Rick Green 0:12

This is the Intersection of Faith and the Culture . It's WallB uilders , where 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 and a former Texas legislator . I'm here with David Barton and Tim Barton . Tim's a national speaker and pastor and president of WallB uilders . David Barton , of course , America's premier historian and our founder here at WallB uilders . And then there's you , the audience . Yes , in fact , I want to highlight the fact that you're the most important part of this program , because we're here to talk about all of these things , but then encourage you to take action . Just like we take action in our local communities , in our state , we're encouraging you to do the exact same thing where you live . So , as you listen to today's program or any of our other WallB uilders programming , we want to encourage you to be a person of action . Now , that may mean that you're doing a Sunday school class and diving into some of these materials , or hosting a biblical citizenship class at your church or in your home , a voter registration drive , maybe you're running for office . Whatever it is , we just want to encourage you to make sure that you're taking action , that you're standing up for truth , you're defending truth and you're persuading others about that truth . You're helping to spread the word . You're being a force multiplier . Now, I want to remind you one more time .

Rick Green 1:18

I mentioned this yesterday , but don't forget Constitution Day is coming up, September 17th big party in Fredericksburg , Texas . We're going to have a wonderful time of fellowship and fun . Great , great time in Fredericksburg , Texas , on Constitution Day . It'll be that evening of the 17th at 6 o'clock . Kirk Cameron , Brad Stine , me- Rick Green , our family , the whole thing . We'll have music , all of it . It's going to be an incredible , incredible time .

Rick Green 1:42

I encourage you to come join us . PatriotAcademy . com is the website where you can go and sign up . You can come in from all over the nation . Lots of great places to stay . But I do encourage you to stay over and do a Constitutional Defense course at the new Patriot Academy campus, our new beautiful ranges ready and rolling . We're having a great time already having classes . You need to get in one of those Constitutional Defense courses . So just come to the Constitution Day celebration and stay over and do your Constitutional Defense course . Alright , David and Tim ,

Rick Green 2:10

I almost said later in the program we'll have Coach Joe Kennedy with us . No , we already did that . So we had Coach Kennedy with us last week , but the three of us didn't get to talk much about the lasting effects of his case . And of course, you know, the nation joined him last Friday to take a knee as he returned to the football field . So it's a joyous occasion that he's back on the field not being discriminated against , but even more joyous and more joyful to know that that's the Supreme Court decision that our friends over at First Liberty , Kelly Shackelford and those folks fought that thing for , what was it ? Nine years , eight years , whatever ? That , the lasting effects of that , oh wow , what an open door for us to restore religious liberty .

Tim Barton 2:47

Well , and I'd point out too for those that follow WallBuilders on social media , we did a social media video about this last week , encouraging people , if you are a part of a school that has a football program , to show up at the football game on Friday night , to go down to the field after the game to have a time of prayer , which is what Coach Kennedy did . And this is something , that , for those listening . . .

Rick Green 3:06

Wait , you didn't tell everybody that doesn't have football to go ahead and go pray on the baseball field , even if they don't have a football field ?

David Barton 3:11

We were talking about sports , Rick . We're covering sports in this program .

Rick Green 3:14

So , in other words , you guys are sportists , you're sportists , you're discriminating against other sports . Is that what you're saying ?

Tim Barton 3:21

I did make a joke about homeschool families if they wanna go out in their front yard and play football and then pray afterwards , right ? But the reality is , for all those listening is , this is a movement which Coach Kennedy's story remind everybody and certainly go back , listen to the program last week , go to First Liberty and find out more about his story . But he was the Marine veteran who was the football coach in Brimington , Washington . He took a knee at the end of the football game and by taking in the , the game was over , teams have already divided , gone different ways . He'd go out to the 50 yard line , he would kneel down and he would say a prayer thanking God for the game and freedom in America . And the football players . And his students saw and they were impacted and they wanted to pray . He said it's a free country, you can join .

