Rick Green: 0:06
Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. It's WallBuilders where we're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective, as we do every day of the week here at WallBuilders. And of course, what we mean by that is the Bible's got all the answers. So, whatever the issue is that we're facing, we need to be going to the answer book, we need to be saturated in God's Word if we want to have truth and be capable of dispelling the lie. So, constantly going to go back and say what's the Bible say about this issue? Whatever the area of the culture may be it could be in business, it could be our personal lives, our family lives, whatever's going on in our careers, whatever's going on in our church, from the pulpit, certainly what's going on in our government and our you know, at all levels, local, state and federal all of those things, whatever the issue may be, I mean I'm trying to get this across there is no issue off the table, there is no issue that the Bible does not address. So of course, here at WallBuilders we're going to look at a biblical perspective, then a historical perspective. We can learn from what's happened in the past. We can look and see. Okay, here's where another nation, or even our own nation, dealt with this particular issue and other people dealt with this particular issue. Much, much, much to be learned from history, and one reason that God tells us in the Bible to remember the former days and to constantly look back at what he was doing. We can learn from that as well. And then that constitutional perspective because we live in America, because our rule book, if you will, our instruction manual for how to form our government and what the proper role of government should be, and the jurisdiction of government versus jurisdiction of our families and church and individual all of that comes back to being a constitutional republic and therefore we must know the Constitution, and yes, I mean by that the federal constitution, our US Constitution, but also our state constitutions and then our local charters, all of those things. That's why we say biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. So here at the beginning of the year, I thought it was important to explain why we start the program every day with looking at things from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. It's good to be reminded why we talk about each of those things. And then, of course, the just the whole idea of WallBuilders comes from that scripture in Nehemiah Arise and rebuild the walls that we may no longer be a reproach. We're rebuilding the walls of America, the foundation of America. I know initially when I say that you think about the wall along the southern border, which absolutely does need to be built. We need that foundation to be strong as well. But we're referring to something bigger than that, even, and that is the entire foundation of America, the principles America is built upon. So when we rebuild the walls in America today, it means rebuilding the foundation, becoming biblical citizens once again and teaching others to do the same. So that's a long open to the day's program, just as a reminder here we are at the beginning of the year of why we exist here at WallBuilders. What the WallBuilders Show is all about. My name is Rick Green. I'm a former Texas legislator and America's Constitution coach, and it's an honor to be here with David and Tim Barton. David, America's premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders. Tim's a national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders, and the three of us. Thank you very much for listening and encourage you to be a force multiplier, sharing this program with as many people as you possibly can, letting people know why it's important for them to do their part in their local communities as well. And our job here at WallBuilders is to equip and inspire them, to give them all kinds of information and that knowledge of that biblical, historical and constitutional perspective, and then also to inspire them to go out and take action in their local communities. And so we encourage you not only to listen but to share the program with as many people as you possibly can. So here's what we're going to do for the next three days. We're going to go back to that ProFamily Legislators Conference and the speaker is going to be Congressman Barry Loudermilk. Congressman Loudermilk's been a great friend of this program for many, many years, back when he was a state senator in Georgia and, of course, over the last few years as a congressman. And then he also plays a pivotal role right now in congressman, chairing the subcommittee that is looking into January 6th. He's been the one to make those. All of those thousands of hours actually turned out to be 40 something thousand hours of video footage. He's been the one to begin to make those available to the public and to get that released, and to have to go through all of that with his team. Of course, nobody's seen all of it, but he's seen probably more than anyone else and just done a great job of being even-handed and really just revealing the truth, and we've had Barry on just throughout the year of 2023 talking about those things. But this particular talk that we're going to have for the next three days is what he shared with the state reps and senators from across the nation at the ProFamily Legislators Conference just a few weeks ago, and we thought it was important to bring that to you our Wildbusters audience as well. So let's jump in. I'm Congressman Barry Loudermilk at the ProFamily Legislators Conference.

