America was founded as a Christian nation, and the common claim that the First Amendment mandates secularization is historically inaccurate. The founding fathers believed in separating church and state institutions, not secularizing them, as evidenced by Thomas Jefferson's attendance at church in the US Capitol building on the same day he wrote the Danbury Baptist letter. Research by Donald Lutz reveals that the Bible was the most cited source in founding fathers' writings (34%), followed by Montesquieu (8.3%), Blackstone (7.9%), and John Locke (2.9%), all of whom were religious thinkers. The Constitution's attestation clause states 'done in the year of our Lord,' and the painting of the Constitutional Convention in the US Capitol features an open Bible open to Matthew chapter 5. The Treaty of Tripoli's claim that America is not a Christian nation is taken out of context—it specifically refers to not being a Christian nation like those involved in the Crusades, and the treaty was written in Arabic by American ambassadors who did not read it.
DEBUNKING The Top 5 Myths About America’s Founding w/Tim BartonAjouté :
Like during co this should have been one of the biggest no-brainers when you have government saying guys churches are not allowed to meet but you can go to the pot dispensary, you can go to the strip club, you can go to the bar, you can go to all the but not the church. No government you cannot hinder our free exercise of religion. So this idea that the first amendment means we're supposed to be secular is so historically naive for probably some of the loudest voices, it's quite intentional. They want to secularize America because if they can remove God, then they can remove the protection of our God-given rights. And then they can dictate literally what rights we do and don't have. And the founding fathers fought an actual war to remove us from a government that said we determine what rights you do and don't have. And they said, "No, the whole premise of what the nation we're building is that there's a God and our rights come from him. They don't come from some tyrannical government." That's the nature of the First Amendment. The founding fathers believed in a separation of institutions not a secularization of institutions.
My main question is why are they told me to proclaim the good news in the darkness? We must make America Christian again.
Hello and welcome to the Reformation Red Pill podcast. I am your host Joshua Hayes and uh this is going to be special, super special. We have a very special returning guest. I am of course referring to the one and only Mr. Tim Bordon. Welcome back to the program.
>> Excellent to have you. So, real quick for anyone who doesn't know you or your work, who are you? What do you do and how can people find you and your work?
>> Uh yeah, my name is Tim Barton. I'm the president of WallBuilders. We are an organization that focuses on restoring the Christian foundation of the nation and really by retaching people the true history of America. We have what's considered the largest private collection of original documents from the founding era. We have about a 100,000 items in our collection including handwritten documents from every founding father, everybody that signed the declaration or the constitution. Uh every president and and what we do is we go back and study those original documents. And so instead of believing what some professor said or what some social media personality says about our founding, we say well let's just go back and explore from the actual document. So the credibility is not in somebody having a PhD from some university or how big somebody's following is. It instead is going back to saying well no here's what George Washington here's what John Adams actually wrote. Here's their document.
And so we try to retach people American history through those original sources.
so good and I cannot recommend highly enough this book right here for anyone who is interested. It is the American story and you've got a part one and a part two. Excellent, excellent work.
It's a it's a wonderful resource so I can't recommend that highly.
>> Thank you.
>> We were founded as a Christian nation and there's a quote that has always stuck with me from Mr. George Orwell. He who controls the past controls the future. Whoever controls the present controls the past. All right. We have had leftists retelling our American story and exercising God from the story. Even though it's his story, right? We were and that's what I love about this book.
We were no doubt we were undoubtedly founded as a Christian nation. When you actually go back and read the primary sources, it is abundantly clear. And as I take this show on the road, as I uh debate students on campus and I make my case for the for the reality that we were founded as a Christian nation and the only way forward, the only way that we stop our cultural decay and yes, save our nation is by returning to what made it great to begin with. Yes, we want to MAGA. We want to make America great again. And the only way to do that is to MKA, make America Christian again. And that's why getting our history right is so so important. So today I have this I and I'll tell you what I I hope to grow up to be like Tim Barton. I I want I want and I'm very serious about that. Uh I gave him like no warning and he's about to just walk through and just obliterate all of the arguments against uh that leftists will bring up to claim that we are not in fact a Christian country and that we were never a Christian country. He's going to just destroy them as he does and he doesn't even need any prep time cuz they're all up here. So, let me give you guys the rundown of what we're going to cover in this episode. And it's designed to be a resource for you guys to be able to send around to friends and family who are like, "No, we were never a Christian nation." No, just send them this episode and everything will be good. All right?
As long as they're open to truth, they'll uh because it's just an observable historical fact, right? We're not debating even about what we should be. We're we're talking about historical facts, how we were founded, and what that means for us right now. So, uh here are the 10 objections that I encounter probably the most on college campuses, and then uh we'll just jump right into it. So, we're going to do it all as one episode. I'll also release each of these uh questions, these rebuttals as their own episode. So, here they are. Number one, the First Amendment. It prohibits government establishment of religion and protects free exercise of all. That's the fir that's one of the primary ones.
everyone goes to. But what about the first amendment? Number two, the constitution is a secular document.
That's the claim. Number three, uh there are no religious tests for office.
Right? Article 4 bans any religious requirements for holding office. Number four, many key founders were deists. All right? They they weren't really Christians. They were deists. Number five, the treaty of Tripoli. That one gets brought up a lot and which says we were in we are definitely not a Christian nation according to the narrative that you will hear. Uh, number six, founding fathers quotes. There's lots of quotes that people try to dig up and find to demonstrate, no, no, no, we weren't a Christian nation because look at this little out of context quote. All right, so that's number uh six. Number seven, the founders actually feared religious tyranny. That's why we started this country is to get away from uh you know uh government and Christianity being in any way uh influencing one another, which is ridiculous. Number eight, the declaration uses generic language. It says things like creator and nature's god and it doesn't mention Jesus. Number nine, the Virginia Virginia statute of religious freedom.
And that one gets brought up to demonstrate that no no really actually the founders intended for all religions, Islam and Hinduism and all these other religions to be practiced in America.
And then finally number 10, there's no official Christian claim. None of our founders ever declared America as a Christian nation. In other words, they never said it out loud supposedly.
That's that's what we are told. So now those are the 10. I'm just going to unleash these Tim Barton on these uh 10 and uh and this is going to be an incredible resource for you guys. We already did a part one that was kind of just us having a conversation about this which he would did amazing. So I recommend that. But this is meant to be a little more systematic. So number one, the first amendment, it prohibits government established uh establishment of religion and protects the free exercise for everybody. That's why we could never be a Christian nation. Tim, take us to school.
>> Yeah. So this is one of the very common claims and usually it's built on where people argue, well this is the separation of church and state, right?
Like this that's what the first amendment is. You can't have religion.
And I think on the first episode we got into the separation of church and state and how that is just so misconstrued for lots and lots of reasons. Um but to give that background context then get into what is an establishment religion. When people think about the First Amendment and connect it to the separation of church and state, they're referring to a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote on January 1st, 1802 to the Baptist of Danbury, Connecticut, where he is reassuring them. And at this point, he's the president and he's received this letter from October 7th, 1801, where they say, "We are very concerned." Uh, we we had George Washington who was an Anglican. We had John Adams who came from a congregationalist background. I think he ended up being a Unitarian later in life, but they said, "Look, we're we're concerned, Jefferson. You worked in Virginia to disestablish the Anglican Church. So, you might understand this. We're afraid that our government might go the way of all of Europe where their leader chooses their favorite denomination. They call them an establishment of religion. And and we're afraid that's going to happen in America." Now to give the background on that if if you look at the pilgrims and why they came to America. Well partly is because what happened in the midst of the reformation you had guys like uh early on King Henry VII and early being relative but King Henry VII uh he was the one who really wanted a son his wife kept giving him a daughter.
uh he's very upset with his wife and he goes to the pope because at the time they're Catholic and he says I want a divorce and the pope's like that's that's not how this works right that's not the way God set up marriage and he says well I want a divorce and the pope says we don't we don't just do these no fault arbitrary divorces and so King Henry the 8 says I don't want to be Catholic anymore I'm going to be Anglican and this is something like again well documented people can look this up king Henry the VI says well then I'm gonna start a new religion and as the head of this religion, I am going to grant myself a divorce. Well, he starts the Anglican church. It's very similar to the Catholic Church. And then they start changing things they don't like. And among what happens in the midst of them changing this, he actually allows Parliament to begin passing laws.
