Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of Faith and Culture is a wallbuilders show, taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. I'm Rick Green, America's Constitution coach. Normally here with David and Tim Barton. Tim Barton's a national speaker and pastor and president WallBuilders David Barton, of course, America's premier historian and our founder here at WallBuilders, ready to be hearing from David today and tomorrow. But it's actually a presentation he gave just a few days ago at the Pro-family Legislators conference. Now, last week, on Thursday and Friday, we shared with you David's opening presentation. If you're not familiar with PFLAG, Pro-family Research Conference, we have an incredible network of state reps and senators all over the nation. And it actually started because I think it was about 2000, four, 2005 was when I wasn't I hadn't been with WallBuilders maybe, maybe 3 or 4 years. I'd been speaking for David and I'd come out of the legislature here in Texas and honestly just, you know, frustrated with how few people were following biblical perspective and had strong conservative convictions. That's why I started Patriot Academy to train up young people. But I kept running into these state reps around the country that would say, Man, I ran for office because of David Barton's book, Original Intent, or I ran for office because I saw David Barton's America's Godly heritage, or listen to the cassette tape or whatever it might be. And so we were just brainstorming one day in the car and said, You know what? If we did our own conference, what if we did a pro-family legislators conference or WallBuilders Conference? And that first one, I think we finally did that in six, if I remember right, Mike Huckabee came and did the dinner and I think we had 60, 70 legislators from around the country that came spokes. I'm telling you this, you know, this last one. That room was packed. I honestly don't know the head count. It was at least at least 400 people in that in that ballroom. And, you know, so you got hundreds of legislators from across the nation coming together to exchange ideas. And the opening night of the of the conference, David just brought this incredible presentation on what do you do when God answers prayers? How do you respond? How do you press the gas when he's opened the door, when he's given you grace, when he's you know, one of the examples he gave was was General Patton and Battle of the Bulge. And he got open, answered his prayers, opened the skies, gave them good weather. They were able to to finally break enemy lines. I mean, just all of these incredible stories throughout history. And, of course, it ties directly to us having answered prayers with this election, with a reprieve from the Marxist and the communist. And an opportunity had been done, but an opportunity to save our constitutional republic. That presentation is available right now at WallBuilders Dot Show. So if you go to Wobblers Dot Show, you can get last week's presentation with David Barton on Thursday and Friday from the Pro-family Legislators Conference. Then yesterday here on the on the program, we shared with you my presentation at the legislators conference, which was the next morning. It was all about the book and the AMA and how we're living at the time when we finally have permission of the king, in this case, we the people, to go rebuild the walls. We haven't rebuilt them. We've got a lot of work to do in this country to rebuild the foundations. So what are the bricks we need to be laying? What are the foundational principles we need to be instill? And you can get that yesterday or the show from yesterday is available right now at WallBuilders Dot Show. So that's for yesterday's program. That's my presentation, the legislators conference. Today and tomorrow we're going to be bringing you another of David's presentations at the conference. So the next day after I had give or the the next day after his first presentation, which we shared last week. I know that's confusing. It's just good stuff. You're going to enjoy it. But he gave a fantastic presentation on the Bible in schools. Now I sat there and watch this and I've been with David for 20 something years now and it never ceases to amaze me When I get the chance to actually see him live, I always learn something new. Now, obviously, here on the radio program, you know, I get to ask questions constantly. I'm always learning from him on the radio program. But but I think God gifted, the Barton's with the ability to stand on a stage show. Those slides tell the stories, bring history to life like nobody else in the world. I mean, they're just incredibly gifted at it. And so David did this presentation at the legislators conference on the history of the Bible in schools. And we've had some, you know, various programs at the Barton's have put together that they've done for different networks and talked about the influence of the Bible and and that sort of thing. But this one, I'm telling you, the what you're about to hear today and tomorrow. So this this particular presentation is going to be today, tomorrow, what you're about to hear is going to encourage you so much and it's going to light a fire under you to get involved with your state legislature to get the Bible back in schools. This is good stuff, folks, And it's encouraging to know that we can do these things. This can happen. And so we're watching it happen in Oklahoma, in Texas and other states. Anyway, you're going to love this. And so it's going to take two shows to do it. So today and tomorrow will be David's Barton David Barton's presentation on the Bible in schools. I'll take a quick break. When we come back, we'll join David Barton at the Pro-family Legislators conference. 

