“When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.” Proverbs 29:2
If you are a Christian pro-life voter living in Massachusetts, take heart! You have an advocate for Biblical values running for Governor on the Republican ticket in the September 18th primary – someone who is a pastor, an attorney, anti-corruption, and not subject to intimidation.
You may remember reading about Dr. Scott Lively in TGNT’s August 2016 issue when we chronicled how he spent his first 60 years. By way of review, he grew up the eldest of six in Shelburne Falls, had a mentally ill father whose problems caused such great despair that, beginning at age 12, Lively fell into a life of debauchery lasting sixteen years. However, in 1986, he experienced a total turn-around following a spectacular salvation experience at an alcoholic rehab center in Portland, OR. Alone in his room, on his knees, he received forgiveness for his sins along with instantaneous, permanent deliverance from both alcohol and drugs. He was 28 years old.
Lively describes four separate careers during his life, the first beginning prior to his salvation.
Career #1 involved turning his minimal handyman skills into a successful building-trades collective. Within 12 years, he had 12 independent contractors working for his Portland Handyman Service. In 1987, a year after being saved, he unexpectedly met his former drug dealer/occult-partying-partner and, assuming his old friend was still peddling drugs, Lively waved him off explaining, “I’ve become a Christian”. To his utter amazement, his friend replied, “So have I!”, and invited him to church, where Lively attended services for the next five years, soon reunited with his wife from whom he’d been separated for three months, expecting divorce, and began preparing his heart for his next “career”.
Career #2, his “new ministry”, began when Lively was shown some horrific pictures of aborted babies and decided to become a full-time missionary for the unborn, spending a year picketing, protesting, and educating the public on his own. By 1989, despite having only a high school education and no experience, he was named State Communications Director for the Oregon Citizens Alliance (OCA). Ultimately, he and the organization switched gears as the pressing need arose to oppose the rapidly advancing homosexual agenda. Lively realized he must acquire additional education and credentials in order to assume a leadership role in the burgeoning global pro-family movement.
Career #3 lasted for 12 years, beginning in 1995 by graduating from Western Baptist College in OR (now Corban College) with a B. S. in Management and Communications. He also collaborated with Orthodox Jew, Ken Abrams, on the first of five editions of The Pink Swastika, which countered the homosexuals’ attempt to equate homosexual suffering with the holocaust suffered by the Jews in Nazi Germany. Immediately following graduation, Lively began four years of law school, graduating magna cum laude from Trinity Law School in Santa Ana, CA. Having earned a Certificate in International Human Rights for a month-long seminar at the University of Strasbourg in France, he and his family spent a memorable six weeks touring Europe after graduation. Following taking the bar exam, Lively established a for-profit dispute resolution center and a separate non-profit public interest firm in CA. While running both, he began searching for how to obtain theological credentials. Soon he met the Chairman of the Pentecostal Assemblies of God (PAGA), Dr. Richard Anderson, who agreed to mentor him directly. After 2 ½ years, Lively had earned his Doctor of Theology and was subsequently ordained in 2007. (He regards his affiliation with PAGA as a formality for purposes of maintaining his ordination status rather than the source of his pastoral authority. Lively has never sought formal relationships with any denomination or association of churches.)
When the considerable stresses and strains of providing legal services to churches began interfering with his sleep, Lively prayed for a new “assignment”. Shortly thereafter, he was invited to speak at a pro-family conference in Latvia, leading to a year-long educational campaign in the former USSR. Upon returning home, he relinquished his share of his law firm so he and his wife could avail themselves of the opportunity to make a 50-city speaking tour in eight countries of the former Soviet Union. Their sponsor was “New Generation”, a Riga-centered denomination which emphasized a concept that inspired Lively to go and do likewise: taking whole cities for Christ, a holistic approach to missions teaching that Jesus is Lord over every sphere of society including business, media, and government. Unsure where to go, the Livelys felt the Lord leading them to Springfield, MA where they deliberately moved into dilapidated inner-city housing to expedite their next step.