And so there are actual laws that Parliament passed about who could take communion, about who was allowed to to to preach or talk about God in public.
um that if there were more than four people in a a room together talking about Jesus, you're only allowed to do that if there's an Anglican member of the clergy present with you, etc. Like these are laws that were passed and and this is the foundation building up to as the reformation is unfolding. Uh in England, you have King James who comes to throne. The Geneva Bible is a very popular and prominent Bible. And in the Geneva Bible, there's commentary and the commentary is largely inspired uh by the early reformers. And the commentary is pointing out that a lot of what the kings are doing is not what the Bible actually says. And King James sees this controversy in in England among other places in Europe. And he says, "We need to resolve this." Well, he comes up with the King James Bible. The King James Bible, what made it special wasn't just the uniqueness of the translation. It was the fact that it removed all of the commentary. But what happened also under King James is King James they passed laws that you can't print any Bibles in English if you don't have an official Anglican printing license and you're not allowed to print any religious commentaries. This leads the pilgrims to go, you know what, we're kind of out on this. The pilgrims are known as separatists because they separated from the England church. They end up going to Holland before they come to America. Uh the Puritans are the ones that came with John Winthrop in 1630. They stayed in England. Uh the reason they're called Puritans, they stayed to try to purify the Church of England, the Anglican Church. They discovered pretty quickly the Church of England did not want to be purified. So they're like, "All right, we're out." But all of this is background context. Literally, the reason people were coming to the New World in droves in mass. It wasn't because there was fur or there was gold or there was whatever kind of trade people thought there might be. know the vast majority of people that came to the new world came escaping religious persecution seeking religious freedom.
And this just wasn't something happening in England under the Anglican church.
This was something that happened in in Germany because of Martin Luther.
Germany became Lutheran. And if you weren't Lutheran, you didn't have religious freedom. And they didn't have religious toleration in Germany. If you're in Italy, you're going to be a Catholic. And that's just the way it was. So all of these these European nations they began choosing what we would call in Christianity largely as denominations they called them different religions. So in the midst of the Protestant church you had the Anglican religion you had the Lutheran religion etc. And so when they come to the new world the the majority of the colonies were founded by Christians escaping religious persecution seeking religious freedom.
and they said, "We we don't want that in America." This is the background context. When when Jefferson writes to the Danberry Baptist on January 1st, 1802 and says, "Guys, we're we would never let an establishment of religion happen in America." What he actually tells them is that the First Amendment has erected a wall of separation to keep the government from ever interfering with your religious practice. And and this is where people look and they go, "Well, see, so you're not allowed to have religion in government." And this is where I would also point out and be like, "Oh, hang on a second." So, uh, Josh, just to point out that this is something that people can easily look up. Um, will you look up and see just for for fun? Um, January 1st, 1802 when Jefferson writes that letter, what day was that that he wrote that letter? And and if you can go to Grock or somewhere else, um, but what what day did Jefferson write that letter? It was January 1st, 1802, but what day was that? that like what day of the week was that?
>> Let's see. I've got January 1,802 as a Friday.
>> Perfect. Now, let's follow up the question and and if you use Grock or some other search engine that can like compile stuff, it might be helpful. Um, where was Thomas Jefferson on January 3rd, 1802?
So, Friday is when he writes the letter.
Two days later, after Friday, two days is Sunday. Oh, guess where Jefferson was on Sunday, January 3rd, 1802.
>> January 3rd, 1802. According to Grock, where was Thomas Jefferson on January 3rd, 1802?
Thinking about your request, Thomas Jefferson was in Washington DC. Uh, then the new capital. So, DC, is that what we're looking for?
>> So, so yes. Ask Grock, did Jefferson go to church on that day? And if so, where did he go to church?
to church.
Where did he go to church?
Let's see.
>> And this might be >> Did he go to church?
>> Yes. Thomas Jefferson went to church on that day. He attended public religious service held in the hall of the House of Representatives in the US Capitol building in Washington DC.
>> Now, now, now Joshua, wait a second. On Friday, he wrote the letter that says, "Separation of church and state. Two days later, he's attending church in the US capital." Now, let me give you some background. Jefferson as vice president is actually one of the two people that approved church to be held in the US capital. Let me go further. The largest Protestant church in America met in the US capital. Jefferson's the one that first of all approved that church to meet there. Secondly, when Jefferson was president, all eight years of his presidency, he attended church in the US Capitol building. Now, wait a second. I thought we had a separation of church and state. No, no, no. What Jefferson said is the government will never infringe upon your religious freedom, your your ability to to worship God according to the dictates of your conscience. See, here's what we misunderstand. The separation of church and state does not mean the secularization of church and state.
>> That's right.
>> Why do we know that? Thomas Jefferson is literally the guy who wrote in the declaration that we owe these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal endowed by their creator with certain aable rights. If there is no creator God, there is no God-given right. If we secularize America, all of a sudden we no longer have an alienable rights. The founding fathers never believed in having a secular government.
They believed that the government should not dictate that everybody has to be Baptist or Presbyterian or Anglican or Episcopalian or Congregationalist or go down the list. They said, "No, you should have the freedom to worship." But here's what's also fun about this. Not only does, and you can, by the way, look this up later. Not only does Jefferson attend church in the US Capitol building on that Sunday, the guy that spoke that Sunday was the Reverend John Leland. Oh, hey, here's a fun fact. Guess who invited the Reverend John Leland to preach on that Sunday? Thomas Jefferson.
So, >> of course, >> Jefferson attends church in the capital that he approved. Largest Protestant church in America, meets in the US capital, listens to a pastor that he personally invited to preach in the US capital. I'm saying all of this because when you actually do some very basic research, you realize, oh, the separation of church and state, that's not what we think it is today. But so let's go back to the first amendment.
The first amendment says, but but Congress shall make no establishment of religion, right? So Congress can never say we all have to be part of a certain denomination.
>> But the followup also is that Congress cannot prohibit us from worshiping.
Which is also why like during co this should have been one of the biggest no-brainers when you have government saying guys churches are not allowed to meet but you can go to pot dispensary you can go to the strip club you can go to the bar you can go to all the but not the church. No literally the government has more authority to speak to all of those other institutions than it does to the church. The church is the one literally protected in the first amendment that you cannot government you cannot hinder our free exercise of religion. So this idea that the first amendment means we're supposed to be secular is so historically naive and honestly I think for for many people it's naive but for for probably some of the loudest voices it's quite intentional. They're not ignorant. They want to secularize America because if they can remove God, then they can remove the protection of our God-given rights and then they can dictate literally what rights we do and don't have. And the founding fathers fought an actual war to remove us from a government that said we determine what rights you do and don't have. And they said, "No, the whole premise of what the nation we're building is that there's a God and our rights come from him. They don't come from some tyrannical government." That's the nature of the First Amendment. It was not to secularize America. The founding fathers believed in a separation of institutions, not a secularization of institutions. And we can go way further than that, but that's the big picture general idea.
>> Yeah, >> that's great. Uh they and we can cap this point by saying they wanted to remove God so they could become God. So that they could become God unto themselves. And and they become the ones who dictate human rights. And not only that, see, we know that that the left that that is the leftist project, right?
to uh to I mean it's it goes back to the garden, right? I don't want to you to define good and evil for myself. I want to be the one that actually defines good and evil for myself. And real quick, the the quick rebuttal that you can give to somebody who says, "But what about the first amendment?" You can say, "Tell me the first amendment, please quote it to me. Congress shall make no law." The first amendment is setting prohibitions on Congress from, like you said, establishing a national denomination.
That is the per purpose of the first amendment, not not to secularize our country. So that is very well said.
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All right. So, that that was great.
That's going to be a great little episode in of itself. Number two, the Constitution is a secular document. It never mentions God, Jesus, or Christianity anywhere. So like you and some you might repeat yourself some of the some a few times here but like these will be kind of encapsulated also we'll send them off. So the constitution is secular. Take us a test.
>> Yeah. So you can really only make that argument if you at at the same time you're simultaneously going to have to make the argument the founding fathers were themselves secular and that's why they gave us a secular document. Now we're going to tackle that question in a little bit. The founding fathers were not secular. I mean none of them were secular. There's a couple we might argue weren't Christian. That's the exception.
The overwhelming majority of Orthodox Christian, but here's where I would point back to a few more details. So, I if you go back to uh some really significant historic research projects, it was done by excuse me, there was one done by a professor from the University of Houston. His name was Donald Lutz.
and he recognized that the US Constitution has been the most successful governing document in the history of the world. No nation has lived longer under a constitutional republic. Um, which is a huge deal. We should celebrate it way more than we do.
