The time to shape our worldview using the Bible is now. It s never too early to ensure that what we believe about how the world works and some of the most controversial issues of our day, like gender and abortion, are all based on the Word of God. Ryan and Bethany Bomberger, the founders of the Radiance Foundation, have so many resources to help individuals and parents equip themselves with biblical truths about these topics, and so today we are going to hear a little bit about their story.
00:06:18.520So when our little radiance was just about five years old and we started the radiance foundation, we had all these names for the organization and we settled on one morning.
00:06:28.300Ryan came down and he said, why don't we call it the radiance foundation?
00:06:30.740Because no matter what issue we're going to address, at the end of the day, it's going to replace guilt and shame and all of the heartache that goes with other options.
00:07:13.880And, you know, everybody thought they were going to get signed.
00:07:17.020I'm glad they didn't because we probably wouldn't have ended up together.
00:07:19.740But it's pretty amazing to think that our first interactions were putting together a benefit concert for a crisis pregnancy center down in Hampton Roads, Virginia.
00:07:29.460And so we fell in love at first sight.
00:07:31.580But the longer story, which we don't have time to tell, took seven years.
00:08:31.520And somewhere along the way, we think just because we're a Christian, things are going to be easy.
00:08:36.180And so I look back and I really see that some of those difficulties and heartaches.
00:08:41.700I really took out my feelings on the Lord and yet he was so gracious and brought me back to himself.
00:08:50.080And as we champion this, you know, this these life issues and the Lord brings us in connection with so many people, I really have nothing but empathy and a big heart.
00:09:01.960For those that are walking through really difficult situations and find themselves in a place of fear.
00:09:09.900And I understand why there's such a motivation for women to think that abortion will be an uplift out of that.
00:09:19.740But of course, our voice is to say, let's step out of the temporal for a moment and let's eliminate the fear.
00:10:25.060That's part of the education piece of the Radiance Foundation.
00:10:28.640Ryan, you wrote a book, Not Equal, Civil Rights Gone Wrong.
00:10:33.080And so I can already tell that there was probably, I mean, a very good reception, I'm sure, but a little bit of a controversial reception or maybe a confused reception from some people who don't understand how civil rights could have ever gone wrong and what that even means, especially over the past few years after the summer of 2020.
00:10:57.780I mean, this is kind of a big thing to say.
00:11:00.180So can you talk about that a little bit?
00:11:03.540That was probably one of the most surreal experiences in my life, actually leading up to the creation of the book, Not Equal, Civil Rights Gone Wrong.
00:11:10.000Actually, it came out on Juneteenth, by the way.
00:11:12.180That's actually the same day that I was adopted.
00:11:15.940So that date has a lot of meaning to me.
00:11:18.700But the book was a result of being sued by the NAACP.
00:11:22.860So we had launched a billboard campaign in the San Francisco Bay Area, you know, really conservative area there.
00:11:28.400And we played 60 billboards that said Black and Beautiful, TooManyAborted.com, dealing with the hugely disproportionate impact of abortion in the black community, where abortion rates are sometimes up to five times higher.
00:11:37.680So we were discussing, you know, the history of eugenics, the history of the racism and elitism of eugenics and of the unaltered DNA of Planned Parenthood.
00:12:36.040But that's what led to the creation of the book.
00:12:37.880And still to this day, with the discussion about civil rights groups and how many of them have veered so far off the path.
00:12:45.800I mean, they say on one hand, black lives matter, but then they are standing in solidarity with the leading killer of black lives.
00:12:52.240And so we've been calling that out for years.
00:12:54.620We've been extolling the truth that black lives matter, that every single life created in the image of God, which is all of us, matters before the empty and fraudulent hashtag.
00:13:04.600But, yeah, there have been many controversies.
00:13:06.720But any time you come against the civil rights industry, you're going to face controversy.
