A Look At The New White House Press Secretary – Executive Order On Religious Liberty – With so much instability going on in our world, there is still good news! Join us with a look at Kayleigh McEnany, the new White House press secretary, and news about President Trump.

Air Date: 06/12/2020

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:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. It’s WallBuilders Live and we’re talking about today’s hottest topics on policy and faith and the culture, all from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. You can find out more about our program at wallbuilderslive.com. There’s three of us here that host it. David Barton, he’s America’s premier historian and the founder of WallBuilders. Tim Barton is national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. And I’m Rick Green, former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach.

Again, wallbuilderslive.com, not just to catch up on programs, the archives are there, you can find stations across the country, we got some videos and other things available, but also, it’s a great place to make a contribution. Yeah, yeah, I’m starting off today’s program, asking you to come alongside us and be a part of the team. Listen, those donations right now make a huge difference. Truth, truth is so needed in the culture right now. We are still swimming now out there in just an ocean of lies, and deception. And if we’re going to win back the culture, if we’re going to come back to principles that produce freedom and prosperity for all people in America, we’ve got to start with truth just like the Declaration of Independence does. We hold these truths to be self-evident. Well, we teach those trees here at WallBuilders and we need your help to get that message out. So, make that contribution, wallbuilderslive.com. Very easy to do. It can be monthly. It can be one-time. Whatever you can do, we greatly appreciate it.

Alright, David. Tim, let’s jump into some of that good news. I know, you know, there’s a lot of bad going on in the country, so, people think there’s nothing good happening. Not true. Even in the toughest of times, you can find a lot of great things happening. And we’d like to zero in on some of that good news on Fridays, so that you know, the principles don’t change and when you apply the right principles, you get good results. Let’s dive into some good news. David is up first.

David:

I’m going to dive into something that deals with two attacks on President Trump and they both deal with faith. He did two things in the last week and a half that have drawn a lot of attention from other faith leaders attacking him. And I’ve got to say in all the years we’ve been doing Good News Fridays and all the programs we’ve done about pastors and clergy and everything else, I don’t think I’ve ever been able to applaud for any clergy as strong as I’m going to applaud for this guy. So, let me set it up.

What happens is Melania Trump, she is Roman Catholic. She’s the first Roman Catholic First Lady since, you go back to JFK with Jackie Onassis Kennedy. So, you have literally, you know, virtually 55 years there since we’ve had a Catholic First Lady. So, what happened is the President and First Lady, Trump, they went to the shrine in Washington DC to commemorate Pope John Paul, II 100th birthday. Now, Pope John Paul II was a really good Pope, did some really great stuff. He’s a hero in Poland as Ronald Reagan is, just a lot of good stuff that he did. So…

Rick:

He’s the one that basically, it was he and Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were kind of trifecta against communism?

David:

That’s it. That’s it. He was so strong. And so just a good guy, good faith guy, but his politics were also really good, just a lot of good stuff. And so, what happens is after he does that, you have the Archbishop of Washington, D.C. Wilton D. Gregory, who comes out and attacks Trump. And I mean, he just absolutely lambasted him. He even lambasted the shrine, there’s Catholic shrine, it’s a shrine to Pope John Paul, say, he even lambast them for even allowing Trump to set foot on the premises.

So, you’ve got this Catholic Archbishop who’s going after the shrine for allowing Trump to even go to that shrine with First Lady. And so, what happens is, to the microphone steps and say that kind of figuredly, he didn’t step to the microphone. But there is an archbishop who is over in Italy who weighed in on this.

Now, from 2011 to 2016, was the official Catholic representative from the Vatican to the United States, so kind of like ambassador to the United States, if you will. He came out with a letter and he just absolutely scotch this other Archbishop here. Here’s what he said. He said, “Unfortunately, the Catholic Church is led by many false pastors. Over the past 20 years, your Archdiocese of Washington in particular and now for the third time has been and continues to be deeply afflicted and wounded by false shepherds whose way of life is full of lies, deceit, lust and corruption. Wherever they have been, they were a cause of serious scandal for various local churches, for your entire country and for the whole church.” I mean, my gosh, he called him out.

And by the way, when you look at the history of what’s happened there, the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C, they’ve had two Archbishops in a row that have been involved in sexual scandals and then this is an Archbishop who’s wrong in the issue of marriage and LGBTQ from the Catholic viewpoint. So, they’ve had some really biblically bad Archbishops in row.

