In the latest episode of the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast, Yvette Hampton sits down with Tim Barton, president of WallBuilders, to delve into the crucial links between education, culture, and the Christian faith. Tim Barton, armed with an impressive collection of original documents from America’s founding era, sheds light on the historical foundations that shaped the nation and challenges prevalent narratives that undermine its core values. Join us as we dive into this enlightening conversation on education and culture.
1. Taking Action and Making a Difference:
Barton, in his passionate and persuasive manner, emphasizes the importance of Christians getting involved in political and social issues. He stands firm on the need for believers to actively engage with organizations like Planned Parenthood. Barton remarks, “It’s about showing Jesus to people.” He encourages listeners to take action and “raise up leaders who can actually make a difference” in shaping a godly society.
2. Equipping the Next Generation:
Drawing inspiration from biblical characters like Daniel, Esther, and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, Barton underlines the significance of preparing the next generation for the battle of life. He challenges the conventional idea of sending kids to fight battles that even adults struggle with and focuses on the importance of homeschooling. Barton encourages homeschooling parents to set a good example, saying, “We want children to understand truth, but we want them to understand why truth is true.” By homeschooling, parents can equip their children with both knowledge and critical thinking skills needed to navigate the confusing narratives prevalent in today’s society.
3. Battling Misinformation in Education:
Barton raises numerous concerns about the infiltration of critical race theory and the 1619 Project into schools and even churches. Acknowledging that many parents may believe these divisive concepts are not being taught in their children’s schools, Barton warns that these ideologies might be unknowingly infiltrating classrooms. This issue is further exacerbated by the influx of families turning to homeschooling due to the COVID-19 pandemic; he advises caution in using government-funded sources that may promote these harmful ideologies. He expresses concern about the potential impact of these ideologies on the values and beliefs of families and the broader society.
4. A Call to Courage:
Despite the challenges faced in the present day, Barton believes that it is one of the best times to be a Christian in America due to a growing hunger for truth. He urges Christians to have the courage to stand up for what is right and not be intimidated by the opposing voices. Additionally, Barton emphasizes the importance of raising the next generation with not only the truth but also the ability to defend it through apologetics. He aims to promote love while speaking the truth boldly.
Conclusion:
Tim Barton’s insights on education and culture provide invaluable guidance for Christians who seek to make a positive difference in society. His emphasis on actively engaging in the political process, equipping the next generation, and combating misinformation serves as a clarion call for believers to rise up as influential forces of righteousness. By understanding and embracing the historical foundations of America, Christians can stand firm in their faith while embodying Jesus’ love. To hear more thought-provoking discussions on education, culture, and the Christian faith, tune in to the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast.
Recommended Resources:
New England Primer (America’s first textbook)
The American Story: The Beginnings, by David Barton and Tim Barton
The American Story – Tim Barton on the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast
Rick Green (Wallbuilders) on the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast
Garritt Hampton on Wallbuilders Live!
Schoolhouse Rocked – Yvette and Garritt Hampton on Wallbuilders Live!
Discussion Questions:
1. Why is it important for Christians to get involved in political and social issues, and what role should they play in influencing society?
2. How can we raise up leaders who are equipped to make a positive difference in the world?
3. Why is it important to prioritize homeschooling and setting a good example for kids, especially in today’s society?
4. How can parents ensure that their children are not being indoctrinated with false ideologies, and how can they prepare them for discussions about truth in today’s society?
5. What can we learn from the story of King David, and how can it apply to our lives and leadership today?
6. How can we encourage balance in understanding American history, despite attempts at cancel culture and biased or incomplete narratives?
7. How can Christians get involved in the political arena, and why is it important to start small and focus on local issues first?
8. How does Wall Builders aim to educate people on the truth of American history and heritage, and what resources do they offer?
9. What was the original purpose of education in America, and how has it evolved over time?
10. How can we promote religious freedom and morality in public spaces, and what are some examples of this being put into practice?
Read the full interview transcript:
Yvette Hampton [00:00:00]:
Hey, everyone. This is yvette Hampton. Welcome back to the Schoolhouse Rock Podcast. I am so glad you are back with me this week. We have a returning guest this week and he’s amazing. His name is Tim Barton. He’s the president of Wall Builders. So many of you are already familiar with him, and he’s been on the podcast before, but it’s been quite a while, Tim, since you’ve been on. We were talking about that before we pushed record and I think it’s been about, I don’t know, two years maybe.
