Rick Green:
Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. It's WallBuilders where we take on the hottest topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. We are in the middle of a presentation from David Barton, speaking on a tale of two cities. This was a presentation that he gave at the Pro Family Legislators' Conference just a few weeks ago. We're going to pick up right where we left off. Here's David Barton on A Tale of Two Cities.

David Barton: 0:34
What you see here is those two ships that have landed Over here. 1619, we'll say that's Jamestown, that's a ship landing at Jamestown, and up here in 1620, it's a ship landing at Plymouth. Now, if you take that 1619, it's hard for you to see even close, much less at the back. There's a circle there. So let me blow that circle up. You see that circle right there with the ship. Outside the circle it says Mammon, what's that? Oh, Jesus talked about that in Matthew 6. Mammon, that's a love of money. And on the inside of that circle it says $1. Oh, so they're showing us a coin. They're showing us that Jamestown was founded as an economic colony. It was all about making money. That's how it was founded. So when you look at that, there's a lot of bad stuff that came out of that. And so they say God's curse of slavery. And as you go across that, I'll just read it from here it's avarice, it's lust, it's ignorance, it's superstition, it's ambition, it's secession, it's the Dred Scott decision, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, it's the fugitive slave law of 1850s, the Missouri Compromise of 1820. That's all the bad stuff that came out of that part of the country. Now, that's what the 1619 project wants to make you think all of America is. But you just saw that map that didn't affect part of the country. There's no question it affected part of the country. But then you have this other group up here, the 1620 group, and when you look at it, oh look, it says the Bible on the end of that. And you see the colonies up there. It's got like Connecticut and Massachusetts and Rhode Island and it's got New Hampshire and that was the original Bible belt. It was right there. I mean, this is where they put the Bible into practice. So that original Bible belt up there. And you look at the good that's come out of that and you see free schools and free education and patriotism, philanthropy and all these good traits. See, that's the one that had the greater impact on America, not the 1619 time. We had had an impact on America, no question, but again, we got out of that faster than other nations did. And so, as you look over all on this, you have those two, the 1619, 1620 project. Literally you have professing Christians versus biblical Christians. So there's a huge difference between the two. And see, that literally is the tale of two cities and that's what you see in Jamestown. Now, going back to the verse I started with in Revelation 1, verses 5 and 6, and Jesus Christ has made us kings and priests under God, his Father Notice the word and and the church. Today, as Christians, there's too much of the either, or I'm either in government or I'm in church, but I don't do both of those. He said no, I made you kings and priests. I made you competent in the government arena. I made you competent in the spiritual arena as well. You're supposed to be competent in both of those arenas. And when you look at the pilgrims, literally they were kings and priests. Because of that, they could elect people out of them. You get to be our governor this year and let's have you as pastor this year. I mean, you could choose right among yourself people to be kings and priests. If you go to Jamestown, oh my goodness, no shot at all. You got to import your kings and priests there. You get nobody competent to be a good leader. And you get a good leader, you try to blow them up and send them back to England. So this is that distinction between the two. So if I move forward from the pilgrims, 170 years later George Washington summed up that teaching that they had been living by and it's in his farewell address. Now, if you go to George Washington's farewell address in 1796, this is considered the most significant political speech ever delivered as president. It is so significant that we used to study this for generations in schools in America. These are all early textbooks, just of Washington's farewell address. We studied that. Now I'll challenge you. Hopefully you read the Bible on a regular basis. Hopefully you read the Constitution on a regular basis. If you just read the Constitution once and said I've read it, that's not enough. It's like reading the Bible once and saying I've read it. You'll keep finding stuff every time. But if you want to understand what the Constitution means, that's where you study Washington's farewell address. He goes through the overview. He said this you know, here's the clauses, these are the specifics. Let me give you the overview. And so that's why we studied Washington's farewell address, because it puts the tone, it puts the atmosphere on everything we have in the Constitution and significantly, in his farewell address Washington said of all the dispositions and habits that lead to political prosperity. And may I emphasize political prosperity. I sure wish we had more of this. We don't. We're polarized, we're weaponized. Every side wants to cancel the other side, there's not political prosperity. Now there's not. I went back. There's a law called RIFRA and RIFRA is Religious Freedom Restoration Act. It was done in early 2000, and it was to protect the rights of religious people in the workplace. And then they came in with one after that, rilupa, which is the religious institutionalized personate, two great religious liberty pieces. They were sponsored by Ted Kennedy and Chuck Schumer and they were the really. Look how far we've gone. Look at Schumer today. There's no way he would stand up for religious freedom, for anybody on the traditional side. So we don't have political prosperity. We used to be able to get along on some things and now there ain't nothing. And Washington said, of all the dispositions and habits that lead to political prosperity, he said religion and morality are indispensable supports. And we keep saying, oh no, religious people shouldn't be involved in government, you shouldn't be involved. No, no, no. If you want politics to work well, you better not take religion and morality away from it, you better not separate it all. And he went so far as to say in vain. Would that man claim the tribute of patriotism? Who should labor to furt these great pillars? He knew a patriot. When he saw one, he had him in Valley Forge. He had him in the War for Eight Years. He said guys, if you try to take religion and morality out of public life, I'm not going to let you call yourself a patriot, because you're trying to destroy everything that makes our government work well, that's why we studied Washington's farewell address. If we still studied it, we wouldn't be having this nonsense of oh, you can't have prayer at school, so you can't have prayer at a football game, but you can't have it in TV. We would never do that, because that's what makes the nation prosperous politically and that's the emphasis that we had throughout that period. So Washington's farewell address a challenge again. If you haven't read it, read it on a regular basis. It will really refresh you. It will give you an overview and perspective on some good stuff. So political prosperity is the result of religion and morality. Now we have a lot of measurements on religion and morality today. George Barnett here, probably the most cited pollster in America in the last generation, and there's a lot of ways of measuring stats and a lot of groups that keep stats. One of those groups is the American Bible Society.