Tim Barton 4:05

It was a growing movement . There were other schools who reached out to his school and said it's amazing that you have a coach doing this and the impact on the students . And so it was literally a compliment email that led the school to go wait a second , we can't have somebody doing this . And so they came and told him that he couldn't pray on his own anymore and he said you can't tell me that I can't pray as an individual . And then they ended up firing him for that . And , Rick , I think it was seven years as how long the case went before it got to the US Supreme Court .

David Barton 4:33

Seven years .

Tim Barton 4:34

Nonetheless , it took years of a fight to get him there . He was finally restored this last year . He's actually coaching right now . This fall he's out there .

Tim Barton 4:44

And so first Liberty had a movement where they were encouraging everybody to if you're again connected with a school that has football , and even if you're not , you can , if you live in a place where there's a public school , you can go to the public school football game on a Friday night and afterwards you can take a stroll out on the field and you can pray . You can still participate in the movement even if you're not at a school , your school doesn't have football , but they want to . . . Now that this is upheld constitutionally as legal , they want to encourage this movement and see really a restoration of faith back in some really basic levels , and athletics used to be one of the very basic levels that before games, and this was, I feel like , almost universal for sports . People, they would come out and they'd have a time of prayer . It was also along those lines when oftentimes there'd be a national anthem , there'd be different components to kicking off the sporting event , but there'd be a lot involved in this and we've lost that over the last several decades .

Tim Barton 5:40

But because of Coach Kennedy's case , the US Supreme Court , which actually led the US Supreme Court to say that they would no longer uphold the Lemon decision and that's what had . . . The Lemon decision was an earlier case from 1971 , which had led them to say that Coach Kennedy could not do this , and this is an earlier court that said that seven years prior before he won this victory . All that to say , the current Supreme Court said that Lemon decision , that's a ridiculous test . Let's throw that out .

Tim Barton 6:06

Coach Kennedy can pray . So these rights have been restored , but if you have rights that are restored , they're only valuable if you utilize them , and so that was the call from First Liberty, is let's go back and use these freedoms we've just won . Let's utilize these freedoms , and so that's what this call was . Now that happened last week . Rick , as you mentioned, I mean, incredible that people all over the nation were participating in this and this is something that we'd encourage people going forward . Every Friday night when there's football, and we could say this about the end of a basketball game or volleyball game or baseball , whatever the sport is . This is now something that again legally , constitutionally , upheld as permissible for people , and even coaches , teachers , to go out and pray at the end of sporting events , expressing their religious liberty . So this is a really great thing and man so incredibly thankful and proud of Coach Kennedy for what he did .

David Barton 6:59

And, you know this is a, Tim, as you pointed out, it's a huge decision . This is a decision that affects the entire nation , not just his job , it's the entire nation . We're talking hundreds of millions of Americans who now are in a different position . With the expression of their faith . They can now do things they hadn't been able to do for years and decades . And so , as you look at how much impact Coach Kennedy has had on the nation through that decision , I was reminded, let's just, going back and thinking of the interview,

David Barton 7:27

there's a couple of things he said that I thought were really key on how he got to this point . And if you guys remember, he was talking about as he was coaching over those years and they were kind of little by little kind of shutting him down and he had been praying with the players and that had been fine . And , as you point out, Tim , a compliment is what got the legal investigation going , which is a point for just a minute, but that compliment was you're praying with your students and you can't pray with your students anymore . He said , okay , I'm not gonna pray with my students , but he went off and prayed by himself , and then the school comes and says but you can't even pray by yourself . And I thought the comment he made, he said you know , as a Christian I can do that . I can stop praying because I can pray anywhere . He said, but as a 20 year Marine , I was unable to acquiesce to what they said . And this is the thing of alright , Jesus says turn the other cheek , and I can put up with all sorts of offenses , but there comes a time when you have to put your foot down because it's not just about you , it's about everybody else . And so while he individually could have said , okay , if the boss at work is tired of me praying , I won't pray anymore . I mean he could have done that , but then what does that do for everybody else ? And the fact that he said 20 years as a Marine , I can't do this . I got a constitution , I got a country , I got to stand up and fight for them .

