Culture & Christianity: The Allen Jackson Podcast - Bold Christians Built Our Nation [Featuring Tim Barton]

Episode Date: April 27, 2024

Many think the First and Second Great Awakenings were seasons of great unity, but they were actually times of clarifying as people debated truth and morality—just as we are today. “I think we’re in the middle of an awakening right now,” Tim Barton told Pastor Allen Jackson on this podcast about how Christianity has impacted our nation’s history. Barton is the president of WallBuilders, an organization that teaches about America’s history and heroes, and Pastor Allen says he is, “one of my most trusted voices on history and our faith.” Barton offers compelling insight about American History and the important role our faith continues to play in our nation. He also discusses several resources WallBuilders created that can help us know the truth about our history so we can be prepared to share it with others.More Information about Tim Barton and WallBuilders:WallBuilders: https://wallbuilders.com/The American Story — Building the Republic: https://shop.wallbuilders.com/index.php/the-american-story-book-series.html--It’s up to us to bring God’s truth back into our culture. It may feel like an impossible assignment, but there’s much we can do. Join Pastor Allen Jackson as he discusses today’s issues from a biblical perspective. Find thought-provoking insight from Pastor Allen and his guests, equipping you to lead with your faith in your home, your school, your community, and wherever God takes you.Listen on Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/3JsyO6ysUVGOIV70xAjtcm?si=6805fe488cf64a6dListen on Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/culture-christianity-the-allen-jackson-podcast/id1729435597

Everything from COVID to what we're seeing right now with this hypersexualization of children with, I mean, right, not to go too far down that rabbit trail, but I mean, it's very obvious. When it's clear that there are people coming for the minds, the hearts, the bodies, right? I mean, where we're saying, hey, take these pills, cut certain things off. Teachers and schools saying, and we're going to keep this from your parents. And their states now saying that if parents don't support this, they're going to have their kids taken from them. if pastors don't recognize this is a wolf coming for the flock, if they're not standing up and putting themselves in front of their sheep to protect the flock. It's a false church.

Right. If you're a hireling, then it's a false church. Right. My guest today, I'm excited to have you back, Tim Barton, president of wall builders. Tim, thank you. Welcome back. A pastor, always great to be with you. Thank you.

You are one of the, for me, one of my most trusted voices on history and our faith. I earned a degree in history, but I've clearly slept through class when I read your stuff. So I'm so thankful for your courage and boldness. Well, thank you. And in your defense, I would say, even if you hadn't slept through class, which I don't think you did, obviously joking. But so much of what we get into is just things that have intentionally been left out of books for decades. Yeah. And so many generations, I mean, really, you have to go back to almost a World War II era when FDR said that you can't read the history.

of our rise in development as a nation without recognizing the place the Bible occupied in shaping the advances of the Republic where Franklin says Franklin and Ronald Roosevelt he says you can't read history and not see how the Bible impacted America and I would argue you could read nearly in history book today and it's not going to highlight how the Bible shaped America because we have gotten away from telling a more honest complete story of America and really pushing far more of the narrative driven agenda than actually learning true history. Yeah, you know, that really troubles me. And we'll come back to a minute and get wall builders a bit.

But it really bugs me that they have buried our heritage as a nation. If we did that to almost any other people group, the academics would lose their minds. You know, if you took Native Americans and made them bury their history of religion or their faith or their practices, we revere them and give them free expression of those and encourage that. But with our Christian heritage in this nation, they've tried to separate us from that. It's infuriating to me. Yes. So how do we bring that back? Well, I think part of the reason or part of the solution to the problem is recognizing the intentionality of many of those on the other side who have themselves embraced a belief in Marxism or socialism, communism, right?

Something in that genre of very closely related friends, the socialism, communism, Marxism. But for all of them, one of the underpinning foundations for those two work is you have to remove the belief in God. right? I mean, the structure of the family is close behind, right? You kind of go down. And that's not just your opinion. That's a matter of history. Correct. That has been their practice in place after place after place. Correct. Very, very open and strategically for them because they want government to take the place of God. And so if you believe in an actual God, then, you know, government's not God. But if you can remove God, then instead of my God shall supply all my needs, according to His riches and glory in Christ Jesus, it's, well, we look to the government to supply our needs.

and the government becomes our savior, right? The government becomes the one that is the solutions for us. And so it's been a very strategic and intentional thing for decades. You can go back to the early 1900s when progressives began taking over education. And this is where it is kind of fascinating, setting history, and seeing how they got their hooks in and their claws in and what their strategy was. Because if you go back to the early 1900s, you have the second industrial revolution. You have all these manufacturing facilities coming out.

And part of the thought early on was you have guys like Henry Ford, who does this assembly line. And it's brilliant, right? Because you're going to kind of minimize what people have to know, but you're going to maximize output because of it. And they're going, this is a great way to do it. But what they quickly discovered is the American education system was not producing people that were maybe the most skilled or qualified for the assembly line. And so Rockefeller, one of the major players, early 1900s, lots of money.

He starts a Rockefeller at the Educational Foundation. And the educational foundation, first one in the world, he puts a million dollars into it the first year. Then I think over the next four years, it's something like $7 million he puts into it, which that's millions back then. So that's an astronomical figure. But their goal was that they were trying to produce better workers for the factory and their stated purpose, or one of their stated objectives is that we don't want better thinkers, we want better workers for our factories. We want people that if we say, hey, just do, right, screw this, nothing bold together. They're going to do whatever they're told. But to do that, they said, okay, then we need to change the way we do education.

And so when they changed the way they did education, part of what they introduced for the first time in the 1920s were things like multiple choice, true faults, and fill in the blank. That's how I got through school. Well, I became a very good test taker, right? Because you can kind of problem solve a little bit, right? Because there's four in the multiple choice. You know, two of them already. Throw it out. And then you got a 50% chance between the two.

but what they were doing is they were going back to the authority of the teacher, and did the teacher tell you this statement, true or false? What word is missing from what the teacher told you? Everything was centered on the authority resting in the teacher, and this is where, in the educational system, academics have shown themselves to be the most intelligent, right? The most smart, the most powerful. Just trust us, we know what we're doing.

And that's carried over in a lot of ways to government, among other things. but this was an underlying ideology is we want to make people very gullible who are going to do what they're said well, in communism, socialism, Marxism, you have to be able to control the masses and if you can teach and train them to just follow orders

and do whatever they're told and this is where, not to maybe go too far off the rails, but this is just to me where it's super interesting, we've never seen better evidence of the outcome of this than if you back up to 2020 when COVID happens and I don't want to step on people

toes too much. I can just tell you from my experience, living in the country in Texas, where we have some horses, we have cows, and the suggestion was, if you put on a mask, then you're not, right, you're not going to stick. You'd be totally fine. And you can put on a mask in the country. And when you still smell, right, the manure from the cows, right, you still smell the animal. Something goes, this doesn't seem right. Right. But how many things did we see along the way where, it kept changing, the narrative changed, of what worked. what didn't work and how many you needed and what you don't need. And people just willingly followed it with very few asking questions. Now, there definitely were those asking questions and people

tried to silence them. But this is literally what they have tried to produce is a society that's just going to do whatever they're told. So when the government says that it's okay for you to go to a casino, it's okay for you to go get your alcohol, but not okay for you to go to church. And the people go, well, the government said, I guess is what it is. This is where part of the problem comes. from and it goes, I think part of the solution is going back, not just recognizing where, where this problem came from, but as Christians, going back and recognizing where does true authority come from? Because all authority comes from God. Even the authority government has. And so if God has given someone authority and that authority is telling you to do something

that's ungodly, well, at that point, you have to consider, am I a Daniel? Am I a shadow like Meshach and Abednego? Or maybe even, right, when Peter and John were told, by the Sanhedron. Don't talk in Jesus' name anymore. At some point, we have to question, do we submit to God or do we obey man? Because when we have a government structure that puts it in clearly delineated terms that you can either not forsake these so many other brethren, or you're going to be fined or penalized, to me, it's not that confusing anymore. But for so many people, we've spent more time in government schools than we have in God's word. so we've been taught to obey whatever the authority says

instead of recognizing who the true authority is. Yeah. You're my guess, so you're a little more polite than I have to be. I think the shorthand on that is when we choose to follow ungodly directions so that we can create imagined opportunities for ourselves or to avoid a consequence or to curry favor, then we invite the judgment of God. And I think that's a, unfortunately, it's a rather accurate description

of much of the contemporary church. But with your voice, and some others. I see some hope. We're off the rails. Let's stay there for a minute. You mentioned COVID and the masks. And I agree. I think it didn't take too long if you're awake to know that a bandana over your face was not going to protect you from a virus. Right. But there was some good things that came out of COVID. One of which was the children being out of schools and the parents getting to look over their shoulders and hearing what was being taught. And we realized it wasn't education, it's indoctrination. Right. That has very little to do with preparing our children to

succeed, and it had a lot to do with brainwashing them to accept the worldview that had very little to do with God. Right. Right. So I think it really brought an opportunity to us. Now we find ourselves where we have school boards protecting pornography in our schools. Right. And Christians have to find a voice.

We cannot be silent any longer. And this is where to me, again, I think if in general the Christian church were better students of the word, we would be so much more motivated to action. because the Bible does talk about if you see someone being led to the slaughter, right, you're supposed to speak up in their behalf and their defense. And it's also, we can even bring back to in John 10, where Jesus talks about that he is the good shepherd, a sheep know his voice. Well, it's interesting because he talks about the contrast of a shepherd and a higherling.

And the only distinction he makes is that the hireling, when he sees the wolf coming, will turn and flee because he doesn't, right, want to cause trouble, get in trouble, whatever, but the shepherd will put himself between the wolf and the sheep. And this is where, right, everything from COVID to what we're seeing right now

with this hyper-sexualization of children with, I mean, right, not to go too far down that rabbit trail, but, I mean, it's very obvious. Somebody better go down that rabbit trail. When it's clear that there are people coming for the minds, the hearts, the bodies,

right? I mean, where we're saying, hey, take these pills, cut certain things off. And actually even teachers in schools saying, and we're going to keep this from your parents. And there's states now saying that if parents don't support this, they're going to have their kids taken from them. If pastors don't recognize this is a wolf coming for the flock, if they're not standing up and putting themselves in front of their sheep to protect the flock, this is not my thought. But Jesus said, the hireling is the one who won't put himself in front of the sheep. And I think from... It's a false church. Right.

If you're a hireling, then it's a false church. Right. I don't care what the sign says, or if the architecture is ecclesiastical, or you sing worship choruses. If you don't protect the people from that kind of abuse, go someplace else in worship. And this is, you're exactly right. This is where people, because there are times we will challenge pastors or leaders, and we'll get pushed back.

And, well, the most important thing is Jesus, and they need to love Jesus. And I will point out, right, obviously, I want everybody to know Jesus, right? We would want everybody to have the kind of understanding and relationship that, obviously, over all the decades that you've come to know and love Jesus, we want them to have that.

But I would point out a couple important things. Jesus never told the disciples, go tell people about me. It's interesting. He said, go make disciples. because discipleship was much more than just knowing who Jesus was. You're right. It was learning to live a life reflective of who God called us to be.

Jesus even told disciples, if you love me, keep my commands. Again, that's a very big distinction between what's happening in a lot of churches where they say, right, we just want you to say a few words after us. This is the most important thing. We want you to know Jesus, right? And I have nothing against saying a few words. It's not the point, but the point is we stop so short of what we've actually been called to do. And so then when we challenge pastors to put yourself in front of your sheep to protect them

from the wolf coming and they say, well, that's not really what God's called us to do. I just have to question if you're really a shepherd or if you're holding a different position in that church. Well, I was with this week, I did a presentation with on a panel with a pastor, leading pastor, had been, had a very prominent, has a very prominent place in the culture. And he said in his congregation and the people he leads, he said the script, the gospel says that it's a message of great and truth. And he said, we lead with grace. And I guess we had a moderator and he could tell I was about to respond. And so he changed questions. But, you know, that's a very tempting message. And it's co-opted much of the contemporary church. But the book of Romans says that until the law came,