Every September 17th, we have Constitution Day. This year, we celebrate 239 years living under the same governing docu document. It's amazing for lots of reasons. But he wanted to look up and see where did the founding fathers come up with these ideas that made America so successful.
And so he said, "Well, let's go back and review their writings." He said, "If we start with their writings from before the Stamp Act, which was 1765, if we go through after the Constitution, after the Bill of Rights, and maybe to like 1800, so you have about a 40-year period we're looking at. And if we just study their writings, we'll really come to know them and and see what inspired them. And and his thought was with the project, if we take uh from their writings, anytime we find something in quotation marks, let's go look that up.
And and if we are able to track back all of the people they quoted and make a running list, we can see who influenced them. And therefore, uh we will really get an idea of like what his thought was, what enlightenment thinkers influenced the founding fathers. Now what he released was in a book called the origins of American constitutionalism. It is still considered the most academic review and study of this kind ever done. And what he identified in this is the number one cited individual was Charles Montiscu.
And 8.3% of all the quotes they found in the founders writings came from Charles Montiscu. Uh and by the way they found 3,154 quotes. It took him about 20 years to complete this project because this was something done before the internet was a thing. Um, you know, if we used AI now, we probably could do the whole thing in like a couple hours. Uh, but yeah, he he selected 15,000 writings.
Uh, from those he narrowed it down to the hundred that were the most printed, the most repeated, the most uh utilized, the most distributed. And he said, "Okay, these were the th excuse me, the thousand, not 100, these were the thousand most significant documents."
And from those he found 3,154 quotes. It took him 20 years approximately to track everything back to the original source and Charles Monscu was the number one cited individual. The second most cited was William Blackstone. Uh Blackstone did the commentaries and laws of England. He was incredibly influential for a lot of the legal ideas we had in America. The third most cited was John Lockach. He did the two treatises of government. John Lock actually was the most cited during and kind of the buildup in the early stages of the American Revolution because John Lock was the guy that really popularized the phrase of life, liberty, property.
Jefferson made it life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But John Lock super influential. Well, those are the top three. John Lock was quoted 2.9% of the time, Blackstone 7.9% of the time and Monscu 8.3% of the time. Those were the top three cited individuals, but not the most cited source. what he identified as the most cited source was the Bible with 34% of all the quotes they found coming from the Bible. Now why this matters on a big picture is when people think well the founding fathers are really secular. Look, this was a secular professor who was just intellectually honest enough to say when you look at what the founding fathers quote the most. The the thing the quotations are around the most was Bible verses and it wasn't even close. Like four times more than second place, but I'll even go a layer deeper, a little deeper cut on this. So Montisscu, Blackstone, and John Lock, none of them were secular. People go, "Well, that's enlightenment thinkers." Yes, those were all religious enlightenment thinkers. So to go even deeper, the most cited enlightenment thinkers were all people arguing from a faith perspective in the midst of the enlightenment. So the overwhelming majority of everything the founding fathers site comes from the Bible or from people that are utilizing the Bible to shape their thinking. And this doesn't necessarily mean that that we see Bible verses in the Constitution.
But here's where I would go again a layer deeper. If you go to the founders writings, you have guys like John Adams, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton as easy examples, and there's more, but just those are bigname examples. All of them argued the reason we have a separation of power is because the heart of man is wicked and deceitful and no man can trust it. Now, >> Joshua, if someone were to look up that quote, "The heart of man is wicked and deceitful, and no man can trust it."
Where would we find that? Well, that's actually a quote from the Bible.
Jeremiah 17:9. The founding fathers literally said, like, "The reason we're doing this is because of a truth they learned from the Bible." What I can walk you through is there are multiple things in the Bible. The reason we have the checks and balances, the three branches of government, literally the founding fathers quoted Bible verses as the reason for the idea that led to those things. So the constitution is not secular because the men that gave us the constitution is not secular because the ideas they put in the constitution aren't secular. But let's go further.
The constitution at the very end, it's known as the attestation clause. At the very end, it says first of all, done in the year of our Lord. So when people say, "Well, Jesus isn't in there." Well, they literally say, "The year of our Lord," which is a Christian thought and idea, >> then they go further. They say, "And in the year of our independence," and then they cite it back to 1776, the Declaration of Independence. Why does that matter? Because the Constitution was something they were building on the framework of the philosophy upon which the nation was built. The philosophy of our nation was that we understood that moral truth exists. Why? Because in the first paragraph of the declaration, it talks about the laws of nature and nature's god. Now, what's a laws of nature, nature's god? Well, that's actually something William Blackstone talked about. He said, which remember, William Blackstone was the second most quoted individual in the founding father's writings. Jefferson wrote that American lawyers studied Blackstone like Muslims study the Quran. Meaning like this is the number one book they study.
But why it matters as Blackstone says God has revealed himself to us in two ways. He's revealed himself to us through creation and we see that in the laws of nature and he's revealed himself to us in his word which we know as the laws of nature's God and and Blackstone actually goes on for like 20 pages actually probably more explaining these concepts in detail. So the declaration starts off with an acknowledgement of something that most uh Americans in any kind of legal juristp prudence understood like guys we clearly know God has established right and wrong through what he gave us in creation through what he's revealed in his word and and from our understood right and wrong we all these truths to be self-evident like the things that we know are obvious truths from the laws of nature and laws of nature's God is we were created equal we have rights given to us by our creator government was designed to protect those god God-given rights. This is the premise upon which the constitution was built. The constitution is actually the framework. If you start a business, you have a vision and a mission statement, but then you have your operational agreement. The operational agreement is not going to tell you what the vision and mission is, but you don't understand the operational agreement without the vision and mission. And and that's literally what they do in the attestation clause is they tie it back to the mission and vision which was a declaration saying this is the reason we're doing it and this is how we're going to make it work. This is where again >> if if if you understand some basic concepts. No, the constitution doesn't explicitly say that the that the constitution was built for a Christian nation for Christian people but the constitution was built by Christian people for a Christian nation. And if you dig deeper, again, the fact that the founding fathers are literally explaining where they got the ideas for this and they're quoting Bible verses as the reason for their ideas behind it, this is why, you know, it's not secular.
And sometimes, Josh, as people as people are investigating this, the fact that you have to dig a layer deeper makes it harder for some people because it's harder to have a sound bite when you're like, "No, it doesn't mention Jesus, so they're secular." Okay, you're saying something that's true, but you're drawing an incorrect conclusion based on something that that is true. It doesn't mention Jesus. It doesn't mean that the people who were there didn't believe in Jesus. So, let me give you one more deeper cut.
>> Go as deep as you want to go, Tim. I love it.
>> So, so I would encourage everybody and will you look this up, too, because I want people to see that they can find this. So look up uh in the US Capitol building there hangs a a picture of the constitutional convention. It's 20 ft tall. It's 30 feet wide. So look up painting of the constitutional convention in the US capital. And and as you're looking this up, let me give the background story of this. So in 1937 >> painting of the US Constitution in what?
>> In the US capital building. the painting of the Constitutional Convention in the US Capital Building. And and when you see the painting, you'll be like, "Oh, yeah. I totally know this picture."
Super obvious. Okay, that painting was commissioned by Congress in 1937.
And the guy who painted it was Howard Christie. Now, 1937 was 150th anniversary of the Constitution. uh the the Congress said we have this huge space on a wall that we ought to do something to to commemorate this anniversary of the Constitution. So they commissioned Howard Christie to do the painting. Howard Christie was one of the more famous painters of that era. Howard Christie was the guy that during World War I had been commissioned to paint a lot of the war bond posters. So super famous dude. So he's commissioned by Congress to do this. the that painting he finished I think it was 1940 when he finished that and again it's a massive painting 39 guys signed the constitution there are 39 heads in that painting and when he did this he and this is his own acknowledgement he says he went back to try to study the founding fathers more he wanted to get to know them so that maybe in the painting he could try to represent maybe some of their tone their personality like maybe represent them a little better and what he identified is as he began to study the founding fathers. He noticed they quoted the Bible a lot, things we're talking about.
And in some of their quotes of the Bible, they talked about how much they loved, revered, and respected the Bible.
And he says, "So I started looking to see when when they were together back in 1787 when they did the Constitution, is there a list of of what resources they had there?" cuz he said I would love to know like you know they had Blackston's commenters and law but he said I want to see what they had cuz I wanted to know did they have a Bible with them he said cuz I couldn't imagine people that quoted the Bible that much that spoke so highly of the Bible ever would have done something so significant and not had a Bible there. Well, what he discovered is what is still true today that there's never been found a source where like James Madison in his writings he didn't say here's all the books we had in the room as we're trying to do this. So there there's no record of what books they had, but Howard Christie, the guy that does that painting, said, "I I couldn't imagine they ever would have done something this significant and not had a Bible with them." So I painted an open Bible in the painting. Hey, Joshua, look in the bottom right corner. There's a table.
