Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. Thanks for joining us on the WallBuilders Show today, taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. And today's topic is education. And of course, all three of those areas, those perspectives, we can learn a lot about how education should work. I'm Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. And of of course Tim and I were just with our guests doing some filming for a new special coming out for American Family Association. So, Stephen McDowell is gonna be with us a little later and had a great time with him in the museum. Tim? 

Tim Barton [00:00:37] We did! And it's also worth noting he's a WallBuilders board member and has been for longer than I've been part of WallBuilders, I think, Dad, thirty- something years you've been with Steve McDowell I mean I've been around WallBuilders for sure but you've known Steve and I guess really their whole family for a lot of years, thirty- something years isn't that right ?

David Barton [00:01:01] Yeah, I would say thirty, it's thirty-something years. I think we go back to '88 or '89 is when we got connected. So yeah, it goes back a while and you know, Steve's been really amazing. He has researched and studied so much on American history early, but he's taken the principles to nations all over the world, which is what's amazing about what he does. 

Tim Barton [00:01:22] Yeah. And one of the things too, Dad, that we have benefited greatly, just like, I mean, guys, for all of us, we, we have friends that operate in the world, whether it be political or the biblical, the, the historic areas of America. We have a lot of friends that do a lot of this kind of stuff. Steve McDowell is one of those unique guys, a little bit like a Bill Federer in some ways, that has such a great grasp of different aspects of American history. Now. Bill Federer, the like. Even though he knows so much American history, I would almost hold Bill up as more of a world history kind of guy, not just American. He certainly knows a ton of American history. But Steve McDowell was a guy who really, I, I would hold him more in the expert in some of the colonial charter foundational era. So going back to like the William Penns, the Pilgrims, the Bradford's and then the John Winthrop or the Puritans, et cetera. He is so good studying that. And, Dad, as you mentioned, one of the things that God has given him some unique opportunities to do is take the principles that he can highlight that were part of America's foundation and he's able to take those and God has opened doors for him to go into nations all over the world. I think Rick and we were talking with him as we were filming with him yesterday. I think he said it's like 40 something nations he's gone to primarily a lot in Latin America kind of areas where he gets invited in by their government to go teach them some of the foundational things that made America so strong. And one of the things we had an opportunity to do with him, actually the reason we're having him on today is because there's a a new teaching that he has out. It's a kind of a documentary kind of idea. I don't know, Rick, maybe the best way to describe that. You think of it while I'm telling the story, and you can explain it. But we all gotta be part of... 

Rick Green [00:03:15] I'm gonna I'm going to make up a word just so you know, it's gonna be a new word.

Tim Barton [00:03:17] I appreciate that pulling out the conservative ideas of like AOC or Kamala, just make up words is fine. Anyway, Steve McDowell took a lot of, we would all be friends, but a lot of kind of field experts and he did a documentary and that's what I'm calling it, I don't really know. I wanna say docu-series, but it wasn't quite, he made it one thing. No wait, I got it, docu-historama. I love it, that's it's so descriptive, it's exactly what it is. 

Rick Green [00:03:49] You said Kamala and AOC and I just couldn't help it; it just came out. 

David Barton [00:03:52] Time out. I'm gonna interject here and say I think you both got it wrong because the documentary documents something in the past. He took the principles of the past and said here's what you do with them today. So, it's really not a documentary I mean it kind of is it shows the past but it's what are you gonna do with it? And by the way, it's the nation's he spends the most time with in Central America and South America are some of the most stable nations in that entire region They're not the ones that America has trouble with and they have so many government leaders to understand those principles, and that's what he's really good at. 

Tim Barton [00:04:24] One of the reasons also it's so effective in some of those areas is because in a lot of the Latin world, there's a lot of heavy Christian foundation in what they do. There's so much conservative ideals and values, and when you look at the American principles that the nation was built on, there is a reason that George Washington, John Adams, many founding fathers said that this only works with a moral and religious people. You got to have a religious and a moral foundation or it's not going to function, and really, they're talking about our Constitution, but it's that the government application of those biblical principles, you have to have the right foundation for freedom to thrive and function. And this is what he's been able to teach. Now, not to digress, let's go back to the docu-history-drama, whatever we called it, Rick it was great. What Steve did was invite a bunch of his friends, a bunch our friends, and he interviewed all of us and had us give different input on kind of our overview of what did America use to look like and specifically, what was education like? And the premise of the docu-history-drama is really outlined in the title, Educated for Liberty. He wanted to show that historically, part of the reason that freedom works so well is there was a foundational understanding in the people, a worldview in people that allowed freedom to thrive and function in America. So, this is something that I'm excited for him to tell us about. Rick, as you get to ask him some questions and details. We've seen the finished product and we obviously were part of the whole process and it is really, really good. Before we even get into the interview, I'm gonna tell you, I'd encourage everybody to go watch it. If you still buy DVDs, buy the DVD, get an MP4, download it, you can stream it online. It's so good. But I am excited for what Steve is gonna walk us through with his new docu-history-drama that is out, Educated for Liberty. 