00:13:11.680You know, isn't that so interesting that the people who say that they care about the marginalized, care about those on the outskirts of society, the weakest, the voiceless, the vulnerable, the immigrant, the person of color, the poor.
00:13:25.480I mean, why is it that the one category of people, the most vulnerable category of people, the most voiceless, the most defenseless, that's always left out of the conversation and not even just left out of the conversation when it comes to civil rights and equality and dignity and all of these words and justice, but is actually explicitly dehumanized.
00:13:50.480I mean, for people who say that they care about so-called social justice and championing the cause of the marginalized, it's just strange how this one extremely marginalized type of person is always just treated like trash.
00:14:12.460And the civil rights industry has no excuse for it.
00:14:16.020I mean, there's no one more marginalized, no one more vulnerable, no one more, you know, indefensible or, you know, no one more defenseless.
00:14:27.480No one more defenseless than the unborn.
00:14:30.220And yet and it comes to a whole personhood issue.
00:14:32.020And in fact, I remember an argument or a discussion, I should say, not an argument, but a discussion I had with NPR hosts who was saying, well, the unborn, that's not human.
00:16:03.480And that explains a lot why they stand in solidarity with the leading killer of black lives.
00:16:08.360It's so interesting, too, because especially in 2020, we were told that, like, if we had to look at the foundations of everything and if the foundations of something were racist, then we just had to get rid of it altogether.
00:16:31.340Going so far as to say basically the United States is illegitimate because it was founded by slave owners.
00:16:37.340The whole 1619 project is based on this idea that not just America was founded with slaves, but that America was founded on slaves.
00:16:46.060And therefore, the entire I mean, that's also what critical race theory purports, that the entire structure of the United States is systemically endemically racist.
00:16:54.860And there's nothing that we can do except for tear it all down.
00:16:58.040And yet when you say, OK, well, let's look at the history of Planned Parenthood.
00:17:01.760Let's look at the history of Margaret Sanger.
00:17:04.260Let's look at how specifically anti-black eugenics was tied into the very foundation, to the very fabric of Planned Parenthood.
00:17:13.300Like, should we get rid of that because of its racist foundations?
00:17:16.080All of a sudden, there's an outpouring of grace and mercy and understanding.
00:17:18.760Right. No, I mean, it's interesting, too, because you hear people make the argument, well, Planned Parenthood is not the same today as it was during Margaret Sanger's days.
00:17:25.860And I'm like, actually, it wasn't as evil.
00:17:29.780It's worse now because they're actually killing millions of human beings.
00:17:33.380So, yeah, Planned Parenthood gets a pass.
00:17:34.820I mean, even their own employees, 300 employees, current and former employees, posted a manifesto about two years ago online saying that Planned Parenthood has a history steeped in white supremacy.
00:17:44.840And they admitted that that Margaret Sanger was a white supremacist.
00:17:47.460My issue is that white supremacy isn't the issue.
00:18:01.580The fact that they're killing innocent human beings, of course, now to add on to that there, if they don't mutilate children within the womb, they want to mutilate them outside of the womb with all this gender radicalism and the denial of who we are as male and female.
00:18:15.600So Planned Parenthood gets a pass on all kinds of all kinds of levels.
00:18:21.360When we started the Radiance Foundation, it really was birthed out of here we are in our late 20s, early 30s.
00:18:29.460And we're reading Margaret Sanger's works and we're realizing, OK, well, we've always been, you know, against abortion, anti-abortion.
00:18:37.220We've always been pro-life, but we began seeing goes far back the Rockefellers, the Ford, the amount of money, the amount of just things that are so knit together behind the scenes that when you talk about what you just shared, like, hey, yeah, we're looking to rid all these systems of this racist ties.
00:19:00.560And yet the most racist, like systemically racist industry is untouched.
00:19:06.740There's more to the story because there's these very, very, very deep roots.
00:19:12.360And really, that's partially, I mean, our own stories, but together with understanding how many of us who are pro-life don't understand really the depths of what's going on.
