BraveMen S3E40: David Barton - America; Should we restore it or rebuild it?

David Barton has an unusual and intriguing look at America, which actually really hits all of us no matter what nation we're in because he really speaks about freedom and where freedom came from and what it's about. Chris Shields is with me who's the producer of Brave Men. Dave Barton is somebody who's been a hero for you for many years, right? Yes. Yes. He's got this organization in wall builders, pro family organization, but he's really just the guy who knows everything about everything about the basis of freedom where freedom came from, why America's free, remarkable stuff. He's a walking in psychopedia of history, literally. Yeah, but it's not boring. That's what this conversation really hit me as I thought, oh man, going into it, I'm like, okay, I love all the stuff, but am I just going to be sitting here, you know, eating sawdust? Yeah. I think it goes back to the saying, when you find what you're meant to do, it's hard to make anything you're doing boring, you know? Yeah. No, there's some guys who have made it boring. They may have found what they're supposed to do, but, bro, it's, it's boring Chris. Whoa. I mean, he has just passion for it, but he is passionate about it. Yeah. Now, his stuff, things he's written have been introduced in the Supreme Court. He's been involved in the history and social studies standards for Texas, California and other states textbooks because he's basically, his whole deal is if we throw away history, if we start tearing down statues, this is an example, we basically lose our identity. Yes. And that's exactly it. And I think that, especially people like in my age group, we don't understand that. We don't know what that means, you know, and I think one of the beautiful things that he points out is the fact that this is a lot of this stuff that's happening has happened before. Wow. And those nations are no longer in existence. Wow. In other words, nations that were strong and powerful and all that, they're gone. Yes. And why would America be any different? We think we're different. Yes. You know, I mean, I do have a sense like Mark Cuban, I agree with him on American exceptional ism, but I don't know that that's what actually keeps us going. No, right? No. I mean, just to point out a scripture in the Bible, in Proverbs, it talks about it's holding on to the establishment of the statues of your forefathers, not tearing them down, not destroying them. Wow. And what are we doing right now? Yeah. So it's about your identity. Yes. And he talks about, we talk about Nehemiah in this, exactly, our conversation. And what I like about it is he's passionate about it. He knows what he's talking about. And man, it really helped, if you will, kind of helped me renavigate some of the chaos that's going on right now in our culture. So today on Brave Men, you'll hear from David Barton. This is a fascinating conversation. Thanks for being with us today on Brave Men. It's Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole. Please don't encourage for the journey. Yeah. I'm talking with David Barton, David Barton, started an organization called Wall Builders and it came out of his desire to see America, North America, in this nation. Come back to its basic roots, but David, not just to come back to its roots or know its history, but to know that in order to create a path forward that's positive for the nation. How did you start this whole thing, David? Started in 87, 88, we got started back in our deal was the Bible book of Nehemiah. The Bible book of Nehemiah is rebuilding things that have been torn down. And in 87, 88, we looked across America, saw trends going in the wrong direction, several areas in family and morality and church, whatever. And wanted to rebuild that. And one of the things that Bible is very clear now, the Bible is clear about a ton of stuff. Yeah. That is a guidebook for all of life. And so, even from an educational standpoint, if you go through the Bible, you find really certain courses or certain subjects that God once taught. And one is history. He spends so much time saying, recall the former days, remember the former times, and why would he do that? It's because he made us and he knows that we don't change across time. Our desires don't change, our motivations don't change. All the changes is technology and technology is not the issue. But you get into this thing, oh my gosh, in our case, and I'm surrounded here with a lot of history. This is a World War II section behind me. That's the third flag in on D day, when they landed on D day. This is all founding father stuff over here and early education here. So you have one of the, you actually have one of the largest collections of historical fathers and revolutionary war, the founding of America, one of the largest collections in the world. It's pretty, very amazing. We do. And what's amazing is, when you look at that, it turns out that the Bible is right as it, we prove that again and again. But Ecclesiastes 1.9 says there's nothing new under the sun. And so what you look at, whether it is the viciousness of political campaigns, well, instead of the campaign of 1800, you'll think we're a bunch of whims. Or let's talk about social distancing and COVID-19. Well, do you want to talk about, I mean, right now with COVID-19, we're looking at about 22 people out of every million are dying with COVID-19. So you're talking about one in every 50,000, every 50,000 Americans, one is dying. Let's go back to the epidemic of 1633 when 70% of the population died. Well, let's go to the yellow fever epidemic of 1793 when 25% of the population, we look at this thing as though it's a brand new thing and it's really not. We've had this every 10 to 15 years, some type of epidemic. So that's where we're into really rebuilding our knowledge of history. I kind