Chinese Coronavirus – What Can We Learn? – Is it possible to experience positive change as a result of this time – both personally and nationally? What are the nations that are suffering the most right now, and what can we learn? Is there an upside to this current crisis? Tune in to hear today’s enlightening program!

Air Date: 03/25/2020

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

Listen:

Download: Click Here

Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Faith and the Culture

You”€™ve found your way to the intersection of faith and the culture. It’s WallBuilders Live. We’re looking at things from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. When I say things, I mean everything that’s impacting the culture, the hot topics of the day. And obviously, right now the hottest topic of all is the Chinese coronavirus and how it’s impacting our communities and our economy and our personal decisions and all of those things. So, it’s on everybody’s minds. Yesterday, we looked at a lot of biblical perspective on this and encourage you to listen to that program. It’s available right now wallbuilderslive.com.

Today, we’re going to dive a little further into this and talk a little bit about just the impact on the way we think and how it can change us in a positive way, right? What are the ways that this can cause us to, to learn some great lessons and apply those in our individual lives and then as a nation as well?

Biblical Perspective

Alright, David, Tim, yesterday, we really had some great biblical perspective. You guys had so many good verses to put this in perspective, keeping our joy, remembering that God is faithful, not having a spirit of fear. Those things remain so true, they’re true all the time. But what a great time to remind us about that. So, let’s take a look at what we can learn from this going forward. Like what are some of those habits that you know, even Tim, yesterday, you talked about savings, that maybe we got spoiled for a long time and thought we didn’t need to have a savings because at times, we’re always going to be good. And man, how important that ability to, you know, survive for a month or two months or whatever it might be without income. A savings account, would it really help with that right now? So, getting back to some of those basics is going to be really important.

David:

Yeah, there’s some interesting things going on right now where we’re already seeing shifts and toward the latter part of the program, we’re going to look at the resets that I think are definitely going to happen, things that will change the future. There’s things going on right now, that I think will significantly change the way we operate as a nation and internationally as well. We’ll look at those later.

Interesting Lessons

But even right now, there’s just some interesting lessons to kind of learn from this. We talked yesterday about the Bible and its application. And particularly, one of the reasons that you don’t get panicked as you look back in history and say, you know, this has happened a whole lot throughout history. The One-Room Schoolhouse, Tim was covering on the yellow fever epidemic is 1793. You look at all the other pandemics we talked about yesterday. And you know, this is really touted as big and it could be big and it might be big, but it’s still not as big as other things we’ve seen in history.

And so even, Rick, what you read yesterday with CS Lewis was such a good perspective, is kind of timeless. Man really doesn’t change over time, just our technology does. And we face the same kind of trials and tribulations throughout every generation. So when you look back to how relevant the Bible is, one of the things I would point to is all the Bible verses that are there about choosing your friends and choosing your friends well. And that we’re told in 1st Corinthians that if you have bad friends, it’s good to corrupt your behavior. And if you want to be wise, we’re told in Proverbs, hang out with wise people. But if you want to hang out with fools, you’ll be a foolish person yourself. So, all these verses on how friendships help us.

China a Friend?

Now, if I look at China and say, do I really want China as a friend? Well, it depends on whether I think communism is good. Depends on whether I think having a global leader in slavery, modern day slavery is good. Depends on whether I think associating with someone who is one of the highest in the world in religious persecution is that good. And so, we look at all this bad behavior from China and say, yeah, but they’ve got a lot of economic clout.

It’s interesting to me that right now, the nations that have suffered the most from coronavirus are the nations that were closest to China. You got Iran. You got North Korea. Now, we know that South Korea. North Korea keeps its stats pretty secret, but it’s so bad that President Trump has actually offered to help North Korea because they are just getting wiped out with this, although they control their media really well. And you look also at Italy. Those are the closest friends of China. And Bible is right. The friends you hang with are going to affect your behavior and what goes on.

Now, if there is an upside to this, we hear from Israel now, from the IDF, from the intelligence people in Israel, that in the Middle East, terrorist attacks have almost come to a halt in the Middle East. And that’s because they were being funded mainly by Iran and Iran is being ravaged with coronavirus.

The Middle East

At last I saw, over 40 of their top leaders have coronavirus. Of that, about 45% have died, the top leaders in Iran. And so suddenly, they’re focused on staying alive and not attacking Israel and disrupting the Middle East.

So, you’re having more peace in the Middle East than we’ve had in a long time, because Iran is, they”€™re a player with what’s going on in Iraq, with what’s going on in Syria, with what’s going to Turkey, with what’s going on Egypt, with what’s going on Israel. So, you know, that’s kind of interesting aspect that now Iran is kind of taken out of the picture for a bit, so we’re having more peace there.

