Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. It's the WallBuilders Show on a Thursday. And on Thursdays, we call it foundations of freedom Thursday. And it's a, it's great opportunity to talk about foundational freedoms and the foundational principles that produce freedom. And you get to pick which part of that topic we cover. So you send those questions into radio@wallbuilders.com radio@wallbuilders.com question about the constitution declaration history, maybe even an application, maybe even a policy that's being discussed right now. Send them into us. We love getting your questions. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. And guys, our first one is coming from Blake. He said, did the founding Farias did the Founding Fathers desire freedom of religion for all beliefs and religions or only Christian foundation religions? I have a hard time believing our founding fathers were okay with Islam, Hindu voodoo, et cetera practices if our national laws were biblically based. Thank you. Okay. Great question guys. And I'm actually excited to hear how you answer this because one of the kids of Patriot Academy with our friends from leaders Academy and hot springs this week asked this very same question. So I wish y'all had been in the room to answer it, but let's see where y' all go with it Go for it 

David Barton [00:01:11] Well, we'll see where you end up but I'll take the first shot I think the founding fathers desired freedom of religion for all beliefs as long as the behavior those beliefs did not violate what we consider biblical standards now, I think it's a different question to say that they desire all beliefs to be the foundation of America I think they had a biblical foundation for America but we're willing to accept all beliefs coming in if they're not trying to overthrow those foundations those basic Judeo-Christian moral foundations If you believe something else, that's fine, but do you come here, we are going to do things like don't kill and don't steal and don't purge yourself, which is Judeo-Christian, but if you believe something different that's okay, but you're gonna have to follow those laws. So I think they were willing to accept, I don't think they wanted coercion. I don't think they want any type of religious or mental coercion, but I did think they wanted conformity to behavioral standards, not necessarily a theological belief standards, but certainly behavioral standards, and those behavioral standards were based on the Judeo-Christian basic ethics that we have and still help and still use. So that would be my thought. Tim, Rick, you guys? 