David Barton 8:41

And I'm recalling back with Paul , Paul the apostle, in Acts 16 , when they had him in jail there and they beat him as a Christian . He suffered that and didn't say anything . And they try to move on from it and he says but by the way , I am a Roman citizen and I'm not like you guys . I have . . . I'm a native born Roman citizen . You guys bought your citizenship , I'm . . . And it scared them to death because he invoked the Roman citizenship . He invoked his constitutional rights as a Roman citizen and suddenly all the leaders of the city come to him and say , oh my gosh , we're so sorry , we didn't mean to do this to you , we didn't know who you were . And that's the kind of stuff where Paul could have said you know , as a Christian , just turn the other cheek .

David Barton 9:19

But there's times when you have to stand up for behalf of the movement . And I thought that was really important . He didn't know that this was gonna turn into a national movement , but he did know that he had to stand up for his rights . And when he stood up for his rights , look what the result has been down the road . And this doesn't mean that every time you stand up it's going to be a earth shattering result or you're going to get 300 million people who can suddenly pray . But it does mean it's always right to stand up and not just back away when someone tries to intimidate you or threaten you .

Tim Barton 9:46

Well , and along those lines too , guys , remember when he said his football team . . . he kept them in loop of what's happening . And the football team , when he told them , like I'm not going to back down and they're probably gonna fire me , the football team was asking him, coach , please don't do this . We want you to keep coaching us . They loved him so much , they didn't want to lose him . And it was at that point he realized I have to take a stand for the sake of these boys , because what is the example I'm setting if I say that my faith is not so important or Christianity , Jesus , is not so important ? And so just , I mean, his testimony is so clear , the whole way , absolutely incredible win . But you know , guys , one of the things we've been talking about now for months , almost , I mean , arguably , since this happened last year , even since this early summer where the US Supreme Court came out with several more major decisions dealing with or to pertaining religious liberty , we've been talking about the new opportunities that are now there for families , for teachers , for coaches , for states , for students across the board . There is so much opportunity to restore religious liberty based on some of these recent decisions from the US Supreme Court , not the least of which is where the US Supreme Court said that they are no longer going to uphold or recognize the Lemon decision , and Dad, you might want to explain some details after this . I'm going to give the brief synopsis and Rick, Dad, if you guys feel like it needs more depth , you can .

Tim Barton 11:15

The Lemon decision essentially the US Supreme Court upheld standard , where they said that the only time you can do something religious in public is if you can show or prove it's not for religious reasons . Now , there's a little more to it than that , but that's the essence of it, that you can't do religious things in public unless you can prove I'm not trying to be religious , it just happens to look like it's religious . But that's a ridiculous standard , because why in the world would you want to have a prayer in public unless it's so that you can have prayer and talk to God ? Of course , that's religious . The only reason you do religious things in public is for religious reasons and they said if it's for religious reasons , you cannot do it . Now this , by the way , led to more than 7,000 cases where people were told they could not do things to express their faith because it violated what became known as the Lemon test , this Lemon decision where they said , wait , were you doing it for religious reasons ? Then you can't do that anymore .

Tim Barton 12:10

And there have been people that found workarounds . For example , there was a case where the court said that you can't have nativity scenes because , clearly , nativity scenes, that's not just celebrating Christmas , it's celebrating Jesus , which happens to be the reason for Christmas that's part of the name Christ-mas , like the whole thing is silly . But it led certain groups to say that well , we won't just put out a nativity scene , we're gonna put out Santa , we're gonna put out reindeer and snowmen and the abominable snowman , alright whatever , we're gonna put out all these kind of Christmas displays . So then it just so happens that nativity scene is a part of it . And so now you'll see a lot of courthouses , especially small town USA a lot of courthouses , they'll have Christmas displays and they will have nativity scenes , but it will be surrounded by lots of other Christmas things

