Summer Of Liberty – Discover Our Amazing Summer Programs: What can you do to preserve the torch of liberty? How can you pass that torch to the next generation? How do we restore Biblical Truth to a society? Do the 16 to 25 year-olds you love understand how to pursue truth and then defend their beliefs? Tune in to learn about our Summer Programs, where influential leaders from all over the nation come to explain the apologetics of the Bible, the Constitution, and of American principles, in order to arm the next generation with a foundation of truth!

Air Date: 05/17/2022

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

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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

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. It’s WallBuilders Live. We are taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective.

I’m Rick Green, America’s Constitution coach and a former Texas legislator, here with David Barton, he’s America’s premier historian, and our founder at WallBuilders, and Tim Barton, national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. And we appreciate you joining us today to help restore liberty in the country and bring back the principles that made America great in the first place.

And guys, today, we’re specifically going to be talking about what folks can do for their kids and what young people can do this summer to be a part of that generation, that remnant that has been raised up in America to preserve and pass the torch of liberty. And there’s a lot of great programs and things to do this summer to get them engaged and get them ready. And so we’re just going to rapid fire run through some great opportunities for them, and give them an opportunity to get involved.

But this is something that’s on people’s minds a little more than in the past that old Ronald Reagan quote about losing freedom in a generation, it’s not passed in the bloodstream, you got to do it on purpose. I think people, once they start seeing liberty be taken away, they think a lot more about how their kids and grandkids are going to grow up and what kind of nation they’re going to live in. So I think we got to a more, shall we say, audience that’s paying more attention to this subject than in the past.

Howard Zinn

Tim:

Yeah. And it’s something that, Rick is we’ve talked about really for the last year or two, I mean, maybe since 2019, when the 1619 Project came out and so much of the nonsense is being taught now, we could certainly go back to Howard Zinn from 1980 and you can see the infiltration of the education system going in the wrong direction. And for that matter, we can go back to the progressive era and maybe just look at human nature in general, that there’s always been fleshly, sinful people doing fleshly, sinful things.

But especially when the motivation and ideology has changed, where not only under the progressive era, but again, coming to the 1980, Howard Zinn era, to the America’s evil “I hate America” era, it’s just different where we are. And one of the things that we want to see change is the return to the basic principles that made America unique, different and special.

And those principles, of course, are rooted in the Bible. As Rick, even right now you’re on the road, we all three are on the road doing things, so we’re recording this from different locations, but as we’re on the road right now, we’re trying to see a restoration of constitutional, a biblical of moral truth, things that are under attack. And certainly, we’re seeing this with the rising generations.

You mentioned by the summer, we do so many programs and these programs, many of them are things we’ve been doing for literally decades and some of these scenarios. But just for example, every summer we do a program for 18-25 year olds, at this point, it’s called our Summer Institute, used to be called our Leadership Training program. And it was a summer internship before that. So the name has changed over time. 

What hasn’t changed is we try to give 18-25 year olds and equipping in a foundation of truth. And as Christians, we know the truth starts ultimately, in God, it starts with a word of God. And so we do some apologetics with the Bible.

Teaching True History

But then we get into America and the truth about America, we go through the history of Jamestown and Plymouth, and actually we even do a little history of Columbus as well, because he’s a guy that tends to be villainized and criticized on new levels in the last couple of years than historically had been the case. And so we go through some of the history. And we just walk through the history of America, some of the good, the bad, and the ugly, we try to give a glimpse of all of it. But we give the apologetics for why America was different, why we’re unique. We look in the context of world history.

And all the things, we do we identify problems, we’re able to look and the truth of the Word of God and say, what does the Bible say to this? And how do we apply the Bible to what we do? And historically, when we went wrong, what did they violate from biblical perspective? And when things were corrected historically, what were they using to correct those things? 

And we do a crash course have this kind of perspective apologetics of the Bible, of the Constitution, of America, of the Bill of Rights of the free market, enterprise system, etc, we do this apologetics system for about a week and we have guest speakers come in. And so there’s noted conservative personalities that will speak.

We’ve had individuals from the Blaze or from the Daily Wire or even Turning Point USA where Charlie Kirk spoke at several of our things last year, lots of noted individuals that will come and give some commentary. We have congressmen and senators at times that will zoom in and give commentary or they’ll be on Skype and we have military veterans, so we try to give them opportunities to have conversations from lots of noted people in different fields that could be beneficial for them.

And again, all this to say the idea is to give them the apologetic that when they’re dealing with things in culture, whether they go to college or not, and we definitely are in the camp of college is not for everybody. And this idea that we have to keep sending all of our kids to college is probably not the most sound idea, given the result we’re seeing from these universities, what they’re producing, and turning out, what their ideology is, is not what we want most of our kids to be getting.

A Change of Plans

Obviously, there are some things that we are definitely supportive. If you’re going to be an engineer, please, you’ll get a degree, go make sure you know how math works; if you’re going to be a doctor, please get a degree.

But by and large, for the vast majority of people, the jobs they’re getting don’t require them to have a degree in that field, degrees of lost value. So we’re not saying this just in the college sense. But certainly, for some of these young people that maybe parents and grandparents, they want their kids to go to college, great. Y

ou want to make sure they have a foundation of truth so that when they deal with something from a professor, and the professor says America’s evil because of slavery, they actually know the truth of the history of slavery and the evil of what happened in slavery, but also the good of how slavery was conquered and the abolitionists, and even back in the founding era, the people fighting against it. They need to learn the whole story, the good, the bad, and the ugly, so that when somebody is saying something ridiculous, they can combat it.

And there’s so many testimonies that we can go through. But just so people know, every summer we do two programs. And right now, they’re one week programs.

We used to do it for two weeks. And we would not cover the lodging or the travel and meals were not provided. And with students having to find a place to stay for two weeks with inflation right now, with gas prices of hotels, it’s just crazy. So we said, let’s do one week.

And we are going to cram in one week as much truth in history as many guests as we can. For the students, it’s going to be a life changing opportunity for the students to come and get equipped with a foundation of truth.

A New Kind of Missionary

And we actually have now several employees that have come through our summer program, several young people that are now world changers in different places. I actually just talked to a young lady who is graduating from Texas A&M University. And she called and was just giving me an update and said that when she finishes A&M, she’s going to do a two year service project with the church where she is, is going to work with the church for two years. 

And she’s actually doing things where she’s going to be more or less a missionary in a public school. And the church is offering a Bible college program, essentially is what she’s doing. But for two years, she’s kind of like an intern for them. But she’s doing it because she wants to help empower and reach the next generation.

But she called me just to give me some details on it. And she said, what really made a difference for her was when she came to our program four years ago, she had grown up in church her whole life, but didn’t really know the Bible that well and didn’t know how to apply. And she said in every day when we would spend time in the Bible and seeing how it applied to history and applied to economics and culture, she said it really challenged me, that I didn’t know the Bible as well as I thought I did. 

And she said, I decided I wanted to read the Bible. And so she said that she made a commitment that she was going to read the bible cover to cover. She said, so my freshman year of college I finished reading the Bible for the first time cover to cover. And God spoke to me so much and I learned so much and I just fell in love with God in His Word so much more, which led me to want to get more involved in church and ministry and serving people and helping people and the next generation, etc.

These are the kinds of testimonies that we can go through time after time after time of people that come. And they’re transformed in different ways. Some definitely going academic, some going business, some get involved in ministry. But the point is it’s giving young people a foundation to recognize that the Christian conservative position is actually a very reasonable and defensible position. Just most young people don’t know what that is.

Initiatives

So this is something we do every summer. We do a week program in June; a week program in July. For people that want to find out more, they can go to the WallBuilders website, look under the ‘Initiatives’ tab and you’ll find a link for the Summer Institute and you can get more information there. You can sign up. 

There is an application process. Our goal is we are not trying to convert kids to Christianity in this program. We’re not trying to convert you to love American in this program.

We want to take kids that have a foundation and we want to build on the foundation. We want to give them the apologetic equipping in this program.

And so for anybody listening right now, parents, grandparents, if you want your kids to have a foundation that can help equip them for the culture they’re in, whether it be for college or career, whatever the case might be, it’s 18-25 year olds, go to wallbuilders.com, look for Summer Institute. That’s just one of many programs we’re offering this summer. But it’s definitely something that we’re doing because we recognize the need to reach the next generation to help America turn around the way she needs to go.

Rick:

And the dates on that, we’ve got one, late June 20th to the 24th and then in July 18th to the 22nd. And Tim, just so people picture this correctly, they’re not going to be just sitting and listening to lectures; 10 hours a day, they get to go into the vault, they get to see all of these documents.

This is kind of a hands-on thing. I mean, it’s not just listening to a lecture. You’re actually studying and looking at a lot of this stuff and really getting this into your bones. I mean, that’s the difference between like a college class and what you experience at the institute.

