The Eric Metaxas Show - Marshall Foster and Nick Freitas

Episode Date: April 14, 2021

Nick Freitas shares eye-opening stories from "The Why Minutes"; then, Marshall Foster, part of Kirk Cameron's American Campfire Revival, explains why "The American Covenant" is vitally important today.

with your host, Eric Mettaxas. Hey, folks, welcome to Hour 2 of the Eric Metaxe show. I'm playing the role of Eric Metaxis. I'm doing the best I can. I'm his understudy, but I've watched him do his thing, and I think I can do it. We have a guest right now, Nick Freitas. He is a former Green Beret. He did a couple of combat tours in Iraq.

He is now a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, but the reason he's on this program is he's creating these fabulous videos called the Y Minutes, W-H-Y Minutes. Nick, welcome. Oh, thank you very much for having me on, Eric. How did you get this idea to create these videos? Well, I've got to give the credit to Afraida Levy. She started this program a while back, and we relaunched it in February. But the whole idea was to make an attempt to really engage with the culture.

Because I think we have so many times where people think that politics is the primary way that you engage, when really when you look at the overall, cultural battle of ideas that we're experiencing right now. That battle's being fought everywhere from the halls of Congress to our classrooms, our college universities, Hollywood, and around the kitchen table. And we wanted to engage in that battle of ideas, essentially, and to advocate for a free society and for free markets and really for a combination of individual liberty and personal responsibility.

And we just wanted to do it in a way that we thought would be catchy and easily shareable. Well, it's wonderful. Obviously, you're familiar with Prager University. And I think that, I mean, anybody who's honest understands that a lot of people take in most of their information on the internet. They don't tend to watch long form stuff. So when you can communicate a bunch of ideas in a video, it can be tremendously effective. So the Y minutes, what are some of the subject? And by the way, if people, want to find this, they would just go to YouTube. Yeah, you can go to YouTube, Facebook, or the Yminutes.com. It's our website. You can see all of our videos there as well and subscribe. And some of the topics that we've covered, for instance, our launch video, or I should

say our relaunch video, we try to tackle issues from a way that's a little bit different from the typical way that they're talked about, especially within a political environment. So for instance, when we talked about the idea of the competing definitions of freedom, So some people look at freedom as the provision of goods and services. Other people look at freedom as the ability to choose your own path. And we use as an example, East and West Germany, because obviously in East Germany, you had a situation where the government was providing health care and a job and an apartment and education. And in West Germany, there was greater emphasis on just your ability to pursue happiness.

And what was interesting about that entire concept was, here you have two competing versions of freedom, and yet you have people from East Germany, the side that is providing you the goods and services, that are not just leaving to go to West Germany. They're risking life and limb to make it to West Germany. And so talking about things in that perspective is, I think, interesting and a little bit original.

Another example that we use, I'll give you a sneak peek on an episode we have coming up soon. We talk about the idea and the notion of hard work. So all of us, you know, we're raised being told, you've got to work hard to make it. You got to work hard if you want to be economically successful or if you want to be wealthy. And we really dive into the idea that whereas hard work might be a necessary component, it's not a sufficient one. And there's actually a danger involved in teaching people that it's just about hard work. Because when you look at the Marxist theory of the value of labor, it's this idea that the difficulty of the work or the quantity of the hours you're

work that that's what conveys value. No, value is not conveyed based up of how hard you work. Values conveyed based off of whether or not people want what it is that you produce, whether or not you're actually adding value to another human being and making their life better. Another one real quick is we did one on student loan debt. And the question right now seems to be, should the government pay student loan or should the government forgive student loans or should they not forgive student loans?

Well, we looked at it from the perspective of it's not that the government can or should. It's they can't because you can't forgive a loan that you didn't provide the money for. So really what the debate is, is should the government transfer the responsibility for paying a debt onto somebody that never took the debt in the first place? And we think it's important because words matter and ideas matter and the way that you talk about these concepts has a great deal of influence in the way people perceive them. And our goal at the end is not, you know, doesn't fit nicely into this Republican Democrat paradigm. It's more about, you know, truth versus untruth. Nick, let me ask you. So how many of these have you made up till now?

We've got about seven videos published right now. We started in February. We do one a week every Wednesday. And so far, the response has been great. We've had literally millions of people interact and watch these videos. This is huge. And these are the Y Minutes, W-H-Y Minutes, and you can find it at YouTube, and you said Facebook as well. Yeah, on Facebook.