Barry Loudermilk: 4:52
Well, good morning. I don't know how I drew the short straw to follow Rick Green, goodness gracious. That's a heavy lift, but I'm so glad to be here. It was questionable whether I was going to be here or not, because we were actually scheduled to be recessed this week and next week, but then we had a little kerfuffle with a speaker and we lost a lot of time. But God is in control and it is amazing to see how God worked in this very tenuous time we had in Congress to where a speaker, kevin McCarthy, was the most conservative speaker I've served with he. It wasn't that he just philosophically was conservative, he was extremely conservative for California, I can tell you that. But it was that he actually brought conservatives into leadership, because the conservative side of our conference had always been somewhat alienated under Speaker Boehner and somewhat under Speaker Ryan. If we came down to a decision and we just didn't have enough votes, it was always to go to the moderate side and pick up some moderate Democrats. Mccarthy wanted to change that. So he actually not only started working with the conservative side, but moved them into positions of leadership, such as Jim Jordan was chairman of judiciary committee, but there was a lot of frustration that we removed him when we did, but to get Mike Johnson as speaker, who is a huge friend of WallBuilders, and with David and Cheryl Barton, and I mean it is just amazing. I was sharing with them last night, sitting in the room as we were making another vote as a conference on who the speaker should be, and Mike had called me. On Monday morning I was at the Atlanta airport, flying back to DC. He said look, this was the key element to this. When he told me these words, I knew he was going to be our next speaker. He said, Barry, I feel God has called me to run for speaker, not necessarily to win, but to run. When he said not necessarily to win, I was checked in my spirit. This is going to be our next speaker. Why? Because of the humility. This is not something he wanted to do. It was something he felt led to do and I've talked to him since and it was kind of a yeah, I was praying that this wouldn't happen and but God, as the vote was happening. So we decided, because of the embarrassment that we'd had on the house floor by so many rounds of voting in the beginning of the year 15 rounds of voting to get to a speaker and then three rounds with Jim Jordan. That failed. We decided before we leave our conference, whoever gets the majority, we're going to do a standing vote to make sure that you can get to the constitutional majority to get this passed on the floor. And so I was watching as our moderates and liberals from New York stood up and said Mike Johnson and the most hard liners on the right are emphatically saying Mike Johnson, you can just see the Holy Spirit move across the conference and the spirit of peace comes. So we're in good position right now. Not that it's going to get any easier, it just we're going to be a little more fit for the battle.

Rick Green: 8:21
Quick break, everybody. We'll be right back. You're listening to the WallBuilders Show.

David Barton: 8:30
This is David Barton, with another moment from America's history. Our founding fathers, despite their common love for America, did not always agree with each other in politics. Such was the case between John and Samuel Adams. John was the leader of the Federalist Party and Samuel was the leader of the Anti-Federalist Party. Consequently, political disagreements were not unusual between these two. On October the 4th 1790, sam wrote John and told him let ministers and philosophers, statesmen and patriots unite their endeavors to renovate the age by educating their little boys and girls and leading them in the study and practice of the exalted virtues of the Christian system. Two weeks later, John wrote back and told Samuel that on this issue they both agreed. While these two prominent founding fathers disagreed on much, they both agreed on the importance of educating the next generation and the principles of Christianity.

More Information: 9:20
For more information on God's hand in American history, contact WallBuilders at 1-800-8-REBUILD. Welcome back to the WallBuilders.

Rick Green: 9:30
Show. We're in the middle of a presentation from Barry Laudermenck at the Pro Family Legislators Conference. Let's jump right back in.

Barry Loudermilk: 9:41
What I want to talk to you about today is it's a touchy situation, a touchy subject that we all are going to have to deal with, because we're in a position as constitutional conservatives and I'm going to take the idea that if you're here, you probably fit into that mold of a biblical worldview, constitutional conservative. A lot of the people that we are seeing come into elected office today, that we assume are coming because of the same beliefs, which many of them do, but they don't have the understanding that we do of what being a constitutional conservative really means. And, more importantly, we're dealing with an electorate that is driven by a populist movement, and what's unique about this populist movement in America is we've had several populist movements in America in the past, but they have mostly all been on the left. This is the first significant movement of populism that we have seen on the right, and so a lot of us we don't know how to deal with that. So, as I speak to different groups across Georgia and across the nation, especially conservative groups, tell them that we have to be very careful right now that we don't become what we've been fighting against for decades, which is leaving our principles of limited government behind just to achieve our own agenda and that's what the populist movement the real danger the populist movement is bringing in. So I'm going to try to run through this as fast as we can. I appreciate Rick Green bringing this up, as you referenced me a few times, just because Speaker McCarthy pointed me as chairman over a special committee investigating what really happened on January 6th and the January 6th select committee, and so we've been. He and I have been talking a lot as we're uncovering information. I'll touch on this because it was great that he brought this up. What led us to January 6th was fear on top of a populist movement. Yes, there was violence on January 6th. Anybody that says there was no violence, it was just people getting an unguided tour of the Capitol, are intellectually denying the truth. I've seen the videos. Yes, there was an organized attack on the Capitol. That was planned. When you have 300 people show up outside the Capitol when Donald Trump's just starting to speak, all wearing tactical gear, that's a good indication. Something was up. Without getting into the details, maybe we do that at some point. You'll be hearing more and more come out as we continue our investigation, but we need to go back and look in history at populist movements to really understand the mentality and the thought process of populism. So the first written evidence of a populist movement was a trial of Jesus. Now I want you to understand that Pilate was actually trying to impose some level of due process as he was interviewing and talking to Jesus, because he even allowed them Fifth Amendment and Sixth Amendment rights as we would know them today, because he even allowed Jesus to face his accuser, which was the priest, the high priest. But Pilate saw this way out. I don't find any fault with this guy, Jesus. He's done no crime against Rome, and here I am as being on the political side of this, the legal side. Maybe he's committed some religious, violated religious laws, but that's up to the religious leaders. But they want me to impose some type of civil penalty on him. So it comes to this idea, let's just let the people decide. So they go in and get the absolute worst person. Pilate picks who he thinks is going to be the worst person to compare Jesus. Obviously, they don't want to take a murderer and a thief this guy had. He was a thief. He had stolen from the Jewish people and one of the gospels tells us that he was in prison for committing murder as part of an insurrection against Rome. So you got a guy who is the perfect person ever, who's never done anything wrong, who's going around talking about, yes, liberty and freedom. And then you've got this guy who's a zealot, who is a murderer and a thief. But when the vote comes up, who do they vote for? Give us Barabbas. That is always confounded by my. Well, how in the world could they choose this guy over Jesus? And as I've studied the Pavist movement, I've come to an understanding about that. If you look at it from their perception, there was a lot in common between the two. Even the name. Jesus was the son of God, right. Barabbas means son of the father, so one had the name of the son of the father. The other was the son of the father, right. There were some other things they had in common. They were both fighting good against evil. In the perception depends on which side you're on. We look at it now. And Jesus was fighting good versus evil, freedom versus oppression. On a spiritual level, he was talking about eternal freedom.

