Balancing Compassion and Law on Foundations of Freedom Thursday

Rick Green

Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. It's the WallBuilders Show and we're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. I'm Rick Green, America's Constitution Coach, here with David and Tim Barton. Tim Barton is a national speaker and pastor and president of Wall Builders. David Barton, of course, America's premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders. You can learn more about all three of us at our main website, wallbuilders.com. Wallbuilders.com has a ton of great resources for you, lots of things to equip and inspire your family, to prepare you to be a good biblical citizen. Check it all there. Check it out all of it there at wallbuilders.com and also check out some of the programs that are coming up Opportunities this summer to send teachers and pastors and young people to different programs. In September, our pastors conference in Washington DC. Just a lot of cool things to do and then actually coming up here in just a couple of weeks I guess about a month we've got a constitutional defense course at the Patriot Academy campus, where all three of us will be. So myself, Rick Green, along with David Barton and Tim Barton we're going to be doing a special constitutional defense course, which is handgun training during the day and constitution training at night and fireworks on July 4th. It's going to be very, very cool and it'll start on July 4th. So check that out today at patriotacademy.com. Click on the constitutional defense button and look at that date. That starts July 4th. We've still got some slots left. It is going to fill up fast and we're only a month out, so we've got to start making plans now. But it's an amazing weekend. You will love it. Best instructors on the planet, best ranges, maybe in the country and at the new, phenomenal Patriot Academy campus in Fredericksburg, Texas. Check it out at patriotacademy.com.

All right, guys, let's jump into those questions from the audience. Shirley gets the first one. She said I'm struggling with my response to the overwhelming illegal aliens entering our country. I want to know what my biblical response should be. Of course, David and Tim, this is a huge issue. In fact I think in the polling that I've seen, this is the number one issue for most people. They know the open borders creates all kinds of problems. It's not just population, it's not just jobs, it's terrorism, it's drugs, it's the child sex trafficking, it's all of these problems. So Shirley is not alone. This is probably the number one issue on people's minds and we say biblical, historical, constitutional let's talk biblical perspective on illegal aliens entering the country.

David Barton

Well, let's actually even throw everything else in as well, because part of our response is we don't like seeing all the law-breaking that's going on. But the problem we've got is the lawbreakers in this case are the federal government rather than the illegal aliens. The illegal aliens are here. It's the federal government that's failing to enforce the laws and that's what's creating the problem. So I think one of the things that becomes really important in looking at this as Christians is understanding jurisdictions. As Christians, it's the government's responsibility to uphold the laws. It's not the citizen's responsibility to enforce those laws. We need to, we have to be respectful of laws, we have to be law abiding, but we're not the ones who uphold the laws. So if the government is going to let them in in violation of law, the question then becomes how do we treat people once they're in the land and that's where the Christian response comes in. There's still a lot of people with a lot of needs. There are a lot of people who come here completely poor, and that's why they come, because they want opportunities. Now you know, we already know and I'm not talking about that percentage that is, the terroristic potential threat or those who are coming from gangs or cartels or the sex trafficking or anything else. There's really bad stuff going on at the border. But the overwhelming majority of the people that are coming in are coming in because they want a different life, they want a different opportunity, they want something different in their lives and they're seeking to make their lives better. So, from a Christian standpoint, if they're going to be in the country, how do we treat them once they're here? And that's where you have so much guidance, so many Bible verses on what you do to help the poor. So many Bible verses. Great one is Matthew 25. Jesus said whatever you've done to the least of one of these, you've done to me, the way we treat them, our attitude, everything else. We cannot blame them for the government's failure to enforce laws at the border, them for the government's failure to enforce laws at the border. And so what we can't do is take out on the immigrant our anger at the inefficiency and ineffectiveness and straight out refusal of the Biden administration to uphold federal laws. And so that's a big thing I would throw in is you're looking at illegals and what do you do with them? You've got to help them like you would help anyone else. That's our responsibility individually, but at the same time, show up in the election and get somebody different up there that'll uphold the laws, and that makes a big difference too 

