Rick Green

This is the Intersection of Faith and Culture. Thanks for joining us today on the WallBuilder Show. I'm Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. Tim's a national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. David's America's premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders, and I'm a former legislator and America's constitution coach. Thanks so much for being with us today.

Be sure and visit our websites, wallbuilders.com and wallbuilders.show. At the show website, you can get archives of the program from the last few weeks and months, and at our com, wallbuilders.com, our main website, you can get all kinds of resources for your family, for your church. You can host classes at your church. You can just get some of the books and listen to some of the programs with your family, but you can be a force multiplier, getting yourself educated, and others as well, on how to be good stewards of this wonderful free nation that we've been blessed to be a part of.

All right, David and Tim, we've got Foundations of Freedom Thursday today, which means folks are sending in lots of questions for us and anybody out there that wants to send one in radio at wallbuilders.com is the email radio at wallbuilders.com and Andy's first up guys. He said he's been a listener since 2012. 2012. I bet there's a lot of people out there that don't even know we've been doing this that long. When did we start, like 08, 06, something like that? So, yeah, anyway, Andy, thank you man, thanks for listening so long.

Tim Barton

I think he was a listener before I was, so that's impressive.

Rick Green

That's right. That's a good point. Yeah, he said. I have a history question. Have there been other times in history or civilizations where people openly displayed satanic imagery, practices or symbols? I'm referring to recent examples like Madonna at the Grammys, the Olympic ceremonies, mocking the Last Supper Monsters, 666 Beast alcohol line I hadn't heard about that one Disney's 666 references and Eminem songs like about the Antichrist, lucifer and Evil.

It seems this is no longer hidden, but is very overt and in our faces, as if they've been given the green light. Has this level of open display happened before? What were the outcomes? How can we effectively push back beyond just voting with our dollars as a soldier I feel this goes beyond education and that these are attacks requiring an unproportional response. So, guys, he's right, I've never seen it in my lifetime. Certainly I'm assuming, since there's nothing new under the sun there's been some level of a comparison that we could go to, but it does seem like the green light's been given to just man. There's no shame. It's just as bad as they want it to be and literally openly satanic right in front of our faces.

Tim Barton

Well, and I do think you could maybe dispute some examples that maybe were read or have been mentioned in culture, but there's also no doubt. I mean, when you go and look at the opening ceremony of the Olympics, as you mentioned, some of these major concerts, when you look at some of what's happening in Hollywood, there is more pro-satanic, pro-demonic messaging, imagery embracing than ever before. But I do want to just throw out the caveat that I've seen some people say some things and I think we have to be careful, in the midst of acknowledging there is so much of this happening, not to maybe call everything a conspiracy or everything. And I'm saying this knowing it so hard, because when you don't know who to trust, you see so many people going the wrong direction. But also we don't want to put somebody in the wrong, because when you don't know who to trust, you see so many people going the wrong direction. But also we don't want to put somebody in the wrong category if they don't belong there. However, there are plenty of examples where there is no confusion whatsoever and, looking historically, dad, I can think of several examples.

My most prominent thought is France, when they go, go through their revolution late 1700s, early 1800s and they intentionally try to dechristianize france or remove any of the catholic influence. And so they. Well, what was the name of the prostitute they brought out? That was going to be, um, like the new queen of france, the new goddess of France, thank you. So they literally were anything that had been viewed wrong in Christianity. They were going to embrace it on some level to show how unchristian they were going to be. So, yes, there are examples, and we could look back to other major nations. For many of them, before they had their significant falls, major powers, and part of what led to their downfall was so much of their turning away from kind of basic core values that have sustained humanity throughout their existence. But what are examples you thought of?