Tim Barton [00:00:28]:
It’s been a long time. It feels like just yesterday in some ways, and in some ways it’s like it’s been a long time. But it’s so good to be back. Thanks for having me back on.
Yvette Hampton [00:00:36]:
Yeah, it’s been long enough that the last time you were on the podcast, that podcast actually turned into a little teeny tiny clip in the movie Schoolhouse Rocked. And so we’ll just call you one of our cast members in the movie.
Tim Barton [00:00:52]:
I made it.
Yvette Hampton [00:00:53]:
Yeah, it’s awesome. Anyway, we are talking this week about culture and education and what’s happening kind of in education and what’s going on. What’s going on? What in the world is happening right now? And these are the things that we love to talk about on the podcast. But before we get into that, I want to say thank you to our sponsor, CTC Math. If you guys are looking for a great online math program, this@ctcmath.com you can try them out for free. Ctcmath.com. Well, Tim, welcome back to the schoolhouse rocked podcast. For those who are not familiar with you, would you introduce yourself and your family and Wall Builders? What is it that you do?
Tim Barton [00:01:32]:
Absolutely. So my name is Tim Barton and I am the president now of Wall Builders. We are a faith based nonprofit in Texas. We really say that our goal, our initiative, our mission is to present America’s forgotten history and heroes with an emphasis on the religious, the moral, and the constitutional foundation and heritage of the nation. Over the years, God has allowed our family to acquire what now is believed to be the largest private collection of original documents from the founding era. We have actual letters and journals from George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. So many cool things. And what we do is we use those original sources to do research and go back and see what was really the goal of America. Well, when people talk about the American experiment, what did it mean? And in the midst of it now in culture, of course, with some of the accusations coming from the 1619 project or coming with the critical race theory ideology, there’s a lot of lies being said about America. We’re able to go back with original sources and say, actually, here’s what actually happened in Jamestown, here’s what actually happened in Plymouth, here’s what actually happened through American history or the founding Fathers. And the vast majority of them came out against slavery, against the institution, certainly against the slave trade early on. And then many of them come out against slavery as individuals and free their slaves and start abolition societies. And we’re able to document all of this in the original records that God’s allowed us to collect over the years. And part of our goal and initiative is to show people ultimately as Christians, that when you do things God’s way, it’s more successful. And when you reject God’s standards, you’re going to have trouble in life. And we can point to American history as prime examples. We can point to early presidents that when they follow the biblical guidelines, laid out the principles of Godliness and righteousness their entire campaign, right their presidency, they just did better. And when people rejected those principles now, by the way, that includes some of those constitutional principles because so much of the foundation of our political philosophy was built on biblical principles, which again, we can document and show. And as I’m saying all this, we have so much information available on our wall builders website, wallbuilders.com, because we would encourage everybody listening as we make some of these statements today, and especially about the Christian heritage of our nation or the Founding Fathers, to not take our word for it. In fact, don’t take anybody’s word for it. Go do your own research. We have seen a nation in chaos because we’ve just been trusting the wrong people for way too long without doing actual research ourselves. And certainly I think everybody listening to this podcast can appreciate and understand that as we have seen prime examples even during the COVID pandemic when we were told so many things that actually many of them turned out a year and a half later that everybody now knows that, hey, some of those things we were told to do were not maybe the most medically sound advice. Maybe we should have been questioning some science along the way. But the point is that we have a prime example of saying instead of just trusting whatever somebody says, maybe we should do some research and see what’s there, see what’s true. And that’s what we try to do with American history, is show people a little bit more of the truth of our nation, of our heritage, where we came from. And we use original sources to do that.
Yvette Hampton [00:04:41]:
Yeah, I love that you do that because it’s not just, here’s what Tim thinks and here’s what David Barton thinks. It’s like, here are the actual documents showing that this is what our country was founded on. So I want to park there for a minute when it comes to education, and you talked about the resources that you have, talk about what the goals were of our nation when you look at education, what was the goal of education when America was really being established as a nation? What were these parents thinking what direction did they want to go with their kids?
Tim Barton [00:05:17]:
I’m sitting in a corner of our museum right now as we’re having this conversation. Behind me is part of our education section. And these are desks behind me from an original one room schoolhouse back in the 18 hundreds. So many resources from early American education. We have things going all the way back to the very beginning of education in America that really does go back largely to the Pilgrims, when certainly Jamestown founded in 16 seven, and then Plymouth is not till 1620. But Jamestown, they didn’t start off with early education. That wasn’t part of their goal and initiative. They had some different ideas in Jamestown when the Pilgrims came, they were coming looking for religious liberty, looking for freedom for themselves. And for those that remember the Pilgrim story, they had gone to Holland. They were raising their kids in Holland and they had some freedom there, but not as much freedom as they had hoped initially. And then they saw their kids begin to embrace some of the ways of some of the other individuals in Europe and Holland. And they said, that’s not how we want our kids to grow up. They said, we want a different place. We can have the full freedom we want and we can raise our kids and the fear and admonition of the Lord. So they come to America. The reason all this context matters is the very first education law passed in America was passed in 1647. It was passed up in those early New England colonies and it was printed in 1650. It was a book called The Code of the 1650s. I actually have that book behind me. I can get it in a minute if we need to. But in this book, it has the very first education law. The law became known as the old Deluder Satan act. This is something that people listening, you can look this up later, you can go read that original law. The reason the law became known as the Old Deluder Satan Act is the law starts off explaining it is the one chief project of that Old Deluder Satan to keep men from the knowledge of Scriptures, as in former times. And the law goes on for several pages, but it starts with the premise that the devil’s main objective is to keep us, to keep our kids from knowing the knowledge of the word of God. And the point they make in the law is if our kids can never read, they’re never going to know what the Bible says. And then they won’t be able to live Godly. To enact righteous policies, to elect Godly leaders, we have to make sure they can read so they know what the Bible says, so they can live these godly lives. That was the beginning of the very first education law in America. And this is what birthed schools and you can go forward with that notion. That thought of education in 1690 is when you have the first textbook that was printed in English in America, it was a New England primer. And in the New England primer, it was first printed in 1690. They were used in public schools all the way through the early 19 hundreds. This was the primary text that people, students used when they started school. So this was kind of like the first grade textbook. Well, in it the whole thing is religious content. That the alphabet. The first alphabet is a picture alphabet, but the pictures are Bible stories. And then the alphabet will have a and then on the side it’ll have a picture. And then in Adam’s fall we send all and the whole thing are just Bible illustrations. You then come to an alphabet of lessons for youth and they’re all Bible verses. It starts off a a wise son making a glad father, but foolish son is the heaven as his mother. B betters a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble there with ongoes eight through Z. They’re all Bible verses. But the whole thing is religious content. And if someone just picked it up today, they might go, why are they including so much Bible in this first great textbook? And the reason we’d ask that question is because we didn’t understand why they were doing education in the first place. The reason they started education in America in the first place was to make sure their kids had the knowledge of the Word of God. So as they’re even teaching them to read, teaching them the alphabet, they’re working to accomplish their purpose of helping their kids learn the knowledge of the Word of God. And this was public school because back then there weren’t these private schools that we see today. And even the notion of home school, certainly a lot of kids learned at home. But I want to point out this is general public education. Everybody in early America was learning the foundation of Christianity because that was the whole point of education, was to make sure kids knew the knowledge of the Word of God. That was the foundation upon which everything in American education was built.
Yvette Hampton [00:09:18]:
We were talking about how education was founded, what the purpose was when our founding fathers were establishing our once great nation. So frustrating. I want to say our great nation. And it is still a great nation. I still think we are the greatest nation ever in history of the world. But there’s so much going on now that I feel like I’m like it’s not as great as it used to be. And I feel like we’re just declining. And so much of that is because of what’s happening in the public school institutions. And so how did we go from a system that was established to know God? We were teaching kids the Word of God through phonics, through everything that they were being taught. And that was the purpose to where we are today, completely flipped upside down. Where did that shift happen and why?
