Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 1375 | The Therapy Culture That Gives Everyone a Label & No One a Way Out

Episode Date: July 13, 2026

Jase drops the news that Phil and Miss Kay’s legacy of serving the homeless inspires local doctors to honor their work by transforming the site of their former ministry into a new community clinic. The guys push back on a culture that turns every sin, struggle, and bad decision into a diagnosis while avoiding confession, accountability, and the healing that comes through Jesus. They trace America’s freedom back to biblical truth, arguing that the Founding Fathers’ failures did not make the principles they wrote any less true or worthy of fulfillment. In this episode: Acts 4; John 14–16; James 5:16; Galatians 5:1, 13; James 1:4, 17, 25; James 2:8, 12, 22–23; 2 Peter 2; Philippians 3:18–21; Romans 1; Genesis 1:26–27 “Unashamed” Episode 1375 is sponsored by: https://meetfabric.com/unashamed — Join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to help protect their family. http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ — Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Chapters 00:00 What Jase Learned in School 05:10 The Holy Spirit Is the Ultimate Counselor 11:05 Zach Cancels College Pizza Night  14:45 Phil & Miss Kay’s Legacy Comes Full Circle 18:45 Phil’s Advice for Staying Out of Prison 24:23 Freedom Requires Responsibility 31:57 The Declaration of Independence Points to God 36:53 The Foundation of American Freedom 42:05 The Non-Christian Anchor of Morality is Still God 47:02 Phil Finds Scripture Across Washington, D.C. — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I am unashamed. What about you? Well, I'll tell you what, I learned at school. now that we're talking about it, um, absolutely nothing. Huh? Yeah. That's what I did. What is your degree is that?

What is, what is your paper, your sheepskin as dad used to go? It is called, uh, a business degree and the emphasis in professional sales, but Well, that's what I was. I did the same thing. So, so I was, most of my hours are in business, you know, except for my, my preaching stuff, which I turned that into a degree, but mostly schooling, was learning how to navigate a system. Yeah. That could be a job or a corporation or...

Zach, you were a pharmaceutical salesman. The number one thing I learned... Now we're just talking about the Bible. We just study the Bible and talk about it. Now we just do the Bible. Well, all right. What I was going to say is the number one thing I learned in, like, school, school when I was a kid, is that the world is evil.

Yeah. You know, I'm looking around. I'm saying, well, what are you all into here? the practical just knowledge i mean i guess it teaches you how to learn it's so funny though you to show you how times changed so when i was at westminster high school back in the late 70s they they still had what they called a smoking ring oh wow do you remember the smoker they had it when i was there so and we had believe that i know and we had so there you had the smokers out there but then it had its own

class system within the ring because you had the you had the smokers you had the dopers and then you had the rednecks over here and the spitters. So that was, it was all, it's own class system. And the school just, this was part, this was legal. We talked to high school? High school. High school. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. We had our own. I kind of remember something like that. Like at the end, yeah, they remember there was maybe a period. Yeah, it's crazy. That was at lunchtime was the smoking ring. It was kind of a big oval there behind the high school. I don't know why we got talking about this and we just started.

Welcome to the change, by the way. Zach took us there because we were talking about. about education. Well, we were talking about people have a bunch of letters behind their name, and then all of a sudden. They're an expert. Yeah. Or you're not an expert. You don't know what you're talking about because you don't have enough.

Well, somebody asked, Jace, are you a scholar? Oh, am I? That was the question. We were having a debate, not by my choosing. And after I said, well, I'm with the smartest person in the world. What is this guy? It shows you about education. He didn't even get who I was talking about.

I was like, his name is Jesus. Eye roll. Never roll your eyes when somebody goes to your knowledge being from and about Jesus. If you're eye rolling, guess what? You're not smart. That's right. So I was going to that Acts 4 in that. It's so weird to I remember that little tiff.

But I went to that Acts 4. I'm an unschooled ordinary man But take note I've been walking with Jesus Remember when they said that in Acts chapter 4? Well that was, let's face it That was the greatest That wasn't a college campus

But that was the greatest tutorial ever The 12 They got to follow him around for three years I mean that, you know Those guys changed the whole world We're still going off of what they did Well this is a good place You could study

I studied on my own for years, and then I did start a master's of divinity, and I took a systematic theology class, and I got into that class, and I thought, I'm not kidding. Like, stuff I had learned on the internet, just me researching the Bible myself, I was like, this is all remedial.

And I think that's one thing the internet brought. Well, you don't, like, usually you had to go to the universities to get training on a lot of things, but I mean, now, I mean, you can really, access a lot of information. And when I hire somebody now, I don't care what degrees.