Career #4 was now launched as Lively became a full-time missionary pastor. In this capacity he founded the Coffee House Church, serving as Senior Pastor for seven years, choosing Bible-centered Christians from diverse churches and social backgrounds for his Board. While running multiple ministries and activities out of Holy Grounds Coffee House, Lively also worked through Redemption Gate Mission Society (RGMS), a unique Christian mission reflecting racial and nondenominational harmony and designed to be streamlined and self-sufficient. Many other projects ensued, including Abiding Truth Ministries, Redemption Gate (in CA), and an unsuccessful run in 2014 as an Independent candidate for Governor of Massachusetts.
All four “careers” have thoroughly prepared Lively for running again in 2018, now as a Republican, for Governor of Massachusetts. Although Lively admits his previous run was primarily to acquire a platform for discussing his unique ideas, the purpose of his current run is definitely to unseat Governor Charlie Baker. Lively is committed to bringing Biblical values back to the political arena in Massachusetts, the bedrock of freedom in our nation. The Mayflower Compact (1620) showed that the founders of America were Christians who promoted Jesus Christ and His gospel. Maintaining that the same values still define the grassroots of the Republican party, Lively is persuaded that the Mass GOP is controlled at the top by those who string along the grassroots foot soldiers using the old “lesser of two evils” deception which originates from the fear that electing a Democrat will be worse than electing a RINO (Republican In Name Only). Lively believes that committed conservatives with the means and the will can force the Mass GOP either to run and back true conservatives such as himself, or lose every future election.
So, why should conservative Christians support Scott Lively? Lively’s website lists “Seven Issues that Define My Campaign and My Life”:
- Love of God
- Respect for Life
- Devotion to Family
- Allegiance to America
- Hope for the World
- Hatred of Corruption
- Courage to Speak Plain Truth
Issue #1 is obviously of particular importance to Lively, as can be seen by the direction of his entire life since being born again in 1986. While continually serving God, he has assiduously prepared himself for greater service and now, at age 60, having already become an attorney, pastor, apostle, author, public speaker, missionary, and international human rights consultant serving in more than 30 countries, he is ready to take the next step. Personally, Lively trusts the Bible to be the Word of God and the best source of guidance, yet he respects those searching along different paths, offering his friendship and spiritual good will in that journey, being confident that God, in His perfect timing, will prove Himself to every honest seeker.
Issue #2 is a window into Lively’s heart. Once spending an entire year, on his own, as a full-time missionary for the unborn, he demonstrated that their welfare is his utmost concern. Believing the right to life is our first and greatest gift, he embraces the sanctity of all human life from conception to natural death. He unconditionally opposes the murder of unborn children through abortion, and supports its recriminalization. Characteristically, Lively has thoroughly thought through his position and has seven reasons for being pro-life:
*God wants me to be (Deuteronomy 30:19).
*Science has proved that every baby is a human being with his or her own DNA from the moment of conception.
*Deliberate choice of abortion is just another name for murder.
*American law and government rest upon a pro-life premise: the Model Penal Code of The American Law Institute defines murder as “purposefully or knowingly killing another human being.”
*Legalized abortion robs fathers of their fundamental rights as parents, and their Biblical authority as heads of their households.
*Women are degraded and harmed by the choice to kill their own babies.
*Even in cases of rape or incest, we must never sentence a child to pay for the sins of his father.
Issue #3 is exemplified by Lively’s belief that the natural family is the foundation of all civilization. He respects the traditional natural family unit consisting of a man and a woman united in life-long marriage for mutual love, support, and the bearing and nurturing of children through birth or adoption. “I believe the primacy of the natural family must be preserved and protected in the mainstream of society, with tolerance for those who choose to live discretely outside the mainstream.”
Issue #4 emphasizes Lively’s self-description as a constitutional originalist in the mold of late U. S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. A supporter of the Second Amendment, Dr. Lively believes that “the more guns in the hands of responsible citizens, the safer we will all be both from criminals and from any power, foreign or domestic, who would seek to subjugate us.” He opposes illegal immigration and so-called “sanctuary cities”. He advocates for the life of the unborn, smaller government, lower taxes, local control, school choice, and the liberation of inner cities from the bondage of government dependency. His specific creative plan for how to achieve the latter may be found at www.LivelyForGovernor.us.
