Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. This is The WallBuilder Show, taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. And today we're gonna get the second half of week two, or episode two, in Rebuilding Liberty. It's called Restoring Religious Liberty. We're gonna jump right back in where we left off yesterday with Rebuilding liberty. 

David Barton [00:00:26] So when you look at Benjamin Rush, one of the things that makes him significant, there's a whole lot of stuff, by the way, he is an awesome guy. But one of things is he's called the father of public schools under the constitution. And that's because in 1790, he did this piece. He said, you know, we used to be 13 nations. Now we're one nation. What do we need to be teaching in our schools for us all to remain one nation? What do have to teach to keep us unified rather than having 13 different nations? And so he goes through and lays out in this and, and he says, and this, he says The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is be laid in religion. Without this, there can be no virtue without virtue. There can be nobody and liberty is the object in life of all Republican governments. He gave a dozen reasons why we would never take the Bible out of schools in America. And this piece explains the Bible contains more knowledge to man in his present state than any other book in the world. And it has all the stuff you need to know about medicine, about science, about ethics, about law, about business or whatever. And that's what we believed about the Bible. That's why we taught it for so long. Go to 1816. And in 1816, what you have is the report from New Jersey. Now all the schools have reports every year, just like we still do today. You can go online and see the reports annually. If you want to see the report for New Jersey in 18 16, they're talking about how the kids have done in the first and second classes, or what we would call the first or second grades. And so how have the kids done according to the superintendent of public education, New Jersey? He says, very simply, all the scholars of the first and second classes commit to memory portions of the New Testament or Psalms, a lesson of the Catechism, several hymns and the text of the preceding Sabbath. So all the kids in first and the second grade, that's what they're memorizing in New Jersey public schools in 1816. We're now a generation after the founding fathers. It's not the founding father's anymore. We're much later. And he continues. He says one of the scholars, first and 2nd grade, one of scholars has committed to memory the book of John. And the first 30 Psalms together with the 119th Psalm. Anybody here memorize the Gospel of John and 30 Psalmes and Psalms 119? Nah, you're not as smart as second graders back then. Amazing, and by the way, we all know that there's some kids that are smarter than other kids in classes, right? He's one of those kids, obviously. How about the rest of the kids? The majority have committed to remembering the Gospel by John. All the first and second graders memorized the Gospel of John, but we had one kid who also memorized 30 chapters of Psalms and Psalms. All the kids memorized the gospel of John in first and 2nd grade in New Jersey public schools in 1816? Let's move to 1828. 1828 involves Noah Webster. This is when Noah Webter came out with his original dictionary, the Noah Webbster dictionary. Now Noah Webster does so many works that educational works. He's called the father. He's call the school master to America is so much of the father of the English language, as far as what happens with the structure of it. And so, and that dictionary, he defines 70,000 words, 40,000 never before been defined. He learned 28 languages so that he could tell you the root of every word that he takes in that dictionary. Awesome what the guy did. So when you take words and look in, in Webster's dictionary, for example, take his dictionary, let's take a word like you see up top chief. See, he gives you definitions, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven definitions there, and look what he does. Right up there, you see that one? It says, chief, he's quoting from 1 Chronicles chapter 11. So, if you want to know how this word is used in context, go look at 1 Chronicle 11. And here's another example here. You see there? Go look at Numbers 3 and Job 29 and Matthew 20 if you want to see how this is used in the context. And if you wanted another definition, here, look at 1 Kings 9, and down here at the bottom, you need to go to Psalm, that'd be Psalm, what's that, 58? He takes you back to the Bible. 27% of the definitions he used, he took to the bible. So this is our dictionary in the day. It's not the secular thing that we have today. Webster's dictionary today only has his name in common with what it used to be back then. It was a very biblical centric dictionary that he had. So Noah Webster, that 1828 dictionary, and by the way, with all the other textbooks he did, he was very clear, his philosophy, his view of America, his view of education. He says, all the miseries and evils which men suffer from biased crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war, they all proceed from despising and neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible. So again, going back here, 1849 is a significant year in the sense of President Zachary Taylor. He's known as called Rough and Ready, he's a war hero, he'd be compressing the United States. Look at the declaration from the president. He says, the Bible is the best of books. I wish it were in the hands of everyone. It's indispensable to the safety and permanence of our faith. Oh no, he didn't say faith. He said of our institutions. The Bible has secular application. It's the basis of our institution. He continued. He says especially should the Bible be placed in the hand of the young, it is the school book in the world. I would that all of our people were brought up under the influence of that holy book. Zachary Taylor will never be accused of being part of the religious right as a president. That was not who he was. He was old, rough, and ready. He was a tough old codger, and nobody thought of him as a religious person, and yet look at the rhetoric that we have from the president of the United States back then. And by the way, best school book in the world, apparently the Supreme Court didn't consult history. We know they didn't. That's why they arrived at the conclusion they did. So, 1876, the president now is Ulysses S. Grant. Another very tough president, very adequate guy, very able guy as a military commander. He headed the union forces in the civil war, but he's the president for the centennial of the United States. 1876, he's president, we were founded in 1776. He comes out with this card. You see this little card right here? This is a centennial card. It's the message of President Grant. This message of president Grant, see there, centennial, 1876. 1776, 100 years. It's to the children and youth of America. What does President Grant want to tell all the students of America? He says, hold fast to the Bible as a sheet anchor of your liberties. Write its precepts in your hearts and practice them in your lives. To the influence of this book, we're indebted for all the progress made in true civilization, and that this one must look as our guide in the future. Righteousness exalts the nation, but sins are reproached to any people. By the way, that's the Bible, Proverbs 14, 34. There's your press the united states and kids on the sentinel of america get back to the bible this is what's made us who we are as a people quick break everybody will be right back you're listening to the WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:09:10] We're back here on The WallBuilders Show, jumping right back in with Rebuilding Liberty, the new course being offered by Patriot Academy and WallBuilders. 

David Barton [00:09:17] In 1947, these two textbooks right here. These two textbooks were being used. You can see on the cover here, this is the Bible study course for the Old Testament in Dallas Public Schools, 1947. And the one behind it is the one for the New Testament in 1947 Dallas Public schools. Now, these are not just Dallas textbooks. They were used in Cincinnati and St. Louis. They were using it in Indianapolis. They used major cities across the nation. And as you go, and these are courses for credit in public schools. As you go through, you see here, memorize. There's a memorization section for each lesson. Memorize the pre-existence of Christ. In the beginning was the word and the word is with God and the Word was God. All things were made. This is what we're memorizing in public schools as a course in Dallas and Cincinnati and all these big cities. And then it has questions to the end of every lesson. You study some of the Bible and you have questions on lesson number one on the preexistence of Christ, John 1 through 14. Where was Christ before he was born on earth? What titles does John apply to Christ in this chapter? For what purpose was John sent by God and on and on it goes, I'm going to get myself in trouble here. I'm gonna bet most ministers couldn't answer the questions that were answered by Dallas public school, high school kids. This is what we had till 1947 all over the United States? And we think that the way it is now is the way its always been. And that people who want religion back in public life are crazies. No, it's because we don't know history. And so as you look at the Bible in schools and look at where we are at We're at this point where the long standing religiously expressive practices require a strong presumption of constitutionality. If you can show that it's been part of the American fabric for a period of time, we're going to presume that it is constitutional. And we're talking religious practices here. So that is the history and tradition test. And why does that matter? Because when you look right now, did you know that based on the 2019-2022 Supreme Court Decision, you can be teaching the Bible in schools right now. Your public schools can teach that with no trouble. As a matter of fact, one of the groups that does this, BibleInSchools.net, they have currently teaching in 4,000 public schools, and they have 600,000 students going through, and the only textbook they use in the course is the Bible. You just teach the Bible, Bible speaks for itself. This can be done, nobody hears about this. We didn't know this was going on. You got a public school near you. Go talk to the superintendent. Talk to the school board. You're going to have trouble. School board attorney, school board attorney knows only the modern stuff, not the historical stuff. And they usually don't keep up with recent Supreme court decisions. They may be good on personnel or administration or insurance. They're not good on constitutional issues. So you may have to teach them some of this, but this is something you can do in schools. Same way, Nativity Scenes that used to be part of schools. And then we said, Oh, no, no, Christmas. That's too religion. Christmas is a federal holiday to celebrate the birth of Christ. It's not a federal federal holiday to celebrate the birth Rudolph and Santa. That's not what it is. So we can go back to singing Christmas carols and choirs can do that. And they can have Christmas programs and all this stuff they haven't been able to do. Talk to your choir teachers, talk to your school teachers, talk to talk to principal about this. Same way with prayer in schools. As long as students are praying, it's fine. Student led prayer, it is constitutional. Now, they can't pop up and start praying in math class if nobody else is doing anything in math classes except the teacher, but you can have prayer at school again. You can have prayers at graduations again. You can be baccalaureates, all the things we used to not be able to do. We have a long-standing tradition of history and law on this. And another example is balanced science. You know, creation, evolution, debates don't go to Darwin, 1859. They go all the way back 500 BC to Aristotle. Everything Darwin set forth had been set forth. Hundreds of years before that. There's nothing new about what Darwin did. He just synthesized 2000 years of teaching and made it really simple, brought it down to something really easy. It's not that there's new teachings. As a matter of fact, if you'll check the 1801 senior paper for Daniel Webster as a 17-year-old senior at Dartmouth, his senior papers over the evolution creation debate in that day. Nothing new about it. Founding fathers speak very openly of evolution creation, something they address. This is not a new issue that comes from Darwin. We can go back to teaching creation science if we want to, because that's history and tradition. That's something that scientists have taught for thousands of years. It goes back a long time. This is not just religious teaching. So all of these things are available. Long standing, religiously expressive practices require strong presumption of constitutionality. I encourage you to be forward thinking, be aggressive. Realize you've got a lot of tools at your disposal. Maybe we haven't used in recent years, but I just want you to know what the Supreme Court has said. And in this area, what the history and tradition is so that we can move forward and move these things back into helping America be a wholesome nation. God bless you guys, Rick. 

Speaker 4 [00:14:08] It is astounding to me how many people in America have been indoctrinated into a condition of complete ignorance, completely unaware of the extent to which the Bible and ancient Jewish wisdom shaped the founders. It's not an accident that the crests of these old schools like Yale and Harvard contain Hebrew words because to these people who came here and set things up, the people we think of as the founders, Hebrew was something they knew. The second governor of the Plymouth colony was Sir William Bradford, and the first 19 pages of his manuscript, his history book, The History of the Pllymouth Plantation, is actually in his own handwriting in Hebrew. 

Speaker 5 [00:15:01] Oh, you're going to learn all types of wonderful things as you've already learned in this class about our founding fathers, about the freedoms and liberties, about what people paid for, what it means to be a constitution, what it mean to have a bill of rights, what does it mean have a declaration of independence, what is it mean that have a free nation, what does it mean fight for your freedoms, what all that mean, that's what you're learning so that you can take it out into the streets. But I say none of this matters if it's not Jesus first. That's where the miracle takes place. 

Speaker 6 [00:15:31] On average, there's about 8,000 requests a year for the Supreme Court to take your case. And the last few years, they've taken 57 and 67. The idea that they would take one of your cases is your odds are not good. Well, they just took four. And we won them all, right? And I mean, that's the only God. And so, what I like is wherever God is moving, I'm just gonna jump in the middle of that, right. And so there's a lot of bad things going on in our country right now. But. Something's changing here. I mean, why is God doing this in the religious liberty arena? Why is he opening up all these protections? It's not so people won't step in that protection and act, but he's got a plan. There's something going on, and so I just encourage people to be encouraged. The war is not over. Almost the image I have is it's like all of our children and our grandchildren are in a castle. They've been stolen away. And we've been blocked from getting in and God just blew holes in the wall of the castle. So it's not over. We still have to, we can't stand at the opening and go, wow, that's a really neat hole. I mean, it, but God is really providing this new opportunity for us to change our country and to restore religious freedom in a way we haven't seen in our lives really at this point. 

Rick Green [00:20:44]  Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. All right, we're gonna get the conclusion now of the second half of episode two in Rebuilding Liberty. Hey, welcome back to the tavern portion of our Rebuilding liberty course. I hope you got your hot cup of Patriot brew coffee and you're ready to discuss those revolutionary strategies and tactics to implement the things that we learned tonight in our class. And don't forget last week. We talked about restoring those declaration principles, rebuilding civic literacy in our country by hosting a Rebuilding Liberty course. I hope you've already started thinking about friends and family to invite to your first class by actually being a part of the two 50th next year and being a partner of creating a celebration, whether it's at your home or your church or county courthouse, but hosting a two 50 celebration. July 4th, 2026. And then third, getting the Constitution back into our schools, whether you do that for Constitution Day or you get a Celebrate Freedom Week pass in your state. Learn more about all of that in our Blueprint book or in your workbook. Those are the things we talked about here in the Tavern last week. This week, we want to capitalize on this opportunity that David was talking about. The Coach Kennedy case changed everything. We have the opportunity to get a God-consciousness back into our culture. I'm going to give you three action items tonight. Number one, I want you to be a part of getting In God We Trust, the national motto, in every government building you possibly can. On the dais of the school board where they meet or the city council or the county commissioners. At your state capital, we have that in Texas, In God, We Trust above the daist there in the House chamber. Everywhere you can, get In God we Trust displayed so that people will think about that national motto and restore that God consciousness. If you look in your workbook or the blueprint, We're going to connect you with the organizations that will send you a kit on how to do this It's easy to do you can get this one done I promise you so pick out a couple of places in your community where you can make this happen Maybe that's the action item for you. As I said last week, 12-step recovery program. You don't have to do all 12. You just gotta pick one or two. So this week I'm giving you three more in addition to the three I gave you last week. In God We Trust model, the Ten Commandments. Yeah, a lot of states now that are doing Ten Commandment legislation to make it very clear you absolutely can display the Ten commandments in the local schools. The Stone v. Graham case has been overturned. The Kennedy case has changed everything. Do your part to get the Ten Commandments displayed in schools, county courthouses, other government entities, and even in your own home. And then, the third step tonight that I wanna encourage you to do is help bring godly wisdom back into schools. This one's got some subparts, so you gotta go to the workbook or the blueprint book to get to contacts to some of these organizations. But... Getting, for instance, chaplains in our local public schools. I encourage you to work with them to get a chaplain in your local public school. And maybe you're the one that should be that chaplain. Maybe you're looking for that next adventure or that next assignment from the Lord. Maybe that's one of the things that you can do. Maybe you want to work with some of the time release programs out there and be one of ones that hosts a program next door to the local public School where the kids can come to your place. Maybe it's a church, maybe it's right down the road. Lots of ways to do this. But it's absolutely constitutional and a powerful way to bring that God-consciousness and that godly wisdom back to your local school. And then of course Bible curriculum itself. This is absolutely constitutional. Most of your schools don't know that it's constitutional. We want to help you get Bible curriculum into your local schools. In fact, Patriot Academy is providing a specific Bible curriculum that we're going to have available in the next few weeks. I hope you'll check that out at PatriotAcademy.com. Lots of other great sources out there as well, but if that's that one that lights you up, then that's the one the one step out of the 12 steps. To recovery for our country that you should get excited about. So lots of great options for you this week to restore religious liberty. We've got to do these things where we get this God consciousness back into our culture and we actually live out our faith. Think about it. What good is the freedom of religion if we're not living out our face? So don't forget the three steps that we've added tonight. You can get In God We Trust, the national motto, hanging it up in your schools, getting it at your government, you know, on the dais or behind the leaders there. Get the Ten Commandments into your local schools and your local government buildings. Get a godly wisdom back into your schools with chaplains at the schools, Bible curriculum, time release programs, all those options. Everything's in your workbook and in the blueprint. Look for a way to implement one of those steps. And don't forget the steps that we talked about last week. Already get signed up to host this class in your home or church, wherever you like. Make sure you're planning your 250th celebration. Great opportunity to restore civic literacy by bringing back those declaration principles. And then get involved with getting the Constitution and the Declaration back into your schools. There's already a lot to do, folks, but get started. All right, I'll see you back here in the Tavern next week for our Action Steps in Week 3. That should give you a lot of hope and a lot of solid ground to build on. So there's a lot we can do in our community. So this whole course is going to be about action, action, action, the things David's talking about. It's not just head knowledge. He's given us things we can actually go back and do in our communities. This has been Week... Too, and we've got two more weeks to go in this amazing course. Next week, Tim Barton is our master bricklayer. That's going to be with us. Don't miss it. Have a great week and thanks for helping us rebuild Liberty. The Rebuilding Liberty Course is our new constitution course, based on the declaration, all about the 250th, celebrating all those things. It's a four-week course, and we shared the first week with you earlier this week, on Monday and Tuesday. And then Wednesday and Thursday, we got the second week in there for you. So now you've heard week one and week two, or episode one and episode two, and we'll have more coming at you tomorrow and early next week. And then you'll be able to get through the entire Rebuilding Liberty course. I know you're going to be excited about it and you're gonna want to host it for your friends and family. Get signed up today at PatriotAcademy.com. Thanks so much for listening to The Wall Builder Show.