00:19:21.980And what we're seeing now is really by design.
00:19:25.560And this is what has been put into place.
00:19:28.240There's an agenda that's pushing forward and what we're just seeing is the result of that.
00:19:33.260And yet, I hate to say that we were naive.
00:19:36.260We didn't know these things that were truths.
00:19:39.240The things that are there to be read aren't, you know, buried.
00:19:44.040We weren't like reading Wikipedia or something that somebody flippantly wrote.
00:19:47.900When you just go back and you read the different accounts of where these monies came from, where they went to, we were just like, you know what?
00:19:55.540People need to know the truth because truth sets people free and it releases them from being those clutches of the lies.
00:20:03.360And you nailed it, Bethany, earlier when you said that, you know, what Jesus said, that the love of money or that what Scripture says, what the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.
00:20:15.820That doesn't mean that money itself is evil.
00:20:19.280It's important for different functions, but the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil so that something like Planned Parenthood is untouched and untouchable.
00:20:32.780And it's funny because the very people that defend it would also, in many cases, not all, many cases, they would deem themselves socialists and collectivists and maybe so far as saying that they're communists, saying that capitalism and making money and profit, that they're all so bad and big corporations are all so evil and terrible.
00:20:51.900Which, yes, there are many big corporations, but it's interesting, the duplicity there, all to defend what is a barbarous act of killing another human being.
00:21:03.880The mental gymnastics, the moral gymnastics that otherwise, in a lot of cases, otherwise pretty logical people go through to defend such a horrific act.
00:21:17.620I really think like the only real answer for all of it is just that like God has blinded the minds, the eyes of unbelievers.
00:21:27.360And all of us were in that place at one point that we were deceived and we were depraved and we were without truth and without light.
00:21:33.700But really, like it's a spiritual heart issue at the end of the day, because as much as you can show someone this is what abortion is, this is what the industry is, there are still some people who just won't let go.
00:21:46.380It's really not even a matter of truth to them.
00:21:48.480It's a matter of power, money, deceit, whatever it is.
00:22:37.700And it's not an easy thing to communicate.
00:22:39.780I mean, one of the things that drives us, 1 Corinthians 13, 6, is love does not delight in evil, but it rejoices in the truth.
00:22:45.720Because we have to distinguish between loving every human being and loving every human doing.
00:22:50.700We're called by Scripture, of course, to love every human being, but we're not called to love every human doing.
00:22:56.780And as a creative, partnering with my best friend here where we try to figure out how can we create messaging that resonates with people, that's something that we have to keep in mind because it's really easy to demonize other people.
00:23:08.740It's really easy to do the name calling and just – and maybe some people feel, well, they deserve that.
00:23:13.520No, it's really challenging to figure out how can I still uphold their humanity and the fact that they're fearfully and wonderfully made as well and yet disagree strongly, vehemently disagree with their ideological and moral position.
00:23:29.660And you mentioned earlier just the deception.
00:23:31.480Ephesians 4.14 talks about how we should not be like children blown to and fro every wind of new teaching, that we cannot be tricked by lies so clever they sound like the truth.
00:23:41.760Oh, my gosh, that's exactly what's happening in our culture today and among churches.
00:23:46.120How many churches have bowed down at the altar of DEI, bowed down at the altar of gender radicalism, bowed down at the altar of pro-abortion fake feminism?
00:23:55.420And so our passion is really to try to break through some of that cultural noise.
00:23:59.560And it's definitely helpful and refining to pray for the people that are writing to us and telling us how much they hate us and how much they want us and our kids to die.
00:24:10.520Because I just love, Ali, that you brought up there's just those two components.
00:24:16.500There's that component that people are veiled to the truth.
00:24:20.780And so there's nobody but their creator that's going to make that veil fall.
00:24:25.680And then once that happens, we need to be prepared.
