Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. This is the WallBuilders Show, where we take on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. Rick Green here, normally with David and Tim Barton, kind of gonna be with David Barton today because we're getting the conclusion of his presentation. We'll be listening to him anyway at the Pro Family Legislators Conference. If you missed the last couple of days, I'll fill you in real quick on what that is. For those of you that have been listening all week, I'm sorry to repeat it, but here we go. Pro Family legislators conference is this really cool thing we do once a year for state reps and senators. They come into the Dallas-Fort Worth area, we spent three days just filling them full of good information, praise and worship, good speakers, good encouragement, iron sharpening, ministry. I mean, it's incredible. It's really designed to help them go back to their states fired up and ready to go, and we get a lot of great presentations during those three days. And we share as many of those with you as we can as our listeners at WallBuilders. And so, what we've been doing this week is David Barton's presentation to the legislators on education. Of course, education is critical for what a country is going to believe, what her values will be. There's that famous quote attributed to Lincoln, the philosophy of the school room and one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next. So, this is a vital topic for us to cover. If you really want to make America great again, you got to know what made her great in the first place. And you've got to instill that whatever that formula is, which we know what it is, and we teach it here at WallBuilders and at Patriot Academy, but you've gotta take that and infuse it into the education system. And so, what David did at the legislators conference this year is he broke that down and he really gave us a new paradigm on how it should work and what we should do in education. And so, the last couple of days, Monday and Tuesday, we had part one and part two of this presentation. Those are available right now at wallbuilders.show, our radio website. And today we're gonna get the conclusion. So, we'll be hearing from David and his conclusion on education. And I wanna ask you to do something with this program, not just listen. But share it with your friends and family, and then do something about the education system in your hometown, in your community. Whether you get involved in a homeschool co-op, start a private school at your church, go run for the school board for your local public school, whatever it is, as you're listening to the conclusion today to David's presentation, be thinking about what you can do locally. All right, and one of the things you can do is host a Rebuilding Liberty course right there in your home or at your church, somewhere in your communities, just a four-week course with David Barton, Tim Barton John Amanchukwu. Charlie Kirk, we have a lot of the stuff from him that we recorded before his assassination and just a lot the teaching that we've been doing with Turning Point and Charlie for years, Rabbi Daniel Lapin just a lot a lot great folks. Lance Wanau is in there, Bill Federer. It's good stuff folks. So anyway, that's a great way for you to begin the education of yourself and the community and it's free. So go to Patriot Academy.com today and get that started. It's called Rebuilding Liberty. All right quick break when we come back We're gonna pick up with David Barton from where we left off yesterday, his presentation on education at the Pro-Family Legislators Conference. Stay with us on The WallBuilders Show.

Rick Green [00:04:14] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. All right, let's jump in. This is where we left off yesterday with David Barton speaking on education at the Pro-Family Legislators Conference.