Equipping Young People

Tim:

It’s 100%. This is something that because we’re trying to equip young people with the capacity to defend their position, what we do is we will give a lecture, but then whatever we give a lecture on, we then will spend the next hour going through artifacts that we just talked about in that lecture.

So you get to actually research from original documents from Jamestown, from Plymouth, things going back to early America from the First Great Awakening, the founding fathers, the American Revolution, the Second Great Awakening, the Civil War, it is absolutely hands on stuff, where we show you how to do research with original documents, we show you where to look to research and find those documents online so you can read them online.

We show you how to pursue truth in a practical way given the era we are living in where a lot of people, they generally have a foundation where I kind of know what’s right and wrong, but they don’t always know where to find truth. They don’t always know how to do the research. So it’s very interactive, but we do, a lot of hands-on history. 

And that’s part of where the apologetics comes in. Because once you’ve gone through some of the Founding Fathers’ writings, we have more than 800 of these early original prayer proclamations from early America, once you’ve read a couple or a dozen or 20 or 30 of them and someone says, well, we know the Founding Fathers weren’t really Christian. You can go no, hang on a second. 

I actually did research, reading John Hancock’s and Sam Adams and George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, I actually read their prayer proclamations they did when they were governors or presidents, they absolutely had acknowledgments to Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, etc, etc. It puts him in a different position.

Discovering Original Documents

Because we know what a lot of the attacks and accusations are going to be, they’re going to deal with and culture. And we can show them original documents that actually dispel what those lies and criticisms are about America or the Founding Fathers.

Rick:

Yeah. Man, there’s no substitute for that for them to have the confidence that they’re not just repeating what somebody told them in a lecture or what they saw on a show or even though what they read in a modern day. But for them to have that, that solid foundation that comes from actually going back and holding those original documents and being able to look at those original sources, there’s something special about it.

The other thing just to emphasize real quick is not only will they hear from all these great speakers, and as you mentioned, a lot of the people that that we both hired have come through the Institute. But not only with those relationships and the opportunity to meet these great speakers, it’s the camaraderie and the relationships with other young people from across the nation as well that they’re going to build during this week, a network of other young leaders that also want to help save the country and restore these things. That’s a super valuable thing. It’s hard to find those kinds of opportunities.

So there’s so much about this that folks, you got to go check it out. You can either go directly to the wallbuilders.com website today, and look up the Summer Institute under ‘Initiatives’. Or you can go to wallbuilderslive.com, our radio site today and we’ll have a link to make it easy for you to jump over there.

Going to take a quick break when we come back, we’ll talk about our other program this summer called Patriot Academy. That one’s all across the country and state capitals. Our big national academy in Austin is already full, hate to tell you that. But there are regionals still open all across the nation in Arizona and Colorado and, and Idaho and I’m going to forget somebody, but Florida, Delaware. Anyway, we’ll be back in a moment. Stay with us, folks, you’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

SUMMER INSTITUTE

Hey, guys, this is Tim Barton, I am interrupting the normal broadcast to bring you something pretty special. This summer, we are doing a special program for college aged students 18-25 year olds. And it’s something that is becoming more and more special based on where the climate is.

In the middle of a crazy culture, in the middle of a nation going in crazy directions and right now we’re seeing in academia where even Christian universities are promoting critical race theory, teaching the 1619 project, we want to do something to help equip young people the next generation, to know the truth, the truth of the Word of God, the truth of America, the truth of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the free market, we want to get into a lot of this.

And this is something that if you are an 18-25 year old, or if you are a parent or grandparent, if you have an 18 or 25 year old, if you’re in church, you know 18-25 year olds, this program is something that can be life-changing for them, you want them to be a part. Go to wallbuilders.com and look for the summer institute to be part of this program.

Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us talking today about some of the summer programs for 18-25 year olds. The Summer Institute at American Journey that’s going to happen in late June and late July, that one is for 18-25 year olds. And then the Patriot Academy Leadership Congress and state capitals across the country, that one is 16-25. And it’s a great opportunity, either one, to be around other young leaders across the nation. That’s one of the great benefits of great speakers and all of these programs.

Added Intellectual Ammunition

And kind of the difference I think probably, guys, to explain the difference between the Institute and the Leadership Congress, the Institute’s giving you all of that intellectual ammunition, if you will, all of that training, all of that grounding. And then at the Patriot Academy Leadership Congress, you apply it specifically to legislation, you learn how to work within “the belly of the beast”, if you will, within a constitutional republic and how do you influence and so they get to live the life of a legislator on the House floor in those committee rooms.

