Raised with blue-collar roots in the Houston area, Bradley Pierce was blessed with a strong Christian family from a young age. The close-knit Pierce clan embraced the faith for generations, with his Papa and Nana hosting the family for weekly Sunday dinners after church. Realizing his sin and need of a Savior, Bradley professed Christ and was baptized at age seven. As he reached adulthood, he was led to serve God in the field of law, and for the last twenty years, elder and attorney Don Hart has been a key mentor in his life. Bradley currently serves with Don at Heritage Defense, while as leading the Foundation to Abolish Abortion and Abolish Abortion Texas as president. 

Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Today we have the delight again to hear a life story of one of our speakers at our national conference, Bradley Pierce, a man that I've known since he was a boy and now a mighty man. Hope you enjoy his story. Jason Doe. We have a real privilege right now to talk to Bradley Pierce, who I've known.

It might be 20 years. It's probably possible. I've known this kid 20 years. He's not a kid anymore. That's right.

More than to me. Anyway, but he's been such a delight as a friend for many, many years. And you know what else? He's going to give a message at our national conference, Build Dwell Plant, on finding a wife in Babylon. I love doing these because these men are not preach bots.

They're humans with histories that we can really relate to. So it would be good to get to know Bradley. Yeah. And I can't wait to hear your message on finding a wife in Babylon. I'm excited about it.

I'm sure there are going to be a bunch of young men in that crowd that want to find a wife in Babylon. I hope so. I do too. Well, hey, we're here to hear your life story. And we just want to move through questions.

We want to hear from you. You're the one that's going to do the talking. But it's a blessing to get to know somebody on a deeper level as much as they can. And that's what this is for. So tell us about your childhood and the things you experience.

Yeah, well, I was extremely blessed that I was raised in a Christian home by my parents. They were both Christians and both of them. My mom had been raised by a Christian mother, and her father had left when she was young. But my father had, you know, was from several generations of Christians, and that was a huge blessing to me. And I always say that one of the main blessings, one of the many blessings of my life, you know, God blesses obedience and He blesses, you know, but a lot of times He does that generationally.

So many of the blessings that I get to reap in my life are blessings that were sown by my Christian ancestors, my parents and grandparents and great grandparents, and I get to reap the benefits of that and so So much of that is what I get got to enjoy as a child. I had a wonderful childhood. I was Lit went to private school for the first couple of years, and my parents really heard about homeschooling. And I had one brother, he's 15 months older than me, so we're pretty close in age. And my parents just thought that they wanted a homeschool, him and I.

There were a number of issues even at the private, it was a Christian private school, but there are a number of issues there as there are anywhere. And especially when you have peers and things like that, and they just thought it would be best for both of us to homeschool us. One of the, you know, one of the reasons that- How old were you when that started? I was, let's see, seven years old. Seven, how- Seven years old when we started, or actually six years old, now that I think about it, six years old when we started homeschooling.

You survived kindergarten. Yes, I did kindergarten and I actually, I had done first grade as well. And so, you know, They started homeschooling us and that was sad at first, but it was really good. And around that same time, it was probably two or three years there where we started homeschooling. There were a lot of transitions in my family's life, but positively.

My parents were really just searching God's Word, what should we believe? And again, they had both been raised by Christian parents, but we need to each study God's Word for ourselves. And they had both been raised at Pentecostal, United Pentecostal. And so that's where I had been raised for the first seven years of my life. And then my parents, you know, there are a number of things about that that troubled them that did not seem to be consistent with God's Word and what He said, including the Trinity.

And so, they left that. And that was very difficult because most of my extended family was United Pentecostal. And that's where I had been baptized just a few months earlier before we left. And so that was very difficult, but a very good time in them studying God's Word and then us coming out of that and them teaching us that. And then spent the rest of my life or the rest of my childhood in the church where we transitioned to, which I kind of described it as a non-denominational, but I would probably describe it as a bad to coastal, that It was a, it was, you know, believed in the Trinity and, but very, as, as you know, folks might say, spirit filled, meaning, you know, charismatic would be the term most people would use today.