Tim Barton

I would say too, dad, going back to Matthew 25, where Jesus talks about what you've done in the least of these, my brethren. You've done it to me and you're mentioning this is a response for Christians specifically. Right, it's not the job of the government to give compassion to lawbreakers. That's not the role of the government. But what's interesting is that this is also not an acknowledgement or an encouragement to overlook sin or wrong or evil, as well, in spite of, because in Matthew 25, one of the things Jesus said was that I was in prison and you came to me. Well, presumably the people that were visiting, and this is where on both sides like, well, when did we see you in prison? And he says as much as you did it, at least he's my brother and you've done it to me. But if you were in prison and the example Jesus gave you my brethren, you've done it to me. But if you're in prison and the example Jesus gave you, you're probably in there for doing the wrong thing. And yet, even for people that have done the wrong thing, as people of faith, because while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us God's love for us reached us in the midst of some really bad moments. We should be able to show love for people that have done bad things and are in bad places. It doesn't mean we overlook the sin right. It's navigating the different roles and responsibilities. The role of the government is to uphold the law and we should cheer and champion the government to uphold the law. Dad, as you mentioned, we should work to elect more people that will make sure that we uphold a biblical standard of justice, that we uphold the laws to protect individual citizens, that there should be a border, there should be security. In fact, even walls are biblical in many situations. Right, it's actually part of the story that leads to the name WallBuilders. Nehemiah rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem. Walls are not an ungodly thing. Border security is not an ungodly thing. Border security is not an ungodly thing. But in the midst of the failures of government, dad, to your point, we should not blame every individual we see for the failure of government. It doesn't mean that if we see people doing illegal things, that we shouldn't have an opinion and say that's wrong. They shouldn't be doing that. Of course. Of course we recognize it is wrong. They shouldn't be doing that. Of course, of course we recognize it is wrong. They shouldn't be doing it. Of course we wanted to stop, absolutely we wanted to stop.

But, dad, to your, I think a larger point is who? Who is the? Who bears the ultimate burden? Who's the ultimate one responsible for this? And if, if you are in a system where you know they're going to, let you get away with it. And I'm going to speak to this as an athlete, for a second right, as a basketball player right, if I know the ref is not going to call certain kinds of fouls, then I'm going to do what the referee allows me to do, even though I know it might be a violation of what the actual rule of the game is right. Well, yes, if the umpires, if the referees are calling the game a certain way, you play according to the way the game is being called and you don't penalize the players for playing according to the way the game is being called, even though you can look and go. Hey, that's dirty, they shouldn't be doing it that way. Well, yes, there's many times that, if I watch the NBA today, it's so frustrating how often I think they travel and they carry the basketball, or whatever the case might be. Absolutely, that happens. But if that's the way the game is called, then I'm not going to blame the players for playing the way that the game is being called, when I instead can look and go. Why in the world won't the official, the referee, the umpire, why won't they make this call, right, depending on what the sport might be? And I only want to add a little more of that thought to context, to add to agree largely with what you're saying.

Rick Green

I think two words come to mind for me real quick discernment and strategy. Right, you have to be discerning to say, ok, this person came here because they wanted a better life, they want a better life for their family, they wanted all of these things and, like you said, Tim, they played according. You know the way the ref was calling the game. And then strategy. What do you do? First of all, politically, like you said at the beginning, David, this is actually at the feet of Joe Biden, it's not at the feet of that person that came, some for good reasons, others for bad reasons. And so what do we do politically to change the political environment so that the rules are enforced? But it reminds me of when we went out there was one of these bad tornado deals and we went to Alabama and a friend of mine got us to go and help him with. They called it angels in cowboy boots and it was buckets of food that you took to people in need. And so our kids were kind of young and we went out there and we helped serve food, and all I could think about was the politics of this neighborhood I was in and I was thinking you know, we need to be changing the politics so that these people can take care of themselves and don't need to do that. And this guy goes Rick, Rick, feed the mouth in front of you. There's a need right here in front of you, meet the need in front of you and then deal with the political stuff. And I think that's what both of you guys are saying. Here we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can help the people that are here which is part of why we're doing Spanish versions of biblical citizenship, so that they learn what this American dream is of, why they're here. We can help the person that's here at the same time working on the policy