David Barton [00:04:22] One of the laws that's passed in Texas requires that all of our students memorize the 46 words, key philosophy of the Declaration of Independence. We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men are created equal. They're endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men. They will know what that clause of the Declaration is. They will memorize rote memorization because that drives the philosophy of government. So, 50 states spiral in math. As far as we know right now today there is not a single state that spirals in history. It's just not out there. We don't teach that repetition thing. Our publishing company here in Texas that's already been started is called Blue Bonnet Learning and it started to produce RLA stuff reading, language arts for K through five. And in K through 5 reading- language arts since we publish our own textbooks now, we have some interesting content and because we have to meet state law. I'll read to you: inferential, when looking at the wardrobe, Susie and Lucy, who followed Jesus.... Wait a minute, what wardrobe? Yeah, we're studying The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. C.S. Lewis writings. That's part of the literature that we have and cover in Texas. On the right side, if you can see at the very bottom, it says, He restoreth my soul, I shall not want He leaded me besides still waters. Thy rod Thy staff they comfort me my cup.... Yep, the 23rd Psalm. That's literature. There's no question. That's some of the best literature that's out there. It's been around for thousands of years. Why shouldn't our kids know the best literature that's out there? And then you see here, this section is the story on the road to Damascus. Another great literary story. Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors and Joseph and his brothers, all these great stories. And you know what? This has been out now in Texas for a good bit and we have not had a single lawsuit against this. Nobody has brought a lawsuit. Now, how do we get away with that? How in the world we get away with that because if I take you back to the progressive era, Woodrow Wilson, he said all that progressives ask or desire is permission in an era when development and evolution is a scientific word to interpret the Constitution according to the Darwinian principle. So, we think the Constitution should always be evolving. That actually means to rewrite the Constitution, is what they're saying. And so, we saw the court early on do that. Chief Justice Charles Evans, who said it this way. He said, we are under a constitution, but, that's gotta be the worst word in the English language. We are under constitution, but the constitution is what the judges say that it is. This is evolution. Somebody's got to direct evolution and it's the people who are the smartest and know the best, and that's the progressives. At least they think they're smartest and know best. And so, what happened is in 1962, for the first time, Engel verses Vital, the courts said, no more voluntary parent schools. In 1963, in Abbot Shep Murray Colett said, no more Bible in schools. That's all unconstitutional now. Now, it's insignificant that in those two cases, they did not cite a single historical or legal precedent. There was nothing on which to base that decisionship. We're just evolving the society. It's time to do something new. And now every school board attorney you know will cite those two cases more than the Constitution. Because that's what they think it is, it's case law. It's what the courts have told us. The courts tell us what the Constitution means. Now the Constitution tells us what the Constitution mean and every student needs to know the Constitution. So, what happened as a result, if you've not seen these stats before, academic achievement fell dramatically at that point in time. These are the SAT scores that have not been changed since 1926. It's amazing how high they were before and how low they were afterwards. Of course, the Bible tells us that fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. You're a lot smarter if you have fear of The Lord. And we saw increase in violent crime by six-hundred and forty-four percent. Crime shot through the roof because no longer do you have the internal restraints that you need to control the inside. We saw that with teenagers, sexually transmitted diseases soared several hundred percent. We went from having six sexually transmitted disease to over thirty sexually transmitted disease of today with high school teen pregnancy rates increased seven hundred percent. The morals are out, religion's out. We don't have that anymore. So, when we took prayer and Bible out of schools, it made a big significant impact. No question about it.

Rick Green [00:08:44] Quick break everybody sorry to interrupt but we gotta take a break we'll be right back you're listening to the WallBuilders show

Rick Green [00:09:55] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show, jumping back in with David Barton speaking on education at the Legislators Conference.

