Child
President, Thomas Jefferson said I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves. And if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.
Rick Green
You can learn more at wallbuilders.com. We may no longer be a reproach. That scripture out of Nehemiah that reminds us the foundations, the walls, the principles of a nation must be defended, protected, literally restored in our case, since the foundations are crumbling and, as we know, listen. If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? Well, right now the righteous can be more engaged, and that's what we're challenging people to do. But it's Foundations of Freedom Thursday. So we're going to talk about whatever you, the audience, want to talk about, and we'll pick out some of those questions that you're sending in and again radio at wallbuilders.com to get your question in. All right, guys, time to dive into those questions.
First question is going to come from Thomas. He said hello, everyone at WallBuilders, thank you for everything you do, from the extensive research into the lives and work of America's founders to approaching current day issues from a biblical, Christian and constitutional perspective, and so much more. My question for you involves our nation's indoctrination prisons overseen by Big Brother himself. Uh, I mean the American public school system, he says. I think it is becoming a thing of less and less controversy to state that the agenda behind state-run schools is to put it at its core to create enemies of Christ.
As a Christian, it is my duty to be salt and light in this dark world, and part of that calling, I believe, is not only to be a seeker of peace, but also to actively oppose evil. I know without a doubt that if it is God's will to remove this monstrosity of a so-called education from our land, then it will happen. And if such an eradication should occur, who then, but God's people should be driving the driving force against this evil? So the question arises what can be done about it and what act, whether great or small, can I take part in? Thanks again and God bless, Thomas. Thanks for your question. All right guys, clearly just saying listen, our education system is not just failing at educating kids, it's actually doing the opposite. It's an indoctrination camp where they're teaching them evil. What can we do to turn that around?
David Baron
You know I'm gonna hit the latter part of Thomas' question first, because I wanna rephrase it just a little bit. I think this is exactly what he meant, but I wanna say it differently. He says I know that if this is what the Lord wants to happen, it will happen. And I don't think that's a guarantee. I don't think just because the Lord wants something to happen it's going to happen. We know in the scriptures He says he wants all men to come to a knowledge of the truth, to have a relationship with Him. That doesn't happen. How come that doesn't happen? Because his people don't always do what they need to do, and so I think it will happen If God's people do what they're supposed to do. It’s His will that should happen. But I think he leaves a lot of that up to us.
Tim Barton
Well, I think this would be a challenge for all of the Calvinist listeners. What you are saying right now, right, but I mean to your point right. Did God want Adam and Eve to eat of the tree he told them not to eat of? Or did he allow them the opportunity to choose and not to get too far into the Armenian Calvinism theological perspective, but the reality is, you do see in scripture times that God seems to indicate that this is what He wants, but he's allowed people to choose.
And really when you read the prophets, there's so many places in scripture where it talks about that. God wanted something for them and they chose something lesser. And so, to that end, I think it's clear that God wants all of us to know Him, to love Him, to serve Him, to serve and love other people around us. But God certainly lets us make decisions. So not to derail far off of where we're going and not really not to make this a theological conversation or debate more than it should. But, Dad, I do think there are examples in scripture that kind of affirm, the thought you're leaning into.
David Barton
Yeah, and I think that's really I don't think Thomas was trying not to say that, but I say that to set up the conversation that if this is gonna get done in America, it's gonna get done because God's people decide to get engaged in this area.
He's given us this country. He says you take care of it until you get back, occupy until I come, Luke 19:13. This is a stewardship government, it's a stewardship nation. It's up to we, the people, and I think it can turn around. And I think it is beginning to turn around, as we're seeing, with local races all over the nation, for school board, and you know, Moms for American, Moms for Library, all these groups popping up that really focus on this. So I think it is starting to happen. And just to go back to history again, this could be a revival. But remember, in history revivals are transgenerational. They take more than one generation to happen with folks like, as you look at Woodfield, that's two to three generations, same with the Second Great Awakening. So I say that because we're seeing action of people rise. Now what do we do with schools?
I have to confess that in the last six to eight months I've had an epiphany on something, a position I've held for better than three decades and that is, I've always said, my number one issue when I go to vote for someone is kind of tied, it's judges Isaiah 1:26, and it's also the life issue that God gives life, but judges are the ones that interfere with that more than any other group. So if I don't get the right kind of judges I can't have pro-life policy. But I've always said and I've proved it, I've been able to statistically prove this If you tell me where someone is on the life issue with a 90% degree of certainty, I will tell you where they are on economic issues or regulatory issues, or military issues, whatever else. There are very few exceptions to that. But I have now moved away from that. I don't think that pro-life is the issue anymore.
