The Daily Signal - Culture Change Begins With the Youth

Episode Date: October 14, 2019

Culture is constantly changing but there are principles of truth that will never change. It is those principles which the Imago Dei Leadership Forum seeks to empower young people with so they can be leaders who influence culture.  John Murray, Founder and President of Imago Dei Leadership Forum joins the Daily Signal podcast to offer advice on how we can bridge cultural divides in our nation and train up the next generation to be thoughtful leaders who live out their faith. Also on today's episode: In celebration of Columbus Day we play a portion of President Ronald Reagan’s remarks at the Signing of the Columbus Day Proclamation on October 3, 1988.  We also read your letters to the editor. You can leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. And we share a good news story about a homeless woman with an opera singing voice who has captured the attention of the nation. The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or your favorite podcast app. All of our podcasts can be found at dailysignal.com/podcasts. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, October 14th. I'm Robert Blewe. And I'm Virginia Allen. Happy Columbus Day. Today, we share an interview with John Murray, president and founder of the Amago Day Leadership Forum, an organization that is changing the lives of young people by empowering them to be thoughtful leaders who live out their faith. We also read your letters to the editor and Keanu Stedman is back with a good news story about a homeless woman with an opera singing voice who has captured the attention of. the nation. Plus, we will play a brief Columbus Day speech delivered by President Ronald Reagan. Before we get to today's show, Rob and I want to tell you about one of our other favorite podcasts called Heritage Explains. That's right. Heritage Explains is a weekly podcast that explains all the policy issues we hear about in the news at a 101 level. Hosts Michelle Cordero and Tim Desher

mix in news clips and music to tell a story, but also bring in Heritage's experts to break down complex issues. For example, what happens if the House impeaches President Trump? Can red flag laws actually prevent mass shootings? And how should the United States approach China? Heritage Explains offers quick 15 to 20 minute explainers that bring you up to speed in an entertaining way. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. We even put the full episode on YouTube. Now, stay tuned for today's show. Coming up next. I am joined on the Daily Signal podcast by John Murray, author, speaker, and the founder and president of the Amago Day Leadership Forum, an organization that is changing the lives of young people by empowering them to be thoughtful leaders who live out their faith. John, thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you for having me, Virginia. It's great to be here. The mission of the Amago Day Leadership Forum is to raise up a generation of young people that view themselves and others. as leaders who are also image bearers of God. And John, you all seek to accomplish this mission through your fellowship program for eighth grade students and through a powerful curriculum that can be used by schools, churches, and families, as well as through lectures and other resources. And we'll get a little bit more into that in a moment.

John, this has been an exciting season for you all. Can you explain what the Amago Day Leadership Forum has been working on in regards to your new curriculum? That's a great question. Well, I had been teaching a leadership class in my school in the D.C. area for a couple of years as our graduates left eighth grade and went out into different schools in the D.C. area, both public and private. And I developed a leadership retreat where we went to down into D.C. and stayed in D.C. and met with different leaders, both in politics and the media and civil rights. And then we also did the end of the year retreat before the students graduated in Gettysburg just to talk through what the challenges and fears and excitement they were going

to face as they went into high school the next year. Well, fast forward to July 2014. I came to St. Louis and brought my family to lead a multiracial school, 3K through sixth grade, one month before Ferguson. So after Ferguson happened, and and all the events began to unfold, I realized that I had a lot to learn to lead a school that was one-third of African-Americans. And one of the lessons I quickly learned from friends of mine in St. Louis was just the need to better facilitate personal relationships

between the white and black parents in our school community so they could understand and learn from each other's perspectives, especially just for a lot of our white parents to understand the racism that a number of our African-American parents had faced in St. Louis for many years. And after seeing the power of these relationships and conversations at the parent level, I decided to develop a leadership forum for our alumni and other students in the community to affirm both their identity and faith in Jesus and learn more the importance of loving others differ from themselves as image bearers of God, both in history and today.

So that was kind of the genesis of my program and how when I came here and implemented it to reach racially, socioeconomically, and denominationalally diverse group of students. That is so critical and obviously such a need in our current culture. So what is the advice that you give to parents, young people, educators who come to you and want to know how do we engage in those conversations with people that are of different backgrounds, look different than us, and maybe live out their faith differently? No, that's great. And that's, you know, really what I try to model just in my leadership form as I talk about this with other school communities and parents. So my first group that I led had 20 students. And I choose eighth grade because I feel like this is a really pivotal age as they're preparing to go into high school as they start to own their faith and are still, you know, going from concrete thinking to critical thinking and their emotional and social development, they're still open to. engaging. So we met for 10 nights on Sunday nights over the course of a spring semester for 10 weeks,