So, what you’re seeing is peace in the Middle East in a way that nobody really predicted that would come. Nobody hadn’t negotiate this. You just kind of take out the bad player, because they were hanging with China. China kind of took out its own bad player. But the result is there’s some [inaudible 05:18] in the Middle East that we have not seen in several years.

Another Bright Spot

Rick:

Another bright spot, right. That’s one of the things we can look for. Here’s the things we can learn from this and some of the bright spots and things we can improve upon as well. Quick break, guys, we’ll be right back. Stay with us, folks, you’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

Moment from American History

This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. Too often today, history education excludes great black heroes from the American founding, such as Lemuel Hanes. Hanes abandoned as a baby, pioneered churches across upper New England. He became the first black American to pastor a white congregation, to receive an honorary master’s degree and to be ordained by a mainstream Christian denomination, the congregationalists.

He was a soldier during the American Revolution and in his churches on George Washington’s Birthday, he regularly preached sermons honoring George Washington. Even late in his life, he expressed his willingness to go back to battle necessary to protect America, which he called a Sacred Ark. American history is filled with numerous examples of black heroes, who are largely ignored by mainstream education today.

For more information about pastoral Lemuel Haynes and other colonial patriots, go to wallbuilders.com.

Lessons from the Crisis

Rick:

Welcome back. Thanks for staying with us here on WallBuilders Live, looking at some of the lessons we can learn from the current crisis in America. David, you were going through a list of them.

David:

Yeah. And in that list, I would also point to, it’s interesting to see what’s happening particularly in Europe. In Europe right now, they’re being hit pretty hard. But it’s interesting that In Europe, you have a nation that is not very prolife. As a matter of fact, we’ve talked in previous programs a while back that the fertility rate to maintain the population of any nation is you have to have a 2.1 fertility rate. In other words, every family needs to have on average 2.1 children and that will keep your population at no growth, that’ll just keep you alive. Well, you look at every nation in Europe and they’re below 2.1. As Matter of fact, Italy is the lowest at 1.1. And so, Italy has the oldest population in Europe”€¦

Immigration

Tim:

Which also means they have declining population, which is what you’re alluding to. Although we know that their numbers have not declined significantly because of immigration. Because they’ve opened up their nation. They have a lot a lot of immigration to come through, which is presented some different challenges for them.

David:

And a lot of the immigration has been Chinese immigration. Chinese have been funding their projects and building the roads and they’ve been importing Chinese people as workers in Italy, because they don’t have enough of their own workers.

 The Italians

Tim:

Well, but right to that point. So, the Italians are not producing to even sustain their current population level. The reason their population level is not declining as rapidly is because they have been fairly open immigration, which now a lot of European nations have really halted immigration, which makes a lot of sense right now that we’re trying to monitor who’s coming and who’s going. But Italy, as long as we’re mentioning them has another rather set of unique challenges, because there are a nation that has a universal health care system, that everybody in the nation is covered in Italy, which is always going to mean that they’re going to have a higher tax rate, is also going to mean they’re going to have fewer choices, it also means they’re always going to have longer lines when something comes.

And this is something that a lot of Americans, a lot of young people, a lot of college students, a lot of millennials, right, the Bernie Sanders and the Joe Biden’s of the world, so many people are advocating for a universal health care system. And what we are seeing is that the universal health care system has been overwhelmed in Italy, so much so that over the weekend, they came out with an announcement saying that they will no longer allow ventilators to be used by people over 60. Which part of the problem with coronavirus is, it’s attacks part of the respiratory system.

Universal Health Care

And then you need a ventilator to help you breathe, especially if you are older to make it through this. And they said, look, if you’re older, we’re not going to help you stay alive. We don’t have enough ventilators for that. So, we’re going to prioritize younger people and kind of let older people die.

And one of the criticisms about universal health care systems is you essentially have death boards that choose who lives and who dies. And people said, no, it doesn’t really work that way. Well, in Italy, they just said, if you’re above 60, you no longer get a ventilator, which is what helps keep you alive and in many cases, overcome this COVID-19, the coronavirus.

And so one of the things we can look and learn is that this universal health care system not nearly as effective as it has been advertised, which is why in America with the government trying to scramble and figure out what solutions do we have. One of the solutions has been going to the private industry and saying, hey, can you guys help do things?