Rick Green: 6:53
Alright, folks, hang on. We've got to take a quick break interrupting David for just a second Speaking at the Pro Famic Legislators Conference. We'll be right back on WallBuilders.

Tim Barton: 7:11
This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders, with another moment from American history. Many today assert that religion is something private, that it has no place in the public square and that it is incompatible with government. But the founding fathers believed exactly the opposite. They held that religion was absolutely necessary in order to maintain our free system of government. For example, John Adams declared we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. And signer of the declaration, Benjamin Rush, similarly affirmed without religion there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all Republican governments. The founding fathers understood that limited government required public morality from the people and that public morality was produced by the Christian religion. For more information about the founding fathers' views on religion and public life, go to WallBuilders.com.

Rick Green: 8:10
Welcome back to WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. We're listening to David Barton speak at the ProFemi Legislators Conference. Let's jump right back in with a tale of two cities.

David Barton: 8:18
The American Bible Society was started by our founding fathers in 1816. It was started by signers of the Constitution, just as US Supreme Court cabinet members. This is the largest Bible society in the world. They still exist today to give out more than 250 million Bibles a year. So the American Bible Society has what they call the State of the Bible report. So every year they come out. What's the state of the Bible in America? We have seen for years that Bible reading in America has been steadily decreasing. But then we got to 2022 and if you look on the side, you just see it fell off the chart. On the side, see that In one year alone, we lost 25 million Americans who no longer read the Bible at all. Now, to show you how easy the bar is to be a Bible reader do you know how the American Bible Society defines a Bible reader? Somebody who reads the Bible three times a year? Whoa. And we lost 25 million who don't even fit that definition, as low as that bar is. And then, if you look at this year's report 2023, another dip on the right You'll see it dropped again and we lost another 3 million this year. So in the last two years, we lost 28 million people who don't even crack the book at all, much less measuring where the Bible goes. I mean, they don't even qualify to be a Jamestown Christian, much less a Pilgrim Christian. So we're moving the wrong direction on this thing and this is where what we have now is only one out of six, one out of 16 Americans as a biblical worldview 6%. One out of 16. For example, if I threw out and said what did Jesus say about minimum wage, he used to say I got that. That's in Matthew 20. Only one out of 16 will know that. If I say what did Jesus say about things like capital gains? Well, there's two good parables he has on that, one Luke 19, one Matthew 25. There's so many economic teachings that Jesus gives on so many issues we face inheritance tax, the capitation tax, progressive taxes, flat taxes, state taxes All that's covered in the Bible. And so biblical worldview we used to have that and the Pilgrims certainly had that. Only one out of 11 Christians, or 9% of Christians, read the Bible on a daily basis. So even the Bible readers we have it's not very regular, very it's pretty sporadic. So biblical literacy is certainly up in a way that it has never been in our history and that shows up with the three institutions, particularly the way it affects God's institutions. You remember that God made the family Genesis 1, 2, 3,. Adam made Eve. They had children. He said this is good, that's his institution. It's interesting the more secular we become as a people, the less we know what a family looks like. You know four times in the Bible God says. The Bible says four times and God made them male and female. Male and female made he them. It's simple two genders right. The more secular we become, the more genders we have. If you haven't kept up with it, bbc, british Broadcasting Corporation, just had their training and they found there's 150 different genders available. This is the global butterflies. They go across training corporate leaders on this. In America. We're a little smarter than that. We have our professors and helpful professor tells us that there's 81 genders in America and they give you a list of A to Z of the 81 different genders. Massages they're stupid. It's professing themselves to be wise. They became fools is what the Bible says. We've got a ranch out west of here and you may not know anything about ranch at all. You may be from middle of New York City, I don't know. It doesn't matter. I can take any one of you out to that ranch, I can put any one of you behind our cattle herd and every single one of you can accurately tell me how many genders there are in that herd and you won't have any trouble telling which genders which. It's really a pretty easy thing, and we're into 150 and 81. So again, we've lost our knowledge of what the institution and family looks like. The same when you get in