I should say, culminated with a week-long combined trip to Gettysburg in D.C. And what was so neat is I walked in through the curriculum that I put together on who am I asking, you know, a lot of questions, very question-based, you know, how does the media influence me? What is my identity? where did I come from? Where does my creativity come from? How should I view others? How should I not view others? Bringing diverse kids together and hearing their perspectives on going through these questions

was just really powerful for kids to understand how people may think about things differently than they do or how things may impact them differently than they do, whether it's in the media or the books they read and so forth. So to me, that is what's so powerful is talking about the challenge. issues of our day in a racially diverse group to understand one another so they can treat each other well, even if they may not always agree with one another. I think this is preparing them to be leaders in their schools, particularly in just such a hyper partisan polarized country that we find ourselves in now. John, this has been an exciting season for you all. Could you explain

what the Amago Day Leadership Forum has been working on in regards to your new curriculum? Well, as I started this, you know, I've just gone full time with this this past year. I got my 501c3 nonprofit status and I do the help of a grant from the McClellan Foundation. I produced a curriculum that has research that was done by the Barner Group just on the questions I was asking Gen Z students and students ages 13 to 18 at this point. As well as I produce 40 videos that go along with the e-textbook that kids can click on and watch. So my goal is to get this curriculum into school, Christian schools all over the country so they can engage in these issues and just, you know, see diverse perspectives on how to engage the culture, but all bringing it back to a biblical worldview of what it needs to be an image bear of God and how we should approach one another. So my vision is for schools to emulate what I'm doing, whether it's in the classroom, an eighth-grade

classroom, or starting their own leadership group within their school, or maybe partnering with an urban school and bringing together leaders that they would walk through something outside of school, so that it would be a resource that can be used in schools across the country. And obviously, I'm available to train faculty and come in and lead some. sessions or speak to students. So the Genesis is here in St. Louis and I do a local leadership group each year, and this is going to be our sixth year. I'm also providing materials to enable schools around the country to do this as well. That is so critical and it's so practical to have a curriculum that families can take and use that schools can use in their classrooms.

And that's called in whose image, correct? Yes. Okay. Yes. Great. John, I want to ask, you know, we live in a culture that is constantly changing, and it's honestly really hard to keep up with sometimes. At Amago Day, how are you all ensuring that the resources like in whose image are staying up to date with the challenges that parents and educators are facing? That's a great question. That was one of the reasons when I did my grant proposal was to do this. as an e-textbook. There is no hard copy because when I have, you know, six to seven videos per chapter, I'm asking questions such as, do you know what it means to be an image bearer of God?

Or do you know what it means how to define you and your life and bring meaning to your life? I'm using a lot of times movie clips or TV commercials or pop culture to speak into these issues and teach critical thinking and discernment. So, but I have the ability, since these are linked to my website to go in and update these, or there's a new issue that comes up that feel like we really need to speak into, then I can do that so it can remain current. That's great. And I think that, you know, for so many parents today and, you know,

even young adults like myself who want to have a family one day really wrestle with this question of how do we raise men and women of integrity when we live in a culture that sometimes undermines traditional values? So what advice do you give to those parents? Well, that's a great challenge. And I think that's obviously one of the great fears of many parents in our country. And what I think is that obviously age appropriately as you raise your children just to engage them in things that you feel like they can handle, whether it's current events or media that's coming out, whether it's a Disney movie or a song by, you know, on the radio,

that you start engaging them and teaching them critical thinking skills. and media discernment. So you're not making them fearful of the culture or fearful of the media, but really helping them discern what is right and what is wrong. Because I just feel like we can't, there's too much out there. There's no way we can shield our kids from everything. And if they go over to other friends' houses, they may be exposed to things or even in their schools.

So it's just equipping them as they grow up and they're ready to take on different issues, just how to speak in these issues. And from my perspective, being a Christian educator would be from a biblical worldview. Yeah, absolutely. And why the name Amago Day? Well, Amigo Day is Latin for image of God. And when I thought about this leadership form, when I look at all the challenges that we're facing currently in this generation, Trinidad.

Generation Z, whether it's, like I said, in the media or with our identity, whether it's our race or our gender, where we come from. This goes back to, you know, the Declaration of Independence that we are all created equal, that we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights. And these are, this is a belief that was, obviously, has taken many, many years for different groups to be realized in American history, but is one that to be going to go. back and look at when civil rights were fought for women, for African Americans, for Native Americans, for the disabled, for mentally ill, the leaders on the forefront of these movements were many times quoting not only the decoration, but the Bible where it talks about that guy created us

in his image, male and female, that, you know, Galatians 328 talks about whether male female, basically rich or poor, slave or free, that we are all one in Christ. So this idea of how we treat one another as image bears and how we do ourselves, because with social media, it's so easy to just have the fear of what other people think of us and having low self-esteem, just helping students understand where their self-worth ultimately comes from. All these things or why I think it's so important to the other's what it means to bear God's image, not only just in our country's history, but just in the history of the faith, but in how we should view ourselves and others is hugely important given all the challenges facing this generation.