I think that education is the issue, and particularly competition in education, which we can call that School Choice. If we do not break up that system, there is indoctrinating kids to be pro-abortion, indoctrinating our kids to be pro-trends, gender, indoctrinating our kids to be pro-everything God's, against all the traditional religion and morality that Washington talked about in his Farewell Address, that we've emphasized for every generation except this generation if we don't stop that indoctrination system and I do not call it an education system anymore because we see statistically our kids regularly in academics fall below third nation levels. I mean, in competitions internationally we're coming in at the bottom of all these third world nations. So we're not even teaching, we're indoctrinating. And unless you get competition, I don't think you can break that system. Now we're seeing states like Texas.
This is a big battle for us right now and we've got all these Christians and conservatives and rural people saying no, we don't want school choice, we have choice. You have strings attached. Are you gonna tell me there's more strings attached to school choice than there is having the education system we've got now? No way, there's more strings attached to that than anything else. And if you don't allow competition you'll never get a better product. And that doesn't matter whether you look at Russia or Cuba or China, anything else. Without competition you don't get better products and you gotta have competition.
And, by the way, we believe in competition, even with Christianity. All the denominations and sects that are out there great, go for it. Iron sharpens iron. They all help each other to some degree. We like competition and the choice of cars we have and in the restaurants we eat, at, the clothing we choose. Why would we not want competition and education to allow a better system to compete? Because if you allow them to compete, our side will win. The government system will fall. It's not the best system by far.
Rick Green
Well, for the first time ever, I was ahead of David Barton, like I will come to an epiphany so often and go. David had this epiphany 20 years ago. He figured this out five years ago. He said this in a record I was pushing for school choice as my number one issue and my number one factor, even when I ran for the state legislature 25 years ago. So everything you just said, man, I totally agree with that, and not that I wasn't pro-life, but you know what I'm saying. I mean, it was like the indicator if you're supporting the system and not allowing people to compete, you're supporting the very place where most of these kids are learning to be socialists and tearing down the whole country. So I couldn't agree with you more, man. I think that's a great, great point,
David Barton
And you know we talked about this but we didn't kind of give a solution.
So the solution is if you want this country turned around, get involved in school choice. Get involved locally. Go to your schools and see what they're doing. And, man, if you're one of the 32 states that have some degree of school choice, start using that, start encouraging it. If you don't use the tools that we have in our toolbox, you can't get the car fixed. You can't get anything else fixed. So we have got to get involved. Get involved in local schools, make that competition happen.
Tim Barton
And really too, guys, this is about academic freedom, because as much as we are saying school choice, yes, we want kids to have a choice, but it's really recognizing that parents are the ones that are supposed to be over the kids. Even says and so anytime.
For example, go back to Virginia 2021, Governor Youngton is now the governor Republican governor of Virginia but when he was running against the Democrat governor at the time and the Democrat governor said we don't believe that parents should have any say in their kids' education, and that, just you know, woke a lot of people up.
This is where a lot of people's position is and, unfortunately, as we see the embrace of secularism, Marxism, socialism in public schools, there's a lot of that that's infiltrated into Christian schools as well. We also have to be careful not to think that, well, if we get our kids out of public school, then wherever we put them is going to be great. That's not necessarily the case, unfortunately, because a lot of this bad ideology has infiltrated into other areas as well, which is why, as challenging as it can be for some people, this is why homeschooling could be one of the best, if not the best, option out there, where parents are the ones who are once again in direct responsibility, overseeing their kids. Helping navigate that and so much of what happens in education is not helping develop the entire person and not giving some of the basic skills that we would want kids to be able to have to thrive and function well in society. So even finding some alternative areas of education can be very helpful, but going back to empowering parents should be the number one issue.
David Barton
And I'm going to add to it that if you're a public school teacher you often want competition, so often public school teachers say we don't want school choice.
Look, if you're a good teacher, you can get hired by a better system than what you've got right now. Why are you trying to-? Unless you're a mediocre teacher, you ought to want school choice, so you have a better hiring opportunity than what you've got now. And, by the way, I'm just going to say it out loud If you're opposed to school choice, you are supporting socialism, and that's just you. I'm not socialist. No, if you're not supporting choices and competition, you're supporting government run entities where you only have that one option. And if that's what you're supporting, that is the definition of socialism. You may think you're a Conservative and you're free market or whatever. If you're not supporting competition, you're supporting socialism. And so if you're a school teacher, don't get defensive over us pushing school choice. Man, you want the best education possible and if you're a good teacher, you can get hired by a better system than what you're working in right now.