government. The first in the Bible in government is Genesis 9.6. After Cain kills Abel and the whole world goes down Hill, god says OK, let's just wipe a mountain and start again. And so, as Noah is saved and his family is saved, we have the flood destroys the world. As Noah is getting off the ark. In Genesis 9.6, it says Noah, whoever sheds man's blood by him will man's blood be shed. Oh, that's capital punishment. The first thing God tells Noah getting off the ark is we're going to do capital punishment starting now, and Hebrew scholars tell us that that's the beginning of what's called the Noah Hyde Laws, seven different categories of laws that deal with civil governance in some way, and so that we take civil government back to what God did in Genesis 9, and certainly the third institution is out of the church and you don't find the church in the Old Testament. You find types and shadows as you go through the Bible and you go through Genesis and Exodus. God says, hey, I want my people in congregation, I want them coming over here to the temple to worship me. We can call that church it's the Old Testament version of church but nonetheless that's God's institution. So those are his three institutions and with those three institutions it seems like people today, christians today, know less about government than any other, and that's not always the way it was. So if I take you back to a guy named John Locke, John Locke wrote the two treatises of government and just to show you how important that was, there's a guy named Richard Henry Lee who's the signer of the declaration. Richard Henry Lee, who made the motion that we separate from Great Britain. That led to the declaration. He said the declaration was quote, copied from Locke's treatises on government. Oh, so we copy the declaration out of that 1690 work. That 1690 work by John Locke references the Bible more than 1,500 times to show the proper operation of civil government. Tell me, the Bible says nothing about civil government, because people today are ignorant of what it says. They think it doesn't say anything. That's the way Jamestown thought it. None of the Bible does anything about government. No, it says a whole lot about government, and that one book is proof of that. So we see what's happened here and we've gotten away from government. And the question would be why? Now I'm going to throw out my experience. There's a lot more than just my experience, but my experience in dealing with a lot of churches is probably the excuse I hear most often about why a lot of church people and there's about 51 million devout Christians who do not vote in elections. And so why? Can you imagine how different America would be, how different your state would be, if those people got out and voted? And so we're trying to get those people up and doing something. But they've got a reason, and probably the most often excuse that I hear from church people and why they don't get involved is eschatology, and eschatology deals with the anti-healists the last days. This is already prophesied. There's nothing we can do. His return is imminent. Ok, time out. I thank the Bible. I believe it to be inspired and errant and infallible. I believe everything in it is correct. Therefore, when Peter and Paul both write in the epistles that they are living in the last days. I think they were living in the last days. What's that mean? It must mean the last days last at least 2,000 years, because if we're saying these are the last days, they were living in them back then. You know, every generation thought they were in the last days. If you look at Columbus, columbus' writings, he said part of the reason he was so pressed to come to the New World. He said I've talked to all the theologians of the day and they all agree that Christ will return within 155 years. Now I don't know why 155 years, but that's what all the theologians agreed on. And so he says we've got to get this done before Christ returns. And then if you look at Sam Adams, sam Adams says I've talked to all the major theologians of Massachusetts and they all think that Jesus will be back before 1800. Every prophecy has been fulfilled. There's nothing left to be fulfilled. Every single generation thought that they were living in the last days. And that includes what happened in Connecticut in 1780. And Connecticut in 1780, the Senate met that morning for their meeting. So they convened for their Senate meeting and it turned out that that day was unlike any other day in Connecticut history. The sun literally did not come up that morning. There was no sun in the sky. They got up it's still a dark black sky. It's over. They can't see the sun and it scares them. It's spittless because they've never had a day when they couldn't see the sun, and what they didn't know was that there had been a massive wildfire up in Canada and all that smoke came over Connecticut and there was a fog on top of the smoke that wouldn't let the smoke move. And so they get outside. All they see is black sky, and it just scares them. They're religious, they're devout, they're part of the Bible belt back then, and so what happens is this is judgment, this is the great and terrible day of the Lord. This is all the prophecies, that's what they're convinced of, and so, as they are there in the Senate, they make a motion that we need to adjourn.