We're on social media as well. And then the Y-minutes.com is where people can go and specifically subscribe to our content. The Y-minutes.com. That's the one I was looking for. So since you've done seven, let's keep going because I'm going to share some of these on my social media. And if folks go to Eric Mattaxas.com, folks, you know that I, I keep asking for you to sign up for my newsletter because I sent out videos and all kinds of things. But let's cover a few more of these while we have a couple of minutes, Nick.

What are some of these other topics that you take on in the Y minutes? Sure. Well, we had one that talked about inflationary monetary policy, right? Which, of course, is something that we typically put someone to sleep. But we did it from the perspective of a family in Zimbabwe that went grocery shopping. and we talked about how when they go grocery shopping, they don't just plan out their list and then pick an item. They have to shop at multiple stores. They have to coordinate with one another

because the price of an object or a price of an item that they want to purchase can change from the time they pick it up on the shelf to the time that they get to the cash register. And we go into the reasons on why that happened and why there's this, why we all know that inflationary monetary policy is bad for the economy and yet politicians continue to do it.

And we talk about the motivation they have to be able to, you know, win votes by providing goodies while completely ignoring underlying economic fundamentals and what that ends up doing to just two regular people trying to go grocery shopping. I mean, this is basically called corruption. I mean, you're printing money so that you can get reelected and you're doing things that. I mean, right now it seems like the Biden administration is printing more money. and that we're looking at all kinds of inflation. I mean, I keep hearing that. Do you know about that? Yeah, no, it's inflation there. I mean, inflation is a monetary concept. So the more, you know, fiat currency or paper currency, the government prints,

the overall value of the individual dollar goes down. And it has the biggest impact on those people that are on a fixed income. It's basically a tax on savings. You know, it's interesting. You mentioned what's going on with the Biden administration. Our most popular video so far actually look at the whole idea of gun control. And again, there's a thousand different arguments with respect to gun control. But the one that we decided to do is we took an argument that's very common within advocates of gun control.

And they essentially say that because a citizen can and sometimes do use firearms for an evil purpose, therefore citizens' ability to own firearms should be restricted. And we said, okay, well, we're going to apply that logic, but we're going to apply that logic toward the government. So if the gun in the hands of a private citizen presents a danger because it can use for evil purposes, what's the track record of governments using guns against unarmed populations? Well, it turns out we're not exactly hurting for examples. And it's not just examples from Soviet Russia or Venezuela or China. We have examples right here in the United States where gun control laws were used in a very racist manner in order to prevent black Americans from being able to

defend themselves and their families. And so the nature of the argument that we made that I think was unique was this idea that, okay, if we accept your reasoning that the potential for a citizen to use a firearm is dangerous and therefore they shouldn't have them, well, then the other side's reasoning that only the government should have them is absurd on its face based off of the government's history. This is wonderful stuff. We're out of time, but I'm just thrilled to get to know you, Nick Freitas, F-R-E-I-T-A-S, the H-H-E-H-Y, the Y-Minits.com. Folks, check it out. Nick, thank you for doing this.

Thank you very much, Er. For a five mile or so, Tim Rogers, them home just getting intense up here. By the time we go. Hey there, folks, how many years have I been telling you about relief factor? What, like, four? The truth is, I know there are millions of people. In fact, some say over 100 million people struggling with some kind of pain, maybe from exercise, just getting older, that could do it, getting older, which is why I am so

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Folks, yeah, this is the Eric Metaxas show. I'm playing the role of Eric. and I know I can do it. We have talked a lot to my friend Kirk Cameron on this program. And, you know, I try to help Kurt with his career. And he is doing this incredible campfire thing. The last time we spoke, he talked to me about this book, The American Covenant, written by Marshall Foster. And I thought, wouldn't it be great to get Marshall Foster on this program?

but as you know, the American Covenant is an old idea. Marshall Foster passed away in 1860, 1860. But actually, no, I'm being told, Albin says, no, he's very much alive. Marshall Foster, welcome to the program. Eric, it's great to be with you. Listen, this idea of the American Covenant, it is as true today as it was 400 years ago. It is so important. So I really was thrilled to hear that there really was a book because everybody in America needs to understand this.

