An Inside Perspective To The New Rules On Capitol Hill – The country has turned upside down with its new rules concerning gender identity. Tune in to hear an inside perspective on the restrictions made by our Leaders on Capitol Hill.

Air Date: 01/18/2021

Guests: Tony Perkins

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.

 

Rick:

You find you’re at the intersection of faith and the culture. This is WallBuilders Live, where we talk about today’s hottest topics on policy, faith, the culture, all of these things from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. We appreciate you joining us today. And we hope that you’ll share this program with your friends and family. We desperately need truth in our culture. We need salt and light. We need that biblical worldview. Friends, we’ve got to be the salt that preserves, also that brings out the best flavor, the best things in the culture, if you will, and obviously the light to dispel the darkness. A lot of difficulty going on in our nation in our culture right now, and if we’re going to save this nation and save our constitutional republic, we desperately need that truth. And so please share these programs with your friends and family.

We take a Joshua and Caleb approach here on WallBuilders Live. We don’t perfume it up. We don’t ignore the tough things. But we also take a joyful look at it and we say, look, we can win, we can still be biblical citizens, we can still be salt and light, and we can do our duty, and leave the results up to God. So if you appreciate that perspective, we should appreciate you sharing the program with your friends and your family.

I’m Rick Green, America’s Constitution coach. And I’m here with David Barton, America’s premier historian, and Tim Barton, national speaker and pastor. And guys, we’ve got Tony Perkins joining us later in the program for Family Research Council. We’re going to talk about things that can still be done in this culture. We should not give up. We should not disengage. We should actually lean in right now and continue to be a positive influence on the culture. We need Christians everywhere to do that exact thing.

David:

And this is one of the interesting things with it, there’s so many people say it doesn’t matter who gets an office, they all do the same thing. Not that’s actually not true, it’s not even close to true. We understand the frustration that sometimes they act like each other once they’re in office, or at least our guys don’t have the courage we want them to or whatever. But there is a huge difference.

And this is one of the things that we recognized at WallBuilders, when we first started some time back, is that really everything stems around education. And I don’t mean government education, public education. I mean, what you teach yourself and what you believe. Because what you believe affects how you see things, and what you believe affects what you will and won’t tolerate. And so if I can change the way you think about certain things to where you see them as bad, you won’t tolerate them, and therefore you won’t legislation that bans them, and therefore you’ll elect people that want to get rid of the stuff you think is bad.

So we’ve always seen the way you think or the way you educate yourself or the way you see something, whether it’s biblically or secular or anything else. Your worldview drives everything else that happens. It drives your friendships. It drives your associations. It drives the legislation. It drives whether you get involved in politics. It drives who you choose. Everything is about that.

And so already just in the run up to what’s happening with this administration, they haven’t even gotten started yet, so going all the way back to the third. I mean, we saw Nancy Pelosi start saying the changes she’s going to make. And they’re radically different than what was there previously when there was a Republican President and a Republican Senate. And so with things being shifted now, she’s come out with a whole different set of policy positions that probably most Americans don’t fully agree with, but they weren’t thinking about that when they voted. And so, does go back to what you know, and how you educate.

And we’ve seen this in schools, etc. Why is, all of a sudden, this generation is so enthralled with socialism? And why are we seeing so many young people with tattoos of communism on them? Because they haven’t been told that there’s anything wrong with that. And so not knowing there’s something wrong, they base their policy positions, and what they view and what they tolerate and don’t tolerate on what they’ve been taught. So it really does go back to there is a difference and is based on your worldview.

Tim:

Well, dad I think that’s right. And really, I think part of this boils down to how do people determine what’s right and wrong? How do people define the truth? Because part of what we’re talking about with a worldview being revealed, and even Nancy Pelosi’s worldview becoming more evident when there’s not a level of check and balance from having an opposite party on one side in Congress or in the presidency, that she’s now saying, hey, you know what, even the rules of Congress are going to change. Where, even though she says that, you know, she’s been a wife and a mother and grandmother, she says, yeah, but we don’t want to use gender terms that might offend somebody or we need to impeach the president again, because, you know, there was a riot in the Capitol, even though he talked about peacefully and patriotically protesting or even though all these Republicans have come down and condemned the bad behavior, we should impeach him again, you see a lot of the worldview being revealed.

