Latest / The Alex Marlow Show / America Is a Christian Nation! Winning the Culture War with Pastor Allen Jackson, Tim Barton

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America Is a Christian Nation! Winning the Culture War with Pastor Allen Jackson, Tim Barton · The Alex Marlow Show

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: I've got an amazing podcast series for you that is.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Starting right now. It helps his congregation grow.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: This guy is a true leader in a nation that
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: really needs them right now in our.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Church with a lot of weak pastors out there. This
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: is a strong one.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Plus a guy named Tim Barton, who I just got
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: to know, but he has something called wall builders where
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: he literally is providing the arguments Christians can make to
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: prove that America is a Judeo-Christian nation.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: This guy absolutely cooks. You will love this interview. Check
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: it out right now.
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: Pastor Alan Jackson, this is your conference, Culture and Christianity Conference.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: We're here today. It's so impressive. You've got to be
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: feeling pretty good. I mean, I could hear the crowd roaring.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: I was just doing my live radio show.
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: The roars are.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Interrupting the show.
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's such a dialed-in community. Give us a
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: little taste on how you built something like this because
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: it started out like half a boardroom or something.
• 1:23
  Speaker 5: It started out with 29 people in a rented space,
• 1:27
  Speaker 5: and we couldn't afford to pay the rent. But we
• 1:30
  Speaker 5: were 40 years on the other side of it. And
• 1:32
  Speaker 5: just a little bit at a time. There's no, like,
• 1:34
  Speaker 5: overnight explosion. But year by year, a little bit by year. So, yeah,
• 1:39
  Speaker 5: we've been very fortunate.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: What are metrics for success for you?
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: Because I know some of it's spiritual, but some of
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: it at this point it's got to be keeping an
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: eye on numbers or people are here. And you've got
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: an international following as well. I know there are people
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: who are paying attention to what you're doing all over
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  Speaker 3: the world.
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: If you ask a pastor how they define success. Yeah.
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: We're not allowed to say.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sure.
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  Speaker 5: But the first 10 years I was here, I was
• 2:05
  Speaker 5: so spiritual. I didn't count anything except we had to
• 2:08
  Speaker 5: make deposits, so I was forced to do that.
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: And then I realized that if I wasn't accountable for
• 2:13
  Speaker 5: the sheep that were being sent to me, I couldn't
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: be trusted with sheep.
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  Speaker 4: If I had a daycare, I didn't know how many
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: children were there.
• 2:19
  Speaker 5: So I got a bit more focused on the social
• 2:22
  Speaker 5: side of church. And so I think there's multiple layers.
• 2:25
  Speaker 5: Attendance doesn't make you a healthy church. You can be
• 2:27
  Speaker 5: a large group of people and have pagan perspectives or
• 2:30
  Speaker 5: Christianity light.
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: We have enough of that.
• 2:33
  Speaker 5: But I have found that particularly since COVID, if you'll
• 2:35
  Speaker 5: tell the truth from a biblical worldview, there is a
• 2:38
  Speaker 5: segment of the population that is very, very receptive to that.
• 2:42
  Speaker 5: And we have more people driving greater distances to church
• 2:45
  Speaker 5: than at any time. And I've served the same congregation
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: for 40 years. So there's a very hungry segment of
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: the community.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: And this is a huge concept that I try to
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: bring up with any religious figure that's here, is that
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: it feels like our churches are too weak, by and large,
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: in this country. And I feel like the churches need
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: to be guarding us right now against the wokeism. I,
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: for one, believe there's a demonic force that's very prevalent
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: in this country and has been so for the last
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: year or so. And it feels like the churches should
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: be the ones who are protectors. And it doesn't feel
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: like a lot of churches have accepted that.
• 3:19
  Speaker 5: They not only accept it, we've abdicated the role. You know,
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: I think we've wanted so much to be affirmed by
• 3:24
  Speaker 5: the culture that we let the culture dictate the fashion
• 3:28
  Speaker 5: that we'll.
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: Embrace in this next season. And we're supposed to be
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: the opposite of that.
• 3:33
  Speaker 5: We're supposed to hold a set of values that are
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: cornerstones for building society. Western civilization was built on Christian values.
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: In fact, we just had a conversation. I have a
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: dear friend in Israel.
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: He's a professor at Hebrew University, leading expert on Islam
• 3:47
  Speaker 5: in the world, Jewish religion.
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: And he's Orthodox. So I'm in his home for dinner.
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  Speaker 4: Brilliant man.
• 3:52
  Speaker 5: And he comes over and he keeps kosher. I mean,
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  Speaker 5: the whole nine yards. He put his hand on my chest.
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: And I was there with a tour. And he said, Alan,
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  Speaker 5: thank you for bringing people.
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: And I said, yes.
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: And he said, but you have to do the most
• 4:03
  Speaker 5: important thing.
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: And I waited. And he said, go home and grow
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: your church. There's nothing that's more important.
• 4:09
  Speaker 5: He said, if the church fails, not this congregation, Church
• 4:12
  Speaker 5: with a capital C. If the church fails, Western civilization
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: will fall. And the whole world will suffer. And so
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: we don't come to these buildings to do polite Bible
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: studies and, you know, to indulge our musical preferences. You know,
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  Speaker 5: there's a set of values that have to be taught generationally.
• 4:29
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: It only takes three generations to lose an idea completely,
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  Speaker 5: for it to completely evaporate. And if we don't hand
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: those values from generation to generation, the things that have
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: given us freedom and liberty and abundance and all the
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  Speaker 5: things that we enjoy, they'll disappear.
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: They don't come from governments.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: Give me a couple.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: say, three of the most prevalent or the most persuasive
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: ideas and concepts that you talk about that you find
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  Speaker 3: when someone's a new congregant, that this is what they
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: want to hear, this is why they're going to join
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: me each and every week?
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  Speaker 5: Well, the most polarizing, I can tell you that, the
• 5:04
  Speaker 5: ones that either draws people in or that causes them
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  Speaker 5: to get up from their seat, is when I talk
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  Speaker 5: about current culture.
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  Speaker 7: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: You know, if I talk about a trial and.
• 5:13
  Speaker 5: A woman who strangled her three children.