David Barton
And I would also say that, right, there are a lot of really good teachers in the public school that's right, and a lot of them recognize the brokenness of the public school system. But also a lot of teachers they've never taken time to go back and study the educational structure and what it used to be like, and they haven't taken time to see when progressives took over and they wanted to change the emphasis and the outcome of education. They wanted to produce better workers for the factory and not produce independent thinkers and not produce people that were high function in critical thinking, problem solving that used to be part of the focus was we were teaching kids how to fish, how to become learners, how to become these incredible problem solvers, and that shifted in education. There's a lot of really good art of teachers that know something is wrong, but they don't always know what it is, and therefore some of the things that they embrace as solutions aren't going to be as effective as they might think they would be. It's cause they don't know, and so we would wanna say this and as much love and grace as possible there are so many good people that are part of a very broken system, and some of them know it's broken, some of them don't, and some of the ones that know it's broken don't even know how or why and not knowing what to do to fix it. And this is part of where a lot of what we do at WallBuilders even going back to teach you on education. We've got resources that highlight some of this education to try to reeducate people in that area.
And so you know, dad, you're saying if you're a public school teacher, don't be offended by competition. Well, certainly, anytime someone feels challenged, it's easy to get insecure, it's easy to get defensive. But the reality also is, if you are good at your job, then you would want to be rewarded for being good, and that's what competition does. The better of a job you do, the more potential rewards you receive in a free market system. And then the people in socialism, or sometimes these unions people get rewarded who are not doing a good job, who are not responsible, who are not doing the things they should be doing, and the good teachers also recognize that.
And in a free market you don't get rewarded for doing a bad job. You don't get rewarded in the same way you would in socialism. So the free market is far superior in a lot of ways and ultimately again, that the idea of school choice. It should come back to empowering the parents and putting authority back in the parents' hands, allowing them to put the kids in the place that they believe is the best suited for their kid and have to public school, that's the parents' choice. If it's a Christian school, it should be the parents' choice and if it's homeschooling, again it should be the parents' choice. But when you have people that do not want to empower parents or don't want to give parents options, that is a very negative thing.
Rick Green
Yeah, and I want to be just as blunt as you guys have been. You know to our friends out there that they say they don't want school choice. You know, for whatever reason, they're afraid of the freedom for parents to choose, and I think they're literally preventing parents from redirecting some of those dollars that are going to leftist educators, and they're kind of like Wallace standing in the door of the schoolhouse. But it's the opposite. They're standing in the door keeping them in rather than preventing students from being able to come in, and they're almost like do-gooders. You know where they want to control what you eat or drink. They're literally deciding what choices a parent will have. I mean, it'd be kind of like you know they want you to give you give your money to them at the door of the restaurant and they get to pick your menu and pick what you get to order.
It's just I just I think it's so anti-freedom and it's just selfish. Frankly, in my opinion, when you're trying to, you're trying to control other people's decisions, but not you don't have to participate. Listen for those people that are afraid of school choice. They're afraid it's going to come with government strings- don't take the money but to tell others that they can't participate in competition or to prevent the system from being improved through competition. Wow man, you're just a control freak. I'm sorry.
David Barton
And Rick, I've got to expand a little bit on your statement. Wallace, standing at the door of the schoolhouse for folks who don't, know.
George Wallace. That was part of the desegregation that happened when 1954, the Supreme Court ordered the desegregation of schools. No, separate, but equal. We're all equal under the law and you can have schools together. It was a lot of the Democrats, southern governors like George Wallace and like Falbus and Arkansas and others, that stood in the door and said no, no, no, we're not letting you come in here. Now it's interesting that here we are, 60 years later and they're saying no, no, no, we're not letting you get out of there. It's so crazy to see those Democrats on that side. Both times they were wrong on segregation issues and equality issues. Now they're wrong on competition issues, and so that's been led by Democrat legislators across those years. But that's your reference to Wallace standing at the door of the schoolhouse. He would not let people, he would not let blacks come into the schools. Even after the court said hey, we're not doing separate, but equal, we're doing, we're doing everybody's equal under the law.
