Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
First Person is produced in cooperation with the Far East Broadcasting Company, who rejoice in the stories of changed lives through the power of Jesus Christ. Learn more at febc.org. Working in Washington is incredibly complicated and pure. We look at life, we look at liberty, we look at pursuit of happiness. When it comes to life, of course we're right there for pro-life. And in fact, we're not just pro-life, we're anti-abortion.
She has received many awards and accommodations for her work as a conservative in public policy and as a frequent contributor in print as well as on television and radio. We'll get to the story behind the spiritual transformation of Star Parker on this edition of First Person. Welcome, I'm Wayne Shepard.
Each week we bring stories of people whose lives have been radically altered by Jesus Christ as they serve Him in faith. If you're not familiar with this program, I urge you to visit FirstPersonInterview.com where you can learn more. We've archived our past interviews there for listening anytime. Plus, there's a schedule of upcoming conversations. FirstPersonInterview.com
Well, let's meet Star Parker, the founder of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, acronym CURE. She's a frequent voice for the gospel in areas of public policy. She often speaks out on issues such as abortion and welfare and is active in organizations that impact culture.
We connected online recently, and I asked her to tell me the story of her dramatic spiritual transformation. Well, my story started, believe it or not, in Washington State. My mom didn't know she was pregnant with me. She thought she had a cold, I found out years later. But my dad was in the Air Force. He was military. So myself and my four siblings were all born in different places. I'm a middle child.
between an older sister, older brother, a younger sister, a younger brother. So I was already in the position to be inquisitive, outgoing, creative. I see you go by birth order, huh? I go by birth order. And what was really a challenge, I suppose, for myself in maturing through a secularized society, a racially diverse,
diverse society and coming into its being, if you will, getting closer to founding principles is my parents had made a decision to not put religion anywhere near our lives. I found this out later in life as well. I found this out after my father,
Story began evolving into what that looks like for someone who has basically absent father, no religion, and patchwork theology when it came to some of the cultural dynamics, the country itself, and what my role would be in it. So very early in life, even coming from a military family, I got lost.
Incredibly lost in all the decisions that we weren't supposed to. Listening to lies of the left, lies like my problems were somebody else's fault.
Lies like I was poor because others were wealthy. Lies like America is so racist you should not mainstream. And after we returned from Japan, where I spent much of my younger years, because my dad was stationed in Japan as a family, but he lived in the Philippines during the Vietnam War, we came back to America on fire. Dr. King had been killed earlier. Mm-hmm.
And everything was exploded. But I got excited at 12 years old to see that tension, to see that fire, to see that creativity, if you will, of people trying to sort through life in America. And so I got caught.
real quickly in all of those negative messaging. And the next thing I know, my life is spiraled into criminal activity and drug activity and sexual activity that landed me in and out of abortion clinic after clinic. And then finally, after the fourth time going into one of their so-called safe, rare, legal abortion clinics, I had a gut instinct way down deep inside that maybe life is different from this or should be.
But I didn't change any of my behaviors and ended up pregnant again within a very short period of time, still not married, and went to live on welfare. And living on welfare, I started seeing my life spiral into a little dark hole. I had been exposed to a lot of different life patterns. And just growing up in a military family, you meet a variety of different people. But once you start down this road that says...
No, your life isn't yours. You don't have to be responsible with any of the choices that you're making. That there are safety nets and there's a meaninglessness, which has great reward financially for you. You can get really lost down that path. And so I was well into that path. But I also knew that what welfare was doing with me living there, the rules were don't work, don't save, don't get married, that that wasn't going to be enough for me to sustain the
more free, creative life that I wanted. So I went one day to subsidize my welfare check into a business in South Central L.A.,
And I tried to talk those guys into hiring me just to pay me money outside of welfare rules under the table. And they wouldn't. They said they didn't pay like that. They were legitimate businessmen. I'm looking at these guys like, what is wrong with you? Don't you know America's racist? You shouldn't mainstream. And I'm challenging them. They're challenging me. And the next thing I know, the conversation escalated to where they told me I couldn't
work there because of my lifestyle. And when I asked them what's wrong with my lifestyle, they said it was unacceptable. And when I put my head back and my hands on my hip and said, unacceptable to who? They said God. And when they said God, I got chills. I had never even heard of God with a capital G. I just, something happened that made me think,
This is beyond where I can comprehend what Obama said, above my pay grade. I got out of there. I just couldn't comprehend what they were saying. And they kept calling, one in particular, Ken, kept calling me, wanted me to go to their church, wanted me to experience what they knew as their truth and their reality. And years into this, I finally did go to church with them.