David Barton

Well, I would even back up a little bit on this to say that what we've got there's examples like France is a great example. But just to put it in perspective, the Bible makes it really clear there's nothing new under the sun, and so with that, this is not a new thing. Now, what's different is this is new for America. America hasn't gone through this before and that's always because we've never created a vacuum for something to come in and fill. We've always had good stuff in there. But now we've created a vacuum. We've taken the good out and we've left a vacuum, and nature pours a vacuum. Something is going to fill it, and since we've said it can't be God and it can't be religion and it can't be Bible and prayer, then we're going to fill it with something. So we've gone now really almost three generations of God out of the culture with. We've gone now really almost three generations of God out of the culture with the courts and others, having said, you can't do that. Now they're letting stuff back in. But granted, you've got a lot of people who were trained that religion is a really bad deal, and if you've been to any kind of academic university that's got any secular bent to it. You probably have heard that in the last 30 to 40 years very aggressively lots of books out there, the attacks on Christians who are patriotic, starting this year. So with that we've created a vacuum. I mean, it's not surprising we would have something like this, and Jesus talked about that. If you don't have that vacuum, what's going to happen is Satan is going to come in seven times worse, and that's the kind of stuff we're seeing now. We're seeing a level of depravity that's attached to the Satanism that we haven't seen before. As states try to put up Ten Commandments whether it's Arkansas or Oklahoma or wherever, they're putting up satanic statues at the same time. Hey, we've got to have equal access here. We want Satan up, and so all of that goes with the fact that we've created a vacuum.

Now the court took things out. We can blame it on the court, but I'm also going to blame it on Christians, because we should have filled that vacuum, we should have stepped up, we should have been bold, and we're finding now that very few Christians share their faith anymore. And this is in an open environment where the court said you can do that, we're just not doing it. So when you look back historically. Look, paul talks about doctrines of demons. There were doctrines of demons back in his day. When you see what happened with the children of Israel going into the land, all the demonic practices and human sacrifices and all the rituals that were going at that point in time, certainly what you have in France, what you had in Russia at periods of time, I mean, you just go across the world and this is not an unusual thing at all, but it only happens if you've created a vacuum for it to fill.

And so this is a challenge for all of us is, hey, we've got to start pushing back in our own spheres of influence, our own circles. The court has opened this back up to us where we can refill that vacuum with something good. But we've got to be offensive and aggressive to be able to do that. And so this is a time for us to go on the offense, not just be happy that they've changed things. We've got to be part of being the solution on this thing. That means we have to go offensive and we have to fill it up with good stuff. Otherwise bad stuff is going to come in, and I think it's a great question. But there's never been a time in American history where we had this, because we never created a vacuum like we have now. We've always had it filled with something good and wholesome, edified. Even though there were mistakes made, even though they did stupid stuff at times, there was not this vast void vacuum that we've had for the last 70, 80 years that's now being filled with all the bad stuff.

Rick Green

Yeah, and it just seems like it's. I mean, you pick the area of the culture right. If we recede, we leave that opening, whether it's entertainment or education or whatever it might be, and the evil is absolutely going to fill that vacuum, just like as Reverend Mayhew played a pivotal role, or the Reverend Mayhew played a pivotal role in the awakening and revival of American principles and feelings that ultimately led to our independence. However, it raises an interesting question Did the battle for independence truly commence with the Boston Massacre? This event, which occurred on March 5th 1770, marked a significant escalation in tensions between the British and American colonists. Subsequently the Battle of Lexington, april 19th 1775.

And while Adams attributed the awakening of American principles to Reverend Mayhew, could one argue that the Boston Massacre was the catalyst for the erosion of the relationship between the two parties? So really more of a question, guys on. I mean, I'm assuming all of these different events you could argue were catalyst and definitely contributed to it. I guess really, what Sergio is asking is was Reverend Mayhew and his role as important as those singular instances? And I would throw into you guys also include Reverend Clark, because he was there not just on April 19th but for years before that preaching sermons that kind of led to it, not just on April 19th but for years before that preaching sermons that kind of led to it. So maybe just kind of, how would you couch the overall cause of the revolution, if you will?

David Barton

I think the American Revolution began when the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. That's right which was just a few years before right, that's when they started teaching the Bible started teaching what the Bible said about government. That's when they started teaching what tyranny is and how to avoid tyranny. That's when they taught self-discipline education. Everything literally started back then.