So this is a really, it's an exciting time for you all. I mean, there's no shortage of issues to engage on and you have this new curriculum. What are your hopes for Imago Day, let's say over the course of the next year? Well, again, my prayer would be that this could be a resource that would help, you know, schools that would want to implement this, whether it's a Christian school, or even a public school that might be actually in a faith-based curriculum to work with their students after school. Again, just looking at these issues of how to view others and ourselves in a healthy way. Also, this is a great resource, I think, for homeschool families that they can go through with their eighth or ninth grader, as well as church youth groups.

I mean, this is obviously a curriculum that worked well in a Sunday school class or in a Bible study just because it does weave in a biblical worldview as I look at through all these. But I also really write this from a perspective that a non-believer would hopefully be able to engage with the material because I am quoting a lot of research and statistics, a lot of brain research is just on the impact of heavy, media diet on us and ultra-violent media or pornographic media that that it does have, you know, negative impact. And, you know, there are brain differences that we need to know about between boys and girls, you know, just these type of things. But to what a healthy screen life looks like and a healthy way of treating others. So again, and looking at part two of my book,

which I get ready to launch is called Hollywood Meets the Apostles Creed, which looks at how the faith is portrayed in the media both positively and unbivocally just to help kids, you know, own their faith and understand their faith from a biblical perspective. And then part three is looking at how this belief in the image bearer of God has impacted history, particularly American history. So if you have a lot of history, asked me a year from now what I think this would look like would see people using this curriculum,

whether it's in their schools or home or church and youth group, but also preparing for part two and three to come to also speak into these other issues. So it's looking at, again, affirming students' identity, their faith in Christ and learning the importance of loving others as image bears, both in history and today. So it's kind of multifaceted as a go forward. For any young people or parents listening, how can they find out more and apply for the fellowship or attain some of those resources, the curriculum and so forth? Yeah, if you go to my website, ID Leadership Forum.org, you'll see just the curriculum

resources that we have as well as the opportunities that the different topics that I can come speak on, whether it's a student assembly or a parent meeting or a youth faculty meeting, as well as if they wanted to model a leadership forum in their community after what we're doing with our forum here in St. Louis, they could do that as well. And I would be happy to, you know, equip them with what we do on our leadership retreat and so forth, which going back to of the original questions of how we're helping students speaking of this is taking them away and really allowing them to bond with one another and see each other, you know, outside their school environments is huge and just being in a community. And then hearing from these

speakers who are very inspirational and just hearing their stories of just how they've faced adversity, whether, you know, whether white or black, male or female, and just how God has used them. to glorify him in their areas, whether it's, like I said, be media or politics or in civil rights, has been very powerful. And one of the really neat things we do is we actually get a permit from the National Park Service and set up, they come and set up a podium in a sound system on the very spot where Dr. King gave his eye, have a dream speech.

And we all take turns reading from that speech, which everyone around at the Lake Memorial. And it's just so powerful. We've done that the last two years now. And just to be able to read that speech together. And on the very spot where you did that is very meaningful. So it's just creating those experiences that I think they'll never forget. We read the Gettysburg Address on the very site on the cemetery where Lincoln gave it. And he harkens back to this idea of all being created equal as we've been fighting for these rights in our country for many years.

years. So I just think that's part of what I think is so important is just bringing kids together around ultimately, in our case, the common bond of Christ and learning from each other's perspectives, but also just learning from history and how we can go back in our schools and be leaders. Well, John, we thank you for what you're doing through Amago Day to train up young people that are leaders and that are seeking to bridge those cultural divides and bring unity. And we thank you so much for your time as well on the Daily Signal podcast today. Well, thank you so much for Virginia. Thanks for giving the opportunity to share about what we're doing here and hopefully to really help parents

and raising Generation Z, which I think is a fantastic group of students, just to glorify God and all they do. Our pleasure. Do conversations about the Supreme Court leave you scratching your head? If you want to understand what's happening at the court, Subscribe to Scotus 101, a Heritage Foundation podcast, breaking down the cases, personalities, and gossip at the Supreme Court. Today we are celebrating the landing of Christopher Columbus in the Americas in 1492. That's right. And nearly 500 years later, President Ronald Reagan delivered remarks at the signing of the Columbus Day Proclamation on October 3, 1988.

