Live Free with Josh Howerton - You've Been LIED TO About America's History With Christianity (ft. Tim Barton) | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Episode Date: April 29, 2026

Did the Founding Fathers actually want Christianity out of government, or is that the biggest historical lie ever told? Pastor Josh Howerton sits down with Tim Barton of WallBuilders to go straight to the original documents: the Aiken Bible endorsed by Congress, Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration of Independence arguing against slavery, the prayer proclamations of John Hancock, and the letter that gave us the phrase "separation of church and state." What you were taught in school and what the primary sources actually say are two very different things. This conversation doesn't just rewrite the narrative, it goes back to the original sources to recover what was always true. From the Marxist roots of revisionist history to the founding fathers' forgotten anti-slavery legacy, this episode will challenge everything you thought you knew about America's founding. In this episode, you'll learn: Why Congress endorsed and recommended the Bible to the inhabitants of the United States What Thomas Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration actually says about slavery, and why it was removed What "separation of church and state" really meant and where the phrase actually comes from Why the founding fathers quoted the Bible more than any other source in their writings How Marxist ideology deliberately rewrote American history, and why it matters for Christians today Stand firm. Think biblically. Live free. Check out Tim & David Barton’s Book The American Story: https://a.co/d/00SL8cDf 🧢 Want a Live Free hat of your own? Visit LiveFree.shop 📲 Looking to grow deeper in your faith? Check out the Lakepointe App to access our Discipleship Guide, daily Bible reading plan, and more. Text APP to 20411 to download

What you're seeing right now is the culture war is downstream of a spiritual war. I feel like having a culture that has become more secular and even a church that is less biblical, we have forgotten our starting place, which is what Paul says in Romans is, hey, we are all sinners in need of a savior. There's none, righteous, no, not want. All of sin and comes short of the glory of God. And it's really lack of biblical perspective, but also it's because we've embraced a lot of Marxist ideology, not based on truth.

Well, hey, Liffrey Nation, before we jump into the episode, this podcast is recorded right here at Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas, but the live free nation is spread all over the country and all around the world. So if you've been watching and thinking, man, I wish I could be part of something like this, we want to invite you to take a simple next step, and that is join us for church online.

Every weekend we stream our services live on YouTube, Facebook, and our church online platform, and it's more than just watching a service. There are a live host in the chat, prayer teams ready to stand with you, and people all around the world worshiping together in real time. And so whether you're exploring the faith, coming back to church, or just looking for a place to start,

church online is a great way to jump in and experience what God is doing here at Lake Point. We would love to see you in the chat this weekend. And now, enjoy the podcast. Tim Barton, welcome to Lift Free. Thank you. Dude, this, we may top our previous one. This may be the most interesting episode we've ever done. We were talking before this.

I don't know how we're about to cover all the things that I want to cover that are going to absolutely blow your mind. mind. But we're really honored you here, man. I am so honored to be here. And yes, I've already pulled stuff off the table knowing we don't have enough time for it. There's so much to get into. This is going to be not. I've been wanting to do this, so I'm going to give you a heads up. This is, here's what we're getting ready to talk about for, for listeners. I'm going to lead into it and show you something from CNN in a second. Obviously, we're doing this thing right now that was going on this last week called America reads the Bible, political leaders in D.C. reading passages of the Bible. I read Nehemi

7 and 8. I was there. Really? You got to do it. Dang it, dude. I mentioned this beforehand. They asked me to fly over there and be a part of it, and I was in Greece this week leading a journey of Paul discipleship trip. But it was stunning. I didn't know you were a part of it.

So anyway, that has led to a freak out by a lot of, man, I'm out of breath. I just did push-ups. That's my little thing. That's why your arms look big when you come in here. Stop, dude. Stop, dude. It gets my heart rate on. It's helpful.

It led to a freak out in the media about, man, no politician should ever be reading the and you wrote, which, what this episode is going to be about. The best book, I say this to buddies all the time. I think it was the best book I've read in the last five years. I read it on vacation two and a half years ago in Gulf Shores.

Can you bring it up, Trinity? I want everybody to see this. Like legitimately, how many pages of that book? 250, maybe? 280, I don't know. And I'm not a crazy fast reader. I'm in Gulf Shores. Anytime my kids

are hanging out with Popop or they're sleeping, I couldn't put that. that thing down. I read that thing in three days. And I think I highlighted it half the book. It's one of the best books I've read in five years. I tell everybody about it now. That's what we're going to talk about because essentially what I learned is virtually everything I had been told about the relationship of the founding of our nation to the Christian faith was a lie. Yeah. And that book, using like original source quotes, we got the dagum stuff sitting on the dang table right now. We're

going to do a little show and tell, like, it deprogrammed all that stuff. So thank you for writing it. Yes. My pleasure. It was nuts. It was nuts. So that's the lead-in. I also want to brag on one of your staffers real quick. Show that picture of that kid that I met in, so I'm in DFW flying somewhere. Do you know that guy's name? I can't know his name. Eric Hanson. Okay. Yeah. And I hear some guy go from down the hall, they're like, Josh, Josh. And then I thought they were talking to him else. He goes, live free. I turn around. And it's one of your staffers. Yeah. And he wants, walks up and he explains to me what he's gotten in his hand right there is a 1612 second printing of the King James Bible that you're holding right there. This one. That's not how much that worth?

I mean, so it's always based on what somebody's going to pay but it's I mean it's over $10,000. It's probably below $50,000. So depending on the auction, it's not cheap. No, of course. So he's 1612 King James Bible and he starts talking about live free and he shows this to me. And then I was a little audacious and I was like, can I hold it? So then, you know, You know, he lets me, he's like, if you're real careful. Yeah. And so, you know, I'm there and blew my mind. But he was bragging on you.

Well, so I want to say, so he's been saved for like five years. Yeah. you said that. Yeah. So he was so excited. He texted me right after. He's like, you're never going to believe for I just met in the airport. So, bro, so grateful for what you are doing. Obviously on lots of levels, but even to help my staff, so grateful. It's awesome, man. Well, dude, I'm really, really humbled. And this is going to be amazing. We've got a couple hundred thousand dollars of, you know,

stuff up here. Correct. Listen, man, I'm just telling you, this is going to blow your mind. Like, so let me just lead into it. Trinney, don't pull up the Hillary Clinton thing yet. pull up the can you pull up that CNN screenshot so let me just let's get right at it man so this is what made me reach out to you so this last week that's a picture of uh i think trump read from uh was the second chronicles correct seven 14 yeah if my people correct if my people were called by my name so you know you got a sitting president and then a bunch of other leaders too did rubio do it i don't recall him doing it okay um but pete heggseth came uh and and spoke yeah um and so there were other people involved

That's it. So, you know, you got sitting presidents, political leaders of our nation, they're opening up a Bible reading it publicly. And you had a very expected freak out from the media. So what you got right here is CNN posts this. It's like a scare quote thing. Right. And like, hey, President Trump will participate in a public Bible reading this week as the administration continues to integrate religion, particularly Christianity, into official business. And then if you click on the article, I mean, it was like, what you would have thought that, you know, I don't know, World War III was happening and the sky was falling and the worst imaginable.

So let's lead right into it. The implication of that article, and this is why I reached out to you. The implication this article was, hey, presidents and political leaders reading the Bible in their official governing office is obviously out of bounds and obviously out of step with the historic norms of our nation. So let me just start right here. Tim Barton. Yeah.

Let's start right here. is that a deviation from how our nation was founded? Let's just go right out. No, it's a return to where we were, not very many decades to go. Not to derail because I really want to go back to a lot of historic documents, but it's worth pointing out every single president in American history said America's a Christian nation until President Barack Obama. What?

He was the very first one that said America's not a Christian nation. He went on what was known as the apology to her and said, no, we're not a Christian nation. But the reason it matters is because, Every president up until him not only said it out loud, they would do very pro-faith things from their office. So you can go back historically, and I'll go back to the founding in just a second. But when we're in the middle of World War II and our boys are going in on D-Day, the Americans don't know what's happening yet. And so FDR gets on the radio. He's going to do a fireside chat where he's telling him what's happening.

He introduced America to the invasion by saying there's an operation happening right now. and I'm going to ask you to join me in prayer. And he leads a six and a half minute prayer. And his prayer is an explanation, Lord, as our boys are right now landing in Normandy, and as they're getting off their ships and they're going in, and he walks through the operation in prayer. And by the way, then like Dwight Eisenhower,

the commander of the Allied forces, when he becomes president, two presidents later, three presidents later, whatever it is, he actually led his own prayer at his own inauguration, which no president had ever done. And I'm saying this just as an example. So when people say, president shouldn't be people offensive.

faith. Every president had some, and by the way, FDR Democrats, Dwight Eisenhower Republican-D Democrat issue, that this wasn't a Republican-Democrat issue, that this was a, hey, this is who we are as Americans. We're people of faith. Like even Bill Clinton, with all of the issues in drama he had, he still was very outspoken, promoting faith, which is now why it's a little ironic that Hillary is like, no, we can't do that kind of stuff. So even back to George Washington, when he was elected president, the first action they took after he was sworn in is they took all of the elected officials and they went to a church service. Wow.

And that was the first action they did after he was inaugurated as president. Wow. Wow. Okay. Well, let's, I don't know, man. Where are you going to take this thing? Yeah, so let me go a little further because when we talk about like- America with the Bible. And, you know, President Trump shouldn't be reading this because that's inappropriate for the government. Oh, interesting. You think that. This is the first Bible printed in English in America. It's known as the Aiken Bible. Also is the Bible the Revolution. It was printed toward the end of the American Revolution leading up to that point. We were not allowed to print Bibles in English in America. It actually goes back to the King James

Bible. The King James Bible was King James is thought of a resolution to a controversy. Now, we mentioned this is the 1612 King James Bible. It's a remarkable Bible. The reason that's a big deal is the original King James Bible was printed in 1611. So that Bible you're looking at right there was printed one year, second printing, one year after the original King James Bible, which is nuts. It's a second year printing of the King James Bible. The reason that Bible came into existence, King James was trying to resolve the conflict that had originated because of this Bible, the Geneva Bible, now the Geneva Bible was the Bible that came out after the Reformation. It's the first Bible that was mass produced in English. So it's Geneva, Switzerland,

but Wycliffe laid the foundation for Tindell built on that foundation. So this is based off of Tindel. work. But what was unique is because it was the first Bible really available in English for people to have, up to this point, before the Protestant Reformation, there's only one church as the Catholic church. So if you're a Christian, you're Catholic. That's just the way it was. The Protestants worth noting, they were all Catholic monks and priests, and they were just going, hey, that, like, what the king just said, what the Pope said, that's not what the Bible actually says. And so whether it's a Luther or Zwingli or Knox, Calvin, whoever, they were just pointing out what the Bible said.