David Barton

 You know. The other thing I would throw in is this another key word here for this whole situation is worldview, and worldview in the sense that right now, if you tend to be on the Democrat national side and I mean as representative, congressman, as a senator, if you're in the administration you tend to be a progressive. There are very few Democrats at the national level who are not literally progressives, and one of the things about progressives is they tend to be globalist. One of the things about conservatives is they tend to be nationalist. Now they're trying to make nationalist into a bad term, but a nationalist is one who cares about his nation. A globalist is one who doesn't care about nations. It's the whole thing, and for them, we can bring the whole world in, we can join the whole world together. That's why they're looking at WHO, that's why they're looking at giving American sovereignty over medicine to the World Health Organization, because they're globalists. And so part of what we're dealing with here is a complete worldview breakdown. And the more progressive you are, the more secular you are. The more secular you are, the more globalist you are, versus someone who tends to be more God-fearing and therefore they care about where God has placed them. Now for us that's the United States of America. So that's also a huge political difference. That's leading to a lot of what we've been discussing the jurisdictional difference between what the government does and what the individual does. But on the government side, if you're going to elect progressives, you're going to get globalist policies, you're going to get the UN running stuff, you're going to get the World Health Organization. That's just the way it is. If you want America to be a distinct individual nation, you're going to have to get back to electing God-fearing. We would call them conservatives. Now, maybe 200 years, conservatives means liberal, liberal means conservative, who knows but right now what we call conservatives. That's a real key part of this entire immigration thing that's going on.

Rick Green

Good stuff, guys and Shirley, great, great question. And don't feel like your frustration and struggling with the response to how this is overwhelming, is misplaced. You're watching your country be invaded. You're watching a dilution of the value system. You know there's a lot of criminal element here as well, and so we know all the negatives are there. Perfectly understood that you feel that way and very wise on your part to say what's the biblical response, how do I deal with this right here in my community and what can I do about it? So good, good question. That's the kind of stuff we want to talk about on Foundations of Freedom Thursdays here at WallBuilders. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be back with more of your questions here on the WallBuilders Show.

Break

Rick Green

Welcome back to WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us here on the Wal Builders show. It's Foundations of Freedom Thursday, your chance to send in questions about foundational oh. It could be the Constitution, could be history, could be application of biblical values to what's going on in the world today. Whatever you got, send it in to us at radio@wallbuilders.com. Next question is from Joe, and Joe said after your Thursday May 23rd podcast, you got me fired up. I want to relearn civics and help teach it to my family. Where do I go from here? Is there a book you recommend? Thanks for all you guys do. You're awesome. All right, Joe, you're awesome too. Thank you for sending in the question. Of course, guys, lots of resources. What do you want to start with?

David Barton

Well, let's go back and review the question real quick, because it was asked at that time and we brought out there's a difference between really government courses, social studies courses and civics courses. Civics courses is where you used to learn the process. You learned how it worked. That Bible verse, Timothy 2:5, where it says you can't be crowned if you don't run according to the rules. You can't be crowned, the athlete, if you don't run according to the rules. So that was process. Civics used to be just the process, no values to it. This is how it works. This is how government operates. This is how you advance a bill. This is what all the procedures are. That was process. And then government. We started getting into process with philosophy and we started tying philosophy of government into it. And then social studies we started tying everything into it. So going back to purely knowing the process is really key because most Americans don't know the process itself. We talked even the fact that roughly 62% of Americans can't even name the three branches of government. So how do you maintain integrity of the Constitution on separation of powers if you don't know what the branches are? So that's the context of this question. So where would you get a good civics book? Where would you learn the process to be able to engage in it? Because this is what every American used to learn was the process. And that's why we were more active in the process, because we understood it. We knew it. That's why voter participation was so much higher in previous generations. We knew the process. That's why you were more likely to call your congressman or go to Washington DC and visit them, because you knew the process. We don't anymore and we're outsiders. So back to that. You know there's some things I think might be good on process. So we went back and found what might be called an early civics book from 1828. Arthur Stansberry did what was called a catechism on the Constitution and that catechism is doing nothing but asking questions about the Constitution, and it's process questions. In many, many cases it's asking how does the process work here or what do you do to get this kind of stuff done? And basically, understanding the Constitution is the first part of civics. Now, understanding a Republican elected form of government is another part of civics, but that's contained in the Constitution. So at WallBuilders we reprinted that book, the Elementary Catechism on the Constitution by Arthur Stansbury, 1828.