So first of all, tell us who you are. What do you do with your life when you're not on this program talking about books? And, you know, where are you from? Give us a little background on yourself because I always love to get to know people. Sure. Well, I'm the president of the World History Institute. For the last 45 years, we've been teaching America's Christian history. I lead tours of about 12,000 kids a year on the historic East Coast,

been doing that for 30 years. What? 12,000. About 12,000, yeah, through American Christian tours and we take high school kids, junior high kids, and we take them up and down the East Coast teaching. Do their parents know about this? Oh, yeah, yeah, it's part of the Christian schools. So you don't kidnap the kids and brainwash them into loving America?

No, no, that's the public schools that does the opposite. Yeah, unfortunately, that's the story. So listen, that's so terrific. the World History Institute. What is that website? Because this is something I think people want to check out. Worldhistory Institute.com, and that's where they can get the book, too, the American Covenant, the untold story, which is brand new off the press one week ago.

So how did you, oh, I didn't realize that's fantastic. One week ago, completely rewrote written by me and my wife. The American Covenant. All right. So what led you to do this? What's your background? Where are you from? How'd you get into this stuff? Well, I joined the staff of Campus Crusade back in the days of Jane Fonda and the radical movements on the campuses. In fact, we were there for nine years. I debated Jane at USC back in 1970 when she came back from Ho Chi Men City.

Okay. Pause. Paul. Are you make this is, I can't believe you just said this. You debated Jane Fonda when she came back from Ho Chi Men City in 1970? Well, it wasn't official. This was at USC in the free speech platform, and so she came in to speak, and we started yelling back and forth at each other about whether or not she was a true patriot or whether she was a communist. And I was preaching the gospel because I was the president of Campus Crusade for Christ at the time, and I was working on the campus. I did for nine years, and that's where I became exposed to the Marxism that was sweeping through the student movement that now, has gone into the historic history classrooms of America. And really with this classical cultural Marxism, it has taken over American culture. And that's what really got me involved then in starting our ministry to re-educate the American people in the true Christian history of our country

versus the Marxism. And the thing is that it really does at this point, I mean, it's finally become clear to me. That's what we're dealing with. There's American-style self-government. There's liberty. there's this American covenant. It's based in God, even though we don't force religion, but it is based in these ideas. Religion is free. We have total freedom of religion. And then the alternative is this Marxist, atheist worldview, which often masquerades as something else because they don't want to say we're cultural Marxists. They don't want to say that we hate America. But in fact, they do. And it's just become so clear now we have China really pushing this and infiltrating our system as well. Well, you know, I sound like a fearmonger, except, unfortunately, it's true.

So you've been doing this for quite some time. I'm sorry, the book is the American Covenant, The Untold Story. So let's get into it. What is in this book? What is the American Covenant? Well, the American Covenant goes right back to the Mayflower Compact, exactly 400 years ago and two months. The Mayflower came across the ocean with a group of English separatists who,

really had been kicked out of England. And when they came, they were in search of religious liberty as well as their physical liberty. And they, before they got off the ship, they wrote their own form of government, which was interestingly enough based upon the Hebrew Republic from 3,500 years before. No nation from that point on had ever been built from the grassroots on the Hebrew model, which was not a totalitarian dictatorship, but a Republican model of electing leaders from the grassroots, having God be the ultimate king, and all rights being equal and everybody being equal with under the law. That was signed the Mayflower Compact on November 11th of 1620. Since that time, all of the colonial charters, all the colonial towns, right up to the

Declaration of Independence, acknowledged that covenant, wrote their own independent covenants at the, at the town level, then the, then the colonial level, then up to the declaration, where the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. The. said with firm reliance upon divine providence, we pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. They were, they were pledging a covenant to God. And every nation does that, whether they know it or not, they either pledge a covenant to God or they go off on their own, worshiping other gods. Everybody worships at somebody's altar. And the result of death and despair. Why is it that we say, and now I'm Greek, and I always joke around about this, but we always say the Greeks invented democracy, and of course, that's only around, you know, the fourth century

BC. You're saying that the Israelites had a form of this that sounds to me more pure, more like a Republican government than the Greeks did in the city-states. Why don't we hear about this? In other words, it sounds to me like you're saying, at least in part, that our form of government really comes out of that more ancient model. Well, absolutely. And that's one of the reasons I believe that believers in America have not been involved much in the cultural war. They have believed that America is just another society.

