Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome the intersection of faith and culture. It's The WallBuilders Show, taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. And we're sharing with you during these kind of holiday weeks some of the pro-family legislators conference presentations. So we had a lot of great speakers that come in, and we also get some of David and Tim Barton's best stuff, new stuff that they put together and then some reminders of things they've been teaching for years. But in the context of exactly what's happening in the culture today. So it's an exciting time of the year to really kind of regroup, get educated on some of these things and get ready for the coming year of 2025 and all of the opportunities we're going to have to take back ground. It's going to be super exciting. Last couple of days we heard one of Tim Barton's presentations. Got another one for you, this one about the American Revolution. Looking forward to it. We're going to jump right in with Tim Barton at the Pro-family Legislators conference. 

Tim Barton [00:00:56] I want to talk about big picture thoughts from the American Revolution. I'm calling it winning the war because this was the most unlikely upset, maybe like. Spectrum of military history. How long might be debatable. But this is certainly on the list of, like unlikely upsets. This is up there. And I want to go through and tell some of the story, the unlikely upsets. But then I want to draw some observations at the end that I think might be applicable for many of us and different states, and it might be different areas where you are. But let me let me start with the beginning. So as you look at the beginnings of the revolution, I think we probably easy starting place B going back to the Stamp Act. Why? Because this is when the British first put a tax and said any imported paper. Right. Any certain these goods that come in, you're going to have a stamp on it, we're going to tax you for it. And the opening charter for all the colonies was that they were not be any taxes that they did not vote on and agree. And this was the first time there was a tax approved with no consent from the colonies, which led. Of course, to the cry that there should be no taxation without representation because it's part of our opening charter. And this also led to what was known as the stand back Congress. And the opposition is growing. And this is also where a young Patrick Henry gets up and gives this incredible speech. Thomas Jefferson was there as a younger guy and he was in his early 20s. Listen to it and said, that's the best speech I've ever heard. And he wrote this later in life about that was the best speech I'd ever heard anybody give, ever. Patrick Henry, give that speech. And in his speech, he suggested that we we shouldn't abide by this. And they ended up passing the resolution against the Stamp Act. And what's so interesting and I'm giving you the very quick, abbreviated, high level history, there's a lot more detail on this. What's interesting, though, is one of the main leaders at that time was the Reverend Jonathan Mayhew. He had recently preached a sermon about resisting ungodly leadership and tyranny in that ungodly leadership tyranny sermon that he gave. The motto that derived from the sermon became a motto of the revolution. Thomas Jefferson said, actually, it was his personal motto was rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God. And this was a theme going on. Well, he wrote a letter to Joseph Warren, and in the letter Joseph Warren, he said, If we're going to have any meaningful success going forward, we're going to have to work together and these colonies. And he suggested that we should send letters to all the colonies to try to get us on the same page. Well, that thought became the committees of correspondence, where people finally realized that we really should be working together on this. And then also just a couple of years committee of correspondence starting in 1772. But he's his letter is what laid the foundation for it. And it was in 1775 when Franklin brought back in 1754, they had done a joiner die, and in 1775 they brought back Unite or Die. But that conversation started there saying, if we don't work together, then we're not going to be able to accomplish this. They started thinking, How can we work together? What does that look like? As the build up continues? They have resistance, they get some approval. But now tensions have increased and 10% increase so much when you go to 1770 and again, I'm giving you high level, right? These are high level bullet points as we're going. But you had the 1770 and you have the Boston massacre. And if you remember the story, there was a British officer or British soldier who struck a young American boy. He cried out. Other Americans rallied around what's going on. They surround this young soldier. Word gets back to the British fort that Americans are aggressive with this young soldier. So they send out a group of troops and the Americans are like, you want to be tough. And they get angry and they have rocks and clubs and snowballs and rocks inside of them. Right. But they start this opposition, the British fire back. What's overlooked about this is, in fact, even the most of the paintings and lithographs, it's pretty evident there is a man there in the middle, The first board that was shed in the cause of liberty was a black patriot named Crispus Attucks, which is just kind of fascinating that the stories that we don't often tell in history, the reality of who Americans were and what the cause was and what people cared about. John Adams later wrote a letter and he said the most significant moment in the cause of liberty was the Boston Massacre. He