But it was about 75, 80% homeschool families. And that was just a great experience. I met many friends that I still have today from that. And it was just a really great time. It was, it was in the Houston area.

I grew up in the Houston area. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So tell us anything else you want to tell us about your childhood?

Anything that sticks out? I mean, so much, I could talk about so much, but you know, I was talking about one thing real fast, and that is that we went over to my grandmother's house, my nana and papa, my dad's parents' house. We went over there for Sunday dinner every single Sunday. And so we were very, very close. The Pierce clan is very, very close.

My dad has four siblings and got to see them and my grandparents every single week and got to work with my grandfather and my uncle growing up and I just had a rich family experience that I'm very, very grateful for. So, tell us about your conversion. Yeah, I'd say I professed faith in Christ when I was seven years old. I realized that I was a sinner and I needed a savior. And so I professed faith then and was baptized then and I believe that's when I was saved.

But then several years later when I was 13 years old, I remember it was the night before Resurrection Sunday that I was just in my own room studying the Bible and just studying, you know, reading about Jesus' crucifixion. And just in a whole new way, it just really sank into me what he had done and how undeserving I was of what he had done and just how much I could never repay him and never You know never could but how much even so I owed him everything And so I I believe that that's really a moment that again I think I was saved before then, but that's when I really felt like I didn't not just repented and believe, but I really felt like I surrendered my life to him. I really gave him everything and said, you deserve it all. I owe you everything. And I just remember in tears for quite a long time, just really just meditating on the cross and really had a big effect on me and it still does today.

And so I don't know that that was, I think I was saved before then, but that was definitely a moment I'd say, I guess you could put it that I dedicated my life to God. So I knew you before you were married and then you got married. That's right. Now you have a house full of children, you know, after actually not that many years. So tell us about all that.

How'd that, how, How did marriage happen for you? Yeah. Well, it was, it was a wonderful thing. I mean, I'm so happily married. That's one reason why I'm so excited about getting to talk about finding a wife because I want others to have, you know, what I have, which is a wonderful marriage and house full of children.

And we're so blessed. So that was, you know, I'd grown up in, you know, kind of started talking about dating early on and courtship and then study those things. And I ended up thinking that I really need people to help me with this. And so I asked some other men in my life, including my father, to help me with the process of getting married. And that was a huge benefit to me and a huge blessing.

And in fact, you also, we had many conversations around that time as well that were very, very helpful to me. And in fact, you were actually there whenever we publicly announced our, our patrol or our engagement. You were there when we did that. And, and so it was a, it was a great time. And, yeah, it's been wonderful.

That was now, that was in 2010. That was actually the same week that we launched Heritage Defense. And so it was a very, very busy time of life, but a wonderful time of life. Oh, that's great. Okay.

So what kind of guiding principles did you have? You know, since you're giving this talk on finding a wife in Babylon, what guided you? Give us a preview. They're free. Yeah, well, I think that, you know, I think that in our society, especially with movies and books and culture, this has been its way for a long time.

I think in some ways we can overly romanticize the premarital process and not focus as much as we should on practicalities and character and help. I think A lot of people just think in a very, you know, in a charismatic way that, oh, there's going to be a light from heaven is going to shine down and say, this is the one, you know? And I think that like a lot of things, and, you know, that's not normative. And God has like, Just like figuring out our vocation and things like that, we have counselors and wisdom, and we make plans. We submit those to God, but we make plans.

And there's a lot of things like that that were a benefit to me. And having other men counseling me and helping me along the path was very, very helpful. And so I look forward to talking more about that. So Bradley, who is your wife and why her? Yeah.

So her name is Cindy and she is, I don't know where to begin as far as why her, but she is a godly woman of godly character. She's extremely hardworking. She's brilliant. And she loves me. It's crazy, but she loves me So much.