And I heard the gospel. You know, I heard that God was in Christ. I heard that he reconciled the world to himself. I heard he wasn't counting my sin against me, that he loved me. He loved me enough to die for me, that he wasn't mad at me, and he really wanted to help me live free. And I tell you, there's just something about freedom that you just kind of want, especially when it involves creativity. So I accepted the Lord right then at that church when the preacher said, anybody want this? I went down to the front door.
of that church. That is an amazing story. It really is. I want to pursue it further, but let me back you up. The men that you approach about a job, were they men of color like you? Oh, yeah. They were good-looking brothers. I thought I could... I was a party girl, okay? Okay. I thought I could party all day and party all night. So was that part of the attraction?
Well, it was part of the attraction, but I think the most major part of the attraction was that they had their own business. See, I like creativity. I didn't want to confine to the system of the man, if you will. And I had always lived that way. I wanted to be a free agent. I'd taken a few part-time things throughout high school, but...
Okay.
And I wanted it because I had also been exposed to some of black entrepreneurship when I lived up near Philadelphia and then had moved into Philadelphia right out of high school where they were in their own businesses. And that was something that I found fascinating. Yeah. Well, we thank God for their testimony. Do they know about your life today?
Ken still stays in touch. Every now and then I'll hear from him to see how you doing, Star. But I think that he also knows that I'm still walking with the Lord because what he and Gerald and Prince had exposed me to that day became so real for me.
because I tried everything else. I was recklessly and lawlessly out of control, that now they were exposing me to scripture that gives you the boundaries that all children need, whether children at my age then, almost 25 years old, or children when they're
two years old. They need that structure to live free. So once they exposed me to the gospel and exposed me then to a proverb a day to keep the devil away, I was able to find the structures so that I could really live free. That was such a dramatic change in your life and so sudden too. Or was it sudden? Was your life conforming immediately to, do you think, what Jesus wanted for you?
I think everything that the preacher would say, because now I had that structure, I would attempt to do. When he said that you should not fornicate, that God has purpose and meaning in your sexuality, and you should be married as a result, I wanted that. So I was able to then start living a chaste life. I think that it was years later when he...
preacher said something about welfare, that it was the first time I actually questioned whether that was truth coming over the pulpit because welfare, in my opinion, was something that we as a society had decided to do for poor people. And that based on my life and my ancestors life, that I was entitled to this benefit for taxpayers to pay for my existence. But when the preacher then said, what do you do a living on welfare? Well,
I'm wondering how did he know I was living on the welfare. Then he said, the government is not your source. He said, God is. And then he had us open the Bible to see that. He said, turn to Philippians 4.19. And we read with him, my God will supply your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. And he then said, and you have a decision to make. It's God or government.
And I took it so personally because I'm trying to sort through what I'm to do with my life based on now three and a half, four years of study under the leadership of that particular church, going into every Bible study they had, going off to women's meetings, going off to the church itself. And so I wrote my caseworker and told him, take my name off of welfare. I'm just going to trust God. Well,
Well, she called me. She got the letter a few days later and called me and told me that I was crazy. She told me that I'd be back. She told me that it wouldn't work well for me if I didn't take the welfare. But this is the same lady that when she was supposed to come to my house and make sure no man lived there, because remember the rules of welfare, don't work, don't save, don't get married. She was supposed to come over and check, make sure no man lived in my home. She called me and said she wanted to go to...
lunch with her girlfriends. So if anyone ever asked, just pretend, you know, that she came by, which I didn't mind because I was living in and out with men. And I also had a very nice apartment that you wouldn't think people would be able to have living on welfare. So this person,
lady now is advising me that I would be back. And so I just told her, no, take my name off. And so I didn't send back the paperwork. They do send out a paperwork once a month at welfare to make sure no one died, no one turned 18, no one went to work, no one got married, no one saved any money. And when you don't send it back, you really don't get anything. And so I didn't send it back. And so I had to now go get a job. I had to go get a real job. I had to legitimize my life. That's how God provided a job. Well, he didn't plant a money tree, that's for sure. And
Even if he did, it wasn't my yard. Like I've told audiences all over the country, it was your yard, your taxpayer, and I'm guaranteed there was no money on that tree. So I did go out and get a job, and I worked my way in that job. And then over time, you know, the Lord just started moving that entrepreneurial part of me. And so when the union came in and then they forced the company to fire everybody that wouldn't join the union, well, I was a thug from the street. There was no reason I was going to give my money to someone that I didn't know what they were doing.