And this is where it comes down to. You really see, when people start behaving, you just look in and you can identify pretty quickly, what do they think is right or wrong? What do they think is true? Because that is what is being lived out in their actions and that is where you can identify somebody’s worldview. And this is where especially as Christians, we always want to say, but we want to make sure that our thinking, our behavior is shaped by the word of God, is shaped by what we’ve learned from scripture, by the life of Jesus, by who God is.

And unfortunately, we just have a culture, even in Congress, where so many profess to be people of faith on some level, that just so few of them seem to think, live, or act biblically. And certainly, even in the things that are being proposed already in Congress, we’re not seeing that biblical worldview.

David:

So Tim, you mentioned in talking about her and what’s happened in House, you talked about she, and that’s the first problem. And then you said, she’s a mother and a grandmother, and that’s the next problems, because she’s now banned those terms from the House. She said, we’re not going to have any pronouns. We’re not going to have any gender identification, mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, aunt, uncle, were not going to have he or she. And so that’s the way the next two years are supposed to play out in all the debates in the House, is you can’t use any kind of gender identification. And you just did, and I’ll bet most people didn’t respond to it. They just didn’t even notice it because you were cogent what you said you made a lot of sense. But this is what’s going on in the House.

And so with this new radical rule that’s out there with again, this is a reflection of what she believes, she’s making it a policy what she believes what she does and doesn’t tolerate. We thought a good person kind of look at this might be Tony Perkins from Family Research Council. Tony is there in Washington, DC. They deal regularly with what goes on in the Hill. They deal with congressmen and staffers and all sorts of stuff. And so from an inside perspective of one who’s there who’s going to have to deal with these new rules, we thought Tony would be a great person to address this.

Rick:

Alright, quick break, we’ll be right back. Tony Perkins with us from Family Research Council when we return on WallBuilders Live.

BREAK

This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. After the final victory at Yorktown, the Continental Army awaiting the outcome of peace negotiations with Great Britain, Pastor Israel Evans, a chaplain in the army proposed to George Washington, but they build a structure where church services can be held during the month of waiting. Washington approved the plan, and urged his officers to ensure that the soldiers attended service.

Pastor Evans further knew, if we were to secure the liberties they had fought for, sound education would be crucial. He declared, “Every parent and every friend of the freedom of his country ought to be attentive to the improvement of our youth in the principles of freedom and good government; and then the people will stand fast in their liberty for a long time.” Our schools today need to return to teaching the principles of freedom and good government in order for America to survive and prosper.

For more information about Pastor Israel Evans and other colonial patriots, go to wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us. Honor to have Tony Perkins with us from family research council. Tony, thanks so much for some time, man.

Tony:

Rick, great to be with you.

Rick:

Well, we’re in crazy times, and it started with even just changing the pronouns that can be used in legislation and spoken on the floor of the House, and we were going to have you on just to talk about that. And a lot of other crazy things have happened since then. But let’s start there, what does it mean when our own government on the floor of Congress is now basically shaking his fist at God and saying, we’ll tell you what gender is?

Tony:

Well, I’m glad you’re focusing on this, because, as you alluded to some of the other things that have occurred in the last week and a half is just kind of overshadowed the policy initiatives that are coming down the pike very rapidly. And so Congress is going to be moving very quickly in a Biden ministration, to push a whole host of radical ideas. And it begins with this one, in changing the rules of the Congress. They literally change the rules to make everything gender neutral. No longer can you talk about mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, boy, girl: you have to use pronouns that reflect this non gender identity. It is absolutely insane. I mean, used to children who, we expected them for a certain period of time to do make believe, and we let them alone, but at certain point, we corrected them. We now have the leaders of our nation doing this make believe stuff.

Rick:

I mean, you’re former member, what do you think the members will do with this as a rule? What happens to them if they violate it?

Tony:

Well, I actually asked one of them that question, because, look, I refuse to play along with this make believe stuff. I’m just not going to do it, and I don’t think we should. I think this is one of those issues where you and I’ve talked about the issue of lawlessness. I refuse to encourage lawlessness. And there’s a distinction here, and people tend to confuse this. You know, what happened in the nation’s capital was lawless. When those individuals stormed the capital, that was lawlessness, that was a continuation of what we saw happening in the streets of America last summer. But I’m a former police officer. I’m a law and order guy. I did test that. I think it undermines the foundation of our country and our stability as a nation.