>> Can you zoom in >> on your computer and and see? Do you see an open book on that table?
>> I can't tell, actually. I'm looking close. you might need to get a high-res image. So, it's on a green tablecloth and sometimes those those images are cropped. Here's what I will tell you.
And and and and again, like you people can look this up. They can find it and I can even maybe send you one. We can put it up and post. Um but >> what's worth noting about this >> that Bible there is an open Bible on the table in the bottom right corner. It's on a green tablecloth because that painting >> is 20 feet tall and 30 feet wide. When you walk up to that painting, Howard Christie actually wrote words on that Bible.
>> Wow. That's >> That Bible.
>> That's very cool.
>> That Bible is open to Matthew chapter 5, which is the Sermon on the Mount. So, the most famous sermon, >> Hold on, wait, wait one second. I pulled this up on Grock and Grock has it shut and I went to Google and it was open.
So, that's kind of I don't know. That's weird.
>> I don't know.
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>> That was weird.
>> We We might need to like Elon Musk and be like, "Hey, bro, Grock is >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. That's crazy.
>> Gro is like, but but okay, so on Google." So, do you see the Bible open on the table?
>> Yeah. Yeah, I do. So, it's it's open to Matthew chapter 5, the most famous sermon delivered by Jesus in the sermon on the mount. You actually can walk up and read words on the page. And here's why this matters. Because Howard Christie, the guy that painted it, it was so obvious to him that these were Christians influenced by the Bible that literally Joshua, this has been in plain sight on this painting our entire life.
>> We were just never told what it was or where to look. But this is how evident it used to be that these were guys influenced by the Bible and influenced by Christianity.
>> Okay, let me let me sum this up. Well, one point that that's really important that you guys I think made in your book if I'm not mistaken is that and I thought this was like a simple way of putting it. You know, those who say that the Constitution is a secular document.
I like how you you note that the Constitution itself ties itself to the Declaration of Independence. And I think the way that you guys put it in the book, if I remember correctly, was the the declaration, the declaration being the spirit of the law, and then you've got the constitution, which is the letter of the law. Both they go together. You got the spirit of the law and the letter of the law. And you need both. You need both. Um, so I think that that's one little note, but then to put a cap on your point and just to sum it all up is we can actually know what they meant by their words and we can actually know uh what was going on in their minds to a certain degree when they were writing out all of and summarizing all the ideas within the Constitution because we have all of these writings within their that they all wrote in journals and letters and everything like that. And once we get to know the founding fathers, it is abundantly clear that the entire document was rooted in a biblical worldview. It was rooted and not only that, the even some of the direct quotes from the constitution come directly from ideas that they cite all in their letters. For example, you mentioned that the heart of man is deceivedly wicked. Who can know it?
Direct quotes from scripture. So we know what they meant. And whenever they wrote out the constitution, this was not a secular document. It was a document written by Christians for Christians to govern a Christian nation.
>> Is that a good summary? Good summary, you say?
>> Yeah. Not not not much to add. And and this is where too, so like even people would be like, "But wait a second, guys, like you're saying just for Christians, they always let other people in." And I know there's probably a question coming, but let's let's address it real quick on this one. Because the idea of religious toleration, this is another reason that I can argue is an evidence that we are a Christian nation. Because do the Muslims or the Hindus or Buddhists believe in the free exercise of other people's religions? The answer is no.
>> You cannot go to any of those nations and and and go on the street and witness to people and share your faith. No, you're not. That is illegal. You you couldn't go over to a major Muslim nation today and share your faith. But in America, we believe in religious toleration, religious freedom. Why? That is a uniquely Christian idea. Let me give you the idea. So if you start in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, God gave Adam and Eve the freedom of religious choice where God says you can eat all of this. There's only one you can't and you shouldn't do that. God still let them choose. If you track through Moses, but before this is Deuteronomy, before the Israelites are going into the promised land, he says, "Guys, you need to choose, right? I I've set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Choose life that you will live. Joshua, lead the Israelites in the Canaan. And he sees them being pulled in different directions by their faith. And he says, you need to choose this day who you will serve, whether the gods of the forefathers are the Amorites, the Amalachites. As for me in my house, we're going to serve the Lord. Let's keep going. In First Kings 18, you have Elijah up on Mount Carmel with the prophets of Bale. And he's like, "Hey guys, let's just let's just see which God's real. Let's just see who answers by fire. and you take all the time you want as long as I get my time. And what's interesting about this is the idea of religious toleration. It is a uniquely biblical idea built on the idea and the the deeper underlying premise is that there is only one God and and and the true God God is not insecure intimidated. Now God does have standards. He has morals and he calls us that we should be holy as he is holy.
But with that being said, if if there is only one real true God, then I'm not scared of some God that's not alive and not real and can't answer by fire. The reason was you actually can go back to founding fathers. They said in America, people that come from other beliefs and religions that they can have no complaint of their faith being overcome other than by a gentle persuasion and by logic and reason. It's not because of the law they were hindered. It's because of the good sense of the American people that led them away from that. Well, that's what the founding fathers believed and were building. Is that if people actually knew what the Bible said and thought logically and reasonably, it actually that is the most logical belief system there is is the Christian faith.
Why? Because there is more evidence to support Christianity, the Bible, Jesus, his death, burial, his resurrection than anything else. But that's also again the idea that well the founding fathers didn't say you had to be Christian to live here. No. And that again is evidence of them being Christians not of them being secular because they could have been like France and they could have said we will not tolerate religion.
No. Instead they said well we know there's a God and and our rights come from him but we also believe the Bible talks about that each one of us should work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. That that we shouldn't offend the conscience of a weaker brethren.
They said, "So, you're conscious between you and God. We're going to uphold moral standards." But again, Joshua, to me, when when people make some of these arguments, if you actually know a little of the details behind it and dig a layer deeper, it actually is more support for the influence of Christianity as opposed to them warning a secular nation. That's interesting. Let me let me press back or even just ask you a question about this because I've been thinking through a lot of this myself and my my thinking is that what you just described makes a lot of sense in the 17th century when everyone's a Christian and everyone has a common we have a common culture high trust society everyone kind of knows we're like deep like we're a Christian people with a Christian nation my thinking though is that uh that the freedom of religion or I let's say freedom of conscience is like you say I believe that is a Christian idea and a fundamentally Christian idea. You can't force someone to be a Christian. You can't force people to be baptized and to truly know and love the Lord Jesus Christ. It is like you say it is the proclamation of the gospel. It is uh people seeing the beautiful fruit of the Christian religion. But something that I've been thinking through is that I I actually do believe that the civil magistrate has a responsibility to uh promote true religion and to discourage false religion at a public uh level at a at a public level. So what I mean by that is just like the kings of the old testament were commanded to pull down you know false the ashropoles or the high places or the false worship so too would a Christian nation it wouldn't permit public displays of false religion though I I would say that you know private property would exist people could worship you know according to their conscience wherever but I I think that generally speaking the ideal situation would be for a civil magistrate to promote true religion. So, in other words, if if I were if I were king of America for a for a day, I would say um no no church no calls to prayer.
We're a nation of church bells, not calls to prayer. If you are a Muhammadan, you I'm not going to force you to be a Christian. I'm not going to force you to be baptized. Um but I would say that we're not going to have public displays of false worship, public displays of, you know, calls to prayer or things like that. And uh and because and I would say that because not because I want to be like cruel or anything like that, but I believe that God God tells us that false worship actually brings about his his wrath. Like we know that like you know Amos didn't just call Israel to uh repentance. It was like no you pagan nations for your false worship and your sin. You will like you're acquiring God's wrath. And so I I'm I'm taking kind of like a I wonder if um the founding fathers, they could not have foreseen the level of like mass immigration, like the intentional destruction of our of our culture, our history, our way of life. Um, and that if I, you know, if if it were up to me, I would say, okay, I think we do need a first amendment or another amendment to the constitution that actually names Christ as king of our country and uh, and that we will be a country that favors our Christian history, our Christian heritage, and our Christian way of life. What are your thoughts on that?