giving me back. Uh, so I wouldn't join the union. And so without joining that union, they fired me. But by then I was already on my way to develop out my own entrepreneurial gifts. So I did, I started a magazine in Los Angeles and over the next eight years it grew. And, um,
became very successful to the degree that small businesses do. But at the 1992 Los Angeles riots, I lost that business because others, all of my advertisers, it was a magazine. All my advertisers were impacted by the, the riots. Some of them even burned to the ground. But by then the Lord had already started moving me toward trying to,
discover truth, trying to find his kingdom on this earth and in the communities that I really, really had passion for, those that were in the same place that I had been for too many years. And so that's when I transitioned a little bit into talk radio and then started the work that I do today at the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, CURE. Hers is a great story, and we'll continue the conversation with Star Parker coming up in a moment on First Person.
I'm Ed Cannon. The Far East Broadcasting Company partners with First Person because we celebrate the stories of people everywhere who have given their lives to Christ and serve Him. Our broadcasters in 50 countries of the world hear stories every day of people whose lives are transformed by the gospel and who have
faithfully been taught God's Word. In addition to First Person, I'm pleased that Wayne and I host a podcast, and we invite you to join us. Listen to Until All Have Heard at febc.org. That's febc.org. My guest is Star Parker. Star's an author, a nationally syndicated columnist, radio host, founder of CURE, a nonprofit organization based in D.C. CURE, Star, stands for...
The Center for Urban Renewal and Education. We're a 501c3 policy institute where I tell people we work on welfare reform and all related issues because we fight poverty and restore dignity through messages of faith, freedom, and personal responsibility. We want the government out of charity and get God's people back in.
I should mention you're also on television widely as well, and we so appreciate what God has called you to do. We focus a lot on calling on this program after a person comes to Christ, and yours is such a perfect example of how He calls and equips you to do what you do today. You mentioned those men, Ken in particular. Were there other mentors early on in your experience that really guided you into this arena? Ken Jones
No, no, because when I got born again, I found out how many people don't appreciate being born again, and not just in my family, but also in my community of friends. I, you know, I early on experienced what they call a cancel culture, very, very young in my Christian life. But what tool I bought, and I keep to today, is to read a proverb a day to keep the devil away. When
King Solomon and others contributed to that. I think that I then became equipped with everything I needed. You know, it's kind of like what Abraham Lincoln said, everything I really need to know is in a book. And so although I have friends and I've had different people plant different seeds through the years, my instruction for how to live comes straight out of a proverb today, to keep the devil away. Part of that cancer culture, I'm sure, in your own personal life is the fact that you are conservative, and that's not to be expected, is it?
Well, it's not to be expected, and that's exactly right. It's not just Christianity by itself. I adopted a biblical worldview. When I saw the scripture where it said, God is true and man's a liar, I became a liar in every area and needed to then find what is God's truth. Well, when it comes to color...
There's a requirement now of African Americans to put their color in front of Christ. And I just refuse to do that. I'm not going to look through a racial lens at the scripture. I'm not going to look through a racial lens on how God provides wealth. In fact, the only time that I've seen in scripture, and correct me if I haven't read every part of it, when it comes to redistribution, the only time I saw redistribution was not to take from wealthy people and give to poor people, but it was when God distributed tax
talents. He said he gave one man five, one, two, one, one. And they were required to do the same thing, multiply it, create. He is the creator. We're created in his image. And even if he only gave me one, this is my conclusion. If everybody else has more, but I have one,
I do not want him to call me lazy. I don't want him to call me wicked. I don't want him to call me dishonest. I want him to say, you were very fruitful. I'm going to multiply you. You are a good servant. So I took the one talent and continued to build off of that. And one thing that I knew I could do, I had a gift of gab. Not only did...
someone tell me that at one point. I talk too much. I talk myself out of classrooms very often during school. I even talked myself out of jail when I got arrested. That's a whole other story for another time. Well, it is, but it's in my autobiography.