Rick Green [00:06:22] Docu-history-drama applied to the future. I tried David. I was, I was trying to add what you said. It's just not working. All right. Quick break. Stephen McDowell with us when we return. You're listening to the WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:07:39] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. Stephen McDowell back with us from Providence Foundation. providencefoundation.com is the website. If you're a long-time listener to WallBuilders, you know we've had Stephen on quite a bit talking economics and different issues. This time, it's education. Stephen, thanks for coming on, brother. 

Stephen McDowell [00:07:55] Well, thanks for inviting me to be on, Rick. Good to be with you again. 

Rick Green [00:07:59] Oh man, always good to have you. I always learn so much and just enjoy the time together. A website again, providencefoundation.com, but this time not a book. Usually, we're talking about a new book you've got out. This time it's a movie. 

Stephen McDowell [00:08:11] Yeah, we're really excited about this. This is something that we've already seen many, many Christian educators say, hey, I want to use that. I can see this will be valuable to promote what they're doing, but valuable to promote liberty in the nation. In fact, that's the name of the new film, Educated for Liberty. 

Rick Green [00:08:33] Educated for Liberty. And this really falls under an even bigger topic of just parental rights, that parents are the ones responsible for the health, for the education, the wellbeing of their children. You know, there's a movement, I think, at this point in response to a lot of things, the, the COVID shots and you know, the transgender thing, I mean, just all this to, to finally kind of bring this question to a head, who, whose kids are they? You know, was Hillary, right? Was, was Joe Biden, right? If there our kids... or are the parents responsible? You're zeroing in specifically on the education question here. 

Stephen McDowell [00:09:08] Yeah, there's a number of points that we highlight in the film. One is that parents have the right and responsibility to govern the education of their children, not civil government. God gives that responsibility to parents. And the reason America became the most free and prosperous nation in history is because we had biblical education that was centered in the home. But we had that for centuries. But then beginning 100 plus years ago, we began to turn that over to civil government. And once we turn the education of our children, which is really discipling our children over to the government, they have been sowing contrary seeds that have produced a lot of bad fruit. So, parent governed education. And then second point is that the church has its responsibility is to assist parents in fulfilling that mission, and most of them are neglecting to do that, so we talk about that in the film. And then also the title of the film, Educated for Liberty, I was mentioning the reason America became the most free nation in history is because of this home-centered biblical education that produced the free and flourishing nation of America, while secular education has led to a great moral and academic decline. And so, the solution to most of the problems we see in our nation today is restoring biblical education to the nation. And we're, you know, our target audience, of course, are Christians. About 85% of Christians' children are educated in the government schools. And if Christians just would begin to disciple their children, that's what education is. That's one of the main points of our film is education is discipleship, as the scripture speaks of discipleship. So, if parents would assume that responsibility, we would have a tremendous impact in a short period of time in dealing with just about every problem that we're facing as a nation today. 

Rick Green [00:11:23] I don't think I've ever met a family that regretted making this decision to take education serious, to take it on themselves, to not just hand them over to the government schools, but to homeschool or find a good local church, private school. You know, you just don't hear them say, you know, oh man, I wish I wish we had been able to do the transgender thing at the local public school, you know, or, or I wish, you know, whatever, I don't hear that. What I hear over and over and over again, literally from thousands is, man, I'm, I'm so glad we homeschooled, I'm so glad we found that that private school. I'm so glad we got to travel as a family while we were educating and go to the battlefields and go to the whatever, or I'm so glad my kids were able to become close and, and I'm so glad we were able to cover this tough topic. I don't know about you, but that's, that's been my experience. Maybe I'm in an echo chamber, but this is such an important decision. 

Stephen McDowell [00:12:19] No, and I think that's true because God has given that responsibility to the parents to do that. Train up your child in the way it should go he won't depart from it, Proverbs tells us. Paul writes in Ephesians that the parent, the father and the mother, to train up the children, they have that responsibility. So, when they began to do that, they recognize, hey, this is what I was created to do. And so not only are we building a relationship with our children, but this is how we equip them to advance the kingdom of God in the future, because Psalms tells us our children are like arrows in the hands of the Lord. That's how the greatest weapon we have to impact culture and impact the future is through our children. And the problem is we've turned that responsibility over to the government. They've taken our greatest weapon, turned them around against us and they're shooting them, shooting that against us. So, when they do that, whether they're conscious of what they're doing, they'll say, wow, this is my mission. A primary, after knowing the Lord, that's our primary mission because education is not just imparting facts in the head, but it's building godly character, it's building biblical worldview, it is equipping youth to fulfill their calling in God, and this is again how we bring Christian liberty to the nations, each succeeding generation as it fulfills its duty is going to be more free, more prosperous than the one before it, but it takes a lot of effort, because the default state of sinful man is not to live in liberty. You leave man to himself, he won't get more free, more prosperous, he'll spiral downward into more bondage. That's why it takes effort, it takes character, it takes knowledge. And the early Christians who gave birth to America, they started our colleges and universities, they started our schools because they recognized if we're going to survive as a free nation. If we're going to make it as a unique new nation in history, it requires us to train the next generations in all these essential biblical concepts, truths and character and everything else. That's what they wrote in their schools, their laws, and the reason that they started them in the first place. 