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  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
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  Speaker 5: And I say there's something deeply troubling about that when
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  Speaker 5: we will line the road and applaud her as she's
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: being brought to or leaving the courthouse. The human life
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: has to be considered sacred and we can't, you know,
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: mental illness can't be the flag you wave and say
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: that my actions have no consequences. Or if I talk
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: about the border, an open border is not an expression
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  Speaker 5: of compassion because there's hundreds of thousands of children that
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: were trafficked across our border and that's not compassionate. the
• 5:43
  Speaker 5: Palestinian people, which is the global issue in Israel, they
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: have to be repopulated on their historic homeland. Why aren't
• 5:48
  Speaker 5: we saying that about the people that we emptied Guatemala
• 5:52
  Speaker 5: and so many other countries? And we're not saying those
• 5:54
  Speaker 5: people need to be repopulated. I mean, if you'll talk
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: about current events from a biblical worldview, people either migrate
• 6:01
  Speaker 5: towards it or they're very agitated with you.
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  Speaker 7: Exactly.
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  Speaker 3: And the border is a perfect example for us at
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: Breitbart because we've always framed it and we were the
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: original people who were breaking the stories over a decade ago.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: that there's a massive humanitarian crisis at the border. We
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: were the ones who were showing the cages that were
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: there and the people sleeping in mylar blankets. We're pointing
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: out that all we were doing with the open border,
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: we're enabling the cartels, the worst people in the world
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: to create a massive industry to ship human beings and drugs.
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  Speaker 7: Into our country.
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  Speaker 3: And Republicans, conservatives were saying, this is a, oh no,
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  Speaker 3: we're being the compassionate ones by letting this happen.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: How did we do that?
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: Well, it's a complete moral failure. There was an agenda. Yeah.
• 6:44
  Speaker 5: You know, how did we have a president for four years?
• 6:46
  Speaker 5: It was cognitive incapable. And we all played the charade.
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: We just kept saying, no, the emperor has on clothes.
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  Speaker 7: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: He has clothes.
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  Speaker 5: And I mean, my mother had some mental decline before
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  Speaker 5: she passed away. That's not a fun thing to watch
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: or be a part of.
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  Speaker 4: And it was so obvious. And it was demeaning, humiliating.
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  Speaker 5: It was so fundamentally dishonest that the breach of trust
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  Speaker 5: with the American people compounded coming out of COVID.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: So, yeah, we have to have the courage to tell
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  Speaker 5: the truth. And what you do at Breitbart is so important.
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  Speaker 4: Don't grow weary.
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  Speaker 6: Thank you.
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  Speaker 2: No, we love it.
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  Speaker 3: And I love it because one of the reasons why
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  Speaker 3: I love working at Breitbart is that even on bad days,
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  Speaker 3: I do feel like I'm.
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  Speaker 2: Doing a service of some sort. There are services that
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  Speaker 2: are higher.
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  Speaker 3: Quality than mine, but this is one that's a big one.
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  Speaker 3: And so you mentioned the culture issues are animating for
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  Speaker 3: you and your congregation. It's the Culture and Christianity Conference
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  Speaker 3: you put on every year. What is the ultimate goal
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  Speaker 3: of the conference?
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  Speaker 5: Well, the goal is to try to awaken Christians that
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  Speaker 5: we've been coached for so long to come to polite
• 7:55
  Speaker 5: Bible studies. If you train to be a Christian minister,
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  Speaker 5: you're given extensive training in the culture of the first century,
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  Speaker 5: the culture from which the New Testament emerged. Or the
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  Speaker 5: culture of the 10th century BCE, the culture from which
• 8:07
  Speaker 5: much of the Hebrew Bible came from, the monarchy. But
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  Speaker 5: you're not told to take those principles and interpret them
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  Speaker 5: in the 21st century culture.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: So we come to church and talk about a culture
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  Speaker 5: from 2,000 years ago, but we're not allowed to talk
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  Speaker 5: about this culture. And that's being, it'd be like being
• 8:22
  Speaker 5: a physician and you talk about, you have sick patients
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: and you tell them what the ancient Romans used to do. Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: But you don't provide them any health care.
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  Speaker 5: And the church's assignment is to provide that message to
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  Speaker 5: this generation. And so culture and Christianity have to go together.
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  Speaker 7: That's so right.
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  Speaker 3: And I do feel like a lot of churches are
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  Speaker 3: afraid to do that. They're afraid to take a stand
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  Speaker 3: in some ways about what's going.
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  Speaker 7: On, and they should. They just opt out.
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  Speaker 3: And let's make that segue into something that is, I
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: want to ask your take on this, because I'll be
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: speaking tomorrow as we're having this conversation on AI. And
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: so AI and where Christianity fits with this And I
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: do think it's a big opportunity for Christians because a
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: lot of the AI overlords we're going to be fighting against,
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  Speaker 3: they think what they're doing is going.
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  Speaker 2: To be godlike, it's going to be eternal.
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  Speaker 3: And for our faith, you only become eternal through Christ,
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: accepting Jesus Christ. And I think that that's something that's
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: a profound point. But we also, we can't abdicate from
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: the fight. We can't act like we're going to let
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: the worst people in the world control this technology that
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: is truly revolutionary.
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  Speaker 7: Where is your perspective?
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  Speaker 3: Where do you think Christians fit in this AI debate
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  Speaker 3: we've been having this week?
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  Speaker 4: Well, I think that's very much an emerging conversation. It's
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: so new. AI feels to me like when we first
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: started hearing about the Internet.
• 9:35
  Speaker 7: Yes.
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  Speaker 5: You know, my initial endeavors into the Internet would be
• 9:38
  Speaker 5: funny by today's standards.
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  Speaker 4: We didn't know what to do with it. And I
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: don't think we know what to do with AI yet.
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  Speaker 5: But an absence of technology does not make you more
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  Speaker 5: godly or more holy or more pure.
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: Wow.
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  Speaker 5: Because the things that make me ungodly and impure start
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: with inside me.
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  Speaker 4: I don't need a screen to help me have an
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  Speaker 4: immoral thought. Having said that, how it's programmed.
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  Speaker 5: What information it's fed, what biases it's given are very important.
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  Speaker 4: I laughed the other day.
• 10:05
  Speaker 5: They said, you know, some of the AI models are
• 10:09
  Speaker 5: cheating and dishonest and taking over. And I thought, yeah,
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: they're programmed by human beings. Who could imagine they would
• 10:14
  Speaker 5: behave like us? Yes. And so I think we've got
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: to engage the technology, but I would like to see
• 10:20
  Speaker 5: it have someone with a biblical worldview that's actually engaged
• 10:23
  Speaker 5: in that and not just people who hate my faith.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's exactly right. And that's not going to happen
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: if we just pretend.
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: It's not happening.
• 10:30
  Speaker 5: No, no, no.
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: We've got to engage. Exactly.
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: Well, what other things that are on the agenda that
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: you're most excited about to hear from? Because you've assembled
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: an incredible panel of speakers.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: As you always do.