I really, I don't care what your degree is. What I would rather know is if you don't know the answer to something, what do you do? And I want to hear your process of how you find out information that you don't know the answer to. I'm more looking for that because the information's out there now. If he didn't

know, it's called the information age. Yeah. Well, Zach, he's we're having our podcast. way earlier than normal. So maybe you're a morning person, you're just dropping all kinds of nuggets today. Well, it was like, Zach,

I was complimented before we came on and started going because we had the podcast recently, if it stays in line with Phyllis, about her new book, and we were talking about counseling, but I thought Zach had a great line. He's like, well, the ultimate counselor lives in us. Yeah, the Holy Spirit.

He is the counselor. Yeah. Well, I think a lot of times people are sitting around wanting you to figure out why they can't stop screwing up. They're like, it has to be something. I'm like, well, we've got

spiritual forces of evil, and you're making some very bad decisions. I didn't have to go to counseling school. People just think about what I just said. It's like, one of those two factors is contributing to or someone else's sand. It could be another outside.

That's a case. But outside of those three things, what are you, what do you, what is there? Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure there's some kind of pathology that we've got to deal with on sometimes. But what we've done is we've turned everything. We've turned sin into a pathology. And we, like, it's something, all it's, that's, you get some kind of illness. You've got some kind of disease.

You get, none of, no, sins the issue. That's why a therapist told me one time. He said, they all come to me, Zach, they all want the same thing. And I said, really, what are they looking for? He said they all look for the same thing. He said they all want to know the one reason, not two, not three. They would know the one reason that will explain why they are the way they are. And so I'm looking at this guy.

I'm like, oh, sin, because he's a Christian counselor. He said, no, no, no, no. I mean, yes, it is sin, but you can't tell them that. He said, you've got to find something outside the patient and you got to give them a face saving out. And I'm like, man, that to me is, and I think a lot of therapy operates off of that model. And a lot of the therapeutic models, and I'm very opinionated about this, so I could be wrong. But I think a lot of them come out of humanistic, like moral relativistic philosophy. There is a, well, you have to really find healing, you have to be known.

And there are therapeutic models to do that. But I mean, I think there needs to be a resurgence. And whatever your model is, it has to align with the scripture. And if you read that John passage when he promises the coming of the counselor, what he says the counselor will do, the Holy Spirit, is he's actually going to open your eyes up to what's real. And then when you align your life with what is real, that's when you actually find healing.

James 516, confess your sins to one another so that you may be healed. To me, that's true psychological healing. And I know there's probably legitimate cases of mental illness, but man, we have thrown these labels around like, just like free candy. It's like you're just throwing everybody gets a label. I don't know if it's helpful. You know, just my opinion.

And I agree. And Lisa, I've talked a lot about on the podcast about our discoveries through counseling that has helped us. But it always comes back to either my sin, someone else's sin, the sin together. And that word, I get it. They don't like it because it just sounds like a, you know, biblical word that's overused in their opinion. but it really, it really boils back down to that every time.

I mean, it's, it's some simple situation. It could be something that happened to you. Yeah, it could be, that's right. But that's someone else is in position on you. We don't live in a vacuum. So one of the things I loved about our counselor, Zach, and you know, you knew her here, huh? Diane, who was here for years?

Oh, Diane Phillips. Yeah, amazing lady. And what I loved about her is her whole thing was, let's, let's. Is she alive? She is, but she's retired, which is so, sad for me because like I sent so many people to her because I trust her so much. But her thing was we're going to go back and look at some things from the past that may be holding you up, but we're going to take Jesus back with us so we can retroactively let him do some work that he wasn't

working in your life back then, which I love that theory, how she did that. And so she mentally helps you mentally do that. We're going to go back and let Jesus deal with some of that stuff that you've been carrying all this and heal you. And, you know, if you need to be forgiven of that or if you need to forgive somebody else, that's what we're going to do. That was her approach. Very biblical, very spiritual. I got my first term life insurance policy when Jill told me she was pregnant with Layla, our first child.

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She's part of my testimony. When we planted the church in Monroe, the college ministry, right there, right on the campus of ULM and on the and and right in the heart kind of just inner city Monroe and we had all these kids coming and I remember I would I would like I was trying to like every Sunday I would send a text out and say hey we're going to have devotional or divo and and pizza or whatever we're feeding them we're going to play games you know you got to make it fun and so and every time I'd send out the big texting you know about 70 80 kids show up and then the then I was getting burn out because I'm like having to conjure up all this energy. And so I sent a text out and I said pizza and

Devo tonight 7 p.m. And one of the little girls texts back. What kind of pizza? I said, Little Caesars. The other girl says, Johnny's, if you do Johnny's, we'll come. And I put I put LOL, laugh out loud. That's funny. I thought that was funny. Yeah. We're not kidding. And I, and I don't, something told me they weren't kidding. And so they really weren't kidding. So I put a text back in there, said, change of plans, no pizza tonight, no pizza ever again. And so they all show up and there's no food.