of laugh and say that there's two ways I can learn not to put my hand on a hot stove. One is I can put my hand on a hot stove, say that was a really bad idea. Or two is I can read all the accounts of other people who put their hands on a hot stove and say, I don't have to repeat this. Yeah. I would rather do that. I would prefer the latter. Yeah. And that's where history is so helpful. So whether it's the role of the church or how the church responds or what do you do with training younger generations or what do you do with certain jobs or certain pieces of the government or certain acts, all of that we dealt with before. It's just knowing history and we can learn from it. You know, even Psalm 78 where David writes, he says, the men of Ephraim turned back into the day of battle and it says because they didn't trust God. But then the next verse says, it says, and they didn't remember the works that God had done. Yeah. That's right. And I think that's why I, and let me just say this right now, wallbuilders.com. Just the way it sounds. Wallbuilders.com is your site and I want to get into a couple different things here. But you know, you're right. We deal with the same stuff and what's the definition of insanity, right? Yeah. The same thing over and over expecting different results. Yeah. And we're doing some of that right now. What we're doing with changes in education, what we're doing and changes in the way we portray our history. And there's a lot of what I would call revisionism because we are surrounded by ritual documents. And so for us, it's pretty easy to say, oh man, look what that professor just wrote. No, that's wrong. Here's the original document saying exactly opposite. And so we've come to a, there is really a change of America back in the 1920s and 30s in a pedagogical sense, the way we taught Americans. Prior to the, the 1930s, if you look the first three centuries, our whole deal was teaching Americans how to think now we teach them how to learn and the difference between teaching how to think and teaching how to learn, it's massive. I read this book that a professor wrote and we didn't ask the question, was he accurate, was he right? What were his sources? Well, we just say, man, I never knew this about Columbus, I never knew this about racism and slavery. I never knew. We say this is though we've discovered something new. And we're talking about things that are three, four, five, hundred years, five thousand years old. And we suddenly have a new view on it. That new history we haven't discovered in documents, we're no longer thinkers, we're just learners. So I read it in the newspaper, I saw it on a website, one of my friends told me, I saw this meme, man, that directs us like no previous generation history because we're learners not thinkers. Yeah, that is, and so we've been, well, it's what happens, education has become oriented around scores. So we've basically begun to teach you how to take a test. Yeah. Not how to think. Very. We've lost that. We've lost that. It's really interesting that you would say that because with this progressive thing that happened in the 20s where they changed the pedagogy, one of the things about progressives is we can't learn from history. Oh my gosh. The founding fathers, 200 years ago, and they wrote the Constitution, they were writing horses. They didn't even have electricity. What do they know? They have nothing. Well, you know, when I get that, and I'm in a lot of foreign nations as well who want to learn in Ukraine with some law schools, and it's like, well, you know, that's old stuff. Hang on, hang on, hang on, time out. Do you know what? Boils law is. Boils law is what allows you to scuba dive today, but it was discovered 400 years ago. So why don't we just throw it out? Well, we don't throw out, you know, we don't throw out Newton Laws emotion. We don't throw out the law. Really? We use principles never change. And that's what the Constitution did. The Constitution doesn't talk about electricity or horses or anything else. It talks about principles of government. And they never, ever change across time. So when you get in the 19, and progressive, you're always wanting to throw out the old and do something new with it works or not. It's a great idea. Let's try it. It's going to work. Well, common course, the most recent educational example of how it failed 15 years ago, those schools that bought it in common core, now have the lowest educational scores in the nation. It's, you know, but the thing, and I remember back then I was right in the middle of the bay. They said, oh, this is internationally norm. I said, yeah, but it hasn't been internationally tested. Show me where it's ever worked before. It's going to work. This is going to, you know, and the thing was they were very optimistic, but they had never tried it. And progressives are always wanting to try something new, just because the old stuff is there. So, you know, yeah, you know, it's, I'm reading a passion translation right now, David. The first six months of his years, I'd never read it before. I thought it was, I thought it was my wife's Bible, you know, and turns out it's got some great stuff. But here was a fascinating to me and proverbs it, it, we talk about godly wisdom and earthly wisdom, right? In New King James King James. In the passion translation, it says there is godly wisdom and foolish stupidity. That's the contract. Like it. That's it. That's it. I know those guys nailed that one because we, when you talk about progressives and go back and define for me pedagogy, a pedagogy is the philosophy behind something. Okay. So, the philosophy that drives it is because you have this philosophy, you use these methods. And so, it changed the philosophy, it changed the, here's a great example of changing methods. Prior to the 1920s, there was no such thing as a multiple choice, a true