And of course, we started this together, the Bartons and the Greens back, oh, I don’t know if I want to age us here, but more than 20 years ago, let’s just say, and it’s grown across the country, and it’s a great opportunity for people to get involved. That one, you go to patriotacademy.com.

But guys, we’re actually seeing results even today from the kids that we trained years and years ago that are now serving in state legislatures. Some of the people that have come through our constitution courses are serving in Congress. I mean, they’re all over the country now implementing exactly what they learned at these programs.

David:

Yeah, Rick, not only have we had tens of thousands of folks go through these Patriot Academies, which really is a mock legislature, it actually puts you there on the ground to see how this works, not from the outside, but from the inside. And you’re a whole lot more effective when you know how things work from the inside.

And going through these congresses, these Patriot Academy Congress or mock legislation, we’ve had tens of thousands do that and we now have hundreds of these folks that are in office or working in offices, working in political positions, that has a huge impact. I mean, literally, last year, when you look at the 50 state legislators, there’s about 1,000 legislators that we deal with actively at WallBuilders.

Understanding the System

And we monitored last year and there were 159,000 bills introduced in state legislatures. A lot of those are really bad bills, really crummy ideas. But on the other hand, there were a lot of really good things that happened in legislatures last year, a lot of great bill was passed, a lot of great ideas introduced. And a lot of those come through those folks who have had that Patriot Academy experience.

So these congresses learning how to use that system and you really need to know how to use the system, and if you have any kind of interest in civic affairs or in public policy, and what goes on there and having better public policy. I mean we can point and show specifically the positive impact that’s come out of Patriot Academy graduates and it just makes all the difference in the world for sure.

Rick:

Well, in the summer, there’s lots of good options, folks: we’re going to have these two Institute’s in late June, late July, then the leadership Congress for Patriot Academy. We’ve got several in June. In fact, first time we’ve been to Colorado, this will be our very first time for Patriot Academy to happen in Colorado. We’re teaming up with Colorado Christian University, one of the very few colleges that we recommend across the country and their Centennial Institute and that Western conservative Summit. So that’s kind of a unique opportunity for young people to go to. And then of course, Idaho and Arizona and Florida and Delaware and all of those are on the website at patriotacademy.com.

But I can’t emphasize enough, guys, and I know you all experienced this as well, as parents, we pour this stuff into our kids, we raised them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And there’s just an important role, I think, when other godly men and women come along and breathe into them the same thing that we’ve been instilling in them.

Life-Changing Programs

I know for my kids go into high point over at Tim Brook’s church, when they did that in their teen years, they’d come home all the time and say, dad, did you know? And I say, yeah, I told you that 150 times. But it was when some other person gave that to them and influence them with that, that it really, really stuck. And I hear that all the time about Patriot Academy and about the Institute.

So that’s just another thing, I think, for parents to realize, this is a great opportunity to send your young people to a program where what you’ve been teaching them is going to be reinforced by these national speakers, by these other young people, frankly, and it just cements those things at a really important time in their life.

I mean, think about this age range. This is when you’re really beginning to cement what you believe, not just what mom and dad believe, not just what you heard or read, but what do you really believe and what are you willing to fight for and what are you want to spend your life doing. What’s the passion God’s put in your heart? It’s a very important time in their life. And we just want to come alongside parents and help that young person to find that passion and become a good biblical citizen for the rest of their lives.

Tim:

Well, and guys, to that end, I think it’s also worth noting for parents that when we’re looking at what Patriot Academy does in the summer, we absolutely are highlighting too, the foundational principles outlined in the declaration for the purpose and philosophy of government and then we’re showing how the Constitution actually operates. Because one of the things we hear so often today is, well, that’s not constitutional or we need to restore the Constitution. Most people don’t know what the Constitution is or isn’t or what is constitutional and what isn’t.

This Isn’t Taught in School

And certainly, that’s why even on our radio program, every Thursday, we do Foundations of Freedom Thursday just to try to examine things from more of the constitutional perspective, is because most Americans don’t know that. And certainly, this is not something that most students are learning in school. If you’re a homeschool parent, then you might be more intentional about helping your kids learn that. But this is something that they’re going to see firsthand practical application.

And Rick, one of the things that I love, I don’t know, when you first started implementing this in Patriot Academy, maybe probably from the very beginning, 20 years ago, I don’t really remember 20 years ago what that looked like, but walk us through the lift principles…

Rick:

Wait a minute. David, is Tim trying to point out that he’s younger than us? Is that what that was?