Rick Green [00:14:50] So good, man, so powerful. educatedforliberty.com, if you want to go straight to the movie Providence Foundation, providencefoundation.com. And that'll also take you to the movie as well, but you can get the books I was talking about earlier. Steven, something you said, man, I have never thought about it that way. That was so good that the arrows have been turned around and shot at us. And, and, you know, as I was commenting on all the good things I hear from people that made good decisions about it, the education of their children. I also hear the bad and I can't tell you and you run into the same thing, I'm sure. But all the parents and grandparents that I've heard from that sent their kids off to Caesar they came home Romans as Voddie used to say. And the hurt, the grief, because those arrows have been now fired at them where these kids now see their parents and grandparents as the enemy and all the stuff that, that the woke virus has done. That pain can be avoided. They don't have to go through that. They can experience the joy of finding this mission you're talking about. Does the movie cover how now, because I know a lot of listeners that, that, that may not have already discovered this are going to be thinking, yeah, but that, but that is going to hard and I don't know how to start and I don't, do you cover that in the movie as well? Just how much easier it is now than when you guys like you and me were doing it years ago? 

Stephen McDowell [00:16:08] Yeah, exactly. We do that there. You know, it has five parts. We deal with education as discipleship. We deal how bad ideas produce bad fruit, tracing how we got to the place we are today. We looked at early American education, good seed produce good fruit. We look at parent-controlled education, the church's responsibility, and we look at how do we do it? You know what, what are options that we have? And we tell stories through this too. We interview about twenty of leading educators, Christian leaders in America, and then we tell stories of how God led people to start Christian schools, to begin to homeschool, to set up co-ops, little one-room school houses, so great testimonies of that. And we give, here's a vision for how you might fulfill these very things. And on the website, we have lots of resources and we're continually adding a lot more of organizations that you can connect with that will help you start a Christian school, help you begin to homeschool your children, help prepare you so that you can know what, you know, how to think, what to do, how to teach various things that you would need to do. So, yes, we do deal with all of those, not just a vision you need to it, but then, all right, now, how can I do that? By the way, the film's free. educatingforliberty.com.

Rick Green [00:17:32] Yeah, I was just about to say that. I watched the trailer. I didn't realize you already had the movie out. And then I'm looking on the website here and what you just described. You can even go straight to segments. So, if you want to get right into one of those topics that Stephen just mentioned, you can even go directly to that segment on the website. 

Stephen McDowell [00:17:48] Yeah, the film's 100 minutes long, but we divide it into six segments. So, they're twenty minutes or less in length so that you can go lead people through it. You can use it. All right, I wanna sit down over a series of different meetings and give a vision to that Christian family I know, or non-Christian family. We wanna show it in the church. You can show it a shorter setting and then discuss the things that we present in the film. So... We've already, lots of people have already begun to use it. It's just been released right now. A lot of people are saying, this is exactly what I need to help fulfill my calling, that God's called me in the area of Christian education. And so that's why we wanted to make it free to people so that millions of people will watch it. Millions of Christians will rise up and say I'm going to assume my responsibility millions or thousands of churches will say we're going to support our families in this and give a vision for this. And I believe this is a key, this is absolutely vital. You know Jay Gresham Machen he was a theologian and a hundred years ago and he made this statement regarding, fits well into the film. He said if liberty is not maintained with regard to education, there's no use trying to maintain it in any other sphere. If you give the bureaucrats the children, you might just as well give them everything else. So, if we don't have freedom to educate our children as we believe God has called us to, and most nations of the world do not, we really have no freedom. We have little freedom. But if you give the bureaucrats the children, you might as well give them your wallet, your bank account, your freedoms, your liberties, your ability to worship, everything, because they're going to take it because they are going to educate and indoctrinate them in secular humanism, Marxist ideology, and we know that's what's taking over our schools today and it's just getting worse and worse. And so, we need to use the freedom we still have, assume that responsibility, and then we can have great hope for the flourishing of our nation in the future. 

Rick Green [00:20:06] Oh, love it. Love it. Love it and you've got, oh my goodness. So many of my heroes in here. Mike Ferris, Carol Swaim, George Barna, Abe Hamilton, Walker Wildman my cohost on American family radio. I'm guessing you just needed to do some filler because it looks like you have David and Tim Barton. I don't know. I don't know what happened. Did you, did the budget run and you know they're listening to this so I just had to pick on them a little bit. Anyway, David and Tim in there I mean this is star-studded as far as I'm concerned these are the best experts in these areas to be talking about this Dran Reese, I mean you got you got a lot of great people in here Alex Newman. What is the what's your hope that that a new parent that hasn't stepped into this at all what are you hoping they get from the film? 

Stephen McDowell [00:20:54] First that they receive a vision for the importance of Christian education. Then they get a vision of, hey, I can be involved in this. I can do it. And let them know that there's others who can help them. There's lots of materials that can help fulfill this vision. Anybody can train your children. You can do that at home. If you can't do it at home, this is where the church can come in through a Christian school or scholarship programs to help get your kids in a Christian School. So there are many different options to do that. So, we want to present a vision to the parent, to the church. This is our duty. This is not just nice to do because we can do it, but it's the biblical duty that we've been given in Scripture to disciple our children because they belong to God and they're a key part. You know, because America's future depends upon our children's education today. 

Rick Green [00:21:58] Yeah, amen. Oh, so good. Steven, God bless you, man. Thanks for taking us on, for doing this project. providencefoundation.com, providencefoundation.com. You scroll down the second is right there. The panel to click on the movie. The price is right! It's free! And it will, it just started watching the trailer. I can tell. And obviously just talking to you for this, these 15 minutes, it will inspire you to, to want to do more and, and to value this. Like you said, Steven, that's, that just, it's like no career, no amount of money, no accomplishment of the world comes anywhere close to the joy that comes from raising your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and setting them in motion to serve Him. What a, what a great mission that you've got here. Appreciate you brother. Thank you for doing this. 

Stephen McDowell [00:22:42] Thanks Rick, enjoy being with you and everybody go watch the film. 

Rick Green [00:22:47] Providencefoundation.com, providencefoundation.com. Quick break. We'll be right back with David and Tim Barton. 

Rick Green [00:23:59] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. Thanks to Stephen McDowell for joining us as well. And what's cool here, guys, it's free. I mean, this is, you can go watch the movie now. And like I was saying with Stephen, it's broken down, so if you can pick the topics, if you wanna dive right into those. So really cool tool. 

David Barton [00:24:14] It is a cool tool, but you know, as you listen to what he's saying, and he talks about how this is good, people, he's talking Educated for Liberty is what we used to do, and it's what parents are supposed to do and it is what Christian schools are supposed do. And we've gotten away from a lot of that, and I'm just listening and thinking, you know a lot parents are gonna say, oh man, I don't know how to homeschool, I don't wanna get into that, I don't know how do that, and here we are watching the Winter Olympics, and I am watching things like curling. And watching things like Bobsled and louge. And you know what? Every single one of the world's best athletes in each of those areas, there was a time when they said, I don't know how to do that. And just because you don't know how do it. 

Rick Green [00:24:55] Wait, wait, David, I got it. Or we got to stop the show you watched curling?

David Barton [00:25:02] I did I did! I actually watch curling. I do. 

Tim Barton [00:25:05] It is dumb how entertaining it is, guys. It really is so fun and I don't know why it's so silly. It really 

David Barton [00:25:13] That's right. 

Rick Green [00:25:14] Okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Go ahead. You were making a great point and I just ruined it. I'm sorry, go ahead. 

David Barton [00:25:19] But the point is that nobody knew how to do this stuff until they started trying to do it. And it's like saying, oh, I don't want to learn something new, or I don't want to learn something different. You will never get good at anything if you're not willing to learn new things. And that's, you know, Jesus talked about old wineskins, new wineskins. I've always talked about the fact I want to be the new wineskin. I want be flexible. I wanna learn new things, and so what if your first seven kids were educated in public schools and you've never homeschooled. Now's a great time to start. But it's not that homeschool is the only option. He pointed out Christian schools, charter schools, co-ops, all these other things. It's about the principles you teach. 

Tim Barton [00:25:58] And Dad, I think that's a really good point as we're wrapping up this program is it really should be a challenge for us to evaluate what are we prioritizing and how are we helping our kids? Jesus, one of the things that is very strongly worded in the scripture, what is a profit a man to gain the whole world and the fourth of his soul? And in a lot of cases parents are prioritizing things they think is best for their kids, but they've misunderstood what really matters. And it's more of that spiritual-biblical foundation. We have to educate our kids for liberty. 

Rick Green [00:26:31] Educatedforliberty.com is the website, Educatedforliberty.com. And again, it's free. You can watch it there. You can share it with friends and family. It is a fantastic tool for you and your family. Check it out today. Educatedforlibery.com, thanks so much for listening to the WallBuilders Show.