Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. It's Thursday, so we get to get into some foundations today and you get to ask the questions. Thanks for listening to the WallBuilders Show with, I'm Rick Green and with David Barton and Tim Barton, and you can visit our websites at wallbuilders.com and wallbuilders.show, wallbuilders.show for the radio program, wallbuilders.com for everything else you need to save the country. Okay. That might be a little bit of an exaggeration, but not by much because it's got all those tools you need to educate, equip, to get engaged, all kinds of great stuff there. So, check it out at wallbuilders.com and send those questions into us at radio@wallbuilders.com. Let's get into some of the questions from the audience and by the way, thank you to everybody out there that has been sending them in. Y'all are doing a great job of keeping us on our toes, we're getting to investigate and research some great questions and we get to have some good Thursday programs on some of these foundational questions. We appreciate y' all helping to drive that conversation. So, let's go to TJ in New Mexico guys. He said have you read about the youth revival happening like in Pittsburgh among colleges and the Catholic Church? TJ. Thank you for sending that in. Of course, guys we have talked some about this over the last I guess a month or two on Good News Friday some really cool stories at different places. I'm not sure what he's talking about in Pittsburgh. What have y'all seen there? 

David Barton [00:01:22] Yeah, Pittsburgh, there was a recent one there. They had about 5,000 kids gather together in Pittsburgh. And we've talked about some of these, as you mentioned, Rick, and hit some of them again in a second, just to help people understand. Because when you put them all together, it's fairly impressive. But there's a group called Unite US. It's like Unite the US, but Unite US. And it started at Auburn University. And it's really a college evangelism movement. And so, it's focused on campus evangelism, getting kids to accept Christ, become a Christian. So, they have three objectives. Their objectives are an objective for the believer and for the non-believer, and there's an objective from the community. So first, they wanna make sure that every non- believer becomes a Christian, the salvation for non-believers. Second is for believers, they want them to be free from sin and burdens. They want them to live a victorious Christian life. And for the community, they want all these kids connected to local community churches. Because a lot of these schools, kids are not from that community, they come from out of state or out of city or whatever, and they try to make sure that the local churches are connected to these kids and the kids to the local churches. So that's their three-fold goal. Now what they do is they will take a key university somewhere in some region of the country, in some state, and will work and organize there with the local churches and with the students that are on campus that are Christians to have a big event there. So that's what they did at University of Pittsburgh, there's again about I think 5,500 there and there's a fairly high percentage of these kids that come to Christ for the first time. Hundreds to thousands depending on the size of the event but starts at Auburn and here's some of the other kind of schools they've been at with the numbers they have; there were 5,000 kids at the University of Alabama, there were 4,500 at Purdue, University of Oklahoma had 9,000 kids attend the rally, Mississippi State 6,000 kids, University of Florida 6,000, Texas A&M was 10,000 kids, Ohio State was 9,000 kids, you had 7,000 at University of South Florida, University Arkansas had 10,000 kids and on it goes. So, there's probably, I don't know, maybe two dozen of these major events, maybe 18 to 24 major events that they've had across the country. And they've really put a lot of focus on these and they have had very good results. So I think by their numbers, they say that there's been about 125,000 students attend these Christ-centered rallies, that they have come from over 200 different universities to these rallies. And there's been tens of thousands that have made decisions for Christ and the other thing they often do that's kind of interesting and fun is for a lot of those kids that make the decision, they'll baptize them right there. And so, they often pull pickups up outside the arena, put covers inside the back of the pickup, waterproof covers, fill the back with the pickups with water and do baptisms in the parking lot afterwards. There may be thousands of kids that accept Christ and hundreds may be baptized, not all of them apparently get baptized, but they do that for the kids that are there. So, yes, to answer TJ in New Mexico, yeah, we have seen that. We are keeping up with that. We think it's a great indication of a youth revival going across the U.S. right now. There's high interest on this. To get those kind of numbers at secular universities is really impressive to have that kind of interest. Our prayer is that the local churches will step in and start discipling these kids after it, that it doesn't just end with evangelism, that it gets into discipleship and maturity and growing. Growing these kids up to be really active contributors in the civil arena and all other arenas as well. 

Rick Green [00:05:04] Well that's good stuff guys! And of course, like you said David, we have been talking about those and we'll keep covering that because I think that is always an encouragement when you see the youth revival like that. Definitely a remnant being raised up and course we get to work with these kids year-round. Y'all still have the Summer Institute going this summer and then we've got some Patriot Academy Leadership Congresses around the country and as we always say man God's raising up a remnant it's really cool to watch. Courtney's got the next question. She says, she says, hi there. I was just wondering if David or Tim could speak to the fact that Bill O'Reilly said in an interview about his book confronting the president that George Washington hated his mother. She put an exclamation point in there too, guys. Just saying. I thought that was a little extreme. By the way, another exclamation point, I think Courtney's a mama and she's concerned about this George Washington thing. He said that she wrote letters to a newspaper saying that he was not sending her enough money for food. And that he hated her. If they have any proof otherwise, I'd love to hear it. Okay, I will plead ignorance on this one, fellas. I have never heard this. Wait, Washington hated his mama? Come on, say it ain't so. 

Tim Barton [00:06:08] Well, now wait a second, are we suggesting or maybe it's a question asking of a possibility, could Bill O'Reilly be dramatic about something? Was, was he maybe being hyperbolic in his explanation and not being totally accurate? No! Not Bill O Reilly. 

Rick Green [00:06:24] Gee! We've never had that conversation about Bill O'Reilly and other Founding Fathers before 

Tim Barton [00:06:28] Yeah. So, you know, one of the things we, it's been a while since we've talked about it. We appreciate when people bring attention to significant historic figures, but we don't always appreciate when they misrepresent for whether it be purchases, views, downloads, likes, clicks, right? Whatever it is, it, it it's a little bit, I'm not saying Bill's the same. But it's not dissimilar at times when you see a Candice Owens or Tucker Carlson saying and doing things and you sometimes question like, do they really believe that or are they just saying things to get attention or likes or clicks or whatever? We've definitely seen some things that Bill O'Reilly said that not only would we significantly question why he would say that or what his source is, and of course, he doesn't often give those sources. We also know that when you are someone of notoriety usually you will have some co-authors on books with you meaning that you have people that are usually writing some of the rough drafts and you come in and review it and you kind of give it some of the tone you wanted to have but you don't always do all of the research, you trust some of the other professionals, historians, researchers, academics to provide that for you. So, I would question how much research Bill did on this and how many things he read. And again, this is not to disparage Bill, but from what I can tell you and Dad you can speak to this some too There definitely was at times frustration from George Washington with his mom for several reasons. There were times that he began to provide for her and she was demanding and he wrote to one of his brothers 

Rick Green [00:08:10] And by the way, none of us have ever been frustrated with our mamas. I'm just saying none of right. No, no. 

Tim Barton [00:08:16] Well, I'm afraid that my mom... 

Rick Green [00:08:18] Mom, if you're out there listening, I'll not gonna it. 

Tim Barton [00:08:19] Yeah, I'm afraid my mom might be like in the background while my dad's recording this. And so, I'm just gonna say like, no, it's only been wonderful for my whole life, always. Now I can tell you my brother at times got frustrated and I was always like, no, mom, is wonderful, don't be frustrated. 

Rick Green [00:08:37] We have gone off the deep end. We've lost all credibility at this point. No one listening believes Tim right now 

Tim Barton [00:08:44] Well, so speaking of not believing people right now, so when, when Bill O'Reilly says that, he hated his mother, he expressed that there's a couple of letters you can point to where he expressed frustration with situations or circumstances, but then he would write his mom a letter and he would call her like honored madam and like not sarcastic, very respectful. And so, I think he's deducing things that are not there. And certainly, there was frustration. But to then say he hated, well, what are you basing that on? Cause he never once wrote that he ever hated his mother, ever. He never said that to anybody. He expressed frustration at times, but there's a long way to go from being frustrated to hating someone, especially then when there's many letters shortly after the frustration where he's being very respectful in his correspondence to her. So, I don't think there's any evidence for that, but, but also one of the things when I saw this question come in, I thought it's a little silly. And, and, and we don't have any other way to do this right now, but it's a little silly that we're having to prove why George Washington did not do this when frankly, Bill O'Reilly didn't prove he did, right? If you're saying George Washington hated his mother. 

Rick Green [00:09:57] Right, good point, yeah. 

Tim Barton [00:09:58] I would ask some very basic questions of, oh, wow. So how do we know? When, when did he say that? What letter did he write? Who did he, say it to? What, what's the original source documentation for that claim? And, and again, there is none, but we, we live in a culture where if there's someone of notoriety, and especially if we've been conservative and it's a conservative voice and it has been a leader in the conservative side for a I'll They've established credibility. And so sometimes we go, well, man, that must be true. And the thing that, I mean, guys, all three of us have said for a long time, we will continue to say it, is we try to be as honest as we can, but we always want people to go look up and study for themselves, the original documents. Because there's times, we might misremember something and it's not probably because we're trying to mislead anybody. It really can be, we just forgot certain details about those things. And this is where I'm not saying that Bill necessarily had bad intentions or motives that he was trying to be dishonest, but certainly what he said is not historically grounded and it should not be that we have to bear the burden of proof to prove him wrong. If someone makes a claim, the impetus, the burden is on them to defend their position, which again, historically he really can't defend the position. He can show that Washington was frustrated, but he he's never going to find a letter of Washington says that I hate my mom because that doesn't exist. 

David Barton [00:11:24] And, you know, kind of echoing part of that to where Tim began with this, this goes back to his book, Killing Patton, where that he came out and said, hey, Patton was poisoned and that's how he died. And one of O'Reilly's good friends, it's also our good friend, called and said hey, that's not true. I've seen the toe tag that explains exactly how Patton died, which part of the vertebra in his back was broken and what it did to him and the medical reports. I've seen the actual document. And O'Reilly commented, well, my researchers have already got it put together and it's too late to pull back now and I'm not gonna do it. So, it's not that he necessarily is even, Tim as you said, even doing it himself. As researchers, the other thing we found in that book was that so much of the content on Patton really looked like it had come out of Wikipedia. And in many places, it had the same pattern and same presentation of facts as Wikipedia. And so when you've got researchers writing, you're the big name and people buy it because of the big name on the book. Doesn't mean you wrote the book and it doesn't mean that your researchers that did it who may have been some, you know, college sophomores, you know what, and not a disrespect to college sophomores, but that doesn't mean that they're experts in history at that age, not having been through it. So that's, that really goes back to it. Just to echo on what Tim said, look, I'll just go back. Washington went eight years at the head of the American military. You know how many times he visited mom in that period? Cause he wasn't even close to home. And so she's complaining I don't ever see you anymore, you're not around, you don't come visit me and it's like mom what I gotta save the nation kind of stuff. And it really did you know as Tim mentioned it was frustrating time from but he always obeyed the 10 Commandments he showed honor to his mother and always addressed her that. And so, hate? I've seen no indication of that, a frustration at times like Tim said, yeah, that was so of it. But she's kind of by herself and wanted her son around and he just wasn't there he's saving the nation. And that was kind of the choice to add. I can spend time with mom or save the nation. 

Tim Barton [00:13:24] And I appreciate, by the way, that somebody would ask us a question, hoping that we would point them to original source documentation, I presume. Not just wanting our opinion, but this again is where because you might not be in a place you can ask Bill O'Reilly, Hey Bill, what's your source for that? How do we know that he hated his mom? I understand why someone might come and say, hey guys, have you heard this? What do you think? What's the truth behind it? And I am totally open to someone asking that question. But I do want to remind people, if someone is making a claim, making a statement the burden of proof is on them to defend that claim, it's not on us and not like just individually us at Wall Builders or Patriot Academy or whatever else. But I mean, it is not on an outside individual to prove them wrong. They have to prove they are right. And in this case, I know of no historic evidence that would suggest Bill was right in the claim he made. 

Rick Green [00:14:16] Well, I'm pretty sure that David's description of mama's wanting you to come around more, but you're busy saving the nation. He actually took that from the text between my mom and me. I think that was actually, I totally relate to that, but my mama understands and she's happy when I do go see her for sure. And one other thing I'll say, I remember when we were filming Chasing American Legends 10 years ago, and you guys sent us some really cool documents about Washington at the battle of the Monongahela and he's 23 years old. And two of the things that you told us about, and I think it had copies, I can't remember what the source was, but it was letters from Washington or books about the letters. I can remember exactly. And I just remember there were two letters that he specifically wrote the day after the battle, one to his brother and to his mama. So, listen, even in those moments like that, those big moments in his life, he was still paying attention to mama. Anyway, good questions. Thank you, Courtney, for sending that in. And next up, well actually, let's take a break guys. We'll be back; we've got more questions from the audience. Stay with us, folks. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:16:26] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us next up. Dear WallBuilder's team, I really need your help. I listen to your podcasts often and am intentional about often playing your podcast aloud from my phone on our way home from school so my kids can hear. Hey, everybody listening right now to The WallBuilders Show. That's a great idea. I love it when we get the kids listening to the program. Okay. She said today, April 3rd, our family went to see A Great Awakening because of hearing about it on your show. In the car before we saw it, I was shocked to hear my 14-year-old son say that he wasn't really sure that America was justified in revolting against England. He said that the taxes in England were worse than in the colonies and although an official religion was given to Canada, England may or may not have ever treated the colonies the same way. He said if he had lived back then, he might have just been an observer and not a patriot. I was horrified, but really didn't know what to say. I said something weak about England was abusing the colonists and was just getting out from underneath that abuse. I appreciate history, but as a pastor's wife, mom, bus ministry coordinator, and Christian school science teacher, my attention has been divided. And I just haven't had time to develop an apologetics on history. That's why I listened to your podcast. Our older son, who's 16 argued with him a little, but didn't make much headway. I could see that this philosophy came from the history teacher at our Christian school. Both of my sons are thinking about careers in politics or law. So, this issue is pretty critical right now. Could you recommend any good books I can encourage him to read? He will probably read something if I ask him to. What do I say to him? What is a good answer to the question, why Christians are to obey their government but were justified in disobeying and rebelling against England? So please, some books, some advice, previous podcasts, thanks in advance, wow! Wow! Wow! thank you, thank you thank you. I don't think this is a one-off guys, I think there are tons of parents out there listening right now that would love to know the answer to these questions and love to get their kids learning to be Patriots now. 

Tim Barton [00:18:20] Now, Rick, did we get any follow-up? What happened after the movie, right? After seeing A Great Awakening, did they come around them and like, you know what? Interesting Christian connection, I see it now. Cause I would love to hear the follow- up

Rick Green [00:18:34] Actually thought that's where the question was gonna go when she started with A Great Awakening, I thought maybe this was on the weight of the movie and then the attitudes changed after it sounds like the movie spurred the question. Yes, if I'm reading it, correct. 

Tim Barton [00:18:46]  Well, I'm going to have somebody from our team send a follow-up email. Although when she hears us read her question and hopefully give some insightful answers, maybe she will respond and let us know, what was the thought, the effect of the movie? Because I mean, guys, we, we know so many people have gone and seen it. A lot of our staff at WallBuilders have gone to seen it, they loved it. Some of the people said they were crying at times throughout it. It was really moving for them and encouraging. So, I would love to know if that had an impact. But also interesting to me, it was a, potentially, teacher at a Christian school that indicated the Founding Fathers or those involved in the American Revolution were really not being godly because of disobedience, etc, etc. Now I have a lot of thoughts on that, but Dad, I know you've also prepared some stuff. So let me, let me yield to you as you give some recommended readings, among other things. And then I would love to add some things on at the end. 

David Barton [00:19:47] Well, I wasn't so much about recommended reading as I was about thinking process on this. Because some of this is like, and you know, he said that he responded to her that it was all about taxation. No, it wasn't. The motto was taxation without representation. They were paying taxes in America. America was imposing taxes on other Americans, Founding Fathers, passed taxes, imposed taxes. It wasn't about taxes. It was about representation, about form of government. You can't do things without our permission, or at least us having representation in it. And that's a whole different issue. And so, what it struck me with right off the bat was, okay, so what we have here is a young man that's being taught the Charles and Mary Beard philosophy of American history. And that goes back to the 1960s, Charles and Marie Beard, they developed a whole approach to history called the economic view of American History. The only thing people care about is money, and the only thing worth talking about is money. And that's all it is, and so it was taxation. No, it wasn't, it was representation. And so that view of the economic view of American history, you lose the moral fabric, you lose principal fabric, you lose the governmental fabric, you lose all the money, it's the only thing that matters, and that is the only way they interpret history. So, it sounds like that young man has history teachers that have been brought up under the Beard philosophy, but not American history philosophy. And that the first thing I'd start with is hey, let's deal with this thing that clearly is false, and where did you get that? And why are you thinking it? And let's think about some other motors that would have been present. 

Tim Barton [00:21:20] Well, and Dad, to that point, there's a lot of even Christian school textbooks that when they talk about the reasons and they identify reasons and reasons might be wrong because it might not be plural, it might've been singular. That could be something that the teacher is actually teaching honestly what's in the textbook because the textbook could say this is the reason. And so, it might even just be a history teacher that is biased. It could be a really incomplete curriculum because even though they did believe in no taxation without representation. You can go back to the stamp act tax. And there's a lot of things that you can identify where this thinking came from, but it's worth noting in the declaration, there's 27 grievances and no taxation with that representation was number 17 out of 27. So that's not even in the top 10 of the things they listed to the Declaration when they're going through and saying, hey, include this and include this and include with this, you would generally think some of the things that were a bigger problem you're making sure are the top of the list. Well, that's number 17 out of 27. And I say that to say there's a lot of reasons that motivated them to separate from Great Britain, but I would even add that there's some other deeper Christian thoughts and Dad, I honestly thought you were going to suggest the sermon about... So, are you? Okay.... Let me yield back to you for the sermon. 

David Barton [00:22:38] They were thinking exactly on it and and so anything I don't cover you make sure you cover. But two things in way of original documents I would I would sit down with your son and read the Declaration of Independence and say I want you to identify the 27 reasons they gave for separating from Great Britain and just it's not one, It's not economics. Tim as you said 17 out of 27. What are the 27? And then I would also say and by the way, let's read Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration and see what his 24 were and then going back to him where you were I'd say Let's see where they got those ideas and read Alice Baldwin's book 1928 and the name of that book Tim?

Tim Barton [00:23:13] The New England Clergy and the American Revolution. But Dad, so the sermon I was thinking you were gonna go to is the one about unlimited submission. 

David Barton [00:23:21] Yeah, that's it. It's a 1750 sermon. Tim and I were right on the same page. We have that posted on the website. Jonathan Mayhew, Unlimited Submission, and this is where the Jefferson and the other founding fathers got the motto that “Rebellion to Tyrants is obedience to God”. Tim? 

Tim Barton [00:23:39] So yeah, let me let me add a few other Bible thoughts. Because it's not just significant where the Founding Fathers were being influenced, although it is, because they were the two greatest influences arguably Founding Fathers were the Bible because that's the most quoted thing in any of their writings. But also we know that pastors were one of the most influential voices in that time. The book that, Dad, you mentioned Alice Baldwin the New England Clergy and the American Revolution, one of the things she points out is that there's not a single right asserted in the Declaration, which had not been preached from American pulpits prior to 1763, which is a dozen years before you even get to the Declaration. And what she points out is the Founding Fathers didn't come up with a bunch of unique ideas. They were repeating the ideas that they had been hearing from pastors, among others, for decades leading up to that moment. So, it's worth noting, okay, pastors, Bible really influential, but then how do we square that away? 'Cause if Romans 13 says you're supposed to submit to all governing authority, and they clearly didn't submit. So, doesn't that mean they're being rebellious? This is where we have to recognize that you don't read one verse and independently try to apply that to everything without taking the context of the rest of the Bible. Why do I say that? Because there's no way you would look at Daniel or Shadrach and Meshach, Abednego and go you know what they were being so ungodly in what they did. No! You don't look at Peter and John going before the Sanhedrin when they're told to stop praying in Jesus' name or stop speaking in Jesus' name and they go no we're gonna submit to God. You don't look at Moses before Pharaoh not submitting to the governing authority and saying let my people go! It's worth noting if you even go to Hebrews Chapter 11, virtually every single name mentioned in the Faith Hall of Fame, at some point disagreed with or disobeyed a governing authority to some extent. The reason why it matters is because when you look at the full context, even in Romans 13, what the Founding Fathers pointed out is that government exists as a representative of God, but when they cease to be godly, then the most godly thing you can do is oppose ungodliness and therefore; "rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God." That's where that idea came from. So, the idea that the Founding Fathers kind of rooted what they did in rebellion or America was birthed in rebellion, that's really not good biblical exegesis. It's not historically accurate, and certainly the Revolution and American independence wasn't fought merely over taxation. There was a whole lot more to that story. One more book I would suggest is The American story, the Beginnings. Which will go through a lot of these details at a very surface and at sometimes a deeper level, but all footnoted, documented back to original sources to see what the Founding Fathers actually said, thought, and believed, and it's a little different than what that history teacher might have said. 

Rick Green [00:26:34] Well, great questions today, guys. We're going to have more for next week. And tomorrow, of course, we'll bring a lot of good news to you. So, you don't want to miss that. Thanks so much for listening to the WallBuilders Show.