Our form of government is nothing special. But in reality, it was built upon the biblical model. And that's why it was not only successful, but it's brought more liberty, more gospel, more freedom to the world than any other in the history of mankind. And the reason it was following that ancient model, which has never changed. God wants people to be self-governing and free.

They must elect representatives. In a sinful world, you can't trust a top-down government. You must have accountability. And that's what Moses taught right there in Exodus and all through the Torah. And those principles of Republican government, the Senate, the House, not having a king, electing representatives, equal justice under the law. All of those concepts resulted in the Judeo-Christian-Christian her. that came down to us through Alfred the Great, common law, right up through Mayflower Compact into the Declaration.

And so you trace this in your book, all this stuff. Because one thing that I just learned from you, for example, you mentioned that the Mayflower Compact, that, you know, I've heard, obviously, of that, but the connection between that and what followed. You're saying that, in fact, the colonies did model, or many of them modeled their own. constitutions on that. I hadn't heard that there was a connection between what the pilgrims established

in 1620 and then what followed up through 1776. I just thought that was kind of something a little bit, you know, ideological that we would say that and that roughly that's the case, but you're saying they were aware of it. 150 years. That's what we call a forgotten century in which we have forgotten in the fact that that's where they took this Hebrew model. They were almost all Christians. They used the Bible as their foundation for their government. For example, the Connecticut Constitution of 1638 was written by Reverend Hooker, who was the founder of Connecticut. That Connecticut constitution built totally upon the Hebrew model became the model for the United States Constitution. That's why we call Connecticut the Constitution State is because that Connecticut model was followed

by Madison and others when they wrote the Constitution. And that was a biblically based model. And we as believers should want to preserve that model and not pretend that it's some kind of a secular base. It's not secular. It's not Greek. It's not Roman. It's Christian.

And it leads to liberty for everybody. Now, is the Connecticut Constitution the same as the charter that was revoked by Sir Edmund Andros? I don't know. revocation. I have to look this up because when I was in fifth grade, I think I put this in my book, Fish Out of Water. I was in a play about Sir Edmund Andrews coming from England to revoke the Connecticut charter. But I'm going to, following this program, I'm going to look into this because I'm just fascinated at this pre-1776 history. We've got 30 seconds. Just give us a little bit more and then we'll go to a break. Sure. Well, this is so foundational, Eric. And that's why Kirk, I have been emphasizing this, and Kirk has really been teaching it well for the past 80 days. There's 20 days left, and he's continuing to walk through the book as we're going, what was the covenant? How can we rebuild it? How can we save our country peacefully and bring it back to those

covenantal roots? And that's what we're coming into now. In the last 20 days or so, we're going to be dealing with what is the strategy to save America based upon the covenant? I love it. We're going to be right back folks. I'm talking to Marshall Foster. The new book is The American Covenant. Hey folks, you certainly heard me talk about My Pillow and how their products have literally changed my life. Now, have you tried the pillow? They don't go flat. You can wash them, dry them as many times as you want, and they maintain their shape. They're made in the USA. And for a limited time, Mike Lindell is offering his premium My Pillows for the lowest price ever. You can get a standard Queen Premium My Pillow for 2998. It's originally 6998. That's a $40.

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now on Amazon and feel the inspiring legacy left to us by those faithful followers of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Folks, I'm talking to Marshall Foster. He is the author of the American Covenant. Our dear friend Kirk Cameron has talked about this book and about the ideas in this book. The book is out this week in a new format. When was the book originally written, Marshall? Well, the first version was actually.

written in the 1980s and we sold about 120,000 copies went all over, I spoke all over the nation in various Amway rallies and rallies all over the end. And it became a kind of a bestseller in the homeschool movement and we've been doing it for many years. But it needed a revise. And so we went on to other books and materials. We did a movie with Kirk Cameron called Monumental based on the Pilgrim story back in 2010 and 11. And anyway, but Kirk loved the American Covenant. He had a hardback version And he pulled it out and said, this is the foundation. We've got to build on this. So he started teaching it.

And I said, I got to redo this. So we redid the entire book, modernized it, brought in 100 pages, 20 more stories, illustrations of the fact that this works. Eric, this is it. This is the wave of history. This is what, as believers, we have forgotten that we're on the winning team, not the losing team. And if we will follow the truth, the wave of history is on God's side, not on anybody else's side. We walk with him in peace.