But when we’re talking about being forced to violate what God has told us to do, and for instance, the churches that were told they could not meet at a certain point, we have to choose to do either obey God who tells us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, or we listen to man. Now we have to be willing to suffer the consequences if we do that.

But there’s a difference here. So I want to take a little time and just state that, because some would say, well, you’re being hypocritical, you’re saying, obey the law, but then when it comes to these things, not obey. Well, Jesus in Matthew 19, says, have you not read in the very beginning that God created them male and female? So I’m not going to go against the Word of God, the scripture that makes very clear there are only two genders, male and female, and play along with these games. So there are members who are not going to play along, and to my knowledge, to their knowledge. So far, no one has unveiled what the penalty is for living by the truth, being reasonable and rational. So we’ll just have to wait to see if they make up penalties for those who refuse to play along with them.

Rick:

You raise such an important topic and distinction here with regard to civil disobedience. And maybe what we need to do is get the whole nation reading MLK letter from the Birmingham jail to get a lesson on this, how to peacefully have civil disobedience and stand for the right things and not follow unjust laws. But man, we’ve got to be teaching that, right? I mean, pastors used to teach that: what is a just law, and how to properly do this and you just drew that very important distinction.

Tony:

It because my daily radio program, people have been criticizing me for criticizing, and calling out the violence that took place in the Capitol because people are frustrated, they don’t feel like government is listening. But look, this is not the answer. You do not establish or uphold law and order by lawlessness. It doesn’t happen. In fact, the Scripture tells us that we’re to contend with lawlessness by obeying the law, by doing what is right. Now, it’s, again, completely different going in being the aggressor as opposed to being the one who is simply doing what God has called us to do. God has never in Scripture that I have seen in the New Testament era in which we live charged us with going and being aggressors against government.

Rick:

Yeah, I mean, I can’t help but picture in my mind, I mean, I’m just seeing the pictures in my mind right now of MLK and other pastors peacefully marching and choosing peace in the face of violence. I mean, even when violence was perpetrated on them, and he felt like, I can’t respond, I can’t even use the first law of nature here to defend myself, because it’ll destroy the movement. And strategically or tactically, whatever, that ended up being the right move, because they changed the world as a result of it. And we’ve got to find that. We got to find a way to get our people to understand where those lines are, and to not cross them.

Tony:

Yeah. And to be clear, I don’t have any knowledge. In fact, I know people who were at the demonstration, there were literally hundreds of thousands of people there. And they’re just a, relatively speaking percentage wise, it’s a small amount that stormed the Capitol. I don’t know of any. I’m sure there may be some in the number. But I’m not aware of Christian believers that were a part of leading that effort. Now, again, I’m not saying definitively they weren’t, I’m just not aware of it.

But what concerns me is not so much that I know there were believers involved in that lawless action. But what I’m seeing is there a lot of believers that condone that action because of the frustration that they feel. And that tells me we have a problem in terms of how we as believers operate in a very indifferent or outright hostile environment. And it’s helpful for us to know our history. Rick, and you guys do a great job at WallBuilders of that. But it’s also the history of the church going back 2000 years, where we have faced obstacles and hostility and difference at the hands of the culture as well as government. And there’s a proper way to deal with it and a successful way.

Rick:

Yeah, I appreciate that point as well, and the fact that I’ve seen the same thing after I watched a ton of these videos. While you could characterize some of the folks, without question, there was Antifa and antagonist and a really an operation there, no question, there were some Trump supporters, they got dragged into it. But I don’t know about believers and certainly not what we would call biblical citizens, if you just listen to their language in the way they were acting.

So let’s talk about the church itself and action items folks can do. You guys obviously keep people informed, you equip them with how to do this. And right now, a lot of people are wanting to tune out Washington. While I’m we’re talking a lot about local action as well, I don’t think we should give up on Washington and you guys are staying engaged, you know how to deal with being in the minority and all of those things. So how can people follow your information, stay clued into what’s happening and help?

