Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to 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. Today's topic combines all of those because it's all about prayer and the impact that it had on the founding of our country and significant events throughout our nation's history and how important it is for us now today to apply that same thing. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. Check out our websites, wallbuilders.com and wallbuilds.show, the dot show, just for the radio program. If you need to catch up. The dot com wall builders dot com for everything else David and Tim of course this is a common topic here on wall builders because it was a common topic with the founding fathers so many great events where prayer say played a significant role leading up to the revolution in the revolution and then of course throughout our nation's history. 

David Barton [00:00:55] Well, hopefully it's gonna become even more prevalent in our current nation's history. We've talked over recent weeks in some of the Good News Fridays about what we're seeing with indications of maybe some revival kind of stuff. You know, the baptisms in Huntington Beach, 7,750, the largest recorded baptism in history at one time, or the things that we're see in Ohio State or Louisiana State, all these universities, Baylor, 72 hours of prayer. And we're seeing just a lot of indications that maybe things are changing. And then in the last six weeks, I've seen a number of articles showing that Gen Y, Gen Z, and males are really starting to turn more toward the Bible. The American Bible Society report came out this year showing an increase of 11 million Americans becoming active Bible readers after having three years in a row since COVID been going down every year, about 29 million. We picked up about 11 million. So there seems to be something stirring and Lord willing with that will be a stirring to prayer. Prayer has been key to so many things that happened in America's history. And hopefully we're not gonna go through a time where we're getting people to come to the Lord and follow him and become disciples and read more of the Bible and not do more praying because we sure need more of that. That certainly, and Rick, as you said, we cover that a lot of times because that's so much of what history covers. As a matter of fact, we've talked earlier about how with the Trump administration, they wanted some seminal events out of American history to show faith in American history. And so many of those were built around prayer. And so prayer has shaped America in a very real way. So no question, there's been a lot of influence in our history, but hopefully it's gonna start picking up again, more so than in recent years with Maybe what we're seeing on some statistical trends right now. 

Tim Barton [00:02:49] Well, guys, one of the things I've been surprised by, maybe encouraged by as well, is I am seeing so much more often now on social media, some of the stories that we've been talking about for decades, some of these different events, I'm seeing pastors, I'm saying conservatives, I'm seen commentators bring up some of these sayings to where it seems that some of the forgotten and hidden history from America's beginnings. Is not nearly as lost as maybe it was a couple of decades ago. I was just earlier today scrolling on social media, and I saw a conversation from a pastor, two pastors talking together, and they brought up this notion of separation of church and state, and how it's misapplied now, and actually they were talking about the Ten Commandments coming into Texas, and how people are kind of flipping out over it saying you can't do that and we can't have religion in schools and separation church and state and they do a breakdown and they say here's what separation church state actually was to the founding fathers and even their notion of the establishment clause it had far more to do with denominations than anything else it wasn't like you know a fight between christian and islam But they go through and break it down. And I was just listening, going, this is literally what we've been talking about for decades. And it's now becoming far more mainstream. And guys, to me, that's so encouraging because it, it, it's easy for us to go back and show how well documented some of these major faith moments and events were. It's easy to look back and point to the documentation about how prevalent the Bible was in early America about the fact that the running fathers. Quoted the Bible more than they quoted any other source in their writings, there's a lot of very well-documented things we can point to, or even with this notion of prayer, the idea that when the Founding Fathers very first met, the very first motion made was by Thomas Cushing, and he made a motion that should open with prayer, and after they discussed it, they agreed to bring in the Reverend Jacob Duché, the local pastor, and that opening prayer lasted for nearly two hours, included four chapters of Bible You can go to the Constitutional Convention where it's falling apart and Benjamin Franklin reminds everybody in the midst of this that we need to go to God and ask for help for all that we're doing because if God's not a part of this, it's not going to work. Again, very, very well documented moments and stories that we've talked about for decades. Dad, you even longer than me and Rick being part of the conversation, but it's becoming now far more WELL-KNOWN. Especially again in Christian conservative kind of political commentating kind of circles. And to me that is really encouraging that these stories that used to be very much more lost and forgotten or not, which of course is something what Barry Laudermilk did with his book in trying to remind Americans of some of this documented history of how faith played a major part in our 