Tim Barton 13:04

because the workaround people found was they could say , hey , we're not doing this just for religious reasons , we're doing it because it's part of the holiday tradition people have . Well , there's nothing wrong with people having to be strategic up to that point , but we are now at the place that you no longer have to put up Santa Claus and Rudolph unless you just want to . Now you can, once again, make Christmas truly about Jesus , making it actually about Christ . Just put up a nativity by itself , and part of it is because , when coach Kennedy won his decision , the US Supreme Court identified the only reason he was told he couldn't pray in public is they referenced the Lemon decision . The court that made that decision . They referenced lemon and they said based on the standard , you can't do it .

Tim Barton 13:46

And so the Supreme Court said that Lemon has always been a terrible test . It's now unequivocally overturned, like this will never be used again . And because of that , there are now more than 7,000 cases , 7,000 examples , and I think it's more than 7,300 specifically is the number we heard from a group of religious liberty attorneys , but they identified of all these cases where people were told they couldn't do things and the reason they were given was the Lemon test . Well , all of those things are now back on the table , where people were told that students couldn't have prayer at schools or in their classrooms , that students couldn't mention Jesus in their graduation speeches , and we can go down the list of the 7,300 cases . But the bottom line is now because of the Coach Kennedy decision , All of that is now back on the table , which is an incredible opportunity awaiting us here as we go forward .

Rick Green 14:42

Yeah , the one thing I would add , Tim , is ,you know , David , you were so ahead of the game on this .

Rick Green 14:47

I'm just looking at my copy of Original Intent and 20 years ago you talked about how bad the Lemon test was .

Rick Green 14:54

You talked about why it had led to all these other bad decisions and how many times it got cited over the years and just what a destruction, you know, wrecking ball it it was to religious liberty in this country , and the only guy I know of that beat you to the punch was none other than Scalia , who called it a ghoul in a late night horror movie in one of his dissenting opinions back about 10 years before you wrote Original Intent .

Rick Green 15:19

So I just want to say , man , if there are listeners out there , if you haven't read original intent , we talk about all these cases all the time here on the program and in original intent you really get that history of how we got so far away from what the Founding Fathers intended and you learned so much about all of these cases . But I thought that was a great summary , excellent way to set us up as we come back from the break to talk about how to challenge now those 7,000 bad rulings out there and how you know , this is a wonderful opportunity , not just for this , you know , next few months , this is going to happen for years to come , so stay with us , folks . You're listening to WallBuilders .

Tim Barton 15:59

Hey guys , we want to let you know about a new resource we have at WallBuilders called the American Story .

Tim Barton 16:04

For so many years , people have asked us to do a history book to help tell more of the story that's just not known or not told today . And , we would say , very providentially , in the midst of all of the new attacks coming out against America , whether it be from things like the 1619 project that say America is evil and everything in America was built off slavery , which is certainly not true or things like even the Black Lives Matter movement , the organization itself , not the statement black lives matter , but the organization that says we're against everything that America was built on and this is part of the Marxist ideology . There's so many things attacking America . Well , is America worth defending ? Well , what is a true story of America ? We actually have written and told that story , starting with Christopher Columbus , going roughly through Abraham Lincoln . We tell the story of America not as a story of a perfect nation or a perfect people , but the story of how God used these imperfect people and did great things through this nation . It's a story you want to check out , WallBuilders . com the American Story .

Rick Green 17:02

We're back here on Wall Builders . Thanks for staying with us . We're talking about the Coach Kennedy case , which we had Coach Joe Kennedy last week and we've been talking a little bit about him . I think , guys , I just love the fact that he's a tender warrior man . This is a Marine that is tough , he can fight .