Rick Green: 15:16
Alright, folks got to take another break. Stay with us. You're listening to the WallBuilders Show.

Tim Barton: 15:25
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? What is the 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 the 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, and it's a story you want to check out, WallBuilders.com. The American story.

Rick Green: 16:31
We're back here on the Wall. Builders, show Thanks for staying with us. Going to jump right back in with Barry Loudermoake speaking at the ProFamily Legislators Conference.

Barry Loudermilk: 16:37
Barabbas was fighting freedom against oppression. From a political level, he was a zealot fighting against the oppression of Rome. Jesus was fighting God versus Satan. Barabbas was fighting Israel versus Rome and Jesus had an internal solution. Barabbas had a temporal solution. So the people are looking at this like yes, barabbas, he's a bad dude, he's a very bad person, but at least he's doing something. At least he's fighting against our common enemy. This other guy's doing nothing but talking. Barabbas, they saw him as a liberator. So when you look at it from that perspective, you may understand at the moment in time where you're there, you may understand why people were choosing Barabbas, because they were short-sighted. They weren't looking from the perception that we look at today. So I'm not going to, I'm not trying to compare the populist movement to Barabbas at all. I'm just trying to bring us into an understanding of how some people can think when we're on a different sphere and we're thinking otherwise as constitutional conservatives. My father's advice my father's a World War II veteran. He landed at D Day as a medic, went all the way through the Battle of the Bulge. A very, very strong Christian conservative man gave me all kind of advice growing up. He told me, doing what is right is not always easy, nor is it often popular, but it's always the right thing to do. I'm seeing that come to play right now, because if you were going to do what is right from a constitutional conservative position, it is not necessarily going to be popular, just as in the trial of Jesus in Barabbas. Jesus was not the popular candidate there, but he was doing the right thing. So let's real quickly look at what it means to be a constitutional conservative. The definition is someone who believes in adhering to the principles of the US Constitution as originally written. I've heard that there's a really good book called Original Intent. I may know the author there will be, and I'm saying that in just but this is the type of thing that we have to weaponize ourselves with. Is the knowledge of truth right? The only way that we're going to be able to counter the disinformation is to have that information. So we believe in the US Constitution as originally written and intended by the framers. Now where do we get the background of what their intention is? Federalist papers, their writings, the things that WallBuilders is always out there making readily available? This typically involves a commitment to limited government, individual liberty and the rule of law. That's what I would refer to as the three primary tenets of constitutional conservatism. The first individual liberty. God created man with equal rights. Right, god gave us our rights and he didn't care what your color is, he didn't care what your background is. You were given those rights at birth. The second is limited government, and I appreciate Rick bringing up Thomas Paine, because Thomas Paine also had written society in every state is a blessing, but government in its best state is a necessary evil and it's worst state it's an intolerable one. We understand that. That's why we want to limit government power. So it's just only a necessary evil, not an intolerable evil, right. And the third is the rule of law. Somebody today has to follow the rule of law. If we don't have the rule of law, we have anarchy, we have chaos, and the left, they govern on the aspect of chaos. So these are the things that really define us as constitutional conservatives. We believe in the limited government. Government should be small in size and limited in scope, and we want to leave most of the powers with the state and local governments. So the Constitution really is our bulwark against human passion, because we understand there is depravity of man. We're not inherently good, we're going to seek to do bad things if it wasn't for the grace of Jesus. Now let's compare these to what is a populist movement? Now, this is, in general, what we've seen over the years of every populist movement it's a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups. Now, if this is a populist movement on the left, the ordinary people are going to be union workers. Let's grab one out of the air From Bernie Sanders was a populist movement Right? So it's union workers, or it's a disenfranchised group, whether it's LGBTQ or whatever. They look at that as the ordinary people and the elite groups or the establishment is whoever they want to define it. That moment is typically the conservative right, or it's some element of government. If it's under a Republican regime, then that's who the established group is.

