Transcript

Preborn Network helps women choose life through a free ultrasound

>> Rick Green: We are living in a time when truth is under attack. Lies are easy to tell, easy to spread and easy to believe. But truth, truth is costly. And nowhere is the cost greater than from others in crisis. When a woman is told abortion is her only option, silence and lies surround her. But when she walks into a pre born Network clinic, she's met with compassion, support, and the truth about the life growing inside her. That moment of truth happens through a free ultrasound and it's a game changer. When a mother sees her baby and hears that heartbeat, it literally doubles the chance she'll choose life. PreBorn Network clinics are on the front lines, meeting women in their darkest hour, loving them, helping them choose life, and sharing truth. Friend, this is not a time to be silent. It's a time for courage, for truth, for life. Just $28 provides one ultrasound and the opportunity for a mother to see her baby to help her choose truth and life. Donate today. Call £250 and say baby. That's £250, baby. Or give online@preborn.com afr that's preborn.com afr we inform religious freedom is about people.

>> David Barton: Of faith being able to live out.

>> Rick Green: Their faith, live out their convictions no.

>> David Barton: Matter where they are.

>> Rick Green: We equip sacred honor is the courage to speak truth, to live out your free speech.

>> David Barton: We also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character.

>> Rick Green: This is at the Core on American Family Radio.

Rick Green: At the Core focuses on biblical citizenship in modern America

Welcome to at the Core with Walker Wildmon and Rick Green. I'm Rick Green, America's Constitution coach. Thanks so much for joining me today. We are in the middle of a series, at least on my days. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, you get me, and on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, you get Walker. And we try to just keep you informed on the core issues of the day. And normally I've got some commentary for you on some of those hot topics of the day, but for the last, I don't know, week or two of my shows, I've been sharing with you biblical citizenship in modern America. America. I just think it's vitally important that at this moment in time, we get back to the principles. We understand what the Bible says about how to be a good citizen, about how to treat our neighbors, about how to form our societies. And then we understand the practical, literally the process for how to do that under our current government, under our Constitution. And so we're doing biblical citizenship in order to get educated on these things so that we can go out there and make the most of this incredible moment in time, this incredible inflection point where we have the chance to literally rebuild liberty. 250th to celebrate. Everybody's talking about it, they're paying attention, they're willing to learn, they're willing to listen. And then of course, we have the wind at our back right now because of just the response to the assassination of Charlie Kirk and some of the other crazy things that have happened. More m and more people are willing to listen, will want to be a part of it. Speaking, of which I haven't really talked about this on the air the last few weeks, but we've got this outpouring of young people that want to be trained, that want to learn how to be ready to answer, how to speak with all boldness, how to study, to show themselves approved. And so we've got a high demand right now for students to come to Patriot Academy programs, especially our Patriot Institute, which is our. That's our program on campus where you live in residence on campus, and you really become a Navy seal of civics. Whether you're going to go into business or ministry or politics or whatever you're going to do, you really learn how to do that well. You get your leadership skills, really find your purpose. So if you're an 18 to 25 year old out there, now's the time to go to our website, because we are going to do something special starting in January. We don't normally do a mid year, new class, but we are going to do that. I believe. I'm 99% sure we're going to do that. Working on the finishing touches of that, but you need to get your name in the queue. Right now we've got some scholarship funds, to be able to give away. So if you'd like to consider being a part of Patriot Academy at the institute and coming for a whole year or even just one semester, you need to go to patriotacademy.com institute today. And if you're out there and you want to help us fund that, we have, a lot of students asking to come. I don't have enough scholarship funds for everybody, so it's competitive. But if you want to donate a scholarship, then also, check that out there at the website to learn more. Okay, let's jump back into Biblical citizenship and model. This is where we left off on, Tuesday and it was right at the end. This segment, we'll be able to finish up week three of Biblical Citizenship in Modern America. It's called Understanding the times. And then later in today's program, we'll dive into the beginning of the fourth lesson, which is all about the seeds of liberty.

One of the things we talked about a lot is original intent

All right, here we go. Biblical citizenship in modern America.

>> David Barton: You know, Franklin, that's such a cool story, but it's cool to be in that room.

>> Rick Green: I love it. So one of the things we talked about a lot, and we'll talk about a lot more throughout this course, is original intent. Right now you wrote an entire book on this best selling book on original intent, where you took all these documents in this room and really shared with us what was inside the minds of our founding fathers. Why is it so important to get that original intent?

>> David Barton: Because that's where you get the most effectiveness. It's really hard to use a screwdriver as a shovel because it was not designed for that. So you can work all day long with a screwdriver, not digging something out. You have to know original intent, have to know how it's designed. It's like using the owner's manual if you want the most out of your car, your tv, anything else.

>> Rick Green: You're not saying people would misuse the Constitution for something it wasn't intended to be used for?

>> David Barton: You know how we talked at the beginning about human nature and principles and that's why the Constitution works, because it's based on certain principles. One of those principles is human nature and absolutely can be, and we'll cover this in future lessons. But that's why we have checks and balances and separation powers. And the founding fathers told us about human nature. And because of that, they put principles in there to keep people from taking and abusing this. It won't stop it if we don't apply those principles. But they gave us some tools by which we can stop some of these things.

>> Rick Green: I like that analogy. Because now not just original intent, but original intended use. That's a good way to think of it.

>> David Barton: It is, it is. And one of the things that is kind of a good example that you talked about, if we don't do that right, then you are talking about how we get off track. And you are exactly right. Here's a great example. this is one of the best selling books in American history. It's one of the McGuffey readers. They came out in 1830s and 40s and went through 120 million copies to this date. So I mean, they have sold like crazy. So here is a fourth grade reader and I just open up here to lesson number nine, Death at the toilet. Wait a minute.