Because the church's been paying for the food. And they're like, where's the food? I saw there's no more food. And they're just like freaking out. Like I have just, because they've become entitled to it. And I said, and next week I have a special guest coming. Her name is Diane Phillips. She's a therapist.

She's going to do a seven-week course on how not to marry a loser. and I mean, you guys will love it. And I mean, they all show up that first week. Al, by the end of the seven weeks, we had six people left. The whole ministry had just evaporated down to six people. And that's when the Holy Spirit began to move. And that's when we started seeing the kingdom time. Yeah, never heard that story.

So Diane was a big part of it. She did, they did not want to hear what she had to say. From pizza to zero. That's the name of that story. I never heard that. So were you there the other night when they, so Zach, the spot where you did that, the physical place, when you guys moved to North Carolina,

dad took over because we thought that was kind of the end of the whole situation. But dad, for some reason, was like, I'll step in there and I was like, really? And so he kind of did his thing for a few years, different from your thing. It shifted. It shifted from a college ministry to a homeless ministry. Exactly. And so that spot, someone bought that spot from the church. Oh, I was it that. Yeah. And then they, so whenever they opened this new thing as some kind of medical facility now.

Ow. I was moved by this. But they dedicated. Did I never tell this stuff? No. And I haven't even asked you about it because we were out of town. So you and Missy were the only people here, I think, in animal. Well, and Willie showed up late when it was over. Of course. But I'm glad he showed up. Well, he's kind of the ULM guy. It was so good. So these medical people reach out to Willie's father-in-law, which was kind of weird that this is how this all got going. But he sent everybody the family a text and said, there's a group of people in the medical world who have refurbished the building

where the church used to own. Originally it was a church for years. and then that church kind of disbanded. And so that's when Zach and his team stepped in to do campus ministry there because it's right on the campus. It's on the campus at ULM. And so they said they want to keep this legacy going

that your parents started with healing the community. It was something like that. Of course, I was a typical response. It's hard to explain our, it's kind of like Missy always says, you know, when you become famous or whatever, unless you have lived that, you don't understand that. And what she means is most of the time when someone sends us an email like this, this is not what it appears to be. And we've all shown up at these things.

Well, there's been through the years, somebody will say, we're going to give you an award. That's a good example. And at first you're like, oh, that's a simple. saying they're giving me what and then you realize oh they want you to do a free appearance exactly they're going to give you to receive that award then you will stay and do a meeting greet with all of our people and we're not going to pay you anything except this plaque well they'll sell tickets to get people there and they'll give you a seven dollar plaque that says it trust me people it's you think is that really happening all the time so it makes you cynical

which i hate i know i do being that way i want to think everybody is has has a good intention So I roll and thought, whatever. Now here's my wife. She reads the same thing and says, now this is awesome. We need to go to that. And I just was. Everybody who's married realizes that moment there when you realize it's going to happen now. She's not, there's zero.

Cynicism. Well, yeah, there's zero fear. She's like, this is great. Well, let me just tell you. She was 100% right. And I did, the first thing I did when we got in the vehicle after we left, I said, babe, the Holy Spirit led you in this area. And you were 100% right. That was awesome.

Now, these people from all different backgrounds, it looked like the United Nations. Look, the fact that all these doctors showed up, there was no other purpose for this. But just to meet our family and say, we appreciate. the years that your mom and dad put in this community with feeding the homeless and getting people off drugs and I don't know how they even knew all this stuff but she they basically said

y'all your family really of course I was thinking they don't realize we started a Jesus movement that's why it became a thing and that's why I was mentioning it because Zach mentioned it that Zach and his their whole family Gordon, everybody were a part of the beginning stages of that in that same spot, which is kind of a...

Yeah, so they took the building and renovated it. You know, God doesn't live in buildings. And, well, it's way better. I was just surprised. And they basically have a clinic now that serves everybody and all needs. It's fantastic. Which, it's much needed in that area. Because our campus, our ULM campus here, our local college, is situated in a place that,

I mean, just outside the campus is a pretty rough area of our, you know, city. So it's got a lot of down. And I was surprised how much of the conversation came up about the Lord. And so there was a lot of believers among that crew, but it was a lot of people. And so I thought, what a great thing to do. And just what a really humble, selfless thing to do. I just wouldn't imagine there'd be a bunch of doctors who would give an hour of their time. Right.

Because I thought something else is probably going on. Well, they probably thought the same thing you did. They were just like, first. We showed up. And just had a wonderful time and looked at all the facility. It's not open yet. Yeah. So don't go over there.