That's a great place to start and curriculum as well

Rick Green

 well, and first of all, on the catechism, it's a classy reprint too. I just got to say it's a really, really cool hardback. You know, small book but fantastic to go through, really good family item to have in every family library and, frankly, to have sitting on your desk folks so that you can refer to some of those things that you learn in there. And they're not all easy questions. In fact some of them are what we would today consider very hard, but it's really basic and and really does help with learning those civics. Lots of great tools at WallBuilders. Go to, go check out some of the other things that are available, even even having some fun with Chasing American Legends. Our reality show is is a fun way to learn and get some of that, not only that history, but kind of process-oriented stuff. I really recommend you send your young people to Patriot Academy's Leadership Congress so they're immersed as a legislator and learn how important process is and how these things work. So it's not just the principles that they're learning, but they're learning how to implement it, and soon we'll be able to offer that for people of all ages at the Patriot Academy campus, so we'll have what we call the Patriot Experience. You come serve as a legislator for a couple of days in our House chamber. We'll put you through a legislative simulation. You'll get the constitutional training as well. It's going to be really cool. That'll be sometime in the fall, we'll announce that.

But then other materials, I think you know getting through Constitutional Live. There's some of the process in there, but we've got one that we did with Wall Builders and Patriot Academy together called A Republic, if you Can Keep it, which of course, was Ben Franklin's response to the question about what kind of government they had created. And the importance is, if you're going to keep a republic, the citizen has to know how the republic works, and so that course is it's kind of a government class for high school and college students, but it's really for people of all ages. And we actually go into how do the parties work? How do you do political parties in this country? What do you do on the legislative process? What do you do at the voting level? How do you get people involved in that? So it's a little bit more in depth, though it does use some of Constitutional Alive, that one again called A Republic, if you Can Keep it.

But, guys, I think you know hands-on too, just getting people to become precinct chairs, getting them to go to their state convention. I mean you talk about an education and how the process works. You go to a state convention for the Republican or Democrat. I mean you can pick your party. You can go with the Republicans or the Communists, totally up to you. Whichever one makes sense to you is perfectly fine, or Whichever one makes sense to you is perfectly fine, or maybe a third party, but you know the communists and the Republicans. Those are the two big parties. I'm sorry, democrats, they act like communists, but they're actually the Democrat Party.

David Barton

Rick, the way our good friend Chad Conley talks about it. He doesn't even call them Republicans. He calls them the Americans and the communists. That's right. He's got the two groups and we're, of course, nonpartisan here.

Rick Green

 Now you know what that term nonpartisan. How can you be nonpartisan in a political system that works through partisans? It's a political party system. So if you're going to do good civics, you have to be partisan.

David Barton

But Rick partisan used to mean not a difference over the values or over the fundamentals, it was a difference over whether the tax cuts should be 3% or 5%. Yeah, we shared the values.

There was not a debate between Republicans and Democrats on when life started or whether you protected it. That was not the kind of debate we had. And so now partisan really means a massive worldview difference, and it's not like parties of the past where the differences were on. You know, we all agree on love in America. We all agree that America needs to be strong. We all agree that America does not need to be another nation. We don't agree on that anymore. I mean even that we don't agree on. And so partisan now is much more polarized than it's ever been and it's much more divided along worldview lines than ever before.

Tim Barton

Well, but even think about worldview lines, right? We are not pro-one team, we are pro-values, yeah, and whichever team best wants to uphold, promote or defend those values, that's the team we support. That's right. And this is where George Washington, right, very wisely in his farwell address, warned against the dangers that a love of party would bring. If people love party over principle, it could lead to the downfall of America. I mean, this is what we're seeing right now, where people think it's more important that their team wins than it is if their team is actually doing the correct thing or not, right thing or not right. We've lost the emphasis on truth, on principle, on God-given rights, on limited government, on some very basic thoughts and concepts. Instead, we are seeing people that care I mean, just like we have seen with this whole Trump trial fiasco, where I mean the judge telling people hey, you can choose any one of these crimes. There doesn't have to be uniformity, unanimity, there doesn't need to be consensus, with you guys all thinking of the same crime. If any of you think you did something wrong and if all you think you did something wrong, that's all we need to know. I mean, that's not the way the process works. But when your position is, the most important thing is for our side to win and the other side to lose. This is the kind of partisanship that becomes very, very dangerous is what the founding fathers warned against. Unfortunately, it's what began to happen at the end of Washington administration, which is why he even cautioned against it in his farewell address. He saw this happening and said hey guys, we probably shouldn't be doing that, we need to go a different direction here. All that to say is, even for us as a faith-based nonprofit, the nature of what we do. We are far more interested in seeing the principles prevail than what party is in charge. Because ultimately, right, if the Democrats don't want to, they want to be the champions of God-given rights and limited government. Man, we'd become Democrats so fast, right, that the Democrats don't want to. They want to be the champions of God-given rights and limited government. Man, we'd become Democrats so fast, right, if they're pro-life, pro-marriage, pro-family, pro-religious liberty, pro-israel. I mean, there's no question about it. But all that again to say is that, even though things look and we're going, man, there's so much partisanship. We want to make sure that we are much more principle-driven than our team should win, and that's a lot of what, unfortunately, we're seeing today.