Tim Barton

So the foundation was laid at Plymouth. So maybe the American Revolution didn't quite start then, but that's where the foundation came from. But I would even point out that both examples Jonathan Mayhew and the Boston Massacre were both letters that John Adams wrote about part of the foundation or part of what was responsible for the American Revolution. Because the letter to Thomas Jefferson was at 1813, 1816, I don't remember which one, maybe 1816, where he says there wasn't a more pivotal moment in the birth of our nation. It wasn't the shots at Lexington and Concord, it wasn't the victory at Saratoga, it wasn't the victory at Yorktown. The most pivotal moment was when the first blood was shed at King Street. Well, that's a letter he wrote Jefferson, reminding him of, kind of, when it kicked up a gear in many of their minds, that at this point we're not just having a difference of opinion with a stand back to representation, you've actually you've drawn blood. And also interesting that John Adams is the one that defended the British in that trial because, as later became more clear, many of them were fearful of their lives, so it was self-defense. But John Adams also writes a letter where he gives credit to Mayhew for keeping so much of the fire and passion alive. So this is where I would point out that multiple things can be true at once, Rick, even, as you mentioned, with Reverend Jonas Clark there were so many players and so many parts to add, as you mentioned, the foundation of Plymouth. Had it not been for people getting back to the word of God, it wouldn't have happened in the first place. And that's also why, if you look in the late 1600s, when there was a little bit of a shift away from God and the Bible from some of the kids, the grandkids of those early settlers, and then you have this kind of call and this pull back to God and at least the first great awakening, and that's George Whitefield, that's also Jonathan Mayhew's part of the first great awakening, and even Jonas Clark is an active voice in his community, and so there's a lot of moving pieces that come together. And for John Adams it was the first blood that was shed was Boston Massacre, so he points the finger to that's when the revolution began.

But had it not been for the early pastors, had it not been for the voices, there never could have been a unification, which the founding fathers actually give a lot of credit to the Reverend George Whitefield for that, that they couldn't have been unified to come together to actually go through with the revolution, and it wouldn't have been successful without those leaders. So the moment was. The Boston Massacre is what John Adams pointed to. Now, different people might have pointed to different things, but that's what he pointed to. But it was those pastors who laid a foundation for them to come together.

David Barton

And taking all that and I think it's a whole series of things. I mean the Declaration of Independence says it's a whole series of usurpations. It's not just one event, it's a whole long train of it. But it's still striking to me that the revolution did not come out of North Carolina. It did not come out of Georgia. It came out of New England, which was the Bible Belt of America at that point in time. It came particularly out of Massachusetts where you had so many of the strongest preachers.

Now there were a lot of patriots in Virginia, but Virginia institutionally didn't get on for a long time because they were Anglicans. That just wasn't what they did. They were with Great Britain. So I really think it was the Bible-believing areas, the more Bible-built, the ones that were taught to think biblically and look at what government's supposed to do and look what God says about freedoms et cetera. They're the ones that were the real voices.

But I don't think you can point to just one event. I mean, you got to go back to the Stamp Act, because that's part of it. You got to go back to the Intolerable Act and you've got to go back to several things, even after the French and Indian War, when the British started using the military in a bad direction toward us. There's just so many things you can point to, but I don't think any of it happens if you don't have the Bible preaching, as John Adams said, of Mayhew and Chauncey and as Jefferson and Adams and Franklin all said, george Whitefield, I mean, it's the Bible that made the difference on that and you just saw several violations of it over the years and they responded to that and it's that whole chain of usurpations that led to it.

So I don't think there's a single event. I just think it's something that really was birthed back with the pilgrims, when they started teaching people to read the Bible and to think and to learn what government's supposed to do. And as Great Britain got more recalcitrant and wanting to cooperate and more abusive than what they did, it was just easier to break away. So I think it's a whole series. I think it's a great question because a lot of people look at America as a bunch of sequential events. That's not necessarily the case. There's a lot of series of things simultaneously happening. It's a great question.

Rick Green

Almost like the death of the relationship was a death of a thousand cuts. It was. You know, it wasn't just one particular instance that happened, it wasn't even a perfect storm of a lot of instances at the exact same moment. It was a prolonged over time, which was also biblical right, Because they didn't just knee-jerk reaction out of emotion based on one event. They did everything they could to try to keep it from ultimately happening. All right, we got some more questions coming up, but we got to take a quick break. Stay with us folks. You're listening to the Wall Builder Show.