But it also led me to that one talent. And then God over time has used that same talent to build what I have done today, running one of the largest policy institute of black conservative movement. We'll talk more about that. By the way, that is so powerful. Thank you.
for sharing that and we'll talk more about what you're doing today but I gotta ask you too just to change gears dramatically here what do you do for fun what what how do you find some relaxation in your lifestyle
Well, the problem for me now with living by coastal, my residency is in California and my work is in Washington, D.C. And we all know what COVID did to any type of travel. But even prior to that, I was canceled and had to go into a security protection program because I compared the Confederate flag and the rainbow flag and the rainbow flag. People didn't like that very well. So it disrupted my my home life. I had to move out of my personal home. But
Prior to that, my hobby is, if you will, my downtime where I garden. I do fruit. I do fruit garden. I'm a water. I live in Little Beach Town, so I'm a water girl, believe it or not. And so my life surrounded that. But I'm also a grandma now. So in that I'm grandmommy. Congratulations. I do the grandmommy stuff.
Yeah, when I'm able to be at home in California. Well, God is using you so mightily, but it is important to have some downtime too. So I'm glad that you have some opportunity, at least for that. You are a busy, busy person. But I have to tell you, though, Wade, part of my downtime as a result of my complicated personal life is my professional life. I've spoken on more than 300 pregnancy care centers at their banquets already.
over the last 10 years or so. And I'm telling you, they offer me opportunity to be fulfilled in that personal space. Gives you a lot of energy, doesn't it? Not just the energy to be there with them, but they share their town and their lives. Every one of the community is there. It is so refreshing to be able to...
be in the heartland and experience the things that I have with those folks that are just trying to make a local difference. So I don't have to worry much about not being able to garden and sow and do a few other little grandmommy things for this season, only for this season. I understand. I understand completely.
Well, let's talk a little more deeply about the public policy issues that you've tackled and are very much involved in and the position that puts you in. I mean, you're doing this in Washington, D.C. That's a pretty intense culture.
It's intense for sure. Very few friends. Who was it that said, if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog. Most of my neighbors here have two dogs. Some have three. And you're right. It's a very, very lonely life if you want to stay focused on what God has intended for me to do here, which is sort through the noise of the news to find truth, to sort through the public policies, to change them so that people can change their lives when it comes to
all welfare or anti-poverty initiatives. So I'm able to navigate through that because the Lord has just kept me focused and kept me surrounded by some good people. But working in Washington is incredibly complicated. But what we do at CURE, we look at life, we look at liberty, we look at
pursuit of happiness, which is what the framers had intended. And when it comes to life, of course, we're right there for pro-life. And in fact, we're not just pro-life, we're anti-abortion. And we make it very clear that while there was some joy in the Dobbs decision, I don't want it just illegal as a national. I want it unthinkable in everyone's lives because God told us that he
He is the one that decides where life begins, when it begins, and he told us that we should appreciate and choose life. So we're very clear on the abortion question here at CURE. So any and every place that we can work, we do. Now, as an organization, we do an annual report on the impact of
of abortion on the black community because there are so many great groups out there that are already doing pro-life as their number one agenda focus that we work with them. We just come next to them. Where you'll find cure that others are not doing is in the liberty space.
Thank you.
housing? Why is the federal government determined that poor people should live in certain zip codes and then they're just going to kind of keep them in this cycle of dependency for all of their lives? So that's one area that you're going to constantly secure. Education, of course, and then economic stability. Healthcare is a new area for us to really start getting out of this model of socialized medicine that's already taken over all of our urban communities. We don't want it expanded. We want it
so that people can live free in that area as well. My thanks to Star Parker, this week's guest here on First Person. Star is the founder and leader of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, CURE. She has a weekly television program, a column, and much more, and we'll put a link to her and CURE at firstpersoninterview.com.
A special word of thanks to the Far East Broadcasting Company for making these programs possible. In a world that is facing so much uncertainty and turmoil, FEBC continues to broadcast the hope of the gospel to millions across the globe. With radio and online programs in the local language of the listener, FEBC uses every means possible to reach deeply into countries and cultures, introducing people to Jesus Christ and teaching His Word.
To learn more about the work of FEBC, join us for the podcast Until All Have Heard with FEBC President Ed Cannon. You can listen to the podcast on platforms like Apple or, of course, at febc.org. Once again, listen for the podcast Until All Have Heard from the Far East Broadcasting Company. Now, with thanks to my friend and producer Joe Carlson, I'm Wayne Shepherd. Thanks for listening to First Person. ♪