00:24:29.240And that's why we're so glad that you do what you do because you're just speaking into all of these issues and helping people to understand what they believe.
00:24:38.020Because I think that our messages, I mean, folks begin to think they're crazy.
00:24:43.060You know, they think they're crazy because what is reasonable, what's scientifically proven, they're saying, no, no, no, we're challenging that.
00:25:15.020This is another controversial issue, so we are told.
00:25:19.820But it's also, it's one of those things a lot of people don't realize the background of gender ideology.
00:25:26.380And, I mean, we could spend two hours talking about the roots of queer theory and where all of this comes from philosophically and ideologically.
00:25:36.460It's really, really ugly and gross and perverse, depraved, all of that.
00:25:41.560But right now, this is a money-making industry.
00:25:44.860This is creating lifelong slaves to the medical industrial complex, rendering kids sterile, rendering kids dependent upon the medical system after they go through puberty blockers, after they get these surgeries, after they become infertile and they have to go through the reproductive technologies.
00:26:03.180I mean, there is so much money being made by these industries, again, in the name of butchering kids.
00:26:13.920And you alluded to that earlier, Ryan.
00:26:15.980And so, in a very positive way, you guys are trying to combat that lie that you can become the opposite sex.
00:26:24.260You wrote books called He is He and She is She.
00:26:26.620So, tell us a little bit more about that, why you decided to speak up about this and kind of the approach that you're taking to such a tough subject.
00:26:34.520Well, Ryan shared that he was in the ad agency world for, you know, that's his field and very creative mind.
00:26:44.260And I was a teacher for years and in the schools and, you know, taught private schools in Connecticut, public schools in Virginia, and middle school in inner city Philadelphia.
00:26:55.800And all my years of teaching, I just have learned how powerful literature is, what a tool it is to get across very difficult issues very simply if they're done well.
00:27:12.000Unfortunately, that's why we're seeing such a push to put so many different books in our schools because other people know that too,
00:27:20.380especially those that are pushing for the distraction of our children and to teach them lies.
00:27:26.760But in this way, I had written Pro-Life Kids years ago, a number of years ago, to really equip parents to articulate, really take the fear out of what happens when, how do I talk about what it means to be pro-life?
00:27:40.420So, my heart was, let's take the fear and let's replace that with the confidence that comes when you have the tools to do it.
00:27:46.400And as we have watched what has gone on with gender radicalism and what is happening with our children at younger and younger ages,
00:27:54.360it's amazing how we realized we need to frame this conversation for our young children.
00:28:00.760It would be bizarre even if we had written this book five years ago.
00:28:04.640It would not have gotten as much buzz now because people would have been like, yes, she is she.
00:28:13.580But now we're realizing that we must engage and we must help parents have the resources and the words and the tools to begin to teach their children objective truth.
00:28:27.260Because what we're seeing is a war on objective truth and this war to really get at our children's souls and make them believe things that aren't true.
00:28:36.720So, that they will begin to buy into all of the things that you were talking about.
00:28:49.980Unfortunately, I don't think I would have ever heard of it if the craziness that goes on there hadn't gone on there and then been publicized.
00:28:57.580But y'all are kind of in the thick of the battle.
00:28:59.880And just so people know, that's not around Portland.
00:29:09.080But, you know, we've been involved in some of the school board meetings here.
00:29:12.040And Policy 8040, for instance, one of the things that inspired us to write She is She, Policy 8040 that basically says it can't be any gender.
00:29:18.820Parents can't know because, you know, parents are the enemy, which is, hello, that is Marxism.
00:29:23.900You separate the child from the family.
00:29:25.760And we saw these steps being taken and the confusion that comes upon these young children and with total strangers because total strangers apparently have license to speak into kids' lives.
00:29:38.120But a parent who is there before, during, and after all the aftermath has no right at all.
00:29:44.820And so this moved our hearts as parents of four children, two girls, two boys.