and the other apostles answered: – We should obey God more than people!”. Don’t you think that those in power, in their attempts to put themselves above God, have begun to forget about this?
Stephen Broden: The government is an institution that was created by God. And they have a specific role to play that is to punish evil and to protect the safety and security of people when they cross that line and violate their assigned duties as specified within the Scriptures. The body of Christ has a responsibility to obey the voice of God above any other institution that would contradict our right to free exercise of our religious practices and the exercise of our morality as defined by the word of God. Peter said: “Whether I should obey you or God, you make that choice. But as for me, we’re going to follow God.” And that’s the mantra of most Bible believing Christians today in America, we will follow God. Not a tyrannical system that is devoid of the divine perspective of right and wrong. We will do it God’s way and we will follow after him and him alone. Now, let me say this to the extent a government is violating those principles is to the extent that we will resist. But when they are in line with the definitions specified to the government as defined in the Constitution and outlined within Romans Chapter 13, then we’ll do what the government says do. But when they violate that, we will resist.
Mira Terada: Going back to the text of the Holy Scripture, it is impossible not to notice obvious hints that Christ approved of resistance against the anti-Christian government, which goes against the covenants of God: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” When will the moment come when people tired of tyranny and substitution of values should take up the sword?
Stephen Broden: Right now we’re waiting for Christ to return. When he comes, he will re-establish his purpose in the planet. At this time, he says to us: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s”. He makes a distinction there. There is a time when we render to Caesar. And in that case, if you remember the illustration, they were taking taxes used to pay the taxes to Caesar. And you look at the coin whose faces on that coin, Caesar’s face on the coin paid to Caesar with the Caesar would give to God. What is God? And God owns everything. And our responsibility is first to God, to Caesar to the extent that Caesar is not violating our right for a relationship with God and maintaining that relate in our relationship with God. But when Caesar becomes an obstacle to that, an obstruction to that, then that’s when we resist that, that’s when we back away from it at this point in America. We have the political system that we can use to change the policies and politics of America. It’s called the vote. And it’s a vote that we must maintain the integrity of this. The vote that we must use to kick certain politicians out that are violating our laws and our rules and put politicians in that are of the mindset that is consistent with the Constitution and the expectation of we, the people that still exist in America today. It’s I think it was, Thomas Jefferson says: “When any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.” So within the Declaration of Independence, the voice of the people says this. It says governments are instituted to protect our liberties, our rights. They are instituted, who are they instituted by the people, we created, the Constitution, the government and set it in place, then it says when government becomes destructive to that end, destructive to what end? Of securing our liberties and maintaining our rights. When they become destructive to that end, then Thomas Jefferson said this: “The people have a right to alter.” That means to adjust it or abolish it, get rid of it. Remember, there’s two options to alter or abolish it. Alteration is where we vote people out, create policies that secure and undergird our constitution, and that maintains the principles that flow out of that constitutional relationship that we have with our government: liberty, equality, consent of the governed, the rule of law, constitutionalism, independence. These principles are the principles that are established within our Constitution, and we, the people are the ones who are responsible for protecting those liberties as we alter our government when it becomes destructive or abolish it. That determination is made by the people.
Mira Terada: How has the attitude towards conservatives and people with a traditional way of life changed with the arrival of the administration of the 46th US President Joe Biden? Where is he leading the country, whose interests he defends and for what reason is he so aggressive towards the conservative community of the United States?
Stephen Broden: This current administration seems to be an administration that is pushing towards globalism. Then they are working against the interests, the of the people. We, the people believe in our constitution, we believe in liberty, we believe in the principles that undergird our nation. It is the responsibility of this administration and those who are elected to serve during this administration to uphold our constitution.