Free-Market Help

I read an article just yesterday about the distilling industry, the alcohol industry in America and how many of the distilleries are no longer making alcohol, they’re now doing things like hand sanitizer. And they’re producing things that there’s a demand for in America and they have the ability to do it. But what you’re seeing is that the pr

ivate sector is still being the best solution to a lot of these problems. It’s not the government coming and controlling and taking over which, when there is fear, a lot of people want to sacrifice their freedom for security. And they think security comes from the government. But what we see is that the government is not actually helping solve these problems, it’s the private industry that is helping solve these problems on the greatest level. But again, Italy is just an example of where universal health care system not nearly as effective as been advertised.

 Rick:

And in fact, here in America, where the worst you know, problems have been, it’s been because of government control. The lack of testing, that was the FDA not allowing people to develop their own test and taking weeks for the federal government to figure that out.

The FDA

And, you know, the FDA shouldn’t have been preventing people from developing their own test in the first place. Or all these states that are saying it’s Trump’s fault, they don’t have hospital beds. That’s baloney. It’s the state’s responsibility to do that. And they’ve got all these certificates of needs, where you literally have to petition your state government to be able to add hospital beds or to buy hospital equipment. How ridiculous is that?

So, all of the regulations that have been coming close to universal health care as the Left has pushed our nation towards that have made our response to the coronavirus so much more difficult. If we’d had a free market system, working like a true free market system, we would have been able to respond even quicker. Thankfully, Trump is lifted tons of regulations very quickly so that hospitals can expand, so that we can do a lot of the things we needed to be doing in terms of developing these tests and whatnot. But man, I mean, we were just crippled by regulation because we were trying to be like Italy. So, a huge lesson for us is that, not be like European socialized healthcare, but instead go back to a free market health care so that we can have those solutions that the free market produces. Is far better, the government. Hey, quick break, guys, we’ll be right back. Stay with us, folks, you’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

This Precarious Moment

Hi, this is David Barton. I want to let you know about a brand new book we have out called, “€˜This Precarious Moment: Six Urgent Steps That Will Save You, Your Family and Our Country. Jim, Garlow and I have co-authored this book. And we take six issues that are hot in the culture right now, issues that we’re dealing with, issues such as immigration and race relations and our relationship with Israel and the rising generation millennials and the absence of the church and the culture wars and where American heritage is, our godly heritage. We look at all six of those issues right now that are under attack and we give you both biblical and historical perspective on those issues that provide solutions on what each of us can do right now to make a difference.

These are all problems that are solvable if we’ll get involved. So, you can grab the book, “€˜This Precarious Moment”€™ and find out what you can do to make a difference. “€˜This Precarious Moment”€™ is available at wallbuilders.com.

Changing Our Behavior

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us today. We’re talking about some of the things that we can learn from all of this and how it might even change our behavior and our society in some positive ways.

David:

Well, there’s a lot of resets and I think reset is the right word. I think there’s a reset coming on education. I think there’s an economic reset coming. I think there’s a constitutional reset coming. Certainly, foreign relations, so many other things. The one I’m going to start with, I’m intrigued with is over in Europe, what is being called Tribalism.

If you remember the 26, 27 nations that are that European Common Market stuff, the European Union, they’ve been open borders on all the way through. And so, when Poland or Hungary or Czech Republic tries to close their borders, the European Union sues them, says, you can’t close your borders.

The European Union

Well, now, the European Union hss closed borders. Decided, you know, it might be a good deal to have borders and probably the most open border country over there has been Germany. And they’ve even closed their borders to the other European Union countries.

So, all of a sudden, it is invoked to have borders and to control immigration and to know who’s coming in and out of your country. And that’s something we’ve been fighting with even over here. And I don’t see anything that says, hey, we want open borders anymore over here. As a matter of fact, in the midst of this, Trump administration’s been able to close down borders with Mexico even more, even asylum seekers now. And by the way, in recent weeks that the Ninth Circuit and other circuits have ruled, even the US Supreme Court has ruled that the Stay-in-Place order that if you’re seeking asylum, that’s great. You can do it from another country. You can beat a neutral country like Guatemala, you can wait there until you hear where your asylum is there. You don’t get to come into the United States and wait here, we’ll hold you in a safe country. The courts have upheld that. So, we’re seeing a lot of reset, a lot of progress on immigration. I think you’ll see the rhetoric really change with that over time.

Private-Sector Solutions

I think you’ll also see a whole new attitude toward government being able to meet our needs. The solutions that are happening right now have been from the private sector, not from the government sector. The best thing the government’s been able to do is cut red tape and get out of the way and let the private sector solvent.