in Geneva, Switzerland, where they did these Bibles, they said, let's take some commentary from the reformers and let's put it in the Bible. And so as you go through this Bible, for people that have been in Catholic Church, well, Catholic Church was done in Latin, the Mass was Latin, the Bible was read in Latin, and most people didn't have any idea what Latin was. Pre-Vatican too. So they didn't have any idea what was actually being said. So when this Bible comes out, they're able to read, but they're like, I have no idea what Isaiah's talking about right here. And they're like, fortunately, we'll give you some commentary on the side margins. The commentary criticized a lot of the practices of the king, which led to King James going, this is too much

controversy. So King James bans the printing of Bibles, which was the Geneva Bible, to stop the controversy that was happening. I did not know that. And it's what leads to the King James Bible coming out so that Geneva Bible gets banned. Also, any religious commentary got banned in England. So when it came out, there's a big propaganda campaign like, hey guys, don't forget God loves kings. They're like his favorites. Support your local king, like wherever it is. Because the commentary in the Geneva, they go back to pointing out like in Samuel, when Samuel comes for the people, and he's like, guys, a king is the worst idea ever. You're going to lose your son, your daughters, your property. It's a terrible idea. And so all that commentary is there criticizing some of these specific

practices as well as even the idea of kings. So King James bans it, but he bans all printing of Bible. So as British colonies are formed in the new world, we're importing all of our Bibles from England or Holland or some other friendly nation. When the American Revolution starts, we can't trade freely like we did. So now there's a question, how are we going to get our Bibles? And there was a Bible shortage. There was actually a request to Congress in 1777 to import 20,000 Bibles from Holland or some other friendly nation. Congress approved, but because circumstances of the war, they didn't bring it in. No way, let me just pause for readers, because it's like you're going so fast. I want to verbally highlight some things. So you're saying Congress approved. Correct.

The request to import 20,000 Christian Bibles. Congress approves it. Oh, correct. Okay, let's keep going. So in 1781, the guy who does all of the printing for Congress, so when they would do proclamations, he's the guy printing his name is Robert Aiken. Robert Aiken goes to him and he says, hey, we haven't been allowed to print Bibles under the king, but we've been at war with the king for a while and it looks like we might be doing our own thing. I've been working on a side project. Would it be okay if I printed a Bible? And Congress being Congress, they said, well, let's assign that to a committee. Yeah, that's got.

Let's have a committee oversee this. Everything moves to the speed of government. But what's amazing, so this is the actual Bible. There were 10,000 originally printed. There's only a couple dozen left in known existence. And that's one of them. This is one of them. That's like an actual Aiken Bible.

This is an original actual Aiken Bible. So what's incredible is literally the front of the Bible. It has the report of the committee. Then the committee chose two pastors to review the Bible to make sure it was a good translation from the Greek from the Latin Vulgate, whatever else. Wait, United States Congress appoints Christian ministers to make sure that United States Congress is printing a biblically accurate text. Or at least approving it.

Yes, they want to make sure we're not doing the wrong thing. So the two pastors come back and they go, it's a great translation. The committee comes back and reports to Congress that it's a good translation. The other side of that page, it actually has a congressional endorsement where, and I'm going to read it, and then we can maybe get some B-roll footage and blow it up so people can see it. But it says that the United States and Congress assemble, they highly approve the pious and laudable undertaking

Mr. Aiken, on it goes. It concludes, and they recommend this edition of the Bible to the inhabitants of the United States. So United States Congress is saying, we recommend this Bible to the inhabitants of the United States. United States Congress says that in their official capacity. So yes, and let me... Okay, we're going to get this a second.

I want you to keep going. When I first read this stuff, it blew my mind. because, hey, public school kid in the 90s, honestly, dude, kind of the vibe I got from education and then higher ed was like, hey, it's actually kind of a myth that our nation was founded on Christian principles and by a lot of Christians. That's really just sort of like, you know,

some people of Christians like to exaggerate, but it's actually a myth. And then I read about, like, United States Congress and they funded it, didn't they? Didn't they help fund it? So what they did is they not only approve it, they not only authorize him to print it, they put an endorsement, and then there was a side mechanism funding.

However, they did fund lots of other things, including missionaries to the natives, et cetera. But what's from- They funded missionaries. Oh, yeah. Again, I'm verbally highlighting things because I read all this in your book, and it like, no joke, man. I'm like yelling in my condo in Gulf Shores, Jenna, get in here. You got to read, Congress paid for Christian missionaries to reach the Indian, you know.

So here's what's crazy about this one. And the actual records of Congress, when Robert. Robert Reagan goes to make the appeal, part of what he says is, we have such a Bible shortage that our kids don't have enough Bibles for their schools, for education. And the Bible was viewed as the number one textbook students used in school. And so his appeal, literally, when Congress approves, endorses, and authorizes him to do this, it's not just that we have Bibles in America. Literally, it was to approve the request that we'd have more Bibles for kids in school to be able

to read the Bible. Jeez. Oh, my gosh. dude it's like okay nuts yeah okay keep keep going so the reason and i i want to do a deeper dive on some of this but let me let me start with this because what we are saying i appreciate that most people are like i i'm not sure that's right like that's not what i've heard oh and i know it's not so this is a a book done before you go into this i'm just going to agree with what you said obviously i'll be i'll confess my sin to you the first time i've ever heard about what you and your

dad did i for real had this like i roll cringe moment where i was like oh they're one of those. They're one of those people who go with a little myth that, you know, the whole nation was found about. And that was like for years. And then I read your book and it's all original source quotes and actual things that took place. And it deprogrammed everything that I felt like I'd picked up in my education. So you keep going. So let me give a thought.

No, you keep going. We'll get there. So let me give a thought along those lines. We, years ago when my dad was starting some of his writing, there was an attorney for, for the ACLU, which basically is like the anti-Christian league. That's how it functions. Correct. They, yes, not to digress, but he saw some of my dad's writings and he said, hey, I just

want you to know, I'm going to go through. And you saw from our book, we have more than a thousand footnotes in the back of the American story. Oh, it's nuts, dude. So like, literally, everything we're going to say today, I would encourage everybody. Like, please don't take my word for any of this. Like, be a Berean, like, to the Apostle Paul, like, I'm not sure. Let's look this up.

and then recognize, oh, that's why I'm saying it. So this guy said, I just want you to know, I'm an attorney. I think everything you do is reprehensible. I think it's awful. And I'm going to go through everything you've done, and I'm going to show why you're wrong on all of them. And it was my dad's book original intent. There's 1,400 footnotes. It took this through like a year and a half, two years.

And he reaches back out and says, okay, I want you to know a couple of things. First of all, that I only have one criticism and that it's you significantly understated your case. What? He said when I went back. Dude from the ACLU. Correct. Oh, it gets better. He said, when I went back and reviewed all of the original documents, he said, I realized

there was even more in them than you said. And he says, second thing is, as I was studying this, I was so challenged, I actually became a Christian. No way, dude. And he then left the ACLU. He then started working for a religious liberty law firm. He now was a federal judge in Louisiana. Are you kidding me?

Correct. Go team Jesus. So let's go like a layer deeper on this. So Charles Finney, the most famous evangelist in Second Great Awakening. Charles Finney was largely considered to be an atheist. He goes to law school. Yeah. I never heard that for.

He goes to law school. While he's in law school, he's reading all of the law books learning American law. And every single law he's finding goes back and cite something from Exodus or Deuteronomy. He says, I had to read so much. of the Bible and studying American law, that's what actually led him to convert to Christianity. Are you kidding? I've never heard that in my whole life. Because of how much Bible there was in the foundation of even law in America. Okay. Now, so all of this is like basic foundation. So the modern narrative is like, no, like Josh, the founding fathers, we know they weren't Christians.

They were atheists or agnostics or deist. And so this book is done by two professors at Cornell University. It's called the Godless Constitution. Yeah, real quick. So I'm going to, I apologize for interrupting. You're like a dang computer. so you know, you're smarter than me, so I have to bite-size this. So here's what I'm going to do for listeners in next few minutes. Basically, what I'm going to ask this got to do is deprogram everything that I learned in high school. Okay.

So I'm going to ask you, here's the vibe that I picked up in high school. Number one, it's really actually a myth that our nation was founded on Christian principles by largely Christian men. They're really just all deists and Christians like to exaggerate. That was kind of the vibe I picked up. Number two, again, they were almost all deists. They weren't really Christians. Right.

Jefferson, Franklin. Washington, all deists, you know, they didn't view Christianity or the Bible positively in any way. Even if some were, this is what we're going to do in the next few minutes for listeners. Even if some of them were Christians, they kept their Christianity out politics. These are kind of the vibe I got in my education. Number four, separation church and state means that it's wrong and the establishment clause, which I'll explain what that is for listeners in a second. Separation, church, and state, and the establishment clause means that it's actually wrong to legislate from a Christian perspective.

They never would have done that. and they would be appalled if somebody thought about that now. Next one, America's original sin was obviously slavery and racism. They were all virulent racists who intentionally tried to found a nation on the backs of slaves. And all of them were that. And well, there's some more. But that's primarily where we're going. So anyway, I interrupted you.

You were talking about, you were kind of calling like, hey, Josh, here's why you got that vibe when you were in high school. So you pick it up where you were. So, and let me back up a hair to give even more context, because one of the things that you have done such a great job is helping people recognize that there's a spiritual, cultural battle happening around us. And that includes, there's a big push for a lot of Marxist ideology. And then ideology, Mark's taught there's only two categories of people. It's the oppressed and the oppressor. Mark's actually taught that sometimes you have to teach people they are oppressed and then encourage them to rise up against their oppressor. So we're seeing all this unfold around us, which by way of background.

that entered America at the beginning of World War II because when Hitler comes to power, the Frankfurt School in Germany is the first one that Marxism was really taught. They were bad dudes. Disciples of Marxism was bad dudes. Big time. Well, Hitler comes to power and he's like, those guys are awful. The socialists thought the Marxists were way more dangerous. And so Hitler says, you all have to leave.

He drives the entire wing of Frankfurt school, this Marxist teaching, he drives them out of Germany, where do they go? They come to America. They open a wing in Columbia University. Really? So that is where Marxism officially academically enters into America. It's taught at Columbia. And part of the background of Marx is not only do you have to sometimes teach people that are oppressed, there's only two categories of people. One of the things ultimately is there's also a lot of secularism in the midst of that. And so a lot of things that you know and already taught about. The reason I say it is because you can go back to the 1960s and track, I mean, just like on a graph, check the boxes. The founding fathers have been villainized and demonized since the 1960s,

no question. That was totally the vibe I got. And by the way, you know, you don't know me at time. I didn't grow up going to public school in like Portland. I grew up going to public school in Kentucky. Yeah. Like moderately conservative Kentucky. And that was still generally the vibe that I would get from regular media and that kind of thing. These guys were bad dudes. They were, you know, all the things. So in the 60s and 70s, the narrative was that they were sexually immoral. they had affairs, illegitement children. They were hooking up. Jefferson. Right, among many.

But yes, Jefferson's certainly one of them. When you get the 80s and 90s, the leading accusations, they really weren't religious. They were atheists, agnostic, deist, separation of church and state. That's the vibe I started. It became a really big deal. And then from the 2000s to present, the narrative is they're all these racist, bigoted slaveholders. Yep, that's the vibe. Right?

So, but the reason I'm pointing this out is there's been a concertive effort for 60 to 70 years. Why? Because the Marxists were smart enough to know. we can't change the system when there's a constitution and bill of rights based on the declaration and the principles it laid out. But if we can demonize the guys that did it, then we can say, well, then that's fruit of the poisonous tree. And therefore, we have to get rid of the Constitution Bill of Rights. We can't base it on the declaration because it was racist and all these other things. And I'm saying it because one of the things you talk about a lot,

if you don't know you're in a propaganda war, right? You get susceptible to it. Most Americans have not realized we've been in a propaganda. Gander War for the birth and the soul of our nation in a lot of ways. And this is not to say, like also full disclaimer, this is not to say the founding fathers were not men that had sin in need of a savior. But it's worth pointing out because the modern narrative of his day is like, no, no, no, well, we find out there are sin and we cancel them. And it's like, guys, read your Bible for half a second. For certain sense. Correct. And there's no doubt about it. But the thing that I feel like having a culture that has become more secular, and even a church that is less biblical,

we have forgotten our starting place, which is what Paul says in Romans is, hey, we are all sinners in need of a Savior. There's none, righteous, no, not want. All of sin and comes short the glory of God. So my starting place was George Washington is not that he was perfect. My starting place is that dude was a sinner in desperate need of a Savior. But why does it matter? Because you're not going to show me him having a fleshly moment. And I'm going to be like, I didn't know me at a flesh, right? I'm like, with that, that's Jesus came because none of us are going to be good enough ever. And we all are in need of a Savior, but also why it matters is because if you look at our heroes of the Bible, King David, the reason we celebrate the story of King David

is not because he didn't have major sins and flaws in his life. It's because we recognize how God used to him in spite of his major flaws in sin in his life. And this is what we used to do with the founding fathers. George Washington was the father of the nation, not because he didn't have flaws, but because we recognize God used this guy in so remarkable ways. Had it not been for George Washington, we don't win the American Revolution. Had it not been for George Washington, and we don't make it to the Constitution Convention. George Washington is a guy the only president ever elected unanimously by the Electoral College. And then he actually doesn't want to run for a third office because he wanted to, in his lifetime,

have a peaceful transfer of power, which was something that had not been done in any of their lifetimes. Never been done in human history, if I understand it correctly. Not the way they were doing it. The first time ever. And so people look back and go, dude, that guy was one of the best among us. But today we're like, no, he had some sins. We got to cancel them for whatever those sins. might be. And it's a really lack of biblical perspective, but also it's because we've embraced a lot of

Marxist ideology, not based on truth. Yeah, let me say two things. And I want you to keep showing me what you're getting ready to show me. Like for listeners, I didn't know we're going to talk about Marxism, but this is a big deal. So two things that people need understand about, you know, Marxism and how it's related to American culture right now. First of all, what you're seeing right now is the culture war is downstream of a spiritual war. And that's a lot of people like, ah, Christians should stay out of the culture war. Well, man, if it's downstream of a spiritual war, then that's actually what you're called too, not away from. Obviously, do it in incorrect ways and with appropriate proportionality.

But the big deal that Marxism, which, by the way, critical theory in Marxism, that's the same family is Christianity, it's Christian theology versus critical theory in our culture right now. And Christian theology divides the world between, it's a sin, righteousness dividing line. Critical theory does not divide the world by, it's not a sin, righteousness dividing line. it's an oppressed oppressor dividing line. Those are two radically different dividing lines. And here's why it becomes such a big deal. By the way, this is why there's a disproportionate amount of political violence that comes

from primarily secular progressivism. Because if I believe that you're just mistaken, well, then I can reason with you. But if I view the entire world through the lens of oppressed oppressor, I don't think you're mistaken. I believe you're evil. And if I believe that you're evil, I begin to feel a moral obligation to stop you and oppose you. So that's number one. I think people need to internalize that reality. It's Christian theology versus critical theory as a war of worldviews.

The other thing that I'm pointing out, and if you disagree with me and I hurt my feelings one bit, whenever people ask me about, man, why is there such like an aggressive attempt to do revisionist history? I always go back to the same little axiom is rewrite the past to control the future. That's really the axiom. Rewrite the past to control the future. if I cast all the people who founded our nation as evil, wicked men, well, then now, by rewriting the past, I'm controlling the future, and we need to reject whatever principles that they injected into our culture.

Right. So rewrite the past, why? In order to control the future. It's exactly what George Orwell wrote in 1984. He said, whoever controls the past controls the present, whoever controls the present controls the future. I didn't know that. I never heard that before. So that's what he, and he was explaining it obviously this dystopian novel,

which feels way too real where we are now for those that have read it. But you're exactly right. If you are in the powers and structure of control where you control the narrative, the narrative will be the rudder of the ship that determines what direction we go in the future. And so what evil needs to be stopped? Is it the evil of sin and we need a savior? Or is it the evil of the oppressor that has to be overthrown. Yeah. Wow. Okay.

So, all right. Totally agree. All right. Well, so let's go back. The reason so many people have bought into this modern narrative, which again, and it's largely Marxist propaganda, among other things. There are books like this. So this is written by two professors at Cornell University called the godless constitution.

Their whole premise is founding fathers, first of all, they really weren't religious, and they really didn't want religion in government. They go through this entire book laying out their case. And I can tell you, I have to read a lot of dumb things for work. Okay, that's amazing. This is one of the dumbest things I've ever read. And I say that with confidence. All right.

It was painfully dumb. because they make all of these claims and they have things in quotation marks. And usually, like, if you ever write a paper, you have something in quotation marks, you need to say who actually said that or, like, where that's from. So if you go to the back of the book

where you should have your footnotes, there's a note on sources. Okay. Can you see that? Hold it up. Can you see it? Hold it. Stretch it out of there.

Let's see it. Okay. So it's out of focus. All right. It says a note on sources. Do you want to read it for him? Yeah, sure. What do you want me to read?

Just that beginning paragraph. All right. Because we have intended the book, to reach a general audience and also because the material we have cited is for the most part familiar to historians and political scientists. We have just, bro! What? We have dispensed with the usually scholarly apparatus of footnotes. Okay, hard pause, hard pause.

Are you kidding? These are two college professors who wrote a history book and did not include a footnote in it. So essentially, this is an academic way of saying source. trust me, bro. A hundred percent. That's what that is. Are you kidding? Do you want me to keep reading?

So they're using this to teach college students. Our founding had nothing to do with Christian principles. And the sources are, trust me, bro. It is still taught in Ivy League universities that's used in law schools. Are you kidding me? That is still a significantly utilized textbook. And so here's what's crazy.

So this is about the Constitution. The Constitution was written in the 1700s. Right. Right. So they actually do go on to say there are some books we would recommend you to read if you want to know more about this. Well, that's fair, except what books they recommend. Don't worry about the titles. Look, it'll be on this page, the next page.

Look and see what are the dates of the book they recommend. Remember, the Constitution was written in the 1700s. So if you want to know about that, you probably need books written close to that time to really get an idea. All your footnotes are original sources for 1700s. Right, 1800s, et cetera, yes. All right, you just want me to read the dates? Yeah, just the dates. This is hilarious.

1990, 1989, 1984, 1988, 1981, 1967, 1965, 1975,

1987, 1988, 1987, 1988, 1988, Holy Moses, 1998. Holy Moses!

They don't have a single source from before the 1950s. Whoa. And they're like, guys, we know that the founding fathers never wanted God to be a part of it. We know that.

And, well, You can't side it, but just trust, and by the way, read our other college professor friends who wrote books, and then you'll learn. That's insane. So this is still being used in some, like, in an Ivy League school. Correct. That's nuts. So let me offer contrast.

So there was a professor decades ago who wrote a book called The Origins of American Constitutionalism. His goal was to go back and go through decades of the founders' writings. And what he wanted to do is see, where did they come up with their ideas? and if we can see where they got their ideas, then we'll really understand who their influences were. So he goes through this entire book laying out all of these thoughts. And ultimately, he finds his parameter for the research study is, I'm looking for things in quotation marks, and I'm going to look up who they quoted, and I'm going to make this chart, this graph, to see who they quoted.

And that's what he does here. Now, this is one of his final graphs where he points out these are the most quoted individual. So it's guys like Moniskew and Blackstone and John Locke. Most quoted in what again? In their writing. So in their letters. The writings of the founders of the fathers. Correct.

Good clarification. But here's what's interesting. He breaks him in a category. So he says here's the most quoted individuals. The most quoted source, what's a top one on that list? And look all the way to the right to get your percentage of that chart. This is crazy. The Bible.

The Bible? The Bible. 34% of all of the quotes he found in their writings came from the Bible. Bible. Here's what's more interesting about it, though. So the whole book, he goes to explaining how this process, what he did. And this took him nearly 20 years to go because he was going through such an expansive volume. Is this dude a Christian? He was not when he wrote this. And he's not. That's insane. And he's, okay, so here's how it goes, it goes Bible. So this is 34% of all quotes in their writings. Yes, everything they found from the Bible. So it goes Bible. And then it, dude, and then it groups together literally the entire Enlightenment. And that comes in second at 19%. I won't go through the rest. Whig, common law, classical, other Bible top. Well, what's worth noting, too, is like, even in the Enlightenment,

there were Christian Enlightenment writers. So, like, Montesquieu was a Christian writer, Blackstone Christian writer, John Locke Christian writer. So the three most quoted Enlightenment thinkers were all Christian writers influencing it. But the reason I pointed out is that this is considered one of the most academically, historically, historically correct studies of their writings,

never been refuted. So the idea that they didn't believe in God didn't want God, and the thing they quote the most in their writings is the Bible, and it's not even close. What's even better about this is Donald said that because they had to have parameters like the box around their steady, he said the parameter was quotation marks. He said when we were reading their letters,

they referenced the Bible so much that wasn't in quotation marks. Had we included all the obvious references, the number would have been far higher than 34%. And I would contend it's actually well over 40%, probably over 50% when you actually read and say to the right. writings. But why it matters is because today we're told, no, they were secular. They didn't believe in God, didn't believe in the Bible. They were deists. That's what I kind of got the Bible. Oh, they were all deists. So this is a book called the New England clergy in the American

Revolution. It was written by a lady named Alice Baldwin. She started the woman's program. Not to be confused with Alec Baldwin. Correct. She started the woman's program. You don't think I'm funny at all. I'm not funny. I'm not funny. I gave a charity laugh. I thought like that was good. Thank you. Thank you, Tim. You keep going. So, um, she started the woman's program at Duke University, but she wrote a book highlighting what she identifies as the most significant influence on the founding father, and it was their pastors. Now, the book is 170 pages. People can get online and still find it and read it. And I would highly recommend you do, but if you get online and read it, if you don't have time to do the whole thing, just go to the conclusion. Um, the conclusion is only five pages. Okay. Okay.

conclusion's super easy but she's going to wrap all the thoughts together um okay right here yeah at the bottom of that middle paragraph there's a sentence starts there there is not help me okay right here um there it is i see it you want me read that sentence read that sentence there is not a right asserted in the declaration of independence which had not been discussed by the new england clergy brother's insane before 1763 okay pause right there she actually actually in her conclusion, what she just said is that the pastors are the ones that actually first came up with all of their rights identified the declaration. Her entire book goes on to point out, the founding fathers didn't have a single unique idea. It was the things they'd been hearing

from their pastors for decades building up to that moment. Now, here's why these two books are a great contrast to this one. The number one quoted source in their writings was the Bible. The most influential voice in their life was their pastors. Wow. And today we think they were secular. Wow. You can only think that if you have never studied or read their writings. You got deprogrammed. Correct. So let me go a little further.

Okay. So John Hancock, and this is big and awkward. So good job, team and Trinity for making this happen. That's right. Shout out of Trinity. So I'm trying to get the glare off of it wherever it is. Okay, closer to me. There we go.

We'll be rolling and see if we can put it up. Perfect. So this is a John Hancock, this is a prayer proclamation. It's for right underneath here. It says for fasting, humiliation, and prayer. and he actually had 22 prayer proclamations he did as governor. Most people know his famous signature. They have no idea he was an outspoken Christian.

Okay, let's go a little further. So in this time of calling people to prayer and fasting, the opening thing he wants them to pray for, he says, calling upon ministers and people of every denomination to humble themselves under the mighty hand of God by a penitent confession of their sins and to implore his forgiveness

through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. The first thing he says we need to pray for is that if you haven't been forgiven, you need to repent, be forgiven to your sins, but then that everybody who doesn't know Jesus personally would come to the saving knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He prayed for that. He issued a proclamation. Twenty-two proclamations he issued. Wow. 22 of them. In fact, we own over 700 original ones at Wall Builders. So this is one of the original ones we own. by 1815, there had been more than 1,400 issued by the government by governors, by presidents, or by Congress itself. Say that one more time. That is a stunning statistic. By 1815, there were more than 1,400 official government-issued prayer proclamations

done by governors, by presidents, or by Congress. And what's also worth noting, John Hancock was a signer of the declaration. president of congressmen it all unfolds, but every single guy to sign the declaration, every single one that went on to be governor, issued prayer proclamations. Wow. Okay. So here's what's worth noting.

When people are like, wait a second, we can't have religion in government. They actually viewed it the exact opposite. They understood that without God's intervention, we will never succeed in what we were doing. And so one of the things you said, like let's unfold and unpack for the listeners in a minute was, like the separation of church and state and the establishment clause.

Can I set this up? Please. Yeah, let me, okay, so I want a devil's advocate of the thing. Let's do it. All right, so like, but Tim, I'm going to do two. But Tim, let's do, let's take it one by one. Let's talk separation of church and state. And then let's talk establishment clause. Actually, let's do establishment clause first, because honestly, I think that's the harder one. Sure. I'm interested. We haven't talked about this. So the establishment clause, obviously, it's in the First Amendment. I'm going to read the specific part of the Establishment clause in the First Amendment that makes people say, but Tim, they obviously, in. intended the opposite of what you're saying for there not to be any Christian influence officially in the government. And here's how it reads, just the pertinent part. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. Right there, Tim. Yeah. First Amendment. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. What say you, Tim, Barton? So it is absolutely true. And I support that, but there's context you have to know in the midst of it. So one of

there was an 1898 Supreme Court case. It was the United States versus the Church of the Holy Trinity. And there was actually an immigration shutdown that America said, we're not doing immigration right now. Like hard pause on this. Interesting thought right now. But hard pause on immigration. And there was a church and they said, we need a new pastor. And he's over in Europe. And you're saying we cannot bring anybody into work in America right now. So the case goes all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. And one of the things they said, and the reason I bring it up, in that case, they gave a really great measurement tool. They explained... What was the name of the case?

It's the United States versus the Church of the Holy Trinity. It's 18. Oh, I said 19. 1892, I think it's when it is 1892. Yeah. And one of the things they said in the case is that if you want to understand why the First Amendment was written, because they were arguing this violates our free expression of religion because by not letting us have our pastor, we can't freely practice our religion. And so the Supreme Court said, if you want to understand a law, this is their quote, you must first understand the evil that was intended to be remedied by that law.

Okay. Meaning what problem were they trying to solve? Okay. So let's back up. So when America's being formed, it's immigrants largely coming from Europe more than anything else. But the majority of them are escaping religious persecution because you have, for example, the Anglicans in England. If you weren't Anglican, you didn't have the freedom of religion. Really quick.

For listeners, you need to lean in really close right here to what Tim's about to say. this what he's getting ready to explain know where you're gone what he's getting ready to explain explains both the establishment clause and gives context to what the original intention of separation church and state means and does not mean and it's a linchpin upon which a lot of these arguments resolve

so you keep going everybody lean in this is really important so what problem they turn us off in england the church of england is anglican and they actually had laws that you couldn't meet you couldn't have a home bible study there's more than four people and it's not being led by an Anglican priest or bishop, you can actually be arrested and go to jail, which is how William Penn and other noted leaders in early America

got actually in prison, et cetera. Well, you can go to Germany. Germany, they said we're all going to be Lutheran, right? Because that's our guy, Martin Luther. In Italy, they were Catholic. And so the people coming to America are escaping a place where they were told you can only do this establishment of religion. That's right.

And so when they came here. Because they're formal state churches. So this is important because it's also going to get to actually, in retrospect, we shoot it on Separation Church and State first, because this is also going to explain what is meant by Separation Church and State. So when Tim's talking about, they had formal established religions. What he's saying is that there was really no organizational separation in the leadership structures of the church and the state. The state recognized a formal, typically, denomination, as the official religion of that nation. So you would have a Presbyterian nation or a Congregationalist. I don't know if these are examples, but a Catholic nation or that kind of thing. And there was, the leadership structure of the church was embedded and enmeshed and intertwined with the leadership structure of the government. Yes. So that's what Tim means when he says they had a formal, quote, establishment of religion. You keep going.

I keep interrupting. And the government actually was able to pass laws and doctrines. Like, how did the England church start in the first place? Because King Henry VIII, he really wanted a son and his wife kept giving him daughters. And he's like, what's wrong with this woman? How do I divorce her? Like biology, by the way, bro, that's your, that's on you, right? That's not her.

That's your problem. But he wants a divorce. Wear boxers. Keep going. Live free. Oh, that was amazing. Keep going. So he goes to the Pope.

Amazing. All right. We deep breath. He tells the Pope, I want a divorce. And the Pope's like, you don't arbitrarily, like, we don't do these divorces for these non-biblical reasons. And he gets offended. And he says, and I'm not going to be Catholic anymore.

And he starts the Anglican Church. And he actually says, as head of the Anglican Church, I will grant myself a divorce. And then he starts changing things he didn't like about the Catholic Church. And then actually Parliament in England, they're Congress. They start passing laws on what is legal and not legal in their official church in England. So this is not pastors reading the Bible saying, we're going to do what the Bible says based on our interpretation of the Bible. This is literally the government saying that we are going to tell you how you, which, I mean, this shouldn't be confusing for any American.

Like we would never let President Trump say, hey, as Christians, you have to do it this way. but like, bro. No. Who are you even? Right. But we support a separation of church and state, but this was significant and kind of what we're alluding to. We support in a separation of institutions, not a secularization of institutions.

That's really good. Right? Because God made different institutions, but God was over both of them. So just because we recognize they're separate, we don't believe they're secular and none of the founding fathers did either. By the way, I'll just interject. I cover this more on the Tucker Carlson React episode. It was like a week and a half ago.

So if you want to hear more about it, go hit that. But the concept of separation to church and state is an explicitly biblical concept. So if you go back to how God designed the Old Testament government structure in Israel, you go to Deuteronomy. I think it's Deuteronomy 17 and Deuteronomy 18. I might be getting the chapters wrong. But he specifically sets up two separate, essentially systems of governance. And there's a spiritual leadership that's under Aaron. So it's Aaron and the priesthood.

And that's one, there's your spiritual leadership. And then he sets up an entire separate, I'm going to emphasize that word, a separate. separate system of governance for civil, for civil leadership. And that's Moses and the judges. So this, the concept of separation church and state is not anti-biblical. It's actually derived from a biblical concept. And to add one layer onto that, the Bible gives further examples, because King Uzziah was, was the guy that, the Bible tells us God gave him inventions of war. God gave him victory. And actually, he's coming back one day from a victory. And he wanted to go by the temple. He wanted to offer incense to thank God for victory, right? The priest's

him is like, sir, how can I help you? He says, I'm going into operandius. And he says, sir, you can't go in there. Right. Which obviously people that know the Bible, there was all kinds of reasons and the priest had to go through cleanliness and whatever. And so he tells them, like, sir, that's not your job. And the king basically says, I'm the king.

You're not going to tell me no. And he goes in there. The Bible says that God struck him with leprosy. He turned and fled a leper. He ends up dying of leprosy. God made it pretty clear that you have now violated the institutional separation. God had just given him victory in war. God was not anti this guy.

