Proclaiming Liberty – with Mark David Hall: Today, we have Professor Mark David Hall on to talk about his new book, Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land. In the midst of all the misinformation about America and the founding of America, there are few sources that shine light on the truth. Christianity is now being looked upon as an oppressive word. Mark David Hall returns focus to the truth. Christianity is an integral part of our country and the morals it has brought must not be forgotten.

Air Date: 5/9/2023

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

Guest: Mark David Hall

Mark David Hall’s Website

Transcript:

Rick Green
You found your way to the intersection of faith and the culture. Thanks for joining us today on WallBuilders. I’m Rick Green America’s constitution coach here with David Barton, America’s premier historian and Tim Barton, national speaker and pastor and president of our organization here at WallBuilders. You can learn more about all three of us at the website WallBuilders.com. And you can also go there to make that one time or monthly contribution for which we are very much grateful. You’re literally giving of your life, your fortune and your sacred honor, when you take the time to share this program, when you make those donations, when you stand up for truth, and you speak that truth, I mean, all of those things, that’s what it takes to restore the nation. So lives, fortunes, sacred honor, every single one of us can do something about the mess that we’re in, we’re asking you to do a few things. Well, a lot of things actually, you know, there’s a lot of action steps that we give you here on WallBuilders. But very simply some things you can do today, share the program, make a contribution today to help us reach more people with the program, and then start hosting one of our classes in your home or at your church or somewhere in your community, biblical citizenship or Constitution Alive or Constitutional Defense of your Family andFreedom. I mean, these are all classes we make available to you for free, you can sign up today as a coach, you can do that there at PatriotAcademy.com , PatriotAcademy.com and get access to all those programs. If you want the DVDs, you want the physical version of the classes, you can get those right now at WallBuilders.com. So hope you’ll check that out, today. Get those materials, start studying them yourself. But most importantly, get your people together in your community, I think it’s so important to come together with others, and help teach them but also get together with like minded folks, you know, it’s part of the freedom of assembly in the First Amendment, and it’s really important to do. God even told us not to forsake the fellowship. And I think that’s not just getting together on Sunday morning to worship, it’s also getting together to sharpen each other’s countenance, to teach each other and learn. So, make sure you look for an opportunity to be able to do all of those things. Alright, David and Tim, Mark David Hall, professor from George Fox University will be with us a little later in the program. He has a new book out, called proclaim liberty throughout all the land, and of course, he’s been a great guest on the program many times, talking about a lot of the history of the founding fathers and the principles and really defending the frame that they used to create this nation, against a lot of the onslaught and attacks of today where so many want to tear down those institutions. And it’s important for us to know these things. It’s essentially why WallBuilders exists. Rebuild the walls, you got to rebuild the foundations, you got to know what we stand for. So it’d be fun to have Mark David Hall back on today.

David Barton
You know, part of the image Americans get today, they talk often in broad stereotypes, and especially academics really love to do this. I know Tim, you’ve had debates with professors where they said all the founding fathers were racist, or all the founding fathers or whatever. And that tends to be the language so many people use today, and they paint with a very broad brush. And they don’t even know who they’re talking about when they do that.