I think they're launching in a few weeks. Let me say a few weeks because I can't remember exactly when they're launching. But we got a little secret glimpse of that. But I was kind of moved by that. I do have, speaking of helping and doing things in your community, I forgot to do this when my lovely wife was here, and she forgot. But we wanted to give you a little blurb about where we're going to be, if I can only find it. Here it is.

All right. August 14th and 15th, Missy and I will be in Hardin County. Where's this at? Elizabeth Town, Kentucky. I wonder if it's the 14th or the 15th. 15th. Well, you can look it up. We'll put the little blurb here where you can look it up. It's called Helpinghandofhope.org. And you can get tickets for that. So come join us then. Elizabeth Town. I've been there before. I think I've been there also. Elizabeth Town,

this is Kentucky. Helping Hand of Hope. So we'll be there August 14th and 15th. You notice, Al. I'm doing more events with Missy because we've been doing them. I'm proud of it. I finally found a way to sink it up. Well, I figured the key, I figured out the key thing. That means you're talking less than letting her talk work. Let her talk. Just like this moment.

That's what I do. Where she was right on this. One thing I was going to say, though, we were talking about all this counseling and all these being a scholar and whatever, it's something Phil famously said. You remember when he went to the prison and he had that famous quote, we've mentioned this before. You can be locked up and be free. You can be underlocking key and still be set free.

Yeah. And which kind of sounds like a, what was the Rainbow Coalition guy? It sounds like Jesse Jackson. Yeah, it sounds like a Jesse Jackson. I not only deny the allegations, I deny the alligator. But I remember being with Phil one time and I thought he was going to say that at a

prison. He was like, let me give you some key advice to getting out of prison because I thought, well, here we go, he's going to do that. And he just stuck his mouth real close to the mic and he said, stop breaking the law. So you see my point. I mean, at some point, especially because a lot of these people are repeat offenders, he's like, stop doing bad things. Stop breaking the law. There's a simplistic view of that that you're like, okay.

I said something similar because I just spoke at one of our local prison here that's about an hour away a few weeks ago. And it was funny because I told this story on the podcast, but I met our cousin. He's, I guess he's probably like a second cousin. And he's sitting right behind me and he's talking to him. The whole time that Jersey Joe was talking, he's in my ear talking. He finally's like, what are the odds that I would be sitting right behind you in this prison? I said, well, pretty high since you knew I was coming. And you know I was going to be sitting here.

Exactly. Well, you talked in, when you did your sermon on freedom, I thought about that because this, I turned to this verse while ago in Galatians 5. Because we are free in Christ, but you made an interesting point. You actually preached that point revolving around those three times the law is mentioned. In James. Yeah, in James, where it's like the law that brings freedom. And it's like, well, wait a minute, how does the law bring freedom? And I thought you did a really, really good job with that. But, of course, it led me to Galatians 5, where he talks about it is for freedom that Christ has said it's free. But you know, down in verse 13, it says, you, my brothers, were called to be free,

but do not use your freedom to indulge in the sinful flesh, but rather serve one another in. love. Yeah. And that's kind of how I feel. I mean, like from a country perspective, I thought I read somewhere, you know, where, because under the Statue of Liberty, they put a plaque. Under the Statue of Liberty, they put a plaque that says basically sounds, I may have to look it up to see exactly what it says, but it's like, give me your, your poor and the

oppressed. Yeah, yeah. The huddle masses. Yeah, yeah. It's a poem. Right. I think they put it on there like in the early 1900s or maybe late 1800s. But somebody, I read somewhere, a book, I can't remember who it was,

but it was kind of dealing with this issue about we're free because they said, well, what we need to do is put, and I'm paraphrasing this very graphically, but they said, we need another statue and put it on the West Coast and call it the Statue of Accountability. or responsibility. And I thought, you know, that's a really good point. I mean, yes, we want to be a place where everybody can thrive and be free. My whole point for bringing this up is when you really think about our freedom in Christ,

we're not free to do anything we want, just like in this country. If you go out there and start acting like a huddlem and breaking the lot, we'll lock you up. you have to have law to have these freedoms. But in Christ, it's not about doing what you want. And I'm carefully choosing my words here. It's about doing what you were created to be. That is true freedom. That's why that little verse at the end of that, Galatians 513,

is so profound to me, but serve one another in love, which love, I think, is the key. God is, you know, he made us and then he remade us in Christ so that we can have the freedom to love. We're experiencing the love of God. And there's all these things that you can do on the planet and in your neighborhood and in your house with your family of these random acts of love that you're now free. Well, that's what led me to the thought for the sermon was because of our study. And when I read James 2, which, you know, is where we're at.

in our study about favoritism, it took me back to the phrase, Zach, of e pluribus unum, which is a Latin phrase, which was on our original United States seal. It was a part of that because they had these 13 states. And what helped me, Zach, about this a lot was our study of colonial life in America. Because I don't think I really thought it through how much that religious liberty was a part of that situation that you had these every state was basically representative of a different religious belief and so they're so not only they're trying to pull together unity of a country but also kind of unity in christ so i thought about this e pluribus unum which is out of many one which was kind

of sort of our early motto for our country in relationship to what james was talking about and this idea that in christ he brings that because he talks about the perfect law which we talked about that word it's not perfect in the sense of so that we can be perfect is complete in him. Yeah. Because of his, because of who he is. And then James doubles down on that by calling it the royal law. Yeah.