Issue #5 is illustrated by how Lively, with credentials from the Institute of International Human Rights (Strasbourg, France), became an internationally respected consultant on international human rights from a Biblical perspective. He has successfully defended family values and authentic marriage in 55 countries since 1997. In 2006-2007, he made the aforementioned 50-city tour of eight countries of the former Soviet Union, thus contributing to passage of a nationwide ban on “gay” propaganda to Russia’s school children. Between 2015 and 2017, he visited 27 nations on a personal fact-finding tour of the populist/nationalist revolution that produced both the Brexit vote and Donald Trumps’ presidency, which he now strongly supports, “While I was highly skeptical of Mr. Trump in the early days of the 2016 election, afraid he was just a NY Liberal Democrat in Conservative Republican clothing, I have come to believe that our president is the greatest political genius in modern American history — whose right hand keeps the loony left utterly apoplectic over relatively inconsequential controversies (like kittens chasing a laser pointer) while his left hand is busily dismantling the deep state and advancing the conservative agenda at a fairly rapid clip — despite unprecedented, relentless opposition from the elite Uniparty, a remarkable feat.”
Issue #6 is evident from Lively’s impassioned run against Governor Charlie Baker while confronting Baker’s abysmal record of broken promises and his embrace of the Democrat agenda. These include Baker’s pledge to replace with taxpayer funds any money lost to Planned Parenthood should federal funds be withdrawn; Baker’s signing into law of anti-discrimination protections for transgender people; and Baker’s opposition both to President Trump’s travel ban and his attempts at repealing Obamacare. Lively says that the love of goodness necessitates a hatred of evil — not of people, but just the bad things they do or believe. Rooted in the selfishness of those who put lust for money, sex, or power ahead of others’ best interests, corruption must be challenged lest it do more harm by spreading like cancer through society. Lively considers Massachusetts as possibly the most morally and politically corrupt state in the nation, noting that leadership of both political parties is in partnership with what once was called organized crime, but has since been legalized by those same politicians.
Issue #7 is apparent from Lively’s life thus far, consistently marked over the years by heavy resistance from the pro-abortion and LGBT lobbies which have spent massive amounts of time and money trying to silence or discredit him. In 2012, after speaking against the “gay” political agenda in Uganda, Lively was slapped with a ridiculous federal lawsuit that eventually he won, along with every public debate he’s ever had on either topic. After a while, says Lively, “the public sees past the lies and propaganda when a person just keeps telling the plain truth without fear or equivocation.” Especially now when he desires to enter the political realm, where air-brushed statements carefully designed to avoid offense are the norm, Lively’s unique brand of courage stands out. At press time, Lively planned to lead “Life-Chains with Lively” in Springfield, the first of several throughout Massachusetts, on January 22 between 11:30 a. m. and 1:00 p. m. The public is invited to join him in proclaiming the sanctity of life via active street-level grassroots campaigning to end child-killing in MA. Never shrinking from controversy, Lively uses it instead to highlight forgotten/discarded principles in our secular age. Advancing towards the September 18th primary in MA and, hopefully, the November 6th general election, Lively writes and e-mails to supporters a “Daily Trumpeter”, informing them from a Biblical perspective about various relevant topics. He is not shy about aggressively calling out “Democrat” Governor Charlie Baker for his progressive stances on myriad issues, and regularly frustrates liberal media by maintaining a cool, reasoned approach during hard-hitting interviews.
“In what place therefore ye hear the sound of the trumpet, resort ye thither unto us; our God shall fight for us.” Nehemiah 4:20
Available for interviews and speaking engagements throughout the state, Lively welcomes all kinds of support for his campaign, whether physical, financial, or prayer. Stay up to date with Scott’s run for Governor by subscribing to the Daily Trumpeter. You can subscribe or contact him at his website: www.LivelyForGovernor.us; by e-mail: votelively@gmail.com or by phone: 413/250-0984.