Tim Barton
And dad, I mean, to jump in on that. One of the things it’s worth noting is when you hear people make these statements, I’ve never had someone in a conversation. I’ve never had one of these professors make one of these statements that then could give me clarity on who all of these individuals were their own slaves, or whatever the accusation, wherever the claim is, right? That none of the founding fathers were religious, that they all owned slaves. And I just asked a simple question, well which ones do you know that did own slaves? Or which ones do you know that weren’t religious? Which ones do you know that were atheists, or agnostics, or Deist? And they begin giving answers. And you quickly realize the answers they are giving are factually incorrect, or they don’t have answers at all. And so, so often, you see in an academic circle, they have just bought the academic narrative without having proof, without having evidence. And so often, the proof and the evidence goes against them, which I mean, Rick, as you pointed out, we’ll have Mark David Hall on later. It’s one of the things that I so appreciate about him. And what he has done with even some of his books, and some of the articles he’s written, is he is an academic who is intellectually honest enough to say, well, let’s go back and let’s see who these individuals were. Let’s, instead of making these generalizations, let’s see what they believed. And he’s very guarded. He’s very careful on how he says it. He wants to make sure that, with his writing, he’s always in an academically strong standing position, he can defend everything that he does. And so sometimes, he won’t even go as far as we do in some of the positive accolades or in some of the Christian stances, because he wants to make sure that he is bulletproof from the academic attacks, of secular left now, we already know we’re going to get the academic attack from secular left regardless because of the general positions we are taking and we feel very confident with the positions we take and what we are saying. But with that being said, it’s something that in the academic field, the overall direction is so counter narrative to what is often historically accurate, that they make these broad generalized sweeping claims that not only are they not true, they don’t get challenged and therefore never have to defend what is true. And so often they’re misleading hundreds, if not thousands of students over the years in these classes, that I’ve even at times gotten emails or gotten texts or messages from students in classes with some of these crazy woke professors saying crazy woke things. And I’ve helped students navigate how to have a conversation, how to ask questions in class, with some of these crazy statements. But this is become a much more common position from what I’ve seen over the last decade or two, is that the crazy position some of these academics take when it comes to what is historically accurate.

David Barton
You know, one of the ironies I’ve seen along with this is a lot of times the really wild claims you get about the founding fathers, historically, come from academics who are not historians. It’s interesting that the guys who wrote the godless constitution, neither one of them are historians at all. They’re literary professors. And so often that’s the case, they’re the loudest on these things, but they’re not even in that field.

Tim Barton
Well similar, with the 1619 Project, right? Who were the historians? Who did the 1619 Project? Oh, yeah. Not historians, journalists. And right, not that we’re being critical, necessarily saying that your credentials give you validity and authority… We’re not trying to have a credential debate. But we are talking about the fact, people that have not studied history are the ones that are at times making some of the most outrageous claims about history. And then people that actually study history, in this case, many of the historian, when the 1619 project came out, historians in the left and right came out and said, that is garbage history. It’s not true. It’s not accurate. But we have seen a trend that a lot of what’s happening in academic circles, it’s not necessarily always made an attempt and an effort to be true, to be intellectually honest, it’s to promote a narrative and agenda. And that’s a lot of the battle we’re seeing culturally, right now.

David Barton
And, you know, part of that even, I can speak personally with that, that even a few years ago, there was a couple of academics who thought they would really organize this great academic attack on me, and they got about a dozen professors to go public and attack me. And only one guy had anything to do with history. And he was the quietest among all the guys who were there.

Rick Green
Yeah, some of them were psychologist and psychiatrist.

David Barton
Yeah, exactly! And you know, and they know so much more about history. And so we went out and very quickly got several dozen professors saying no, no, no, and many of them were the history professors saying, no the history is right. So it’s really interesting that a lot of time people today have been trained to look for credentials. And if you’re a PhD, man, you got to be really smart. And I think we’re getting over that. We’re getting over that even with PhDs. In the sense of MDs, you know we went through COVID, and found out a lot of those guys aren’t very expert at anything, except repeating what they’re told. And so that’s why we like Mark David Hall so much. He spends so much time in the actual documents, he goes back through, discovers the people, discovers the thinking the circumstances. The book, he wrote on Roger Sherman, the book he wrote on James Wilson, those are two guys, that should be in the top five Founding Fathers, any discussion at all, because of what they did is so significant. They need to be up there with Jefferson and George Washington, John Adams. And you know, who knows those guys today. And you know, one of the things that happens, Tim and I both we’ll often have groups where will put the 56 signers of the Declaration up on the screen and say, tell me who you can recognize and call by name, and maybe one or two is all they get. And so you got about 200 Founding Fathers, when you look at the signers of Constitution, signers of declaration, framers of Bill of Rights, and Mark actually goes back and reads the writings of the really important guys. And there are not many academics that do that. So anytime he comes out with a book, so far, we have found every one of them be really solid, really, he comes from such a good perspective. He acknowledges the good, the bad, the ugly. He goes as far as the evidence lets him go and doesn’t go further. And he’s a very humble academic, and, you know, really good. He has a lot of influence with programs like at Regent University. He’s now working on new programs there. He’s working at George Fox University. He’s helped on so many programs. So, he’s got a new book out and Proclaiming Liberty, which is out of Leviticus 25. That’s actually the Bible verse around the Liberty Bell, proclaim liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof. And so he and Dan Dreisbach and a handful other guys that are so good on this. And so he’s got a new book out, and this is going to be a really fun book. He does a really good job of going back and looking at a number of founding fathers and founding era individuals and how they did proclaim liberty and how they use religious values as the basis of so much of the liberty they proclaims so this’ll be a fun interview.