Tim:

Now, I do agree with you that the private sector has been by far the best at helping solve these problems. I do wonder how much the American people are going to see that though. Because it’s certainly not what Trump is saying, it’s certainly not what the news is saying. And so, I’m a little hesitant how much they see that because right now, you are seeing people crying out for, right when we need Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell, right? We need the government to solve these problems. We need these paychecks and we need these business loans. And I mean, the right things we’ll talk about probably on Thursday’s program, Foundations of Freedom getting to some of this and what’s constitutional and what’s not. But I do think you’re seeing people looking right now to the government for help, but partly because the government’s the one that shut this down. And so, if government shut it down, then who else is going to help? Because as private individuals, we are being limited in some capacity.

Reset Across the Board

So, I do think there will be a bit of a reset but I don’t know if it will be as across the board as it should be. Because I just like you know, right now with still college kids, majority of them support socialism on some level. I think a lot of people still are getting bad information and therefore are coming to wrong conclusions and bad conclusions, because they have bad information. And so, until they get different information, I don’t know that that’s going to really be the change at the level we would like to see it.

Rick:

Yeah. And in fact, that’s part of the concern, right is that the reset goes the wrong way if we don’t educate people on the proper role of government. There”€™re some, you know, political had a big article about big thinkers of course, is coming from the Left. But they’re saying, hey, the reset is going to be less individualism, more big government, the era of Reagan is over. That’s where they want to take it. And that’s why people listening to this program, sharing this program is so important, so they get the right, constitutional, biblical, historical perspective and we have the right kind of reset. So, in fact, let’s reset. Let’s take a quick break. We’ll come back and talk more about the right kind of reset. Stay with us, folks, you’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

Patriot Academy

Have you noticed the vacuum of leadership in America? It’s not just that we have a few bad leaders taking us away from our founding principles and down a road of destruction. The real challenge is that we’re looking around for leaders of principle to step up and too often, no one is there. This is a generational challenge and we must have a generational solution. God is raising up a generation of young leaders with a passion for impacting the world around them. They’re crying out for the mentorship and leadership training they need and we need to equip them for the purpose God has laid on their hearts.

Patriot Academy was created to meet that need. You, the listeners of WallBuilders Live have supported Patriot Academy over the years. You’ve sent your children and grandchildren to the program and the results have been remarkable.

A Citizen Track

Patriot Academy graduates now serve in state capitals around America, in the halls of Congress in business, in the film industry, in the pulpit, in every area of the culture. They’re leading effectively and impacting the world around them. Patriot Academy is now expanding across the nation and now is your chance to experience this life changing week that trains champions to change the world. Visit patriotacademy.com for dates and locations.

Our core program is still for young leaders 16 to 25 years old, but we also now have a citizen track for adults, so visit the website today to learn more. Help us fill the void of leadership in America. Join us in training champions to change the world at patriotacademy.com

Changing Perceptions

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live, thanks for staying with us. We’re talking about how culture really in our nation, not just our nation, David, you mentioned other nations as well, that the resets that are happening right now in terms of perception of the importance of borders and all of these things. As we’re going to break, we’re talking about maybe the perception of the proper role of governments. That’s going to be a big debate ss we get on the other side of this thing.

David:

It will be and I think retrospect will help, also writing about what’s working. I’m seeing more articles coming out on private sector stepping up. And that is, in some ways, getting around the Left’s mantra of trying to control big government. But I think another thing that you’re seeing right now is suddenly, people are investigating homeschooling and why they have not, which calls into question support for public education in some ways and the fact that states are now allowing public schools to really be innovative alternative, the fact that they’re going to online schools, online classes, that calls into question the whole structure we’ve had with government education.

Homeschooling

Tim:

Yeah, and to clarify, it’s not that people are just investigating the homeschool idea. It’s they’re being forced into the homeschool model. And right, I mean, Rick, even as you alluded to, that there will now be a lot more respect for homeschool moms and people that have been navigating this for many, many years. Because, you know, kind of the thought has been in some of these realms, well, you know, the stay at home moms, these homeschool moms, you know, they really don’t do as much. They’re not as intelligent. They need to go get a job, make money, blah, blah, blah. And now that the average Americans are having to navigate the situation, they’re going to realize this is so much harder, right, than I thought.

And just like we talked about with looking at the government pendulum, are people going to want more or less government? I definitely could see this going one or two ways. Where I definitely think that parents are going to be much more grateful for teachers and how they have to navigate and help so many kids on a daily basis.

Gratitude for Teachers

But it’s also possible that as parents are now kind of delving into this homeschool world that they’re realizing, maybe what their kids doing don’t know on some levels and recognizing that especially if we start living this homeschool world where parents are having to be forced with the reality of what their kids do and don’t know, it might cause them to go, wow, the education I thought they were getting is not really what they in fact, were getting and that should change.