said, It wasn't that that battle's election in Concord shot around the world. It wasn't the victory. Saratoga wasn't even the victory at Yorktown, he says. It was when the first blood was shed on King Street. That was the Boston massacre. He said that that's what it all began. At this point, the British have fired into Americans. And so now there's American patriots going, This relationship is not going to work anymore. We got some major problems. We are still British colonies and British citizens, but there's a growing movement of opposition. And this is where in 1772 you had the Sons of Liberty coming a little more full force. This is where you have the committees of correspondence. Samuel Adams is the guy who writes the very first committee of correspondence. If you've never read that, I would encourage you to. There were three sections to that letter, and the three sections were the rights of the colonists as men, the rights of the colonies as Christians, and the rights of the colonists as British subjects. And what he argued was the King has violated our rights in every possible way. The king doesn't treat us like men because we have some natural rights just as human beings. He's violated our rights as Christians because he's not giving us the rights that as Christians we're supposed to have under God to worship God, etc. And then he's violated our rights as British subjects because the king had already suspended the British Bill of Rights. Said, You guys, y'all are being too much trouble. We're not giving you the same privileges everybody else has. So so this is part of the committee of correspondence. And again, I'd encourage you go back and read that. Tensions continue to grow. You then next major moment, you have the Boston Tea Party. And that's the crazy thing about the Boston Tea Party. There's a history book now even being used in some public schools. This is a Boston Tea Party was the first act of domestic terrorism. It's likened to some of the BLM riots. Defending the BLM riots rising the the ho like it's not unusual. People got angry and they destroyed stuff like that's all okay. Hang on a second. Clearly you do not know the story if that's the thought. And they're not teaching kids the story, they're just drawing this crazy conclusion by being dishonest about what happened. The British had put another tax without the consent of the Americans. Again, there's all taxes are supposed to come through the colony charters based on representation, which we didn't have at that point, to be able to vote and vote in favor or against the taxes, their taxes on all tea being imported. So the Americans said, fine, we want no more tea. And the king said, you're going to drink tea. 

Rick Green [00:07:34] Quick break, everybody. We'll be right back. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:08:43] We're back on the WallBuilders Show listening to Tim Barton teach at the Pro-family Legislators Conference on the American Revolution. Let's jump right back in. 

Tim Barton [00:08:50] He puts tea on ships. He sends the ships over and says, we're going to unload the ships and we're going to charge them the taxes based on the tea we unload, not what they consume as soon as it reaches their port once it's unloaded. So the Americans set up a blockade on the port. So the ships are coming in and they say, nope, you're not delivering anything. And they held the ships at bay. One of the ship captains who was there was Joseph Rotch. And he came ashore and told them, Guys, you you're not really doing the thing you think you're doing. The king has sent me over and I have only a specified period of time to unload and return. And if I don't, he's going to take everything from me, including threat of my life. I might be executed if I don't get this unloaded and return in time. They call the town meeting 5000 men of the town at that night and they discuss what are we going to do because they didn't want this guy to get hurt. And so somebody said, I got an idea. When we dress up like Indians, we get on the ship so we can say, No, it wasn't us, it was the Indians. We didn't. We would never have done right. The British appointed Governor Hutchison. He actually wrote the King. All of this is documented recorded history. He wrote the King and said, I watched as the group. Thousands. Right. They come down and everybody says, watch what's going to happen. And these men dressed like natives, they go aboard the ship, he said. And it was calm and quiet to the extent that they could hear the crates being broken open, they could hear the tea dumped in and the guys who were there. Acknowledged they brought new locks to replace the locks that were broken so that nothing would be damaged other than the T that they were not going to pay taxes on. And Joseph Raj was able to go back and say, Hey, it wasn't me. Like I was there. I did my job. But these guys. This is significant, right? Because this is not them going down businesses in a riots and destroying businesses, burning things down. Very different context. Now, you could have an argument. What they did was moral, ethical. You could have that conversation. That's a different discussion probably than this morning. But this is part of what happened to the Boston Tea Party. As this happens, the British in Pass, the intolerable Acts and the intolerable acts are what leads to the call for the Continental Congress to come together because the intolerable acts the British say, okay, you are playing this game, we're blocking your ports, we're stopping trade, we're not letting your goods come out. We're not letting new goods come in. We're going to cut you off. And so they have the first Continental Congress coming together and they're going, okay, what do