>> Yeah, so I I think uh, so so two thoughts. The first is on religion and morality. The second is on China, but I'm going to connect some dots. So the first on religion and morality. the founding fathers that they understood and said often and openly and and I'm going to give you the two most famous but I can point to dozens of other examples. So the two most famous examples George Washington in his farewell address as he's giving his last fatherly advice of the nation he says that of all the dispositions uh of all of the the habits which would lead to political prosperity religion and morality are the indispensable supports and vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars and John Adams a year and a half later when he's the president he writes his very famous letter to the militia of Massachusetts which uh Joshua I don't know if you've ever read the entirety of that letter.
Um, highly recommend it. It's five paragraphs and >> I'll put it in the I'll put it in the description.
>> Beautiful. So, it's John out of 1770 or excuse me, 1798. Um, his letter to the militia of Massachusetts. He said it's five paragraphs. Um, most famous line is our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It's holy and adequate to the governor any other.
The founding fathers repeated the phrase religion and morality. And if you actually study their writings a little bit more, they're very clear. It was the religion of Christianity and morality were the morals of the Bible. So in more plain language for us today, since we struggle understanding sometimes the context of what they're talking about, >> the founding fathers said without Christianity in the Bible, America won't work, right? Like our constitution won't work. Our political prosperity will not work without Christianity in the Bible.
And part of the reason is very self-evident, but it goes back to the idea that we were a nation built on we the people being in charge that that we give freedom to the individual, but if you give freedom to people that aren't influenced by Christianity, that aren't influenced by the Bible, ultimately if they're immoral people, all they do is immoral things. And then society doesn't function. It doesn't work. And so the argument ultimately is you can only have really you can only have freedom if you have immoral people. And where do you find those morals? Ultimately, it's in the Bible and it's through Christianity is where you find those morals. So that the first thing I would point out is they didn't just say that. The founding fathers are the ones who openly advocated that every student in America grow up learning to read and write from the Bible. Why? Because this was the pillar and the foundation of our nation.
And and by the way, they didn't compel everybody to be a Christian, but but they did say this is where our morals come from. This is what guides us. And this is why when you point to people like a Jefferson or a Franklin, people that that I wouldn't argue were Christians, but those were both guys that advocated for students to learn the Bible. In fact, when Thomas Jefferson was president, he was uh the president of the school board for Washington DC, the District of Columbia, because that's a federal territory. It wasn't until the 1970s um that Washington DC became a little more independent where they had a mayor and they weren't governed by Congress or by the president. So like that's kind of a newer thought concept.
It used to be directly the president and Congress controlled and ran Washington DC. And part of why that mattered is back then the president again being in charge of the District of Columbia the DC the president is like a a de facto mayor in in kind of some ways. So Thomas Jefferson wrote the very first ever reading plan for Washington DC. In fact, uh Joshua, why don't you look this up?
What did Thomas Jefferson propose as the reading plan for Washington DC?
And and you're going to find this and I'm going to give some context and I'm saying this again. Um one of the things I want people to understand is that the things I am saying even though they are counternarrative and culture, they're things that are not historically disputed. Like these are things you look up and you're like, "Wait a second. He he did this. He said that. He promoted that. It's things that are very different than we think." And again, I'll I'll reiterate. Jefferson and Franklin were two of the least religious founding fathers. And Jefferson in charge of the school district of Washington DC, what did he propose as the reading plan for the school district in Colombia?
And here's what, while you're typing that up, I'm going to gro it on my phone, too.
And I'm going to voice it because it it's faster than me trying to type it.
>> Yeah, good call.
>> What did Thomas Jefferson propose as the textbooks that should be read for students to learn to read in Washington DC? Question mark.
Now, everybody watching, they're not going to see this, but they heard me ask the question and they're search Grock is searching. It's doing its thing. It's looking through this and it's doing a lot of thinking. It's searching a long time. Is your still searching as well?
>> Yeah. Well, I'm trying to figure out see uh Thomas Jefferson.
>> So, so here's here's the question I asked. What did Thomas Jefferson propose as the textbooks that should be read for students to learn to read in Washington DC? That was my question. The answer is the Bible and Isaac Watts himnil.
That's great. Okay.
That's good.
>> So, this idea again that they're like, well, you know, but they didn't want Christianity in America, even the most secular, the least religious and and and the least religious against relative.
It's not that Jefferson and Franklin weren't religious, it's that they weren't orthodox Christians. Right.
Yeah, that's right.
>> So, so they were still promoters and believers of things in the Bible of of of Jesus as a moral example, teacher, etc. But the reason again it matters is Thomas Jefferson, the guy that people argue gave us separation from church and state his proposal as the president of the United States for Washington DC students to learn to read. When he was the one in charge of the school, he said kids are going to learn to read from the Bible and a hymn book.
>> That is so good.
>> They understood that if if kids don't learn the basic moral foundations from the Bible, we'll never be a free nation.
And this is where you can do some deeper level thought experiments because ultimately when we're trying to determine in culture and and I love this is actually something fun um that when you get to do some of these college campus tours, this is one of my fun questions to ask students is okay. So, hey, real quick.
>> So, so how do you think we should determine right and wrong?
>> And there's only three options they can give you, right? It's either subjective, it's collective, or it's objective. And I think we did this on on the earlier episode, but ultimately it can't be subjective because it's easy to point out, well, like what what if somebody thinks it's okay to to rob or rape or murder?
>> You can't be like, well, no, that's wrong. Well, that's just your subjective opinion. Like, who are you to force your morals on someone else? Well, you can say it's collective and then we just vote on it. But but clearly, like there's so many examples of people voting on things that we would argue were immoral. used after the Civil War and and when the Union Army finally has to leave the South and the Southern Democrats begin passing all these Jim Crow laws and we're like but guys the majority voted on it and we're like yes but still that was immoral what they did right so the point is that just because somebody votes on it doesn't mean it's moral the only other option is there's an objective moral standard and this is where the founding fathers landed they said there's no greater moral teacher than Jesus who gave us an objective standard of morals and this is where when people would argue you. Yeah, but what about, you know, what if you're Hindu? What if you're Buddhist? What if what if you're Islamic? I would say, okay, well, let's let's just compare the heroes of the religions. A Christian home without financial order is a fortress without walls. Dominion Wealth Strategists exist to help families rebuild those walls with clarity and conviction. They offer holistic financial consulting shaped by scripture, guiding households through budgeting, debt management, savings, life insurance, and more. Dominion provides this council entirely for free because their purpose is to fortify the church rather than to profit from its uncertainty. They are the only distinctly reformed fullervice financial services brokerage firm in the nation serving real Christian households with real conviction. Listeners who want their financial lives aligned with their faith and future can visit www.reform.money and schedule a free consultation today.
Once again, that's www.reform.money and tell them that Joshua Hayes from Reformation Red Pill sent you.
Ultimately, if you're going to be in a religion, you're going to follow the goal is to be like the hero of the religion. So, if you said, "Let's compare Jesus and Muhammad, >> right? Muhammad, who's like, hey, let's murder people that disagree with us.
Let's enslave those people. It's okay to have multiple brides, child brides.
Totally fine. That's the hero that we're supposed to emulate because he's the most perfect one in Islam. Or there's Jesus who taught you should treat other people the way you want to be treated.
Love your neighbor as yourself. Who literally laid his life down to serve others. So those are the examples, but it's no comparison. Jesus was the greatest moral teacher there's ever been. So the reality is the founding fathers landed in the place that we're not going to make everybody we're not going to compel everybody to acknowledge Jesus is their savior or even that Jesus is king although he is where they landed is but we're going to make sure every student knows the morals of Jesus because we'll never be a free nation if we're not a moral nation and the greatest moral values ever given was by Jesus as outlined in the gospels in the Bible. So the first thing I would point out is that the founding fathers believed in the freedom of religion.