Rick Green
Yeah as we’re going to break, before we we go to Mark David Hall. I just got to tell you guys a quick story. I was talking to someone the other day that her, lets see, her parents were doing the Biblical Citizenship class. And they had a lot of their family there and one of their relatives, I can’t remember she was a history teacher in high school or professor or some education person that history was their thing. And so she was adamant about fact that she was going to watch the classes before they showed them to anybody else at church to make sure that we were accurate in what we were saying. And so she got up at the church, before the video played and said, I just want you all to know, I went and watched all this. And most of this, I was not taught, so I thought it might not be true. I went and researched it. And it’s all accurate and true. I thought, wow, that’s a good testimonial man! That’s… I love hearing that. And I was also thankful that she was willing to not just say, well, since they didn’t teach me that it must not be true. But instead, it spurred her into studying and going back and, and looking at it. So this is the right way to do it, folks. We’ll be right back Mark David Hall, our special guest today on WallBuilders.

Tim Barton
This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment in American history. Alexis de Tocqueville, a political official from France, traveled to the United States in 1831 and penned his observations in the now famous book, ‘Democracy in America’. Being from France, what he found in America was completely unexpected to him. He reported, “Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention. And the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this. In France, I almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom, marching in opposite directions. But in America, I found that they were intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country.” De Tocqueville recognized that it was biblical Christianity and the morals it produced that made America great? For more information about Alexis de Tocqueville and the positive influence of Christianity in early America, go to wallbuilders.com

Rick Green
Welcome back to WallBuilders Thanks for staying with us. Great to have Professor Mark David Hall back with us. Always good to have you, sir. And excited about the new book, Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land, appreciate you coming on program to talk about it.

Mark David Hall
Oh, thanks so much for having me, Rick.

Rick Green
Well, this is, you know, you are one of the few guys that we really enjoy having from the university world. You… because you’ve, man, you just hit the truth head on- the good, the bad, the ugly. You take the same approach we do. And so once again, here, you’ve got a… an opportunity for people to really learn some good history. Tell us about the book and what caused you to write it?

Mark David Hall
Yeah, so it’s sort of the sequel to my last book, Did America Have a Christian Founding, but in between the publication of that book, and this one, a bunch of projects like the 1619 Project came out. And the 1619 project in New York Times series of essays on the 400th anniversary of the introduction of enslaved Americans to America, just really ticked me off, honestly, because it says, in essence, slavery and racism explains the United States of America, 1619 should replace the 1776 as their national birthday. And to the extent to which it addressed Christianity. Christianity was simply described as an oppressive force. It’s I wanted to tell a very different story. I recognize that of course, some Christians have used the Bible to defend slavery and things like that, but argue that unbalanced. Christianity and Christians have been a force for a great deal of progress in America, especially the advancement of liberty and equality for all Americans.