And as we do, we'll be blessed. Blessing, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, right? So you believe that we can pull out of the death spiral of the Biden, so-called administration? Oh, yes. Oh, yes, we can. And I think this is a great expose of what humanism and Marxism does to a civilization. Unfortunately, we as a people have not repented in the past from forgetting this. And so we're having to experience it.

And it's interesting. Is it a number of us, I guess my friend, John Zmirich, and I've mentioned it, I thought that it seems clear that God is allowing us to experience the hell, to taste this hell of what does it look like if we give ourselves over to the dark forces of socialism, Marxist thinking, what happens? Because I think a lot of the church needs to wake up and to understand that we have responsibility before God for the sake of our fellow men and for the sake of children unborn to fight for the Republic and for God's idea. And that's one of the reasons I'm so excited to have you. How can we get

the book before we get into talking about it? Sure. They can go to Americancovenantbook.com, which leads them to the World History Institute and our other materials. They can buy the book right there and it's available now. World history. World History Institute.com. All right. Terrific. American covenant book.com. So let's get into this. What is the American covenant? You mentioned the Mayflower Compact. So what are the guts of that? The guts of the covenant is that they gather in the deck of the Mayflower because they realized they'd be mutiny. They were involved with some people who were believers, some were not. They had been cut off from their from their charter. from the cane because they were way north of their charter in New York. And so they had to write

their own form of government on the deck of the Mayflower. So they did. And basically, it was a 300-word document that stated that we covenant together with God to form a civil body politic and to elect representatives to rule over us based upon your word and based upon your truths. And so it was independence upon God. It was electing representatives. And it was a covenant with God to build their colony or civilization upon his word. The result was, of course, that they had liberty and freedom, unknown demand. Of course, half of them died the first winter. They had terrible times, but over a period of the next 15 or 20 years, they became really the example, the core of Republican government, and others like the Puritans and others came, and soon the Commonwealth's developed. And every one

of those little commonwealths, every one of those little towns then used that charter concept of starting their own covenant relationship with their civil government. Civil government was no longer a king, a top-down monarch, who tells you what to do. Now, civil government was accountable, as it was meant to be in Genesis chapter 9, was accountable to punish evil doers and to be accountable to the people, just like all other areas, church government, all other governments,

there's accountability. So they built that accountability into a Republican form of government that matured over 150 years. in covenant after covenant after covenant, where they agreed with God. They were walking with God, and it's just like a marriage covenant. Let me ask you, Marshall,

because I want to be clear, the one thing I think that they got wrong, and correct me if I'm wrong about this, but would be the issue of religious liberty. In other words, that they were more leaning toward the old style, you know, not quite a theocracy, but where you have the church and state melted together.

And then as you say, that as time passed between 1620 and 1776, religious liberty did come to the four. Exactly. And really where that started was the pilgrims, because the pilgrims were for religious liberty. That's why they came. But the Puritans came over a much larger group and took over Boston in 1630. But when they came, they were dying of the same plagues that the pilgrims had. So they sent their doctor and others who debated them theologically about whether there should be congregational government and elections or whether there should be a top-down leader and the leader should then be forever in control of the religion as well as the government. And they debated this and it took a while for the Puritans to give up

their ways, but they actually changed their whole theology from an episcopalian form to a congregational form and that result in a change of our whole form of government. Once people figured out that it's wrong to have a pope and it's also you know a top down system where there's no control and it's wrong to have that in government as well then they said no it should be all equal before the law and men must choose the faith they cannot be forced into the faith and and that's the beauty of america that's uh exactly folks i'm talking to marshal foster the book the american covenant you can go to world history institute dot com. Please go to World History Institute.com. We'll be right back. Folks, I'm talking to Marshall Foster. The new book is the American Covenant. Boy, do we need

this book. Why do you suppose others have not written about this? It's such an absolutely basic, vital idea. You know, I don't know. I think it has been, David Barton, many, many other great Christian historians have come to the fore in the last 30, 40 years. And they're teaching much of this. I think that the concept of the covenant, though, is so universal. It is so fundamental that God creates all of his relationships from the beginning of time on covenant. On relationship. Covenant is really a relationship of saying, yes, Lord. And that's the God we worship. We worship a God that's personal who wants to have that relationship with us. And then he covenants with us. And as we walk in obedience, we bless all those around us. And that covenantal concept, and if we had time,

we could walk it through history has been proven again and again and again to result in liberty and freedom and justice for all. Well, give us some examples. That's what we've got to get back to. Let's give us some examples we wouldn't know about. You say walk it through history. Where would we go? Well, for example, say Patrick of Ireland.