And so it's wonderful. How much did you know her? How did you get to know her when you sort of zeroed in to say, this is the woman I should try to marry? Yeah. I didn't know her super well, actually.

I knew her family and I had kind of observed them and we've kind of run in similar circles And she was good friends with actually a family that I was living with. And we can talk more about that. But whenever I got out of college and then law school, I, yeah, there was a pat, there's a page in scripture is not good for man to be alone. And God sets the sets the solitary and families. And I really kind of took that to heart that, you know, it's not good for me to live alone.

I've been living, you know, as a college student and a law student for a loan or with just, you know, a guy, you know, one or two other guys for seven years at that point. I thought I need to be in a family. And so I moved in after law school with a family and that was wonderful. I lived with them for several years and Cindy and her sister would come visit this family occasionally and so I got to know them through that and then through other contacts. And yeah, I liked it, liked what I saw.

That's great, great story. So talk about the things that have influenced you, the people, preachers, books, what, you know, just talk about sort of the impinging influences that, you know, kind of encircled you. Yeah. I mean, certainly the, the, my parents would be some of my top influences, my mom and my dad, my mom who was a stay at home mom, homemaker, and homeschooled my brother and I. My dad, he was a, or he is, I guess he was a blue collar worker, worked in the chemical plants in the Houston area, which almost all of the men in my family did.

And they were both wonderful influences in my life. My grandparents, thankfully my mom's dad, later on he became a Christian kind of later in my life and that was wonderful. So eventually all of my grandparents were Christians. And so they were all great influences. My dad's dad, my paw paw, Kenneth, he was a big influence in my life.

He worked at a chemical plant, but then on the side, he had a construction company doing roofing and then later siding and remodeling and general construction. So from the age of eight years old, I was up on roofs in the Houston area in the heat, roofing houses with him. And I did a lot of that growing up, even during college, law school, I'd come home and do roofing and remodeling and construction. And I loved doing that. I loved doing that with my grandfather and my uncle also did that.

He also worked at chemical plants, but he did it on the side too. He was a big influence in my life, both of them, both in family and then also in work in addition to my dad. But lots of influences over the years. One of my big influences for the past 20 years or so has been Don Hart. He's one of the elders of our church.

He's an attorney. And I met at a Christian conference where I'd gone to try to find an attorney who was a Christian who could be a mentor to me. I found Don and I've been working with him ever since then after I got out of law school. And he's the president of Heritage Defense. I'm the vice president.

We get to work together and still go to church. I'm part of North Gabriel Christian assembly where he and two other men are elders. I've had the same benefit for 25 years. My grand for 25 years. Yeah, I first met him in 2004.

So that was just been 21 years altogether. Wow. That's great. Preacher books that influenced you? Again, he said Again, many, I would say, you know, when I was in my freshman year of college, there was a, I really felt like, you know, when you start college, and I went to a Christian, I went to Baylor, to Baptist University, you know, there's, even there, though, there's lots of things that attack your faith from different directions.

And I remember at the end of my freshman year, just kind of feeling like I've in some ways lost a lot of doctrine, like questioning almost all the doctrine I had been taught growing up. And got to the end of that year just like, okay, Jesus, I know you and I know this is your word, but I don't feel like I really know anything else very well. I feel like I almost kind of rebuilt doctrine from scratch. Now, a lot of it, I never lost, but a lot of it I questioned. But around that time, that's when I guess over the few years I made the shift from being an Arminian Christian to a Calvinist Christian, and I would say a biblical Christian, because once I started learning about the doctrines of grace, they were everywhere.

I looked in the Bible. And I remember, I could talk about that for a long time, But, you know, R.C. Sproul was certainly a big influence and really helped me to understand a lot of things and to systemize a lot of things, and a whole lot of others, but he was a big one. Hey, So tell us about Heritage Defense and Abolish Abortion. That's what you're grinding on right now.

And man, I'm so glad you are. Praise God. Yeah, yeah. So Heritage Defense, so I started working with Don Hart in 2007, it's 2006. I clerked and I did a legal internship with him.

Started working with him full-time 2007 when I became an attorney. And he hired me, it was just me and him working in his law firm. But just from the very beginning, we had a vision for what ended up becoming Heritage Defense. And so in 2010, after several years of running the law firm and then working toward that, we launched that, Dawn investing a whole lot of their savings into that. And so we started that in 2010, and we've been doing that ever since.

And we're defending parental rights of Christian homeschooling families. We have a heart for families and protecting families from encroachments by the state seeking to come in and to interfere in families. And really we want to give families, from the very beginning, our mission really has been to give families peace of mind, knowing that someone is there that has their back that can defend them. And because sometimes, you know, just having this concern that someone may second guess your parenting decisions and really even kind of chill your obedience to God's commands and how we parent our children. And so we want to take that away for parents, you know, feel like, you know, have confidence that they know that if anything ever does happen where someone makes a false accusation or overblown accusation about them, then they have people that they can call 24 seven that can defend them.

And that's what we've been doing now since 2010. Okay, abolish abortion. Yeah, so abolish abortion. I started, you know, someone approached me about drafting some legislation here in Texas where I live in 2011 on a liberty issue. And that was my first foray into drafting legislation.

And then over several years I spent, I noticed a lot of the pro-life movement. I always grew up pro-life, believing life because of conception, we should be protecting that life, should be illegal, to abortion should be illegal. But as an attorney, sort of drafting legislation, started looking at pro-life legislation, I was really concerned about how it seemed like the pro-life movement was handling the issue. It seemed like they were conceding a lot of principles. They were undermining their arguments of life against conception with a lot of legislation.

And it really kind of finally clicked when a friend of mine who was working in the legislature, his boss said, hey, go talk to the pro-life groups and ask them, Hey, if I just do a bill that just says, we're gonna outlaw abortion, forget the Supreme Court and Roe v. Wade, we're gonna do what's right before God and under the Constitution, would you all support that? And my friend went and talked to the pro-life groups here in Texas, And they all said the same thing. They all said, not only would we not support that, we would oppose that bill. And that was definitely...I'd been thinking and looking at things for a while.

That was definitely a big moment, like, hold on. Someone needs to approach this biblically and constitutionally. And so that's what got me started doing that late 2015, early 2016. And that's really just continued to grow. At the beginning, we wouldn't have said we were, you know, very quickly within just a few months, we started calling ourselves abolitionist.

And, and so we've been doing that since then, both here in Texas, and then around the country through the foundation to abolish abortion. And, God's really blessed that. And we've been able to be a part of drafting legislation that's been introduced, you know, many states around the country. So we're grateful for that. Bradley, you're on the front lines of where we all ought to be.

And I'm so grateful you're, You've been crisscrossing this country and working really hard on this and I know it's hard slogging It's a little bit like Wilberforce, you know, you've worked for 30 years and then and then maybe maybe things will break And I know you're, you're locked and loaded for the, for the fight. So I appreciate it. Trying to be. I did just remember though, that I forgot, Mitch was talking about my wife for a while, but I forgot to mention, I said to God bless the house full of children. One of the things about me is that we are expecting number 12 right now.

And so we're very, very blessed. That's a huge part of my life. And we have six girls and five boys and then question mark on the way, We'll find out. I remember in your house having so much fun with your funny, giggly children playing with them. That was such a happy evening for Deborah and I.

Oh, they loved it. You're very young at heart. And so they quickly attached themselves to you. Yeah, They almost killed me on that, that ride. They dragged me around your backyard.

That's right. Yeah. They took you for a little, little wagon ride all around the yard there and they had a breakneck speed, but it was breakneck speed. Wow. Bradley, what a pleasure it's been to talk with you.

Can't wait to have you at the conference and listen to your message. Thanks so much. Looking forward to it. Thank you all. Okay.

God bless. And Thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast. Hope you can be with us next time. Resource helpful, we encourage you to check out ChurchandFamilyLife.com