Rick Green
Well, this is, you know, it’s kind of the inputs thing, right? It’s the good stuff in, good stuff out, bad stuff in, bad stuff out. And we’re seeing a lot of bad stuff in the culture, what you’re taking people back to are the good inputs. You know, we were just talking about that on a program the other day, and so it’s the timing is perfect to rediscover that formula and what produces liberty that we can proclaim.

Mark David Hall
Yeah, well thank you for that. And I think that’s right, especially as it 1619 project is now making its way into classrooms. And of course, schools of education have been producing teachers for years who buy into this critical race theory and such, and so I think this book could be an important inoculation for parents to read so they can pass on the truth to their children. I think Christian schools could use this as a textbook. And, again, as you all do, I tell the good, the bad, and the ugly. And I make no apology for the fact that Christians use the Bible to defend slavery, to defend sexism and things like that. We can justly critique them for doing so. But then we also have to recognize that a whole lot of Christians have spent a lot of time effort and energy fighting these things. And they did so because of their Christian convictions.

Rick Green
Yeah, yeah. And that’s the untold part of the story, today, certainly, and a need to see that almost holistic approach, where we see the whole picture and it’s the old Jeremiah’s speech, right? I mean, we’re the chosen people, we got off track, here’s where we went wrong. And then here’s where we get back and how we fix it. I mean, it’s true as the American people I mean, we were, you know, so much good more, I think compared to the rest of the world, and relatively speaking better than any nation in history, but obviously have our sins as well. But when we only tell part of the story, our kids become jaded. You know, we’ve kind of created a generation that actually hates their own nation. I mean, that’s a very dangerous road to go.

Mark David Hall
You know, I think that’s exactly right. So this book from the pilgrims and the Puritans to the present day, you know, I tell a lot of stories, right? And I tell a lot of facts about some of these people and individuals that aren’t oftentimes known, for instance, the Puritans are oftentimes painted as a bunch of mean spirited theocrats. In reality, they adopted the rule of law, they adopted small-r republican institutions, they had a broader conception of liberty than you could find anywhere else on the face of the globe. Now, of course, they weren’t 21st century, liberal democrats that is small-d democrats, they had some practices and policies that I’m glad are gone, but really, if you wanted to be a Christian, and living in as much freedom and equality as possible, you would have a hard time finding anywhere better than Puritan New England. I take the story to the founding era, I show a number of ways the founders took very significant steps to address the evils of slavery. And then right up to the present day where I do a lot of discussion about religious liberty and church-state relations, and highlight how Christian now… Christian legal advocacy groups, like First Liberty and Alliance Defending Freedom, and others, have been on the forefront of protecting the ability of all Americans to worship God, according to the dictates of conscience and act upon those convictions whenever possible.

Rick Green
I got to ask you, in general, you know, Mark, is it… you’ve written so many books over the last, you know, 15 years or so in this arena and on these subjects. Are you seeing the uptick in interest and willingness for people to study things that maybe they just kind of took for granted before, you know, as they’re seeing, honestly, the culture kind of crumbling around them, they’re saying, man, I need to figure out how to do better as a citizen, as a country and that sort of thing. That’s what I’m seeing, and we’re seeing. Are you seeing the same kind of thing with your books now that there’s even more interest than in the past, and that maybe out, even outside, of the, you know, quote-unquote, academic world of the university, that just… you know, citizens are just saying, I don’t care if they’re, you know 15 or if they’re 80, they’re going, man, I need to study these things. And they’re finding answers as they dive into your books.

Mark David Hall
Yeah, my sense is, it’s a bimodal distribution. I think you have far too many Americans that just aren’t reading anything. They’re just watching Netflix and goofing around, and that sort of thing. Among people who are reading things, I think people on the left are reading very bad books, How Not to be a Racist and the 1619 project. And so there may be just getting more and more muddled. On the other hand, I think among conservative Christians, and maybe conservatives, generally, who take ideas seriously, I think you’re exactly right. There’s an uptick in looking for good literature, for good books to read that provide an accurate account of American history. And this of course, I think, enables them to teach their children better and enables them to engage their neighbors better and to argue for good things.