David BArton

And going back for a minute to the civics concept of how do you learn the process, I want to throw a resource out that I've really been impressed with and I'm going to throw a philosophy out with it, and that resource is books.google.com. It's Google Books, but what they have there is they have a complete copy of virtually every book that is public domain. So any book that's published prior to the last 70 years ago is going to be out there as a public domain book, which means there are a lot of old civics books out there on that website. And if you want to look a civics book up from the 1930s or 1940s, say at the time of World War II, look for a civics book in maybe the late 40s, after World War II has ended. You can find those kinds of civic books and they're worth reading to see the different content that was emphasized then, when we didn't have this polarization that we have over values, worldview used to be consistent and the application was a little different. But going back to that and I'll just throw this in as well that's a great way to learn history.

You can read a book about John Quincy Adams today and maybe it's good, maybe it's not. It kind of depends on the worldview of whoever wrote it. But John Quincy Adams today and maybe it's good, maybe it's not Kind of depends on the worldview of whoever wrote it, but John Quincy Adams died in 1848. If you want to read a good book on John Quincy Adams, go look at the biographies that were done the next year after he died, when everybody in the nation knew about John Quincy Adams and knew all of his services. Not everything about Adams was written down because a lot of it was known in the newspapers, and so you can read the book done by Josiah Quincy, the mayor of Boston.

You can read one done by Sewell, who was the secretary of state for Abraham Lincoln later, and they do great biographies of John Quincy Adams. It's awesome to read. Or you can take Daniel Webster, who died in the early 1850s, look at the year after his death and read all the biographies about the guy who's called the defender of the Constitution. Going back to, those old sources are really good, and you can do that with civics. So books.google.com is a place you can go find a civics book, from whatever generation, and look at it and learn a lot out of that time era when we were really much more neutral on the process.

Rick Green

Do you guys think because you just did the American story series or the first two in the American story and so you've really been diving into civics in early America and coming to today has the coarsening and the bickering and really what you described, Tim, of I want to win no matter what, and so now it's in, justifies the means is, is all of that part of the moral decline because you no longer believe in you know standing for I mean, what would you attribute that to? Because it really has changed a lot, at least it seems like it has.

Tim Barton

Well, I would say it's one of the reasons that people should get the second American story, building the republic, because we really do highlight that this is when Solomon wrote in the Bible there's nothing new under the sun. This is exactly what we see. The pendulum has swung back and forth throughout all of American history. Right, I mean, you had Woodrow Wilson and you had Calvin Coolidge. Right, you had FDR and you had Ronald Reagan.

The pendulum always swings back and forth, and so this is not the first time we're seeing this, but certainly there are some things that are a little bit of indicators. When you begin to see things happening in culture, or the lack thereof in culture, you begin to see them politically, and vice versa, when you see things happening politically, you see other things happening in culture. But there are some good indicators as to, maybe, why this happens and, even knowing we're short on time, what we can do to correct it. So maybe let's spend another program on this in the future. For the time being, get the American story building the republic. We dive into this, addressing some of the modern day things, historical examples and even solutions of how we can fix it, and that's exactly right.

Rick Green

By learning that history and learning where we got off track, we can fix it. That's the key. We can bring us back to a nation where we once again are all fighting for the justice and due process and freedom of speech and all those values and those principles that we used to agree on. Thanks for listening today, folks. You've been listening to The WallBuilder Show.