David:

I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, bro. What is this?

Tim:

Well, the idea. I mean, 20 years ago for me, I am pretty sure I was in college, and I was playing sports. Nonetheless, with that being said, the LIFT principles are something that is giving a parameter to kind of the boundaries and an easy understandable fashion for kids to understand what is really the purpose, the role of government or legislation?

What are things we should support or not support? And I think, Rick, the LIFT principles are one of the most practical takeaways that students get, in addition to lots of other things. But it’s such a good framework to understand how government should operate.

LIFT Principles

Rick:

Yeah, you make a great point, Tim, because a lot of times you get into this arena and it can be overwhelming. Because you think as a state legislator, they sometimes see 5,000-10,000 bills in one year, as a congressman, I don’t even know I think David, you’ve said before, it’s like 13,000 or 15,000 or something crazy thousand a year. It’s a little bit overwhelming. And so you need a paradigm. You need a plumb line that you can measure all those things against.

And for our program, we teach what we call limited government, individual liberties, free enterprise and timeless truth, the LIFT principles, and every piece of legislation falls into those categories somewhere and it helps them when they’re doing their committee, for instance, and they go lay out their bill and the other students on the committee can question them and say, okay, wait, does this really fit into the limited government, the jurisdictions have this level of government, if it’s a state bill, for instance? So they can really question and hone in on that.

How few legislators and congressmen today ask the question, do we even have authority to consider this issue? Is it within the boundaries of our definition of limited government given to us by the people? That’s the kind of stuff we’re teaching these young people. And that also then helps them to pick good leaders when they go vote or when they recruit someone in their community to run for school board or whatever it might be.

Passing the Torch  of Liberty

So you’re right, Tim, having that paradigm, having those basic principles, really, really important. And it helps them from then on. Whether they run for office or not, and that’s one thing we should emphasize, whether you’re coming to the institute, or you’re going to one of the leadership congresses, you don’t have to want to be in politics for the rest of your life.

This is for anyone that wants to understand how to have liberty. This is for anyone that wants to be a good biblical citizen, whether they go into business or politics or the pulpit or education or the arts. Wherever they go, this is good foundational information and training and skills that any young person can benefit from.

Tim:

And Rick, just like you said, one of the unique things about some of these programs is it does help give connection to students. Depending on which program we’re talking about, there’s different benefits and there’s some shared benefits to both. Some of the shared benefits are for both these programs. You’re getting connected with likeminded people who love God, who love America, who want to make things better in America.

But for example, at Patriot Academy, when everybody has to bring a draft piece of legislation they’re trying to get done, and they have to learn how to do it in committee. And so in committee, they have to learn how to communicate, and they have to learn how to be critical thinkers and problem solving and very beneficial practical things to think through what are the good sides of this? What’s the bad side of this? Does this make sense? Would this violate the LIFT principles? And then you have to defend that position.

Summer Of Liberty – Discover Our Amazing Summer Programs

And some people are naturally more shy. And I wouldn’t be comfortable. I’m not sure I could do that. Well, you have to learn along the way. And again, this is where some of this stuff from these programs, there’s a lot of really practical benefit. Because as Christians, not only do we need to think biblically, strategically, critically, we also need to learn to communicate more effectively and efficiently.

And that’s where for these programs, not only are we giving people the information and the ammunition, we’re also showing them how to use some of those gifting sounds and abilities God’s given them. And we help develop and hone that along the way too. So there are so many practical benefits to this.

And so for parents looking for a place for their kids, for their grandkids to grow and develop the summer, maybe if you’re listening and you’re a teenager or you’re in that 18-25 year old range, you’re a young adult, a young professional, and you want to do something, we tell students all the time, is the best time to invest in your future is when you are young because you don’t have quite the same level of commitment or responsibility.

As you get older, you have more commitment, responsibility, and you have less time to yourself. When you are young, this is the best time to invest in yourself and invest in your future and really develop into the person God wants you and created and made and intended for you to be. And these summer programs certainly are things that can help along those lines.

Rick:

It’s a great, great opportunity, folks. Seize the day this summer, get your young people these programs. Or if you’re a young person listening today, we would love to have you at the Institute and at the Leadership Congress. Both links will be available today at wallbuilderslive.com. Very easy to maneuver those websites and do the applications. We look forward to seeing you this summer, you will enjoy it. I promise you it’s going to be something that serves you for the rest of your life.

Thanks so much for listening today, folks. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.