>> Rick Green: I'm not even. I don't. I have no idea.

>> David Barton: Why would they use such crude bathroom humor back in that day? Because back in that day, toilet is where we get the word toiletries, which is like your shaving stuff and your hair stuff. Well, toilet was really your vanity table, and that's why we call it vanity. So death at the toilet is death at the vanity table, and it deals with a young girl who was really cocky in pride and arrogant about how beautiful she was, and it turned into her demise. Wow. Well, we look at death at the toilet and say, I can't believe that you're such crude human. No, no, you have to go back to understand what they were trying to do. Now, once we understand that the principle is the same, the arrogance and the cockiness and the kind of stuff that they talk about with that girl, but it's not death at the toilet. It's death at the vanity table. Her vanity is what destroyed her. So that's the kind of stuff that still works, and it does have an impact. And that's why you want to go back and know original intent. We'll just go back where we started at the beginning with John Jay. These are the six things that we want every single citizen to be able to do when you read and study the Constitution. Number one is read the constitution doesn't take 20 minutes. It's an easy thing to do. Number two is study the Constitution. Once you've read it, you kind of get the overview. Now go back and look at the things in it and start making lists.

>> Rick Green: And that's where we really are getting into the minds of the founders. We're studying what those words actually mean, not just reading them.

>> David Barton: And as we go through these next lessons, these other lessons, we're going to be studying what that meant and why they put that there and why that clause is there and what are they trying to do?

>> Rick Green: What.

Study the Constitution to help set the tone of the times, if you understand

So is that why all of these books are important? Not just the words of the Constitution, but when you pull a book off the shelf, that is someone that one of these guys in this picture that helped give us the document, it gives you a chance to really find out what they were thinking when they did.

>> David Barton: And it helps set the tone of the times, if you understand. You know, people accuse the Pilgrims all the time of being so bloodthirsty because they had the death penalty. So they did. They had 15 crimes that had the death penalty. But let's set the tone of the time. When they came to America from Great Britain, the country they left had the death penalty. For over 230 crimes. So they've taken it from 230 death penalty crimes down to 15. I don't think they're bloodthirsty.

>> Rick Green: So that puts it in context. If you just look at it by itself, you can get way off. But if you step back and see the big picture, and that is the.

>> David Barton: thing you can get fixated on a particular issue. And you see so much of the trees, you miss the forest. And that's why you read it, to see the forest. Now let's go back and study some of the trees that are in the forest. And that's the second part. Third part is be able to teach it. Once you see what's in there, teach it. Especially the rising generation. But in this culture with our poor education, teach all of us. Teach all of us. I, love. There's a Bible verse in song of Solomon. 8, 13. It says, you, friends listen to your voice. So speak. Exactly. In this day and time, with what we have with social media, there's nobody who doesn't have a platform. There are people who will listen to you. There are people who hear what you say on Facebook, do it on Twitter, whatever you got.

>> Rick Green: Speak might be five people, might be 5,000 people.

>> Bob McEwen: Whatever you do, you talk to your.

>> David Barton: Friends and that makes a difference. Then what you want to be able to do is know those constitutional rights. Now that you've read and studied and you started teaching them, you now recognize when somebody has crossed the line, wait a minute, he can't do that. That's not constitutional. And then at that point, you can defend those rights. If they're coming after you or if they're coming after somebody else, you can assert those rights.

>> Rick Green: Yeah.

>> David Barton: So you stand up and those are the six things that everybody needs to be able to do with the Constitution.

>> Rick Green: So you can't have that perception. You won't know that those rights have been violated if you haven't done these first steps. You've got to study them and know.

>> David Barton: I mean, you talked in there about how your mom, when they trained her as a bank teller, they didn't show her counterfeit stuff. They just let her handle the real stuff so much that she instantly recognized it. And we did the same, same thing in World War II. If you wanted to be able to recognize the enemy, you studied those enemy identification charts. So you studied all the enemy planes, all the enemy tanks. So when you saw it, you realized, ah, that's the enemy. Now we can defend and assert ourselves. We're going to offense you. Want to make sure you didn't get one of the Allied tanks. You know, you didn't want one of the British tanks. So you studied. And once you studied, you could recognize when there was something wrong. And that's what it takes as we study.

>> Rick Green: You know, sometimes people today, I mean, if we're not doing a good job of this in our schools, then that means we need more tools. We've got to have the tools to be able to study.

>> David Barton: And by the way, just so nobody gets intimidated over this thing, studying the Constitution and understanding it is not a hard deal. This notion that we get from law school is that only the nine people in the Supreme Court really know the Constitution.

>> Rick Green: These high priests of the law.

>> David Barton: I have been to several legislatures where that I have, and it just tears me up. Legislators say, look, let's just go ahead and pass it, and the Supreme Court will tell us whether it's constitutional or not. No, you took enough to uphold it. And you don't have to be a brainchild to do this. And great example of that. This little book right here, this is a book, an elementary book back in 1828. And elementary kids studied this kind.

>> Rick Green: I mean, so they're teaching the Constitution to elementary kids.

>> David Barton: You don't wait until you get to law school. You don't wait till it's post graduate stuff and the kind of stuff that they were having these elementary kids study. The questions they asked.

>> Rick Green: 1828. 1828. So we're going all the way back, though.

>> David Barton: This is only some of the elementary questions.

>> Rick Green: Okay, so these are. You're an attorney, you were a legislator. Now what if I can't answer it? This is going to be bad, which I'm probably not going to be able to.