But when you stepped out of your lane and stepped over to do something that God had clearly made separate from you, that was a problem in God's eyes and God showed it biblically in scripture. So the Bible supports a separation, but not a secularization. Well, hey, Lake Point family, baptism weekend here at Lake Point is coming up on May 2nd and 3rd. And if you're part of our church family here in any of our DFW physical locations and you have not yet taken that step of baptism, Hey, we would love to invite you to do so. Text the word life to 20411 to sign up today. And by the way, if you're not within driving distance of any of our physical locations,

we would love to encourage you to get plugged into a local Bible-believing Jesus-loving church and take that step of baptism with a local community as well. Also, you're welcome to join us for church online to celebrate those getting baptized here at Lake Point on May 2nd and 3rd as well. And now, back to the podcast. Okay. Now, let me take you back to where we started, where I derailed you, is you were talking about, I'm actually looking at it right now. So if you want me to read it, I can read it. The Supreme Court ruling in 1892, Church of the Holy Trinity versus United States. You keep going. We haven't told them what happened there yet. But the reason I bring it up is when they were trying to decipher, how do we determine, like, can immigration violate the First Amendment? Can immigration law, if they're bringing in for religion? And this is where they said that the way we have to interpret the First Amendment is determine. the evil that was intended to be remedied. So that's the big thing. So the way we read the First Amendment, which includes the Establishment Clause, is what evil were they trying to remedy? So when we

come to America, it's people that were escaping a state-controlled, a government-controlled church. And so when the Founding Fathers come together, actually nine of the original 13 colonies had state-established religions. A lot of people do not know that, yep. It's written into their state constitutions. Correct. Yeah, you said nine of the 13? And technically there were two more that were pretty stinging close to that, but didn't quite cross the line, but we're like had a lot of religious requirements, not to digress too much on that, but the reason it matters is when the founding father's right that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, it wasn't establishment like, well, whether it's Hindu or the Buddhist or the Muslims or the

Christians, I don't know, it's literally saying in our nation where we've already acknowledged there's a God and our rights come from him and government's main job, respect those rights, we lay that in the declaration, they're saying we're not going to pick and say, everybody's got to be a Presbyterian or a Catholic or a Baptist or a Methodist, that no, we're not going to have an establishment of religion and we're not going to let the government tell people they can't freely worship because that's what happened in Europe that led all of their fathers and grandparents and great-grandparents to come to the new world in the first place. They were solving a problem they had in Europe. But if we read that with a modern lens, a modern eye and don't understand the historic context, and we go, oh, well, clearly you can't have Christian in America, which contradicts virtually everything the founding fathers believe. and built intentionally when the founding father said John Adams' most famous letter was in this regard, not his most famous letter, but one of my favorite letters in this regard, he wrote a letter to the

militia of Massachusetts in 1898. And I try to give some details on all these so people can go look it up if they want to. It's like five paragraphs. It's not very hard to find. And the most famous line from that is where he says, our constitution was made only for a moral and a religious people. It is wholly and adequate to the government of any other. And the basic premise is because in America we believe in giving freedom to people, but freedom only works if you have immoral people, because you give freedom to immoral people. It's like Chicago on a bad weekend, right? It's not good. And so they said, you have to have religion and morality. Well, first of all, they're not anti-religion if you're saying we have to have religion, number one. But number two, again, this is not ambiguous religion.

They're actually very specific. It was the religion of Christianity. When he says religion and morality, the morality was the morals of Jesus from the Bible, and including the Ten Commandments, because they write all of these. So if you read their writings, what they're saying, over and over is our nation won't work without Christianity in the Bible, that this whole experiment is going to go by the wayside if we don't do that. And so everything they built was directed that way, which is also why when the founding fathers were in charge, in 1777, these are original New England primers. These were the first textbooks, the first readers printed in America. They were first done in 1690, used all the way through the early 1900s in public

school in America. So if you went to school, that this is your first grade textbook. That's what these are. Hold those up so they can see them real good. Yeah. So these are New England Primers. These are first grade textbooks. When are those?

When were those specific ones printed? This one I think is 1790. This one I think is like 1812, 1818. That's awesome. So I can look in the front of them and see. But the reason it matters is because as you go through these, there is so much overwhelmingly Christian content in them. Oh, it's stupid.

You were showing me this beforehand. Do the thing you showed me that blew my mind. So, well, let me do one that I didn't show you. That way it's a cold read for you. This is the very first ever question and answer. So I'm just going to show you. Actually, not you. I'm going to show everybody else online.

Josh, don't look at the screen. You're cheating. My bad, my man. Oh, my gosh. Okay. So this is the first Q&A in the entire book. Now, they've had to learn some things up to this. And as I showed you, extremely religious.

This is the first question and answer. Here's the first question. Who was the first man? Yeah, Adam. Adam, yeah, that's correct, Adam. Who was the first woman? Eve. Who was the first murderer?

Kane. Who was the first martyr? First one killed. Abel? Yeah. Who was the first translated? Let me back you up. He walked with God and was no more because God took him.

Enoch. Yeah. Who was the oldest man? Methuselah. Who built the ark? Noah. Who is the most faithful man? He was called the friend of God.

Abraham? Yeah, Abraham. Who was the meekest man, wrote it about himself. Moses. It was interesting, right? who was or who wrestled with the angel of God Jacob who let it I don't like getting quizzed online

I just want to tell you 100% I apologize but that's the first Q&A in this book dude this is what they were teaching in schools they used in the school system and the book finishes every kid had to go through this the very end of this book is Westminster Shorter

Catechism which is more than 100 questions on faith and theology by the way for the people who don't know the Westminster Shorter Catechism was created by the Presbyterian Church. This is like explicit, when he says, like, this is explicitly Christian theology. 100%. So, but again, the reason it matters is the New England. This is what every kid, rose up until about when, using as their textbook in their school system.

So this was the first grade textbook from 1690 all the way through the early 1900s in American public schools. I just want to pause and stop and think about how different your nation. up if that's what every kid in the United States grows up inundated with. Correct. From the time they walk into a school. So John Hancock was the governor of Massachusetts. He reprinted one of these in Massachusetts. Noah Webster, the guy that gave us a dictionary.

He had one reprinted in Connecticut. Benjamin Franklin, who became the president of Pennsylvania. That's what they called the early governor. He reprinted in Pennsylvania. So these are literal founding fathers, noted names, founding fathers. In their governing roles. Correct. that as governing leaders actually had religious material printed for their students because they knew without religion and morality, this experiment will never work.

I'm going to throw an objection at you. Tim. Hey Tim, but I've got it right in front of me. I'm going to do the Treaty of Tripoli quote. Yeah, let's go. Okay. But Tim, you're obviously wrong, Tim. I like doing this. Because in the Treaty of Tripoli in 1797, Article 11 of it, which was, negotiated under George Washington. I'm actually fascinated to see how you respond to this, and was signed by President John Adams and ratified unanimously by the U.S. Senate. It says the following, Tim, as the government of the United States of America

is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims, and as the said states never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mohammedan, that means Muslim nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinion shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries. Tim, it just said right there. Yeah. So let me first of all

applaud you for reading the whole thing. Because most people go, America's a no sense found on the Christian religion. I always go, yeah, what's the rest of that statement? So here's why I bring this up for the uninitiated. that if you start talking about what we're talking about this pod, that right there is going to get lost. It's the first thing that gets lobbed at you. So I'm actually curious. Okay, keep going. Keep going.

Okay. So if you read the whole thing, it doesn't say we're not in any sense found in the Christian religion. It says we're not in any sense found in the Christian religion. As in, we have no hostility against, and it goes through all these things, right? So what might be the context behind this? Well, there was this thing back in the day called the Crusades. Mm-hmm. And when we were British colonies, we were one of, as Great Britain, there was 11 nations, I think it was 11 at that time.

It was 8, then it was 9, I think it was in 11, that the Barbary powers of North Africa specifically, they had declared war on all of the Christian nations. And England was one of the Christian nations. But we separate from Great Britain, and by the way, there's so much background of context on this, because we end up, when we separate from Great Britain, the Muslim pirates begin attacking some of our trade. ships. And so John Adams and Jefferson were actually some of the first diplomats to go try to to negotiate an end, men like, guys, we're not the ones you're at war with. Like, we don't like them either. We're cutting our heads off. Right. And so it leads to them negotiating. It's actually at least to Jefferson buying his very first ever Quran. Because when he came back, he had been told, and this is their report to Congress. He had been told by the Muslim ambassador, I think,

from Algiers, he said the only way that we could live at peace with the Muslim men, he said is that we have to fight well or pay well. Is that the GZIA or whatever it is? The Jizia, however you say that. But yes, that basically if you can fund them for their holy wars, they'll keep you around. But once you don't, then you're fair game. But Jefferson then asks him, he says, why are you targeting us? Because we've never done anything against you.

And this, again, this is his report to Congress. The ambassador tells them that our holy book requires that we make war on the infidel. And Jefferson's like, there's no way a religious book is telling you to make war. And so he buys a Quran so we can read it for himself. Okay. So the conflict goes on when we finally, we don't resolve it. We continue to have trade ships that are attacked. People that are being enslaved by these Muslim pirates, they're going into the African slave trade, etc.

And when George Washington becomes president under our Constitution, one of the things that happens under the first federal budget is they have to allocate that, I think the first budget was 10% of their funds to paying the pirates to please leave our ships alone. So we do. The United States had to do this? The United States under George Washington under the very, the very first ever federal budget. They have to pay about 10% of that budget to these Muslim pirates to stop attacking our ships. Okay. So let's let's go further. They continue to attack ships and they try to ransom them back. So they're again trying to make money off of us. And this is where George Washington, the famous line he has is wood to heaven that I had to

a Navy to crush these infidels into non-existence. He said that? He said that. And it's actually in a letter he wrote to Congress. It's kind of awesome a little bit. It's a letter he wrote, I mean, it shows like this is a warrior, right? He's like, I could solve this problem. But he wrote a letter to Congress and he said, can we please build a Navy? So Congress agrees and they begin building a Navy. But up to this point, we, at the end of the American Revolution, we didn't believe in a standing army. That was one of the grievances we had in the declaration. So we disbanded our military, largely speaking, we don't have a Navy, we don't have an army. So he goes back to Congress says, can we please get a Navy? So they commission it. Well, during this time, we are having ships being

captured. What's worth noting about the Treaty of Tripoli, number one, we didn't write it. Number two, it was in a language we couldn't read. Number three, we knew it would put an end to what we were doing. Who wrote it in what language? So it was written, it was written over in, this is not a hard to look up. Yeah, we, somebody on the side can look this up for us, maybe. but it was it was written over and i don't want to say africa but now i'm thinking that maybe they were somewhere else while this was written and i appreciate you looking it up i'm looking up um but they were just trying to get an end to this the navy is completed under john adams john adams does not send the navy in one of his explanations and by the way everything i'm saying

like this is very well documented there's a lot of books written about this like you're right i'm pulling up treaty of trii trii signed notes November 4th, 1796 at Tripoli of Barbary was originally written in Arabic. Yeah, so which one of the American ambassadors was reading that? I got no idea, dude. None of them. Yeah. Oh, interesting.

So they were- So who wrote it? They're ambassadors. So we were told what it said. We agreed to it because it stopped the conflict. But part of what we had argued is like, guys, we're not the crusade warriors that you have an enemy with. Like, that's not us.

We're not one of these nations found on the Christian. religion that you've been going to war with, but let's keep going forward because also worth noting, there were lots of treaties. Like every year or two, there was a new treaty because they kept attacking and we kept negotiating. That's the only one of the treaties with that line. Okay. Okay. Well, that's interesting. Because guess what every other one of the treaties has, that we were a Christian nation? Well, nobody mentions all the other treaties, but let me back up to John Adams. So the Navy is built under John Adams, but John Adams does not send the Navy. And one of the things he wrote about it, He says the American people do not have the stomach for a prolonged war.

Why does that matter? Because you're not just fighting some military power. It's an ideology that's behind the military power. And he's like, this is going to take way longer and the American people don't have a stomach for it. But at that point, our American budget has grown and their monetary demands have grown. When Jefferson gets there, our budget is significantly larger as president when he's there. But their demands are up to 15% of the federal budget. And this is when Jefferson's like, screw it.