You'll say that later in verse nine. But this concept was there that those two go together and how we treat one another. It does go back to love every single time. And Zach, I made the illustration in the sermon that, and I just saw this the other day, that Trump has a new passport that they're rolling out for kind of a limited edition thing for the 250th celebration this year. So you can get them this summer. And course, in classic Trump style, there's a big picture at him in the passport with his

signature. And then across the pages, the founders in the 250 year. And I laugh because I was like, it's so Trumpian. But here's what it says. On his page it says, it says, on his page it says, welcome but be good yeah that's what it says in the passport welcome but be good when somebody stamps your password in other words behave and that took me back to dad you know always said what for crying out loud why wouldn't we just do good jays what is wrong over and over he said it so

because the bible the new testament says that many times right just do what's good exactly what's To your point about the Statue of Liberty, the ideas of, yes, we're a nation of immigrants, but we have to behave ourselves. We can't break the law. Well, that's why that was a little subtle jab at the West Coast, because it's looking down saying, oh, we're just going to be free. I mean, you remember the hippie movement. But even today, I mean, that wing on the West Coast predominantly, it's like, we're just

going to do whatever. Well, how's that, you know, how's that? work. Well, and I made the point in the sermon that it, and now we have a kind of a new movement of, they call it democratic socialist, but it's really socialism sort of really tipping the cap to communism, the ideas that are there. And the thing about it is, we know that that takes away freedom. So the problem is, you're like, well, you're an American, you can believe what you want. And that's true. But if you get your way, you not only give up your own freedom, you'll give up my freedom. And then it's like, oh, we got a problem.

now because that's not going to work. Well, the concept of freedom is, it does require responsibility. I tell my kids this all the time. I'm like, I got the freedom. Right now, I got the freedom to go on a very expensive vacation. But if I do that every single week,

then guess what? I don't get that, I don't have that freedom anymore. Yeah, because you don't have a job. I neglected my responsibility. So I'm like, I'm weighing that out. So they're like, yeah, I'll go buy whatever I want to buy. I'm like, yeah, well, yeah, when you're the making the money, though, when you're the one having to go to work to produce the income and you're the one, like you're, so your freedoms are obviously mitigated by your responsibilities.

And so they, but, and I think Jace mentioned this just, just a minute ago, in the Bible, when it says the word freedom, it's not freedom to, to just go do anything in the world. It's, it's freedom to be who you really were created to be. That's the freedom you have in Christ, because when it talks about sin, it says that we're enslaved to sin. And if you've ever been enslaved to sin, which we all have, you know what that means. I mean, look at anybody who has an addiction or habitual problem, any issue that we've all dealt with this. It controls you. And so to be freed from that control means I'm not bound by that anymore. I'm not bound by, I don't have to do those things. And that's what's so funny. And second Peter, I just, this just popped up.

mind. There's a, he says that they promise them freedom, and I'm paraphrasing here, while they themselves are slaves to depravity. And it says that you think about that phrase, like they, you, you're, you're promised, you said, come do this with us. This is going to be great. It's going to be fun. It's going to be enticing. But if you look at the people that are promising you the libertine freedom, they themselves are slaves to depravity. I see it all the time right here. And where our studio is here, where Duck Commander is, we're kind of on the south side of town. And it's an area where there's a lot of people that are struggling with meth and some other issues. And I see them every time I drive in here.

They're on a bicycle. They're in a wheelchair going right down the street out here, the major four-lane highway. And I look at it and I was like, you know, you're free to do drugs if you want to. But how's that working out? because I'm looking at the people, and I'm thinking, they're in a terrible situation. And I just, and my heart goes out. I don't look at that in, like, be in disgust. I look at that in like, man, I wish I could get Jesus into your heart,

because you would see that the path your own, you're going to die. You're going to get hit by car out here is probably what's going to happen. Or you're going to die from this drug addiction because they look terrible. They're skin and bones. It's like, that's the idea. I want to read this text in Philadelphia. Philippines three, because this is one I read in my sermon, because I thought Paul summed up so beautifully here and sort of the elevation that we have.