Rick Green
Love it, love it, love it, love it, man. That’s where we need to go. Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land, Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land, you can get all of Mark David Hall’s books at Amazon.com . Anywhere else you want us to send folks to learn more?

Mark David Hall
I have a website, my wife was kind enough to build for me, it’s MarkDavidHall.org . And I have a lot of information about all my other books and I’ve recently been working on American Christian Nationalism. There’s been a whole lot of nonsensical stuff said and written about that recently, and so I’m pushing back against that. That’s my current book project, since this one’s out and released already. That’s going to be my next one.

Rick Green
I love it. Love it. All right, well tell your… I pulled it up. Tell your wife great job easy to scroll through here and get the books as well. MarkDavidHall.org . It’s got Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land right there at the top and man, some really good endorsements, Glenn Beck, Eric Metaxas, Ben Shapiro, a lot of friends to this program, Sam Sorbo, Andrew Klavan. Just a lot of great, folks. So congratulations on the new book. And we’ll send as many people there as possible. Appreciate you, brother.

Mark David Hall
Hey, thank you very much. Appreciate you.

Rick Green
Stay with us, folks. We’ll be right back with David and Tim Barton.

Tim Barton
Hey, this is Tim Barton with WallBuilders. And as you’ve had the opportunity to listen to WallBuilders Live, you’ve probably heard the wealth of information about our nation, about our spiritual heritage, about the religious liberties, about all the things that makes America exceptional. And you might be thinking, as incredible as this information is, I wish there was a way that I could get one of the WallBuilders guys to come to my area and share with my group, whether it be a church, whether it be a Christian school or public school or some political event or activity. If you’re interested in having a WallBuilders speaker come to your area, you can get on our website at www.wallbuilders.com and there’s a tab for scheduling. And if you’ll click on that tab, you’ll notice there’s a list of information from speakers BIOS to events that are already going on, and there’s a section where you can request an event to bring this information about who we are, where we came from, our religious liberties and freedoms. Go to the WallBuilders website and bring a speaker to your area.

Rick Green
We’re back here on WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. Thanks again to Mark David Hall for joining us on the program, today. Be sure to check out his book, Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land. Back with David and Tim and guys, just another example of getting into that history for good reason. And people keep asking me, why should I study history? Why should I read these kinds of books instead of, you know, whatever else they might be entertained by? And it’s because, listen the culture is falling apart, it’s probably pretty important that we look at why. And we look at what are the good things the founders put in to give us such a great first 200 years to the country? And how do we restore those things? So this is… it’s good and healthy, that these kinds of books are getting more and more popular in the population right now.