Rick Green: 17:03
Alright, folks, hang on. We got to take a quick break. We'll be right back. You're listening to WallBuilders.

Tim Barton: 17:14
Hey guys, we want to let you know about a new resource we have at WallBuilders called the American Story. 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, walbuilderscom the American Story.

Rick Green: 18:17
Welcome back to WallBuilders. We're right back in with David Barton speaking at the ProFamily Legislators Conference.

David Barton: 18:23
We need to get out of here and go home, because this is the day we need to be elsewhere. We don't need to be doing this. And at that point in time one of the Senate members, a guy named Abraham Davenport, had something to say, and it's really pretty profound stuff. Abraham Davenport said well, he said the day of judgment is either approaching or it's not. Yeah Right, he said the day of judgment is either approaching or it's not. He says if it's not, then there's no cause for an adjournment. If this is not the day of, if we turn out to be wrong, we should never have adjourned. We should be doing our stuff. And so he continues. He says if it, if, if it is, if this is the day of judgment. He said now I choose to be found doing my duty. Now. He just quoted a Bible verse there. That Bible verse is what Jesus said in Luke 12, 43, where Jesus said bless his ass servant, whom is Lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing. And so he said when I come back and surprise everybody, I want to find you busy doing the stuff you're supposed to be doing. And so Abraham Davenport says look, I don't know if this day of judgment or not, but if it is, I want to be found doing my duty. I want to be found doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I don't want him coming back and finding me not at work somewhere. And so he continued. He says I closed. It says I wish, therefore, that candles may be brought. What's that? There's a famous painting inside the old Connecticut Senate that shows that they brought candles so they could keep doing their work. It was a dark day. Theologically, it's all over, and that's Governor John Trumbull in the ride, who is the theologian himself governor of Connecticut. And they brought candles and kept working. Who cares what the signs of the time are? Who cares where this last air knot we're supposed to be doing? We're supposed to be doing, and that was the viewpoint that they had back then. A lot of Christians don't have that today in the American church. This is what Jesus said, luke 19, 13,. He called his servants and said unto them occupy till I come. When I get back, I want to find you busy doing what you're supposed to be busy. I don't want to see you sitting around waiting for me. And so this is the teaching they had back then. So, as you look at the three institutions that we have back then kings and priests. Now what Chad and I have worked on real hard is trying to get church people over supporting government people. They're the priests side, you guys are the kings side. So you guys go do what you're doing. We'll do it, we'll do it. Kings and priests. And so Faith Wynch Chattel talked to you more about this and more Chats talked to over 90,000 pastors in America personally and working to get those 51 million folks turned out of those churches and back-acting. And we're seeing a lot of good results. Part of this is why we're seeing so much happening in school board races and city council races. They're starting to get back in and starting to get involved locally. It's going to trickle up. If you get a voter that votes at the local level, they will vote up. A presidential level voter won't necessarily vote down, but a lower level voter will always vote up, and so if we can get those people involved locally, it's going to trickle up. So that's a but. On the same side, government people need to be involved in religious stuff as well, and it's not. You know, you can't just cut one direction. You can't just say the church guys refuse to get involved, and so if you look at what's happened with stats over the last I'm going to say 30 years, you see the downturn we've had in Christianity. And so what we've had is in the last 20 years we've lost 20 points in professing Christians, so that's one point a year. If that trajectory keeps going, there's not going to be many Christians in America. That keeps happening. And, by the way, when you look at what happens with that trajectory lepto Now if you're from the country you might know what this means. And if you're from the country and know what this means, it kind of makes your knees knock and your face go really pale. And it's short for leptosporosis. What in the world is leptosporosis? Leptosporosis is a disease that affects reproductivity of stock. It keeps them from reproducing. So you need your stock to reproduce. But what happens is they