Patrick of Ireland walked in with 12 friends. He had no army. The worst place in the world of the time was the Irish pirates who were, who were sex traffickers, basically around the world. They fought in the nude and they were terrible pagan. eating one another, literally. And the result was he walked in and with covenant with God and taking the commandments of God, he set up a whole new legal structure.

He trained the people to be educated. He converted the entire island in 35 years and then made them the missionary capital of Europe. And they transformed Scotland and England, which brought about the Reformation in England, which brought about English common law, which brought about America's Constitution. So that's very interesting. We're in the world at St. Patrick in the, what was? Is it the fourth century? I can't remember.

Where in the world did he get these ideas? Because it's fascinating. He's living at a time, you know, literally 13 centuries before the Mayflower. Where did he come up with this? And why didn't anybody else at the time? It's kind of wild. It's interesting. The Moses Libre is a series of parts of the Torah and of the teachings of Jesus

that were left behind in scrolls by Patrick in every town he went to. And so what he did is he brought. the scriptures and the teachings of a biblical view of society to a people who were basically warlords, paganly eating one another. And they said, no, that's not the way. We're going to go to this Christian biblical way. Wait a minute. You're telling me cannibalism is not scriptural because I had no idea. I'm so embarrassed. Okay. So, but it's still pretty interesting because when we think of St. Patrick, we think of this kind of folk hero, he was obviously a brilliant, courageous man who did something much more significant in history than most of us realize.

Absolutely, and so did Alfred the Great, who fought a battle, of course, against Lutheran, the Vikings, and he saved England in 878, but he did much more than that. He followed, as we see in the left here, this little monument here, the strategy, the same strategy of the Shama, of Deuteronomy Chapter 6,

which is internal to external, family first, train them, and then they'll change the world. That strategy was followed by Patrick. It was followed, and he educated the people. They went out and became missionaries. They had good families. Same with Alfred the Great. He trained the people of England to read, took the Ten Commandments, put him in front of common law,

and the commandments became the foundation for English common law, which then became the foundation for America's Constitution. So what we're saying is that it's not that difficult to understand once we know the historical truth. And that's why it's so important to learn this history. The difficult part is to repent and turn to him and live in obedience to it. whoever talks about Alfred the Great, no one. Do you write about Patrick and Alfred the Great in this book, The American Covenant? I do, I do. And I've got a further book that's coming out on this.

It's going to detail all the heroes of history who have fulfilled the covenant and have changed nations as a result. And Alfred and Patrick are my two great first examples. And then we walk through many others. But these are alluded to in here. And I've got, yeah, there's 100 extra pages. of stories among those are some of the stories that are in here that show that if we do it God's way against all odds and it's always a small minority as John Knox said one man with God is a majority and John Knox changed civilization in Scotland and of course the Scots

went out and saved civilization that's another whole story of most of us simply don't know this history and I unfortunately put myself in that group right I know bits and pieces some of it I know well but some of it I don't know at all I mean, when you mention Alfred the Great, it's amazing to me. I know the name. I know roughly the era. But who knows anything about the 9th century? It's just not something that most of us, you know, we're lucky if we recall 1066 or Magna Carta.

Tell us a little bit more about Alfred the Great just because it's such a lackey. Oh, incredible. I've written a script on this. We're developing a film on Alfred the Great, the true story, not the Viking series that's been on television. Some of the stuff that's told about Alfred the Great and the whole English. battle is a lie. But this is the true history from his, from the original source documents of Patrick, I mean, of Alfred. And Alfred basically, a young man, 21, he's fifth in line for the throne of Wessex, this little kingdom in the southern part of England, ends up being the last kingdom surviving,

and all the Vikings have taken all of England, killed all the other kings, or chased them out. And there's a final battle. And before that, actually, Alfred is chased from his castle. He's got 20 people living in a swamp. He's lost the kingdom. This place is going to be the worship of Odin forever. It'll be the end of Christendom in England. And he comes out of the swamp and he inspires his people because they loved him so much to come together and they fought the Battle of Edington in the spring of 878. But it's not just that battle. It's the character of Alfred as he was converted to his with faith in Christ. He was one of the first monogamous kings in history. He believed in monogamy. He believed in the scriptures. He believed that people must obey the commandments. But he said, my people are

illiterate. They couldn't read. They had forgotten their Christian faith. So he went in and spent half of his wealth on Christian education, taught the people how to read. And he actually translated the Ten Commandments into English from Latin. It had all been in Latin before. And now the people could actually know the commandments. He put the commandments in front of common law, which was the beginning of the common law, which structured came into America's Constitution. Well, it's amazing. I mean, over 25 years.