However, they also believed that freedom won't won't function. It won't remain if we're not teaching kids from basic morals. And they did not >> religion, >> right? They did not view that as a violation of like the separation of church and state because they weren't teaching kids you have to be Episcopalian or Anglican or Baptist or Presbyterian or Methodist or Wesian or what. No, no. They're just saying, "Hey, this is what the Bible says. this is the best system of morals and also they believed it was true. They believed it was real. It was a history book. This God is real. This is his word. And so students were were learning that growing up. And and just like full circle that stayed in public schools up until the 1960s that that was like standard, >> right? So that was a normal thought in America until like literally recent generations. So the number one thing I would point to is the founding fathers they even though they believed in the freedom of religion they still believed it was imperative that we promote religion and morality from Christianity and the Bible or our nation won't survive. Freedom will not remain in this nation. So it wasn't a contradiction for them, but they believed again because the teaching of Christianity, we're going to teach our kids right and wrong from the Bible, but part of the right and the wrong from the Bible is that we don't behead people that don't believe what we believe. That's what some crazy other religion believes. That's not what we believe. So that was part of the contrast. But the second example I would give and why it's different than what we see today with like the Islamification attempts of America is because it would be it would be intellectually inconsistent and actually some people are this dumb um so they would support it but like generally right when if we looked at China and or or Russia like you pick a nation that Iran that's opposed to America and and I think it makes total sense to say you know what I don't think they should be able to buy farmland and buy businesses and buy homes in America. I I think this we should actually protect our nation from people that have positioned themselves to be economic opponents but also potential military opponents and and and is strategically a logical defensive thing for America. Islam is no different than saying like we don't want Iran to come like buy land and set up and establish and build. It's no different than Islam and it's not because of religion. It's because what we often misunderstand is, hey, when when Muhammad started his faith, there's actually three legs to that table in Islam. There's a political arm, there's a mil or leg, a political leg, a military leg, and a religious leg. What happens is they use the religious leg until they can gain some political or military, whichever one comes first.
Sometimes they use the military to gain political. Sometimes they use political and then bring in the military to enforce. This is a a not a religious idea as much as it is a political and military idea. And again, this is what Muhammad literally taught. So this is not about the freedom of religion. This literally is about protecting America from a belief, an ideology that wants to conquer America. It used to be that if you came to America, you had to assimilate to America. And part of that assimilation, you don't have to believe in Jesus. You just got to understand that the moral values we operate from, they did come from Jesus and you got operated by those moral values, too. Or you get imprisoned or you get removed.
Those were kind of your options because we have so secularized our nation today.
And because we are so historically ignorant of of who Muhammad was and of what Islam has done and and by the way like just look at what's happened in Europe over the last couple years and it becomes incredibly evident the game plan from a lot of the Islamic regime and this is not to say that everybody who is Islamic has the exact same motivation but it would be very naive when you look at a belief that has nearly two billion people that are part of it and if the argument is yeah but only like 10% % are really extreme. Okay, that's 200 million people that are really extreme. And then the question is how many of those really extreme people are now in America? And the fact that we cannot answer that question with any intelligence because we don't actually know how many people came across during the Biden administration and where they're setting up camp. And by the way, even during the Biden administration when they warned that there could be black swan events, which are terrorist attacks on homeland soil and those terrorist activity could come from Asian individuals that came across in mass drove military age males.
But the bigger threat that the Biden White House identified was actually from some of these Islamic extremists that are in America. And and they didn't come to peacefully practice their belief.
They came to militarily, politically conquer the nation. When Islam says they're a religion of peace and and and I know you are friends with uh Bill and Michael Federer. They're great friends of mine. I think Bill Federer does a better job explaining this than anybody out there right now. But literally when Islam says they are a religion of peace, it's very important that we understand how do they define peace? Because they say that peace arrives when everybody is Islamic. That's when peace arrives. So when they say they're a religion of peace, no what they are is a religion of conquest trying to make everybody Islamic and then there is peace. That is their peace.
>> How do we achieve that peace? That's right. Um well that yeah that's super good. I So we're gonna I know you've got a stop time here in a few minutes. So, I'm going to let's we'll we'll try to tighten up the the like almost like rapid fire if we can. Um but uh some of these just need to be teased out. If we have to go for a part two and you go to Jet, that's okay, too. Um but number three is note. So, all right, for those of you who are just now tuning in to this episode or or we're cutting it out into smaller pieces, we can't have a Christian nation. We were not founded as a Christian nation. We know this because there's no religious test for offices.
Article 6 bans any religious requirements for holding office. What say you Tim Bordon?
>> Yeah. So this is this is again where to understand some of these context you have to go back to even understand what some of the colonies were. And actually so the US Supreme Court there was a case um it was the United States versus the Church of the Holy Trinity from 1892 and it was a first amendment case at that time uh Congress had actually put a ban on any immigration into America which is interesting that we had time in America.
We're like, you know, we have enough.
WE'RE WE'RE GOING TO STOP for now. Uh interesting.
>> But in the midst of that, there was a church and they said, "Hey, we lost our pastor and and we had a new pastor on the way from Ireland and and now you've said nobody can come in, but we need our pastor." And they're like, "No exceptions." And so it goes to US Supreme Court. The US Supreme Court reviews the case. And one of the things they said in their decision which I think is very helpful for our understanding this conversation um they in their explanation for their decision they said that to understand like the first amendment they said you must first and this is their quote determine the evil which was intended to be remedied.
Meaning if you want to understand you need to go back to the context and say okay what problem are they actually trying to solve? And if you understand the problem they're trying to solve, then you have the context to go, oh, so they meant this, not this. So what was the context when they say there can be no religious litmus test, no nothing for oath of office. At the time of the constitution, nine of the 13 colonies had official stateestablished religions, which arguably Virginia uh the the year before had disestablished the Anglican church. Uh, and that's why it's not 11 or 12 or even 13 because some states were already saying, you know what, we're not sure we want to have an official established religion anymore, but almost every single one of the colonies from their inception up until like the founding fathers era, they had had state established religions. And actually in some of those states, they had religious litmus tests and they had conditions of holding office, which this is also kind of a fun study. You can go back and look up the Pennsylvania 1776 state constitution and look up the oath of office they had. Benjamin Franklin is the guy that helped write that oath. And it says before you can hold office, you must subscribe to the following declaration viz. I do believe in one God, the creator of the universe, the rewarder of the good, the punisher of the wicked. I do believe by the old New Testament to be given by divine inspiration. and and and like Franklin is the one attributed with writing this.
That was actually something everybody had to say before they held office and which also worth noting it says you have to um either give your oath or affirmation. Why would it be oath or affirmation? Well, because Pennsylvania, as an example, Pennsylvania was founded by the Quakers and and the Quakers, >> one of their firm convictions is like, hey, you're not supposed to swear. Like Jesus clearly said, "You don't make an oath. Let your yes be yes, your no no."
So they said, "Look, I'll give you my word, but I'm not going to I'm not going to take an oath." So even part of the the influence of this the the religious tolerance that comes from Christianity where they said, "Hey, give us your oath or your affirmation, but you have to say you believe in these basic things or you can't hold office." What they did was in the constitution they said okay knowing we have all these states that have all these different views. We don't we don't want to follow what one of the states have done and then have the frustration of the other states. So we're just going to say look you're not going to have to take any one of these oaths to hold office here. It was not intended to secularize. It was intended to overcome the hurdle of what oath might be there or what that might look like. And and again, part of the idea was in some of the states, the oath that you would take was specifically in regard to some Anglican beliefs or congregationist beliefs or Methodist beliefs or Catholic beliefs. And they said, "Yeah, we don't we don't want to deal with all that. So, let's just remove that oath of office."
Now, by the way, that's what Franklin tried to do in Pennsylvania was saying, "Let's make this like broad, like the mere Christianity version. Like, you just you have to believe in God. You have to believe uh in eternity and rewards and punishments. You have to believe in the Bible. But if you believe that, the rest is good. Again, this was not an attempt to secularize a nation.
And why we know that is because part of the people that came up with these ideas are guys like Roger Sherman and James Wilson. Two guys who were outspoken Christians, again, noted Christians, and they're coming up with solutions. Well, the problem they're trying to remedy is, well, these different states have different ideas. Okay, let's just let's move that for now. Let's just come together as a nation. And there were a lot of compromises they made, but they didn't compromise ultimately on values.
They compromised on some of the language of what would be promoted. So, this is not a secular acknowledgement. This is the acknowledgement of the challenge they were dealing with. And they said, "Okay, let's just let's put that aside.
We're not gonna have an oath because right now we we got to get some work done and come together." And that's also why in the Constitution they postponed that they're not going like that that the argument over slavery and the slave trade. And they're like, "All right, >> let's just put that off. There can be no law passed for the prohibition of the importation of individuals into the colony before January 1st, 1808." And we'll we'll revisit that conversation.
They never believed that what they put in the Constitution was going to be the final word on everything that was there.
And part of again part of how we know that is because as soon as constitution is ratified, it was only ratified in many states with the understanding that we're going to add a bill of rights onto this. The very challenging goal given to the first congress is you guys need to write a bill of rights. They knew there would be additions and clarifications and then further the idea that there can't be religious litmus test. It didn't mean they were going to be secular because at George Washington's inauguration, guess what they did? Oh, you mean when they went to church and had communion and then they have all kinds of prayers that are happening in his inauguration. At the end of the inauguration, they go back to St. Paul's Chapel and they have church and communion again. Nothing about it was secular. It just was removing affiliation with denomination.