Rick Green [00:06:08] Welcome back toThe WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. Let's jump right in. Here's David Barton at the Pro-family Legislators conference talking about the Bible in schools. 

David Barton [00:06:15] We want to take to the rest of this morning really working on kind of religious liberty stuff. We have opportunities now that we have never had in our lifetime, literally. I've been involved in 13 cases, US Supreme Court and the stuff that has come out of the court in the last five years. We have more religious freedom available to us today than any of you have had in your entire lifetime. And part of that change that started changing to 2019, 2019, there was a case and that case was American Legion versus American Humanist. But it is blades. Burr across all the lower courts said that Cross had come down. War Memorial Cross is a World War one. Cross mothers and Marilyn put that up. And so it is to honor, I think, 25 of their sons who had died in World War One and all the lower courts. So that has to come down. And the Supreme Court said, yeah, that's what it has been for 60 years, but we're just not going to do that anymore. And they came up with a statement that's really good. And we're going to use a statement over and over. As longstanding, religiously expressive monuments, symbols and practices require a strong presumption of constitutionality. In other words, if you can show this is something that's been going on of the country for a long time, we're going to pursue them. It's constitutional, even though for the last 60 years we've ruled against it. We've ruled against all we're changing. And so what we have seen since that point in time when they announced this change, we have seen religious liberties return at a level that we've not seen before. For example, if you happen to be from Oklahoma, your superintendent of education yesterday used federal dollars to buy 500 Bibles to put in all the AP schools in Oklahoma. Now, if you're from Louisiana, you know that your governor signed a law putting the Ten Commandments back in every classroom, Louisiana. We know that stuff as we know that stuff is going to get sued. It's already been sued in Louisiana. We expected that we lost in Louisiana. We expected that. We expect to win when we go to the Fifth Circuit and we expect to win, win, Go to your Supreme Court, because this is a new standard and it takes a while for the Supreme Court standards to trickle down through all those hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of courts. And it takes a while for all the circuits to get it right. But what we have to do is give them something to work with. We have to give them cases where they can handle this. And that's what we're passing laws now that we know will be challenged. So we're going back to this. This is what the court has said. This is where the new standard is. So this concept of long standing, religiously expressive monuments, symbols and practices, the Bible is Bible schools is one of those I want to cover this morning the concept of the Bible schools. Ron Walters superintend education yesterday did that and he did with federal dollars because he wants us out of the Oklahoma court system. In the federal court system. So he could have done it with state dollars because he has his own budget. He used federal dollars because that now takes it into federal court, which is a much better place to be. So with all of that being said, I want to take you back to the history this I'm going to go back to 1643. That is the first public school law we ever had in America. 1647 was the second public school law. Those public school laws appear here in this book. This is a book from 1650. This is called The Code of 1650. And as a result of the pilgrims and Puritans who came to America. So in this code, they said, hey, we've come here, we brought our kids and by the way, I'll back up, just point out it was a lot of kids on the map flower as well when they came over. And they're concerned about their kids being educated. So they passed a law that says whenever you get 50 people in the community, you build them, you get them a teacher. Whenever you get 100 in community, you build them a school. So this is where public school start is here for the public. And interesting, the first public school law in America is called the Old Diluted Satan Act. And it points out, here's why. We have schools. It says it being the one chief project that all leaders say and they keep them from now because Satan wants to keep us from reading the scriptures. That's why we have schools. We're creating public schools so that everyone will no freedom, no liberty, no what God says in the word. And that was the purpose of public school. So from the very beginning, public schools and this is taxpayer dollars at this point in time, public schools. That's why they exist. And strikingly because everyone needed to know the Bible. This in America was the first time in centuries that you trained both boys and girls. 