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: We do.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: What are you excited about on a personal level?
• 10:43
  Speaker 6: Well.
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: I think the bigger picture is the part that's most
• 10:46
  Speaker 5: exciting to me. When we started this a few years ago,
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: you know, we said, well, what do we want to
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: talk about? And it was kind of a, we kind
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: of brainstormed it. But now there's so many segments of
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: our culture that we feel like there's a conversation to
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: be had.
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Like this afternoon we're doing education.
• 11:00
  Speaker 5: And it's unfortunate we've only got a, you know, we've
• 11:03
  Speaker 5: got a three-hour block because we have to change education
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: in our country. You know, I just, we did a
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: panel on Israel this morning and I had some friends who,
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: And the young couples in Israel are the backbone of
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: that country because they serve in the military when they
• 11:15
  Speaker 5: finish high school, but they're in the reserves. So they
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: teach those nesting stage families, which are the backbone of
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: any culture, to love their country. They fight for it
• 11:25
  Speaker 5: and defend it. We send our kids off to college
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: and they come back hating our country. And I thought,
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: we've got to change that process. We don't have to
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: blindly say it's perfect, but if we're not advocates for
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: the things that have made America strong and brought freedom
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: and liberty and abundance to us, We will lose them.
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: And so the education was a lot of fun. Tonight
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: we're going to talk about faith and patriotism. Because if
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: we had called it Christian nationalism, I'd have spent.
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: My whole evening with definitions. But it's okay to love
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: God and love your country.
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: And it's not an immoral perspective to hold. And then
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: in the morning we're going to do media, but particularly
• 12:01
  Speaker 5: digital media. And so I think all of those, and
• 12:05
  Speaker 5: I have a day job and it isn't this. Or
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: we would do one of these every month because there's
• 12:10
  Speaker 5: so many topics I think we have to talk about.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: Very, very important.
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: Okay, so a couple of things I want to key
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: in on with you is where Christians fit in the
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: concept of this Israel debate that we've had lately. Because
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: you're one of the most stalwart advocates for the state
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: of Israel. You make it a centerpiece of this conference
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: every year. And I'm with you on this, and I'm
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: hoping that this is a fad that we kind of
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: flirted with.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: Well, maybe Israel isn't that great.
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: And it feels like maybe we're coming out the other
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: side of that to some degree. But the specter of
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: anti-Semitism is ever-present in our society, has been for millennia.
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: It has.
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: And I want to get your perspective on this and
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: where we fit and why you're such a strong advocate
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: for Israel.
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: Well, I pray it's a fad. History would suggest otherwise.
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: It really would.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: You're right.
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: You know, and.
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: I choose to use my voice for Israel because the primary,
• 13:05
  Speaker 5: for the last two millennia, the primary antagonist to the
• 13:08
  Speaker 5: Jewish people has been the Christian church.
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: I didn't understand the depth of that.
• 13:14
  Speaker 5: Until I studied at Hebrew University because we don't really
• 13:16
  Speaker 5: teach it and I didn't pay that much attention to it.
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: I didn't understand how isolated the Jewish community really feels.
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: But Hitler was a baptized Catholic. And we will say, well,
• 13:28
  Speaker 5: he wasn't a good one. But you'll forgive the Jewish
• 13:31
  Speaker 5: people if that distinction is lost on them. And the
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: Nazis couldn't have done what they did to the Jewish
• 13:36
  Speaker 5: people without the.
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: Help of Christian Europe. Christian Europe gave up the Jews.
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: The weakness.
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: It's not a Catholic problem. It's a Christian problem. The
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: Spanish Inquisition. I mean, we can run through history, the
• 13:47
  Speaker 5: Russian pogroms. And so I think to help the church understand,
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: because without the Jewish people, you can get in the
• 13:55
  Speaker 5: ditch on the other side. When you land at the
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: airport in Israel, you don't hear the flutter of angels' wings.
• 14:00
  Speaker 5: You can go to the Orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem and
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: find all the sins that you can find in Nashville downtown,
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: which is quite a few. You know, it's not a
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: perfect place by any stretch of the imagination, but without
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: the Jewish people, we have no scripture. We have no covenants.
• 14:14
  Speaker 5: We have no prophets. We have no Messiah. We have
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: no story. And they have suffered greatly for that.
• 14:19
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 14:20
  Speaker 5: And so it's an honor for me to say, I
• 14:22
  Speaker 5: will stand with that group of people.
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: I always find it also compelling to think about, well,
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: what kind of Bible was Jesus working with?
• 14:28
  Speaker 7: And, uh, There was no New Testament.
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: No, no, it would have been the Hebrew Bible, right? Yeah,
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: that would have been the Bible.
• 14:33
  Speaker 7: That's it. Kind of important.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: So last year, I had.
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: The, this makes me emotional just thinking about it, but
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: I got to speak at the event because I was
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: a fill-in for, I was a stand-in for my friend
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: Charlie Kirk, who had gotten murdered a week prior.
• 14:50
  Speaker 7: And it was an honor.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: Also, it was very emotional to do that. And he
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: passed away just almost exactly a year ago as we
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: were having this conversation. And I fear your answer to this,
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: but how are we doing as a people processing his
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: death and his lessons? Have we adequately learned from his example?
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: Or do you feel like that we've regressed in some
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: ways since then?
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: Yes to both.
• 15:15
  Speaker 5: I mean, I think clearly we have regressed in some
• 15:18
  Speaker 5: ways because a year later on the anniversary of that,
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: in some places that are celebrated for their intellectual whatever,
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: they're mocking him and celebrating his execution.
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: Unthinkable.
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: If we'd have done that with George Floyd, I'm not
• 15:33
  Speaker 5: suggesting it should have been, but had we.
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: Done that, those places would have been burned.
• 15:38
  Speaker 7: Absolutely right.
• 15:39
  Speaker 5: And so there are and continue to be some horrific
• 15:42
  Speaker 5: expressions of that. On the other hand, when Erica Kirk
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: stood on a stage with however many million people watching
• 15:49
  Speaker 5: and said, I choose to forgive, there was an expression
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: of Christianity that is such a core value to who
• 15:54
  Speaker 5: we are as a people, that I thought it was
• 15:59
  Speaker 5: a point that should be celebrated. Whether you agree with
• 16:01
  Speaker 5: Erica's leadership or you don't, that's not the conversation. It
• 16:05
  Speaker 5: was a demonstration of a fundamental Christian principle. She could
• 16:08
  Speaker 5: have stood there filled with bitterness and anger and rage
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: and unleashed a whirlwind. And she chose to unleash something
• 16:14
  Speaker 5: very different. And to have witnessed that and been a
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: part of that in any small way is truly extraordinary.