Because I was trying to kind of walk the line of celebrating our country in 250 years, and I am proud to be an American, Lee Greenwood, all that. But at the same time, it's an elevation above that is how we're able to then appreciate it. He said, many live, this is Philippians 318, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Just what you were talking about is that. Their destiny is destruction. Their God is their stomach.

And their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, this idea of elevation, of reaching up. And we eagerly await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. And so it's just interesting that this kind of this hope of the resurrection is a rise above to show us that the citizenship, while I'm proud of my blue passport,

or even if I got the 250 welcome but be good, but the real citizenship, the passport that matters to me most is the Holy Spirit, which is that connection to the heavenly realm, which is much better by all means. So that was kind of the gist of what my lesson was. Well, you did this thing about the Declaration of Independence because I was going to do the same thing at the Faith Family Freedom. Right.

And I think it helps us wrap or head around this idea of freedom also because when you think about it, it's called the Declaration of Independence. Yeah. Yet in it, there are not just one. the famous one you talked about. Yeah. But there's four explicit references to God. Yeah.

And so like being depended on God is very clear in the Declaration of Manfredis. And I think the founders wanted that idea of the freedom without getting in the details, because once we moved on to the Constitution and other things, people are like, well, God's not in there. But it was having a place where we're not sitting around arguing about the details of what exactly your belief in this God is. It just kind of was framed with God. And I have the four listed here, which is the famous one that you read. And what was your point on that? Well, I was just talking about how that in the Declaration, like you just said, that I read that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, which tells you right off the bat.

we are created that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among them are life liberty and the presumed happiness yeah so right before that in the open paragraph it says referring to the supreme being responsible for the laws of nature and the universe positioning the American cause as part of the universal order because it says what does it say something about nature's law and I might have to look at what they were in essence and nature's God that's what it says yeah what in essence they're saying because remember this

letter was was sent to the monarchy it was sent to you know King George the idea was I know you think you're over us but we're telling you that God is instructing us that we're going to be apart from you because most of the decoration is a list of all the reasons why they're getting out from under you got to go you have to go back

and think about the moment in history that that was written in, it was a novel idea. Yeah. Right? So up until this point in history, the king was the law. The monarch was the law. There was a Scottish Presbyterian minister named Samuel Rutherford who wrote a book called Lex Rex, which means that the law is king. And so a lot of people, well, I say a lot, a few people believe that, I read this from Francis

Schaefer that John Locke who John Locke was who Jefferson studied then basically when he wrote the Declaration of Independence I mean John Locke's influence on America on the West is I mean you can't overestimate it so he he suggested John Locke actually was in

Scotland at the same time as this Presbyterian minister named Samuel Rutherford so Samuel Rutherford writes the book Lex Rex which is the law was king and the reason why this was controversial was because up into this point in history the Latin phrase was

he had it backwards then the law is that king the king is law so he's making the point that the king's just a man right he's just a guy and so there's he can't like he can't be the the sole source of truth there's a truth above the king and that truth

is which all everybody's accountable to that truth and so whenever Locke writes his famous book called a treatise of two governments, a lot of that thinking is in that work. And so I'm assuming that Jefferson is looking at the French Revolution and probably thinking they got a problem because they don't have like a real basis for liberty. They're promoting the same kind of stuff that we're promoting over here, which is like

social contract and all that. But they don't actually have a case for it. And so then what you have with the Declaration of Independence. is you have Jefferson appealing to what's called the natural law. He's just saying there's a law in nature that just says, like, it's in the Bible. We're made in the image of God, like the Amago Day. And if we're made in the image of God, if I'm made in the image of God, then that means King George is made in the image of God.

And what gives King George any kind of supremacy ever me, you know, when it comes to, you know, the rights to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the answer is none. So it's actually a very sound philosophical argument that flows directly out of the Reformation movement because the Reformation movement was looking at the Catholic Church and saying, wait, what about this Pope? You got one guy that's determining everything. And so when Luther nails his the thesis to the wall of the church in Wittenberg, that's one of the things he's addressing. You can't centralize power in this way.

and because humans are made in the image of God, well, then you see that having implications politically, and that's what gave birth to the whole American system. It had never been done before. Well, that's why you're so right, Zay, and that's why the Declaration, to me, is so powerful because these men, and they all had different views. They were all from different backgrounds.

You know, Franklin loved the Quakers, and, you know, Jefferson was a bit of a deist, and, you know, kind of had, he wasn't so much on the miraculous side of Jesus. So they had all these quirks of their own understanding like we all do and trying to figure it out. But they understood the concept that God created us and yet he has done so much for us. The idea that the government is there to serve the people, not the other way around. And they figured that out.

I mean, that's pretty amazing to figure that out. I think that they figured it out. I'm not convinced that Jefferson was a Christian. I don't think he was. Right, right. But I think he figured it out intellectually. He was just like, if we're going to make this case, guys,

like there has to be like a non-arbitrary anchor for the whole thing. If it depends on the will of man, then the problem is we have no case for this. We back right back up and that's what they're saying. King George is like, I'm in control. And they're saying, well, what's your basis? And he says,

because I said so. And they're like, well, you're just a man. Why should I believe you? Because I said so. I'll kill you if you don't. And that was their basis for power. And what,

so the American system is said, no, no, there's something anchored in the very nature of reality that is the basis for power. And this is why this controversy that's come up over the last several years about Christian nationalism is so important. Because that's a term that depending on what you mean by that,

like I would push back on saying, you don't want a Christian nation? I mean, this nation was founded on Christian ideas. And so if you say, well, no, we got to remove all of that. And there's a lot of Christians that say this. But here's the problem. If you go back and look at the whole progression of liberty in the United States of America, starting from the founding of the country with the Declaration of Independence, moving into the abolishment of slavery.

He said, what was the argument for why did America finally repent and abolish slavery? because they realize that that African-American people are also made in the image of God. And all men are created equal. Yeah. They're all created equal. You look at the civil rights movement. Go Google Memphis Sanitation Workers' Strike and look at the signs they're holding up. It's rhetorical question, am I not a man?

That's the sign. Am I not a man? Yes, you are. If you're a human, then that means that we hold these truths to be self-evident that all humans, all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That same thread has moved all throughout history. Go read Martin Luther King Jr.'s letter from a Birmingham jail making the same exact argument.

So if we say, well, we don't believe in Christian nationalism in any form or fashion, then what you essentially do is you erode the foundation for liberty for marginalized people. that's what you end up doing in the end. And so we have to be careful with our language because I understand what they're saying on some level, but on some level, we do want a Christian nation. I want a Christian nation.

I want the nation to value human life. I don't want our government to believe that all of our rights come from them. You know what I'm saying? Why would you want that? I don't want that. The first ever, All-Electric, 2026 Subaru Trail Seeker

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because about the favorite That's where he's making that same argument in his day, which is 2000. Well, we'll get into that. Boy, I went down a rabbit hole on that one last night. But I wanted to mention these other two references where in the Declaration of Independence, at the end, the closing paragraph, they appeal to the Supreme Judge of the world. Well, who are they talking about? You talk about the ultimate chief justice.

There's actually a four-point sermon in here. There is. Talking about nature's God, we're all created by God, which is self-evident to them, these truths, and we own equal footing there endowed by their creator. Then you have this, there is a Supreme Judge of the world. And then the last one is a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, which, I mean, that's even taking a step further in that God's working. He's living and active and we're going to rely on the providence of God. So, I mean, yes, it was an argument about we're not going to have a

king who's from England running the show here, but their argument was based on these four principles about God. And I find that fascinating when you go back and look at it and look how much that makes sense. Even though Zach's right. Right. We've got it wrong several times, but that was the catalyst to come back to that one principle. Even the line where it says all men are created equal. You know, women seem to have gotten over the fact that it didn't say men and women, you know, which probably would have been a better way to frame it. Yeah.

You know, but at that time, but I don't hear them griping about it. No. Right. But at some point, we didn't treat women right either. Well, and that's a good, that's a good point because Thomas Jefferson, take him as an example. Thomas Jefferson had had slaves. He had probably 600 plus slaves. And he said, well, we're just going to, we got to, he had slaves. So he clearly didn't believe this. And therefore what he said is not true. That's horrible logic. Now, what he said was true, whether or not he lived it out is a different topic. Yeah, they were a man. Did he fully live this out? What he's, what he wrote was true. And it is self.

evident. And this is biblical, by the way. I mean, this is what the Bible talks about when it gives this idea of general revelation, like in the Romans passage where it says that the divine attributes of God have been clearly perceived by what has been made. What Paul is saying is it's evident. It's obvious. And so they're actually appealing to the natural law, which, by the way, that part of it is not a new idea. Thomas Aquinas had wrote quite a bit about this, but also Aristotle. I mean, Aristotle was not a believer in Jesus. I mean, he had no concept of the Judeo-Christian God. And yet, if you read a lot of things that he wrote about these causation arguments and things,

like he's kind of appealing to the same thing. He's saying that there's these objects that are moving, and he's using mathematics. And he's like, if it's moving and logic, then it's moving because something else bumped into it and made it move. Well, what made that object move? another object that was moving bumped into, well, what made that object? And he's just going, and through mathematics, he said, wait a second, there's got to be an object that doesn't move that initiates all movement. There has to be an object that's non-arbitrary that doesn't depend on anything else.