Rick Green [00:10:13] I first got to take another break. Stay with me. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:11:24] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. Let's jump right back in with David Barton. At the Pro-family Legislators conference talking about the Bible in school. 

David Barton [00:11:31] It's interesting. The highest literacy rate in the world at that time for women was in Massachusetts, more so than in England, in London and Paris and all of Italy. It was here because everybody needs to know God's word. And that's why we had reading and that's why we did what we did. And so that's the first public school law in 1690. With 1690, you get the first textbook that was printed in America. It's called the New England Primer. There's a table down here of all sorts of books that have been used in public schools, or they're very famous public school textbooks, all about the Bible in public schools. But this New England primer first first textbook printed in America, then in 1690 in Boston, it was used all the way from like Nebraska was still using this textbook in 1940s. So this has gone through centuries abuse in America. And if you look, it starts with the ABCs. You see the ABCs eight and Adams fall. We send all B and by the way, that F there is an S back. At that point, Don, they had a hard S and a soft S kind of phonics kind of stuff, and one looked like an F, the other looked like an S. So said Adams. Fall we send. I'll be having to find the Bible mine. See Christ crucified for sinners died. It keeps going through g years runs the glass. I'll live this pass notice h my book and heart must never part Bible. So this is what we're memorizing in schools, starting with the 1690. This is our public school textbook. And then the next section is called An Alphabet of Lessons for Youth. And this is the ABCs of Students would memorize the ABCs by memorizing a Bible verse for each one. A a Y son makes a glad father brave foolish sons. The heaviness as mother B betters it for the Lord the great treasure and trouble with C coming to Christ. All these are happening here. And so these are all Bible verses. And by the way, we reprinted the 1770 some textbook. It's over in the store if you're interested in it. I'll jump next to 1781. This is when George Washington wins the final battle of revolution, the Battle of Yorktown. At that point in time, the British put their arms down. When the British put their arms down. It means that for the first time in a century and a half, it doesn't matter what the king says, King George, the can say what he wants to. It no longer applies to us because we're now free and have been a nation. We've earned our independence. And so with that, with what happened at Yorktown when they laid down their arms, is striking there. Within a year, we printed the first Bible ever printed in English in America. This is the Bible. This is significant because back in the 16, early 1600s, Great Britain had printed a law that says you cannot print any Bible in America unless you have permission from the king and you can't print any Bible in English and let this authorized by the king. So we were able to print Bibles. No G Boy, which is the first Bible printed in America, 1690. John Eliot did that, but we couldn't print Bibles in English. You had to do whatever the government told us. And so whatever Bible they prefer, that's what we're going to use. Not anymore. And so the first Bible printed in America in English is this Bible. Right here is one of the rare books in the world. There were 10,000 print at the time. There's only a couple dozen. These left. We own three of these. And these this item. What's significant about it is when you look on the inside, it is actually printed by the printer of Congress. So the printer of the Continental Congress is the one who printed this. And when you look further in the front of that Bible, you'll find that the congressional committees that oversaw the work of the printer and what he was doing and you see the committee chairman here, James Duane, and in front of the book, it also has this indorsement. It says resolved that the United States and Congress assembled recommend this edition of the Bible to the habitants United States. When this Bible was presented to Congress, when the plan was going forward, they were moving forward. Robert Aiken pointed out to Congress, he said this This book will be a neat addition, the holy Scripture for the use of schools. So from the start, they knew that this was going in the schools. This is Bible. We're going to use the schools. This is the actual handwritten document with Robert Aiken saying that and the Bible was printed and it has the endorsement of Congress and it was used. And by the way, I think it was Tennessee last year made this book the official book of the state of Tennessee is the Aiken Bible, says the Bible. The revolution's the first Bible that was approved by Congress for the use of schools. So the Bible schools don't tell me the founding fathers didn't want the Bible in schools because we got one right there that says otherwise. 