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: So I think we have to live our faith between
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: this tension, that God is good and the world is
• 16:26
  Speaker 5: messed up and life is more difficult than I would
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: like it to be. And I think since our friend
• 16:31
  Speaker 5: Charlie was hunted and murdered, we have seen that.
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: So there's still a lot of work to do.
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: There is a lot of work to do. And there's,
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: I guess, a silver lining in that there's so many
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: bad actors that are revealing themselves and they're kind of
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: coming out in the public and the Internet's.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: Inviting them out.
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: To some degree.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: The phenomenon of what we're witnessing with social media and
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: how there is a particular one platform known as TikTok,
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: it does seem like they're really encouraging some of the
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: worst elements of our society. You mentioned the Lindsay Clancy
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: case a moment ago where you get clout online, that's
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: the expression, for promoting some of the most vile, completely
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: anti-Christian ideas imaginable. How do we respond to that into
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: a society that is is creating a is boosting the
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: signal of people who are openly demonic.
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: Right well i it may be my age on this
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: one but that still feels like a new enough privilege
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: but i don't think we've formulated the response yet because
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: i'm an advocate for free speech we've seen enough censorship
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: and had to survive overcome some of that So I'm
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: happy for people to have that privilege, but we're going
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: to have to become more sophisticated consumers in some way.
• 17:51
  Speaker 5: Because the fact that you have a cell phone and
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: an opinion does not mean that your opinion has equal
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: weight with everybody else's opinion. But we tend to, I mean,
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: I don't think it's new, I guess, that celebrity gives
• 18:04
  Speaker 5: you influence.
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: We've been doing that for a long time.
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: And so, but it isn't the best part of us
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: that is being expressed in those places. And I don't
• 18:14
  Speaker 5: know fully what that response is going to be. I
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: think we've got to engage it more. I think what
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: you're doing is so valuable.
• 18:20
  Speaker 7: Thank you.
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: Did you see a surge in church attendance after Charlie passed?
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: Surge might be a bit strong.
• 18:31
  Speaker 5: But, yeah, there was a change in church attendance because
• 18:34
  Speaker 5: the people that were in churches that wouldn't mention it
• 18:36
  Speaker 5: were so disgusted that they shifted.
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 18:39
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: And so I saw a lot of that. And our
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: conference was the week after. I mean, Charlie was to
• 18:44
  Speaker 5: have been here that week after he was murdered. And
• 18:47
  Speaker 5: so we had a little bit of light on us
• 18:49
  Speaker 5: around Charlie coming. So the people that didn't like us
• 18:51
  Speaker 5: because Charlie was coming had already expressed those opinions.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: So we were already kind of standing in that space.
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 18:58
  Speaker 5: But.
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: yes it was a polarizing.
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: Event that's exactly where I was going with this because
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: I saw so much beauty that came from it in
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: terms of people getting married and having children and returning
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: to church and then you saw all this demonic stuff
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: on a line at the same time and I'm wondering
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: I just want to gauge and I guess this will
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: be the last question because I know you're.
• 19:19
  Speaker 7: A busy man at the moment but.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: Give me a sense are you more hopeful this year
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: than last year or are you more discouraged by the
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: developments of the past year.
• 19:29
  Speaker 5: No, I'm more hopeful. You know, we don't require the majority.
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: We serve an almighty God and he's engaged in the earth.
• 19:37
  Speaker 5: I do what I do because of that passage in Matthew,
• 19:39
  Speaker 5: where Jesus said, I'll build my church. I thought, well,
• 19:42
  Speaker 5: if you're doing that, why am I going to go
• 19:43
  Speaker 5: do something else? And I, you know, the kingdom of
• 19:47
  Speaker 5: God on earth is, is emerging and the church of
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: jesus christ is well and healthy i mean there are
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: things i don't like about it and i mean i
• 19:55
  Speaker 5: would prefer other expressions but i'm very hopeful you know
• 19:58
  Speaker 5: gideon he only needed 300 people to write an army
• 20:01
  Speaker 5: that was exponentially larger david took down goliath and it
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: wasn't a physical contest it was a spiritual contest and
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: if we understand that the challenges we face are not
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: political They're ideological. They're rooted fundamentally in spiritual things. It
• 20:13
  Speaker 5: wasn't some crazed kid that killed Charlie. It was a
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: demonic spirit from.
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: The pit of hell.
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: And we have an authority greater than that, but we
• 20:23
  Speaker 5: still walk through a fallen world. So we all have
• 20:26
  Speaker 5: to take courage and go be Charlie.
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: So beautiful. I lied.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: Last one.
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: You've got a friend or a family member who's now
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: church curious right now. They're understanding all that. There's no
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: mortal answer to some of the problems that are facing
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: us right now. They've got to look to a higher power.
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: They're thinking of coming to church. What's the last thing
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: you're saying to get them? The water's warm.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: We're an open and beautiful community here. We want you
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: to come join us. What are you saying?
• 20:52
  Speaker 5: Well, I like to start with hope because I think
• 20:55
  Speaker 5: if you watch the media, it's like a doom loop,
• 20:56
  Speaker 5: whether you watch social media, whatever your favorite. I mean,
• 20:59
  Speaker 5: it's really hard. And there is hope in the midst
• 21:01
  Speaker 5: of this world. The phrase I use all the time
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: is God is moving in the earth. People challenge me
• 21:06
  Speaker 5: all the time. I don't see it. I don't know
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: why you say that. Because there's many expressions of good things.
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: Charlie was murdered, but what Charlie stood for is strong
• 21:15
  Speaker 5: and well and being given voice and expression. Hamas tried
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: to annihilate the Jews, and Iran is being annihilated. Hamas
• 21:23
  Speaker 5: and Hezbollah are gone. There's so many things to celebrate.
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: And I just prefer, not with some kind of blind optimism,
• 21:31
  Speaker 5: but I understand in whom we put our trust.
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: And he will lead us through.
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: You know, when Israel fell in the Hebrew Bible, Jeremiah
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: the prophet, Israel falls to the Babylonians and the temple's
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: torn down and there's blood in the streets. And God
• 21:43
  Speaker 5: says to Jeremiah, I'll take care of you. And I thought,
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: you know, even in the midst of the most unimaginable destruction,
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: God watches over his people.
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: And he still does that. So I have hope.