Rick Green 17:16

He's , like you know , our friend John Lovell , a warrior poet , right , but he also loves the Lord and the fact , like you said , Tim , that he knew when his boys wanted him to , just , you know , give in , you know , do whatever they said , just so you don't . . . the feathers , don't get ruffled . He knew Nope knew, nope exactly the wrong example . So what a great guy and excited for what this decision is going to mean into the future . So before the break , we started talking about what it does mean legally and how now we've got the opportunity, you know , not that we want this stuff decided by the courts , but this is the arena where this stuff gets fought and the Supreme Court has opened a huge door at this point to relitigate all those bad religious liberty cases .

David Barton 17:55

Yeah , and there's a really important point that Coach Kennedy made last week . Do you remember the way all this got started ? It was, there was a compliment given about what he was doing with his team and the other team , after the game , the teams came together in unity , they prayed . People weren't objecting , it was a compliment . It was another educator from the other school who contacted the school , said this is so great to see this unity between teams rather than hatred, and cooperation , and so it was a good thing . And it leads to the school saying you can't do this anymore . Now that in itself is ironic . Here's something that people are praising , that educators in the other school , the opponents are praising and because they're praising it , you can't do it anymore . But remember , what he said was they took it to the school attorneys and the school attorney started saying oh , you can't pray with the team . Whoa , you can't pray by yourself , even silently . You got to stop it all .

David Barton 18:44

This is a really key point , and over the last three years particularly , we have seen so many victories with local people , local communities , local churches , local groups getting together and saying our school board is crazy . We got to have a different school board , and so we've seen the turnover in Houston , we've seen the turnover in Denver , in Colorado Springs , in Wichita , Kansas , in Boise , in Miami-Dade County and hundreds , if not thousands , of local schools across the country where parents have just had it . They don't like what's going on in the library , they don't like what's going on in the classroom , they don't like the CRT , they don't like the gender stuff , they don't like it . So they're taking back the schools and the warning I give to every one of those who get selected is look , this is a new spot , you're going to be there . Remember why you ran , because when you get on , the school attorney and others are gonna say now you're here to support the superintendent and you're here to support the teacher . No , you're not . You're not there to support the system .

David Barton 19:39

And what happens is the school attorney is most often, so many times, they're the ones who say oh , you can't do religious expression , you have to do the gender stuff , because this is diverse . It's the attorneys that give the wrong advice and people need to understand that when you're a school board attorney , that may mean you're good in administrative law , maybe you're good in contract law or insurance law , but you're not a constitutional attorney . That's not why the school board hired you is because you know the Constitution . And we have seen , so many times , I think , the stats I saw two years ago where only 11% of law professors are conservative , conservative constitutionalists . So nine out of 10 , 10 out of 11 law professors are going to have a progressive view . That is not going to be what the Constitution says . And so when the school board attorney comes and says , oh , you can't do this , that's when you need to turn to the guys who do this at the court , like in the case of Coach Kennedy . You go to First Liberty , Kelly Shackelford . You go to Liberty Council , Mat Staver . You go to Alliance Defending Freedom , these groups that do this all the . . . that is what they do solely, is Constitution .

David Barton 20:46

So , having said that , when , for example , with what Tim said , schools can go back to having nativity scenes , but your school board attorney is most likely . . . and I'm not throwing every school board attorney under the bus , we know there's some good school board attorneys out there , but , like law professors , they're a definite minority so when you go to the school board and say , hey , I want to put an nativity scene up , your school board attorney is probably going to say nah , you can't do that , that's unconstitutional . And say no , no , no , you need to see the decisions in 2019 and 2022 , because the court said you can . Three cases now . They said you can . And it's the same thing . It's time to have prayer at graduation again , because that was only stopped , I mean , we've been doing prayer graduation since we've had higher education , since we've had lower education , but that was stopped because of the Lemon test . Well , we need to go back to teaching creation science , because that is a viable science . But no , no , no , we can't do that because , again , the Lemon test , all this stuff that has made school so ardently secular , the rug has now been pulled out from under their feet . But if we keep acting like the rug is still there and keep not wanting to walk on it and not change things , it's not going to help .