Tim Barton [00:02:18] Yeah, I mean, I think very similarly, if you look at the story of Joshua, probably most famously, one of the verses most known from the book of Joshua in the Bible is where Joshua says, choose this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And if you actually go back and read it, he said, hey, you can serve the God of the Amalekites, the God the Amorites. And he goes through several of them. And then he concluded this, for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord. And I think it's interesting. Nobody would look back at Joshua and go, you know what, Joshua was confused about how the nation of Israel should function, about you know, that like Deuteronomy apparently fell out of his head and he didn't remember what Moses had told them. He didn't do Deutronomy 28. I don't think that's correct. I think he was challenging the people saying you need to kind of figure this out. And this is where I think if you look at the founding fathers with even some of perspective. Dad, as you mentioned... They didn't believe in coercion. They believe in the rights of conscience, and they actually even talked about a tender conscience, that we want to respect a tender conscience. And if someone has a certain conviction, we don't want to coerce them away from what their conviction is. But then to your point, they certainly had a foundational view. What would John Edward Thomas Jefferson in 1813, when he said the general principle is upon which the father to achieve independence. Were the only principles around which we all could unite and what were those principles? He says, I declare they were the principles of Christianity. What John had was pointed out is not that all of them had the same Christian beliefs, but all of then had a unified understanding and an agreement, and we might say even a moral code agreement, but it was the agreement on the principles and Christianity. And I think that dad supports what you're suggesting that they they didn't think you should teach all morals as equivalent. They certainly believe that the morals of Jesus, the morals, of the Bible were superior to any others out there. They believe that there was a God that that he had given rights to man. The government exists to protect those rights. And actually, if you go back to the original state constitutions, when we separate from Great Britain, not only does every state constitution mention God, But virtually every state constitution has a requirement for an oath of office before you can hold public office and in that oath of office you had to believe in one God the Creator of the universe you had to believe, in the Son Jesus Christ, and you had believe in the holy scriptures given by divine inspiration. Now not everyone had the belief in Jesus Christ but every single one had a belief in God and every single one had the Old and New Testament as part of a foundational belief that you had to take an oath on this before you could hold office in those states and I'm saying that because they didn't They didn't make everybody in their state believe something, but they did have standards that they upheld believing that would help their states and ultimately society function better and the standards they upheld were the principles of Christianity. And so even when you see things like no religious test of office that's that's true federally but when it comes to state it's quite interesting because states also said there will be no religious tests of office. Other than... That individual has to believe in God, the creator of the diversity rewards the good, he punishes the wicked, he's given the Old and New Testament by divine inspiration, that we will all give an account for the works we do in this life, either in this life from the life to come, et cetera. But they conclude saying, and apart from that, there's no other requirement of belief for holding office. And so it's, when you even gather some of the context, you go back and read these early state constitutions, go back here and read the founders writings. They absolutely believe in the rights of conscience. If somebody has a different idea, they're free to believe that idea, but the idea of following through with some of these things, they would have been fine with a Muslim coming and living in their town, but if that Muslim was trying to impose Sharia law, if that Muslims was doing honor killings, they absolutely would have opposed, and they wouldn't have said, well, it's his rights of conscious, he can do it. No, because in America, we understand that there are inalienable rights, that there's a God who's given rights, and if somebody's belief system is requiring or promoting them to take away someone else's inalible rights, that's where they said that there is a constitutional principle, there is standard, and it's built on the declaration, this notion, there's God, our rights come from Him, and government's job is to protect those rights. That was a Christian idea. That this wasn't the idea and actually arguably it wasn't the idea of the monarchs. I wish it sometimes in the name of Christianity they were doing things very un-Christian-like but this wasn't the way it was done in hindi nations it was in the way was done and muslim nations. It's interesting guys even as we are kind of diving into this question a little bit this is not dissimilar to something just the last week or so. When at turning point was doing actually they're doing a lot of campus events now and there's noted people going and speaking at these different campuses. But I don't remember if it was early this week, it was last week, I think it was last week Vivek Ramaswamy, he was doing a turning point event and there was a kid that came up to ask a question and it was a thoughtful question. It wasn't delivered as cleanly because the kid was kind of caught off guard when he said, hey, so Vivek, you know, you are a Hindu, but you're also a Christian, like how does that work? And Vivek's like, oh, I'm not a Christian. And he says, well, OK, then I don't understand. Your returning point, they're a Christian organization. You're not a Christian. Like, how does that comport? And the kid didn't really know how to ask the question, but he's expressing his confusion. Like, How does this line up? And it was interesting as Vivek unfolds this, and he said, the student asked, or the young man, I don't know if he's a student, but the young man asked. You know, in Hinduism, you believe in many gods, and in America, we believe in, like, or in Christianity, this monotheistic, there's one God, and Vivek says, no, I believe there's one God. And this kid's taken back, and he's like, wait a second, what? And Vivek said, well, do you believe there is one God? And the kid says, yeah. He says, well do you think there's a trinity? And the kids are like, yes. And he says, okay, so now you understand something about what I believe in like the essence of Hinduism. That I believe, there's one God who reveals himself in multiple forms. Now, I'm not doing it apologetic for Hinduism, but I thought this is what's very interesting because what Vivek said, like right now he's running for office in Ohio. He says, I am not running to be a pastor I'm running to get political leader. Similarly, when he said, I ran for president, I wasn't running to the pastor I was running to to be president. And in America, the constitution has some unique allowances that allow people to come with different ideas and beliefs and so uphold that. And I do think Vivek is a very interesting perspective in this because the Founding Fathers definitely had some deep-seated theological differences with a Hindu, unquestionably. But it is an interesting thoughts, conversation, that if that Hindu said, but I believe there's one God and that he is the author of our inalienable rights, that he rewards the good, he punishes the wicked. Like, I believe that. I think it would be very, very interesting to see the Founding Fathers navigate some of that. And Dad, I've heard you talk about, before too, that there were, maybe not with Hinduism, but there were some examples of Muslim congressmen, for example, where there were Muslims elected to Congress, even back like more Founding era related, and they just navigated that a little bit differently. 

David Barton [00:10:00] Yeah, they did. And I mean, it was actually a fairly famous name. John Randolph of Roanoke, the Senator Pocahontas, claimed to be Muslim, and he was serving in US Congress. And he wrote about being Muslim. And, and so there he is in Congress coming right out of Virginia from a, a long line of Christian family. But there he's serving. And you know, and talk about this, Tim, Rick, one of the things that, that I think is really important in this. All right, Founding Fathers, they'll regulate behavior, but they don't regulate belief. But they do want the right behavior. And so one of the things that stood out, Tim, even as you were repeating the part about, hey, believe in one God, the creator of the universe, the rewarder of the good, the punisher of the wicked. And I think that last part doesn't mean as much to Christians today as it did back then. Why does it matter that you believe there's a God who rewards the good and punishes the evil? And that's if you believe that there is a God before whom you will one day stand and account for your behavior, it affects how you live right now. I know that if I lie to somebody's face, they may not know I'm lying, but God knows I'm lyin', and I know he's gonna ask me about it, and I'm not gonna have a good excuse for it, and I will get in trouble for it. Daddy's gonna whoop me you know going back to old school stuff for lying and so if you do not have a respect for God that that regulates your behavior because you believe you will stand before him and account to him in the future and I'm not sure that enough Americans understand that right now to think about the future in what they're doing now in relation to answering to God but that was really big in the founding era 

Tim Barton [00:11:51] Well, and dad, to that end, I mean, we've talked about the some, we certainly will talk about this more in the future, where we are diving into a little bit of the difference between revivals and great awakenings, right? Where reformation takes place, when culture is shifted. It's not just individual lives that are changed, it's culture ultimately that has changed. And one of the things that certainly has been true, that has changed in the Christian culture over the last 100 to 150 years is a lot of that thought and emphasis. On, and I know as I say this, there's going to be people that are going to feel different and want to be critical about this, but I think there's some level of truth to it, and maybe... Like a great degree of level of truth to this, but we've removed a lot of the idea that God is a just God, and we've replaced it with the idea that God as a loving God, as if those two things are not compatible, that no, because God loves me, and we begin to use the love of God as justification that we don't hate sin anymore. If you look up the word hate in the Bible, it is crazy how many times the word, hate, in the bible, is associated with God, THAT GOD HATES! But it's interesting, virtually every time you see God hating something, it's God hates sin. God hates evil. God hates wickedness. And in our modern culture, as Christians, we've become much more tolerant, much more accepting of things that ultimately we should be hating. And I say this knowing that there would be people that would go, now wait a second though, but we're part of a new covenant. And you know, so under Jesus, it is a grace covenant. And I understand genuinely, I understand the argument, the thought. But here's where I would offer some challenges, and not the least of which. And I just want to point out, like there's more to this. And I'm going to say this as the evidence there's more to you this when Jesus in the serman on Mount Matthew five says he didn't come to abolish, he came to fulfill. And until it's all been fulfilled, not one jot, not one title was done away with. So he's saying like the old law is not done away with, and I understand, like I genuinely understand. I've studied a lot of theology and doctrine. I understand the nuance, but let me go further because Peter, the guy trained by Jesus. And granted, not really bold, doesn't really catch it to the Holy Spirit comes in and then he's got a new boldness. He's going to doing things. But Peter repeats something from Leviticus where it says, be holy for I am holy. We're repeating what God told the Israelites, but he's saying it in one of his letters and he says, guys, remember, this is a command we were given. We should be holy as he is holy. And I understand people that they would say, but our holiness comes because we're saved in the blood of Jesus covered us and makes us whole. I get it. But we have removed this idea of sanctification that we're supposed to live and walk and act differently. And this is something again, dad, kind of to your point where the founding fathers had a very different idea, similar if you go back to the first and second grade awakening, This is a very common thought in the first and second grade awakening about the sovereignty of God, the holiness of God and the requirement of a man to not live so wickedly and to try to live more righteously. And I, again, I understand the nuance, people are gonna go, we can't live righteousness, our righteousness is filthy ragged and it's only through Christ. Like, I get it. Genuinely, I understanding what you're saying, but there's something to when Peter says, Be holy for I am holy, repeating Leviticus. He's reminding people that we don't just discard this idea that we should be holy, and part of the reason Dad backing me up to complete this loop is because it used to be understood that of course God loves us. That's why Jesus came and died on the cross. That's what God made a way for us to be forgiven of our sins, but it doesn't remove the fact that God is a just God and that God's justice doesn't have to tarry. That God's justice can come swiftly at any point, at any time, and I, again, I understand there's gonna be the theologians that are like, but because of Jesus, right, it's been put off to the very end. I understand that argument. I do, but I think there's some practical things we could point to in life that might challenge some of those ideas. God's justice is not always delivered equally in a timely manner, and ultimately one day, everybody gets justice. I agree with that. But again, backing up, I don't think there's enough fear of the Lord and I think part of the reason we don't have enough fear the Lord is because we drink too much of the love of the lord kool-aid to some extent and not that I know I'm just I know I'm stepping in so many traps and people are gonna be triggered by this but. I think we've not read the whole of the gospel that god is a just God, God is loving God all of this is true at the same time. But the Bible also talks about the fear of the Lord, the Bible talks about that the fear of the lord is to hate evil. And so there's just way more to this. And so dad backing up, this is certainly something from the founding era. They definitely had a much more severe understanding and whether their theology was right or wrong, right? That's kind of beside the point, other than answering part of this question, they really believe that there was a just God, His justice wouldn't sleep forever, that judgment would come against evil, sin and wickedness and that would impact a nation. And so even though individuals could come in this nation and not believe in Jesus. They understood as a nation, we want to have morals in place that God will bless and not bring judgment on the nation. It's the reason George Washington, when he's commander in chief in the military in the revolution, it's the reasons he has orders forbidding profanity in the military, because he said, we can't afford to do something that offends God. We don't want God's judgment coming against us. This was a lot of their understanding when it came to laying the Christian foundation for the nation, you can be here and not believe in Jesus. But understand in America, we are going to follow biblical principles because we want to be in a position that God can bless us. And that's what the founding fathers laid out. 

Rick Green [00:17:43] And so good guys gonna take a quick break. We got more questions to get to when we come back. You're listening to the WallBuilder show 

Rick Green [00:18:55] Welcome back to the WallBuilder show. Thanks for staying with us on this foundations of freedom Thursday. Next question coming in from Virginia. Nicholas said we've got a big election coming up for governor. It seems like many times we'll have a good mayor or governor and we'll make progress forward. Then we'll at least two that propel us in the wrong direction. So it sounds like he's saying, you know, one step forward, two steps back. But how do, how do we keep things moving in the right direction? So it can be a prosperous red state versus keep keeping to flipping us back and forth. And of course guys, I would broaden Nicholas's question to, there's probably a lot of people across the country that feel this way sometimes, where they get a good election, get some good results, and then go back the other way and the pendulum swings. What are y'all's thoughts on this? 

David Barton [00:19:34] Yeah, Virginia, this is a great question, and it's really important, and by the way, Virginia is voting right now. They're voting, they're a governor candidate. They've had a big fiasco there in the last week and a half. Comments made by the Democrat candidate for Attorney General have kind of blown up. It has kind of pushed a lot of people in a direction kind of against the Democrats. We're seeing the race tighten much for governor at the top when it didn't look like it was gonna be a close race. 

Tim Barton [00:20:02] And dad, let's clarify on this. The guy running for attorney general talked about shooting the opponent in the head twice about literally urinating on the graves of the deceased children, just grotesque, awful, evil stuff. And instead of Democrats coming out and saying, hey, that's awful, we never should, this is in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination, there's been so much happening. And instead of the Democrats having an out of moral aptitude, courage, and fiber and standing up and saying we're calling this out. That's awful. You need to step down. No, no, no. Democrats are saying if you oppose him, it's because you're racist. Not because he said awful, evil, vile things. And someone that talks about murdering people and urinating on the graves of their dead children is not someone we want representing us in public office. I don't know. That that's not the take. For them, they said that it's racism if you oppose this guy so so that's kind of some of what's happening in Virginia right now just to give even more context. 

David Barton [00:21:07] What's happened with this incident. Two weeks ago, the Republicans were down double digits in most of those statewide races. Now it's a toss-up. And so there's been a big shift, a big change, and there is such a huge worldview. And by the way, it's also been interesting that to my knowledge so far, I've not seen any other Democrat across the nation come out against that Attorney General candidate's comments where he is absolutely talking about murder and rejoicing in murder, et cetera. So it's just a weird time. But Virginia, just before we answer the question, you got a really big election coming up. You got a big choice in world view coming up, and you really need to get engaged in this election in the remaining days you got left. Faith wins our friends of faith wins are doing a lot of stuff there Byron Fox others on the ground of Virginia but if you want to if you won't find what you can do in the Virginia race, now for sure you go vote and you vote the best candidate and you make sure you know what they believe and the philosophy they have. But if want to do something in the race if you'll email faithwins.org and say hey what can I do in The Virginia race you, they'll get back to you with specific things you can do. There are particular delegate districts that are really, really important that if we can run up the score in those districts and get a lot of votes there, it can shift the whole state. So there's things that can be done in Virginia. Now, having said that. As soon as that election is over that and and and the question was a great question. How come we keep going. It's like riding the wave. You have a high wave and then you're down in the valley between the ways for four years and you come back up to a highwave and It takes two or three elections sometimes to get it fixed. Here's the deal, is as soon as that race is over in first week of November, second week in November, you start working for the next four years. You start recruiting candidates. Don't wait until the filing deadline. You start looking for candidates. You start recruited candidates. You start building networks. The problem is we just, instead of having, I guess the way to say this is we, It's World War I and World War II. We don't want a military because that would invite problems and then as soon as we get attacked in World War One, we try to build a military. And then we say, well, we don't wanna military because that invites problems and then, as soon we get attack in World war II, we decide we need to build the military. That's kind of like elections. We keep doing this, we have a high point where we really need to get somebody elected and then we kind of sit down and wait until the next crisis comes and you just got to have something built in the meantime. So you start as soon as the election's over and everybody's fatigued from elections, great. You get engaged right then, you start going looking for school board candidates and city council candidates and state rep candidates and others. This is not an in and out process that we engage in every two to four years. This needs to be a continual ongoing process. You can't go to sleep between times because if you do, you'll get bad candidates and that's kind of what the Democrats have done here. Of course, they've had bad candidates. Philosophically for a good while, but you just can't follow that model of waiting for the high points and then you see it get bad and say, oh, I need to do something different. That doesn't work. You have to get engaged for the long term and start taking actions. The week that that election is over, you start preparing for the next election, start getting the right people, the right workers, start getting in the right laws passed to protect the polls, all the stuff that needs to be done, do it in the off season. So that's the best advice I can give. And that's what we've seen work the best in the states that have continued to maintain good candidates and good positions and good legislatures. It's because they work as soon as the election's over to start of the next cycle. 

Tim Barton [00:24:57] And guys, too, this is exactly what we've talked about some this week with discipleship, that one of the challenges we have dealt with is not just not recruiting people, but even helping get Christians to understand part of the basic calling, even as Christians to be salt and light in the political governmental arenas, and even how the Bible applies to some of these cultural issues. People look now at so many of what they call political issues, and they don't understand No, these are not political, gender is not a political issue. Literally, it's the first chapter of the Bible. God made them male and female in his image. He created them So many things that now we think are political are far more spiritual than they are political but because we have not discipled people and what the Bible says then the culture has discipled them and They've embraced a lot of things that are not biblical So I would say down in the midst of of playing a longer game and making sure that we are involved for the future Not just living in the moment Also, part of being involved in the future is making disciples. And so I think we should be doing lots of things all at once. We're walking and chewing gum at the same time. Certainly we should start looking for people that would be really good leaders for us in the feature, but also we need to be discipling everybody around us to start thinking the right way about the issues, cultural engagement and involvement. 

Rick Green [00:26:16] Well, folks, we're out of time for your questions for today. But tomorrow we've got a lot of good news to bring you. So don't miss that for sure. And then if you do have some more questions that we didn't get to today, you can email those in radio@wallbuilders.com radio@allbuilders dot com, and then tomorrow we'll have some good news for you next week. We got Bill Federer coming on. Rob McCoy is going to be with us. Seth Gruber, it's going to be a star studded week of some of our good friends that are out there on the front lines. And so you don't want to miss that as well. Have a great weekend. Thanks so much for listening to the Wallbuilders Show.