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: Everybody's life is filled with pain. Everybody has all they
• 21:59
  Speaker 5: can carry. And if you say to them, you don't
• 22:02
  Speaker 5: have to carry that by yourself. God doesn't take all
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: the pain from our lives, but he gives us purpose
• 22:09
  Speaker 5: in the middle of it. And that changes the nature
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: of when I wake up in the morning.
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: I see why people get in the car to sit
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: in traffic to come hear you preach. Amazing stuff, Pastor
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: Alan Jackson. Thank you for having me at the event,
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: and I look forward to hopefully some dazzling remarks tomorrow
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: and connecting on the panel as well.
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: I'm looking forward to that, and you're welcome here anytime.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: Tim Barton, nice to meet you. Thank you for being here.
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: Tell me all about Wall Builders.
• 22:37
  Speaker 6: So Wall Builders is mostly a historic organization. We take
• 22:41
  Speaker 6: our name, Wall Builders, from the Bible account of Nehemiah.
• 22:44
  Speaker 6: He was one of the Jews that was part of
• 22:47
  Speaker 6: the Babylonian captivity, saw the walls of Jerusalem had been
• 22:49
  Speaker 6: torn down and he was grieved, wanted to rebuild it,
• 22:52
  Speaker 6: led a grassroots movement, invited people to come back and
• 22:54
  Speaker 6: they rebuilt the walls and Back in the 1980s, my
• 22:57
  Speaker 6: dad looked at America and said, there's some already major
• 23:00
  Speaker 6: moral constitutional issues happening in America and really kind of
• 23:03
  Speaker 6: felt the call of Nehemiah to some extent and said,
• 23:06
  Speaker 6: I want to do that. I want to help rebuild
• 23:07
  Speaker 6: the foundation of the nation. We do that primarily now
• 23:10
  Speaker 6: with a lot of educational efforts. We work with educators
• 23:14
  Speaker 6: and legislators, with churches. trying to help educate or activate
• 23:17
  Speaker 6: or legislate things to restore that constitutional, moral, religious foundation
• 23:21
  Speaker 6: in America.
• 23:22
  Speaker 7: But part of how we do it is we have
• 23:24
  Speaker 7: the largest.
• 23:25
  Speaker 6: Private collection of original documents from the founding fathers. We
• 23:28
  Speaker 6: have handwritten documents from every single signer of the Declaration,
• 23:31
  Speaker 6: every signer of the Constitution. And so what we are
• 23:33
  Speaker 6: trying to help people recognize is when you go back
• 23:35
  Speaker 6: and look at the founding documents, a lot of the
• 23:38
  Speaker 6: basis of our nation is actually not what we're being
• 23:41
  Speaker 6: told today.
• 23:42
  Speaker 7: And a lot of what we're seeing promoted today is actually.
• 23:44
  Speaker 6: Contrary to the things that helped us become the most stable, prosperous, successful,
• 23:48
  Speaker 6: benevolent nation.
• 23:48
  Speaker 7: In the history of the world.
• 23:49
  Speaker 6: So we're trying to teach American history in an effort
• 23:51
  Speaker 6: to restore those foundational principles.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: So there's been a huge effort, huge effort in our
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: culture to try to remove Christianity from our founding.
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 24:01
  Speaker 7: What's the truth?
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: What is the answer to someone who's saying, oh, no,
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: these guys weren't... It's incidental to our founding. There just
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: happened to be a bunch of Christian guys walking around.
• 24:12
  Speaker 7: They found this thing.
• 24:13
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I think ultimately that the premise, even though they're
• 24:16
  Speaker 6: going to be good-hearted people, that's really bad information. And
• 24:18
  Speaker 6: so maybe not everybody is nefarious who's promoting that, but
• 24:21
  Speaker 6: I do think there are some bad actors who are
• 24:23
  Speaker 6: saying that. But the bottom line is, if you know
• 24:25
  Speaker 6: a basic, a basic understanding of history, you'd recognize that
• 24:29
  Speaker 6: that's actually not even really possible that the founding fathers
• 24:32
  Speaker 6: weren't influenced to some extent by Christianity because.
• 24:35
  Speaker 7: What's the most significant.
• 24:36
  Speaker 6: Thing that happens in America for over 30 years before
• 24:39
  Speaker 6: the American Revolution, the First Great Awakening? Who was Benjamin
• 24:42
  Speaker 6: Franklin's business partner that helped Benjamin Franklin become wealthy?
• 24:45
  Speaker 7: That's George Whitefield.
• 24:46
  Speaker 6: Franklin is friends with the most significant evangelist of the
• 24:50
  Speaker 6: First Great Awakening.
• 24:51
  Speaker 7: Franklin actually builds the additional.
• 24:53
  Speaker 6: levels and layers to his house because of the success
• 24:56
  Speaker 6: selling the sermons. Again, like you go through this, these
• 24:59
  Speaker 6: guys were incredibly connected to Christians, to pastors, to churches.
• 25:03
  Speaker 6: The fact that when the founding fathers first meet, there's
• 25:05
  Speaker 6: a really fun letter. John Adams writes Abigail, September 16th, 1774.
• 25:10
  Speaker 6: And he says, when we started, I've been so busy,
• 25:12
  Speaker 6: I haven't had time to write you. He says, but
• 25:14
  Speaker 6: when we first met, it was September 6th, 1774. He says,
• 25:18
  Speaker 6: when we first met, the opening motion was made by
• 25:20
  Speaker 6: Thomas Cushing.
• 25:21
  Speaker 7: It was that we should begin with prayer.
• 25:23
  Speaker 6: And it was actually debated because John Jay of New
• 25:25
  Speaker 6: York and then Edward Rutledge of Virginia, they were like,
• 25:27
  Speaker 6: we're kind of divided. Like some of us congregationalists or Episcopalians, like,
• 25:31
  Speaker 6: can we actually pray together? And Sam Adams stood up
• 25:34
  Speaker 6: and he said, I'm no bigot. As long as we
• 25:35
  Speaker 6: choose someone that loves God and loves this nation, that
• 25:38
  Speaker 6: man can lead us in prayer. Sam Adams recommends a
• 25:41
  Speaker 6: local pastor, the Reverend Jacob Deshaies, to come lead them
• 25:43
  Speaker 6: in prayer.
• 25:43
  Speaker 7: The Reverend Jacob Deshaies shows up.
• 25:45
  Speaker 6: He reads from the Book of Common Prayer, but then
• 25:47
  Speaker 6: he broke out an extemporaneous prayer which lasted more than
• 25:49
  Speaker 6: 10 minutes. He said, Abigail was so powerful. It moved
• 25:53
  Speaker 6: the hearts and the bosom of every man. He said,
• 25:55
  Speaker 6: and then we read the script, the collect verses of
• 25:58
  Speaker 6: the day, Psalm 35. Now I can keep going with
• 26:02
  Speaker 6: the letter, but the bottom line is like, literally John's
• 26:05
  Speaker 6: like Abigail. It began with prayer. We had a prayer
• 26:08
  Speaker 6: meeting and we read prayers, but then extemporaneous prayer. And
• 26:10
  Speaker 6: then we had a Bible study. This is literally where
• 26:13
  Speaker 6: it begins when George Washington is chosen to to be
• 26:15
  Speaker 6: the commander of the Continental Army. He gives the very
• 26:18
  Speaker 6: first general order on July 4th, 1775.
• 26:22
  Speaker 7: In the first general order, not only did he say
• 26:25
  Speaker 7: that there's not.
• 26:25
  Speaker 6: Going to be swearing or profanity or drunkenness in the military,
• 26:28
  Speaker 6: which already is.
• 26:29
  Speaker 7: Just kind of funny to think about. Yeah, no drunkenness
• 26:31
  Speaker 7: in the military. No swearing. Right, no swearing.
• 26:34
  Speaker 6: You've just removed the vocabulary for half of the words
• 26:36
  Speaker 6: of the military, right? It's crazy, but literally he says
• 26:39
  Speaker 6: no profanity, no cursing, and no drunkenness.
• 26:43
  Speaker 7: And then he says it's also.
• 26:45
  Speaker 6: required and expected of every officer and soldier that when
• 26:49
  Speaker 6: you are not on active duty, that you will attend
• 26:52
  Speaker 6: divine service because we need to seek the favorable blessings
• 26:57
  Speaker 6: of heaven for our success. Amazing.
• 27:00
  Speaker 7: Now, this is literally the first general order.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: Amazing.
• 27:03
  Speaker 7: The reason I say all of this is I— No
• 27:04
  Speaker 7: one knows this. No, but I could go list by
• 27:07
  Speaker 7: list by list.
• 27:08
  Speaker 6: So when Paul Revere makes his famous midnight ride, he's
• 27:11
  Speaker 6: riding to Lexington and Concord to warn the British are coming. Well,
• 27:14
  Speaker 6: that's mostly true, not totally, because Dr. Joseph Warren told
• 27:17
  Speaker 6: them before he left that you also— don't just tell
• 27:20
  Speaker 6: Lexington and Concord the British are coming because they're coming
• 27:22
  Speaker 6: to take all the guns and gunpowder away.
• 27:24
  Speaker 7: It's kind of a big deal. You can't defend yourself
• 27:26
  Speaker 7: if all your guns and gunpowder are gone.
• 27:27
  Speaker 6: He says, but you also need to tell John Hancock
• 27:30
  Speaker 6: and Sam Adams to get out of town because the
• 27:32
  Speaker 6: British have an order out to kill them, to seize
• 27:35
  Speaker 6: their bodies. We actually can document this really, really well,
• 27:38
  Speaker 6: not just from Joseph Warren's own account, but because on
• 27:42
  Speaker 6: April 23rd, 1775, which is only four days later, April
• 27:45
  Speaker 6: 19th is when Paul Revere does a ride and you
• 27:47
  Speaker 6: have the shot around the world that next morning.
• 27:49
  Speaker 7: April 23rd, there is a British officer.
• 27:52
  Speaker 6: Who said that their business was to seize the bodies
• 27:55
  Speaker 6: of Hancock and Adams as well as all the military
• 27:57
  Speaker 6: supplies of Lexington and Concord. Now, the reason this is
• 27:59
  Speaker 6: kind of worth noting is Paul Revere is not just
• 28:01
  Speaker 6: writing to alert all Americans. He's looking for two specific ones.
• 28:05
  Speaker 6: All of this I'm saying is like an easy Google search.
• 28:07
  Speaker 6: Where did Paul Revere find John Hancock and Sam Adams?
• 28:11
  Speaker 6: At the home of the Reverend Jonas Clark, specifically at
• 28:14
  Speaker 6: the parsonage of the Reverend Jonas Clark. Now, why would
• 28:16
  Speaker 6: John Hancock and Sam Adams be staying with a pastor
• 28:18
  Speaker 6: in Well, we could make the easy connection and go, well,
• 28:22
  Speaker 6: his cousin was actually the pastor. Jonas Clark was John
• 28:25
  Speaker 6: Hancock's cousin. So he's staying at his cousin's house. That's
• 28:27
  Speaker 6: the easy connection. Here's the deeper connection. What did John
• 28:30
  Speaker 6: Hancock's father.
• 28:31
  Speaker 7: Do as a profession?
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 28:33
  Speaker 7: He was a pastor. What did John Hancock's grandfather do
• 28:36
  Speaker 7: as a profession?
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: Can't be pastor.
• 28:39
  Speaker 7: He was a pastor.
• 28:39
  Speaker 5: What?
• 28:40
  Speaker 6: Let me give you the deeper cut on this. John
• 28:42
  Speaker 6: Hancock's father dies when he's seven. John Hancock's mom moves
• 28:46
  Speaker 6: the family to go live with grandpa, who's a pastor.
• 28:49
  Speaker 6: So they go live with grandpa pastor in the parsonage. Hey,
• 28:52
  Speaker 6: where did his grandpa pastor? The church at Lexington Green.
• 28:57
  Speaker 7: Okay.
• 28:57
  Speaker 6: So John Hancock, that night when Paul River finds him,
• 29:00
  Speaker 6: he's literally in the home he lived as a kid
• 29:03
  Speaker 6: with his cousin. Oh, by the way, his cousin became
• 29:06
  Speaker 6: the pastor of the church when his grandpa died. So
• 29:09
  Speaker 6: he's living with his cousin who takes over his grandpa's
• 29:11
  Speaker 6: church after grandpa dies in the house he literally grew
• 29:14
  Speaker 6: up in as a kid. And the reason I say
• 29:16
  Speaker 6: this is because today the idea is that John Hancock
• 29:18
  Speaker 6: was this really secular guy. Well, that's wrong for so
• 29:21
  Speaker 6: many reasons, but it's really easy to know it's wrong
• 29:23
  Speaker 6: if you just looked at the basic details of the story.
• 29:27
  Speaker 6: Most people today know names and not the story. And
• 29:30
  Speaker 6: so we believe narratives that are not true. Because we've
• 29:33
  Speaker 6: never looked it up. Because ultimately, kind of what we
• 29:35
  Speaker 6: learned during COVID is we were told just trust the science.
• 29:38
  Speaker 6: But for a long time, we were told just trust
• 29:39
  Speaker 6: the science. trust the professors, right? Just trust academia. I
• 29:43
  Speaker 6: think more people are beginning to recognize that we've been
• 29:45
  Speaker 6: lied to. It's so many layers of this narrative, but
• 29:48
  Speaker 6: more specifically. We've been lied to about some of the
• 29:51
  Speaker 6: foundations of Christianity in our nation because Marxists can't fully
• 29:55
  Speaker 6: have their way and take over America unless they can
• 29:58
  Speaker 6: remove the God aspect of America.
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: Okay, so I'm bought in. Okay, they were Christians. You've
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: convinced me. They were Christians after all. But that was
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: just incidental. They could have been whatever.
• 30:09
  Speaker 7: Everyone was a Christian then. They found America. This is
• 30:12
  Speaker 7: the separation of church and state here.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: So we are truly a secular people, aren't we?
• 30:17
  Speaker 7: Okay.
• 30:18
  Speaker 6: So I love the fact you mentioned separation of church
• 30:20
  Speaker 6: and state because you threw me a softball and might
• 30:23
  Speaker 6: not know it.
• 30:23
  Speaker 7: Maybe you did. Oh, no. But so– That wasn't the
• 30:28
  Speaker 7: high heat. That wasn't the stinky stuff.
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: But I wanted to hear you take that on because
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: most of us in our day-to-day life at the barbecue,
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: the t-ball game, they're not all fastballs.
• 30:35
  Speaker 7: A lot of them are kind of soft toss, and
• 30:38
  Speaker 7: they should be able to hit them.
• 30:38
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 30:39
  Speaker 6: People are repeating things they've heard, and they don't recognize
• 30:42
  Speaker 6: how incorrect it is.
• 30:42
  Speaker 7: So first of all, separation from church and state doesn't
• 30:45
  Speaker 7: appear in the Constitution. You already know this. It doesn't
• 30:46
  Speaker 7: appear in the Bill of Rights. You already know this.
• 30:48
  Speaker 7: Here's the deeper cut.
• 30:49
  Speaker 6: When Thomas Jefferson writes the letter Separation Church and State,
• 30:52
  Speaker 6: he's writing to a group of Baptists in Danbury, Connecticut, again,
• 30:54
  Speaker 6: you probably already know all this, where he's telling them
• 30:57
  Speaker 6: they've expressed their concern that the federal government might come
• 31:00
  Speaker 6: in and take over. Part of the reason they were
• 31:02
  Speaker 6: concerned is one of John Adams' last acts. Actually, John
• 31:04
  Speaker 6: Adams says he thinks it cost him the presidency. There
• 31:07
  Speaker 6: was a group of Presbyterians that asked him to do
• 31:10
  Speaker 6: a day of prayer and fasting from the president. So
• 31:12
  Speaker 6: we did a prayer proclamation, which was not totally unusual.
• 31:15
  Speaker 6: George Washington did it. prayer proclamation. So this is not unprecedented,
• 31:18
  Speaker 6: but it was coinciding with the Presbyterian church. And people
• 31:22
  Speaker 6: are like, he's trying to establish a religion with the Presbyterians.
• 31:26
  Speaker 7: He thinks that's part of what lost him the election.
• 31:28
  Speaker 6: Jefferson comes in, the Baptists are like, we don't want
• 31:31
  Speaker 6: some national denomination like over in England, the Anglicans or Germany,
• 31:34
  Speaker 6: the Lutherans.
• 31:35
  Speaker 7: Like, no, no, we want freedom.
• 31:37
  Speaker 6: Jefferson writes that letter back January 1st, 1802, telling them, guys,
• 31:42
  Speaker 6: you're not going to lose your religious freedom. The First
• 31:44
  Speaker 6: Amendment has protected you when it says that Congress shall
• 31:46
  Speaker 6: make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting
• 31:49
  Speaker 6: the free exercise thereof, thereby erecting a wall of separation
• 31:52
  Speaker 6: between church and state. Now, he's writing this saying that
• 31:55
  Speaker 6: the government has been prevented with this wall from getting
• 31:58
  Speaker 6: into church business. But here's the deep cut. January 1st,
• 32:01
  Speaker 6: 1802 was a Friday. January 3rd, 1802, Thomas Jefferson was
• 32:07
  Speaker 6: in church.
• 32:09
  Speaker 7: But not just in church. He attended church at the U.S.
• 32:12
  Speaker 7: Capitol building all eight years of his presidency.
• 32:15
  Speaker 6: Thomas Jefferson, two days after writing Separation of Church and State,
• 32:19
  Speaker 6: went to church in the U.S.
• 32:20
  Speaker 7: Capitol.
• 32:20
  Speaker 6: By the way, that church that held in the Capitol
• 32:22
  Speaker 6: building became the largest Protestant church in America. You can
• 32:26
  Speaker 6: look this up super easy. Like the Internet's not lying
• 32:28
  Speaker 6: about this. Nobody knew to ask this. So Jefferson attends
• 32:32
  Speaker 6: church January 3rd, 1802 in the Capitol building, listening to
• 32:35
  Speaker 6: his friend, the Reverend John Leland, whom he personally invited.
• 32:38
  Speaker 6: So Jefferson invites a pastor to the Capitol where he
• 32:41
  Speaker 6: attends church.
• 32:42
  Speaker 7: So there's, there's church and government.
• 32:44
  Speaker 6: So this idea of separation of church and state, it
• 32:46
  Speaker 6: couldn't have meant what today we're saying it means because
• 32:49
  Speaker 6: he's literally the one that he didn't just attend church
• 32:51
  Speaker 6: in the Capitol building as president. He actually approved the
• 32:54
  Speaker 6: church to be held, and four different government buildings in Washington, D.C.
• 32:58
  Speaker 6: because they weren't being used on Sunday. And at the time,
• 33:00
  Speaker 6: when D.C. was first being built, the early buildings being
• 33:02
  Speaker 6: built were all government buildings. And these pastors were like,
• 33:05
  Speaker 6: there's these amazing buildings not being used on Sunday.
• 33:07
  Speaker 7: Can we use them?
• 33:07
  Speaker 6: Jefferson approves. Church to be held in multiple government buildings.
• 33:11
  Speaker 6: And by the way, all this you can fact check.
• 33:14
  Speaker 6: This is very clear history. But what's fun about this
• 33:17
  Speaker 6: notion of the separation of church and state letter with Jefferson,
• 33:20
  Speaker 6: when Jefferson attends church and listens to the Reverend John Leland,
• 33:23
  Speaker 6: when John Leland finishes in D.C. and goes home, Jefferson
• 33:26
  Speaker 6: folds and seals the letter, gives it to John Leland,
• 33:29
  Speaker 6: the pastor he had just listened to, and said, hey,
• 33:30
  Speaker 6: can you drop this off.
• 33:31
  Speaker 7: To the Danbury Baptist on your way home?
• 33:33
  Speaker 6: So the pastor who spoke in the church where Jefferson
• 33:36
  Speaker 6: attended and listened to him that Sunday is the one
• 33:37
  Speaker 6: who delivered the separation church of state letter to the
• 33:39
  Speaker 6: Danbury Baptist. And all you have to do is actually
• 33:43
  Speaker 6: read the letter and you would know that's not what
• 33:44
  Speaker 6: Jefferson was saying. But then when you know the surrounding context,
• 33:46
  Speaker 6: you're like, this is one of the dumbest arguments ever.
• 33:49
  Speaker 6: Every single founding father that ended up becoming a governor
• 33:53
  Speaker 6: issued prayer proclamations as governor where they called their state
• 33:56
  Speaker 6: to times of prayer. Now, if they thought the government
• 33:58
  Speaker 6: shouldn't be involved in prayer, why would they do that?
• 34:00
  Speaker 6: And the bottom line is, if you do a deeper dive,
• 34:02
  Speaker 6: what you realize is the founding fathers believed in separate institutions.
• 34:07
  Speaker 6: not secular institutions. Because the whole premise of America is
• 34:10
  Speaker 6: that our rights come from God. We hold these truths
• 34:13
  Speaker 6: to be self-evident. All men are created equal and endowed
• 34:14
  Speaker 6: by their creator with these rights. America is built on
• 34:17
  Speaker 6: the premise of there being a God. And this is
• 34:19
  Speaker 6: where it goes back to, I mentioned earlier, even like
• 34:22
  Speaker 6: this Marxist ideology. FDR, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, all of
• 34:26
  Speaker 6: them talked about what made America different than the communist nations,
• 34:29
  Speaker 6: the Marxist nations, is we believe in God. The thing
• 34:32
  Speaker 6: that socialists or communists or Marxists often try to do
• 34:35
  Speaker 6: when they take power is they try to remove God.
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: Why?
• 34:37
  Speaker 6: Because they want to elevate government because for basically the
• 34:40
  Speaker 6: history of the world, the only two options are either
• 34:43
  Speaker 6: there's a really big God or there's a really big government. Well,
• 34:46
  Speaker 6: if you believe in a really big God, you have
• 34:47
  Speaker 6: a moral foundation that allows freedom to thrive and you
• 34:50
  Speaker 6: don't need a big government. But the more you remove
• 34:53
  Speaker 6: the idea of God and that your rights come from
• 34:55
  Speaker 6: God and government exists to protect those rights, then the
• 34:57
  Speaker 6: more it elevates who government is and what they do.
• 34:59
  Speaker 7: And that's about what we're dealing with in America today.
• 35:01
  Speaker 6: And so our heart is not trying to re-Christianize America
• 35:04
  Speaker 6: and like, we're going to take all this back over.
• 35:05
  Speaker 7: No, it's recognizing the foundation. Freedom only works if you
• 35:08
  Speaker 7: have a moral foundation.
• 35:09
  Speaker 6: The founding fathers recognized, even the most secular ones, even
• 35:12
  Speaker 6: Jefferson and Franklin acknowledged the Bible is the basis of
• 35:16
  Speaker 6: morality in America.
• 35:17
  Speaker 7: And if you remove morality, freedom doesn't work. We're seeing
• 35:21
  Speaker 7: this in our nation today.
• 35:22
  Speaker 6: So our challenge is we want to restore a basic
• 35:25
  Speaker 6: moral structure because I ultimately want my daughters, I want
• 35:29
  Speaker 6: my kids, my grandkids one day to live in freedom.
• 35:32
  Speaker 6: But freedom only works if you have a moral foundation.
• 35:34
  Speaker 6: And the Marxists and communists and socialists are trying to
• 35:36
  Speaker 6: remove that moral foundation.
• 35:37
  Speaker 7: So you've got to run. You've got to go to
• 35:38
  Speaker 7: the stage.
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: But before you go, Tim Barton, tell me about the
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: two-part final question, which is, What do we do with
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: all this information?
• 35:46
  Speaker 7: Yeah. And how do we get involved with WallBuilders? So
• 35:49
  Speaker 7: WallBuilders.com is an easy place to go.
• 35:50
  Speaker 6: There's actually some action steps that people can go to
• 35:52
  Speaker 6: the website and things they can do. So whether it's
• 35:55
  Speaker 6: actually finding out who's on their school board or city council,
• 35:58
  Speaker 6: who their local state reps are. And honestly, a lot
• 36:01
  Speaker 6: of it comes back to helping educate people because a
• 36:04
  Speaker 6: lot of people in America are good-hearted with that information.
• 36:07
  Speaker 6: There are definitely some people we differentiate. You have the
• 36:10
  Speaker 6: intentional and you have the ignorant people. The ignorant can
• 36:12
  Speaker 6: be educated. The intentional, they don't care what's true. They're
• 36:15
  Speaker 6: promoting the ideology, usually the opposite direction the Marxist. So
• 36:18
  Speaker 6: I would say what you do with it, first of all,
• 36:20
  Speaker 6: is you work to educate your friends, but then you
• 36:21
  Speaker 6: get involved in the process. You get involved in the
• 36:24
  Speaker 6: educational process to make sure we know what our kids
• 36:26
  Speaker 6: are learning and maybe what they shouldn't be learning.
• 36:29
  Speaker 7: Again, wallbothers.com, there's lots of action steps. We're all over
• 36:32
  Speaker 7: social media.
• 36:32
  Speaker 6: People can follow us and learn more of the history
• 36:34
  Speaker 6: and stories. But I would say we need to come
• 36:36
  Speaker 6: to the place that we stop just trusting the experts,
• 36:39
  Speaker 6: and do a little research because you'll realize so much
• 36:41
  Speaker 6: of the narrative we've been told simply isn't true.
• 36:44
  Speaker 7: Wonderful.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: Really nice to meet you.
• 36:45
  Speaker 7: Fantastic stuff. Thank you. And I feel like we've got
• 36:47
  Speaker 7: to do a longer one. Do some more history lessons.
• 36:49
  Speaker 7: Would love to.
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: That'd be really cool. Thanks.
• 36:51
  Speaker 7: My pleasure.
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: Good luck up there.