Tony:

Well, number one is knowledge, be informed, know what’s going on and there’s fewer, fewer sources we can actually trust. The cable news networks are pretty much gone. Social media is clamping down. So you really have to go to the source. You got to be a follower of WallBuilders get their information. FRC, I’ve got a daily update, you can go to frc.org, or Tonyperkins.com, I have a daily radio program. You know, stay informed.

But here’s the bottom line. Look, we cannot, there’s two things that people are prone to do in a crisis situation like this. And this is a crisis. We’re at a crisis moment, a defining moment, that’s a crisis moment. Either we become overwhelmed in frustration and disgust and we just throw in the towel, we give up, and we walk away, or we are overwhelmed, and we become angry, and we began to lashing out like what we saw in Washington recently.

We can do neither of the two. We have to keep our heads about us, stay in the word, understand this point in history within the context of the history of mankind, and the history of this country, and that we’ve faced odds like this before, but we have overcome. And so I believe we can keep the republic going forward. But it’s going to require us making the right choices. And that is to follow God to shine the light, not to shrink back in the face of intimidation. And there’s good news.

But I’ve watched over the last 20 years, more and more Christian men and women coming to Washington, they’re not in the majority yet, but they’re getting close. I’m seeing what’s happening in state legislatures across the country, more and more conservative, men and women of deep faith being elected to office. There’s a lot of work that can be done at the state level as a firewall around our rights and freedoms from an overly aggressive federal government.

Rick:

Frc.org. Is the website, get on Tony’s email, I read it every day when he sends it out. And it’s just encouraging, educating and it’s just a type of thing you need to stay in the fight and have the right attitude and the right tone as well. Tony, before I let you go, drill down on those victories a little bit, because I don’t think people realize in all that’s happened how many new prolife members of Congress came after the November 3rd election, how many state legislators were elected. I mean, that was a groundswell of good conservative, constitutional, Bible believing folks who got elected across the country.

Tony:

Yeah, the whole focus has been on the presidential election, and that…

Rick:

Overshadowed everything, it did.

Tony:

It did. I mean, the irregularities, the fraud, the manipulations, and we’re still waiting to uncover and find out really what happened there. But that is overshadowed the gains, the Republicans almost took control the House, the Republicans about 10 seats away from having a majority in the House, Nancy Pelosi, thinnest majority since World War II. Of course, Senate now evenly split with the Democrats in the majority because of the Vice President. But as you pointed out, state legislators, I think we’re up to what 29 Republican-controlled state legislature, somewhere in that neighborhood.

But what I’ve seen in my almost 20 years in Washington with FRC, is that there has increasingly been a different type of Republican elected official come to Washington. Now, there’s no question the two parties are moving further apart, but the Republicans have become more conservative, the Democrats more liberal, but it’s men and women have deep abiding Christian faith, which tells me something. If God is calling them and I talked to them, they said, well, God called me to this, he’s led me here. If God is calling men and women of faith to Washington, DC, that tells me he’s not finished with his country. And if he’s calling them to do that work, we need to pray for them. We need to stand with him. And quite frankly, there’s still more men and women out there across America who are being called into this mission field of government and they need to respond

Rick:

Amen. So encouraging, there’s a remnant that has been raised up, no doubt about it. Frc.org, that’s where you can get signed up for Tony’s emails and follow what Family Research Council is doing. They also have great ways to equip you on the local level, get your churches involved. There’s a lot you can do there. Tony, God bless you, man, keep up the great work. I know, we got probably a couple of tough years ahead of us, and I’m so thankful that you’re on the front lines for us.

Tony:

Well, thank you, Rick, we’re grateful to partner with you. And you guys keep equipping the saints with the knowledge they need to make a difference.

Rick:

That’s Tony Perkins. Stay with us, folks, we’ll be right back with David and Tim Barton.

BREAK

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One of the things we acknowledge quickly in the book is that the entire world is full of people who are sinful and need a savior, because the Bible even tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And yet what we see through history, and certainly is evident in America, is how a perfect God uses imperfect people and does great things through them. The story of America is not the story of perfect people. But you see time and time again, how God got involved in the process and use these imperfect people to do great things and impacted the entire world from America. To find out more, go to wallbuilders.com and check out “The American Story”.