Tim Barton
It is, and I appreciate when you asked him the question, you know, what is he seeing, because he gave such a thoughtful response that well, you know, the left, they’re reading their books, and it’s firming up their thoughts, because of what they’re hearing. And conservatives, they’re beginning to do more reading exploration and where it is so different when you do reading exploration, especially from a Mark David Hall, from a WallBuilders kind of source, is we’re going to give you the footnotes to the actual documents, and we’re going to encourage you, go back and read that for yourself. And Rick, even before we went to the interview, I love as you were pointing out, there was an individual, a history person who said, I’m not sure about this, let me watch it first, watch these courses. And then actually, that person went and did some research and said, oh okay, this is stuff I didn’t know, but it is true. We’re seeing a growing move of individuals who are in pursuit of truth, as well as we’re seeing a growth of people who just want to have a narrative fed to them. And so this is true on both sides, but one of the things he brought up in the interview, I think, is a very important thing for us to understand. Part of the argument and conversation, we’ve heard this against Christianity for a while, but now with the 1619 Project becoming so prominent with the narrative being that America is fundamentally evil because of slavery. This is something that we’re now seeing people are using the, kind of the foundation of this arguments, to even attack Christianity. It’s to say, well look, you know, the people advocating slavery, were using the Bible to advocate slavery. And while that is fundamentally true, when you look in the south, when you look, maybe, even at some people in New York, when you look at some of the pro slavery advocates, there’s no doubt many of them were using the Bible in arguing for slavery. However, what is probably even more important is you cannot find an anti slavery advocate in early America that was making any moral claims outside of the Bible, every single anti slavery leader in early America, where did they get their ideas from? It was the Bible. And so people are, at times, on the left saying, well, the Bible is bad because it it was used to further slavery. But we would then counter, well right? But but the people who actually fought and ended slavery, where did their ideas come from? the Bible. And we would argue, right, they had the better ideas of the more biblically accurate ideas of what we should be doing as a nation, of what God actually upheld as a standard, because they embrace what the Founding Fathers taught that in the beginning, God created them. And he created them equal, and he didn’t create them into slavery, it was one of the inalienable rights, that they were supposed to be born free, that we were created free and equal. This is the sentiment of the founding fathers. It was an argument used by every early abolitionist, and it was something rooted in Scripture. And the Bible was literally used to end slavery in America. But this is, as we talked about some of these discussions, and at times we talked in history context makes such a big difference in the conversation. Mark David Hall pointed out, well it was used on both sides. It was, and this is where you cannot let the left say that the Bible is bad, that Christianity is bad, Christianity is evil. It was people that misused and misunderstood what the Bible said, advocating for wrong positions using the Bible. But they were wrong in what they did. It wasn’t that the Bible was wrong, it was that they held faulty positions based on an improper understanding of the Bible. And I just appreciate, when you have academics pointing out, right, it’s not that the Bible was necessarily wrong in these areas, it is that you had people using the Bible to promote their agenda. Whereas, when slavery was finally ended, it was people using the Bible. So the Bible is not just something you can point to and those in favor of 1619 projects say the Bible’s evil; stay away from the Bible. That is an incorrect position. And it’s so refreshing to have an academic even help point this out.

David Barton
Also, with Mark David halls book is so good. This is an opportunity to get a good education for everybody and I say that in the sense of, right now as people are concerned about education, they’re looking for good curriculum. Some great curriculum is simply just reading a good book and discussing it. We don’t have to have the way the progressives did it. The progressives are the ones that said you have to have curriculum. Man, go back the first three Century Education. We read stuff, we discussed it, we debate it. And I challenge you, if you’ve got kids in Junior High or High School, have them read Mark David halls book and then discuss it with them. Sit out and talk about it, just go through it. And if you got kids that are not homeschooled or not Christian school, if you’re in public school, great, do the same thing. They need to be thinkers, and they need to know how to recognize truth and find truth and be exposed to things. So this book with Mark David Hall is a great opportunity for every single one of us to bust up this progressive thinking that you have to have curriculum and guidelines to know what to do. You don’t. Learn how to think. Go through it, read it, this is a really good resource to start something really good.

Rick Green
Well, as we said, at the beginning of the program, you can learn more WallBuilders.com , that’s WallBuilders.com . That’s the place you can make a one time or monthly contribution, you can share the program. And then of course, I mentioned at the top of the program, PatriotAcademy.com if you’d like to become a coach, and start teaching some of our classes, that’s not, you don’t have to have any kind of expertise to do that. You literally just have to get people in the room and hit play. We’ll take care of the teaching, and you’ll learn as you go, you just tell your friends and families that hey, we’re citizens together, we’re going to learn together, and we’re going to become better citizens, biblical citizens, in fact, so check all that out today at PatriotAcademy.com . Get signed up, start using those materials, and become that force multiplier in your community. Become the catalyst for restoring biblical values and constitutional principles. And as David said earlier in the program, just get a good book, like Mark David Hall’s book on proclaiming liberty and start reading it with friends and family and then talking about it and exchanging ideas. There’s so many ways to do this and to improve our culture. And you can be a part of that. Thanks so much for listening. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders.