Latest / Faith Radio On Demand / The WallBuilders Show - What Does Religious Liberty Mean If We Forget Its Roots
Transcript
- 0:07Rick Green: Welcome to the Intersector of Faith and Culture.
- 0:08Rick Green: It's the WallBuilder show, taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective.
- 0:13Rick Green: It's Thursday, Foundations of Freedom Thursday.
- 0:16Rick Green: You send in the questions radio at wallbuilders.com.
- 0:19Rick Green: That's radio at wall builders.com.
- 0:21Rick Green: Of course, David Barton, Tim Barton, myself, Rick Green.
- 0:24Rick Green: We're all three all over the country right now.
- 0:26Rick Green: Last week of the election, of course, most importantly, encouraging everybody to go vote.
- 0:30Rick Green: But we're also going to dive into your questions for today for Foundations of Freedom Thursday.
- 0:35Rick Green: And the first one's actually about one of our topics earlier in the week, or maybe it might have even been last week.
- 0:40Rick Green: And I love this.
- 0:41Rick Green: Al sends this in and says, I found this series earlier this year on Prime Video.
- 0:46Rick Green: Like Rick said today, I watched the first episode and half of the second episode before I came to the conclusion that Rick wrote in his email to his son.
- 0:54Rick Green: Of course, he's talking about the Sons of Liberty series.
- 0:57Rick Green: He said, Their worldview portrayed was negative about these brave men, and I stopped watching it.
- 1:02Rick Green: It reflected the worldview taught in our colleges, and I had no desire to quote drink the Draeno they were offering.
- 1:08Rick Green: So obviously, Al has been listening to our other programs where we said, just because you like don't like Diet Coke, thank you, uh Chad Connolly out there, don't drink the Draeno.
- 1:17Rick Green: Anyway, he said, in contrast, your book, Lies, Fortune, Sacred Honor, gives a complete picture of each of the signers.
- 1:23Rick Green: I've read the book twice, and I'm so inspired by the honest portrayal of each founding father.
- 1:28Rick Green: Listen every morning, and I'm encouraged by WallBuilders out.
- 1:30Rick Green: That's one of the best emails we've ever gotten.
- 1:33Rick Green: Clearly, you listen to the program every day because you referenced two different ones there.
- 1:37Rick Green: Uh, David Tim, great to have listeners like that, and great to have confirmation.
- 1:41Rick Green: And of course, Live Fortress Sacred Honor available right now at wallbuilders.com.
- 1:45Rick Green: And right now is a perfect time to go get a case of them and give them out as Christmas presents this year.
- 1:50Rick Green: So anyway, all right, guys.
- 1:52Rick Green: Well, I don't know.
- 1:53Rick Green: Y'all might want to comment on that before I dive into our first question.
- 1:55Rick Green: Go ahead.
- 1:56Tim Barton: Yeah, Rick, that is uh great that somebody uh is able to give us confirmation of what we suspected with Sons of Liberty, but also, man, what a review for Lives, Fortunes, and Sacred Honor.
- 2:07Tim Barton: Uh, super grateful that uh they enjoyed the book, and it is something that we really hoped and prayed people would be able to read through, learn the stories, and ultimately, just like we do with some of the heroes of the Bible, that we look back and celebrate how God used them, imperfect as they were and did great things through them.
- 2:28Tim Barton: We wanted to help people recognize that's that's very similar to what God did with the founding fathers of America, specifically the guys who signed the declaration.
- 2:36Tim Barton: Uh, and so it's a great group for people to know more about.
- 2:38Tim Barton: And I am I'm grateful that uh already twice he's been through it, checking it out.
- 2:42Tim Barton: So I appreciate the the response and love that people are learning the true story of the founding fathers.
- 2:49Rick Green: All right.
- 2:49Rick Green: Well, we'll get to uh some of our questions.
- 2:51Rick Green: And by the way, folks, just just uh we don't usually talk a lot about what's going on behind the scenes.
- 2:56Rick Green: I just want to give a shout out to the wall builder Show producer.
- 2:59Rick Green: Justin does an amazing job when we're in airports or cars or wherever we're coming from.
- 3:05Rick Green: He takes all of these crazy pieces and makes us sound at least halfway sane.
- 3:10Rick Green: I don't know about sane, guys.
- 3:11Rick Green: That may be the wrong word, but he makes it sound better.
- 3:14Rick Green: Let's put it that way.
- 3:15Rick Green: So, anyway, thanks to our producer Justin, uh, especially during this crazy travel schedule we've got right now.
- 3:20Rick Green: So, anyway, uh thanks to our um uh listeners for sending in the questions.
- 3:24Rick Green: If you want to send one, radio at wobblers.com is the place to go.
- 3:28Rick Green: Okay, next one is from Patricia.
- 3:31Rick Green: She said, as senators were originally chosen by their state legislatures to represent and protect the relative autonomy of their state, and the 17th Amendment has weakened that responsibility, wouldn't the desire of the Democratic Socialists to get rid of the Senate put a death knell in the relative autonomy of the state?
- 3:48Rick Green: That is, wouldn't their realized desire effectively erase state borders and distinctions, thereby making us one homogenous whole, and really create something like an Athenian democracy?
- 4:00Rick Green: Wow, great question here, guys.
- 4:03Rick Green: Great question.
- 4:04Rick Green: What do you think uh gets accomplished if the Democrats, Democrats, Socialists of America get their way?
- 4:10SPEAKER_00: They said what they want to accomplish in their platform this year.
- 4:13SPEAKER_00: They got together, they passed their platform, and they've now got candidates running everything from Congress endorsed candidates all the way down to local candidates, and they said, well, the Constitution has to go and the Senate has to go.
- 4:25SPEAKER_00: And so at that point, saying the Constitution has to go, now you've gotten rid of federalism.
- 4:30SPEAKER_00: And federalism is the distinction between the state, the federal, the local, and the individual forms of government or levels of government.
- 4:38SPEAKER_00: So already the Constitution, if you can take it out, you've lost that.
- 4:42SPEAKER_00: But the Senate is one of the expressions of that separation of powers or levels of federalism that exist.
- 4:48SPEAKER_00: And so they they want nothing but a pure democracy.
- 4:52SPEAKER_00: And that's what founding fathers like Benjamin Rush and John Adams called a mob acracy.
- 4:57SPEAKER_00: There has been no pure democracy in the world that exists.
- 5:01SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, I just got through writing some uh research stuff on the seven major forms of government.
- 5:07SPEAKER_00: And currently, at this point in world history, there is not a pure democracy anywhere in the world because they can't exist very long.
- 5:14SPEAKER_00: There are some forms of pure democracy in areas of Sudan, in areas of Etrea, some some nations that are in complete turmoil and have no stability.
- 5:25SPEAKER_00: There are a few local areas that have pure democracy, but they never last long.
- 5:31SPEAKER_00: So the desire for these Democrat socialists, and see this is the issue with them, either they don't know history or they believe that they can change history at their own will.
- 5:40SPEAKER_00: Because there's nothing in history that supports what they want to do as being able to continue a nation.
- 5:47SPEAKER_00: It always ends in disaster.
- 5:48SPEAKER_00: It always ends in disaster, regardless of the era, regardless of the of the country.
- 5:53SPEAKER_00: And so either they they want that and they want the turmoil, or they're just absolute idiots believing history has nothing to teach them and that they can change history at will.
- 6:02SPEAKER_00: So it's really crazy, but her question is spot on.
- 6:05SPEAKER_00: But yes, this is what they've already said they want to do.
- 6:08SPEAKER_00: Um and she's understanding exactly what the consequences of their declaration would be.
- 6:14Rick Green: Yeah, and Tim, I mean, you know, this is one of those things at Patriot Academy that we always ask the kids, right, if you could recreate the world, what would it look like?
- 6:21Rick Green: And would you want uh pure democracy or would you want to have, you know, federalism and let each state decide how they want to govern themselves, that sort of thing.
- 6:29Rick Green: So you really have to get people to think through the unintended consequences.
- 6:33Rick Green: And of course, we've we've all we've all complained a lot about the 17th Amendment, 16th Amendment, Federal Reserve, all the stuff they did in 1913 that really moved us down that road towards pure democracy and away from being a much better constitutional republic.
- 6:46Rick Green: Uh, but that's why we educate people, right?
- 6:47Rick Green: Tell me that's why we need to teach them these things so that they can recognize how dangerous these bad ideas are.
- 6:52Tim Barton: Yeah, there's no doubt.
- 6:53Tim Barton: When when you have a generation that has been fed platitudes, that's been fed slogans, that's been told that socialism is good, and they're not taught history, Dad, to your point.
- 7:04Tim Barton: That they they don't study and know this, that they're not doing actual critical analysis of what nations have done.
- 7:11Tim Barton: And then to compound it further, when when these young people have grown up in a society and generation where everybody gets trophies, they they learn everybody's a winner, and so we're gonna win no matter what.
- 7:23Tim Barton: Let's just do something that we like, don't worry about the consequence, don't don't think about cause and effect because that doesn't really apply.
- 7:30Tim Barton: We all get trophies no matter what.
- 7:32Tim Barton: I think there's a lot of uh of contributing factors to this.
- 7:35Tim Barton: Certainly, academia has promoted these ideas, but yeah, I'm looking at the DSA uh platform right now, and they literally call for drafting a new Constitution.
- 7:45Tim Barton: And in the new Constitution, it's the working class democracy.
- 7:49Tim Barton: That's where they lay out in this new Constitution, there would be no Senate, there's no electoral college.
- 7:53Tim Barton: They replace the president of the Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to the Congress, et cetera, et cetera.
- 8:00Tim Barton: Uh, it really is that foolish that they are embracing the things that ultimately have never benefited any nation financially, uh, as far as having more financial prosperity that's never benefited nations by giving more uh individual liberties and freedoms to the citizens.
- 8:18Tim Barton: And yet, again, because most students are taught to memorize and repeat, most students are given trophies and awards, regardless of what place they came in.
- 8:28Tim Barton: I I think this is the exact intended consequence of what Marxists have been hoping for when they have started controlling education.
- 8:37Tim Barton: So, this is Rick, to your point, exactly why we have to engage the rising generation, having honest conversations, helping teach and instruct them, asking good questions to challenge them to think through is their position sustainable?
- 8:51Tim Barton: Is it worth supporting?
- 8:52Tim Barton: What will it ultimately produce?
- 8:54Tim Barton: And it's one thing to tell people they're dumb for believing something that is, in fact, dumb.
- 8:58Tim Barton: It's an entirely different and more winning strategy to ask them questions and help them discover that truth for themselves.
- 9:04Tim Barton: And that's exactly what we do with the students.
- 9:06Tim Barton: Just ask them questions.
- 9:08Tim Barton: And once they realize how broken the system is, we don't have to convince them to not support it.
- 9:13Tim Barton: They never want to support it because they know how broken it is and that it never works, regardless of what the platitude is.
- 9:18Tim Barton: So that's exactly why we have to engage the rising generation and have honest conversations and ask good questions to help them discover what is fundamentally true.
- 9:29Rick Green: I was just I was just watching a video today on social media, and the guy was saying, okay, what do you do when you're dealing with someone that has a dumb position?
- 9:38Rick Green: Well, you don't tell them it's a dumb position.
- 9:40Rick Green: You ask them, you know, how did you come to that conclusion and how did this logic get you to that conclusion?
- 9:44Rick Green: The whole video I'm thinking, Tim Barton's been saying this at Patriot Academy for at least 10 years.
- 9:49Rick Green: Exactly those same questions to ask people.
- 9:52Rick Green: And uh so true, man, so true.
- 9:54Rick Green: And others actually they need to be doing that as well with their kids when they come home with crazy ideas from from these uh indoctrination camps we know as college campuses and and the like.
- 10:02Rick Green: So, all right, well, let's uh let's take a quick break.
- 10:04Rick Green: We've got more questions coming from the audience when we return.
- 10:07Rick Green: You're listening to the WallBuilder show.
- 10:12Tim Barton: Hey guys, this is Tim Barton from WallBuilders.
- 10:14Tim Barton: I want to let you know about a special landing page we have on the WallBuilders website.
- 10:18Tim Barton: If you go to wallbuilders.com, there is a little box that says WallBuilders is celebrating 250 years of American freedom and independence.
- 10:25Tim Barton: Click on that little box and it will take you to the landing page for 250 years of America.
- 10:32Tim Barton: And on the landing page, there are several different little boxes you can click on.
- 10:36Tim Barton: One of them is for events, it will let you know of some major events that are that are coming up, that are going on, that you can actually come and participate in.
- 10:42Tim Barton: You can come here, my Dad or I give speeches telling the stories about the birth of the nation, about the founding fathers, the faith connection in America.
- 10:49Tim Barton: There's also a tab for resources that you can click on, and it will take you to lots of different speeches and sermons and documents and proclamations from the founding era.