1789 Now the word constitutional republic, the first law on public education was passed. It was signed by George Washington. It was signed in 1789. And that law was called the Northwest Ordinance. And it dealt with the fact at that point in time we had 13 states, but we have a bunch of territories that want to become states eventually. And so you have a Kentucky that breaks off and you have a Tennessee breaks off from from North Carolina, etc., and you've got all these territories that are out there. And the question becomes, how do you have become a state in the United States? And so the Northwest Ordinance laid out the requirements for statehood. 32 states have come into the United States after the original 13. They came in under the provisions Northwest Ordinance. It's interesting that Article three of the Northwest ordinance deals with what's to be done with education. If you want to be part of the United States, what does your education have to look like when you're a territory? And significantly, in Article three, it says this is says religion, morality and knowledge be necessary to good government. And that happens. Mankind schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged. So notice. Because religion, morality and knowledge are necessary for government, for everything. That's why we have schools is a teach religion, morality and knowledge. Now, it's striking that a number of state constitutions to this day, North Carolina, others require that in the public schools of their state, religion, morality and knowledge be taught. It's a requirement for public schools because that was a requirement to get in the United States. So religion, morality and knowledge. But we were told in 1962, 1963, you can't teach that. That's a requirement for statehood. This is a big deal. So the fact that the courts went away from it in 62 and they're coming back to it now, this is what we've been. So again, if we can show it's historically grounded in long standing tradition, the court's going to assume that is constitutional. So we're back in a position. We do a lot of stuff. 

Rick Green [00:17:19] Okay, friends, one more break for today. We will be right back. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:19:30] Welcome back to the WallBuilders show. We're going to jump in with David Barton again and and then we'll have to get the rest tomorrow. But we got a little bit of time left to get some more of his presentation of the WallBuilders Pro-family Legislators Conference. This is about the Bible in schools. 

David Barton [00:19:45] 1790, Benjamin, Rush signer of the declaration, John Adams said, is one of our three most notable founding fathers. He's called the father public schools under the Constitution because in 1789, when the Constitution was ratified, he said, Well, we used to be 13 nations. Now we're one nation with 13 states. Only way we can stay a nation is to make sure that our education is sound. So what do we need to be teaching in education? And so he came out with a piece in 1790 that calls this was called the Father Public Schools under the Constitution. And he said, here's the mode of education proper and of the republic. This is what all the states have to teach if we're going to be a unified nation. He said the only foundation for a useful education and a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this, there can be no virtue. Without virtue, the criminal, liberty and liberty is the object in the life of all Republican governments. This is the only way we survive is to make measure. We're teaching religion in education because we'd already, the year before, already passed a law that said you had to do that in education, religion, morality, knowledge. 1791 He came out with this next peace Bible in schools. This, by the way, is the piece that he did in 1790. This is a 1790 piece on religion education. This is a 1791 piece he did on the Bible in schools. And in this piece, he gave a dozen reasons why we would never take the Bible out of public education in America. So the father public schools is a sign of the cost. A sign the declaration ratified the Constitution served in the first three presidential administrations. He said the Bible contains more knowledge necessary to man in his present state than any other book in the world. This is the most valuable book to know because it tells you more about who you are, what's going on, and how to how to deal with who we are. So that's 1790, 1791. In 1801, this man, Fisher Ames. Now, Fisher Ames is a name that most people don't know. It's significant. He is a framer of the Bill of Rights, a matter of fact. He is the guy that in the US House came up with the language that we have in the First Amendment today. So the First Amendment of the Constitution with all these lawsuits happened. He's the guy that was the most the most active guy in the house in creating the language we have in the First Amendment. And so Fisher Ames out of Massachusetts, he in 1801, had been looking at the schools in Massachusetts, and he wrote, this article is called School Books. And he talks about how I've been going through the schools. I'm seeing all these new books coming to schools, and there's some really good books. He said. But I have a concern about all these new books coming in schools, and this is what he said. He said, Why then, if these new books for children must be retained as they will be, he said, We've got all these great moral books and this good, He said, But these new books, they're going to be retained. He said, Why should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a school book? Is some concern that all these new books coming to the schools are kind of pushing the Bible to the back of the classroom, he said. That's not a good deal. He said the Bible, its morals are pure, its examples are captivated and old, and the reverence for the sacred book that is thus early impressed, last long. And probably it's not impressing them, it's they never takes firm hold of the mind. So here you have the author. The First Amendment said, Hey, do not let the Bible get pushed to the back of the classroom. And yet now we take his amendment, the First Amendment, and use it to exclude the Bible from schools. That was never the intent. If you go to 1805 1805, Thomas Jefferson is just beginning his second term as president. Thomas Jefferson under George Washington was a secretary of state who laid out the city of Washington, D.C. when he became president. 