David Barton [00:05:52] And you know, it really is important because even what you're just saying to him, one of the things about knowing our history is it gives you a lot of boldness and it actually gives you lot of freedom. You know, if I was going to a school board meeting and saying, let's pray, and we didn't have a documented history of that in America, I wouldn't have as much confidence to say, Hey, let us do this. But if I can say, guys, we've been doing this since the first public schools came to being back in, you know 1643 or whatever. Then I've got a lot more confidence, a lot of more boldness. So actually knowing history and knowing occasions of prayer and history gives a lot a more confidence and a lot moving forward with that. And Tim, you mentioned Barry Loudermilk and we've had Barry on several times for his role in Congress, particularly as being the chairman of that select committee on the J6 kind of stuff. And all the footage he's brought out, all the things he's bought out that was covered by the media, covered by Democrats to show there's so much more to that story. And changing the narrative, but a number of years ago, back actually in 2011, Barry did a book on prayer and it was called, And Then They Prayed. And it took about a dozen events out of American history and those dozen events were all about times when they stopped and they prayed and what a difference it made. And so it was a great book. We have in our library, we've gone through it. And coming up on the 250th now was a great time to remember that. And so they have done a new edition of that book. It'll be back out July the 4th. And it is a tremendous book. It has so many good accounts in there aware that prayer shifted things in American history or prayer was integral to what went on. And just recalling back over some of the book. I mean, it's got World War II stories. It's got Civil War stories, American Revolution stories before the American Revolution. It's get stuff from NASA and space. You know, just integral times where prayer made such a difference. And I'm really glad that Barry is bringing this back out and encourage everybody to get this book. It is a really good book. It's great to use with groups. It's great using curriculum or anything else. So it's going to be fun to have Barry on it and kind of refresh this that was brought out originally 14 years ago. 

Rick Green [00:08:07] Congressman Barry Loudermilk our special guest today. Stay with us folks. We'll be right back on the wall builder show. 

Rick Green [00:09:18] Welcome back to the WallBuilders show. Thanks for staying with us. Congressman, Barry Loudermilk and right back with us, always good to have them on, whether it's something going on in Congress or in this case. And Then They Prayed congressman louder, but looking forward to the new book coming out in just a few weeks. 

Congressman Barry Loudermilk [00:09:31] We're excited about it, especially since, we're about to start celebrating our 250th anniversary as a country. And, we're excited because I think it's important that people know what their true American heritage is. Not what's just going to be told to us, by the mainstream media, but the true providential heritage of our nation. 

Rick Green [00:09:54] Man, tools, tools like this are critical for the next, you know, roughly 400 days, because like you said, there's going to be, it's going to be the topic, everybody's going be talking to 250 of this, 250 of that. We already had your Lexington and Concord and Patrick Henry speech and all that. But all of it leading up to next July 4th, but as you know better than I do the, the, our national treasures have been taken over by the leftist. And so you go on tours of most of these places and you don't get the truth, so your book is going to give people a chance, let's say they're going to go visit, you don't Valley Forge, or they're going to go visit Carpenter's hall or whatever. You're going to be telling them the stories of how big of a role prayer played in so many of these moments. And, and I mean, you could do, you know, a 10 volume set on these things. I don't know how you picked which ones you did, but it's such an important part of what's going to happen over the next year. 