Can Congress punish piracy, that is robbery committed at sea

So these are elementary school kids and they're asking them, can the Congress punish piracy, that is robbery committed at sea? Because we have some of that today. So that's actually a good question for today. You know, you got Smollett, Smollett, that whole movie about, the Captain.

>> David Barton: That's international law. So can we in America do anything to punish other nations under our Constitution?

>> Rick Green: How many people? I don't know the answer to that question off the top of my head. So what does the elementary catechism say? Yes. And all other crimes committed there. It can also punish offenses against the laws of nations. So there's another question, in fact, that's the next question. What do you mean by the law of nations? This is great. So this is done in a catechism way where you Ask one question, it raises the next question.

>> David Barton: That's right. And that's elementary kids. And I bet if you sit down a law school and take third year law students that are about to take their bar exam and run those questions.

>> Rick Green: Through, it talks about Mark and reprisal, all these things.

>> David Barton: Nobody knows what that is anymore. And that actually is a very current thing that still goes on because it deals with restitution. It's a form of restitution. So there's a lot in there that's applicable. So do not get intimidated saying, you know, I'm not that smart. I don't. You don't have to be smart. Founding fathers, remember, these were average guys. They were farmers, they were shipbuilders, they were, you know, one of these guys was, he was a shoe shine guy. He made leather shoes and kept shoes. They're common folks. And they did this for the common average everyday.

>> Rick Green: So if they could do it, we can do it today. And if kids of yesterday, in 1850 kids, little kids, could do it. So it was intended as an elementary catechism, but we need it for all of us.

>> David Barton: Absolutely.

>> Rick Green: Well, that's the whole idea of constitutional lives. So when we come back, we're gonna actually talk about the seeds of liberty, we're gonna dive into some of these materials and talk about what was planted to give us such a successful formula.

Mark: We're in the very room where the Constitution was framed

Here on Constitutional Live with David Barton and Rick. We're in the very room where the Constitution was framed. Independence hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. You should come here and visit. It's absolutely amazing. We do our course in here teaching the Constitution. And actually right behind us, Mark, that chair is the chair George Washington sat in throughout the convention. Yeah, I think about that. You know, I kind of get the chills just being in the room to think that's the chair. Washington, the indispensable man, the father of our country, sat in that chair. Something really interesting about that chair. There's a carving on the back of that chair. I happen to have, Wait a minute, I've been here, I've been coming here for years. This is your first time. And you get the props that they never let me have. They call it convention of states. Right? This is a convention. I got the perks, I guess. Yeah. So it's important to remember where we were at in American history. The Articles of Confederation are falling apart. The nation's being torn apart commercially. States are kind of at each other's throats, financially broke people. States aren't willing to pay. States are fighting so not Unreasonable that Franklin's looking at this. He doesn't know whether it's a rising or setting sun. Right? Looking at what's the future of the nation, are we going to make it or is it going to fall apart? But in the end, he knows, at the very end, he says, I've been looking, I've been wondering, is it a rising or setting? He said, it is indeed a rising, not a setting sun.

>> Bob McEwen: We have a constitution that is the envy of the world. It was established, for the rights and protection of all flesh, all people in the whole world. They knew they were doing something so unique that was the light of liberty in all the world. Let's do this, let's come back and look at that recipe. Because it was structure, it was form, it was the system that they designed to check and balance, to provide a double security. In fact, Alexander Hamilton said, this balance between the state and the national government is of the utmost importance because it provides a double security to the rights of the people.

>> Rick Green: I think the next generation, although there's.

>> David Barton: Obviously concerns about the generation, but I get a chance to work with some.

>> Rick Green: Of the amazing young people of this generation that are much more, more conscious of their role, their God given calling and their duty, and much more talented and much more on fire for the Lord than our generation ever thought to be. And those individuals can go and should go into all these areas of life.

>> David Barton: In the judiciary, in the legislature, in.

>> Rick Green: Every field of, possibility and really be light in these dark areas and transform the culture. I think this generation is going to surprise a lot of people because there's so much negative about them. But I see God raising up Gideon's army in this generation. I'm telling you, when you work with this generation, you realize our generation can't even hold a candlestick to what God is doing in this young generation.

We hope you enjoyed week three of the American Family Radio podcast

Well, that's it for week three. What a great opportunity to have David Barton right here live with us teaching on truth and courage. And then to get to visit Independence hall, to actually be in that room and learn what the Founding Fathers were thinking. What was the philosophy behind the formula that produced the most free, most powerful, most benevolent nation in history? Well, we hope you enjoyed week three. Next week in week four, we're going to start talking more about what the Founding Fathers actually designed in our Constitution. We're going to dive into those seeds of liberty and then we're going to do a 30,000ft view of the entire Constitution. We'll see you next week for biblical citizenship in modern America. Stay with me, folks. We'll be right back on at the Core with Waka Waba and Rick Greene at the Core podcast are available@afr.net now back to at the Core on American Family Radio.

Walker Wildman and Rick Green discuss Biblical Citizenship in Modern America

We're back here on that core with Walker Wildmon and Rick Green. Thanks for staying with me. We've been, listening to Biblical Citizenship in Modern America. In that final last segment, we, got the final part of week three of Biblical Citizenship, the third lesson in that eight week course. You know, if you missed any of the other pieces, you can always go back and listen at the American, family Radio website. Or you can just go get the entire course for free by signing up as a Constitution host at our website patriotacademy.com patriotacademy.com just click on Biblical Citizenship or click on Constitution Coach. Sign up for free and then you'll have access to the entire course, including the videos, not just the audio in your coach dashboard. and then invite some people over. It's free, man. Get people in and start teaching these things. So here's what we're going to do for the rest of today. We don't have enough time to do it an entire additional, week of the course, but we'll get as much as we can of episode four, week four, if you will, in the Biblical Citizenship course. And this is where we start talking about the seeds of liberty. We go back to Independence hall and dive further into the Declaration of Independence.

This is week four of Biblical citizenship in modern America

So here we go. Biblical Citizenship in Modern the seeds of Liberty. I think biblical citizenship as a Christian would be stewardship that God has given us this republic to be stewards of.

>> David Barton: Over.

>> Rick Green: And you begin to love what God loves and hate what he hates in the Scriptures because your heart is lining up with the heart of God because of the gospel. Well, and so many Christians are confused because they're being told things from different people, such as, oh, Christians shouldn't do anything in government, stay out of that. It's not what the Bible says. In fact, we're called to be biblical citizens. If you're a Christian, a person of faith, you must care about what's happening in our culture. You, you must get involved in voting.

>> David Barton: Biblical principles are what produce freedom in society. But you won't have biblical principles in society in which you don't have citizens with a biblical worldview.

>> Rick Green: The further we move away from biblical principles, the further we move away from liberty and freedom. As people are experiencing tyranny, they're asking why? What has happened? And there's just this feeling of being lost right now and not knowing where to turn. And you just gave us the foundation. This is truth. All right, it's time for week four of, Biblical citizenship in modern America. We had a great time last week. We actually had David Barton right here in this room teaching on truth and courage. We were out at Independence hall understanding a little bit about what the founders put in place in terms of the philosophy of the Declaration of Independence. This week we're going to dive even deeper into that and we're also going to get a 30,000ft view of the entire Constitution. First we're going to head back to the Wall Builders Library Museum and then we'll take you to Independence Hall.

Rick Green: Study the Declaration of Independence with the Constitution

Welcome to week four of Biblical citizenship in modern America. Welcome back to the Constitution alive. We're now going to talk about the seeds of liberty, what the ideas were that these guys actually sowed into our nation and how it created such a successful nation. And remember that what John Jay told us, our secret, formula for how we're going to study the Constitution. He said to make sure that you not only read, but study the Constitution. So if we're going to study it, we've got to get inside the minds of these guys. We've got to know what that original intent, if that's going to be our focus, is original intent. We've got to go back to what these guys actually put in place. I always think it's important not just to study the Constitution, but to study the Declaration with the Constitution. In fact, the founder said you really had to do that. I like the way John Quincy Adams put it in my language. He said that it was the slab that the home of the Constitution was built upon. The Declaration was. But here's the way he said it. The Declaration of Independence was the first platform upon which the Constitution of the United States had been erected. The principles proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence were embodied in the Constitution of the United States. I call the Declaration of Independence, or at least the first two paragraphs, the frame of America. In my mind, in my way of thinking, those were the principles. If you go to that heart of the Declaration, you find the frame for our picture and you might have a different picture that you would throw up on the screen here. But if you could picture freedom, if you could take some picture of your family or your schools or your community or your churches, whatever it might be, and put that picture inside the frame of America, know this, if that frame goes, then your picture's going with it. My picture's going with it. That that frame is what's holding it all together. Those principles they put in place, that's why we're free. And if we lose that frame, if we allow that frame to be destroyed or transformed, transformed or changed into something that they didn't give us, then we're going to lose the picture and we're going to have a very different America than we were given. So it's important for us to remember the frame and remember what the principles are in the Declaration of Independence. And I'm going to actually ask for a little bit of help here tonight. I'm going to get, one of my sons to come up and share with us those principles out of the Declaration of Independence. He's going to share with you the first two paragraphs and then he's going to describe what those precious 56 words in the second paragraph, what they really mean and what they gave us and America. So y' all help me welcome Rhett Green. He's going to come up and join us. Come on up, buddy. Come on in. He's even more nervous about crossing this rail than I was, so. Alright, Rhett, let's come right back here. There's your spot. Now you are standing in the very spot where the guys that wrote the language that you're about to share with us, where they debated it, where they came up with it, where they adopted it. So this is a pretty historic occasion. I want you to share the first paragraph where Jefferson actually is telling us, hey, here's why we're going to tell the whole world what we're doing. And then the 56 words. And then give us a little description of those 56 words. Go ahead, buddy.

>> Speaker D: One of the course of human events becomes necessary for one people to absolve the political band which had connected them to another. To assume the powers of the earth a separate and equal station to be show laws of nature and nature's God entitles them a disrespectful opinion of mankind acquires that they should clear the causes, then impel them to separation. We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are Dabbi, their Creator, with certain able rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And to secure these rights, governments are instituted, among men, driving their just power through the consent of the governor. In the words of the Declaration, there are four basic principles that make up the frame of America. First, the Founding Fathers began with the basic idea that truth is real. It is obvious and it does not change Second, they made it clear that God is a source of freedom. Like the Declaration says, our rights don't come from any elected appointed officials. They come from God Almighty. Third, the just powers of government can only come from the consent of the governed. That's you and me. The word consent is used three times in the declaration and 11 times in the Constitution. Obviously, our founding fathers didn't want the government's use of power without our consent. They wanted us to always remember the government's use of power without Arkansas is tyranny. Now, last part of the frame is the pursuit of happiness. This is the free enterprise system that made America the most successful nation in history. Thomas Jefferson once said, a, wise and frugal government that shall lead men free to regulate their own pursuit and industry improvement and shall not take from the math of labor bread it has earned. This is a sum of good government. Now let's all do our part to preserve those four principles. Welcome back. My dad.