So, now you got this guy over the Vatican, who is really calling him out. And then he doesn’t stop there. He actually sent a letter to President Trump. And this letter is so full of so many liners. I’ve got to read part of this. It’s going to take a couple minutes, but it’s worth listening. He says, “Mr. President, in recent months, we’ve been witnessing the formation of two opposing sides that I would call biblical: the children of light and the children darkness. These two sides which have a biblical nature fall to the clear separation between the offspring of the woman and the offspring of the serpent. In society, Mr. President, these two opposing realities coexist as eternal enemies, just as God and Satan are eternal enemies.”

And he continues, this is again, Archbishop telling this to President Trump. He says, “And it appears that the children of darkness whom we may easily identify with the deep state, which you wisely oppose and which is fiercely waging war against you in these days have decided to show their cards so to speak by now revealing their plans. They seem to be so certain of already having everything under control that they have laid aside the circumspection that until now had at least partially conceal their true intentions. The investigations already underway will reveal the true responsibility of those who manage the COVID emergency, not only in the area of healthcare, but also in politics, the economy and the media. We will probably find that in this colossal operation of social engineering, there are people who have decided the fate of humanity, arrogating to themselves, the right to act against the will of citizens and their representatives and the government of nations.”

I mean, already, this doesn’t sound like a pastor, but he is a great pastor and has a great record. But he continues. He says, “We will discover that the riots in these days were provoked by those who seeing that the virus is inevitably fading and that the social alarm of the pandemic is waning, necessarily have to provoke civil disturbances because they would be followed by repression, which, although legitimate, could be condemned as unjustified aggression against the population. The same thing is also happening in Europe in perfect symphony. It is quite clear that the use of street protests is instrumental to the purposes of those who would like to see someone elected in the upcoming presidential election, who embodies the goals of the deep State and who expresses these goals faithfully and with conviction.” He said, “Although it may seem disconcerting, the opposing alignments as described are also found in religious circles. There are faithful shepherds who care for the flock of Christ, but there are mercenary infidels who seek to scatter the flock and hand the sheep over to be devoured by ravenous wolves. It is not surprising that these mercenaries are allies of darkness and hate the children of light. Just as there is a deep State, there is also a deep church that betrays its duties and foreswears its proper commitments before God. Thus, the invisible enemy whom good rulers fight against in public affairs is also fought against by good shepherds and the ecclesiastical sphere. It is a spiritual battle.”

I mean, he just goes on and talks about all these deep state kind of pastors who have left the word. And this is a four page letter he sent to the President, oh my gosh. It is as strong as anything that I have seen from any pastor, Protestant, Catholic, anybody else in years and years and years. I mean, it’s just, this kind of reminds me in reading some of the sermons from the American Revolution from the pastors back then. So, it made a lot of national news. What he had to say was really, really strong and just kudos for any pastor willing to be that bold and that strong and that uncompromising about what the church should be doing and what they should be speaking out on.

Rick:

And we should be so thankful for the discernment and moral clarity even to see those things, to have the perspective to step back in the context of history and see what’s happening here. I love that. Was the phrase “deep state pastors”, I mean, I never thought about putting those phrases together. Alright guys, quick break. We’ve got more good news for folks, we’ll be right back. Tim Barton is got the next piece of good news, so stay with us, you’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

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Many of you out there are under stay-at-home orders by your governor or your local health officials and maybe you’re looking for something to do during this time. One of the most important things you can do as a citizen is to make sure that you know your rights, you know when they’ve been violated and you’re the better prepared to defend and assert them. To do that, you’ve got to study the Constitution and the history behind it.

Constitution Alive with David Barton and Rick Green does exactly that. We take you into the WallBuilders library, we bring all those resources to life. And then we go out to Philadelphia, the Independence Hall and right there in the room where the Constitution and the Declaration were put together, we bring it to life, we relive it and we make sure that we as citizens know what our part is in preserving these freedoms for future generations.

At this time in our nation, it is so important to know the proper role of government and what we as citizens should be doing at this time. If you haven’t done Constitution Alive, check it out at wallbuilders.com. You can get the DVD set there, we’ll get it out in the mail to you as soon as we can. And you can study it at home or you can go to constitutioncoach.com and become a Constitution coach today. We’ve got a free license for you right now where you can sign up as a Constitution host and be the catalyst in your community to bring back these biblical and historical and constitutional values.

And what you do is you sign up as a host and then you get your friends and family together on Zoom. We coach you on how to do it and you’re able to create community and also study the Constitution at the same time. Do this and we will be able to pick up the pieces on the other side of this crisis and rebuild our nation even stronger than it was before. Check it out today at constitutioncoach.com.

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This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. America is a special and unique nation. The average length for a constitution in other countries is only 17 years, but we’ve had ours for over two centuries and our 4% of the world’s popular produces 24% of the world’s gross domestic product. And every year, we produce more inventions and technology and the other 96% of the world combined.

In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville of France came to America, travelled the country, and in his famous book ‘Democracy in America’ reported, “The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional. And it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one. This is the origin of the phrase, “American Exceptionalism” and affirms that America is unique because of the distinctive ideas on which we’ve been based, including inalienable rights, individualism, limited government and the importance of religion and morality.”

For more information about American Exceptionalism, go to wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

Welcome back here on WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us. It’s Good News Friday and Tim Barton gets the next piece of good news. Tim.

Tim:

Alright, guys, this one is coming from the presidential administration. Specifically, looking at the new White House press secretary, new being a little relative, she’s been there little while. But she is certainly new. And one of the things that you see about people that work in the Trump administration, there are so much stress and strain. It is a high, highly demanding, high capacity job. Generally, you see jobs like this, age people. Even from a presidential perspective, if you look at President Obama when he went into the White House, he looked very young and vibrant. And after eight years, he came out a lot of gray on his head. He looked a lot more tired, a lot more worn down. It is a tough job. Which actually is kind of interesting about President Trump. He doesn’t look nearly so worn down. After these three and a half years, almost four, you kind of get the impression he just likes some of these battles and likes doing that.

But the press secretary is somebody that is battling constantly with so many hostile, gotcha kind of questions. They have to be very sharp. And right now, President Trump has the best press secretary he’s had so far and there have been some good ones before this. Sarah Sanders, the one you can point to, she did a great job. But Kayleigh McEnany is just crushing it. And one of the things that is so impressive about her is she is also very outspoken about faith and she is very articulate in her faith.

I have an article here and this one is from CBN. But she, in this interview says, “I believe God put me in this place for a purpose and for a reason like He does with each and every life. We are all here for a reason.” And she’s very open about her faith in God. By the way, guys, one of the things that is also worth pointing out, she is in her early 30s, she’s only 32 years old right now and she is handling the press corps and these veteran press people asking these incredibly hostile gotcha- shaped questions

Rick:

And often stupid questions. I’m sorry. Did I say that out loud? Yeah.

Tim:

They are so dumb. And then she handles it very masterfully. She is a very well-thought young lady. She not surprising, as a very high educational pedigree, she was a Harvard Law graduate. She studied over in Oxford. And actually, recently, I saw a video of her where, it was very shortly after the death of Ravi Zacharias, who is if people are not familiar, you need to get on YouTube, watch some of his videos, one of the greatest apologists, maybe ever, but certainly, when I think of great apologists, CS Lewis is one of the first guys I think of and Ravi Zacharias is the second guy. He is so, so well thought. He so solid. Changed hundreds of thousands of lives with his intellectual explanation for the validity of Scripture of Jesus, of the resurrection of Jesus, etc, etc.

And shortly after his death, I saw an interview where Kayleigh was talking to somebody and they brought up Ravi Zacharias and his life and what it meant to her. And again, knowing Ravi’s position, strong outspoken Christian. He loved explaining faith and helping people see the reasonableness of Christianity. And hearing Kayleigh explain how much that Ravi impacted her, even in educational, ventures and endeavors, when she was in college, when she was over at Oxford, what he did, so impressive, I want to play part of that interview, just so you can hear. This as the press secretary right now for President Trump, who is a God-fearing, Bible-loving America-loving, young Christian woman, just so impressive. Listen to this interview just for a minute.

Interview Clip:

CBN’s David:

Can I ask you a personal question about Ravi Zacharias passing away just in the last 24 hours or so? I know, his teachings were so important to you, especially at Oxford, you’ve mentioned this. Can you tell me a little bit about what he meant to you personally and the loss for the Christian community?

Kayleigh:

Yeah, it’s a huge loss. You know, my dad said to me, that Billy Graham was the great evangelist and I think Ravi Zacharias is the great apologist.

CBN’s David:

Yeah, I know this is tough. I know… Yeah.

Kayleigh:

We don’t cry as we’re Christians who know is…

CBN’s David:

Yeah, I mean, we’re human last time I checked. But the tears come from what? What was it that, because it feels like Oxford and your development of your faith?

Kayleigh:

Yeah. And you know, Ravi is someone that I never met. I know his team and I know some of those who are around him. But, you know, for me, as a Christian, I always had the heart for Jesus Christ that I got at a very young age. I was saved when I was, you know, in my teens. But to have someone from an academic place as an apologist could equip you with those arguments where you didn’t have to check your brain at the door when you became a Christian, where there is intellectual foundation for everything we believe. There’s prophecy, there’s the human self, there’s the amazing creation of the human body and all of its complexity and the planet, the universe and he puts a philosophical, an academic rationale for the heart that I had for Christ, but gave me the ability to go to Oxford, where there are renowned atheist scholars who try to say there’s no intellectual undergirding for Christianity.

Ravi Zacharias, who happened to have an office at Oxford, was the person who provided the counter to that: the intelligence behind why we believe what we believe. And you know, your mind can never get you fully there, it’s a place only your heart can take you. But Ravi Zacharias provided those steps to put in the minds of an academic. Wow, I should give the Christian faith some thought.

And, you know, Ravi, he means so much. As I was saying earlier, you know, Billy Graham was a great evangelist, Ravi Zacharias is a great apologist. And, you know, I think the words that were at the very bottom of the announcement today of his passing are so important. He had a verse there it said, “Because I live, you also will live”, John 14:19. And they said that these seven words changed Ravi’s life 57 years ago.

He was on a bed of suicide as he described it. And it was a Bible that was handed to him and those words in particular that set him on a 57 year path that is truly saved lives. I, on Sunday watched a sermon knowing, you know, Ravi was in a tough spot and was no longer getting treatment, so I had my daughter on my lap, we were watching the sermon, yeah, of Ravi and my husband was there, my mother-in-law was there. And it was a sermon about purpose. And it was a sermon about how every human life has a purpose. You are here for a reason. Every life matters and it’s about finding that purpose. And just hearing him speak and hearing those words was so meaningful.

And it was in that sermon, I believe, where he shared the story of a CNN sports caster who was living a profligate lifestyle and making bad decisions in life, but changed his life and found his purpose and found a family and became a Christian and got very sick and when he was on his deathbed, the CNN sports caster said that he was just really in search of God and really in search of finding Christ and hearing from Christ. As he was about to leave behind his little daughter and he said, Jesus, he saw a figure that is how he always imagined Jesus Christ would look like and he said, who he had pictured was Jesus sat on the corner of his bed and said, tonight is not the night you will pass. And he had this distinct moment before he passed.

And I’m watching Ravi describe that moment, knowing that he was probably in the next few days coming to his last moment, it changed me once again to hear that and to post the sermon on Twitter and have a user say, wow, I’ve never given Christianity a thought, but having watched what Ravi had to say, I may to give Christianity a thought. So, Ravi, his life may have ended, but his life continues in the next life. He is someone I’ll meet in heaven and rest assured, his legacy will always be here and he will continue to change lives.

Rick:

Quick break, guys, we’ll be right back with our final piece of good news for the day. Stay with us, you’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

BREAK

Hi, friends, this is Tim Barton of WallBuilders. This is a time when most Americans don’t know much about American history or even heroes of the faith. And I know oftentimes we, parents, we’re trying to find good content for our kids to read.

And if you remember back to the Bible, to the book of Hebrews, it has the faith Hall of Fame where they outline the leaders of faith that had gone before them. Well, this is something that as Americans, we really want to go back and outline some of these heroes, not just of American history, but heroes of Christianity in our faith as well.

I want to let you know about some biographical sketches we have available on our website. One is called The Courageous Leaders collection. And this collection includes people like Abigail Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Francis Scott Key, George Washington Carver, Susanna Wesley, even the Wright brothers. And there’s a second collection called Heroes of History. In this collection, you’ll read about people like Benjamin Franklin or Christopher Columbus, Daniel Boone, George Washington, Harriet Tubman, friends, the list goes on and on. This is a great collection for your young person to have and read and it’s a providential view of American and Christian history. This is available at www.wallbuilders.com. That’s www.wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us for our final segment of good news today and David is going to take us out with the last piece of good news.

David:

Well, I’m going to go back and pick up from what I’ve talked about in the first segment. Because when President Trump wanted the shrine of Pope John Paul II, what he did, he went there first and then he came back to the White House to issue an executive order protecting religious freedom internationally. So, we have a position within the federal government, we have an ambassador for religious freedom. And President Trump is now with this executive order really said that United States is going to do everything it can to help secure religious freedom across the world. This is a priority for us.

It’s interesting that he goes to a Catholic shrine, the shrine of Pope John Paul II, who was a huge advocate for international religious freedom. So, he goes there, he comes back across the street, he is this executive order and he gets seriously attacked by the Archbishop there in Washington, D.C. Catholic Archbishop. But you have this other Catholic Archbishop who steps up and defends him.

Now, interestingly, just a few days later, you have all the stuff that happens in Washington, D.C. with the rioting. You have the rioting and looting and the burning and all the stuff that’s happening. And one of the places that gets set on fire is St. John’s Church. And St. John’s Church is a really, really super old historic church just across the street from the White House. And that’s the church, they call it the Church of the Presidents, because you go back to the founding father presidents, that’s where they went to church in D.C. And so, this is a very historic place, but when it was set of fire, they couldn’t get the fire trucks in there to quickly put it out. It didn’t destroy the church, but it did a lot of damage to the church.

The next day after this, President Trump grabs a Bible, he walks across the street over to St. John’s Church, stands in front of St. John’s Church and holds up the Bible and they take a picture of him right there in St. John’s Church. And he’s like, you’re not going to destroy the church, you’re not going to store our faith. We’re going to stand for this and I’m not running from it. And here’s a really big Bible for you to put in your picture.

So, when he did that, it’s interesting that you have some Protestant leaders in Washington, D.C. who came out and attack them. One was Bishop Marianne Botha, the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. And she said he didn’t come to pray; he didn’t come to church to offer condolences to those who are grieving; he didn’t come to commit healing to our nation. All the things we would expect that longed for from the highest leader in the land. Well, maybe he didn’t, but he came to take a really strong stand that says, look, you’re not going to back us off a church or the Bible. And I’m very proud to hold this up and say that this is really strong.

Now, it’s interesting that just as he was attacked by a Catholic leader and the Catholic leader defended him, he’s now being attacked by a Protestant leader and a Protestant leader defends President Trump. You have Franklin Graham who stepped up and he said “Offended? Not at all. He said this made an important statement that what took place the night before and the burning, looting and vandalism of the nation’s capital, including this historic house of worship mattered and that the lawlessness had to end. And I’m not offended that he held up the Bible, as a matter of fact, I was encouraged. I appreciate it. I believe that God’s word is the only hope for each individual and for our nation.” And he went on to say, “I’m disappointed that some of the President’s harshest critics about going to church were clergy. They have publicly said to the media and criticize the president for walking into the church and for holding up the Bible. That’s unbelievable. They should be thanking him rather than criticizing him. To which I say, exactly right. Even if it was a photo-op.

Look what he did. He promoted the Bible. He said, you know, the church is not going to burn down, we stand for this. I really appreciate that and I appreciate the fact that we get both Protestant and Catholic leaders stepping up and defending him for that International Religious Freedom order he gave and also for going across the street and holding up a Bible in front of the church.

Rick:

And they use such a derogatory term, you know, photo-op, as if symbolism doesn’t matter, right, as if every president doesn’t pick the background or at least their team picks the background where they stand, which location they go to in every city they see. Symbolism matters. And this was a very important symbol to say, look, this is the foundation of our country, we’re not going to allow our churches to be burned down. We’re not going to ignore the Bible. We’re not going to let people disparage the history of the United States. You know, we’re going to we’re going to defend our institutions and our foundation.

And I thought too, you know, at a point when cities across the nation were burning and right there across from the White House, it was burning for him to walk across the lawn like he did when things were as crazy as they were and then walk across that street and then stand there and make that statement. To me, it was bold, it was courageous. It was the right move. You know, I know some people are making up stories about tear gas and blah, blah, blah when the true, you got to go watch Attorney General Barr’s response to all that. He did a lengthy interview with CBS, where he lays out the facts and I know people don’t want to hear the facts right now. But he lays out the facts of what actually happened that day and it’s nothing like what we’ve seen on social media. But I couldn’t agree more, David, I think is great that he did it, I think it was great there, you know, Protestant leaders stood up to defending for. 

Truth matters, folks. We’ve got to know the truth. We got to speak the truth. Truth will set you free. But you got to know it, you got to study it. That’s what we do here at WallBuilders Live. Thanks for getting that biblical, historical and constitutional perspective with us today.

Make that contribution at wallbuilderslive.com, it helps us get that truth out to more people. We should appreciate your listening. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.