false or fill in the blank question. It didn't exist. But see what happened is now that we are, we want your students to be learners, which means the teacher is a source of all knowledge. So that either teacher tell you ABC or D, either teacher told you this, true false. Now we're limited what our teacher tells us or what our textbook tells us, we're no longer thinking. Wow. Testing prior to the 1920s, you had to show a demonstration of, of really knowledge, a mastery. You're here beside me, this is an educational section right here behind me, seven, 90s. Here's the deal, 1920s, when they changed the pedagogy of education, most students in America did not go to school past eighth level, eighth level, at 13 years old, you either go to college or you get a career because you're an adult. So at that point in time, they have, we have a lot of ex exams from states. If you got a graduate from Oklahoma in 1907, you have this eighth, eighth level ex exam, Colorado in 1922, Nebraska, all these years. So in the summer, we do, we do extensive work with young people, millennials, Gen Z. And one of the things we do to introduce them to the past is we give them an eighth grade ex exam from Colorado in 1922. Wow. The kids that come in are all 18 through 25. So we're talking, going into college and college, post graduate stuff, or just enter in a new career. We have never had a single in years, we've never had a single kid come close to even passing half the questions on that eighth grade test. What we knew back then and what we know, but see, we have so much more technology now. We've got to be smarter, no, we're not. You know, it's, you know, that begins to explain why we have leadership like we have. Yes. Because it's all based on personality, not character. That's right. You know, Romans 12, verse two says, your life will be transformed. Your life will be renewed by changing the way you think. The old axiom is your system of thinking is perfectly designed to achieve the results you're now getting. So the reason we are where we're at is because our thinking literally has been multiple choice into oblivion. Yeah. That's right. This is stunning. Man, this is a revelation to a lot of us listening and watching this right now. Thank you for doing this. Because when you talk about doing this based on the life of Nehemiah, Nehemiah is thinking changed. Chapter one. Yep. His prayer changed. Yeah. Of course, it started with repentance, but then his identity shifted. Yeah. When his identity changed, everything changed. So what you're doing is bringing this back to this is who we are. This is our identity. Tell me, let me just go back so all that stuff is absolutely amazing. Here we are in this COVID-19 Corona crisis. I don't diminish the fact there's a crisis regardless of where it came from. Right. People are dying. You know, and there seems to be a lot of underlying issues and different things. Of course, the suicide rates higher than the COVID death rate, but that's right. That's right. I think it's probably because of that. But nonetheless, how many, let me just ask you this, how many constitutional precepts, principles have we just obliterated in this whole process over the last few months? There's some, but it's more isolated to the world view of philosophy of those who are obliterating them. I will say that I don't, you know, this is this COVID-19 is a pandemic, but it's not the first one America's had. And so have we dealt with pendant? I mean, right now we're looking at what 45, 50,000 Americans that have died with the result of this. 1918 Spanish flu, you had 675,000 Americans, not 50,000 Americans. And a smaller pool. And that's right. And much more isolated. And much more isolated. That's right. Country that comes. Our 100 and what was it in 1957 with Asian flu? We had 116,000 Americans. The Hong Kong flu in 68, 100,000 Americans. This is not something new. So what do we learn from government now versus that? Well, one thing is we don't study history, but by the way, this is something that progressives are very good at, is because man ever evolves the first course you never need to get in this history, because you can't learn from guys who rode horses 200 years ago. Right now of the top 76 elite universities in America, 64, offer no American history courses even for a history major. Come on. If you go for a history. I can't, that David. That can't be accurate, man. Sorry about that. That's the academic studies. That's unbelievable. You started off talking about end of course test and what happens in curriculum. You will find that for history there is no end of course test in the states for history. What we do is we teach to the test and you're going to have a reading test, a math test, a science test. You will have no history test, no civics test, no government test. You don't have end of course test. So what happens is we need to get away from the past. We need to move towards something different. And so history is the first thing that goes. So looking back, this is why people don't know we've had previous pandemics. That's why we don't know that we had mortality rates of 70% versus 22 to a million. We don't have a clue. So we're always trying to reinvent everything from scratch rather than use what's there. And even going back to the pedagogy. One of the things that changed in pedagogy is if you go back to the Bible, the pedagogy that the Bible says fourth is in Proverbs 22-6, my pedagogy again, teaching philosophy. Proverbs 22-6 says, train up a child and the way he should go what he's holding one apart from it. And the general Christian, let me say the general American Christian thinking is oh, if you teach the kids what's right, when they get old, they'll always come back to it. And that's not it. The word train up in Hebrew actually says to cataclyze a child and is that if you cataclyze a child in the way he should go, then when he's holding one apart from it. So catacism is actually a teaching method and so in our education collection right here behind me, I can pull out numerous books that are we have a catacism in history, we have a catacism in law, a catacism of etymology, we have a catacism in music, we have everything we taught was in catacism form and that way you always retain it. Bible says if you cataclyze a child when he's young, he'll always retain it. Wow. And so that was our pedagogy. Well, progress is so that's so boring to go over questions and answers. Let's get something more exciting. Well, now our retention is down and 1962 America was number one in the world in literacy. We were the most literate nation in the world. We fell to 65 in the world. So how does that work out? There's only 23 industrial nations we're in third world nation country with our literacy. Hey, why don't we go back to what works? Man, that sounds like one of those Dr. Phil things, you know, how's that working for you? Yeah, exactly, exactly right. So now back to pedagogy, catacism means asking questions. And so if you look at the New Testament, the life of Jesus, Jesus asked more than 300 questions. And he very rarely, he answered questions, but very rarely. He often answered a question with a question when they said to Jesus, but who's authority to do this? He says, well, let me ask you a question, John's baptism was a God or man. He never answered the question. He asked them one and it's sit them back on their heels. And so the ability to ask questions is what we're not trained in. And so even when it comes to biblical world view, fatherhood, anything else, we do what we're comfortable with and what we know. We don't ask questions. For example, from a biblical standpoint, my question is, here's the position I hold on this political issue. I don't care whether that's Republican or Democrat, is it biblical? And what does the Bible say about that issue? And very few people ask themselves about their own beliefs. I'm comfortable with my belief. I know what I believe is right. I'm going to defend my belief. What if my belief is not biblical? Because we know as of three weeks ago, only 6% of Americans have a biblical world view despite the fact 72% Americans profess Christianity. So it's a whole lot of people who confuse their own beliefs with Christian beliefs, with biblical beliefs, and they're not the same. We don't ask ourselves the hard questions anymore. And even with things like fatherhood, hey, here's how I was raised. I don't care how you were raised. How does the Bible say a father should behave? How does the Bible say a relationship should go? What does the Bible say a young man should be trained with or a young woman should be trained? I don't care what you are trained with. I don't care what everybody else says. I don't care how many books say it. What does the Bible say? That kind of question asking is really, really crucial for us to be grounded and sound and be like a rock that doesn't move. I think that's something we've got away from with our pedagogy. Yeah. Daniel gets captured 600 B.C.'s in crisis and Jeremiah writes them a letter, Jeremiah 29. We love Jeremiah 29.11 and says, for I know the thoughts I have for you, not for your destruction, give a future in a hope. We love that. The first part of that to me is the one that really hits us because he wrote to these guys in crisis, like where we are today. He writes to them, Jeremiah does, their cities have been destroyed, Nebuchadnezzar is a bad guy. He takes the best and brightest. And then Jeremiah says, don't try to escape. He says, stay there, grow up there, plant crops. This is a whole series of things, but the final instruction is, and don't listen to the lies of those who say, they're coming, they've come in my name. And Daniel, we know in his friends, had all been taught critical thinking. Because at 16, 17 years of age, they had already been discipled. So when they're presented with, it wasn't just food, it was everything the king had. It was his lifestyle, the king's table, you know. When they refuse it, how do we disciple men in a culture, let's say, where we are today, let's say a culture that doesn't value biblical thinking. How do we disciple men in a culture like this, but don't separate them from the culture? How do we disciple men to be in the culture, but not of it, but still David, like you in it? I think there's several answers to that. One of the most important in my thinking is you have to, and still in them, a love for truth. And that's a hard thing to do, because two out of three Americans think that truth is individually determined that there are no moral absolutes. So how do you, how do you take a person who has no moral absolutes, you set my own values, and transform them into someone that is much more objective, much more fixed, and it does have objective values? And part of that is you use asking questions. You start asking questions. Are you show pieces of information, say, what do you think about this? You know, I mean, there's so many aspects of sexuality that can be pointed to, because right now, Pauline shows that the biblical view of sexuality is completely gone, whether that relates to gender, whether it relates to homosexuality, LGBTQ, whether that relates to, to individual morality, it's just gone. But if people knew the medical studies that went with certain forms of behavior would be a different conversation, we're just saying, you choose what you want. Well, you know, I wonder why it is that even today, for, for homosexuals, that the, the Red Cross will not use blood from homosexuals, and that's discriminatory, no, that's because they have an HIV rate 8,000 times higher than the average population. Now, what would cause that to be there? And so you start presenting facts and information. You ask questions, why, why does even the medical community have a double standard with that? Yeah. You know, it's fascinating, you know, Facebook and some of our social constructs, they have, I think the last count was 74 different sexual, oh, no, no, no, no, you're way behind it. It's 92 now. Yeah. Facebook has 74 you can choose from, but there are 92 legally recognized genders right now. 92 legally regularized genders. But if you want, gender reassignment surgery, you only have two choices. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, the other thing that is happening is kind of like think, right? Let's just think about these things. Well, we have, we have now dozens of clinics across America for, for students that are pre-pubescent, that are pre-adolescent, that are going through gender stuff. And right now, we know with 100% accuracy that if you do hormone treatment of pre-adolescent young people, all bone development stops for the rest of their life, they will not grow past that. Now, that seems to be a problem, but why do we not talk about that medically? Why do we know if they want to, if they want to, if they want to question and be something different, that's a, and then gender reassignment surgery on top of hormone therapy, you know, the medical, I say, this is where, if you love truth, if you're, if you're trained, I love truth. You see, wow, that's so politically incorrect, but you know what? The truth is, they'll never grow, their bones will never grow once they start taking that hormone therapy. I can't do that to a kid. Truth matters. Wow, what a great conversation with David Barton. Let me take a moment right in the middle of this great conversation to remind you how to get in touch with Paul, Christian Men's Network, and the Global Fatherhood Initiative. You can find all the resources for mentoring and fatherhood at cmin.min, that's cmin.min. Also you can write to Paul at poll at cmin.min, that's poll at cmin.min. We have tremendous resources for churches with special discounts for groups on that website. Everything a church needs from A to Z to mentor and disciple men of all ages and backgrounds. Now let's get back to this awesome interview between Paul and David Barton. Truth matters, no question, and if a man's going to study truth, he has to come to a place where he comes into congruence in his life with the teachings of Jesus Christ and become a follower of Christ, because then we find out, okay, here's the basis of truth. That was C.S. Lewis, who was a philosopher, he was an atheist or agnostic, I guess, really what it was, but he's studying something. He goes, moral law, why is it not right for me to take something from somebody here, and it's not right in Borneo, it's not right in both cultures, how could it be not right in both cultures, how come there's no cultures where it's okay for you to steal somebody's stuff. He looks at, there must be a moral law, and of course he begins to discover through his friends, Tolkien and others, that moral law actually is the kingdom of heaven. The reason it has a discipline to it is because it has an identity to it, and that identity is Christ. Yeah. And so then, Job said, I love the taste of truth, it tastes like honey, right? And I think, so we were talking about discipling men, and I think that has to be our centerpoint, David. I think we have to walk towards, let's begin to talk about what's the basis for truth, because if Ecclesiastes 1.9 is true, that there's nothing new under the sun, that everything we're going through has been gone through in principle, right? Maybe not iPad type stuff. If that's truth, then there's a way that people navigated that, that brought them to emotional health, spiritual health, and a true North in their life, which we find out as we look for that, we find out that's Christ. What are some other things you feel are very important for us as we decide for men? I think number one is you have to have a love for truth. Number two, you have to ask questions, and you have to ask hard questions of yourself and of others. And number three, you have to spend the time to research that. This is not a superficial thing, this is not something that you're going to get from reading a bunch of memes or watching a bunch of two minute posts, it's just not going to happen that way. You have to dedicate yourself to it. One of the things that I think has been very transformative for me is something that you mentioned with CS Lewis. And it goes back to me studying the American founding and reading things like William Blackstone, his commentaries on the law, and reading folks like Montesquieu with the spirit of the laws, other things. And those are not easy books to read, they're old English language, they're tough. You have to think, you have to dig into it. It's just not easy. And I didn't enjoy it, but it produced a lot. They kept talking about the laws of nature. And then I look in Romans 120, and I don't know about you, but I've had people who've come. He said, you Christians, you claim you have a loving God. How can he send someone to hell who's never heard the gospel? How? Well, I have the same answer that Paul had 2000 years ago when he said everything that can be known about God, including the intricacies of the God had, have been revealed through what he has created so that even the heathen are without excuse. If I believe Romans 120, the Bible just told me that by a study of nature, I can even get the doctrine of the Godhead down. And I've got to admit, I didn't know nature taught that. So I grew up ranching and grew up farming, grew up around animals, all the culture that goes with that. And I will say that, you know, in Psalm 46, 10, David says, be still, know that I'm God. When you're in an agricultural life, if you will look around you, you see laws of nature. Here's a great example. We're talking about genders. It was recently, and we're doing a roundup in Wyoming, and actually I mean, I'm going to North Dakota before Wyoming and North Dakota, we went down through the bridge, we drove about 1200, 1200 cattle out of the North Dakota battle ends off on top of the mesa. We drove them into pens and we pinned them up. They only see people once a year. They are very skittish of people. We get them in the pens. Once we get them in the pens, what we're doing is we go in and rope a calf and bring a calf out because anything born in the last year, there are seven different diseases that will kill calves. You want to get them vaccinated, you want to get ear tags and don't know what ranch they belong to. So, 1200 cattle we drove, 580 of them were calves, and one at a time we went in and roped a calf, brought it out, treated it, I gave them vaccination shots, et cetera. And it's an interesting thing that working there in that roundup, we had girls and boys both, all the ration families come together, and we had 580 calves and not a single person had any difference telling which was a male calf and which was a female calf. There was no question about it, and you know, I'm done that, there's a little male calves and you get the little rubber band, and he's going to be some hamburger one day. That's a law of nature, and you can say what you want about any American law, Congress can pass into law at one, it will not change the law of nature. So law of nature is universal, same way, if I look at 10 million currently known species, there's not a single species that kills its young in the womb. No where nature does that exist, so I don't need the Bible to tell me what's right and wrong about abortion, the laws of it. And I can say, you know, I don't know whether there is a God or not, but I know the laws of nature say that abortion is wrong. I can do that with issue. I can look at an ant hill and tell you how the federal budget should operate by looking at an ant hill, and I don't say that facetiously, if you don't think about an ant, an ant understands the law of seasons that there are winter and there are the summertime, and in the spring you really store up because there's going to come a time in your life when you're not going to have as much, and you may be unemployed or whatever, so you need something stored or what, the federal government always budgets as if it's spring. It never plans on a winter, it never plans. And so the federal government never has the law of seasons, what the laws of nature teach their seasons, their times when things go in time, see, we don't even budget, we should all have a savings account and just based on what the ant does. Just based on seasons. Wow. Based on seasons. See, that's, so that's where I go to with thinking, asking questions, being objective, writing the laws of nature like CS Lewis did, I cannot tell you how many absolute moral truths I have found from study and nature. It's just, it's wild stuff. You know, which is why, and we'll go back to something when we talk about critical thinking, you know, for a lot of us in our modern culture over the last couple hundred years, 185 years, Charles Darwin has had a huge influence. Yeah. And his, his theory of evolution, let me read the title and you know this by heart, but let me read the title of the paper he wrote that, quote unquote, started the theory of evolution because it shows the heart of men, okay, this, this is, go back to Cleasy, Cleasy Assies 1, 9, we go back to the garden, the same stuff, the same, since the origin of the species, here's his actual title on the origin of species by means of natural selection, okay, that's what we all read, that's evolution. But if we really believed evolution, we wouldn't have all sheltered in place, okay, but that's a whole other deal. Yeah. By the way, if we believed evolution, which is survival of the fittest, why do we have the Endangered Species Act? All of those weak species need to go because you want the fittest to survive. That's how, that's how you have a culture. And why are we always looking out for the needy and the weak? I mean, you need them to go away if you're really an evolutionist because you want, I mean, well, if you're really an evolutionist, okay. Yeah. And then here's the rest of his title, it's on the origin of species by means of natural selection or the preservation of favored races in this struggle for life, published in the 1859 now. My point in reading that whole thing is, is that so much, when we talk about progressive or whatever it is, when men go away from the truth, it's most often, if not always, about themselves. And the theory of evolution was funded by some men who wanted to prove that they should be in charge of most of the other people in the world. And so, and so here's this, so in other words, even our theory of evolution, which is taught as law in our schools, is basically an idea or a, what David, a rationalization of me being on top or me getting what I want. So it's based on the theory or basically the principle of lust, instead of love. Well, there's another thing that goes with that because Darwin was in that progressive movement. Right. And it says, the preservation of the favored races, favored races, there are races that are favored above others. This is where you see one of the, one of the characteristics by which you identify progressivism as they like to divide people in the groups. Wow. And we don't recognize all men are created equal. There are groups, and some groups are more favored. And the book that he wrote after that called The Sentiment, he goes at about eight or ten different occasions where he said, look, anglos with white skin, they're the most evolved race out there. Those that have darker skin really should be sent back to Africa, let them live there till they evolve to a light colored skin and then they can come join us in America. Yep. This is one of the biggest races and books out there. By the way, if we're going to carry on Confederate statues because they like slavery, what in the heck are we still doing keeping Darwin in schools who is promoting this, this favored race idea and the idea that until you become white skinned, you're not evolved, you're not fully evolved. You know, why do we, the, the inconsistency, see, this is part of truth. If you, if you're going to go for truth and if you're going to believe that, you got to go all the way, you can't pick and choose your truth because truth is absolute. So that's another progressive idea is we need to divide you into groups. Oh, you're right to work. Oh, you're labor union or you're gay, you're straight, you're male, you're female, you're gender this, you're wearing groups, we're liberals, we're conservatives, we're progress. I don't care what your label is, what do you believe? And I don't care what you look like, who are you? Do you have worth because God gave it to you where you created in his image? Yes. So, you know, if I did not look in a mirror and or look at my hand, if I put my hand on my spine, I don't know what color I am and why should it change my thinking, what color I am? It shouldn't have any impact on my thinking at all. What should impact my thinking is what does the Bible say? What is true? And, and so this, this kind of stuff here, look at it, what color I am, that's a door when it asks kind of progressive ideas. As a door, you know, wallbuilders.com, wallbuilders.com talking to David Barton, you founded this, what would you say, and how many children do you have, David? Three. Three children, and you have grandchildren now. Four. Four grandkids. So fantastic. And what would you say, boys, girls, what do you have? Grandkids, it's two and two. Two and two? Two and two for children as a girl up top two boys under. Okay, same as Judy and I. What would you say that in raising your daughter and your sons would be something you did that you look back and you go, I'm really glad I did that. All things that I would point to, one is making them thinkers. Why? Ask why, ask why, ask why, ask why, prove it. And if you can show me and prove it, I may have thought differently, I'll have to change my thinking. So loving the truth is the most important thing. Whatever that is, wherever that leads you, you love the truth and you make sure to objectively verified truth. It's not individually determined truth. It is truth based on the laws of nature and nature's God, which is that famous phrase from black stones. So teaching them to love truth and to think independently and use logistical steps to make your own decisions. I think that's, you know, let them know what we believed. But here is where you have to get, you've got to be able to defend your truth, defend truth, not your truth, defend truth and ask questions about it and verify. Are there statistical studies that show one way or the other, you have to go where truth leads you? So that was really our emphasis in growing, and I think it needs to be for everybody. It's still my emphasis, you know, I've got white hair, I've got a lot of habits and beliefs. I'm still having to ask myself, why do I do that? What do I believe? What does the Bible say? And hopefully I'll still be changing until I die, is making myself line up with the Bible. Yeah, we easily get into habits, you know, 40% of our daily life is a habit. It is. And, you know, you want to change your habits, change your thinking. And I think in the beauty of it is, again, you said something very, started our conversation about how certain things you guys have studied, proved the Bible again. And it's amazing to me over the last, say, decade, how medical science has over and over, proven the word of God in the way we think in the, in the, well, quantum physics was created because physics ended up not being able to explain everything. So we create quantum physics, which basically is, most of it's based on math, string theory and all those things. And actually see it. But what it does is it proves what the Bible said all along it, everything is held together by light. Yeah, it is. You know, when Colossian says everything was made of him, by him, and for him and everything in creation is held together by Christ, all of a sudden, bam, there's the proof over and over and over, mindset, grit, the different books that have been popular, all prove habit, the way we think, the way we get clear in our mind. There's a whole lot of that. How do I get clear? And a problem is getting clear isn't about getting vacant. This is not Buddhist. This is, it's about actually thinking clearly. And I appreciate, now you wrote something, in fact, with my friend, I found out just before we started talking in a recording, you wrote something with my friend, Jim Garlo, that would help people in this deal, this precarious moment. Yeah, this precarious moment, Jim and I looked at some, what we think are really critical, really turning point issues in America. There was six that we identified that if we do not address these issues and deal with them, there will be no America as we know it in the future. And I'm not trying to be the prophet Jeremiah and say that God is decreed, but I'm just know from history and from Bible that if you make wrong choices, you will end the wrong path and that wrong path will have consequences. So there were six areas that we looked at, policy wise and thinking wise that have to be addressed. And one of them was training the next generation and training families, because we have so many dysfunctional families now because you train what you've lived, 57% of millennials were born outside of marriage. So it is no surprise that right now millennials are the most unmarried generation in American history. The cohabitation is what they call a millennial right of passage to live with someone not be married. We don't want the commitment of marriage because that leads to divorce, divorce Rex family, so let's not have any commitment. So that mindset, that thinking, how do you change that thinking, training the next generation, mentoring them, bringing them up in a very nonbiblical world, again, only 6% of Americans think Biblically. So what are the chances that a millennial is going to be raised thinking Biblically? Very, very, very small. What does that mean for the future? It means leaders in the future who are like Andrew Cuomo, hey, we stopped the COVID rise. God had nothing to do with this. It's like virtual to it. And that's what the governor said. And that's what your future is going to look like if you don't change the thinking. So this precarious moment addresses what we've been talking about today in a very pragmatic way. Your website is called wallbuilders.com. David Barton, thank you. You know, this stuff doesn't just happen. And we have mutual friends. So I know a little bit of your background. And you have worked this. You have worked this hard. This is not just a, this is a life's calling. And I want to thank you and your wife and family for taking the hits that come with this and for walking through the pain. And so wallbuilders.com, I want to recommend that. And then this precarious moment. And then then you've got your Facebook is David Barton slash wallbuilders. Got so I want to mention that because you guys cover current things like this. I looked at this one the other day. I guess this came out Monday of this week that we're talking where County, Mendocino County, and I grew up in California, so I know where this is they, they banned live music, worship music for the online services. They said you can't do live, but they have to record it at home. Yeah. Some judge or somebody came up with a law or a rule out of nowhere. Right. And the good news is those are all being challenged in court. And since this has started, we've not lost a single case in court over religious expression, public meetings. Good. Now a number of states are going back to having public meetings. Judges have ruled against these city officials who are doing that. So it's moving back the right direction for sure. Yeah. Well, thank you for what you do. And for trying pleasure, young champions. And we pray for you and your family, David, that every place you put your feet is holy ground. Everything your hands touch it will prosper and that God will keep you deep within the grip of his favor in Jesus name. Thank you. Blessings on you. Thanks for all you do. We appreciate it. Fascinating conversation. We'll see you, David. God bless you, man. Bless you. Bye. Bye. Wow, Paul. This was an awesome interview. It's a tremendous. It's great to have guys like David Barton who know all this stuff. Yes. Somebody has to. I mean, it's thank God that somebody does. Yes. I mean, you've made out to his place, though. Oh, it's so amazing. I would highly suggest everybody would take the time to go there. You know, it is, it's, you learn aspects of things that you would never find in history books because they're not teaching the real history. He has things that the normal public would never see. I mean, it was amazing when we went. My dad and I got the opportunity to take my dad with me. And there was black history that we were learning and being confirmed about while being there. And it was like it wasn't just one culture. He has the aspect of world history. Yeah. World history, the US, world history, founding fathers, their background, all the stuff we talked about. It's, it's pretty amazing. You know, I, I thank God for guys like David Barton who, because it can't just be little Wayne. It's shaping culture. No. He can't. It literally can't. It can't. I mean, I actually agree with a little Wayne on something recently and I went, oh, okay, well, that's interesting. But he can't be the, the shaper culture has to have a biblical basis. It does. Right? Yes, it does. And that's why people like David Barton that are willing to stand up for truth and the persecution that comes along with truth. I think oftentimes we don't talk about what is the cost to stand up for truth. You know, and David Barton has paid the price and he continues to pay the price and he's not going back on it. Well, I think all of us have to pay the price. Yes. I think we all have to say, okay, at, at some point, we have to say, no, that's wrong. I don't care how cool it is. Yeah. It's just wrong. Yeah. You know, like living together with your girlfriend. Well, that's, okay, maybe it's accepted. Yeah. Maybe it's like, oh, okay, well, whatever. But you know what, it's just, it's still wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Well, yeah. But I mean, it goes back to, do you want to take on the responsibility? Do you want it? Yeah. And when it's history, you know what I mean? You have to accept the responsibility of a moral center. Exactly. Okay. And when I accept that responsibility, that changes my actions. Exactly. So thank God for David Barton, wall builders and his organization wallbuilders.com. Hopefully we brought that out well enough that it came from Nehemiah rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. And thank you for listening today to Brave Men. And thank you for being a part of this and everything we do. Check us out. C-M-N-Dotmen. C-M-N-Dotmen. You'll find the tools you need, not only to mentor men in your church, but your own family, your daughter, your son, there'll be some tools there. So for your own life, get expanded, get enlarged, become a person who walks with moral clarity. Thanks for being a part today of Brave Men, God bless. Youth just experienced Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole. Paul is president of the Christian men's network. Connect with Paul at C-M-N-Dotmen or write to him at Paul at C-M-N-Dotmen.