>> See, and that is that's so important.
And would it be true to say that even here with there being no religious test that didn't pro that was at the national level, it didn't prohibit religious tests at the state level as well. We didn't really get that. I guess the 14th amendment is what >> took these national laws and then forcibly applied them. Correct.
>> I would say I would say that's one of our one of our gravest errors in many ways. But uh at the state level and so um yeah and so yeah it's it totally is a a misrepresentation of history to say like okay article four here is meant to like you say secularize our public office. It absolutely was not. So what I think that's an excellent encapsulation number. Listen up. Christians and conservatives are literally starting their day by funding woke corporations that hate us. You roll out of bed, you grab your morning coffee, and with every sip, you are funding rainbow flag boardrooms and HR departments filled with Christ-hating liberal school moms who oppose everything that you stand for.
>> HR is watching everywhere, and we hate you.
>> That, my friends, is insanity. And that's why I start my day with Montana Coffee Company. This is veteranowned, Christian-owned gourmet coffee. They use 100% specialty grade beans in every blend. Top tier quality. It's delicious.
Montana coffee is quite literally in my mug every single morning, and it should be in yours, too. Every morning is a choice. Fund the people who hate you and mock your faith, or fuel the guys who actually want to make America Christian again. If you're done compromising at the coffee pot and you're ready to keep the money in the covenant, go to montana coffee company.online stand for something and use code reformation for 10% off of your first order today. Number number four, we can't have a Christian nation. We definitely didn't have a Christian nation at our founding because many of our founders were deists, right? They were all deists basically from what I've understood and they believed in just a you know ethereal creator not the Christian God. All right take us to school Tim.
>> Yeah. So this is again silly for lots of reasons. When people make the claim what I want to remind everybody when you hear that understand the burden of proof is not on you defending. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim.
So I always want to ask, hey, so of the 56 signers of the declaration, just for an easy starting place, um, which ones of them were deists, like which ones of them claimed theism? And we talked about this before, Franklin is the only one that at one point in his life, I acknowledge he was a deist. It's when he was 15 years old. And again, it's in his autobiography. You can go back and read it, but like literally that's all they got. And I'm like, okay, let let's again, let's just unfold this and unpack his bag for a little bit. So who else was a deist? Like was Sam Adams a Dist?
Because cuz actually Sam Adams was described by others of the founding era as being the most pious Christian. And that's their word, the most pious Christian of all the founding fathers.
So Sam Adams wasn't a deist. Again, like who are you talking about? Benjamin Franklin, by the way, is the guy who during the constitution convention on June 28th, 1787, the longest speech he gave during the entire convention, was calling everybody in the convention back to prayer. So he was an adist. Like again, who are you talking about? But people make these claims without knowing greater depths and details. So here's where I would encourage somebody to look this up. Um George Washington, this is one of my favorite examples to point to because of how clear this is. George Washington, many professors today, they're like, "Well, we know he's a deist because he didn't really talk about Jesus. He used words like providence." And and if you know a little bit of George Washington's story, George Washington when he marries Martha, Martha has two kids. She actually had four. Two had already died, but she has two kids at that time. So, they in essence become like George's adopted kids. And when those kids grow up, the uh son gets married. They have four kids. The daughter ends up dying.
Then the son dies. So now they they have a a daughter-in-law left. She has four kids. And when the son Martha's son died, uh the the children, it's George and Martha's grandchildren, but the children of the son, there was a seven-month-old and then there was a 2-year-old. And George and Martha reach out to the daughter-in-law and they're like, "Hey, we can only imagine like what you're dealing with and navigating and how hard this has got to be for you as a parent. Um, we would love to offer to help if you want to send some kids here, they can come live with us. We can help take care of them. like they can grow up here at Mount Vernon and make your burden easier. And she agrees and she sent the two youngest, the one that was 7 months old and two years old. Um, and actually that was George and Martha's suggestion. They're like, they're the ones that probably take more work. The older ones are easier for you to navigate. So those two go and live with George and Martha. The youngest one was Nelly. Nelly Park Custous. And what is really cool about her story, she lives with George Martha. She gets there at the end of the American Revolution.
And then the next 20 years, she lives with George Martha. And when George Washington died, Jared Sparks was the guy who did the first biography that compiled all of the writings of George Washington. And in the midst of his compiling, he wrote to Nelly, who had lived with George and Martha like 20 years, and said, "Nelly, can can you share with me any stories or remembrances you have of of George's faith? I I would love to include that as I'm putting these writings together on the faith of George Washington." So she writes him a letter back and this is where I'd encourage everybody to look it up. Nelly Park Custous letter to Jared Sparks about the faith of George Washington. And as you go through that letter and again I would love people to look this up but let me just give the quick summaration of it. So she writes him and says absolutely he was definitely a committed person of faith.
He was a a devout Christian. She says, "I I remember vividly as a child growing up that every morning he'd go into a steady. He would lock the door so that we couldn't go in and bother him." She said, "This was a sacred time. He would spend at least an hour every morning in private devotion." She said, "I I don't know what all he read and what all he did. I just know that he was in Bible study for that hour and we could never bother him at his Bible study." Then, and she gives some details of other things. Um, but then as the letter goes on, it comes to a point where there was an aunt who had been sick and she came to visit them at Mount Vernon and when uh George had been out on the farm, the aunt had died on a couch. George came back, didn't know she was dead. And she says, "I remember he went and knelt down and he put his hands on her and prayed that God would heal her. Him not knowing she'd already expired." And again, you're just like, "Bro, that's incredible." George Washington is literally praying for people to be healed from like dying. But as she goes on, the conclusion of her letter is like the home run profound. She said, "Should I have to ascribe to anyone that the general was a Christian? Sooner should we question his patriotism than his Christianity."
Now, when you're talking about the person who lived with him for 20 years saying he was a more devoted Christian than he even was a patriot, nobody questions his patriotism, then why do we question his Christianity? Because we generally don't know his story very well. But he's the guy that in the midst of everything he did, um some of the things that he did when he took over the military during the American Revolution, one of his very first general orders to all of the troops, he says, "There will be no profanity and no drunkenness in our ranks." And then he actually gives an explanation why. He says, ' Because we can't afford to do anything that would offend God in this endeavor because we will need God's help in everything we're doing. He then has a letter to Congress and he says, "Please send me more chaplain. I need more chaplain in the military." He then has uh and I'm going to read this one. This is general order on May 2nd, 1778.
And this is Washington writing to actually the officers and and he's encouraged them. I want you to go to church and set an example for all of the troops. But but here's part of what he says. To the distinguished character of patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian.
>> That's his general order to all the troops, guys. As as good as it is you're fighting for our nation, it's even more important that you're a Christian. So this idea today, the founding fathers weren't Christians. It's crazy. Like you have guys like John Witherspoon who was an actual pastor who signed the declaration. You have guys like uh Francis Hopinson who was the actual choir director and organist for his church Christ Chapel in Philadelphia before he joined to become one of the founding fathers. He's the worship pastor at his church. Like again like this is crazy talk. So like you're you're arguing well look >> like I know Billy Graham and Chris Tomlin were part of those guys but they weren't Christians. They're like you're a Of course Chris TOMLIN AND BILLY GRAHAM WERE CHRISTIANS. WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?
>> YEP.
>> Those claims can only persist because we don't know the story. And again, >> the burden of proof is not on me to prove they weren't deists. The burden of proof is on you to substantiate that claim. And let's go further. There were 56 guys that signed the declaration.
There were 39 guys that signed the Constitution, although 55 help frame it.
You have 90 members in the first Congress. You got roughly 200 founding fathers between the Declaration of the Constitution and the first Congress. And if I say, "Okay, well, who do you know was a deist?" And you give me one name, you give me two names, and you're like, "But we know all the others were." You don't even know who they were. John J, the original chief justice of the US Supreme Court. Hey, you know what he also was? Oh, he's one of the founding members. He's one of the early presidents of the American Bible Society. That their entire goal was to print Bibles and distribute them to anybody in America who didn't have a Bible. And you're telling me that guy didn't believe in God? Like again, this is crazy talk. If we knew their stories, the only reason it persists is because we don't know their stories.
>> Exactly right, which is I'll give you another little plug, which is why you need to get the book, which you need you need to get their book, The American Story. So, so good, guys. And he goes into detail and all that. We have time for one more. And guys, I know we said 10 at the beginning. Tim's coming back.