1801. He's the first president to have his entire presidency in D.C. John Adams had his last three months of his presidency in D.C. Before that, we were in New York and Philadelphia. So Jefferson is the first one to live in the White House for a full term. And as president of the United States, that also makes him in charge of Washington, D.C. Now we have the government Affairs Committee in the Congress that runs D.C. but D.C. is not allowed to be a state. It has to be a separate entity belonging to the federal government. It can't be in a state. So statehood for D.C. is not going to happen. It's not going to work. Constitution forbids it. So what happens is Thomas Jefferson was made, the president of the school board in Washington, D.C. Thomas Jefferson is the guy who created the plan of public education for Washington, D.C. public schools because Washington is under the jurisdiction of the federal government. So he's the guy who personally created that plan. And it's interesting to see the first years report. The superintendent of public education, Washington, D.C., using Jefferson's plan is now given the report for here's what's happened in the first year schools. 

Rick Green [00:23:54] Okay, folks, we're we're out of time for today. We're going to jump right back in with David Barton tomorrow. So don't miss that. We'll get the conclusion of this presentation on the Bible in schools and couple more days. I have to remind you, if you have not signed up yet for the Patriot experience, we've invited you to the Major Academy campus to do the constitutional defense course as handgun defense and constitution training together. This is totally different. This is everything we do at Patriot Academy combined into one course called the Patriot Experience. So I'm talking about the legislative simulation we've done for 20 something years now. You get to be a legislator for a few days. In our brand new legislative Hall, a replica of the Texas House Chamber built right there at the Patriot Academy campus in Fredericksburg, Texas. You get to be the legislator on the House floor. In the committee rooms, you will learn the process backwards and forwards. It'll make you a better citizen and make you better at working with your legislators or your city council or school board or whatever. We're going to train you on how to testify in committees or at those public hearings. You're going to get public speaking workshops. You're going to get a really intense, really good Constitution crash course. You're going to be taught how to be a constitution coach and be the catalyst for a restoration of of those constitutional principles and biblical values. You're even going to get some of the life purpose training that we do with the young leaders that come through Patriot Academy, because you may be 50 or 60, 65, 80 years old, who knows? And you're looking for what the next mission is that God has for you. So we're going to do some workshops on that as well so that you can see how you can plug in to this very unique moment in American history, this inflection point where we have the opportunity to take back ground and restore America's constitutional republic. You need to be a part of that, and we'll train you how to do that at the Patriot Experience. So here's the deal. December 10th, 11th and 12th is the core Patriot experience. That's the three days in the legislative hall. If you want to add on two days and do December 10th through the 14th, you can also do our two day handgun defense class called constitutional defense. And then if you can do a whole week with us, you get the whole thing. You get the three days of the legislative experience, the Constitution, training, speaker training, all that. But you also get the full four day constitutional defense class and a private dinner where we will be sharing some of our plans for how we're going to restore this constitutional republic. So a lot of good stuff. Check it out today at Patriot academy.com and right there on the homepage, click on the Patriot Experience. Okay. I know that was a long commercial, but there's it's hard to explain all of this about the Patriot experience. Be sure and check it out today at page four academy.com You only got a couple less than two weeks so I know you got to be spontaneous to pull this off but we do have a few slots left so make sure you get signed up and hopefully I'll see you at the campus in Fredericksburg tomorrow. We will pick up with David Barton on his presentation about the Bible in schools from the Pro-family Legislators Conference. Thanks for listening today. You've been listening to The WallBuilders Show.