Break.

Rick Green

Welcome back to the Wall Builder Show. We are taking your questions today because it's Foundations of Freedom Thursday and Joe's got the next one. It's about the Louisiana Purchase, guys. In your opinion, was it constitutional and were the indigenous tribes who were occupying the territory treated fairly? Thank you so much for the work. You guys are awesome. Well, Joe, thanks, man, Appreciate you sending in the question. All right, guys, Louisiana Purchase is it constitutional? And then what about Louisiana? How the Indian indigenous tribes were treated that were inside that territory?

David Barton

You know it's a great question on was it constitutional? Because Jefferson is the one who pulled it off and Jefferson did not know that it was constitutional. He actually thought for a bit that he might need a constitutional amendment to allow him to purchase the Louisiana Purchase. James Madison kind of talked him out of that. And so the two viewpoints you had back then was if the constitution doesn't say you can do it, you can't do it. And the other viewpoint was well, if the constitution doesn't say you can't do it, then you can do it. So one was a super, super narrow reading that you can only do these limited things and nothing else. And the other is none of you can govern but you can't get into areas where you're told not to get into. And so that was kind of the debate that was going between Madison and Jefferson back at the Louisiana Purchase. And so Jefferson concluded and he talked to several other founding fathers and they concluded that it was constitutional to do so. So he did.

Now, native tribes that's a different story, because you have to back up and say, okay, let's play like there's no Frenchmen, there's no Anglos, there's nothing.

Did the native tribes treat each other fairly before the white guys ever got there, because how many native tribes took land from other tribes? Because they could. And so you're talking a difference of two cultures and you can't impose the way we believe in one culture on another culture. You can only work within what you know. And so, coming out of the European experience, coming out of what they did with that European experience, you learn about purchases and you learn about contracts, you learn about sales and you learn about private property. And so if you've got a contract that came from the King of France and he sold you the land that he owns and he had a title deed to it and he gives you that title deed as far as you know, that's great. Yeah, there may be some Indian tribes involved, but that wasn't part of the thinking back then and it wasn't part of the thinking for the Indian tribes themselves, quite frankly, when they took it from each other.

Tim Barton

And to add into that thought just the kind of notion of conquest, the era of conquest? Yeah, because if you look back throughout world history, there certainly are eras you think of like the conquest eras and when you get into the 19th century you kind of think, well, that's kind of over. Well, it was for many places. But to your point, dad, if you look at the native tribes, most of the history of native tribes was a history of conquest. It was a history of survival and certainly there were some tribes that would often try to live off the land in more of a farming friendly manner and demeanor, but that was not the norm, it wasn't the standard and oftentimes those tribes were wiped out by other tribes. Also, to complicate matters, if you have purchased a piece of property and you move in and you see this beautiful wide, open valley and you go and start building there, and then months later there's a group of natives that come and they attack you and you don't know why, and you're living in this and in their mind they're thinking hey, well, you're in our territory, which is their territory. If you look, for example, like the Comanches, the Comanches would go from Colorado, new Mexico City and all over the place. They thought that was their range and their territory. And the Comanches attacked every other native tribe, by and large. Every now and then they had alliances, but by and large they attacked, wiped out, destroyed all the other native tribes that they could reach and they could access. And again, to say that if you were moving into Oklahoma, if you're moving into Colorado, new Mexico, Texas, you might not see any Comanches anywhere and you might not see them for months. And then all of a sudden there's this massive raid and the Comanches are coming because they're still in the era of conquest. And I'm saying this because it is a very complicated clash of cultures. And if you're moving in with good intentions which not, of course, everybody did not, everybody had good intentions, but there were many, many people with good intentions that moved in and this clash of cultures happens and oftentimes people are looking for help. And this is when you add the Calvary, it's when you add other parts of the dynamic coming in.