>> Rick Green: Good job, buddy. Way to go. You take that with you.

Rick: The Declaration of Independence says religion and morality are indispensable supports

All right, our nine year old scholar on the Declaration of Independence. We got to do something about these shy, poorly socialized homeschoolers. I guess. I don't know. anyway, ok, so I'm just going to touch on one quick thing about each of those things that, Rhett, was just sharing with you. Because, you know, I mean, I think it's obvious sometimes when we say it today, truths that we forget what these guys were comparing that to around the world. In other words, when we say truths today, we mean obviously moral absolutes, right and wrong. That there is a right and wrong. It's always right to do right. It's always wrong to do wrong. Put yourself back in their shoes in their day. And what those words meant, for instance, George Washington put it this way. He said of all the habits and dispositions which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. So he's saying that if you're going to have a formula that works, if you're going to have a nation that's successful, of all the pieces of that formula that you put in there, you've got to have religion and morality. And without those two, it's just not going to work. And a lot of my friends are always saying, rick, man, I'm into liberty, you know, I'm into freedom, but don't mention God, you know, don't bring the Bible into this. Don't do anything. They don't want any of that. They say, ah, hey, I can be a patriot without that, I say, well, yeah, that's probably true, but George Washington would have disagreed. Washington actually said, in vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism that would work to subvert or labor to subvert these great pillars. What pillars? Religion and morality. Why is he saying that? Because when he's given that speech, he's watching the French Revolution take place. See, the American Revolution was based on the idea of right and wrong and freedom or liberty under God, liberty with God. The French Revolution was the opposite. The French Revolution was liberty without God. It was all about everybody do whatever is right in their own eyes. It's just two different philosophies. Theirs led to chaos, it led to the guillotine, it led to destruction. Ours led to the greatest nation in the history of the world. So there was something special about our formula. And Washington was saying, you can't have liberty without morality. You can't have morality without religion. You've got to keep those things in who you are. That God's at the center of equation of freedom. It wasn't that you had to worship the same way I do or be of the same faith that I was, but it was a recognition that there is a creator in this equation of freedom. And that's why I think Jefferson had those important words in the Declaration, that we are, in fact, endowed by our Creator. Not by our commissioner or our president or our government, but we are endowed by our Creator. And that was a distinction, really. I think. I think what Jefferson was trying to say there was, hey, not going to be like Europe, or anywhere else on the planet. Because if you were again, back in their shoes, if you went back to their day when these guys came in this room in 1776 and adopted this Declaration, every model of government around the planet was different from what they were putting forth. Every model of government on the whole planet looked kind of like this. It said that power and freedom comes from God, but it goes to the king. It goes to the monarch. And then the monarch decides how much freedom we, the people, get. So everything in our life really depended upon our relationship to the king. If you didn't have a good relationship, you didn't have much at all. These guys in this room did something nobody had ever done. They flipped that on its head. They totally turned that around. And they said, no, no, we believe freedom comes from God. No doubt that's the source of our rights and our source of freedom. But we believe that that freedom from God goes directly to the people. And then we, the people, we give power to Government only as we see fit. Just like Rhett was saying. Consent of, the governed. The only consciousness, just powers of government come from the consent of the government. So what Jefferson and these guys put in place was a system that says there's freedom granted by God, there's rights granted, and it goes directly to us. And then we give power to government only for one reason. To protect and secure the freedom that God gave us. It is astounding to me how many people in America have been indoctrinated into.

>> Bob McEwen: A condition of complete ignorance, completely, completely unaware of the extent to which the Bible and ancient Jewish wisdom shaped the founders. To these people who came here and set things up, the people we think of as the founders, Hebrew was.

>> Rick Green: something they knew.

>> Bob McEwen: The second governor of the Plymouth Colony.

>> Rick Green: Was Sir William Bradford.

>> Bob McEwen: And, the first 19 pages of.

>> Rick Green: His manuscript, his history book, the history.

>> Bob McEwen: Of the Plymouth Plantation, is actually in his own handwriting in Hebrew.

>> Rick Green: I think we have a privilege like no other nation on the face of the earth for us to study the fact that our nation is founded upon a Judeo Christian worldview argument which originated with John Locke, for example. And when you look at what our Pilgrims were all about. Not too long ago we celebrated the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrim Father stepping off the Mayflower with the Mayflower Compact, which was a two paragraph document explaining why they came. It's all about Christ. And so when we look at our founding fathers, the Jeffersons, the Franklins, the Adams, they cited scripture, they mentioned the Bible. This was not some haphazard event. They believed that God had brought this nation together for a purpose. If we know that, then it's going to align so much with scripture and we can move forward with confidence. I just love the confidence that that brings us that we are actually living out a call from God in this nation. I know Kirk went through this whole thing, but don't forget, before the American Revolution, America was in debauchery. We had already passed the Pilgrims. Church attendance was on the decline, alcoholism was rampant until the first Great Awakening. That all changed. There was a return to the Bible to educate their children. And all of these founders were educated when they came in with these principles of John Locke. And there was an awakening to understand civil government and, and the most quoted, source of all the founders, more than any other, you know, this is the Bible exponentially more because they were well versed in it. A leper leopard, it can't change his spots. That's a biblical, you know, statement that it used to be inundated in our vernacular. But most of us don't even read anymore. We want the pastor to do it for us. We want sermonettes for Christian nets. And we don't read our Bibles. We don't educate our children in the Bible. And now we're awakening, going, you know what, it's going to take a lot of work, but I'm in. Yeah, I'm ready to go.