David Barton [00:10:01] The courts essentially said, we don't care with the First Amendment as we've evolved past that. They had so many cases coming to the court over the next several years that they said, look, you're challenging everything religious, challenging nativity scenes, you are challenging teaching creation in the classroom, you challenge all this stuff. This case, Lemon/ Kurtzman we're just going to give you a test. And then now they called it the Lemon Test. They said, here's three things you can always check. If you can't pass these three things it's unconstitutional. And so, the first thing to know if a religious activity was constitutional, they said the number one thing is the primary purpose of that activity has to be secular. Now, can you name any religious activity whose primary purpose is secular? No, which is why we lost over 5,000 cases under the Lemon Test. This is what changed our culture. This is why; we've had a secular culture for the last 60 years is the Lemon test. What happened in 2019, we finally had some justices who started reading the Constitution. And as a result, there were three cases that have changed the landscape. Most of your school board attorneys, most of your state attorney generals are not aware of what I'm about to tell you. And I say that because we testify in lots of legislatures and then as some of these laws get passed, these state attorney generals have no clue how to defend them based on recent court rulings. They only know the old stuff from the 60s and 70s. 2019 Bladensburg Cross in Maryland 25 women from World War one who had lost their sons in war erected a memorial cross to their sons. You had a case called the American Legion versus American Humanists. American Humanists said we're offended by that religious symbol that is there at that war memorial, you could have done anything else. You could've done a pyramid you could've done an orb; you could have done a straight-up pillar an obelisk, but you chose a cross that is not primarily secular. And so, when this got to the court and the court looked at it, they said, you know, under the Lemon Test, we would have to declare this cross to be unconstitutional because this is not primarily secular. Matter of fact, the lower court, I think it was the Fourth Circuit Court said it would be constitutional if you'd simply break the arms off the cross. So, if you break the arm off the cross, it wouldn't be a cross and that would make it constitutional. So, the court said, if we follow the Lemon case, we would to declare it unconstitutional, but they said we think that's the wrong approach. So, what they announce is long-standing, religiously expressive monuments, symbols, and practices require a strong presumption of constitutionality. If you can show us that we've been doing this for a good while in our history, we're going to assume it's constitutional. You don't have to prove to us it is, we're just going to assumed that it is. And so, the next expression of this new standard from the court came in 2022. City of Boston has three flagpoles outside City Hall. They fly the American flag, they fly kind of the city flag and then they have a third flagpole, the citizens who fly a flag on it, they want 217 different flags were flown in Massachusetts as a youth camp called Camp Constitution. And the flag, they fly Camp Constitution is a Christian flag. And they went to Boston City Hall and said, we want you to fly our flag. you've flown everybody else's flag, Christian flag, and they said, there's no way we're flying a Christian Flag. And relying on the Lemon Test, it would have been no secular purpose. So, the case is called Shurtleff versus City of Boston. And in that thing, as it got to the court, the decision was written by Justice Stephen Breyer. In my opinion, he's the most secular, most liberal justice we've ever had on the U.S. Supreme Court. He's now retired. But he wrote the decision, he pointed out, he said, you know, under the Lemon Case, we would have to take this flag down. We would have not let it be flown. But he made this comment. He said, the Lemon decision was issued during a bygone era. When this court took a more freewheeling approach to interpreting legal texts. The Lemon Test came from a time that's now bygone, we're past that, back when judicial activism was part of what we did. Now, this is your most liberal, most secular justice, and we don't believe that anymore, it's gone. It was a nine-zero unanimous decision that Boston City Hall must fly a Christian flag. Now, Boston. I mean, that's when you felt an earthquake on that day, it was when it flew the Christian flag in Boston. The final nail in the coffin was Coach Kennedy. Coach Kennedy, there's no way what he did would pass the Lemon Test. And the court said, you know, the Lemon Test, you kneeling down at the 50-yard line after a game is not primarily secular. But the court says, but we think the Lemon Test has got to be gone forever. So, the court vacated the Lemon Test, which meant 5,000 court decisions previously made have now been flipped. Most attorney generals are not aware of that, and so 22 states this year introduced bills to put the Ten Commandments back up in classrooms. And at this point, some of the defenses by the state AGs have been underwhelming. They're arguing the lemon tests. Why that this is primarily secular. Lemon Test is dead. I mean, this should not be an issue and so... What's happening is if you go back to the test, longstanding religious is now called the History and Tradition Test, which is why the Ten Commandments, fortunately, our state attorney general here in Texas has been very aggressive with this. I'll show you this in just a minute. But the History Tradition Test is why you can have now the Bible back in schools. There's actually 1,400 school districts teaching the Bible for credit courses in America. 200,000 kids are now involved in Bible courses across the United States in public schools. So, we've got the Bible in schools is now History and Tradition. You also have prayer in schools. At this point, teachers can't be the ones to pray, but students can pray. And so, if students want to have prayer, that's OK. History and Tradition, creation, evolution, that's a historical debate that goes back to 500 BC, Aristotle. That debate was going on. So, there's really a new day dawning with this History and Tradition Test.

Rick Green [00:15:50] Our folks, last break of the day. Stay with us. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show.

Rick Green [00:18:00] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show, jumping in for the conclusion of David Barton speaking at the Pro Family Legislators Conference on Education.

David Barton [00:18:08] Back to Bluebonnet Learning, this is why we have not had a single legal challenge, because the current standard is History and Tradition And yes, these stories that we're having in these textbooks meet the History and Tradition Test. They've been out there for a long time. As a matter of fact, you guys saw some of the museum stuff. The other museum over in West Fort Worth is where we keep most of the books. We have a collection of early American textbooks and we can take it reader after reader after reader from the 1600s to the 1900s that have Bible lessons all throughout. That was just part of reading in public schools. You saw the course that we have to require. We now require a full New Testament course, a full Old Testament course. We used to do this in Texas. This is from 1947. This happens to be the Old Testament study course in Dallas high schools. Here's the New Testament study course in Dallas High School. Let me show you some of the content. And this is content. See here, we memorize the New Testament, the pre-existence of Christ. In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God, all things. This is public school in Dallas in 1947. Then you have questions on each lesson. Questions here on the where was Christ before he was born on earth? What titles does John apply to Christ in this chapter? For what purpose is John sent by God? Name five things the angel told Mary concerning her child, Jesus. What does the word Jesus mean? How did the angel explain the miraculous birth of John? And on he goes. So, what's happening now is Bluebonnet is looking at taking those 1947 courses and just reprinting them and making them the current courses that we have in Texas. And see, all this stuff seems so radical because we've been so secular and so ardently secular for so long, but the court has turned that around. And so, with some boldness, we can use the History and Tradition Test. And as I point out, most of the state attorney generals that have dealt with this, several states where we testified this year on the 10th Commandments, and the attorney general said, you can't do that. Stone v. Graham, 1980, said you can post the 10 Commandments. Stone v Graham was overturned in the decision that happened with that final from the Bladensburg all the way through the Coach Kennedy case. That's off the table. So going back to what's happening in Texas, Texas and Arkansas have both passed Ten Commandments laws. This is the Ten Commandments poster the saying in Arkansas school rooms and in Texas school rooms right now. Now there have been a lawsuit against this. There's a few schools in Texas that were in that lawsuit but every other school is required to hang the Ten Commandments. As a matter of fact, our attorney general has now started suing schools that are not hanging the Ten Commandments. So, the attorney general is insisting you hang the Ten Commandments. And so, my message from all of this would, look, now's the time to be bold. We've got some tools in our toolbox that we haven't had in decades. And we have some opportunities. And for a lot of you in your states, what you do with your history standards, it's not gonna have a publisher come in and publish a textbook with what you want, but it's coming. And so, if you like what Texas does in 2031, that's gonna be out there. And there's gonna a lot of states that wanna go back. But I would encourage you to start passing laws like Texas has done, because again, even if it's not in your textbooks, you can say to your department education, hey, we need lessons that comply with state law. It's not on our textbooks, so what are you gonna do to get this to every school in the state, every teacher in the state, because this is stuff that by state law we require to be taught to our kids in Tennessee or Arkansas or Montana or Wyoming or wherever. So, there's options to doing that, which is why we gave you this and there's some other great stuff in there as well. Arkansas passed a law requiring that we teach students, that students be taught on the religious beliefs of the Founding Fathers, what were their religious beliefs? Which gets left out of most textbooks. So, there's a lot you can do with laws now, and just be aggressive and be firm with that. God bless you guys. See you. 

Rick Green [00:22:06] All right, everybody, that was David Barton speaking on education at the Pro Family Legislators Conference. Quick recap, in case you tuned in halfway today or maybe tuned in today, but not yesterday or the day before, this was a three-part series on education, David Barton speaking at the Pro Family Legislators Conference. Easiest way for you to get the whole thing is to go to wallbuilders.show right now, all three programs available right there on our website. And I want to ask you not just to download those or listen to those, but also to share them. So, you put the three programs together, you've got a roadmap for how to turn our country around beginning with education. So thankful, so thankful for David Barton's research, for his steadfastness, for continuing to teach this. You know, I remember some of my first cassette tapes, yes, that's how long ago it was, of David Bartons teaching and educating me, was on education. You know he had Four Centuries of American Education, he had The Spirit of the American Revolution. Of course, America's Godly Heritage. That was the first one. And, just so many different presentations that, that, that really went back to the history, brought it to life for us, but always gave us action steps. That's what I love about working here at WallBuilders and doing this radio program is we're always talking about what to do with these things. Not just sit around and talk about it, pontificate, get depressed if you don't, you know, if it's a bad report. No, no, no. We're going to learn all those things, the good, the bad and the ugly, and then we're going to do something with it. So, the first thing I'm gonna ask you to do is take these three programs, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week, David Barton's presentation on education, share them with friends and family so they can get educated. Yeah, see what I did there? On this topic and then do something about it. Second thing I wanna ask you to do is host a Rebuilding Liberty class in your home or at your church and in your communities. I said at the opening of the program today, it's available on our website, PatriotAcademy.com. Go right there, it's for free. Sign up as a coach. If you've done Biblical Citizenship, you're gonna love Rebuilding liberty. It's basically a follow-up. Biblical Citizenship, but with a lot of action steps. Like, we'd literally go through a 12-step recovery program for the country. Now, when I say 12- step recovery program, I know what you're thinking. It's like, you know, when you do your personal 12-Step Recovery Program, you got to do all 12 steps or you're not done. Well, in this case, I'm not going to ask you to do 12 things in the Rebuilding Liberty Course. I'm just going to give you the 12- Step Recovery Program for the Country and ask you pick one or two. You know, you might be the one that wants to put in God We Trust at your local city council right there on the dais. You can get that done. I promise you; you might be the one that wants to I'll work on the Ten Commandments, getting it into your, you know, maybe displayed at your local courthouse or perhaps in your local public schools. Maybe for you, property rights is a big deal. I've got an entire section in the book and in the class on that, because property rights, is essential to freedom long-term. We've got to restore property rights in this country. And you can be a part of doing that. We walk you through that in the Rebuilding Liberty Course. Maybe for, you it's, it's about, you know, getting back to the enumeration. This is what most people call the census, but the Constitution calls it the enumeration. Getting back to the enumeration, being only legal citizens. Maybe you're interested in reverse migration, being a part of pushing for getting our country back to place where we bring people in, we're for immigration, but only people that want to assimilate and are a net positive for America, not a net negative. They're not running Somali daycares where they're bilking you out of your money and your tax dollars. They're not creating crime and, and, you know, from Tren de Agua gangs and that sort of thing, but no, they're actually people that want to be here, want to assimilate, want the American dream, want it to be a part of the solution. And then once they become citizens, then they get to vote, but you got to have voter ID. I mean, all those things are in the book, Rebuilding Liberty. We give you the action steps for how to do all that. So first sign up for the course at patriotacademy.com, get a Rebuilding Liberty course going in your home or at your church, local library, wherever you want to do it. That's a quick, easy way for you to get started in implementing many of the things that David was talking about today and yesterday and Monday. So again, reminder, this was a three-part series on education from David Barton, speaking at the Pro Family Legislators Conference. It is available right now at wallbuilders.show. You can share it with your friends and family, anybody. We love for you to just blast it out there and get it in as many hands as possible. And be thinking about your legislator and getting them to our conference this coming year in November. It is such a blessing for legislators, I promise you. They will be so glad that you helped to send them, whether you wanna donate to send to the conference or you just wanna get them the information so that they can do that. Maybe you wanna even consider being a part of sponsoring a student to go to one of our youth programs this summer. I don't know what your action items are gonna really get you excited, but when you do Rebuilding Liberty, you're going get a lot of those action items to implement everything David was talking about over the course of these three days. Alright folks, hope you have a wonderful day, you've been listening to The WallBuilders Show.