Rick Green
There you go, folks. Don't be George Wallace. Be for freedom. All right, let's take a quick break, we'll be right back. Stay with us, folks. You're listening to the WallBuilders Show. It's Foundations of Freedom Thursday
Tim Barton
Hey guys, it's Tim Barton and I want to let you know about an opportunity coming up for pastors and ministry leaders. We are doing our annual pastors briefing in Washington DC and we do this every year. We do one in the Spring, we do one in the Fall. This spring it's April 16th and 17th. This fall it is September 10th and 11th. This is one of the most significant things we do to encourage and challenge pastors in this culture we live in.
It's in Washington DC and Tuesday night we do an afterhours tour of the US Capitol where we introduce pastors and ministry leaders to the history of the nation. The following day we have congressmen come and they give a briefing on what they're doing and how God is challenging and motivating and using them and, frankly, most pastors, most ministry leaders, they don't know the rich spiritual heritage of the nation or what God is still doing moving in the hearts and lives of leaders in this nation. I would encourage you if you're a pastor or ministry leader, you need to come to this. It's one of the best things we do at Wall Builders. To find out more, go to WallBuilders.com and look for the pastor's briefing.
Child
Abraham Lincoln said we, the people, are the rightful masters of both congress and the courts, not to overthrow the constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the constitution.
Rick Green
Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. Foundations of Freedom. Thursday. We got our next question up today is from let's see, I got Sergio up next.
He said often when I read the Bible, I seem to miss the political and legislative aspect of each book. What's the best way to start reading the Bible from a political standpoint? Thank you. Sergio, first of all, before I even toss that to the guys, some people might hear that. Well, why would you want to read the Bible from a political standpoint? I think what you mean is applying this to what's going on in my government and my community, basically how we're treating our neighbors. And I'm going to answer.
Before the guys do get a Founders Bible, I'm telling you I don't know if David doesn't self-promote at all, so let me just. I just got to tell you I think, David, this is the best thing. You ever put out a lot of good stuff. I've learned so much from you over the years. But Founders Bible, oh, I just love it. I love that combination of the history, these cool stories. While I'm reading the Bible, I get to read about somebody's application of the Bible. It makes me apply the Bible better. So, Sergio, that's my answer. If you want to really read the Bible from that perspective, get you a copy of the Founders Bible. I'm sorry, I jumped in before y'all had a chance to answer.
David Barton
No good answer and part of how you do this is you have to train your eyes to look for certain things. I know I'm going back decades, but we used to be in the jewelry business and we would go out and find the raw material. So we would go to New Mexico, to the, to the meteor crater, and we would pull peridot out of that crater, make jewelry out of it. Well, a peridot is a specific looking rock, and there are millions of rocks in the bottom of that crater. But you get to where you can look for a certain kind of rocks and now that's not it, that's not. Oh, that's it right there. And so a lot of people just look and see rocks. And you have to train yourself to look to see specific kinds of rocks. Is it petrified wood? Is it? Is it halide? Is it young eyed? Is it agate? Is it Montana agate? Is it obsidian, whatever? And you train yourselves to do that. So you have to do that with the Bible Now I think John Quincy Adams had a great way he did it. He said that as he would read through the Bible at least once every year. When he started the year he said okay, this time, as I go through, I'm looking for verses that deal with whatever topic. It was education or economics or family or whatever. He would choose the topic and throughout that year he would write about the verses he saw related to that. Now I think one of the ways you can train yourself really quick to see some of these verses is there's a book by Wayne Grudem. It's called Politics According to the Bible, and Wayne goes in and pulls out a lot of Bible verses that we're used to hearing, but he says but here's, here's what it means in the political context. So once you do that, that's like helping train yourself to look for certain kinds of rocks or certain shapes or configurations, whatever. There's also a book by Jim Garlow called Well-Versed, where that he will take topics and maybe show you 10, 20, 30, 40 verses related to that topic. You look those verses up and go, oh, I never thought of it that way before. So those are some things I would recommend.
And man, bless your desire to want to read the Bible with practicality. It's not just a book to be blessed by, it's a book to live by. But you can't live by it if you don't know how it applies. That's what you're asking for. So, Sergio, that's a great question. It's a great desire, but those are some of the things. I would recommend is those two books by Grudem and also the book by Garlow, as well as the thing of John Quincy Adams. Just make a trip through it every year, looking for something different each theme.
Tim Barton
And I think, too, it makes a difference to who some of the influences are. We listen to who some of the pastors are, cause there's some pastors who do a really good job of showing an application and that can make a difference. If we're sitting under a pastor who his motivation is I wanna bring joy or encouragement to somebody, then that's the way he's always going to see scripture and it doesn't always help find some of those applications. So it can make a difference, adding some of those influences, some of those voices surrounding you. With that being said, it also helps understanding and maybe do a little deeper dive into the context of the Bible. I think we're so many Christians in modern America. Now, this one is not just for the question, I think it's big picture for everybody so many Christians in modern America, they don't understand the real purpose and point of the Bible. We look at the Bible as if it's some kind of spiritual devotional or some kind of history book and we miss so much of the practicality where, for example, if you go back to Exodus and you're going, okay, Exodus, right, it's kind of the history in Israelites and Egypt and Moses and Red Sea and 10 commandments, mount Sinai, all these things are there, sure, sure. But also understand when Moses goes to Mount Sinai and God gives him the law and there's actually 613 commandments that Moses gets. Why did they get those? It's because the Israelites had been living as slaves in Egypt and they embraced the Egyptian culture. And God brings them out and says okay, we're not gonna do that anymore, I have a different way for you to live your life. And so, as they're learning to live life differently, God says here are the standards we're going to live life by. Here's the way we're gonna handle family and marriage, here's the way we're gonna handle our food. Here's the way. And literally just goes through all of these issues. And the reason it matters is when that's happening, that's not just a history lesson like oh, that happened, okay, great, let's keep reading. Oh no, we should be stopping and thinking why did God tell them to do that? What did this mean? And then we can also think well, how does this apply to my life? And if you are a student of the Bible and theology, we know that once Jesus comes right, there's portions of the Old Testament that are fulfilled. Now, it hasn't all been fulfilled, because right until it's all fulfilled not once God or till changes, but we no longer have to sacrifice animals anymore to be right with God. Jesus was the perfect sacrifice, the Lamb of God, and so he's replaced some of the sacrificial aspects.
However, when you continue through scripture, the guidance God gave for kings, for governors, for families, for churches, when the apostle Paul, for example, New Testament writes his 13 epistles that are recorded in the New Testament of the Bible, he's writing to specific groups, specific churches, specific regions, specific places and specific times, and he's not giving them just general advice, he's giving them very specific advice. Everything about the Bible was a practical guidance. There are some stories we're learning, but in the story is there often was very specific guidance, and I think so often we read the Bible only as history or only as a spiritual devotional, without recognizing that some of the things that God told his people to do in the Old Testament, that's guidance that's still good advice for us today, like that honor your mother and father, stuff that didn't pass away with the Old Testament. Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery. That didn't pass away with the Old Testament.
We come in the New Testament, and I'm saying this all because, as we're even thinking well, how does the Bible apply to politics? There's an awful lot of verses in the Bible that were written to kings, that were written to rulers, that were written to leaders and even like Romans 13, explaining the purpose of government. Why does God have these governing authorities and what are they supposed to do and how does that work? I think we ought to be reading the Bible in a lot different lens than the way the Bible is often taught and read today. The Bible is not a spiritual devotional. It's a life manual. It really lays out how to live, and if we would read it with that kind of lens, I think we'd see a lot more of this application along the way.
David Barton
And I'm gonna add to that, Tim, that same vein. Look at the parables of Jesus and look how many of the parables of Jesus deal with economic issues. And don't try to spiritualize that and say, hey, here's what Jesus is talking about spiritually. Look at what he's saying about the way that you handle your money, or the way that he gave what were called mineas or talents, which is, certain amounts of money, to his servants and said go, invest this and make profit on it. And there's all sorts of parables where he goes through economic principle after economic principle and too often I hear people try to spiritualize that and make it something spiritual.
Read the way he gave it. It was an economic principle that also has spiritual application. But read it the way it was written. Read it with that economic because, Tim, as you said, at 613 laws covers every aspect of life criminal justice, economics, you name it, it's all there. So open your eye to that, train yourself to look for those things and you'll be shocked at how much is there that you've never seen before. That's there in plain sight.
Rick Green
All right guys out of time for today. That was good stuff. Thanks so much for all the questions that we're sending in One more time radio@wallbuilders.com. We'll try to get to it in a future week. Send those questions to radio@wallbuilders.com. Sure, appreciate you joining us today. Be sure and visit the website wallbuilderscom and get engaged. Get that biblical citizenship class. Start hosting one in your home, at your church. Start sharing this program. Be a force multiplier. Let's turn this country around. These principles are worth saving and it's up to us to be good stewards of this freedom that God's given us. Thanks again for listening to The WallBuilders Show