David Barton 21:58

So , the website that Tim gave and Rick you even gave it when we're talking to Coach Kennedy, Restoring Faith in America , I mean , just take the first letter off that RFIA , go there . All sorts of legal guidance is there . And this is where , like Coach Kennedy , we need to be offensive minded on this and say, you know what , I can't afford to back down because of all the kids , because of my team , because of what this means to so many others . I'm not going to let them talk me out of doing this just because the school attorneys say this is the wrong thing to do . The school attorneys are wrong , the Constitution's right . And so if we can get that kind of mentality and step back into these arenas and, you know, go in armed , go in equipped , talk to First Liberty , look at the website , go in and say hey , Mr . Principal , you may not be aware of this , but the court has really changed everything in the last three years , and here's a website you need to see , and I suggest that we start having Bible courses in the school again .

David Barton 22:54

And , by the way , you could already do that . What they stopped in school was daily Bible reading over the intercom . What they did not stop in school was Bible courses , and so there's more than 200,000 kids, today , 1,200 school districts , that are taking the Bible as the only textbook in a biblical literature and history course , and they get credit for it in schools . So this can be done , and the courts never struck that down , but most people today and most school board attorneys would tell you you can't do that . So all this is say- get equipped , read a couple of things . It's real easy . You don't have to be an expert on this , you don't have to be an attorney , and then start pushing the envelope , start saying it's time to get this stuff back in , just like Coach Kennedy did .

Tim Barton 23:33

This is something too, guys, to keep everybody in the loop . We've been doing this for the last couple of years at our state legislators' conference , our pro-family legislative network , we've been challenging and encouraging state legislators with opportunities of things they can do in their state . It's where , even this year in Texas state Senator Phil King , he introduced a piece of legislation that would have the 10 commandments put on display in public schools again , because the only reason they were taken down was a case Stone v . Graham 1980 , and they cited the Lemon decision saying wait , that would seem to be religious as why you want to display the take commandment and if it's religious reasons , you can't do that religious display for religious reasons , et cetera . However , now we can go back and do that and so we're seeing some of these state legislators that are taking active steps to restore religious liberty and basic fundamental morals and values in our nation . And the reason that it really does matter in America as much , if not more , than so many other places ,

Tim Barton 24:33

if you look at our system of government , our Constitution , John Adams very famously said, we quote this often, John Adams says our Constitution was made only for a moral and a religious people . It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other . As we're looking at our nation right now and we are seeing so many problems in our nation , the number one underlying issue of why we have problems in our nation is because we've lost the biblical foundation that religion and morality that allowed America to thrive and function , the Constitution was made, designed to give freedom to people , but if you give freedom to immoral people , all they do is immoral things and it won't work . And therefore you have to have more government , you have to have more control and more regulation . The only way we maintain freedom in America is with the underlying foundation of religion and morality .

Tim Barton 25:18

If you want to help promote that , we would encourage you contact your state legislature to tell them that they ought to come to the Pro Family Legislative Network or to the conference specifically that we host every year in Dallas . Come down , they'll be able to join with hundreds of other individuals from different states and they'll be able to hear first hand information of a lot of what's going on from different policy experts from around the nation and certainly get a really solid foundation of constitutional principles that we need restored in this nation . But , man , huge props to Coach Kennedy for having the courage , the backbone , the fortitude to stand up and now we are all benefiting from his courage and the victory God gave us , which is just incredible news .

Rick Green 25:59

And , of course , huge props to our friends over at First Liberty , Kelly , all of the folks that had the vision to know , hey , we can win this , and they fought it for that many years and they're now ready to take it to the next level and encouraging people to bring those additional suits for religious liberty into the future . So this is a good season for us folks . As Kelly has told us several times over the last year , we have more religious liberty now than at any time in our lifetimes . So tremendous , tremendous opportunity . What a great way to round out the programs . Thanks again to Joe Kennedy for joining us last week and thank you for listening to WallBuilders .