Rick Green: 21:51
Final break of the day. Folks stay with us, we'll be right back on WallBuilders.

Tim Barton: 21:56
Hey, this is Tim Barton, with WallBuilders, and, as you've had the opportunity to listen to WallBuilders Live, you've probably heard the wealth of information about our nation, about our spiritual heritage, about the religious liberties, about all the things that makes America exceptional. And you might be thinking, as incredible as this information is, I wish there was a way that I could get one of the WallBuilders guys to come to my area and share with my group, whether it be a church, whether it be a Christian school or public school or some political event or activity. If you're interested in having a WallBuilders speaker come to your area. You can get on our website at www.WallBuilders.com and there's a tab for scheduling and if you'll click on that tab, you'll notice there's a list of information, from speakers' bios to events that are already going on, and there's a section where you can request an event to bring this information about who we are, where we came from, our religious liberties and freedoms. Go to the WallBuilders website and bring a speaker to your area.

David Barton: 22:59
This is David Barton, with another moment from America's history. At the time of the American Revolution, numerous other nations also had revolutions, yet 200 years later, America is the only of those nations still under its original form of government. Is this just good luck? Not, according to founding father Benjamin Rush. He declared I do not believe that the Constitution was the offspring of inspiration, but I am as perfectly satisfied that it is as much the work of a divine providence as any of the miracles recorded in the Old and New Testament. George Washington agreed. In fact, he declared I should be paying to believe that the United States have forgotten that divine interposition which was so often manifested during our revolution, or that they fail to consider the omnipotence of that God who is alone able to protect them. Our founders acknowledged that our national success had come from God.

For more information on God's hand in American history, contact WallBuilders at 1-800-8-REBILD.

Rick Green: 24:00
Welcome back to WallBuilders, jumping right back in with Congressman Barry Loudermilk at the ProFamily Legislators Conference. Generally, you see, on the left, though, the establishment is corporations.

Barry Loudermilk: 24:07
That's one common factor among all leftist driven political movements or populist movements is that corporations are the establishment. So I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. Corporations are the establishment. So the three tenets of populism, as compared to constitutional conservatives, is it's always us versus them. Okay, every populist movement is us versus them, the people versus elites. Now, who those are? Changes, right, it doesn't mean that when they use the people they're not talking about, we, the people, right, Even though you may see that in the populist movement as we, the people is the most common theme, but it doesn't even have to be the majority of the people. What they're referring to is that base often is a small base of very vocal people that and I even was texting with one of my colleagues just before I came up and this person often I'll hear them say the people of my district, all of them. This is what they want. Well, I know for a fact that isn't all the people in that person's district, right. But another aspect of populism is everything is black and white. There is no pluralism. We see that there are different ideas, different thoughts of people we represent and even though we don't agree with it, we're willing to listen to them right and try to bring them over to our side. In the populist, either you're with us or you're not, and so and the elites or the establishment is defined on who is not agreeing with them at the moment. They always build a moral division too.

Rick Green: 25:57
Alright folks, out of time for today, we're going to pick up tomorrow right where we left off today. Congressman Barry Loudermilk sharing at the Pro Family Legislators Conference. That will be the show for today, tomorrow and Friday. It's going to take three days to share this full presentation with you, but well worth it and hope that you will share it with your friends and family as well. You can learn more about the WallBuilders Show at our website, WallBuilders.com, and that's the place to get all kinds of great information and tools and things to equip you and your family and the folks in your church to be good biblical citizens. A lot of great information and programming there as well, and then also you can get into archives of the radio program if you missed any of the recent programs over the last few weeks and months. But we really appreciate you listening. Hope you'll share the program today. Thanks so much for listening to the WallBuilders Show.