We're going to play a portion of his remarks for you today. Carlucci and Secretary Verity and distinguished international guests, we're here today for the signing of the Columbus Day Proclamation. It's on this day we revisit the enduring lessons of his courage and leadership. Columbus, of course, has always held a proud place in our history, not only for his voyage of exploration, but for the spirit that he exemplified. He was a dreamer, a man of vision and courage, a man filled with hope for the future, and with the determination to cast off for the unknown and sail into uncharted seas for the joy of finding whatever was there. Put it all together, and you might say that Columbus was the inventor of the American dream. Of course, we recognize others besides Columbus today. For Justice Columbus, a son of Italy, inaugurated the age of European exploration in this hemisphere,

so too have millions of Americans of Italian descent contributed to the building of this nation of aspirations on this continent of hope. Over the years, millions have left that country for these shores, often carrying scarcely more than the prayers in their hearts and the determination in their souls. And as they've come, they've brought with them

the richness of the heritage of their homeland and given its richness and strength to our land. Spain also claims Columbus and his achievements. And millions of Americans of Spanish heritage, have also followed in his wake. Like immigrants from all over the world, they have lived the American dream and made it a reality

for themselves and their children's and the generations that followed. Yes, Columbus Day is an American holiday. A day to celebrate not only an intrepid searcher but the dreams and opportunities that brought so many here after him and all that they and all immigrants have given to this land. In the next few years, Columbus Voyage will take on a heightened significance.

The year 1992 will mark the 500th anniversary of his sailing. It is called the Quintenary. And it may take another 500 years before I can say that easily. But it will be a time when Americans from all backgrounds look back on all that voyage is meant to mankind over the past half millennium. Do you own an Amazon Echo? You can now get the Daily Signal podcast every day as part of your daily Alexa Flash briefing. It's easy to do.

Just open your Amazon Alexa app, go to settings, and select Flash Briefing. From there, you can search for the Daily Signal podcast and add it to your Flash briefing so you can stay up to date with the top news of the day that the liberal media isn't covering. Thanks for sending us your letters to the editor. Each Monday, we feature our favorites on this show and in our Morning Bell email newsletter. Virginia, who's up first? In response to Jarrett Stetman's article, here's how Andrew Jackson stood up to unaccountable elites. Leetie writes a concise and thoughtful article.

Congratulations and thanks. I look forward to your new book as the push to rewrite history is gaining steam under the radar from powerful interests. Jared's book is fantastic. It's called The War on History and we encourage you to pick up a copy. And in response to Daniel Davis' podcast interview with Bruce Ashford titled The Gospel of Marxism, A False Religion Explained, Paul writes, Great interview. Professor Ashford does a superb job outlining and explaining all the false theology inherent in Marxist belief.

In the interview, Professor Ashford cites the Gulag Archipelago as a valuable book to read. He is quite right. I first read it after it was released in the West and was chilled to the bone by Soljanetson's matter-of-fact description of absolute evil at work. Your letter could be featured on next week's show. Send an email to Letters at dailysignal.com or leave a voicemail message at 202-608-6205. As always, we are starting your week off right with a good news story. Kiana, over to you.

Thank you, Virginia. Today we have a heartwarming story that began in an unusual place. In an almost deserted subway station, Emily Zamorka, A homeless woman in L.A. got off at a metro stop after taking the wrong train. I'm just going to sing a little bit. Maybe that will make me feel better, she thought. Emily had been living on the streets for over two years after an illness, medical bills, and the theft of her valuable violin left her unable to make ends meet. So now, with her voice as her only instrument, she sang in the subway because the sound made her feel like she was living her dream of singing on stage.

Little did she know that her dream would soon become a reality. When a policeman heard her singing, he tweeted a video of her with the caption, 4 million people call L.A. Home, 4 million stories, 4 million voices. Sometimes you just have to stop and listen to one to hear something beautiful. This video of the homeless opera singer spread like wildfire and hundreds rallied to help her. A GoFundMe has now raised over 70,000 for Emily. captivated by her talent, music producer Joel Diamond has offered her a record deal. And this week, she lived her dream of performing on stage at the Los Angeles unveiling of their new Little Italy district.

At the performance, she said, Thank you so much for all of this that's happening right now. I really thank you. I'm so overwhelmed. It's wonderful to see the support Emily has received from so many. Her story is a beautiful reminder to take the time to stop and listen to the voices around us. Thank you so much for staring that, Keanna. It's really incredible to see how one community came around this woman to absolutely change her life. We are going to leave it there for today. The Daily Signal podcast comes to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation.

You can find it on the Rurkishay Audio Network. All our shows can be found atdailysignal.com slash podcast. You can also subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or your favorite podcast app. And be sure to listen every weekday by adding the Daily Signal podcast as part of your Alexa Flash briefing. If you like what you hear, please leave us a review and a five-star rating. It means a lot to us and helps us spread the word to other listeners. Be sure to follow us on Twitter at DailySignal and Facebook.com slash the DailySignal News. Have a great week. The Daily Signal podcast is executive produced by Rob Blewey and Virginia Allen. Sound design by Lauren Evans and Thalia Rampersad. For more information, visit DailySignal.com.