we do? How do we do it? John Adams wrote, Abigail, and these are in the records of Congress as well. Many of the people that were there had writings about it, but John Adams wrote Abigail in, said Abigail, when we first got there, the first motion that was made was Thomas Cushing's of Massachusetts. And the opening motion was that we should pray, and we discussed it, and then we agreed we would call the local pastor, the Reverend Jacob Bouchet, and he would come and the next morning he arrives. Timur Seventh, he arrives, he leads them in prayer and Bible study. This is what leads to the very famous painting of the first prayer in Congress and the records of Congress and many of the men who were there. Again, John Adams wrote about this, but John Adams told Abigail that as this happened, the opening prayer of Congress, he says, We prayed and studied the Bible for nearly two hours. Now, this is, again, kind of a significant thought because that would be something that us in this room we might think about doing. But when we think about the founding Fathers, some of the leading narratives by the founding fathers were that they were Deus right? They weren't religious separation of church and state. So many of the accusations that come against the founding Fathers against America, the only reason people can say something so dumb is they don't know history at all. If you study history like there's no way these guys could have been atheist agnostics does separation of church and state. We don't want God to be in government, but the exact opposite. In fact, John Adams wrote Abigail about what they did that morning and part of what he told her, he said, Abigail, you got to see this. I must beg you to read that psalm. Read the 30 bits and your friends read it to your father. One of the four chapters they read that morning was some 35, and they read it based on when the suggestion came. We should read the Bible. They went to the Anglican prayer book in the English prayer book. It was a book written back in the mid 1600s, but every day for 365 days they would describe Bible verses like a Bible reading plan so you would know what to read and you get to the whole Bible and hear, well, one of the Psalms or one of the verses chapters for that day was Psalm 35. So I'm 35 is one of the Psalms that David wrote Walking. Saul was chasing him, trying to kill him. And he said, God, I've done nothing and he seeks my destruction. Lord, you rise up, be my show, my buckler, my strong right arm only goes for more than 30 verses they read of that morning. One of the founding fathers said it was accidentally extremely applicable to our situation. John Adams told Abigail it was as if God himself had ordained that psalm to be read that morning. Well, then he writes another letter and he tells her what else Congress did. He says, Abigail. We have appointed a continental fast. Millions will be upon their knees at once before their great creator imploring his forgiveness and blessings, his smile on American council and arms. What's interesting is he tells her one of the next major things that Congress had done was call for a day of fasting. And then he concludes that millions of people ought to be praying. There was only about 3 million colonists at that time. So the presumption that millions are praying is the presumption that every American's probably praying in this moment. I think that's naively optimistic, right? I don't know that everybody prayed, but it does tell you something about the way he viewed culture at that time. Like, no, in in America, like we believe in prayer. There's a call to prayer. We're all going to pray again, like, this is not a secular people. This is not a secular time in American history. But also this was something that was quite normal in in Congress. In fact, during the American Revolution, they had 15 different congressional prayer proclamations. The first was for prayer and fasting, which is the one that I just mentioned. But it was very common. And this is what it was, the whole revolution. They would have a day of prayer and fasting, and then several months later they would call for another day. But this was prayer and Thanksgiving to thank God for all that God had done. And then they need God's help against that prayer and fasting. It went back and forth to the revolution 15 times. And it wasn't just in the revolution. They did this. By 1815, there had been more than 1400 official government prayer proclamations by governors, by president and by Congress. This is a really good fact to note because any time someone says, Well, the founding fathers weren't really religious, this is my number one thing I'd like to point to. And the question I'd ask is, well, if they weren't religious, why did they pray all the time? Because think about it, if you're an atheist agnostic and you know what, you're not going to do that. Right. Every single fact, every every single founding father that became a governor did that. Every single one right now. Also could be something interesting in your states to say. Let's bring back one of these John Hancock, one of these, Sam, John Adams, George Washington. Like, well, let's run this in our state. It'd be really interesting because you're going to have some rogue person get angry. It's you. And you're like, I didn't say that. John Hancock did. Just be interesting. Right? But this was something that happened throughout the whole revolution. But the first one happened. 1775 is when that first prayer and fasting proclamation happened. And then as you go forward, you have the Second Continental Congress and now tensions are already rising. The revolution is already going on. And the founding fathers realized if we're going to do this, we probably need to explain to all of the colonists where we're coming from, but also even the world, because the world is going to look at this, other nations are going to look at this and go, why are you doing this? And so they have the committee of five. Hey, before we approve separate Great Britain, we need to make sure we know what we're doing and why we're doing it. So they appoint a committee of five to come up with these ideas, to write it all down. The committee of five goes. Thomas Jefferson, of course, is the primary author, but when they get together, they begin discussing. And it could have been strategic. Jefferson at the time, really worth noting, was not even supposed to be there. Randolph was one of the leaders from Virginia. He'd been in the first Continental Congress. He was chosen to be at the Second Continental Congress, and he was a major business leader in Virginia and said, you know what? There's stuff going on with like these ports, with this blockade. I probably need to be there to help navigate this. So Virginia delegation, I probably can't come this time. They're like, well, who are we going to bring? And there was this young kid who had given a speech who done this writing in Virginia that was kind of noted at the time. They're like this kid. They're really good job. They're like, Well, let's bring this guy is a backup. Jefferson was not even supposed to be there. Like Jefferson gets assigned to this committee because he had written that in Virginia. That was kind of noted. But John Adams was a bigger voice. But but John Adams also kind of a firebrands, right? He was going to call people out. He didn't really make a lot of friends. Well, Benjamin Franklin was a writer. He was a printer, Right. I mean, this guy was really good with words. And yet both of them deferred to the young guy, Jefferson, that was in their midst. And so Jefferson is the one who ends up leading this. And if you went to age 80, you had a chance to see the first printing of the original draft of the Declaration of Independence. If you have not seen that, you need to if you've never read it, you should. It's absolutely incredible. And if you go back and look at this, one of the fun things about it is it does show actually some of the edits along the way. And if you've seen it in person, again, hopefully you noted this, but in those edits on the side, when when there were edits made like this one, Jefferson did. And so it doesn't say anything on the side. But if you go down, this is on the first page. If you go down toward the bottom on the left side of the column, it'll say, Mr. Adams handwriting. Dr. Franklin handwriting. It actually notes who made the edits as they're going through editing this kind of like a Google Work doc, right? We know who's adding a comment along the way. Just really interesting stuff. 

Rick Green [00:18:31] Alright folks, One more break today. We'll be right back. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show. 

Speaker 2 [00:19:34]  

Rick Green [00:19:42] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show, jumping back in with Tim Barton. He's talking about the American Revolution at the Pro-family Legislators conference. And we won't get it all in today. We'll get the rest tomorrow. But let's get as much as we can before we're out of time today. Here's Tim. 

Tim Barton [00:19:54] The final grievance in the original draft, the declaration was the longest grievance, and it was a grievance against the slave trade against slavery. In fact, in this grievance against the slave trade. As Jefferson's writing how bad it is. He said that this is what the Christian king and Great Britain was doing. And the word Christian is the first word that is not in cursive. It was printed and underlined, drawing your attention to it because actually before it he talks about that the African slave trade was something that the Muslim pirates had started because it was the Muslim nation in North Africa that started the exploitation of the African slaves and then many other nations joined in. So there was lots of the nation to this point, but it was started by the Muslim pirates. And he's like the Christian king is doing what the Muslim pirates are doing. And the word Christian right again, being printed and underlined. He's drawing your attention to it. So this Christian king of Great Britain determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold. The word men is fully capitalized. This is a big deal. Because in the second paragraph, first page, this is a third page, second paragraph, first page. He writes that all men are created equal and then the longest grievance in the original draft, he clarifies, Two men are. So the founding fathers today are accused of being like these racist, bigoted slave holders. And we don't even know the story or the context. There were a couple of founding fathers that definitely were racist, bigoted slave holders. The majority of the founding fathers were not. In fact, one of the heavily debated things amongst the founding fathers was the issue of slavery because of how many ardent abolitionist founding fathers there were. By the way, the only other word fully capitalized and printed, and the entire original draft was United States of America. Okay. You know, I think of America and men and speaking about the black people being taken off the continent of Africa. Right. Well, nonetheless, this is the original draft. The final draft looks a little bit different. But even in the final draft, a couple of things worth noting in the final draft and the declaration, of course, there's our national birth certificate. There's 45 words. And that second paragraph really I'm going to highlight that gives us three immutable principles that have been the foundation of American government since the very beginning. And, you know, these phrases, we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. They're endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights, governors rested among men. This is their opening statement and philosophy, right? This is their beliefs, their value system, where it's coming from. But in those 45 words, the three principles that became the foundation of the American ideal of government were something again, we know them today, but they're opening ideas where, first of all, there is a God. Now, this is a big deal because them acknowledging there is a God, they're acknowledging there's a higher power than the king. And then they go on and say, and God gave us rights again, showing the limited power of the king, where the king thinks that we don't have our Bill of Rights because he can suspend because we're calling. It's like, no, that's not correct at all. Because our rights never came from the king. They came from God. And then they acknowledge, by the way, let me back up. This was also the unanimous declaration. So this is something, even though they argued and disagreed about a lot of stuff, this was unanimous that we have a divine creator and then that we have an animal rights that come from that divine creator, and then that the primary role of government is to secure those God given rights. The opening foundational thoughts of America. There is a God. He gives US rights. Government exists to protect those rights. And and this is the ideas that were laid out. Again, this is like basic American idea stuff. And I'm saying basic. It should be basic for us. This is not being taught in schools anymore, right? We're being taught well, no, for for the good of people. If the government says you don't have the right to go to business during a pandemic, hang on, governors. Not the one that gave me the right to earn a living. The right to provide for my family. Right. Government didn't give me the right to speak freely, the right to worship God according the dictates of my conscience, the right to defend myself and my family. Those rights didn't come from government, so they can't take them away. In fact, the only thing they can do is make sure they are protected from other tyrannical individuals who would want to take those rights away. That's all government should do with those God given rights. The reason part of this matters is there's a different idea in America today. If you are not familiar with Congressman Jerry Nadler, at one of the committee hearings, they were talking about, well, people have the right to this and and we shouldn't do that. And part of his rebuttal was that God's will is of no concern of this Congress. So a lot of thoughts, I could say, following up with this. I want to point out this is where a lot of culture is, right? It's not just not believing in God. It's saying we're not going to let God have his way right here. This is a big deal for you because there's a lot of people who say, no, no, no. I guess the reason we we don't want the Bible in schools. We we don't want prayer and religion in schools. Whose side are you fighting on? Right. Because it's not acknowledging whether there is or isn't a God. And no, we acknowledge there's a God. Whose side are you fighting on? Right. Whose calls are you trying to advance? And I'm just I'm just throwing this out there because historically, the founding fathers didn't just acknowledge there was a God. They knew whose side they were fighting on. And by the way, as we look at the overgrowth of government, where Elon Musk says there's there's more than 400 government agencies, he's like, there should only be like 97 of those. Right. Which I absolutely supports. Why is our government larger now than it's ever been in the history of our nation? Well, we're more secular now. And either there's a really big God or there's a really big government. You don't have both because either my God shows up, my all my needs, or I look to the government to supply my needs. I mean, this is a big deal, right? But but this is why the more secular we become, the bigger government grows. And a secular government will never be a limited government. They're going to try to supply and provide and do everything, and they're not going to do it well. Well, let me go back to the declaration, because they didn't just lay out these three thoughts in that second paragraph in the concluding thoughts. They also said something quite significant. They said in their support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of mine, Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honors. They said we are giving everything we have for the cause of liberty. And historians have documented they paid an incredible price for it. In fact, one historian back in the mid 1900s when he wrote about this, here's what he acknowledged about it. He said nine signers died of wounds or hardships during the Revolutionary War. Five were captured or imprisoned and some cases with brutal treatment. The wives, sons and daughters of others were killed, jailed, mistreated, persecuted or left penniless. 

Rick Green [00:26:18] Alright folks out of time for today. We'll get the conclusion of Tim Barton's talk tomorrow on The WallBuilders Show. He's talking about the American Revolution. It's a presentation at the Pro-family Legislators conference. Be sure to tune in tomorrow. And while you're at it, hit the website wallbuilders.com. Make some of those Christmas purchases. Get ready to educate, equip and inspire your family with the best Christmas gifts you could possibly find right there. Wallbuilders.com. Thanks so much for listening you've been listening to the WallBuilders Show.