What Should Christians Do? – Biblical Citizenship In 2020 And Beyond: What does The Creation Story teach us about godly citizenship? What does it mean to be salt and light? Should Christians try not to offend people? Who can fix the true problems in society? What important part did black patriots play in the American Revolution? Tune in to enjoy another special session from our recent Barnstorming Georgia event!

Air Date: 12/22/2020

Guest: Barry Loudermilk

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. This is WallBuilders Live, where we’re talking about today’s hottest topics on policy, and faith, and the culture. We always do that from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. You can find out more at our website wallbuilderslive.com. That’s our radio site where you can get archives of the program over the last few weeks and months. And you can also find out more about us here at WallBuilders Live.

My name is Rick Green. I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach. And David Barton is America’s premier historian and our founder of WallBuilders, Tim Barton’s a national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. And the three of us got to go do some barnstorming in Georgia a couple of weeks ago, and we’ve been sharing with you some of those presentations. 

We got the chance to hang out with some great folks and really encourage biblical citizens across Georgia to do their duty under the Constitution and the Bible, to actually live out salt and light, to be a positive influence in the community, on how we form our neighborhoods and our communities, our states and our nations, to be that salt that preserves the culture, but also brings out the best flavor in the culture, to be that light that dispels the darkness. That’s what we’re to do as biblical citizens and everyone in our community benefits when we do that.

And we do that how we live and how we live our lives, not just in how we run our businesses and take care of our families, but also how we influence the culture and how we vote, perhaps running for our office and serving in public office, whatever God’s called you to do, to be faithful in your community, to be faithful where you’ve been planted. And that was our message as we barnstormed across Georgia, and we wanted to bring more of that to you today. 

You know, Christmas is coming up later this week and as we get closer to Christmas, I’m reminded of our responsibility to live out this great gift that the Father has given us. God has given us freedom. We get to live out that freedom. What a wonderful, wonderful opportunity. That’s the best Christmas present, you could get, folks, make sure that you’re living that out in your community.

What Christians Can Learn From Creation

Let’s go back to Georgia, we’ll pick up where we left off with that barnstorming event, bring you some of that today. Hope you enjoy it, hope you enjoy WallBuilders Live. Here we are in Georgia, at the barnstorming Georgia event.

David:

We’ve been given a gift that no the nation’s ever had. No nation survived under the same piece of paper as long as we have under this Constitution. But as Brad said, it belongs to us, it’s our government. It’s not somebody else’s. I think a great biblical analogy of this is in Genesis 1 and 2, where you see the creation of the world. Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, both you see the creation two times, one’s like a 30,000 foot view, one’s like a 15,000 foot view.

And you start at the beginning with separating the firmament and you have the waters below and the waters above and you go through and you separate the light from the dark, and the greater light to rule the day, the lesser light to rule the night. And then you have the oceans and the fish and things that are in the land of the plants and all the stuff that’s there.

And you get to the end of that and it says that God looked at His creation, and it was good. But we’re told in Genesis 2:5 that He looked and He saw that he had no one to tend His garden, so then he made man. And Genesis 2:15 says He put man there to tend His garden. The purpose we were made was to take care of His stuff. He gave us this country and if we don’t take care of it, we’re violating the purpose for which we’re made.

And that’s where you often hear today, the seven mountain kind of thing. God wants us involved in education, in government. He wants us involved in entertainment. He wants us involved in every area. And for us to not get involved, we’ve been given a magnificent mansion, it will fall apart and it’ll be on us, not on Him if it falls apart.

Rick:

I think, it sound like there’s nothing off limits, said the Bible actually speaks to everything in life.

A Biblical Perspective on Every Area of Life

David:

Radical idea.

Rick:

Radical idea. Yeah.

David:

By the way it works really well. Remember that Israel was a nation of slaves for 400 years. They came out, they thought like slaves, they had been slaves for generations. God says, I’ll fix you. And it gives some 613 civil laws. By those laws, it deals with everything from immigration to economics. It deals with education. It deals with foreign policy.