Send in the Navy. and this is when the Barbie Powers War really takes place. All of this is background context, because again, if you know the context, you go, okay, well, there was a lot more treaties they wrote, and all the other treaties actually do say we were Christian nation, number one. Number two, this is identifying, first of all, that we're not one of the Christian nations that was at the Crusades, and then otherwise we can go further.

They didn't even read what it said. They didn't know what it said when they agreed to it. We didn't write that when they wrote that one. See, that's kind of like, you know, I'm a pretty big U.S. history guy. I've read that a million times. I've never heard that for my life. my whole life and I've heard what you just said. Well, and by the way, you looked it up.

Yeah, I did. Right? Yeah, this was not in a language. When they agreed to this, it was now, ultimately, it was eventually translated, and they eventually did see it. But their goal is we just have to end this conflict while we're building our Navy. Yeah. Okay, interesting. All right, let's go to the other one.

But Tim, the separation of church and state means it's wrong to legislate from a Christian perspective or to bring, you know, some of this stuff you're talking about right here was clearly a violation of Separation Church of State. Now, to tee you up correctly, I'm going to read where the phrase Separation to Church of State originally came from. I've referenced it a bunch of times on the podcast. I'm actually going to read it for the first time. So that phrase is nowhere in our founding documents. That needs to be stated. It's nowhere in any founding document. We lift that phrase from a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist in 1802. and if I understand correctly, they were concerned about an establishment of religion causing problems for them.

So they wrote him, I think it was October 7th, 1801. You're like a computer. This is amazing. This is the first time we talked in person. Okay, keep going. So they were concerned that they were, where they were in Connecticut, it was largely congregationalists. And the Baptist were the smallest denomination of the time. Here's what that means for listeners.

What he's talking about is a system of church governance. So churches have a few generalized systems of. church governments. Congregationalists believe. Congregationalists are typically different than, like, Presbyterians are elder-led churches and church polity. So they're led by a group of biblical-qualified elders. Baptists have historically been known as congregationalists. And they believe that the highest authority in a church is the congregation. And that's where you get like Baptist business meetings where it comes together and they vote and everything. So just to give listeners a translation, what he's talking about, that's what he's talking about. So the Baptists were

congregationalists. I interrupt you. You keep going. Well, and the congregationalists were that descendants of the pilgrims and Puritans, right? So that's where this all originates. But the Baptist had broken off from the larger congregationalist, because that was Roger Williams, among others. But they were concerned that the congregationalists might exert their muscle or the Anglicans that were also super big and they were afraid they were going to be squished out. Which is what happened. That's why we came over here to flee that kind of thing in Europe and England. Can I read the part of the letter? Please. Okay, so here's where, you know, you hear this phrase all the time, but you don't know where it came from. This is where it came from. I'm going to read

direct quote from Thomas Jefferson's letter to that Danbury Baptist in 1802. Jefferson, I contemplate with sovereign reverence. By the way, that's an interesting phrase for a D.S. to use. I'll just, that's interesting. Yeah. I contemplate with sovereign reverence that that act of the whole American people, which declared that their legislature should, quote, make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

So he's quoting the establishment clause, which we just talked about. thus building, and here's where this phrase comes from, thus building a wall of separation between church and state. What he told them is, guys, they were concerned that government might come and squish them out, and he says, you don't need to worry about the government interfering with the religious practice? He says, the First Amendment, it's built a wall to protect you. Now, what he's doing is writing a private letter, assuring people that they're going to have religious freedom in America. What he's not saying is that that wall keeps any kind of religion out of government.

How do we know that? Because he wrote that letter on January 1st, 1802. That's a Friday. On January the 3rd, 1802. Bro, this is amazing. So you're quoting word for word. I've got a section that I copied and pasted from your book, The American Story. I was going to read it.

But you're quoting it word for word because you're a dang computer. Keep going. That's hilarious because I don't know that I've read that since we wrote it. I'm going to read it if you miss anything. Fact check. I go. So January 3rd is a Sunday. Yeah.

He actually goes to church at the Capitol building, which by way of background, he's the one that actually approved church to be held in the Capitol building up through like the Civil War. The largest Protestant church in America was held in the U.S. Capitol building. Pause and let that sink in. I just want everyone to let that sink in. Okay. You said the largest? The largest Protestant church in America. was, took place weekly worship services

inside of the U.S. Capitol building that was funded to be constructed by United States Congress, right? Yes, and often chap, well, so it was, what they recognize is that Congress doesn't meet on Sundays because constitutions as Sundays are accepted, which is a whole, another rabbit trail, but it's the influence of Christianity that we have that as a Sabbath.

We're not going to work on the Sabbath, our Sabbath a Sunday, right? We recognize that first day of the week we give to God. but they said there's the chaplain said there's this amazing building we just built this the best thing in dc nobody's using it on sunday could we old church in it so congress approves the chaplains to start their own churches in the capital building the chaplains by the way being paid by congress and so the congress doesn't directly fund it but indirectly they're totally funding this thing and they approve for church to be held there but again thomas jefferson was one of the two people

that approved for church to be held in the capital building and then he writes this letter on a Friday, two days later, he attends church in the Capitol building that he approved to be there. Oh, by the way, the guy speaking that day is the Reverend John Leland, who's one of his friends, a Baptist pastor, that he had personally invited to be there and preach that day. So you have Jefferson saying separation of church and state, Friday, two days later is at the Capitol building listening to his friend give a sermon. He clearly did not think it meant what today we are told it means. And it's only because we have lost so much of the story of our history.

that we would even perceive that's what it could be today, because we're listening to too many professors who don't have their footnotes. And go. As opposed to, so I haven't showed you these two yet. Show them to me. Can I see them? So this. Can I, wait, while you're grabbing those, can I finish reading what you wrote in your books?

Okay. So here's why this is a big deal for listeners. Like, here's what we're doing is, listen, this is a really interesting history. What we want to be is disciples of Jesus Christ. Right. And we want to apply our discipleship in every realm. that the Lord has called us to apply it. We talked about this off air.

They God in the scriptures established three institutions by which the flourishing the world takes place, the family, the church, and the state. And very frequently what happens is churches are really good at applying the scriptures to individual disciples,

applying the scriptures to building great Christian families, and applying the scriptures to churches, but we do not, at least in my generation, have not done a good job of applying the scriptures to creating statesmen and stateswomen.

Right. So that we apply the scriptures in the realm of the state. Okay. So this is why we're doing this. So I'm going to read, let me read this and then you do some show and tell. I have no idea what you're getting ready to do.

So this is what you wrote in your book, and this blew my mind. Like I've got underlined and all caps in my little notes. So it says this. In fact, Jefferson wrote his famous wall of separation letter on Friday, January 1st. Two days later on Sunday, January 3rd, he attended church at the Capitol building, listening to his friend Reverend John Leland preach the sermon.

Each Sunday, Jefferson rode his horse 1.6 miles from the White House to the church at the Capitol building. And he made this ride regardless of weather conditions. In fact, among representatives, uh, among representative Cutler's entries. This guy had a journal. Manasse a Cutler. Okay. I don't know who that is. Uh, is one noting that, quote, it was very rainy, but Jefferson's ardent zeal brought him back through the rain and on horseback to the hall. I'm reading at length, but it's really awesome. When asked why he attended church at the capital, Jefferson answered, quote, no nation has ever

yet existed or been governed without religion, nor can it be. By the way, I don't know if Jefferson was fully a deist. You're going to understand that way more than me. That's a different conversation. It's interesting that the guy that everybody says is like, no, man, he was a deist. He didn't want Christianity to influence anything. This is Jefferson writing, nor can it be. This is the really important sentence. The Christian religion is the best religion that has ever been given to man. And I, as chief magistrate of this nation am bound to give it sanction of my example.

I read further. Additionally, while serving as president, Jefferson authored the original plan of education for the public schools of Washington, D.C. As the primary reading text for the students, he selected the Bible and the Watts hymnal. That's Isaac Watts from the first grade awakening. The Watts hymnal,

one of the most influential Christian hymnals in the history of Christendom. I read one more paragraph. He was also active in furthering Christianity among the native tribes. In 1803, he signed a federal act. Dude, this blew my mind. I was reading this book yelling to Jana. He signed a federal act related to propagating the gospel among the Delaware Indian tribe

and approved a treaty with a caskioska. That's my best guess there, tribe to provide them Christian ministry and teaching. In 1804, he signed another federal act related to the propagation of the the gospel among the natives on federal land trusts. Here's the Lynchpin sentence. To him, none of the activities discussed violated the First Amendment or the separation of church and state. Right. That blows my mind. Right. That's the exact opposite of everything I was ever taught for 30 years. And everything we said, we footnoted to the actual document. Because again, we encourage people, like, don't take our word. If we would go back and read this, when Jesus said you will know the truth and

the truth will make you free, set you free, you can't be set free by truth. you don't know. And because we have not done research to know the truth, there's so many lies we believe, we don't even know we believe them, including the Christian Foundation of our nation, by the way, with Jefferson, I would not classify him as a deist at all. But I also wouldn't classify him as a Orthodox Christian, maybe the word. Maybe more like, you know, I don't think you would say a Jordan Peterson or Dennis Prager or, right, somebody like, we wouldn't say that they're a deists, but they're sure not an Orthodox Christian. I think Jefferson's more in that category.

That's a good example. That's an analogy. Yeah, he's definitely not one of us, what we would believe, but he's not anti us either. He just has a few different ideas on some doctrinal theological positions. But back up, we're told that so many of the founding fathers were these atheist, agnostic and deists, and again, you only can believe that when you don't know who they were. One of the founding fathers was a guy named John Witherspoon. He was a Presbyterian pastor.

Total stud. So you know, from Scotland. He's recruited to come to America because he's a pastor, because he's a revivalist preacher in Scotland. They need a new president for, at the time it was Princeton. Now it's Princeton. At the time it was the college of New Jersey. But after we separate from Great Britain and we start printing Bibles in English and America,

this is the Bible that he had printed for the state of New Jersey because it was called a family Bible. It was a Bible large enough that families could gather around a dinner table and read it together. But he found out there were people in his state that didn't have their own copy of the Bible. And so he leads the effort in his state. And by the way, the state legislature is the one that approves this and helps

get funding for it. So he leads the effort to have Bibles printed in his state. This is a signer of the declaration. And by the way, he trained more founding fathers personally than any other individual or any other university what he did at Princeton. So he's one of the most significant leaders of the founding fathers. And that is one of his original Bibles. Now, again, I can hold it. Well, the one I'm so excited.

I think it's even cooler. But yes. So, oh, by the way, if you open up, look at the front cover where like normally it tells you what translation. Yeah, don't let it flop. Too much is for the binding. But so normally, you know, whose writing is this? That is one of the families that had it

that it came down through. They can at least see the writing. Yeah, you can see some cursive on the side. So that's one of the families that owned it. So turn the page where, like normally it would show like King James. Yeah. Actually, two more looks like. But yeah, turn the page.

Two more. Because the blank page, next page. So right there. So what translation of the Bible is it? This is a little bit of a trick question. but I just want you to notice. It says, all it says is translated out of the original tongues and with a former translation. Okay.

Now there's a little in pen diligently compared and revised. It says revived, but in old English, the F is an S. And then it says 1611. So is it key? So, yes, that was penciled in. That is a King James Version translation. But one of the things that's really funny is when we separate from Great Britain, one of the moves, we didn't have a problem with the King James translation.

We had a problem with the politics behind it. And one of the thoughts was King James, it was prideful and arrogant to put your name on the word of God. That wasn't your word. That was God's word. So they reprint the translation but removed the king's name. Oh, wow. And they also said, you know, we just fought a war to get out from under King.

There ain't no way we're putting a king's name on our Bible. Amazing. Yeah. But that's one of the guys signed the declaration. Let me give one more. And this, again, this is the notion that they weren't really religious. They weren't believers. So there's a guy named Francis Hopkinson.

He actually designed the first American flag. He designed a number of government seals. He signed the declaration. But before he becomes a signer of the declaration, he is one of the most noted musicians anywhere in America. He invented instruments in America. The dude's a stud amazing. Here's what's cool.

He was the worship leader at Christchapel. He was the organist. He led the choir. This is probably his most famous book he ever did. And you see the title of it. It's the Psalms of David. Psalms of David, and what the Psalms of David is... When was that printed?

1767. So this is before the American Revolution, but he took a Dutch Salter, so they had, the translation was in Dutch, and then they had some musical intations. He took and re-translated it all to English, so it's a book of Psalms set to music in English. The most famous thing this guy did is these collection of Psalms. and it's the 150 psalm set to music and the reason it matters, right?

If you look back and you're like, you know, they weren't religious. Now, I mean, Chris Tomlin was one of them, right? And like, you go through the list. You're like, well, you have, you know, like Billy Graham was one of them. And like, but they didn't really believe in God. You're like, you have to be a moron if you know,

but I think most people are more ignorant than they are intentional. And they don't know who these guys are. And so we believe the narrative because we don't recognize the vast majority of the founding fathers were outspoken Christians. It was a very few exceptions, like at Jefferson or Franklin,

that don't fit that category. But even Franklin, it's hilarious. When people are like... Dude, you had some stuff in your book, quotes from later in Franklin's life that were really startling. They're explicitly Christian, so I don't know enough about him to know where he ended up. But like, some of those quotes were not things your run-of-the-mill deists would say.

No. And there's a movie, a great awakening. I haven't seen it. My parents literally today at Hudson's soccer game. My dad's seen it three times when I'm a lot. I'm seeing it twice. They were like, Josh, you got to see this movie. It's powerful.

It's so good. What you deal that like George Whitfield, who for our listeners, George Whitfield was one of the two great preachers of the second grade, first, first grade awakening. And essentially, to put it in Lake Point language, Ben Franklin was like his one more. Yes.

So he spends his entire life trying to share the gospel of Ben Franklin and made quite a dent, by the way. Big time. So, which is also worth noting because when people talk about Franklin like being this immoral person, I kind of ask like, which Franklin are you talking about?

because there's the pre-Wittfield and the post-Wittfield. Yeah. Because everything that people think they know about Franklin, Franklin's first 40 years, very different than his last 40-plus years. And that pivot point in the middle was when he introduced... Was Whitfield. Whitfield. That's insane.

That's amazing. So it's phenomenal for lots of reasons. But also what's worth noting is people like, well, he's a deist. And I'm like, okay, so let's just, let me ask a few questions. So how do we know he's a deist? Well, he identified as one. Where do he identify as one? And most people have no idea.

And I say, well, it was in his autobiography. and have you read it? Well, no, I've never read it. Okay, so you can get online, look up Frank's autobiography, and you can do a keyword search in like an online document for deist. Read the page before and the page after. To just gain the context, what he says was when I was 15 years old, I was reading the debates between these three pastors and this deist. And as I was reading the debates, it struck me that the deist was making better arguments in the pastor. So I determined I would be a deist. And then my friends became deist. But then I said, saw how my friends had begun to treat other people, and it wasn't good. And I saw they treated me,

and I didn't like it at all. So I determined that even though deism might have some credibility and some of its merits, in practicality, it was of no use to me and of no good to anybody else. So I left that belief behind. Wow. Now, that's in his own autobiography. So by his own admission, he was a deist when he was 15 for like a week and a half. Okay. Right? Okay. I've never heard that before. That's in his autobiography. Now, again, I'm not arguing that Franklin was a Christian, but I would argue he's not the guy you think he was. And the movie does a really great job of showing Franklin's a guy at the Constitution Convention who was like, guys, what are we doing right now? The meeting's not going well, and we haven't been praying. He says, remember,

we were here 11 years ago because they were in Independence Hall, the same place where they wrote the Declaration was the same place to write the Constitution. And he says, back when we were doing the Declaration, and he's one of only six guys that signed the Declaration and the Constitution. So he's in a room full of people that weren't there. And he says, guys, when we were back here, we used to pray every single day for divine protection. He said, our prayers were heard, and they were graciously answered. So already, Franklin said this.

Franklin, this is the longest speech he gave during the entire Constitution Convention. And by the way, along those lines, like, this is clearly someone who's not a deist, acknowledging that the founding fathers used to pray every day for God's help, and God answered their prayers. But let me give another boat back to one of the questions you asked earlier, is Franklin, at the time he is here, is also the president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society because Franklin is one of the guys

who actually, he was a founding father that had slaves. He actually freed his slaves, but then he helped found... I didn't know that. He helped found the Pennsylvania Abolition Society then became the president of it. Now, why does it matter? Because the other thing is not only were these guys

far more religious and Christ-centered than we realize, they were also far more anti-slavery than we realized. Okay, let me interject here because, and honestly, I don't know what you're going to say to this. So that's one thing I want to. to talk about. Let's talk about that. Because here's kind of the vibe, like 1619 project. Yeah. Kind of the whole vibe that you kind of get is this kind of the vibe I kind of picked up the sort of this vibe. And then, you know, even if they were Christians, they were obviously

extreme hypocrites and evil. Really all they did is just weaponize their Christianity for personal gain because obviously America's original sin was slavery and racism. It was a uniquely racist country from the founding. It was started by a bunch of men who just wanted to capitalize off the backs of the slave trade, and, you know, they just, you know, do this thing, just to weaponize Christianity to, you know, because they were a bunch of racist and wanted to have a whole bunch of slaves. So Tim Barton, what say you? Yeah, so let me add one. First of all, let me just say, uh, yeah, actually, you go.

So, so acknowledging totally incorrect, but let me add one more to it. So, uh, Senator Tim Kane, Democrat, U.S. senator from Virginia, uh, when the 1619 project came out, he actually gave a speech on the Senate floor where he said that America didn't inherit slavery. We, like the kind we had. created that. Nobody else in the world was doing that. We started something brand new. Okay, let me just say, like, I know enough to know that's assinine. Oh, it's so stupid. Okay, but like even, so first of all, the idea that we created slavery, you have to be ignorant of

so much history, so much, but, but he also professes to be a Christian. Now, he's a Catholic, but all that means is you have more books in your Bible than I do, right? And so you're someone that says you believe and read your Bible theoretically. And I would point out, you can't go anywhere from the beginning of your Bible and not see this. Like, not only is, do you have obviously Moses, who delivers the Israelites out of slavery? Let's back up. Joseph, this is more interesting.

Joseph was sold by his brothers to who? The Bible says slave traders from Egypt. There was an intercontinental slave trade. Yeah. In Genesis. In Genesis. Yeah. This is what people understand.

By the way, this is explanation, not an excuse. No. Yeah, this is explanation. not an excuse, that every nation and culture in human history had practiced slavery. Correct. That does not make it okay. No. And what I would point out is, if you look back historically, if you go to the 1700s,

the question I would ask just to frame context and then let's go back and do some digging on this is can you name any people that had money and power and didn't have slaves in the 1700s? And I say that not unique to America, but because this was the reality of the world. It doesn't matter where you live, what color your skin was or your tribe, your ethnicity. this is the way the world was. There was a great evil in the world at the time. And America absolutely participated in that great evil. There's no doubt about it.

But what's worth noting is where was the first political movement organized to end this evil of any nation? Was it England? It was the founding fathers of America. Oh, really? They were before Wilberforce? Way before Wilberforce. I don't know. Wilberforce was 1833 when England ended slavery.

Okay. So go back. This is... Now, what do you mean the founding fathers organized against slavery? I thought the opposite. Tim, I was told the opposite was true.

Let's talk about it, Josh. Yeah. So this is the first printing of the original draft of the Declaration of Independence. Okay. For listeners, if you're not on YouTube right now, you need to go over to YouTube.

Just trust me, you're going to want to see what he's about to show you. This, of everything we talk about, this blew my mind more than probably anything else. You keep going. So this is in Jefferson's own handwriting.

When he died, his grandson found the original draft. It's like, we got to make copies. People ought to see this for themselves. This is one of the first copies from the 1829. When it was first printed, this is from the first draft. And famously, the second paragraph is where he said, we owe these truths to be self-evident. All men are created equal.

And endowed by the creator with certain in illegal rights, among them, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Love it. So this is where he lays out of the political philosophy. The second page is where he starts. listing grievances, and most of the grievances are, that's two lines, it's three lines, that's three lines, that's three lines, that's two lines. Most of the grievances are very short. You come to the third page, the third page again is listing grievances, and this is all the third

page, and the fourth page is where he wraps up his political philosophy of the nation. The longest grievance in the entire draft is the last grievance. Jefferson actually wrote, he thought this was the most important of all of them. Okay, so like this is one of those like fact check. Go look it up. Jefferson argued this was the most significant. It was a grievance against the slave trade, arguing for the humanity of all that were enslaved. What?

So let me read just the first couple lines that he's saying we should. This is original draft of the Declaration Independence when they're still gone through revisions. So before it's finalization, that's why if you're on YouTube, you're seeing strikethroughs and essentially redlining. Correct. Okay, you keep going. This is his first, this is, when he goes and presents before the Congress, his draft, this is what he lays on the desk. So the famous painting, the signs of the declaration, he's laying four pieces of paper.

That's what this is. This is the first copy of that. He laid the original down. But on this, the last grievance on the third page, it says he, the king, has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating his most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them in. a slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither, this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, the word infidels underlined.

Now let's pause for a second, because when he says this is piratical warfare, that's the warfare of pirates. He says it's also the warfare of the non-believing pirates. Well, Josh, who are the non-believing pirates that are doing this? He's talking about Muslims? It's the Barbary pirates of North Africa, who are the Muslim. pirates. Yeah, and I did know the Muslim, like the the Muslim slave trade, if I understand it correctly, was like exponentially larger. They're the ones that started this exportation of the

North Atlantic slave trade. When they start at the Dutch, the Portuguese, the Spaniards, English, they're like, there's money to be made. We're in. So, so they're the ones that initiate this, and then everybody else jumps on board. So he says, this piratical warfare, the opprobium of an infidel powers is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. The word Christian Josh is not in cursive. It is printed. It's bigger. He clearly wrote it bigger and underlined.

He's drawing your attention to it. Why? He's saying, the king of England is doing what the Muslim pirates are doing, and he's saying he's a Christian. Wow. Okay? Wow.

Continued. Determined to keep open a market where men... All caps. Big letters. Dude, we got to make sure they can see this on YouTube. Okay, keep going. Where men should be bought and sold. Now, the reason...

Also, this is a big thing. deal. This is the third page. He already wrote the second paragraph. We owe these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. Wow. Dude, he's calling back. Right. Wow. So the argument today is now the founding fathers, they didn't believe in equality for black people, only white people. Incorrect. Literally the largest grievance in the declaration is arguing for the equality of all that were enslaved. So two questions immediately come to my mind. Why didn't that make it in? And if what you just said is true, then why did we have, you know, colonial slave trade for a long time? Okay.

So let me read the next line, which answers the first question, partly. He says, where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for, and this is the king. He's prostituted as a negative for suppressing every legislative attempt. Now, I'm going to stop there, but people can go on and read the rest of it. They said that the king has suppressed every one of our legislative attempts. The colonies had been working for nearly a decade. to pass laws against the slave trade and against slavery. Wow.

And the king had vetoed every single one. Wow. And so not only are they saying the king is doing something that no Christian should be doing, they said that every time we've tried to stop it, he struck down our loss. Why this matters is background, John Hancock was the president of Congress when they're doing this. He said they would only include in the final draft what was unanimously agreed to by the body, because otherwise, he said, if we're disagreed, the king might come and pull us apart by our own local separate interests, we'll turn against each other. We have to be united. And this is where Franklin is

attributed with the famous quip. Well, yes, surely, we must all hang together or else we will all hang separately. Right? Well, that's where this comes in. So when they're going through it, all of the colonies have to agree on all of this. And there's actually a couple, they changed. There's some they added, some they were moved. When they got to this one, Jefferson actually said, this grieved him the most. He thought this was the most important part. And they actually removed it because there were two colonies that opposed it. It was South Carolina and Georgia? Correct.

Yeah. So 11 of 13 wanted it. Wanted to make slavery illegal from the founding of our nation. But two, South Carolina and Georgia opposed it. Yes. Okay. And their answer for it was they said, well, we've never tried to pass laws against it. So the king's never struck down our laws.

So we don't think it needs to be included. Wow. Now, what matters to your point is that these, vast majority of the founding fathers were in favor of saying, hey, we're done with a slave trade and we're arguing for the equality of all they're enslaved. But why it also matters is because when we separate from Great Britain, it's 76. Every one of the northern colonies began passing laws and acting those very things. By 1804, every single northern colony had passed laws for the abolition of slavery. England didn't abolish slavery until 1833. This is fun little

By the way, can I keep going for a couple minutes? I know we're good. Yeah, we're going to have to shut her down here in a minute, but this is too good. By the way, this is interesting because, first of all, I just want to point something out for listeners. What you just said is the exact opposite of what you get from the vibe of things like 16, 19 project and everything I learned in school. Where I was like, oh, man, all these guys were obviously virulent racist and they just wanted to build a nation on the backs of slaves. You're showing me right here literally from before the founding. Correct.

The founding fathers were opposing it. By the way, on the basis of their Christian convictions. Correct. And that 11 out of 13 colonies from the founding of the nation wanted it to be different. Correct. Okay. So I want to point that out. Dang it, there was something else I wanted to point out, and I can't remember what it was.

You keep going. Well, and I'm going to try to tie on this real quick. So one of the arguments we have today is, well, but like Josh, all the founding fathers, right, they'd say to Tim. Didn't you have like a bastard? By the way, sorry, illegitimate child with a, that's, in that context. That's not a cuss word. That's the legitimate usage of it. How dare you quote King James language?

Yeah. Did you have an illegitimate child with a slave? Okay, so here's what's super interesting, which now we're sidetracking a little bit. I'm allowed to say that in that context. That's the appropriate context. It is totally appropriate. So I will say when I was up in D.C. Doing America reads the Bible, I had to read how many asses were present inside the city.

And I was like, cool, here we go. Channel your interest grader. I mean, bro, I was a little bit hard not to laugh for just a second. So Jefferson has long been. accused or credited with fathering illegitimate children with his slave, Sally Hemings. There was a guy, I think his name is Professor Robert Turner, who was the head of the history department, I believe is what his title was, but he was at University of Virginia, which is what Jefferson founded.

He was there for 30 years. He was considered the Jefferson expert. He's the one that did the DNA steady, and his conclusions are absolutely different than the modern narrative. Now, what he discovered is Sally, there were actually, I think, seven children that Sally Hemings had, and it was claimed that all of them were fathered by Jefferson. And so they did a DNA test in the first one. There's no Jefferson DNA in that one. They did a DNA test on another one.

And they're like, oh, by the way, they have Jefferson DNA because we still have, like, locks of his hair. Like, I held a lock of his hair at Beck's place. Yeah. So, but at the time they did this, there's no Jefferson male descendant. And so Jefferson had an uncle that had male descendants because they do a property in a test. You need it from the male lineage when they were doing this. And so all they could do is a familial match. And they found that for one of the children, there was familial match.

And then they went to a third one. And the third one wasn't. And then the rest of the descendants were like, we don't want to be tested anymore. Like we're done. So basically maybe, maybe not. Well, so correct. But he then went and did the research and said, okay. So there were 27 adult Jefferson male.

So not Thomas, but like all the Jefferson extended family, there were 27 males that lived in the region at the time that this specific child could have been fathered. And as he goes down the list of where people were in what days, he says Jefferson is one of the least likely, Thomas is one of the least likely to have fathered this child. So it could have been another Jefferson family. They actually think it was one of his nephews is the one who's a father.

But big picture. So why do we think that today? because back in 1998, there was a very, very famous trial where there was an defense attorney who said, guys, we don't need to worry about some famous person having sexual improprieties because this was normal, like historically, Thomas Jefferson even fathered illegitimate children. Now, who said that and why? Well, that was the defense attorney for Bill Clinton during his impeachment trial when they brought up Monica Lewinsky. Oh, wow.

Okay. And so the defense attorney is like, hey, you can't blame Bill for this. like Jefferson did crazy things. Robert Turner, the guy who did this study, he's like, that's not what we said happened. So there were 219 news outlets that carried the story. He goes public and says, you're all wrong.

Only 11 news outlets carried the retraction. Yes, that's how it always works. That's Charles Spurgeon's little quote of a lie is halfway around the world before the truth gets his shoes on. So it's Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson, it's possible, but it's highly unlikely that he did. But where I would back up,

to wrap a bow on this is most people think, well, all the founding fathers did. And my first question is, like, what about John Adams? And like, what do you mean? Well, John Adams never had slaves and fighting in slavery his whole life. Okay, what about Sam Adams? Never had slaves fighting in slavery's whole life. What about Roger Sherman? Never had slaves fighting and slaves. These are all Christian men. These are all signers of the Declaration who were outspoken Christians. But what most people have no idea is that there were any founding fathers that didn't have slaves and fighting in slavery. And there's many of them. But the majority, at some point in their life did have slaves, but where I would do a deeper dive is nobody actually

seems to ask the question, where did they end their life? It's kind of like saying, well, guys, we can't really trust what the Apostle Paul said, because Paul used to kill Christians. And you're like, well, yes, at one point he did. And then God did something in his life. He radically changed. And now we celebrate the testimony of the goodness of God through his life by part of what he did.

We're not telling the end of the story. The vast majority of founding fathers that had slaves actually came out against slavery. And you have people like John Jay, who was the original Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, was one of the co-authors of the Federalist Papers. There's two really great letters. One of them from 7076 where he writes a friend and he says, you know, it's occurring to me, the hypocrisy of our position that we're actually fighting for our own freedom while enslaving others.

And we would look and be like, well, yeah, bro, it's totally hypocritical. But we're looking through our modern lens, not to the lens of a normalized culture around the world, but he's having this epiphany. 1778, he writes another letter where he says, I and many others have discovered the hypocrisy. And so I have freed my slaves and we are leading a movement. He then writes to the Pennsylvania Abolition Society to ask for their founding documents because he says, I'm going to start one in New York.

He became the founder of the New York Abolition Society. The original Chief Justice had slaves, freed his slaves, found the first abolitionist society in New York. And Josh, this is the point is that most people have no idea the vast majority of the founding fathers actually came out against the evil of the institution, but because the narrative is being shaped in this propaganda war by this idea from a Marxist perspective, they're all oppressors, therefore cancel everything they ever did, we've lost the reality that although these absolutely were not perfect men, these were men who recognized without God's help we will never achieve what we're

trying to accomplish. And they relied on God's help. And a perfect God used incredibly imperfect people and gave us the most free, the most stable, the most prosperous, and the most benevolent nation in the history of the world. That's absolutely unbelievable. Tim Barton, that was one of the most fascinating conversations I've ever had. And then, can I ask you to pray for our listeners? I would love to. I would love to.

To spread his glory, not just in our lives, but in our families, our churches, and our nations. Yeah. Yeah. Would you do that, please? Yes. God, I'm so grateful that you allow us to come boldly before the throne of grace. God, to bring everything on our heart.

And God, wherever we are, whatever's going on, for everybody listening, for everybody watching, God, you know exactly what we need. And actually, Jesus, you told us that we don't have to say the right words to be heard. You know exactly what we need before we speak. But God, we come to you, knowing that you hear us and that you meet us where we are. And God, I ask for everybody listening, God, for those that were challenged or convicted and whatever level that is, Holy Spirit, that you would continue to stir and perk hearts. God, that you would open eyes to see, give us ears to hear, hearts to receive what you

would impart to us in God ultimately, that as we learn lessons, whether we're reading from the Old Testament, Hebrews of the Bible, New Testament, or even from America's founding, recognizing the flaws and imperfections of everyone you've ever used, God may it give us hope. That if you have used all of these losers before, these sinful people in need of a Savior, God, that we are not disqualified because of our sin. But because of the blood of Christ, we are uniquely called to do something great and significant in your hands. for your kingdom. God, use us to make a difference in the culture and world around us. Let us be bolder in standing for truth. And God, may we be instruments to shine people to your light and your

goodness. In Jesus' name, amen. Tim, thank you very much, sir. My honor. My pleasure.