He's coming back on the show. We'll do this again and we'll do the last five.
This is so good. We But we got to get into the weeds on this. It's so important. Okay. All right. So, number five. Here we go. We are definitely not a Christian country. We couldn't be a Christian country. We weren't founded as a Christian country because of the Treaty of Tripoli. Haven't you guys heard of the Treaty of Tripoli, which said in no uncertain terms that we are certainly not in any sense a Christian nation. All right, take us to school on this last one before we let you go.
>> Yeah. So the treaty of Tripoli is one of the very common things that people will throw at you and they're like, "Yeah, but you know, Tim, it says in the treaty of Tripoli, we are not in any sense founded on the Christian religion." And my first question is, "What's the rest of the sentence?" And usually people are like, "Uh, what do you mean?" I'm like, "That's a comma. That's not the end of the sentence." Because what happens is in the rest of that sentence, they go on to say, "As in, we have no hostility toward the Muslims. as in we have not had wars with them in previous years etc. Well, now why is that context important? Because what they're actually talking about is we are not one of the nations from the Crusades that you had declared war against which back up. So one of the things that happens after some of the crusades is the the Muslims and this is very common practice they said like right death of the infidel war on the infidel and they identified a multitude of Christian nations including at the time England and France and uh Italy and Germany etc these Christian nations and they said we have war against all these nations and and again there were like seven or nine nations at that time that they declared war on.
Well, we had been British colonies and so we were part of the the British Empire. And so when we separated from Great Britain, part of what we were telling these ambassadors, if you will, from these Muslim nations is, guys, what we're we're not the people you declared war against. Like we we actually fought a war against them, too. We're totally different. But here's also where Joshua, I would go way deeper on this. When people say, "Yeah, but Tim, you know, the Treaty of Tripoli says we're not a Christian nation." Okay. So, let me let me give some additional context and ask a couple questions. So, additional context. The Treaty of Tripoli is not written in English.
The Treaty of Tripoli is written in what language?
>> Arabic.
>> Arabic. Hey, so here's a good question.
Which of the American ambassadors spoke Arabic? And the answer is none of them.
So, they actually don't even read the document while they're there. They're talking with the gosh like, "Hey, here's what we think. Here's what we believe.
here's where we're coming from and they write it and then ultimately we sign it.
Now, in fairness, we did ultimately have people that translated it for us. So, ultimately, we finally did figure out what it was. However, the point of the Treaty of Tripoli was to bring an end to the conflict where the Muslim pirates were attacking American trade ships where they were murdering people. They were beheading people. They were enslaving our people and they were giving us an opportunity to to ransom them back, to buy them back at these extraordinary rates. And we're like, "Guys, please just leave us alone." That was really where we're coming from. So, so understand the context of of all that's going on. But here's where I would ask a deeper question. Hey, so when people say, you know, well, Tim, the Treaty of Tripoli says this. Okay, if if I wanted to have fun, I would say, well, which Treaty of Tripoli you're talking about? Well, you know the one that says it. No, I know which one. I just want to know like which one of the Treaty of Tripoli was that? Well, what do you mean? I mean, there was more than one Treaty of Tripoli. Why does that matter? Well, because in the midst of the war we had with these Barbrey nations of North Africa from the Barbrey Powers War, in all of those, let me let me walk through just some of the list.
There were two treaties with Morocco.
There were four without algears. There were two with Tripoli. And there were two with Tunis. All in this Barbrey War era. The reason all of this matters is, hey, of all the treaties we did, what is the only one that says we weren't a Christian nation? Oh, that one. Have you read any of the other treaties? No. Oh, you should. In fact, just pull up the treaties and just do a keyword search for Christian and see if it has the word Christian. Oh, it does. Interesting.
What does it say about Christian? Oh, that they're not going to enslave the Christian sailors they capture off American ships, that they will not attack the Christian ships anymore, that they will not attack our Christian nation anymore. Right? The word Christian appears in multiple of the other treaties and in none of those treaties that say we're not a Christian nation. Why is it that of all the treaties we had, you chose the one example where it says we're not a Christian nation? By the way, that's not all it says in in the context. It says we're not a Christian nation like the nations that had war with you from the Crusades. So there's even context with that. But they don't want to talk about the other treaties that acknowledge we were a Christian nation. Or by the way the fact that when we sent our ambassadors over the ambassadors came back and they said that their holy book said they must make war on the infidel and because we are Christians they believe we were infidels. Literally this is from the writings of the guys who were the American ambassadors. So, the only place it says we were not a Christian nation is in this one phrase.
And that's not even the whole phrase, right? There's a comma at the end of that. There's more context, but this is one of those that people have to search really, really hard to find examples to argue we're not a Christian nation. I don't have to search very HARD AT ALL TO find thousands of examples that are actually on the opposite side. But what happened is people are so much louder on this very small exampled side. And because that is the message that is spread more frequently and more vocally, people think, "Oh, that must be the overwhelming majority of evidence." And the answer is incorrect. The overwhelming majority of evidence lies on the side that we were a nation founded by Christian individuals built on Christian principles trying to do something to honor and glorify God in what we did in this nation and believing that if we didn't teach the rising generation, the principles of the Bible and the beliefs of Christianity, we couldn't even be a free nation anymore.
There was nothing secular about the nation the way that we perceive it or argue it today. And again, this notion that we weren't a Christian nation, you have to ignore all of the other treaties and you have to not read the entire sentence or not steady in of the writings from the ambassadors WHO WERE THERE FROM THEIR actual conversations to arrive at that stupid conclusion.
Sound bites. People get their their uh history from sound bites and memes and progressive leftists who hate our history and our heritage. You've That was awesome. And even to put a point on that, I think uh it's it's you you've got like you said, you've got this overwhelming amount of evidence over here. And then honestly, even that one little phrase can so easily be explained away by even doing politics. Like you've got one ambassador who wants to nail down this treaty and they're saying what they can do to get it done. And then on the other side, you've got all our founding fathers, all these documents, all these letters, everything that demonstrates from the philosophy to uh where how we root our morality and our laws and everything on this one hand.
And then over here, you've got one quote out of context from an ambassador trying to do politics to close down this uh the war with the barbar pirates.
>> Yeah. And let me point out this this was a treaty that was before we actually won the war. This is when we were trying to bring an end to the war and we didn't write that treaty. uh why don't we go read the treaty that we wrote once we won the war at the very end and and again this is where it makes a difference when you are the one that is tired of getting punched in the face and you're like please just leave me alone like say what you want me to say but then when you're the one beating somebody up you're like no here's what we're going to do and here's what you're never going to do again.
>> Yeah it's good that's good. Well this has been awesome Tim I I I value your insights and your friendship a lot. This has been so so amazing. Um, we'll have you back on soon to cover the other six and uh I I would like to ask you if you wouldn't mind just praying for my audience before we wrap this thing up and uh then we'll close out.
>> Absolutely. Yeah. Well, God, I I'm so grateful that you allow us to come before your throne. We can boldly approach the throne of grace, God, knowing um that we are we are desperately in need of you. God, I I'm I'm so grateful that you have equipped and called us to do things uh in this world we live in. And God, I ask that everybody that is watching, listening today, God, that they would be encouraged uh that they would be strengthened in you. And God, that they would have courage and boldness to rise up and in love speak truth more courageously, God, that we would be more courageous for Christian values. And God, you give us a heart for those that are lost. That you would help us to try to bring them in. And God, maybe even have the strategy of what we see lived out so often through scripture that God, even though you oppose the proud, you have grace to the humble. God, help us to be the humble individuals that you don't have to oppose. But ultimately, God, even let us have the right posture that we know when to have courage and boldness to stand up and boldly correct and speak against things and when we need to have a posture of humility and love to try to reach those that are hurting and broken. But God, use us to make a difference in your kingdom. And thank you for the work you're doing in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Well, thank you so much for coming on, guys. Uh if you haven't already, sign up for Hey, we're both going to be there, so we'll give the plug real fast to the uh the Last Stand Festival. We'll both be speaking at this event. It's going to be a blast.
It's in uh B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B Boulder, Colorado. And uh if you type in my code Joshua, you're going to get a discount and we get to hang out. Just come hang out with both of us.
I mean, what what more could you ask for, honestly? And it's going to be a film festival with with uh Seth Gruber's new film, which is going to be amazing.
Amazing, guys. So, come out to that. And you guys know my charge. My hope and prayer for you is that everything we create here at Reformation Red Pill would be used to equip you to build, defend, and expand the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. With that, we'll see you guys on the next episode.
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