So I think that the easier question to answer I won't say the more interesting, but probably the one we can answer more decisively, the one that's less complicated is a constitutional issue, and I say it's less complicated not because it's super cut and dry constitutionally. But if you look at who Jefferson had with him on his team, Madison was on team Jefferson in Jefferson's administration. They're part of the Virginia dynasty because you're George Washington, Virginia, john Adams, Massachusetts, but then Jefferson Virginia, James Madison, Virginia and, I'm pretty sure, Monroe also Virginia. So you have team Virginia who was working together and, of course, with Jefferson and Madison Monroe, they're all very close, very well connected. Madison is a guy considered the father of the constitution.

So when you're talking, if you're Jefferson talking with James Madison and you're hashing this out, and he's the guy that took the best notes, so involved in so many components, and he's giving you guidance, that's where we can look back and think. Even though we recognize why there was dispute, I don't think it was unconstitutional, any more than when people look, for example, at Abraham Lincoln and they say, oh my gosh, he's not supposed to do what he did, he was a tyrant. Well, I understand why people would make that argument, but if you look at what the Constitution actually says that if there is times of rebellion, that the president then can invoke this martial law in essence well then Lincoln did have the authority to do some of what he did and I'm saying that because it doesn't mean that there's not a mess surrounding it. But it might not be quite as complicated sometimes as we tend to make it, and that's a little bit the way I feel with Louisiana Purchase, where I don't think it was unconstitutional, but I understand why there could be debate and discussion around it.

David Barton

The other thing to get with that, I think, is the nature of who your leader is. Because if you look at a person like a Thomas Jefferson, he worked really, really hard to have very good relationships with native tribes and they respected him and the number of chiefs of native tribes that would come to Jefferson, even have him help them settle their disputes between tribes, they looked very highly to Thomas Jefferson and that's the nature of who he was. So Jefferson's not going to, he's not an Andrew Jackson to put the shoe on the other foot, because Andrew Jackson really didn't care what they thought. This is what I'm going to do and that's what he did led to the Trail of Tears, and Van Buren was part of that. So there's two presidents right there who really don't care what happens. This is land we want and we're going to take it, and the rest of you can all jump on a creek or whatever idiom you want to use. But that was not the case with Thomas Jefferson. That was not the case with the John Quincy Adams. If you look, before the Trail of Tears, John Quincy Adams worked his tail off to try to settle things equitably and to the content of the chiefs in Georgia and the Cherokee tribes and the Creek tribes and Seminole tribes. He worked really hard. And then when Jackson came in, he's an Indian fighter. I'm not going to work with these guys. They're going to do what I tell them to do. And so a lot of the complications that we see with Indian tribes in American history also depends on the type of leader you have.

And so it's not that America violates every treaty that's ever signed. It's the nature of the person that gets elected. They don't think that's a good treaty or it doesn't matter to them. If you're Andrew Jackson, if you're a Native American, then you're not the level you should be for him to negotiate with you. So it really is complicated when it comes to Indian tribes within the Louisiana Territory, because they did not have the same worldview at all is because 13 native tribes went to the Calvary and said will you join with us to help us defeat the Comanche? It was 13 native tribes and the Calvary who defeated the Comanches. That doesn't come out as far as the Calvary fighting the Indians. No, it was 13 tribes, because that's what the Comanches did. They ran over everyone.

Tim Barton

Well, it's like Cortez and the Aztecs as well, right, because that's what the Comanches did they ran over everyone. Well, it's like Cortes and the Aztecs as well, right, cortes and his 500 men didn't take on over a million Aztecs and triumph. No, it's the tens of thousands of other natives that joined them because they were tired of having their people taken and human sacrifices done, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. All that, again, to say is it's a lot more complicated, it's a lot more nuanced when it comes to some of the Native American history and even some of the American leaders, where there were some really great leaders and there were some really, really bad leaders in American history who did some really bad and evil things. But then there were some good leaders and I would actually put Jefferson in one of those good leader categories, which is a very long answer to not a very long question, but that's part of the answer.

Rick Green

It's a long answer but actually a short answer. That was a long period of history to cover in just 10 minutes. So anyway, we got more questions headed your way, guys, but it'll have to be next week because we're out of time for today. So folks keep sending them in radio at wallbuilders.com. We'll get to them on Foundations of Freedom Thursday as soon as we can. Thank you so much for listening. You've been listening to the WallBuilder Show.