we didn't even know we were sinners. Right. So that if you have a group of people and they don't know scripture and they don't have a biblical worldview and you start with grace, you have robbed them of the awareness that we serve a holy God and a righteous God and a God of purity. So there's no sense of repentance. There's no motivation to repentance. And tragically, and that's Romans. I mean, so we've been coaching the church towards this sloppy agape that has caused the church not to be salty and not to be a light. We begin with the truth, not to condemn people. The message of the gospel is there is a way to resolve your distance from God's standards of holiness and purity. And that's not a lack of love. And that's not a lack of

that is love. Exactly. So it's really not complicated. The church is filled, we have a, I think we've been co-opted by a spirit of cowardice. We want the applause of the culture more than we want the outcome of the gospel. Now that's my opinion. I won't drag you all the way down that, but that's what I have, I have such an appreciation for what you and wall builders are doing. Yeah.

Because you're presenting the truth to our generation. Well, and to follow along those lines of pastors standing up and being the leaders, this is what is so fun about studying American history. is because, right, how did America become a nation? And actually, I think there's a few interesting correlations for where we are, because America becomes a nation after one of the most significant revivals in American history, the First Great Awakening. And during the First Great Awakening, there was a call back to God, back to righteousness, back to holiness, understanding the sovereignty of God.

George Whitfield was the one that was able to help bring unity into America because before that there were 13 colonies, nine of them had state established religions. They did not get along very well. there was a lot of dissension between them. There's persecution between different fates. And it's a little odd for us in kind of the modern America to think back then and recognize how it was. But this is the reality of how it was. George Whitfield has his incredible message, helps bring unity, even among the founding fathers. But what's so fun for us, we can go back to previous historians that have done incredible research on this. There was a professor from Duke University. Her name was Alice Baldwin.

She was there in 1930s, 40s, and 50s. She wrote a book called The New New England clergy and the American Revolution. And what she did is went through setting specific pastors from the New England area, but really how they were leading and how their leadership impacted the founding fathers. And what she identified was you can pick any issue you want from the declaration. And those pastors from early America had been talking about every one of those issues in their pulpits. Every single issue prior to 1763 had already been addressed from their pulpit. Now, why this to me is fascinating is because the conclusion you draw is when the Founding Fathers come together, they're not coming up with their own ideas. They're repeating

what they have learned from their pastors, their mentors. The reason America becomes a nation, the reason we find freedom, the people are the most stable, prosper, successful nation in the history of the world, it was a leadership of courageous pastors. And back then, not every pastor was standing up for the cause of freedom and liberty. right, arguably was less than 50%. It was a minority of the pastors. That's very true. But it was those courageous enough to stand.

And this is where to me, it's kind of fascinating. Because after you have the American Revolution, we become a nation. And then there's growth in America. And there's some stagnation. Well, starting in the late 1700s, going through about 1860, you have the second grade awakening. And the second great awakening, what people don't understand, usually when we talk about revival or the awakenings,

And so often we think about revivals as this really incredible unifying spiritual time. We're all coming together. We're unified in Christ. That is not how the Great Awakening has happened. It's all link arms and sing kumbaya. Right. No, that was a bit different. In the Second Great Awakening, in the 18, 20s, 30s, and 40s, every single major denomination in America split over the issue of slavery.

That's in the middle of the Second Great Awakening. Charles Finney, arguably the most famous leader of Second Great Awakening, it was believed that in one year alone, more than 100,000 people came to Christ under his leadership. So incredible. He starts Oberlin College. He's the founder of it. Oberlin College at that time was a Bible College. It's definitely not that anymore.

But back then, very conservative Bible College. But what's interesting is he required every student at the college to be active participants in the Underground Railroad. And here's where it's just kind of fascinating. look back today and we don't recognize how much division there was in the midst of a great awakening because we think it should be unifying. No, no, great awakenings are not are not times of unifying. They're clarifying, right? Because what happened? They debated truth and morality. See, it was a clarifying time where, and not everybody was on the same page, but God was moving, people were waking up, eyes were being open to truth and morality. I think we're in the middle of an

awakening right now, and especially going back historically, first grade awakening lasted 30 to 40 years, second grade awakening lasted 60 to 70 years. We could be 30 years into an awakening right now, not even know it. Historians might look back later, but what's happening? Are we debating truth and morality and culture? Of course we are. Are we debating what a boy and girl are? Now, that's a dumb thing to debate. I give you, but yes, we are. We're debating what human gender and sexuality are. Are we debating when life begins or the value of life? Yes, we are. We are debating truth and morality. and the culture is split over these issues. Okay.

But that's biblical. Excuse me, but it's biblical. Jesus said, I didn't come to bring unity. I came to bring division. Right. That my message will divide households and divide families. And we're watching that. And the church is so tempted to parrot something else

that we have to wrap everything in this blanket of love that says there's no boundaries and everything's okay. Right. And God forbid we be so harsh as to have an opinion that something's inappropriate. Let me back up. I know you said it, but I want to be sure everybody heard it. And if I restated it, I'm not correct, you wave a flag, okay? But that the first grade awakening created enough moral clarity that it provided the courage for the American Revolution.

Correct. No first grade awakening, no moral clarity. And there wouldn't have, because it was a minority of people that really drove the American Revolution. By far. Less than 25% of Americans actually were in favor of the revolution, but it was less than 10% that actually participated in the cause of independence. Okay. So scroll forward a bit. Second Great Awakening. Again, the church and the proclamation of Scripture provided the moral clarity for our nation to stand up against the evil of slavery.

Correct. And it wasn't a time of great unity. It was a time of tremendous division. Obviously, we had a civil war, but it divided families. It divided our nation. Big time. Is that accurate? Am I making this up? No, absolutely accurate. It is. but I think there's a disconnect sometimes for people. God was doing amazing things.

100,000 people in one year coming to Christ under Charles Finnis ministry. God was moving in incredible ways. We are seeing right now in America, God is moving in incredible ways. People are coming to Christ, all over this nation. People are being healed and delivered and set free. God is all in the move in this nation. It's incredible what God is doing. But it would be easy to look at the division and go,

oh, this is the worst there's ever been. I don't know that that's true historically. I think it's definitely been worse than it is right now, but also just because there's times of division doesn't mean that God's not on the move. And this is where I love that we can point historically to say first and second grand awakening, some of the most divided times in American history,

probably the most divided times in American history. And they were the awakenings. God was on the move. And for me, I have a lot of hope and optimism and courage. I think part of it's a default. I'm always going to be on the Joshua and Caleb side. Amen. We can see the giants in the land, but we go, hey, God's on our side.

Let's go take them right now. Let's do this. As Christians, we should be the eternal hopefulist optimists, because what's impossible for man is possible with God. God has not abandoned this nation. This is a big deal because a lot of people feel like, oh, you know, it's too late. I understand the cycle of nations. Historically, I really get it.

Nations don't usually last more than 250 years. years. And that's when they turn over because they've embraced so much sin and debauchery. And when we look at America right now and you can go, it seems like we're pretty close to doing some of that. But where America is uniquely different, and this is where Israel has been uniquely different, is other nations were not created by God or we're not created to serve God. And you go back, why did the pilgrims, why did the Puritans, why did so many people come here, they were coming here to create something to worship and serve God? That's the foundation of this nation. And so when we look back, one of the things that we read in scripture, that if God

tells the people, if everything is going wrong in your land, right, there's drought, there's pestilence, there's all these issues, if my people, right, one of the most significant revival verses people have heard of. But this had nothing to do with the heathen in the land. It was if the church, if my people who are called by my name, it really rests. The future of this nation rests on the role the church takes. And if we will get involved, if we'll be active, because it's the same thing.

You back up to the Second Great Awakening. The Second Great Awakening does not happen without the church, but I'll go further to say that slavery would not have been ended without the church. Absolutely. Because you can't name a single abolition leader who was not a Christian, a pastor, or someone very involved in a church. Pull it forward. The civil rights movement from the 60s.

Yes. The moral authority from that was Scripture. It wasn't a political initiative. And it was very divisive to the church. Big chunks of the church stayed quiet. Yes. It was not a majority opinion. It was very unpopular.

It divided our nation. The issue around abortion. We've lost 60 million children while the church has dithered and said it was political. It wasn't political. It was about the sanctity of human life. Right. We will face those 60 million children again. and we'll have to give an account to them for our ambivalence.

I could not agree with you more. Our problem is not the depravity of the wicked. It's the ambivalence of the faithful. I am so appreciative of your voice and your courage to remind the church of our heritage. You mentioned Joshua and Caleb. They weren't the majority. No.

They were a minority voice. The entire camp was against them. They pled with them to go another way. God was on their side. You could say they were a very divisive voice. you know, if they had just gone along with the rest of them, there would have been, I mean, we have to have the courage to stand in the face sometimes of overwhelming numbers. Yes.

And there will be consequences. Doesn't history tell us that? Absolutely there are. On either side, there's going to be consequences whether you stand or not. It's just what side you're going to be on when that comes down, right? Because you can be on the pro-slavery side. You can be on the anti-slavery side. You can pick a side.

And by the way, if you're sitting that fence in the middle, you've kind of already chose. goes and aside, right? If you're not going to fight for truth and justice and righteousness, if you're going to stand up and be bold, which one of the verses that I would encourage people to go review, Revelation 21-8, when it talks about, right, that there is a lake burning with fire and brimstone the second death, and the apostle John goes to the people that are going to be there. And it's a couple years ago that my dad, when we read to the Bible individually, but as a family, we've read to the Bible. I'm now 41 years old. I don't remember a time that as a kid, we weren't reading the Bible together as a family. So we've always read the Bible. But it's,

it's so phenomenal how there are times in your life where a verse can jump off the page at you. And you're like, I've never seen this before. So as COVID is unfolding, at the end of that year, my dad's in Revelation. And he, I don't remember if it was an email or text, but he's like, hey, look at this verse and tell me what you think. And it was Revelation 218. And what's, again, fascinating. The Apostle John says that those who are going to be there, he goes to the list. And he mentions the murderer and the adulterer and the sorcerer, and he goes through this list. But the first two things he says are the coward and the unfaithful, or the faithless. Now, the very first one, and depending on the translation, it says either the cowardly or the fearful. But this is fascinating because

the cowardly did nothing wrong. I mean, relatively speaking, right? They did nothing. Now, right. I mean, James says to him and knows to do good and does it not, to him at a sense. James 417. But it's fascinating that if you know what the right thing is and you don't stand up for it, then you're guilty of sin because you... But literally, when John's going through, who's going to be there? The first one he lists is not the murderer, right?

It's not the sorcerer. It's not those doing witchcraft. The first one he lists are the cowards. But equally important, the verse in front of it, the people he says that will be admitted are the overcomers. Right. Which presupposes difficulty or objections. Right. Those that overcome to the end will be saved, which means all you have to do is keep standing.

Amen, brother. You know, I talk to men especially. Excuse me. A lot of times they'll say, you know, if I stand up or if I say something, I could lose a deal. I could forfeit an opportunity. And it'll have negative consequences for my children or my family. Right. And there's honestly, there's truth in that.

For sure. All of those things can be true. What we don't think about is if we stay silent and we capitulate the evil, I assure you that will have consequences for your children and your family. And they'll be far more dire than what happens when we stand up for the truth. Absolutely. Well, and Jesus even said, what does it profit a man? To gain the whole world and forfeit a soul.

And I lose respect for men that hide behind their children. Yeah. Get out in front of them. Have the courage to own your faith. Make a better world for your children and your grandchildren. Stop hiding behind them. Be the shepherd for your children. family. What a thought. Put yourself between the wolf and those sheep that you are protecting.

Be the leader of your family. All right, Tim, you got a new book. It just came out on President's Day. Yes, sir. Tell us a little bit about it. It's called The American Story, Building the Republic. It picks up from the first volume. The first volume was the American story, The Beginnings. And we really go from, and the first book was like Columbus through the founding of America. We actually jump ahead a little bit to tell some of the abolition movement, the ending of slavery in America. Well, this is when we back up to Washington being the president. And releasing it on President's Day, that was very fitting because we covered the first seven presidents.

And all seven were involved in the American Revolution. All of them fought in the Revolution. All of them were very active in what happened. So all of them know what America's about, where we came from. But for several of them, they had very different ideas of leadership and maybe what direction our nation should go. And so we go through and just tell their story. So we reintroduce people to some of the incredible heroes and leaders in our nation.

passed. Some people that should be honored and some that, you know, maybe we should know some of these moments in their life that weren't the most glorious, that weren't the most God honoring. And we really try to follow kind of the Old Testament, even the New Testament Bible example where the Bible unapologetically tells the whole story, the good, the bad and the ugly. It's also very clear that God doesn't use perfect people, that God's only ever used imperfect people apart from Jesus, right? He uses imperfect vessels to do amazing things. And so we track that. But then we also, we also, take some of the advice from the presidents that they left to following generations about how are you successful. Washington left advice. Adams left advice. Jefferson left advice. And we go back and

point out that if we would have just followed some of their advice, we could have avoided so many problems we are now navigating today. But what's hopeful about it is that there's not a problem we're dealing with today, that there's not an evident solution for, even one suggested by our early leaders. And especially now as we're in an election season, election cycle, where we're having to navigate, who are we going to choose at the state level, at the federal level, right? At the presidential level, there's some really incredible insightful advice from the founding father. So we go through, reintroduce people to their stories, try to make it fun, highlight some really fun moments in their life, some very providential moments in their life, and then some lessons and examples from leadership

along the way. It's a great book. I love the statement. The golden thread of American history is the superintending providence of Almighty God. I wish I'd said that. You know, one of the questions in the podcast we talk about a lot is what we can do. Yes, sir. And I think your book is a hands-on something people can do. You can read that as a family. You can read it with your kids. Absolutely. You know, you teach them to love the sports teams that you like and to sing the fight songs from the schools you attended. If we fail to teach them our faith, if we fail to teach them our history, if we put that burden on the teachers, we're abandoning them to a godless generation. We can't do that. We are. We are. that the Marxists, socialists, the communists, they are trying to destroy America's history

because they can never usher in fully socialism or communism or Marxism unless we can get rid of the Constitution, unless we can get rid of the founding fathers. And they are trying as hard as they can to demonize America, to demonize our heritage. And if we don't know the truth, it's easy to believe a lie. And especially when the lie is repeated so often and so loudly, so we want to go back and say, well, let's just look at the honest history, right? The honest history is not that America is perfect, but we're certainly not guilty of the sins we're being accused of in so many respects, but also what's very clear in American history is it's a story of how God used imperfect people and did some of the most amazing things humanity's ever seen when it comes to not just what's

happened in America, but how America's been able to export some of those ideas around the world of equality of freedom, helping bring stability, prosperity around the world. We really have been blessed to live and grow up in a remarkable nation. but if we don't know that history, it's easy to buy into a lie. And if we're not careful, our kids, the rising generation are being fed this steady stream that they are being encouraged to tear down what they've been handed. And we want to preserve some of that heritage. So we have to know that history.

It's evil. So where can we get a copy of the book? Wallbuilders.com is the best place to go. Okay. You know, I'll make a suggestion on something we can do. Take Sunday and skip the ball games and the practices. Start to teach your kids. It's a day to honor the Lord.

and take a chapter of this book and read it as a family. It will be a good thing for your family. It'll be a good thing for the parents and it'll be a good thing for the kids. It wouldn't. Tim Barton, I'm so grateful for what you and wall builders are doing. Thank you. Keep up the good work.

Thank you so much. Hey, thanks for joining me today. Before you go, please like the podcast and leave a comment so more people can hear about this topic too. If you haven't yet, be sure to subscribe to Alan Jackson Ministry's YouTube channel and follow the Culture and Christianity podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Together, let's learn how to lead with our faith

and change our culture. I'll see you next time.