He's describing the necessary being of who God is. And so in that same way, what Jefferson did and the Founding Fathers is, they're anchoring the same kind of concept in morality, in the value of human life. They're saying that there has to be some being, some being that when he says it's good, it's good. It can't depend on the will of man because men come and go, right? King has come and they go. They die. They're born. Clearly, we can't be the authors of what is true. It has to come from something greater than ourselves. And it's a very logical, very logical framework to build a society on. And it's why, by the way, this system that we live in now, that's why it's been the greatest experiment in human

freedom in the history of the world. And it seems, it seems almost ungrateful now to have the current thought that you were alluded to that you look back. And it's like, well, we can't believe being those old guys because they, you know, they missed something. It reminds me the line that dad famously said to Bill Smith when he shared the gossip with him. He looked at Bill and he said, it's almost like it's too good to be true. And Smith said, oh, it's too good for all of us, but it is true. Yeah.

And I like that line. And Zach, you remember when we were filming Torchbearer in D.C. The scenes we filmed there at the Jefferson Memorial and Martin Luther King Memorial. And it was dad that looked around. every building we would go to because we were filming in different locations, he would always look at, and Zach, and he said, Zach, out, look at that,

look right over there. And he would point out on every building, and I was shocked, I just didn't even notice it. Every monument, every building. There are scriptures everywhere. Yeah. In Washington, D.C.

On every building, on the Supreme Court, on all of them, and that was the one, he said, look her over there, look out. Look at that, look at that one. Look at that one. And he noticed it, he started pointing, out everyone. Washington, D.C. is covered with the word of God. I mean, the founders, there's no doubt.

The whole idea was, this is going to be a God thing. But we're going to provide the freedom for you to choose that. And again, that was brilliant, because that's the idea. That's this idea of perfect law, because it sounds like you're putting people under the duress of law. But what you're saying is no, we're setting you free because trust me, when you do the right thing, you don't want to live this other way. Yeah. You know? No, but the, I think, too, and understanding it is that it's not, they weren't like these religious, you know, when you think about these people that are, zealots and they, they just believe it, like, kind of like a hardcore fundamentalist. It doesn't matter what you say. They're, man, they got their religion and they're sticking to it no matter what. That's not,

that wasn't the thing here. This was a very well-bedded intellectual philosophy as well. This isn't like, I think that's the thing that we want to kind of look back on it and think, oh, there's fundamental. These guys were making a sophisticated, like, well-vetted, anchored in charge. I mean, this was a, I mean, this, we don't even have the ability in modern culture to even read. Like, how many people have actually read Treatise of Two Governance? Probably most people in America have never read that book, much less.

know what that book is, much less less have ever heard of John Locke. Yet it was one of the most foundational books written for our time. And so I'm not saying I agree with everything in it, but I mean, like, we don't, we don't, we don't, we don't, we don't, access information that way anymore.

And so we operate in the soundbite culture, and so we want to have these sound bites, but yeah, there's a whole lot at stake here that we should probably consider. I want to say this, uh, just to lead into our next podcast because we're out of time. But when you think about what Jesus represented with the discussions he had with the teachers of the law up until

Jesus all these scholars which we started talking about today you know what makes you a scholar it was all about their take on the law yeah or the Torah and what Jesus did because he seemingly started breaking the law by doing work on the Sabbath and healing people on the Sabbath and making these that was one of their chief accusations. So what he did, I heard this somewhere and I thought, oh, that's good. And I have always remembered it. Jesus made himself the center of the law. Yeah. Instead of his take on the law, the law actually wrapped around him. And so he started saying, here's at the heart of the law. This is actually what it means. Right. Which is that there's the contrast. And that's why it was also

combustible. Yeah. Because they're like, what's your take on the law? And he was basically, the chosen famously had that line. And people said, that's not in the Bible, but the chosen got it right. Because he was basically saying, I am the law. In a human form. Yeah.

And what was his charge to love? Yeah. Which is the perfect law, that being complete. And we never gave the references. But the reason we keep bringing this up, because John, James 1-4, James 117, James 125, 28, 222, and 223, and then 3-2. I'll use that word teleos, or twice as the word for fulfill, which is kind of teleos' cousin. So this is not like, you say, why do you keep talking about this?

It's like you want to be complete and perfect and wrap your head around why it's called the law that brings freedom. it is that fulfillment that Jesus basically offered in love as a person. Yeah. And the fact we got it here at the same time of our, you know, July 4th and the 250th anniversary is interesting. So, all right, we'll pick this up next time on Unashamed. Thanks for listening to the Unashamed podcast. Help us out by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcast. And don't miss an episode by subscribing on YouTube.

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