Christian leaders need to get reconnected to the Bible and the Constitution

And if you look at America, this, this is a country where the overwhelming majority of people profess to be Christians. and as Christians, you know, they do have a guidebook, which is the Bible.

>> David Barton: That's right.

>> Rick Green: We are, totally, we've totally moved in a direction that's ungodly. The Bible means nothing to many of our leaders, the ones that are making the most important decisions affecting our lives.

>> David Barton: And Christians have to get reconnected to the Bible and what the Bible says and the Constitution. And the Constitution.

>> Rick Green: I think that everyone, should read the, Declaration of Independence. They should read the Constitution, they should study the Bill of Rights. They need to know all of these things and they need to hold politicians accountable and do some cleaning of the House of Commons.

>> David Barton: That's exactly right.

>> Rick Green: And that's what's so brilliant about our.

>> David Barton: Form of government and God's form of.

>> Rick Green: Government, that we are equal before the law.

>> David Barton: That's right. And that no we recognize individual.

>> Rick Green: That's right. Because God says he's not a respecter of persons. He's not partial.

>> David Barton: That's right.

>> Rick Green: So why should we, why should government be partial or respecter of person? It shouldn't. That's what I love about the Declaration of Independence is because a creator God created us equal.

>> David Barton: That's right.

>> Rick Green: That is revolutionary. Even today, across the world with world governments, it is still a revolutionary concept. It shows the worth of you. It shows that when God made you. When God made me, when God made the viewers, we are so valuable to him that he lifted each one of us up before him, but yet equal.

Benjamin Franklin gave them a history lesson 11 years ago

So I think it is important for us to study history, and that's why I love being here now. And I've fallen in love with history because of how much it influences where we're going. But I just, it's hard for me to imagine these guys were all there. I mean, they knew what had happened in the Revelation, Revolutionary War, and yet even though they were there and part of it, Benjamin Franklin had to stand up and give them a history lesson. Eleven years after what took place in this room for the Declaration, here's How he put it, he said, in the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for divine protection. So Franklin says to his colleagues, hey, remember in this room, see, he was one of six that signed both the Declaration and the Constitution. Kind of like James Wilson, who we talked about earlier. A bunch of these guys weren't there for the Declaration. So he's really reminding them. I think he was speaking to them and he was saying, hey, you may not have been in here. Let me tell you something. We knew we couldn't do it on our own. So he said in the beginning. So he takes them back to this room 11 years previous. All right, hold that thought. We'll be right back. You're listening to at the Core with Walker Waldman and Rick Greene at the Core Podcast are available@afr.net now back to at the Core on American Family Radio.

Rick Green: Christians need to get reconnected to Biblical citizenship

We're back on at the Core with Waka Waldman and Rick Green. I'm Rick Green, America's Constitution coach. And we're jumping right back into Biblical citizenship. You'll hear Carol Swaim and Michele Bachman and some of these other teachers in the course, but we're picking right back up with the Seeds of Liberty. This is week four, lesson four of the eight week Biblical Citizenship course. And if you look at America, this is a country where the overwhelming majority of people profess to be Christians. And as Christians, you know, they do have a guidebook, which is the Bible.

>> David Barton: That's right.

>> Rick Green: We, are totally, we've totally moved in a direction that's ungodly. The Bible means nothing to many of our leaders, the ones that are making the most important decisions affecting our lives.

>> David Barton: And Christians have to get reconnected to the Bible and what the Bible says.

>> Speaker D: And the Constitution.

>> David Barton: And the Constitution.

>> Rick Green: That's right. I think that everyone, should read the, Declaration of Independence. They should read the Constitution, they should study the Bill of Rights. They need to know all of these things, and they need to hold politicians accountable and do some cleaning of the house of common sense.

>> David Barton: That's exactly right.

>> Rick Green: And that's what's so brilliant about our.

>> David Barton: Form of government and God's form of.

>> Rick Green: Government, that we are equal before the law.

>> David Barton: That's right. And that no, we recognize individuals.

>> Rick Green: That's right. Because God says he's not a respecter of persons. He's not partial.

>> David Barton: That's right.

>> Rick Green: So why should we? Why should government be partial or respecter a person? It shouldn't. That's What I love about the Declaration of Independence is because a creator God created us equal.

>> David Barton: That's right.

>> Rick Green: That is revolutionary. Even today, across the world, with world governments, it is still a revolutionary concept. It shows the worth of you. It shows that when God made you, a. When God made me, When God made the viewers. We are so valuable to him that he lifted each one of us up, before him, but yet equal.

Benjamin Franklin was one of our least religious founding fathers

So I think it is important for us to study history, and that's why I love being here now. And I've fallen in love with history because of how much it influences where we're going. But, it's hard for me to imagine these guys were all there. I mean, they knew what had happened in the Revolutionary War. And yet, even though they were there and part of it, Benjamin Franklin had to stand up and give him a history lesson 11 years after what took place in this room for the Declaration. Here's how he put it. He said, in the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for divine protection. So Franklin says to his colleagues, hey, remember, in this room, see, he was one of six that signed both the Declaration and the Constitution. Kind of like James Wilson, who we talked about earlier. A bunch of these guys weren't there for the Declaration. So he's really reminding them. I think he was speaking to them and he was saying, hey, you may not have been in here. Let me tell you something. We knew we couldn't do it on our own. So he said in the beginning. So he takes them back to this room 11 years previous. He said, our prayers were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending providence in our favor. Then he asked the same question from right here that I think we need to ask today. He said, have we now forgotten this powerful friend? Do we imagine we no longer need his assistance? I think that's kind of where we are in America. Do we really think we can solve these massive problems we are making that, we are dealing with just on our own? Do we think we can do it on our own? Franklin said, no more than 200 years ago, I would say no today. So he goes on to say, I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth that God governs in the affairs of men. You've heard this part of a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice. Is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid. So here we are. They are talking about, can a nation rise? Can they take a constitution and create a successful nation? He's saying it can't happen without God. He's saying you can't do it without God. He said, we've been assured in the sacred writings that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. I firmly believe without his concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel. Then he said something real interesting. He said, I beg mood to leave that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of heaven and his blessing on our deliberation be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business. Now, why would this guy, that I would argue, out of all the guys, probably the least religious of our founding fathers. In fact, I think, you know, whether you come from a conservative, liberal point of view on the founding fathers, most everybody agrees Ben Franklin was one of our least religious founding fathers. But least has got to be a relative term because here, this least religious founding father, if you are familiar with the Bible at all, you just heard him quote about 11 different scriptures right there in that one short quote. And he is saying, hey, we can't. You shouldn't even be trying to do this without God on our side. So here this guy is calling everybody saying, hey, we got to keep God in the equation. God's an essential part of the equation. And Washington later would write and talk about the fact that he ended up leading everybody here to church. And they went to the church service and the pastor there actually preached on the. And talked about and prayed about the fact that what was happening in this room, God needed to move so that they could reach their compromises, get the constitution out so that we could become that beacon on a hill. And Washington said the attitude really changed when they came back from that, able to work through things. And then once they worked through things, several of these guys looked back on those moments in this room and they said they believed the hand of God had played a role in what happened here. Here's Franklin later. He said, I beg I may not be understood to infer that our general convention was divinely inspired when it formed the new federal constitution. Yet I must own I have so much faith in the general government of the world by providence that I can hardly conceive a transaction of such momentous importance should be suffered to pass without being influenced, guided and governed by that omnipotent, omnipresent and beneficent ruler in whom all inferior spirits live and move and have their being. So he's quoting out of Acts right there to describe what he believed happened. James Madison, father of our Constitution, he said, the real wonder is that the Constitutional Convention overcame so many difficulties and to overcome them with so much agreement was as unprecedented as it was unexpected. It is impossible for the pious man not to recognize in it a finger of that almighty hand which was so frequently extended to us in the critical stages of the revolution. So they all remembered how throughout the revolution, they saw God move and give them the advice. I mean, think about it. They were taking on the greatest military on the planet. We were about to rabble races. There was no way we could win if there hadn't been some miraculous thing happens. And he is saying, just like we saw it in the Revolution, we saw it in the Constitutional Convention. Couldn't have happened without God's hand. Alexander Hamilton, same kind of thing. He said, for my own part, I sincerely esteem the Constitution, a system which without the finger of God never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interest. And last, the man that sat in that very chair right there, President of the convention, George Washington, father of our country, he said, as to my sentiments with respect to the new Constitution, it appears to me little short of a miracle. It demonstrates as visibly the finger of providence as any possible event in the course of human affairs can ever designate it. It was miraculous, folks. I mean, the fact that these concepts that had never been put together in a governing body, a republic, never created like what they put together. They're saying it never would have happened if God hadn't inspired it. So the idea, just in summary of truths out of the Declaration, the Creator being the source of our freedom, those were important concepts from the philosophy laid down in the Declaration before they even came to the Constitution itself. And the last thing I'll comment on, what, Red had said about the pursuit of happiness. Just give you a quick example on this whole free enterprise thing for America, why these guys knew that the pursuit of happiness was important, why free enterprise was a bedrock principle of our way of life. You got to remember as students of history, they were looking back to how things first started here on this continent. You might remember Bradford tried socialism in the beginning with the Pilgrims, and actually it didn't work out so well. Now it was socialism. I mean, Karl Marx would have loved this. The way they did it was, they said, everybody's going to work. Whatever you work for and the food you grow, you're going to put it in the public storehouse, and then everybody gets to take from it as they need it. oh, and we'll all love each other, and we'll hold hands and sing Kumbaya. And it sounded great, right? But what happened? Bradford said it was terrible. It didn't work at all. He said, you know, guys like me, I would have been over there saying, hey, why should I work? I get all the food I want. I'm going to play golf. I mean, I don't think they play golf back then, but whatever you do, with the pilgrims, I'm going to go play some games. Anyway, so he said Bradford actually said people started faking being sick. They were actually faking illness. They were not working, and they were complaining. The ones that were working complained and said, hey, man, Green's over there not working. I'm feeding his family. Why didn't you? So here's what he said. He said, community of property was found to breed much confusion and discontent. So what was his solution?

What did Bradford implement that we actually, these guys here, said was so important

What did Bradford implement that we actually, these guys here, said was so important? Free enterprise and private property. Imagine that. He said, okay, everybody, you get your own property. You can grow stuff on that property, and then you can eat it or you can sell it. You can do whatever you want with it. It's totally up to you. And within two years, those guys were exporting corn instead of starving to death. Free enterprise, private property. It worked, and these guys knew it. Here's how Bradford described it afterwards. He said it made all hands very industrious, so that much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the governor or any other could devise, and saved him a great deal of trouble and gave far better satisfaction. So, in other words, that system worked. And these guys knew that. And that's why they put it in our system in the pursuit of happiness. And you look at the Korean peninsula and a satellite picture at night in the bottom half of it is lit with industry, and the top half is pitch black, dark. And you said that most of the Aryan land in that.

>> Bob McEwen: We explain that we were having dinner in the Blue House, which is the White House in Seoul, and the president made the observation. He was talking to my wife, and he said, you know, when they divided our country the 38th parallel, I said, North Korea got 75% of the arable land. We got 25% of the arable land. we got most of the mountains, and, all of the refugees. He said, they now are perhaps the poorest nation on Earth. One of the poorest. And we have the 10th largest GDP in the world. Same heritage, same culture, same language, same climate. Everything is the same except freedom and socialism. Socialism creates, creates poverty. Freedom creates abundance. And I majored in economics. And so, I was in college, they'd all say, well, why is America rich? Well, it has lots of natural resources. When they have any problems, they move further west and we're just an industrial type people. Blah, ah, blah. These other people, they're not as good, as smart as we are. They need socialism. Okay, let's just take east and West Germany at the end of World War II, divided down the middle, same heritage, culture, climate, language. When that wall came down, the GDP per capita on the west side was 17 times higher than it was on the left. And the CIA, by the way, said it was 11. When, when the wall came down and they could actually Compare, it was 17. North and South Korea, when South Korea got its independence in 1953, thanks to the leadership of Dwight Eisenhower putting an end to the war, and General MacArthur. And General MacArthur when South Korea was the third poorest nation on the planet. Third number three from the bottom. And now it's number 10 from, from the top.

>> Rick Green: I want to contribute something though, which, you know, as I study this more and I'm a student of economics informally, but the more I kind of look more broadly at this, the more I recognize and realize that, a free economy and private property are instrumental, but it's one piece. If you do not have strong and coherent families and flourishing churches, I, I think that the economics are kind of irrelevant, to be perfectly honest. And it's not to say that you should sacrifice one for the other. I think they actually work in harmony with each other. But one of the reasons why South Korea has been able to flourish is it's a very Christian country as well.

>> Bob McEwen: Post the war.

>> Rick Green: Yeah, post the war they've had a Christian, huge missionaries going in there, massive amounts of conversions, and we shouldn't, you know, I think look over that.

>> Bob McEwen: Am I allowed to do a commercial? I, I've synthesized what you just said into a formula, and that is that politics equals integrity plus economics. Those are the only two things that you vote on.

>> Rick Green: The acronym is pie. Politics is easy as pie.

>> Bob McEwen: P I E. Politics equals integrity plus economics. Now, under, under our system, with very, very high integrity, what is the standard for integrity? Spirituality. Scripture. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness.

>> Rick Green: It's declining, but yeah.

>> Bob McEwen: So the principle of that is that I look you in the Eye. And I give my word you're going to honor it. And so those principles of very high integrity and low burden of government, the greater the wealth, the lower the integrity, the thicker, the least I can trust you, the thicker the contract has to be, the more guards I have to put around the business, the more bars I have to put on the.

>> Rick Green: Lawyers you have to get, and the.

>> Bob McEwen: More check I have to do to make sure you deliver. If I have a business, in Uganda, the more guards I have to round, the more people I have to bribe to get my goods shipped at the dock, wherever it is. So the lower the integrity and the higher the burden of government, the greater the poverty. So all we do when we vote is we vote on those two things. And once you understand that principle, you can go to downtown Detroit, the richest city in the world when I was young and now the poorest city north of the Rio Grande, and you see the collapse of integrity. So everybody's put bars on their windows and, now they even want to do away with the police, et cetera, and very high taxes. And so people say, I'm not going to go there. So the population of Detroit, is now lower than it was in 1900, and there are 38,000 single family dwellings that are abandoned because people don't want to do that. So you can, if you understand that principle, you can make any rich place poor or any poor place rich. Now libertarianism says, I really don't care about these. If I want to pimp my daughter, if I want to do drugs, if I want to defecate on the sidewalk, if I want to have open borders, if I want to do, California, that is if I, but I want low taxes, therefore I'm a libertarian. Well, it doesn't work unless there is a spiritual value system. you can have a zero tax rate in Uganda or in Zaire or Congo, let's say Congo. Congo is overwhelming with natural resources, malachite, which we buy in a jewelry store around here. It's in the sidewalks of the capital city. So it has abundant natural resources, but it's very, very poor. Why? So if you had a low tax rate, it still would and prosper because it doesn't have a spiritual right and wrong value system. That's why our founders put on the wall, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt. And so when you did that, the moral law, you didn't have to have, locks.

>> Rick Green: And I think it's, we're a country with an economy in it, not an economy that happens to be in a country and prioritizing the values of what the country is in the ideals.

John Francis Mercer said the Constitution will not govern the United States

Last quote on this. One of the guys in this room, John Francis Mercer, he actually told us that this document right here is not enough, that what they were framing would not be enough to guarantee freedom. In fact, he said it's a great mistake to suppose the paper we are to propose will govern the United States. He said the Constitution will not govern the United States. Say, wait a minute. I thought we came here to study the Constitution because it's governing the United States. He said, no, it's the men whom it will bring into the government. See, it's going to set up the rules for how we choose our leaders and how they're supposed to govern. So it does set up the rules, but it's not going to govern us. It's the men who will bring into the government and the interest they have in maintaining it that will govern them. The paper will only mark out the mode and the form, kind of like that frame. Men are the substance and must do the business. What he's saying is, this document's great, but if we the people, put people in office and on the bench, they're willing to ignore it, willing to shred it, willing to distort it, willing to govern around it. It just doesn't mean anything anymore. The document govern us. The people we put into government is what governs us. Well, we are out of time again. Hate to run out of time, but, anyway, more Biblical citizenship in modern America coming in future programs. Hope you've enjoyed it. I sure enjoy bringing it to you. You've been able to learn from some great teachers here. Thanks for listening, dad. The corps. The views and opinions expressed in this. Broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of. The American Family association or American Family Radio.