get this disease and whether it's chickens or whether it's sheep or whether it's cattle or whatever, they can't reproduce. And that's really what we're seeing right now. Because if you take, if you take what we see in the church, we're not being able to even keep up with the population curve. Take this chart again. Do you know what that chart right there tells me? That Christian parents can't even keep their own kids Christian, because if they did it would be a flat curve. We're losing from what we have, so we can't even keep our own kids pointed in the right direction. So we're not reproducing spiritually the way we should. We're not producing more Christians and that's not the result of the church, that's the result of believers. God's not into the church government stuff as much as believers doing what I told you to do. And so this thing here, there is now a growing movement in America. I'm going to say it's not a movement, it's a counter movement, a growing counter movement, and it's called X evangelicals. What's that? That's an X evangelical. So there's not even enough Bible with evangelicals. These would be good Jamestown people is what these would be. There's not even enough Bible to keep them an evangelical. And so we now have what's called deconversion. You can specifically go through training to learn how to leave evangelical Christianity behind. So there's now this is a formal movement. That's how decrishonized we've become as a people. And so it's called the emerging X evangelical church, not evangelical X evangelical church. And this is where we've seen the growth. And you guys have seen in legislatures like the Church of Satan, like when in the state of Oklahoma and the state of Arkansas. When they put up 10 commandments there, the Satanist came in and said hey, we want our monument up too and bath them in it. So this is the monument they created to put up in both Arkansas and Oklahoma. But this is big. Now. In schools there's Satan clubs on schools. All this stuff is growing at a rate we've never seen in our life before, and so overall back in up 60 years, not just the last 20 to 30 years, but that's what's happened with Christianity in America, and so this is something that's got to be stopped or we're not going to have any kind of a nation like we've ever had, and it goes back to us needing to be more like the pilgrims and less like Jamestown. So this is a leptosporosis. We have a reproduction problem here. We're not being able to reproduce. And if you go back to what Jesus said in the Great Commission the Great Commission he said to his disciples all authority in heaven and heaven and earth have been given to me. He said, therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you. Who did that go to? That wasn't the church leaders, that was to every one of his followers. This is a command that he gave to all of those who were gathered around him that day, and they weren't professional, anything except professional followers. That's all they did was they followed Jesus and went where he went and listened to his teachings and tried to apply those teachings. We, oh, we, hire professionals. That's why we're our pastors and evangelists. Oh, no, that's, I'm going back to country a bit. Sheep reproduced sheep. If a shepherd reproduces sheep, there's something weird going on in the barnyard and it's. It's not natural. It's sheep. Don't wait for professionals to reproduce other Christians. That's the task of everyone. And see, that's why it's got to be kings and priests. We have to have both of those going so close with with that. That thought. Revelation one, five and six. Jesus Christ has made us kings and priests, every one of us. We got both sides that we need to be responsible for the governmental side, but also the spiritual side. That's not the task of the church or the task of the state. It's a task of us, and if we do that, that's where political prosperity will come from. We just, quite frankly, we need a whole lot more pilgrims in America today is what we need, and that's a choice that each of us have to make. Each of us can make that. This stuff is new to you. We got all sorts of materials, resources out there that you can go to to see it. There's what's called the American story. That's the newest book we have. We have another one probably coming out by Christmas time but also the Founders Bible goes to the Bible versus the Founding Fathers used to create specific policies. So a lot of content, a lot of information, a lot of material. Alright folks out of time for today.

Rick Green: 26:20
You've been listening to David Barton this three-part series. If you missed any part of it, it's available on our website right now at WallBuildersLive.com. It was David Barton speaking at the ProFamily Legislators Conference just a few weeks ago. Hope you enjoyed it. You've been listening to WallBuilders.