Congressman Barry Loudermilk [00:10:38] Well, we put,  put over 10 years of research into this and it really came about from my dad, who was a world war two veteran, the landed at D day and was through the, uh uh, battle of the bulge all the way into the occupation of Germany, and he used to tell me incredible stories of the war, but also he would tell me these stories that he learned as a child of great acts of providence throughout our history. And quite frankly, I wasn't taught these in school. And so when we were homeschooling our children, I'm like, I want them to know this, but. I want to go beyond just hearsay. I want a research and I started finding these incredibly documented stories all the way from the beginning of our country up through the Apollo eight space mission. So it's, it's beyond just the founding of our country, like there's so many, you know, books of, of, uh, Providence and movies and all that, but it's going through world war II through the civil war all the way up into the space mission. God divinely intervened because people prayed, especially in the most critical and dangerous times in our country. And as you know, the Bible tells us there's nothing new under the sun. And so when you read these, you're going to find out that while some of the things that we're facing today, we've already faced in the past, there's something new, but we need to know how those that went before us faced those challenges and overcame them. And it was always through prayer. And so... I hope it'll help people to re-engage in our true heritage. One thing we did, Rick, is when I wrote this, I didn't want to write it as a documentary as much as I did. I wanted to write to where you are there in Valley Forge with Washington. You're at Dorchester Heights. You're in the command capsule of the Apollo 8 space mission. So it, it reads more like a story putting you there. But it's all documented facts. 

Rick Green [00:12:36] Say you've been hanging out with David Barton for so many years. You guys are so good at bringing history to life. Um, and you raised so many good points right there, brother. I mean, even just the, you know, obviously great to have the, the, the knowledge of the history, but you mentioned the application of, of, you know, if we know the, uh, the secret sauce, we know why they had the success they did and we see God's hand in all of that and that prayer was such an important part of it as we face these new challenges or, you know, face some of the things that they faced back then, but just kind repackage. Then we know we've got to go to our knees just like they did and we've gotta come together in prayer just like 

Congressman Barry Loudermilk [00:13:11] Exactly. And we're not talking about wimpy people who just don't want to face a battle. So they go pray. No, this book is about people who man up. They face these challenges head on. And the reason we came up with the title and then they prayed is really from something that George Patton said, and I write about this with his, I mean, he gave such a great, almost a sermon about the power of prayer to his chaplain. And basically he said, we prepare, we, we train and we arm ourselves, but then the deciding factor when it comes to who wins and who loses is that power of prayer. And so that, that made such an impact as I started looking at whether it was George Washington, Nathan Hale, or many of the other characters that we have in the book. Is they worked, they trained, they prepared, and then they prayed. And that's really the common factor through all these miraculous events that have happened throughout our country. 

Rick Green [00:14:22] That's another great point is that we don't just go camp out in the prayer closet 24-7 and expect God to bring somebody else to do the work. We're just going to pray all the time. We got to do both. What was it, Hancock, is that I urge you to pray and to act. That's got to be our attitude throughout this whole thing. I wanted to ask you, what would you recommend? Well, first of all, the website and then theyprayed.com and thentheyprayed.com and you can pre-order the book right there. For people that are, you know, are. They're looking for things to do for the 250s like what's a good way to use this book I mean is this is this something they could get together and you know have another couple of couples over to the house and Read together plan to talk about praying for the country together doesn't you know? What would you recommend? 

Congressman Barry Loudermilk [00:15:04] Oh, I'd recommend that, making sure it gets into as many hands as possible. When we first released the first edition of this book back at a 10 years ago, we started getting feedback that churches were using it as a study guide. Um, we've even had requests to make some kind of Sunday school curriculum out of this. And so this is the type of thing that, um, it's engaging and it's factual. You can read it as, as, an entertaining bloke. To, you know, to, to put you in place of, riding with George Washington up Dorchester Heights as general Knox is pulling the artillery in the middle of the night,  but you can also rest assured that everything in there is documented fat. And so, it's, it's great to do group studies families have used it, like I said, as curriculum and, and churches have used in their Sunday school. I even have had some of the pastors of some of the largest churches in my home state of Georgia based sermons, off the stories. And, I think it's an incredible resource. I mean, God's inspired this through history and just inspired me to write this. And, you know, we decided with the 250th anniversary of our country coming up, it's time to get this back out there. So it's been revised. It's been updated. We added another chapter to it and we're really excited that July the fourth is the release date and it's going to be available, you know, through Amazon, Apple. We've got it in ebook form. We've got it in paperback. We'll, we'll be coming out with a hard cover later in the year but,  yeah, it's, it,  it's a great way to re-engage with the true history and heritage of our nation. 

Rick Green [00:16:48] Love it, love it. Well, before I let you go, update us on prayer in Congress. I mean, how is that going? Are there still, you know, a lot of members that get together? Is there a regular prayer group still happening? Like what's the role of prayer in our current Congress? 

Congressman Barry Loudermilk [00:17:03] Yeah, it is going and it's getting to grow again. COVID had a real impact on it because we had a speaker, Pelosi, who kind of took advantage of COVID and locked out a lot of the ministers and took their credentials and wouldn't allow them into the Capitol. And some of us, the believers in Congress, knew that that was a very dangerous thing because especially during a time like COVID, more than ever we needed prayer, we needed the Bible studies. We needed what these ministers that come to Washington DC, that's what they do. I mean, we have some that just walk the hallways and come in and pray. I have many that come in my office. And so we knew the need for this. So a few of us got together and decided we'll just bring these in turn these ministers in as interns in our offices. So we can give them credentials and get them back in. And so that's good, man. We've had two ministers from Billy Graham ministries and two from a ministry called Hope to the Hill that have been part of our staff. And they're still active up here, especially the Hill ministry. We've been working very close with them. And I think this is something I hope the trend that just continues and grows again. There's Bible studies for members of Congress, spouses, staff members. And so it took a hit during COVID, but it's growing back at you. 

Rick Green [00:18:29] I love it, man. That's so encouraging. Well, last thing, how can we pray for you, brother? 

Congressman Barry Loudermilk [00:18:33] Well, hey, you know, we're up here fighting, uh, battles, uh. This city loves status quo. And there's many of us here that's been trying to break the status quo for a long time, but you know just, uh we appreciate the prayers. Uh, when we fight these political battles and, uh I, I'm believing it's a, we are at a turning point in our nation and we need to make sure that, uh as we move forward, we do it. Under the banner of God, we're following his word and that we're always making our decisions with prayer and wisdom and knowledge. 

Rick Green [00:19:09] Barry Loudermilk, Congressman from Georgia. God bless your brother. And again, the website folks, and by the way, I mean, what a great way to gift to people, it's something that they can study during the 250th and on July 4th. So get ready for this folks. Andthentheyprayed.com andthentheyprayed.com pre-order today. Congressman Barry Loudermilk. Bless your brother, we'll have you back. 

Congressman Barry Loudermilk [00:19:30] Thank you, Rick. 

Rick Green [00:19:31] Stay with us, folks. We'll be right back with David and Tim Barton

Rick Green [00:20:41] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show back with David and Tim Barton and special thanks to Congressman Barry Lauderman. Of course, guys, he's one of those guys that's been coming to our pro family legislators conference for years and years and was in the state legislature in Georgia before he was in Congress. And of course he and his kids, a lot like the Bartons in the Greens, right? They've been teaching American history and doing all kinds of cool stuff throughout the state of Georgia. And now of course, you know, we've had him on Wallbuilders many times with his work in Congress, with the J6 committee and all the other things that he's been doing. And so very good to have him on, but this is a book that people all over the country can use and can be a great tool going into the 250th. 

David Barton [00:21:16] I really loved that, you know, Barry was talking about, as he goes through all of these stories and all these historical accounts, it wasn't like that prayer replaced all the things they did. They still had to fight the war, had to find the battles, they went through everything, but prayer was added to it. And it was really the difference with all of their efforts when you put the prayer with that, all that they were doing, whether it was the war stories or space or anything else, it's how prayer really boosted that effort. And really pushed it over the top and it's what made the difference. That was the defining factor in so much of what happened. And so whether you go back to Patton and battle the ball at your Providence Spring or anything else, it was not that they didn't do other things, they did, but prayer made the different and that's a great point to make. 

Tim Barton [00:22:01] Well, dad, one of the things that you have pointed out many times is even going back to examples like during the Civil War, where Abraham Lincoln in 1863 had that very famous prayer and fasting proclamation, and he wasn't just praying that the North would beat the South. I, we would encourage people go back and read this. It's very profound where he talks about in pride and arrogance, the Americans, the people of that day. And I'm saying we should go back to read it because it's really relevant for us today. But we have we've imagined ourselves sufficient in our own power. And he goes through all of these sayings, he says, we need to humble ourselves and go back and seek God and repent for our pride and our sin and our wickedness. And leading up to that moment, the Confederacy significantly had outperformed the Union. Virtually every major battle had gone the way of the Confederates and not the way of the Union, and after that Prayer and Fasting Proclamation, it's fascinating. Virtually every major battle after that proclamation goes the way of the union where you can see It's almost as if that was that was a turning point for them And certainly they're still the north and south are engaged in battle and there's a lot of strategy and there is a lot Of shuffling and moving and there was a lot doing that's happening But it certainly is something you look at and go okay I think I think faith played a part in this and that even as you mentioned like the Battle of the Bulge, where they were praying for the weather to break well the weather broke but they still had to go fight the battle. So they had to get the planes up in the air. They had to the troops moving, and they had that to navigate where they're going and how they're gonna do it. So it's something that as we look at some of these lessons and the application of what we can take today is it's very easy to kind of separate at times the prayer, the intercession from the activity. But when we look back historically, some of the most significant victories militarily or otherwise happen. When people were in prayer and then they were activated in faith because of that prayer and they went and did some pretty significant things. And of course, it's what Barry's book points to and it's those kinds of stories that we've been telling for a very long time. 

David Barton [00:24:11] You know, and in addition to all the stuff that he covered, which every one of us should read, because it's, again, great history, but I love the idea of having the small study groups and the churches are doing it, and do this kind of even in neighborhood home groups, because you get a lot of good discussion going, and you get lot of iron sharpens iron, is what the Bible says. It makes everybody a lot sharper. And this kind stuff, rehearsing it together as a people. And this is what the people of Israel used to do when they would come together at their feast, they would go back and remember and read and go through their history and go through what God had done. And it just really helps embed it. Plus, as you have the discussions over that, you start thinking of applications and ways that you hadn't thought of doing it. So this really is a good book for everybody individually to read, but it's also a great book to do in small groups in some way, shape, fashion or form, even if it's an online discussion, let's, you know, online. Let's read this chapter this week and let's talk about it next week or whatever. This is a really good discussion book, especially as we move toward 250th anniversary. 

Tim Barton [00:25:17] Well, and as you mentioned, because of the 250th, as people are trying to relearn some of the American story, to relearn what made America unique and different, obviously, all of us on here, we have worked to write books and tell some of those stories. But again, one of the things that encourages me is that so many of these stories are now becoming much more discussed, much more frequently in conversation on social media. And so it's great to see so many these stories being recirculated. And retold and of course with our friend Barry Ladermilk having a reissuing of his book and I'm actually guys excited for the the hardback to come out it'll be a fun one to collect and keep going forward but certainly for these stories to become prominent again that's a big deal. 

Rick Green [00:26:03] Andthentheypray.com andthentheyprayed.com. You can get the new version by pre-order and then it'll be out July 4th as Barry was saying, they're in the interview and some of you may even have an old version. So get the one and put them side by side. Hey, well, you know, honestly come to, one of our wallbuilders events around the country that maybe Barry ends up at and you end up signing or even better, Tim Barton will sign Barry's name on Barry's book. So that's what you do. 

Tim Barton [00:26:27] He probably won't mind. It'll be fine. 

Rick Green [00:26:28] He  won't buy it all as long as you buy the book, right. Anyways, special thanks to Congressman Barry Loudermilk. Be sure to be praying for him, just like we talked about. And of course, look for some of those prayer events where, like David said, you can get with other people as well, or create some of them yourself. Thanks so much for listening today to the WallBuilders Show.