It deals with everything. They become the greatest nation of the ancient world simply by following the laws that God gave them. And those laws weren’t just spiritual laws. They dealt with every aspect of life. God’s word is comprehensive. It deals with everything. We should be involved with everything.

Tim:

Yeah, and with the Bible being the most practical book that literally was ever written, in Matthew 5, Jesus says, you are the salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its seasoning… good for nothing, but to be thrown under foot and trampled by men. And this notion that some people inside of Christianity are thinking that as Christians, we should only be salt in certain areas, you’ve misunderstood how salt is supposed to operate. Salt and light was made to impact everything around it. And the notion of even being salt, salt was a preservative to keep things from decaying.

And if you look at America, there’s an awful lot of decay right now. And I would argue it’s because for decades, the church has not done a very good job of being the salts in a lot of arenas, including in the governmental arena. And this is where there’s even been people who have argued that Christians shouldn’t be involved in politics that Christians shouldn’t vote.

Being Salt And Light

There’s a very famous pastor out in California, John MacArthur, and for literally decades, he was in the camp that said, Christians stay out of government because that’s not what we need to be concerned with. We need to be concerned with more spiritual things. And then COVID happened and his church got shut down, and all of a sudden, he realized that spiritual things included keeping your church open, which meant telling the government you can’t close my church down. So now he’s telling his people, you have to get out there and vote.

And we’re saying welcome to the party. We’ve been saying this for decades. But the reality is, there’s a lot of Christians who have embraced positions that are not, I would argue, not a biblically supported position. Because the notion that God wants us to be salt and light is in every area, in every arena. And that especially includes in America being involved in government, because government most directly has its hand inside everything that happens in America.

And if our government is a bad government, it’s because the people who should aid in making it a good government have not done a good job of imputing those biblical morals into a government that is just a king. We’re the salt. We keep that from happening. But we can’t keep it from happening if we don’t get involved.

Rick:

Wait a minute, let me make sure I heard you right. What you said was if we’re not being salt, if we’re not influencing the culture, did you say we’re good for nothing and to be trampled? But wait, that’s pretty salty, Tim.

Tim:

So just to clarify, I’m not saying that.

Rick:

Oh, that’s right. It was some, who was that?

Tim:

But Jesus said this, right. And then I’m going to take refuge in that, right, because I’m not judging you, Jesus is.

Rick:

There we go. There we go.

Is Truth Loving?

Tim:

Right. I’m not saying you’re good for nothing Jesus did, right? This is kind of self-explanatory. And yet, it’s crazy to me, as Christians, we have this mentality that we’re supposed to be soft, we’re supposed to be timid, we’re not supposed to offend people. And I always want to ask those people. Have you ever read the Gospels? Have you ever read about Jesus? Obviously, he’s the most loving, he’s the most, hey, don’t turn that table over… We’re not changing money in things, right?

Like, obviously, he’s the most loving, the most merciful. But it’s interesting when you see his love and mercy, because what the Bible tells us and what’s revealed in Jesus is that he always opposed the proud, but he gave grace to the humble. The people that he was always gentle and kind with were those who were already broken and they knew they were broken.

The people that he was really strong against were the prideful. And I can tell you right now, some of the most prideful people outside of government officials, right, actually, oftentimes happen to be [crosstalk 07:55]. Absolutely.

Rick:

Yes. Yes. Okay.

Tim:

Yeah, there’s definitely exceptions, Congressman Loudermilk is an exception, right? But this reality that as Christians, we feel like, well, we’re just supposed to be meek and kind and loving. Understand, when you read the gospel of John, and Jesus sees the money changes in the temple doing things, he doesn’t just go in and start throwing over tables. It says that he went, and he made a whip. Made, which means as he’s out there, braiding, he’s like, I’m coming back. You just wait, I’m coming. Like, Jesus is not the most timid person in Scripture.

And as Christians, too often we sit back thinking, well, I don’t want to offend. I shouldn’t do this. We have lost a lot of backbone because we’ve misread scripture and misunderstood Jesus for so long. Jesus was a warrior. He was the lion in the land, right?

Speak Truth

He is the bold, and he is the gentle all at the same time. And for too long as Christians, we’ve been one without the other. And this is part of that same notion that well, I don’t want to offend people. No, you better start offending people. Because the truth is offensive. Brad talked about it, the truth is offensive.

And the reason that we no longer in culture know what truth is because Christians have refused to speak truth because we didn’t want to offend somebody. The world is going to hell because we’ve not been speaking the truth. We speak it in love.

But it’s time for us to start speaking the truth and let people get offended where they do. But this is part of being salt and light. You get salt in a cut, it don’t feel very good. Right? Salt doesn’t always feel good, but it’s always the best thing for preserving that decay.

Rick:

Well, offending people is why we always bring Brad Stein places, you know, and usually we give him more time. So usually, by the time he’s done, everybody in the room has been offended with only 15 minutes, maybe he only got to half the room, so we’ll see what he can do later. Congressman, before we go to our first video guest, let’s stick with the salt and light theme for a second. Because often we send you guys off to Washington say please solve all our problems, fix everything, but back home if we’re not being salt and light, it’s an impossible job for you.

Barry:

Well, and I can tell you is because we have too much reliance on government to fix our problems and government can’t fix hardly anything. But let me let me say this before answer that. These guys have been doing this since Friday. This is the fourth and some of you speaking in churches today, multiple events. I just want to tell you, isn’t this the largest and most energetic crowd if I’ve everywhere else in Georgia?

Rick:

You got the best people.

Welcome Barry Loudermilk

Barry:

There’s a lot of salt in here right now. Look, and a lot of folks, they know a little bit of my testimony here. But very quickly, you know, I was involved in a domestic terrorist attack when a gunman walked on the baseball field a few years ago and started shooting at us with an SKS, shot over 100 rounds, lasted over eight minutes. I was hunkered down, I was able to get off the field. And as I was going out the field, a staffer followed me, got a bullet in the back came out his chest, laid down next to an SUV. And I spent the rest of the time trying to get just 10 feet to him to try to help save his life.

A lot of things went through my mind during that eight minutes as bullets were literally going by my head, running across the ground by me. But one thing that never went through my head was just wait till I get back to Capitol Hill, I will pass a law. I’m going to do a bill. Now, there were several of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. And at the time, I said, look, I’m not going to do any press because Steve Scalise was in the hospital, critical condition. Mike, the guy was trying to help was in critical condition. We had two others that were shot. Two police officers shot.

I didn’t think it was proper to get on the media at that moment, until I heard Representative Swalwell standing talking to CNN about this is why we need gun control. I said that’s it. I’m next right here, and I got on I said until you have been hunkered down and you’re taking incoming rounds multiple times with someone who’s trying to kill you because you’re a conservative Republican, which he was, he had a hit list in his pocket.

He was there to kill Republicans. He was a volunteer for, Bernie Sanders had been radicalized and took to violence. I said until you have been in that situation, and you don’t have a way of fighting back, you don’t have a right to talk about gun control.

Believe it or not, that was a little controversial at the time. But the reason I said that there was no… I never thought of passing a bill, because at that moment, that gunman was already violating dozens of state and federal laws. He had no respect for the law. So you think if we passed another law, all of a sudden, he would gain this awesome respect for the law and never shot anybody?

 Christians Must Be Informed Voters

Rick:

Yeah, he would had got of the car, that Dane gone, oh, wait, I was willing to break those other 150, but that one, no, I get back in the car and leave it…

Barry:

That one, no. If you limit my clip to 10 rounds instead of 30, I won’t go shoot anybody. He had already reloaded once. Okay? And this is the problem that we have is we’re looking for government to fix our problems. The problem we had there was a lack of respect for the law and evil in his heart. Government cannot stop evil. Only Jesus can stop evil.

Rick:

So, there’s a little election happening in Georgia here in a few weeks. I don’t know if you’ve heard about that or not? Maybe like every commercial you watch, every single one right now. But this is all about who’s going to be the ones to decide what the laws will be. Whether it’s gun control, whether it’s education, whether it’s marriage, whatever it is, who we put in office is going to make those decisions about what our laws reflect and what worldview they reflect.

Hey, folks, we’re going to take a quick break, interrupt our Barnstorming event to take a quick break here on WallBuilders Live! We’ll be back in just a moment you’re listening to WallBuilders Live!

The American Story

Hey, guys, we want to let you know about our new resource we have here at WallBuilders called The American Story. For years, people have been asking us to do a history book, and we finally done it. We start with Christopher Columbus and go roughly through Abraham Lincoln. And one of the things that so often we hear today are about the imperfections of America, or how so many people in America that used to be celebrated or honored really aren’t good or honorable people.

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 that impacted the entire world from America. To find out more, go to wallbuilders.com and check out “The American Story”.

Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live and today’s webinars live program is a special recording of the barnstorming, Georgia event, a small piece of it anyway. We’ve been giving you bits and pieces of it over the last couple of weeks. And so bringing you more of that today, let’s dive right back in where we left off before the break.

Here’s the barnstorming Georgia event that WallBuilders Live took, David Barton, Tim Barton, myself, Rick Green along with Congressman Jody Hice, Barry Loudermilk, former Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Brad Stein, Charlie Kirk, Kirk Cameron. It was great. Man, we had so many people. Anyway, well, let’s pick up where we left off before the break. Here’s the Georgia barnstorming event.

Barnstorming Georgia

We often talk about not legislating morality, every law that you pass is legislating morality in some way, shape, or form. And the question is, whose morality is it going to be that influences our culture? It used to be in our country that the Bible influenced that, that our churches were such salt and light that it drove the agenda in America. So the laws of our nation reflected the laws of God. And we’ve moved so far away from that, because the church hasn’t influenced the elections enough.

So we want to challenge you tonight. Yes, very much so to be involved in this election that’s happening here right now over the next 30 days. And our first video is actually a challenge to you to do exactly that. But we also want you to think beyond this particular election, and start thinking about the next election already, and begin to sow the seeds of liberty and biblical worldview into your family and into your church and into your community.

But here’s our first quick word from Dinesh and Debbie de Souza. If you haven’t seen Dinesh’s new movie “Trump Card”, he and Debbie produces just a couple of months ago. You all seen it? It is fantastic. And it really does take on this Marxist socialist agenda in America. It’s really powerful. I encourage you to watch that movie when you get a chance. Here’s Debbie and Dinesh.

Dinesh:

Hey, Georgia voters. As Christians, we are called to be salt and light in the culture. God doesn’t act directly in the world. He relies on us to be his arms and legs. Let’s mobilize all our efforts on behalf of these two Republican Senate candidates, Perdue and Loeffler. Protecting our Senate Majority is more critical now than ever.

Debbie:

President Trump has been the most pro-life, pro-Israel, and pro-religious freedom president in our lifetime. Let’s protect these principles, not only in the White House, but also in Congress.

Dinesh & Debbie D’Souza

Rick:

Thank you, Debbie and Dinesh. Listen. This whole fight in Georgia and Michigan and all over the country right now, it’s no longer about Trump or Biden. It’s about the rule of law. It’s about the Constitution. It’s about our system of government and how our elections are going to work.

And as we challenge you to vote, as we challenge you to be involved, we have to address the debate of the year, if you will, on whether or not the American system is even worth defending. Is America worth saving? Should we be fighting for this particular system? Because it’s been under attack all year long. We’ve been told how evil it is, how wrong, it is, right. So Tim, why is it that this particular system is worth fighting for?

Tim:

America is worth defending. America is worth saving. But let me give you some answers to some of the attacks and arguments that we hear against America, because we need to be able to help answer for next generation, for kids, for grandkids, we need to be able to answer on social media because we need to be able to speak the truth. Let me give you the first thought.

One of the best measurements for a nation, how good is it, how bad is it, is you can just look at immigration. How many people are trying to get in? And how many people are trying to get out? America has roughly approximately one million legal immigrants every single year. If you recall the last several elections, there were Hollywood actors who vowed, if somebody gets elected, I’m leaving here, and guess who is still here?

Rick:

They just won’t leave, Tim.

Tim:  

Like I was on the bandwagon. I will pack your bags, I will buy your ticket. Like I am happy for you to leave if that’s okay.

1776 or 1619

Even Hollywood in their hypocrisy knows there’s no better nation than America. There’s a reason they’re still here. There’s no better nation in America. And this is where, let me just walk you through some American history real quick for the next few minutes. Because one of the debates that we even hear right now is that well, America wasn’t founded in 1776, it wasn’t founded from the Declaration. It’s actually founded in 1619 Jamestown. First of all, real quick, we do a lot more history with that. I’ll come back to that in a little bit.

1619 is when the argument of the first shipload of slaves arrived in Jamestown, but actually, if you do your history, they were not slaves in America. At that point, they became indentured servant, and granted, that might have still been terrible conditions for them. But after seven years, they got their freedom. They became free landowners. Slavery was not legal in Jamestown until 1651, right? So there’s a lot more context that’s being left out.

And part of the context that matters is even if we look at the American Revolution, we think of 1776 or maybe back up to Lexington Green April 19, 1775. But John Adams says that’s not even when the revolution began. John Adams says the revolution began in 1770 at the Boston Massacre. Why? Because this was the first bloodshed in the revolution. Well, if you remember the history of the Boston massacre, the first bloodshed of the Boston Massacre was believed to be a guy named Crispus Attucks who was a black patriot. Now, I want to point out this is really significant, and understanding even where 1619 project gets it so wrong.

The American Revolution started when a black patriot laid down his life for the cause of American liberty. That’s a big deal. America is not merely a nation that had slavery and oppressed every black person. No. No. Like, there’s so much more to the story. In fact, not only did the Revolution begin with the death of a black patriot, if you look toward the end of the Revolution, the last major battle of the American Revolution was 1781, it was the Battle of Yorktown.

And at the Battle of Yorktown, one of the generals who was there was Marquis de Lafayette. And Lafayette was 19 years old when he came to America. He becomes one of Washington’s major generals. He’s a very big deal in America, what he does and contributes. Washington tells him your job is to track all of the British officers’ movement, most specifically, Lord Cornwallis, who was the commander of all the British forces.

Lafayette

And so what Lafayette did was Lafayette developed a spy ring, and he would have people go into British camps pretending to be there to serve the British. And actually, Lafayette was very anti-slavery and he actually liked to use black patriots and some of them who were slaves, who signed up trying to get their freedom, whatever the case was. But he would have black people go into these British camps, pretending to be escaped slaves, and they would try to gather Intel.

One of the guys who worked for Lafayette was a guy named James Armistead. James Armistead, Lafayette said, was the best spy he had of all of his spies. In fact, there’s two letters worth notes from Lafayette to George Washington. The first letter, Lafayette says, there’s a brand new spy I have working for me, his name is James. He’s the best spy I have. He gets me the best information. So he praises James to George Washington.

Well, the way the story unfolds, is if you remember the famous American trader Benedict Arnold, when Benedict Arnold tries to sell out West Point, tries to sell out Washington, he finally has to leave in retreat. He goes to the British and then he becomes a British officer. Well, as a British officer, he leads the British in an attack of Richmond, Virginia, Richmond falls. James Armistead was from Richmond, Virginia.

James Armistead

When his town fell, he was a slave at the time, when his town fell, he said I can’t stand watching the British do this. I want to sign up. I want to go fight. And the law and Virginia that time said if you fought for one year you could gain your freedom. His master said that’s fine. You go fight, so he went to go fight.

Well, when he went to fight, he got signed up under Lafayette. Lafayette said, the way you can be the most helpful is if you will be a spy and I can send you into the British camp. You can gather intelligence, you can come back and let me know, I’ll send it on to Washington. So Lafayette gets Armistead to sign up as a spy. Lafayette is sent into a British camp. The camp he goes into happens to be the camp of Benedict Arnold.

So James Armistead is serving in the camp of Benedict Arnold and this is the reason he got involved in the first place because Benedict Arnold attacked Richmond and Richmond fell. Well, as James Armistead is serving in this camp. He does such a good job serving. Benedict Arnold sees this black servant serving the soldiers and says someone who serves that good should be serving the officers not the commoners. So Benedict Arnold calls James Armistead…

Rick:

That’s really convenient for a spy.

Tim:

It’s really helpful right to be invited into the officer’s tents. So he starts serving officer’s tent, Benedict Arnold makes him his personal assistant. So James Armistead is now the personal assistant of Benedict Arnold, and he’s learning all the plans of the British. He’s going back and he’s telling Washington.

And so, as Washington is learning these plans, they’re now as Americans able to start strategically moving troops to the right places at the right times. Well, Benedict Arnold gets reassigned and begins working directly for Lord Cornwallis in Cornwallis camp. James Armistead is now with Benedict Arnold in the tent of Cornwallis hearing all of the plans.

Heroes of the Revolution

James Armistead found out that Cornwallis was going to be going to Yorktown, moving him and some of his men to Yorktown, James Armistead then sends word back to Lafayette says hey, I just found this out. He’s on the move. This might be the chance to capture him, if we capture him, we might can end this revolution. The second letter from Lafayette to Washington and it’s really worth going and reading.

Lafayette says to Washington, remember that spy told you who’s the best spy I haven’t all of my spy division, he just told me that Cornwallis is going to Yorktown and Yorktown is a place that we might can capture, we can surround him. And if we capture him, we can end the Revolution. Washington does just that. Washington moves his troops, they surround Yorktown. They ended up winning the battle of Yorktown. Cornwallis surrenders and the Americans win the revolution.

Here’s what is so significant about this. George Washington says because of what they were able to do at Yorktown, it took months if not years off the war and save countless lives. The reason they were able to do that was because of the work of James Armistead. Here’s why this matters.

Because not only could you argue that James Armistead was part of the creation of what we could call like military intelligence, because he was one of these spy ring guys who’s in doing these covert operations, not only that. If you look big picture American Revolution, the American Revolution started with the death of a black patriot and the American Revolution ended because of the work of a black patriots.

America in all of our history, what you will discover is the history of America is not just the history of white people. It’s the history of all kinds of people who oppose tyranny, who worked together with people who didn’t always look like them, who didn’t always act like them, who didn’t always believe what they believe, but they found common ground, and they work together.

What Should Christians Do? – Biblical Citizenship In 2020 And Beyond

Rick:

Alright, folks, we are out of time for today. You’ve been listening to our barnstorming, Georgia event that took place a couple of weeks ago, but we’ve been bringing it to you in bits and pieces. You can find more of it at our website, wallbuilderslive.com. As we get ready for Christmas later this week, we just want to thank you for being a part of the WallBuilders Live family throughout 2020. Thank you for your gifts that you’ve given to WallBuilders Live. We’re a listener-supported program.

So every time you make a donation at wallbuilderslive.com, it allows us to reach out, reach more people bring truth to more people across the country. Thank you so much for doing that. We ask that you consider doing that, as we approach the end of the year that you’ll finish out those charitable contributions this year, with a nice contribution to Wallbuilders Live. Thanks so much for doing that.

We’re going to pick up more of this tomorrow on WallBuilders Live. We’ll be bringing you election updates and also the rest of our Georgia barnstorming events and then we’ll have some special Christmas programming for you later in the week.

Thanks so much for listening. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live!