- 10:58Tim Barton: And then there's also a little tab that will take you to the wall builder store with lots of resources, all the things that maybe a hat you want to wear, a shirt to wear, or other wall builders products to read.
- 11:08Tim Barton: This is the place to go to celebrate 250 years.
- 11:15Rick Green: Welcome back to the WallBuilder show.
- 11:17Rick Green: Thanks for staying with us on this Foundations of Freedom Thursday.
- 11:19Rick Green: Next question up on our Foundations of Freedom Thursdays from Alex.
- 11:22Rick Green: He said I was at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., at one of their permanent installations at the beginning of what they have on the second floor, impact of the Bible.
- 11:31Rick Green: I had an opportunity to more than casually read the descriptions and information relative to each item on display.
- 11:37Rick Green: I was so moved by the richness of the Christian culture of the day back during pre-colonial and colonial times.
- 11:43Rick Green: As a result, I'm inclined to think that when the term, quote, religion was used, it referred to the denomination of Christianity.
- 11:51Rick Green: Today we think in terms of Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, am I correct?
- 11:56Rick Green: So one thing that really caught my attention was reference to the time when after Maryland was established as a state for Catholics to settle, that some Protestant religious endeavors were targeted and actually took over the state.
- 12:07Rick Green: I was wanting to know how Maryland was taken over by Protestants.
- 12:11Rick Green: Not that I have plans to take over by Neck of the Woods, as it is very Catholic-centric.
- 12:16Rick Green: Thank you.
- 12:16Rick Green: I uh I loved going through your museum in Alito a year ago.
- 12:20Rick Green: I got to hold and practice using a real colonial era firearm.
- 12:24Rick Green: Alex, well, first of all, thank you for visiting our museum in Alito.
- 12:28Rick Green: Thank you for even uh sending in this question.
- 12:30Rick Green: Two parts to this, guys, I think.
- 12:32Rick Green: Number one, was the term religion in the First Amendment and even just in the vernacular of the Founding Era generally referring mostly to Christianity, or were they thinking all religions on equal footing?
- 12:44Rick Green: And then secondly, uh I uh what was the kind of turning point for Maryland turning Protestant from originally being Catholic?
- 12:52SPEAKER_00: There's no question that when you read it in the Founding Era documents, religion means denomination of Christianity.
- 12:59SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean a religion outside of Christianity.
- 13:02SPEAKER_00: When they talk about that, they call it by name.
- 13:05SPEAKER_00: Uh they will call the what they call the Hindus or the the Muslim, the Islam, they call it by name.
- 13:11SPEAKER_00: When when they talk about religion, it's are you of the congregational religion or are you of the Baptist religion?
- 13:18SPEAKER_00: Are you an of the Anglican religion?
- 13:21SPEAKER_00: Religion was denomination.
- 13:23SPEAKER_00: The one religion was Christianity.
- 13:26SPEAKER_00: And anything outside of that, they called it and identified it by name.
- 13:29SPEAKER_00: So as you go through their writings and as you read what they they wrote when they were talking about religion of the First Amendment, and you read the state ratification debates when it went to the 13 states to ratify the Bill of Rights, there is no question that the term religion in the First Amendment, the term religion in the Constitution, like there shall be no religious test, that meant you can't require everybody to be an Anglican or a Catholic or a Baptist or a Presbyterian or whatever.
- 13:56SPEAKER_00: There's no question that in their writings and in all the debates around the Constitution and its ratification, religion meant which denomination of Christianity are you.
- 14:05SPEAKER_00: If they got into the more global religions, they called them and identified them by name, as Thomas Jefferson did when he wrote his 1777 Statute for Religious Freedom in Virginia.
- 14:16SPEAKER_00: He called the other religions specifically by name, and religion in general is Christianity.
- 14:22Tim Barton: Yeah, and Dad, uh following up, uh recognizing certainly the, as you're pointing out, the ideas of religion were most intimately in the American colonies tied to what we would know as denominations.
- 14:35Tim Barton: That's very easy to Show, as again, you're pointing out.
- 14:37Tim Barton: But then the second part of the question, which I I also appreciate the caveat, uh, that you know, this is not trying to get information of how to overthrow the Catholics in the region, but looking at Maryland, uh, how did how did Maryland go from Catholic to Protestant?
- 14:52Tim Barton: And I really appreciate the caveat that, hey, I'm not trying to get information of how do we overthrow the Catholics.
- 14:58Tim Barton: That's great.
- 14:58Tim Barton: Uh, but the reality is Maryland was uh initially founded as a Catholic nation or colony, uh, because England had gone back to Catholicism uh kind of in this time frame.
- 15:10Tim Barton: Uh, you go from King Henry VIII is the one that introduces the Anglican religion really to the world, but then that becomes the the the official uh Church of England is Anglican.
- 15:20Tim Barton: But England goes back and forth uh under some different kings and queens between the Protestant religion and Catholicism, and it goes back and forth a little bit, and it was actually during one of these transitions over in England.
- 15:32Tim Barton: Uh, there was a revolution, and in Maryland, it kind of followed suit.
- 15:37Tim Barton: Now, Maryland did not exclude Protestants from living in Maryland, so there was a growing Protestant population in Maryland, and then I think it was uh I'm looking on my computer, it says it was a Protestant revolution of 1689 called Cood's Rebellion.
- 15:52Tim Barton: It sparked the glorious revolution in England that deposed the Catholic King James II, etc.
- 15:58Tim Barton: You can look up more of this and see the connection, but it was in that time frame when they and Maryland said, you know what?
- 16:05Tim Barton: In England, they're going back Protestant, we're gonna be Protestant in Maryland as well.
- 16:08Tim Barton: And there was a large Protestant population already there.
- 16:12Tim Barton: Uh, and so they were able to kind of make that transition in Maryland, but it was following some of the tensions and the transition back and forth in England from going Catholic, Protestant, back and forth.
- 16:25Tim Barton: So that that that's a little bit of the background, mostly uh interestingly, maybe some parallels today, uh, where there was uh a growing migration of people into a Catholic colony that did not fully assimilate into Catholicism.
- 16:42Tim Barton: And over time their population grew enough that they were able to encourage the shift to Protestantism.
- 16:50Tim Barton: Now I say interesting connection because uh this is actually what Muslims have done in nations for literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years.
- 16:58Tim Barton: Uh, apparently the Protestants tried that and it worked for them in Maryland as well, where they they moved in as a minority, they lived there, uh, they were part of the system, and when they grew their population, eventually they were like, hey, we're gonna take over now.
- 17:11Tim Barton: Uh and that's kind of what happened to Maryland.
- 17:13Tim Barton: Dad, I know there's more nuance and detail.
- 17:15Tim Barton: Is there anything else you want to add on that?
- 17:16SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what I would add to it, and Tim, you're exactly right, is founded as a Catholic colony, but there were more Protestants that arrived in the colony than Catholics.
- 17:24SPEAKER_00: Very early on, some Catholics arrived.
- 17:26SPEAKER_00: Uh, Cecil Lord Calvert, the Lord Baltimore, they they were bringing Catholics because they were being persecuted all across Europe.
- 17:33SPEAKER_00: So it never really took off as a Catholic colony, and so many people came in Protestants and they changed it to a Protestant colony.
- 17:41SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting that the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence was Charles Carroll, and he lived in Maryland.
- 17:49SPEAKER_00: And he worked very diligently to keep religious liberty in Maryland because many of the Protestants wanted to eliminate Catholics from being protected in Maryland.
- 17:59SPEAKER_00: And so it's interesting that he and another signer of the Declaration, Samuel Chase, also from Maryland, they kind of went back and forth at each other between Protestant and Catholic, whether each should be protected.
- 18:09Tim Barton: Well, and Dad, to this point, if if people want to go back and read some of the early colonial charters and really more specifically, uh skip past charters.
- 18:17Tim Barton: When the founding fathers separate from Great Britain and they write their early state constitutions, those are the ones to go read.
- 18:22Tim Barton: If you go read the early state constitutions, we've talked about this before, how virtually every state Constitution, actually everyone has religious acknowledgement, but uh the majority of them, I think it was maybe 11 that had some level of religious requirements, but I think it was nine of them that actually have explicitly, you must be a Protestant, um, oftentimes even a Trinitarian.
- 18:44Tim Barton: And there was a couple of them where they said, and we're not gonna let Catholics run for office here in our state.
- 18:50Tim Barton: So literally, there were there were specific portions of state constitutions that exempted the potential for Catholics to run for office, and that is literally some of the friction that was going on in America, which also then makes it a big deal, Dad.
- 19:05Tim Barton: When we look back at Charles Carroll of Carrollton and recognize that he was willing to align himself with people that many of them were very anti-Catholic.
- 19:16Tim Barton: And by the way, as we're saying this, we could say the same things about some of the congregationalists being very anti-Anglican or the Anglicans being very anti-Baptist.
- 19:25Tim Barton: This was not exclusively Protestant versus Catholic.
- 19:28Tim Barton: There was a lot of tension between a lot of different Christian denominations as we know them today at that time.
- 19:35Tim Barton: But it is worth pointing out that there literally were colonies that said, we will not allow a Catholic to hold office here.
- 19:41Tim Barton: And I'm saying that to highlight what you're talking about.
- 19:44Tim Barton: Some of the tension that was there uh was a very real and serious thing in early America.
- 19:51Tim Barton: But the fact that you have guys like Charles Carroll Carrollton, who is working for religious liberty in Maryland, uh navigating that transition with all that's going on with a Catholic foundation and now being Protestant, a lot of stuff there.
- 20:04Tim Barton: But certainly he is one of the noted founding fathers who actually lived to be the last surviving signer.
- 20:10Tim Barton: If you want to know more, then get the book Lives, Fortune, Sacred Honors, and find out more about him.
- 20:15Tim Barton: He really was remarkable for lots of reasons.
- 20:17Tim Barton: We have a handwritten letter from him where he was writing a family member.
- 20:20Tim Barton: They were asking, now that he's lived a really long time, I think he was maybe 89, 90, 91 years old when they uh wrote this letter to him.
- 20:28Tim Barton: And he wrote that the letter we have as his response back.
- 20:31Tim Barton: The family member was asking him if he was prepared to stand before God in judgment.
- 20:36Tim Barton: Are you ready to meet God when you die?
- 20:37Tim Barton: And he wrote a letter back.
- 20:39Tim Barton: And in part of the letter, he says, On the mercy of my redeemer, I rely for salvation, and on his works, not on the things I've done in obedience to his precepts, uh, which is very similar to Ephesians 2.8.9.
- 20:51Tim Barton: Anyway, there's several really great quotes uh and and details we have from him in the book Lives, Fortunes, and Sacred Honor.
- 20:58Tim Barton: So he's one of many of the guys that signed the declaration that today have largely been forgotten, but should be remembered and honored for their contribution.
- 21:07Tim Barton: And he was a really cool guy.
- 21:09SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Tim, you're right.
- 21:10SPEAKER_00: He's a great guy and is so spot on that even the Protestants didn't get along with each other.
- 21:16SPEAKER_00: But there's an element of this that I think is really important to understand historically that we really don't cover much today like they covered it back then, and that is the political ramifications of Catholics versus Protestants overall.
- 21:31SPEAKER_00: Because if you go back to English history, you know, there were there were Catholic kings, there were Protestant kings, but w what the founding fathers or what the early American colonists, I can't say founding fathers, what the early American colonists pointed to was what was called the Glorious Revolution.
- 21:46SPEAKER_00: And that was William and Mary, when they came to the throne and they moved Cat they they moved England away from Catholicism and they restored a republican form of government in the sense that England got to elect leaders and other things.
- 22:00SPEAKER_00: And so what happened was over the time, what you have is Catholic viewpoints politically would often lead you to have like a pope politically, one person in charge, like a king or queen.
- 22:12SPEAKER_00: Whereas the Protestant viewpoint is no, no, no, you get to choose your own leaders and and it's uh I mean it's kinda like the difference even with Baptists today.
- 22:21SPEAKER_00: Baptists, if there's 40,000 Baptist churches, there's 40,000 Baptist viewpoints on what Baptists should do.
- 22:26SPEAKER_00: They don't they they could never have a Pope because of the individualism, and that's where a lot of the colonies were, and that's why there was conflict over Protestant versus Catholic, was the political ramifications of how that Catholics often would have a centralized form of government, whether it was in the church or in the nation.
- 22:46SPEAKER_00: And Protestants often had a much more uh decentralized form of government where the people had much greater role in the government, and that's also part of what goes on.
- 22:56SPEAKER_00: So it's it's not like religious hatred per se, although there was, but it was the political consequences that they looked at, and they didn't like the political consequences, and that's part of what the controversy was.
- 23:17Rick Green: They're almost for having a dictator at this point, as long as it's a Christian, in order to bring order.
- 23:22Rick Green: I've been listening to some of Jeremy Boring's podcasts on this and the guests that he's had to, you know, fight back against this and push against this.
- 23:28Rick Green: But I wonder, David, if that's not, you know, part of that um, you know, different view of the best way to organize.
- 23:36SPEAKER_00: Well, there's no question that when you have a single leader, if that single leader can be good, they can they can solve a lot of problems.
- 23:42SPEAKER_00: They they can say, hey, we're doing it this way, I'm the ruler, this is my opinion, this is what we're gonna do.
- 23:48SPEAKER_00: And there were kings even in Israel that like King David that would do that.
- 23:52SPEAKER_00: But you had other kings that didn't have that motivation, and and sometimes having a good prince, and and there's some early books in the 1680s and 1670s on on having a good prince, a Christian prince, but it's just hard to keep that form of government to maintain freedom when you give that much power to individuals.
- 24:12SPEAKER_00: And and those who want a Christian kind of prince may think that's an easy fix, but it's hard to get power back after you've given it to an individual.
- 24:19SPEAKER_00: And that's what history clearly teaches.
- 24:21Tim Barton: Well, and this is why, guys, too, that even during the revolution, I'm looking now, uh, there were slogans like no king, no pope, uh, no king or no popery was slogans because they identified oftentimes the the Catholics, the kings, and the pope being synonymous.
- 24:37Tim Barton: Uh, even Thomas Paine's uh pamphlet, 1776 Common Sense, this is a quote from it for monarchy in every instance is the popery of government, not like the popery smell good, but like the Pope, the popery of government.
- 24:50Tim Barton: So even Thomas Paine identified this was something that they wanted to get away from.
- 24:54Tim Barton: Not a singular head that they had to subject themselves to, but the opportunity to have freedom of choice and elections.
- 25:02Rick Green: All right, guys, we got uh we got time for one more.
- 25:04Rick Green: Um, this one actually just to read, because I think it's interesting.
- 25:07Rick Green: This is Lori.
- 25:08Rick Green: She said, first, continued thanks for all that's all calf, guys, you do to help save America and to inspire me to keep on trying as well.
- 25:16Rick Green: Even when it's sad news on the broadcast, they are all good news to me to hear people working hard to right America and protect future generations.
- 25:23Rick Green: My fun question today is for baseball enthusiast Rick, so Texas once again reigns supreme as banana ball champions.
- 25:30Rick Green: Okay, so the Texas Rangers didn't win, but the banana ball champions are the Texas Tailgators who won the title this year.
- 25:36Rick Green: And she asked, Have you heard of them?
- 25:37Rick Green: Can you accept them?
- 25:39Rick Green: They are quite talented, both baseball-wise and entertainment-wise.
- 25:43Rick Green: Many love Jesus, prominently display crosses, etc., on themselves, and they host worship services before many of their games.
- 25:48Rick Green: They are fan forward, as they say.
- 25:51Rick Green: But I was just wondering if Rick would want to recognize them, how he feels about how they have changed the game of baseball.
- 25:56Rick Green: God bless you all.
- 25:57Rick Green: Try to get some rest between all your visits, and I get to see David next week in Harrisburg, and I'm excited.
- 26:01Rick Green: Lori, thank you for sending that in.
- 26:03Rick Green: Yes, yes.
- 26:04Rick Green: In fact, um, my uh my wife took some of the grandkids and they went to a banana ball game.
- 26:08Rick Green: Uh, one of the kids I coached for a little while, or that one of my boys played with, I didn't get to coach a lot on that team, but um, he's actually the uh the ninja umpire that you see out there at uh uh on the field.
- 26:19Rick Green: I love it.
- 26:19Rick Green: I I think it's great.
- 26:20Rick Green: I think it's good for baseball.
- 26:21Rick Green: I think it's great for the fans, it's fun.
- 26:24Rick Green: Um, and yes, congrats to the Texas Tailgators.
- 26:27Rick Green: It's not not not the same as the Rangers winning the World Series, but it's kind of cool.
- 26:31Rick Green: So, yes, very, very entertaining.
- 26:33Rick Green: Out of time for questions today, folks.
- 26:34Rick Green: We've got more in the queue.
- 26:35Rick Green: We'll get to them next Thursday on Foundations of Freedom Thursday.
- 26:38Rick Green: Don't miss tomorrow.
- 26:39Rick Green: Good news Friday, gonna be bringing you some good news.
- 26:42Rick Green: You don't want to miss it.
- 26:42Rick Green: Thanks for listening to the Wild Lover show.