Rick:

Alright, David, Tim, back here in the studio with David and Tim Barton. Thank you to Tony Perkins for joining us today as well. And guys, of course, you know, Tony’s talking about what we can do, not just in terms of paying attention to what’s happening on the federal level, but really switching our focus to the local and the state level, but staying engaged.

David:

You know, one of the questions that Tony asked I thought it was a real good one is, are they going to penalize nonconformity to the new rule she’s put out? Because I guarantee you, there’s dozens and scores and maybe hundreds of members who are not going to go there. And I’m just curious as to how course she’s going to be able, but I thought the point you guys were making is really good too. Is there is a difference even between things like conservatism and biblicalism.

Because the stuff that happened at the Capitol, Rick, as you pointed out, we didn’t really see biblical Christians crashing the Capitol. What we saw was conservatives and Trump followers crashed in the Capitol. And there’s a big difference. And even in the concept of from the aspect of civil disobedience, you know, whether you cross the line, I mean, we don’t cross the line just because it crosses conservatism, we cross a line because it violates what the Bible explicitly says.

Tim:

Well, and guys, let me point out to you that it’s very possible that some of the people who did storm the capital have very bad behavior. They actually might be biblical thinking Christians. Because one of the things we know about life in general as revealed in the Bible was that people can make mistakes. And you can have a sinful fleshly weak moment or maybe you got caught up in the crowd, and you did something that now you’re regretful of and you’ve repented for. And so not to say that, right, we’re going to label everybody that no Christian would ever do something like that. Well, no, it’s possible they would.

But what is the difference is in the biblical Christian standard, it’s easy to point and say that was bad behavior, that was not right, and biblical Christians should not be doing that, as opposed to there are some people in levels of conservatism that say, well, no, we need to oppose and we need to stand up, and we can’t let the government do this. And that’s where there is a difference in the standard.

And again, this goes back to we talked in the first segment kind of biblical worldview. It goes back to this notion of how people determine right and wrong, how people determine what is true. And certainly, if we lose this biblical standard as a foundation of right and wrong and truth for our culture, we come to a very dangerous place of this subjective morality of relativism of this kind of postmodern notion that truth is just whatever you want it to be whenever you feel like it should be something different. And society will not function well that way.

David:

Yeah, if I were in the spot of a lot of these members right now with the rules that are coming down, I would have to do what the Apostle said in Acts 4:17, the next three or four verses there, they say, hey, look, we got to make a choice whether we’re going to do it you guys as civil leaders say or what God says; we think we’re going to do what God said. And so the apostles had been in trouble then.

But when I look at this thing in pronouns, I’m just going to quote what Jesus said. You know, Jesus in Matthew 19:4 says, hey, haven’t you heard that at the beginning, the creator made them male and female, and that’s four times in the Bible? So that’s my biblical position, they’re male and female. And I don’t care what Miss Pelosi or anybody else says were the House rules. My position is God’s already spoken on this issue. This is not a conservative issue. This is a big issue. And so if I were on the floor, I would have to go with what Jesus said, regardless of what Miss Pelosi says, I’m definitely going with the Bible over whatever the civil leaders may say.

Tim:

Yeah, and this is something that’s worth pointing out, it really doesn’t matter what your political affiliation is. This should always be the position of Christian, whether you’re Democrat or Republican or Independent and Libertarian, it really doesn’t matter. Although I guess we could say it doesn’t matter, because some of those parties hold really unbiblical positions. But the point is, how you identify what’s more important is that your Christian values are the most important thing in your life.

And so you should not be defined by being Conservative or Liberal or Republican or Democrat or libertarian, you should be defined by being a Christian. And what that means is every time that a political party has a position different than the Bible, you choose what the Bible says as your standard of right and wrong, as your standard of truth. And if your political party is not upholding that standard, then you should help change that political party. So if you’re conservative, you’re Republican, and they’re not defending the line of human sexuality or gender or marriage, you need to help argue that.

If you’re a Democrat, and they’re not doing that, right, the point is, as Christians, we should promote biblical values. And anytime a political party doesn’t line up with that, we should choose the Bible above our political party.

Rick:

Alright, gentlemen, out of time for today. Thanks so much to everybody that joined us today. Be sure to visit our website at wallbuilderslive.com where you can get archives of the program, you can donate to WallBuilders Live there, and certainly share the program with your friends and family. Thanks for listening to WallBuilders Live.