So hopefully, there are several levels of awakening that happens, the gratitude for teachers”€™ education, but certainly that recognition also structure and then maybe even the significance of homeschooling and how beneficial it can be based on sometimes what schools run into provide. I saw an interesting social media post where someone pointed out if your kids are now thriving in home education where you did not see them thriving before, maybe you should consider, this as a better option for them than where they have been. And I certainly think that is a reality that many parents are going to experience, is recognizing that their kids will do better with some of more of that direct instruction, some more input from mom and dad, some more guidance. So definitely there could be some benefit coming out of this.

A Healthy Tomorrow

Rick:

And maybe at the college level, too, because of the, you know, the number of online classes now and people having to move to online classes. We’ll realize how much less expensive that is. And maybe we don’t need quite so many, you know, big campuses and buildings and all of that. Not that you don’t want some of that. But I mean, it just definitely could move towards a more inexpensive, secondary or college education as well.

David:

Well, I think a lot of the predictions that there will be a depression, they’re probably well grounded. I mean, it probably will be, even if everything were healthy tomorrow, it’s going to take a while to turn the economy around, to get it going again. So, there’s probably going to be some economic hardship.

A New Attitude

And if you think back to the Great Depression of the 1930s, the people who came out of that had a whole different attitude on where they spent their money and what they did to savings accounts, what they were willing to spend on entertainment. I think the fact that four major sports have been shut down totally. And people don’t have a place to go for that, they’re finding things to do for hobbies, they’re finding things to do with their kids, they”€™re finding things to do. They’re not spending. You don’t have the rabid fans that are spending thousands on their sports team. I think you’re seeing a restructuring of priorities economically.

Tim:

And even economically speaking, we’ve talked about before that we knew that there was a massively inflated bubble, that there had to be a reset. And so, right, this could be something that even though it’s very uncomfortable and this is not a situation, economically, we would wish on Americans that something was going to happen eventually and maybe this can bring down some of that inflation before it popped and was even more catastrophic than maybe it would be.

A Divine Reset

But dad, I think you’re absolutely right. Looking at the reprioritization where now parents are in a situation where they’re kind of being forced to spend more time with our kids. Right? You have more time on your hands so you can read more books and hopefully, right, spend more time in Bible study and in quiet time and in prayer and a lot of things now that we’re being forced into something that that I would argue, right, God would be using this as a reset, saying we need to straighten out some of these priorities, where you’re spending so much time on things that are not nearly as significant as family, as your faith.

And I really wonder once we come out of this, what kind of decline is going to happen in the sports. Because certainly, I mean, we grew up loving sports, we play sports. You know, Rick, I know your family, your kids have played sports. Dad, our family as kids, we played sports. We’re not anti-sports at all, but maybe just a reshuffling of the priority that we even put to sports as opposed to that a faith and family.

Is It Constitutional?

David:

Now, there’s going to be a lot of shifts happening, I think even constitutionally. We’ll talk about some that tomorrow. But people were getting more questions now from people across the nation writing and saying, is this constitutional? Can they do this? My mayor said this, can they do that? Can the governor do this? I mean, people even wondering what’s constitutional? I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen so many questions about what is and isn’t unconstitutional. So, there’s a lot of positive resets that I think are going to happen as a result of this.

Rick:

Yeah. And they’re asking good questions too, not just as a constitutional. They’re really beginning to understand federalism and the role of the feds versus the States. And it’s so you’re right. I mean, it’s a good level of interest. That can be nothing but healthy. We need to know how our government works and the role that we have and the role that we expect that government to play if we’re going to protect those freedoms. I mean, if we don’t have a good perspective on the proper role of government, we”€™ll sometimes reach out and ask government to solve problems they shouldn’t. And when they, you know, violate our rights, we won’t be prepared to defend and assert them. To take a phrase from John Jay, our first Chief Justice and one of the framers of our Constitutions and author of the Federalist Papers.

Chinese Coronavirus – What Can We Learn?

So, study the Constitution, folks, let’s dig deeper. What a great opportunity, in fact, become a Constitution coach today. Go to constitutioncoach.com. You can sign up right now today for free and host class, you know, right there on your computer at home. So, it’s a great time to build up community with your friends and family and be educating them about the proper constitutional role of government. Check that out at constitutioncoach.com today.

And then go to wallbuilders.com to get materials and things you can be studying on your own to just dive deeper into the foundation of the country, teach your kids history. I mean, bring your family together and get that biblical, constitutional, historical perspective.

Be sure to tune in tomorrow on Foundations of Freedom Thursday here on WallBuilders Live, we’re going to be diving into some of those constitutional questions. Thanks for listening the WallBuilders Live.Â