Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. Thanks for joining us on the WallBuilders Show. We're taking on the hot topics of the day from a Biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. Hot topic of not just the day, but the century. It's right a hundred years ago. The scopes trial, you know, we have this perception of it. That's very different from what actually happened. I'm Rick Green here with David and Tim Barton and David, you mentioned this, I think it was on a goodness Friday. I can't remember for some reason we kind of cover this really lightly on a program a couple of weeks ago. And so later in the program, Eric Hovind is going to be with us talking about not only the scopes trial, but also just how to address this issue today and, and really start with this for our apologetics, because if we don't get creation right, everything kind of falls apart downstream from that. So David and Tim, this is going be a great interview to have, but it's also just kind of following up on what we touched on a few weeks ago. 

David Barton [00:00:54] Yeah, it is. And it's interesting that when you go to the Bible, where does the Bible start? It starts with creation. It starts within the beginning with God and God made. And so that is the beginning point for Jewish faith and for Christian faith. That is where the Bible starts. And if you leave that and get away from that, then you can have serious troubles. And it is the same with science and what we do with government and everything else as well. 

Tim Barton [00:01:18] The beginning point for Christians and Jewish faith. It's really the beginning of every worldview. It's where did we come from? How did we get here? And this is a foundational fundamental question that every single faith's or individual's worldview must account for. It is the reason Christianity makes the most sense because there's far more compelling evidence that suggests that there is a God. Who created the world, as we know, scientists now are advocating that there is an intelligent designer, even though there's disputes in the scientific community of what that intelligent designer looks like or who it is or what that actually means. But they're actually finally acknowledging that the world is too complex, that there's too many moving parts and pieces, that there's to much that reveal a designer, intelligence in the construction and orchestration for it to happen by chance. And so, this is not just foundational for Christianity. This is foundational for everybody's worldview. And it's really convenient that even those Christians we live by faith, there is so much evidence to support our faith. 

David Barton [00:02:21] You know, it's interesting too, that this is not a new issue. We like to think that it is, or the Scopes trial, you know, a hundred years. This goes back, I mean, centuries and even millennia. When I did that law review article for, was it Notre Dame or Regent Law School, whatever, on the 75th anniversary of the Scope's trial, I went back literally and said, look, every major argument we hear from, quote, science today, that's pro-evolution, you can find that back 500 BC. And it's not like they've discovered anything new. These are really old arguments that have been out there for a while. And that's why it was interesting to me. And I'm gonna take just a minute or two here and read something right up front. This is from Benjamin Franklin. This is about creation evolution. Benjamin Franklin was actually giving a public lecture on this. So imagine that what's considered to be the least religiousfounding father at least one of them, certainly. Is giving this public lecture on creation and the fact that all science knows that there is and you're crazy if you don't. Here's what he said, he said it might be judged in a front to your understanding. Should I go about to prove this first principle, which is the existence of a God and he's the Creator of the universe, for that would suppose you to be ignorant of what all mankind and all ages have agreed in. I shall therefore proceed to observe that He must be a being of infinite wisdom, as appears in his admirable order and disposition of things, whether we consider the heavenly bodies, the stars and planets and their wonderful regular motions, or this earth, compounded of such an excellent mixture of all the elements, or the admirable structure of animate bodies of such infinite variety, and yet everyone adapted to its nature and the way of life it is placed in, whether on earth, in the air or in the water, and so exactly that the highest and most exquisite human reason cannot find a fault. So that's been Franklin said, look at everything. It doesn't slowly evolve. It's all here at the same time and it's all perfectly adapted to its environment and you have all this complexity and that doesn't happen with evolution. So this is not a new topic. Now I will say that I think that the Scopes Trial is where the church really lost it. Because rather than standing up for what we had known for centuries, the church went silent on this. That's because the other side used mockery. They mocked people who believed in creation. They used mockering. Suddenly, we just kind of went quiet, didn't step up and defend this thing. And even though we won the trial, the Scope Trial, we actually won that trial against the evolutionists. We lost it historically and culturally because nobody stood up and defended it after we won it. That this is such a key turning point and it has been since the very beginning of mankind that I love the fact that Eric is making this a focus because it's a good time to look back and remember and let's make corrections to the ship as we go forward. 

Rick Green [00:05:29] Eric Hovind, our special guest today, his website is creationtoday.org. Stay with us. Eric will be with us when we come back from the break. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:06:42] Welcome back to The Wall Builders Show. Thanks for staying with us. Eric Hovind's with us, man. I've been watching this guy for years. I just found out before he went on the air, he's been listening to WallBuilders and I'm just glad to connect with you, man, thanks for coming on. 

Eric Hovind [00:06:53] Rick, thanks for having me. I love your show you guys do a such a great job updating everybody on what's going on You guys are my go-to people for what's really happening in the world today 

Rick Green [00:07:02] Well, we are, we're definitely rowing the same direction and it's all about worldview and training, not only the next generation, I used to always say the next-generation, as John Jay said, the rising generation, but frankly, it's our generation too, our parents' generation. We need to educate everybody on these things and if we don't get the creation piece of this right, the worldview falls apart after that. So thank you for what you do and just thrilled to have you on and a lot of people talking about the 100-year mark on the Scopes trial and I frankly need a refresher, man. I don't remember, we talked about it a little bit on the program last week or week before, I can't remember. But I don t remember the specifics of the case. So give us kind of a history lesson first, and then what do we do today to do a better job of teaching this issue to our kids? 

Eric Hovind [00:07:46] Yeah, we are at the tail end of a 100-year social experiment in America, watching what's happened since really the Scopes trial. It was called the Trial of the Century for a reason. 1925, Tennessee passed a law called the Butler Act, and they said, listen, you're allowed to teach science. We love science, but there was a specific textbook that was teaching that humans evolved from animals, and they were like, whoa, whoa. If we just evolved from animal, that's got some serious implications. We don't want our kids learning that they're nothing but an animal. So they passed a law and their law basically said, you're not allowed to teach that we evolved from a lower life form and just an animal and what's interesting in the civics that the textbook used in Tennessee, a civic biology book, it taught that there were five races of man and that the higher or the most evolved race was the Caucasians. Nothing says progressive like ranking humans by our skin tone and calling it biology, huh? 

Rick Green [00:08:45] Right right. Oh my goodness and the and people want to champion this today not knowing what it actually did. Yeah 

Eric Hovind [00:08:54] So the law was passed, you can't teach this, the ACLU, which of course is the American Communist Lawyers Union, they wanted to challenge this law. They actually found a guy, they put out an ad, they wanted somebody, a entrepreneur in Tennessee, found John Scopes, who is actually just a gym teacher and had never taught evolution, to be willing to say, I taught evolution so that a lawsuit would come out so that the ACLU could challenge this Law. But the real goal, the real goal was to try to put John on trial. 

Rick Green [00:09:23] They basically created this scenario. 

Eric Hovind [00:09:26] They did. It's a completely manufactured scenario. John scopes later in his life in his memoirs, who lived, he lived a very private life, but he said, yeah, I never really taught evolution. That never really happened. We just wanted something to challenge.  And then enters, of course, the protagonist and the antagonist, William Jennings Bryant, three-time presidential candidate, the spokesman for 30 years. I mean, he was able to charge in today's currency, $45,000 per speech. Now I don't know about you, Rick, But I'm not there yet, okay? 

Rick Green [00:09:56] I'm like if anybody wants to pay that well Eric and I'll split it well We'll do a two-fer if anybody 

Eric Hovind [00:10:06] So it goes on trial. Obviously, Scopus is found guilty if he really did teach evolution. Tennessee was like, we do not want this. However, with the transatlantic cable and everything that's just going on with getting live reporting out to the world, what they really did in media, this is the beginning of fake news right here. They used this trial in order to twist it and make it seem like it's about God and how religion is anti-science and how people who are religious are backwards, and this is where that got started, even though nothing could be further from the truth. 

Rick Green [00:10:40] Yeah, that even, I mean, even, I think I'm a fairly educated guy, but honestly, as soon as you say Scopes trial, my association to that based on the narrative for most of my life is, oh yeah, that's where they made us look like idiots. That's where they managed to make Christians look like they're anti-science or they're not willing to study science or whatever it might be. Even to this day, that's the immediate, what conjures up in my mind. 

Eric Hovind [00:11:09] And it was kind of a cheeky move because the antagonist, Darrow, he actually put William Jennings Bryan on the stand, which, how do you put the other lawyer on the stand as your witness? Like that's crazy that he even did it. And then he pulled up a cheekly little move. He goes, you know what, after asking him all these questions and Bryan did not do a great job at answering the questions on science or on the biblical worldview, based on a biblical worldview. Didn't do a good job with that. Darrow said, hey, you know what, we're going to change it to a guilty verdict. I'm going to waive my closing argument, therefore Bryan couldn't give a closing argument. And Bryan could never go really challenge Darrow on his ideas of atheism. So Darrow asked all these antagonistic questions to Bryant and makes Christianity look bad when Bryan doesn't give good answers, and then says, hey I don't want a closing argument. And legally that made it where... Now, Bryant couldn't even challenge Darrow in his thinking, in his atheism, in his evolution, the evidence presented. And every piece of evidence, Rick, that Darrow gave as evidence for evolution, I mean, he had the experts lined up. The judge didn't allow it into the courtroom, but we know from history what they were gonna say. Every piece of the evidence, vestigial organs and all that has been debunked by science, by real science. 

Rick Green [00:12:27] I didn't realize this part. So Bryan was not prepared. I mean, even somebody that highly paid, that highly respected was not ready to give an answer as we're commanded to do. I mean that, I didn't realize that part. And so, frankly, I'm guilty of that. If you were to bring some of these arguments to me, I don't think I'd be ready to, and I know I wouldn't be ready like you are. And here I am, live, breathe and eat this stuff. Imagine how little prepared, not only the kids of today and the high schoolers that have to go into the hostile environment of a college campus or whatever it might be, and they're challenged on these things, let alone parents and pastors. We're not ready for this stuff. 

Eric Hovind [00:13:06] That's exactly right, and that's what I see. I've been traveling and speaking for 25 years now, Rick, and I go to schools, colleges, and churches, and camps. Young people today, old people today are not ready. They still teach some Sunday school style of, well, you just have to have blind faith. I know the sign says this, you just gotta have blind-faith. We're just gonna trust it, even though it's probably not true. And it's like, that's not what God has given us. He wants us to have a sound mind and reasoned rational defense for why we believe what we believe. And let me tell you, Rick, science is helping give us exactly that. We can trust the word of God is absolutely true. No doubt about it. 

Rick Green [00:13:45] I love that you said that because power, love, and a sound mind, we talk about that all the time around here and try to explain, you know, sound mind means you got to, it's not just a good feeling. You need to do the homework so that you've got the intellectual strength and stability and the fact that you know you can back up what you're saying, that it's just, you know holding up, hitting people over the head with the Bible, but actually showing that the Bible You know was way ahead of us on a lot of the scientific discoveries that we didn't find till later And that's what you do I mean you make it and you make a fun for people to learn these things I I just hope that as people talk about this a hundred years later that there's a rebirth of a hunger To want to learn right to want to study these things 

Eric Hovind [00:14:28] Absolutely. I mean, look at the social experiment now. 100 years later, Bryant's entire problem, I mean here he is three time presidential candidate, secretary of state, he's going, if we tell kids they're nothing but an animal, they'll act like animals. Rick, how are we looking 100 years? 

Rick Green [00:14:42] No kidding! 

Eric Hovind [00:14:43] I mean, as a side, you're a lot better. 

Rick Green [00:14:45] You watch some of these parades and it looks like animals in the streets. And we actually have kids acting like they're animals at school saying they're a furry. And then the school's response to that is, oh, well then we'll put kitty litter in the bathroom for you. Unbelievable, we're encouraging them to be animals. 

Eric Hovind [00:15:02] That it's insane what they're doing. Absolutely insane. And all the statistics, whether it's divorce or how children behave, what were the problems they were facing in schools back then chewing gum, talking in class? What are the problems are facing today? Pornography, sexual addictions, violent behavior, drugs, alcohol, like we are watching 100 years now of them going, hey, maybe we're just an animal. And I gotta tell you, I don't think we should be telling the kids in public school they're just an animal. This is the thought I had when Trump got in office, Rick, and he said, you know, we're gonna say there's only two genders, and man, the whole world, woo, yay, this is wonderful, there's all the two genders. And I'm going, whoa, whoa whoa whoa, wait, wait, you're still telling all the kids they're an animal, like let's celebrate when we stop teaching that because you're not an animal you're made in the image of God and that's what gives you value and respect. 

Rick Green [00:15:57] I'm a simple guy, Eric. I just kind of look at the results and go, okay, did the inputs, did we put garbage in and get garbage out? Did we put good stuff in and get good stuff out? And you just nailed it, I mean, in terms of just looking at the result and where we are as a culture. And honestly, when we talk about people being hungry for this, this is what excites me so much about a Joe Rogan saying, you know, I'll take Jesus over the Big Bang. Because what he's really saying is, I see the results. I see how crazy things have gotten and how off the rails we are. So there has to be a better way. There has to be some truth out there somewhere that will produce a better society. That's essentially what guys like you and us are saying is there is absolutely a better answer, but we as Christians and Christian leaders have to get better at articulating those answers because we have their attention right now. Tim Burton was saying this the other day on our show. He was saying, yes, people are hungry, but that doesn't mean like a Joe Rogan has embrace the gospel yet. Now, I do hear he's going to church in Austin at a good church here in Central Texas, but it doesn't mean they've embraced it. They're just kind of in that Ben Franklin phase where they're going, okay, you guys make better citizens. You're getting better results, so I kind of want to know why, but that gives you and me and others an opportunity to make the argument. So how do we get better at making the argument? How do we get better articulating just these basic worldview concepts of a creator even? 

Eric Hovind [00:17:20] Well, we just need you and Tim and David to get on the, uh, get on the Joe Rogan podcast or three hours and straighten them out. That's what we need. I love that idea. No doubt. I'll be on standby. You can phone a friend when they do the science for you. Okay, Rick, I got to call Eric. 

Rick Green [00:17:36] I don't know how much you catch the clips and stuff, but I watched the clip of he and Mel Gibson. And Gibson did a pretty good job on the apologetic stuff, but when he asked him, I can't even remember what the question was, and it might've even been in this lane. And Gibson was wise enough to say, you know what, Joe, I don't know the answer to that. I can' answer that one, but I have enough faith in these other areas, yada, yada yada. Great time to say, you know what, Joe? I don't know the answer to that one, but let me phone a friend. Hey, Eric, help me out here. I do that with Barton all the time when I'm at events. I'll be like, okay, you stumped me on that. Let me phone to friend. I got David on speed dollar. I love it. I love. Bottom line is God does call us to be prepared. Hey, what is a good place to start though? Cause you, you put out a lot of great courses, materials, conferences. What would you say to somebody listening today going, you know what I'm feeling a little guilty here, feeling a conviction. I can't answer a lot those types of questions. Where do I start? 

Eric Hovind [00:18:25] You know, I love our Creation Today show. It's free to watch at creationtoday.org. I've had over 400 episodes, and I bring on every week an expert in science or in scripture so we can watch and learn how God's Word and God's world meld together and actually go together. In a world that's gonna tell your kids, 80% of the kids that grow up in Christian homes will reject Christianity after one year of college. And I want them to know, no, God's word and God world go together, science and scripture are hand in glove. We are talking to the great creator of the universe, and we can learn. The mind of God through his creation, which is what all the sciences have done. So I love The Creation Today show. It's on podcast, it's on television stations around the world. It's available at creationtoday.org. It's like lots of different people carry it, but man, that show to me, because you have so many experts coming in, and it's my little discipleship time to talk to these guys is what it is. I mean. We're talking about why chromosome Adam and mitochondrial Eve and how all the human race, all eight billion people on the planet, can be traced back to one man and one woman scientifically. And it adds up to what the Bible says. I mean, we're talking to guys about Noah's Flood and the geology of the world today, and they're pointing out—I got to go on a Grand Canyon trip with Dr. Andrew Snelling and did a whole show on this— you go down and you see Monument Fold where all one mile of strata is bent at a 90-degree angle. Showing it had to bend while all the layers were soft sediment. They were not turned to stone because there's no cracks in them. It's not metamorphized. So anyway, we go into the science and the scripture to show, look, you can really trust God's Word. It's both scripturally, it's historically accurate, and it's scientifically accurate. You really can believe in a six-day creation account. That's one of the things that Bryant wobbled on and said he wasn't sure. And you really can believe that. Now, Rick, 50% of churches in America won't stand on that. And they'll embrace some kind of old earth creation or theistic evolution, maybe God used evolution. And those bring huge theological problems for the Bible. Now, you can get saved without believing in a literal Genesis, but you cannot account for the need for salvation. Why did Christ die on the cross to pay the penalty of sin, which is death, unless you stand on the literal interpretation of Genesis. 1 through 11. It really happened that way and you really don't have to believe in a theory that's never been proven right like evolution and get rid of a book that's never been proved wrong. You really can't trust this thing. 

Rick Green [00:20:52] And then just the discipleship factor, right, in terms of application of everything else in the book. So if you get that part right, it's a whole lot easier to deal with what we would consider to be tough issues of today, where people don't want to take a stand. Part of the reason they don't want to a stand is because they don t feel like they're on solid ground. They don't, you know, anyway, it all goes back to this right here. I was just looking at your website and accessing the show, so Creation Today, and then booking you to speak. Now, I'm just going to guess you said a little less than 45,000 per speech, right? Just a little 

Eric Hovind [00:21:24] So I'm still that love offering guy that says if you want to show some love you do it and if not, we'll just come man.

Rick Green [00:21:31] That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, bro, we like I said, we so appreciate what you're doing, want to get people to get plugged in. Got to start doing more with you, man. We want to to get you to Patriot Academy, start doing some more things together. Creationtoday.org is the main website, creationtodday.org. And then you can watch the show from there, book Eric to speak, get some of the courses, learn more. Eric, keep up the great work, man, let's I really feel like there's a harvest time. So let's just, man let's blast this stuff out there. Let's get more people in. And start training more people to also teach on this, right? Let's just multiply, multiply, and multiply. Harvest is plenty, workers are few. Let's get some more. 

Eric Hovind [00:22:06] We need just some more donations. You can send our donations to wallbuilders.com, wallbuilders.com. 

Rick Green [00:22:11] I like that too. Yes, absolutely. Hey man. God bless you Eric. Let's do this again soon. Thanks, Rick Hey stay with us folks. We'll be right back with David and Tim Barton

Rick Green [00:23:26] Welcome back to the WallBuilder show. Thanks for staying with us. Thanks to Eric Hoven for joining us today, creationtoday.org. Check it out. Some great materials, there's some good stuff and David Tim just, I love the fact that we've now got a lot of these organizations out there and experts out there countering the narrative and doing it in a, in a kind of a fun education way, basically doing for creation what we've done for history and the constitution and all that. Uh, but you know, we had the, the doctor with the book a couple of months ago, of course we always, you know, Ken Ham will be back with us soon. You got all these other organizations. I mean, it's just it's it's needed We just gotta get people to go study those things so that they can then have that conversation with their friends and family 

Tim Barton [00:24:05] Yeah. And as he pointed out, you know, so much of the accusations that have come against creation have been proven to be incorrect by science, that they were fabricated. These are not things that have been supported and backed up by science. In fact, if we go back to even Darwin's large claims, you know, it was recorded or reported that Darwin even acknowledged that if some of this wasn't confirmed that he was claiming that it probably wasn't accurate, not worth believing in, that this is what scientists have long acknowledged and yet we have been quite dishonest in the presentation in modern academia in science, is that if you have a theory, and you've been working now for over a century and it's century and a half coming up, maybe two centuries at, as you mentioned, depending on some of these arguments and debates, I mean, thousands of years, people have been claiming some other ideas and options outside of a creator, outside of the God. And when we have a scientific method and we have now these evolutionary theories and they're not supported by the scientific method, it would seem that they're the ones that are anti-science and yet for some reason we're told that Christians are the ones that are Anti-Science Americans you point out it's great there are so many organizations out there some of our good friends over at Institute for Creation Research our our partner museum from WallBuilders is the American Journey Experience over in Los Colinas area and like a mile down the road is the Institute for creation research so if anybody wants a a field trip or before School starts back. Come visit both the American Journey Experience and. The Institute for Creation Research, but there is really, really good evidence to support the biblical account of creation, of origin story, and there are really smart people that are actually helping combat some of the nonsense. And Rick, I think you're right. I think that more and more people are waking up and this is becoming a far more winning issue in culture. 

Rick Green [00:25:54] Well, it's good to see in every area, right? We're watching, so we look over in entertainment and we see, you know, VidAngel and all these groups that are bringing good programming to that arena and doing it in good quality. And then we look here in apologetics and defending the faith and whether it's on the creation issue or some of these other areas. And then, we look in history and now we've got so many people that are hungry to go into those areas, even going and serving in the administration or serving at the park service or whatever it might be. I mean, you just pick the area of the culture. We're finally responding to a lot of this stuff. And we've, we've said for years, it needed to happen. Said we needed to get people that could go in there and do it really, really well, and now we're just getting to see a lot in that fruit. So super exciting. It also means lots of opportunities for young people that want to go serve in these areas in whichever area of the culture they have an interest. Well, thanks for listening today, folks. You've been listening to the WallBuilders Show.