Ninth century English is pre-Beowulf by 100 years. So it's kind of funny, nobody living could read it. I mean, I accept a few scholars. But it became, you know, Characierian Middle English and then, of course, became modern English. But what a concept that our roots in English law go all the way back. As I said, maybe people will remember, you know, Magna Carta and running me. but they're not going to go all the way back. So this is really valuable.

I'm so thrilled to have you on. We've got a final segment. Folks, I'm talking to Marshall Foster. I really hope you will get a copy of the American Covenant. I hope you'll go to World History Institute.com. We'll be right back. Folks, I'm talking to Marshall Foster, the new book, The American Covenant. Marshall, we were just talking about what do we do now?

How do we turn America around from where we are? Things are looking outrageously bleak. with God, all things are possible. What do you think? Well, the last chapter of my book is called a strategy for success. And basically what we do is we just simply go back and outline in history, the effective strategy of building a successful free society that has been modeled here. It was modeled in the Hebrew Republic for 400 years before they turned to a king. But it was modeled throughout history in various ways. It is the strategy of the Shama. And it begins in Deuteronomy where God says,

Shama, listen, oh, Israel. And what do we need to do? And it says we must love God, no God. First of all, we got to turn back and love God. It's got to be a personal thing. This can't be forced from the top down. We've got over 80 million just evangelicals alone in our country. You put together all the people that are believers in the God of the Bible.

They're probably half the country practically. But those believers have to become honest with themselves. We've got to be honest. Are we really having faith in him or faith in our materialism in our lives? we must turn to him and say, wait a minute, God, what have we done wrong? And that repentance lead us to the information we need. We turn back, remember from whence that was following. Jesus said, repent and do the deeds you did it first.

We can do the deeds if we repent to him. So that's number one. Number two, we need to go back and know what the strategy is. That's seen in the Forefather's Monument in Plymouth, which we did in the movie Monumental, where it says you have faith in God, then you have to have the moral principles of Scripture. and there's there you've got it taught through Christ and and through the law of God.

And then you've got to have a legal system and an educational system in your society built upon that. So you've got to go back and rebuild those foundations of law. And then you've got to educate your children. So that's got to be an ongoing process of doing all of these things yourself. And as you're doing them with you and your friends and your family, you can change the course of history. It sounds very educational, pedantic, oh, slow. it's not the political process.

I've been involved in this movement for 53 years. And I've seen so many political things come and go in the Ronald Reagan era and this and that. We were going to do it if we just elected this guy. If we would have got Trump in office, then we can do it. You know, it's all wonderful that these guys have come in and literally been a stop gap. But the reality is until we, the people, honestly, follow those principles in our own lives and go back and then demand that our representatives follow. That means this gets down to the Bonhofer.

error. And I think what you've done more than anyone else in the country, Eric, and I say this, not as flattery, you have brought us back to the reality that Christianity has a cost. And that cost is that you've got to stand for truth no matter what it costs. And once we know the truth, the truth will set us free. And that truth may cost some of us our lives, but we've got to stand. Well, that's really generous of you. I have to say that, you know, it's only recently that I've understood a lot of this stuff. When I wrote my book, If You Can Keep It, It dawned on me for the first time in my life, the price we must pay for liberty, for having a republic. I mean, obviously it comes right out of our faith, that there's a price to be paid.

If your faith is not costing you something, you don't really have much faith. Let's stop kidding ourselves. But it's the same when you have liberty. If this liberty isn't costing you something, it's probably going away. And that's exactly where we have been. We're at a time, Marshall Foster, I'm just thrilled to have you on the program, finally, thrilled that our friend Kirk Cameron, you know, help me find out who's behind this book, The American Covenant. I really do hope people will get a copy. Folks, this is the game plan, folks. You want to know where we go from here. The American Covenant by Marshall Foster. You can go to world history institute.com. Marshall, we will have you back on so we can continue. what is an ongoing and very important conversation. Thank you so much. Thank you, Eric. Joy to be with you.