Tim Barton [00:10:12]:
I think America still is a land of opportunity, even though our greatness has declined. And I think a lot of that does correspond with when you do things God’s way, you enjoy more blessings and benefits, because that’s what flows from doing it God’s way, right. God’s ways work. And because our nation is becoming less Godly, we’re seeing less greatness in our nation, and it doesn’t mean that this isn’t still a land of opportunity. And then to your bigger question, how did we get to this place? Because, again, going back to early education and to even illustrate a little bit more the foundation of Christianity in education, you can go to an 1844 Supreme Court decision. It was Vidal versus Gerard’s executors. And in this decision, the Supreme Court actually ruled unanimously 80 decision that in order for a public school to receive government funding, they would be required to teach the Bible, to promote Christianity, and to allow pastors gospel ministers on campus to evangelize the students. And if any school said they did not want to do that, they would lose their government funding.
Yvette Hampton [00:11:13]:
Wow.
Tim Barton [00:11:13]:
Now that was 1844, and this was still the obvious point of education. We can go even further. When you go to the late 18 hundreds, there were laws that were still being passed in states that were requiring every single school in that state that their students every week had to memorize a chapter of the Bible. In some states there was different nuance, where in Pennsylvania they said that students would need to memorize or maybe this was New Jersey I’m getting confused which state it might have been now. But students had to memorize the passage that the pastor had taught from church the preceding Sabbath. They would have to memorize that passage as well as maybe a psalm or something else. But Christianity was always a part of education, and this is the way it was really up until you get to the 1960s where you have a radical Supreme Court and they say that we don’t want to have any Bible in school anymore, we don’t have any prayer in school anymore. Then you get to the 1970s and it’s the same radical court. One of the things after saying, we don’t want the Bible in prayer anymore, there’s also some interesting correlations where you can study the outcome of what was happening in public schools. If you look at the 1950s, the top problems identified by teachers in public schools were students talking in class or chewing gum in the hallways. Those were the top issues. Public school teachers said, this is the biggest problem we have in school. Right? That’s crazy. Well, then you get to the problems they begin to see were they begin to have teen pregnancies, they begin to have sexually transmitted diseases, they begin to have violent crime. All these issues in public school, literally just a decade before, they had none of those problems. But then you remove God, you remove prayer, you remove the Bible, and you begin to see the crumbling of some of this structure. In 1971, the same radical Supreme Court that said no prayer, no Bible in schools, they actually had a case. It was Lemon V. Kurtzman. And in this case, they said that it was a case that was striking down religious activity in public. And they said in this case that if somebody does religious activity in public, unless they can prove that the primary purpose of that activity wasn’t religious, then, you can’t do it. Now, that seems weird and kind of convoluted. What they’re saying is you can’t do religious things in public if they’re for religious reasons. And really, why else would you be doing religious things in public if it’s not for religious reasons? So what they’re arguing is no religious things in public. That was what they said. And that was the standard from 1971 and from 1971, literally until last year. That was a standard. Last year, we had a case of the Supreme Court. It was the Coach Kennedy decision. Coach Kennedy was a football coach from Brimmerton Washington. He was a 20 year Marine veteran. And then he went back. He was at a high school. He was a football coach. And one of the things he would do after football games by himself, after the game was over, he would go to the 50 yard line, he would take a knee, and he would pray and thank God for freedom, for students, for safety. And some of the football players took notice that he’s going and praying. And they said, Coach, what are you doing? He said, Well, I’m going and praying. And they said, well, can we come with you? He said, It’s a free country. You can do what you want. So he’s not coercing anybody. But the school found out what he was doing. The school said, you’re not allowed to pray in front of students. That’s unconstitutional. Which of course, it’s not, but that’s what he was told. And he said, I’m not going to stop doing this, right? I fought for freedom 20 years in the Marines. I know what freedom is. I have the freedom to do this. They said, no, you don’t. They threatened to fire him if he continued. He continued. They fired him. This case went all the way to the US Supreme Court. And when the Supreme Court heard this case last summer, they said that Bremerton Washington High School was totally wrong for firing him because of his Christian faith. That’s totally unconstitutional. You can’t do that, fire someone for their religious convictions. But what they went further to say is the argument that lower courts had used as to why he was wrong and couldn’t do this. It was based on the lemon decision. The Lemon decision, the one that says you can’t do religious things in public if they’re for religious reasons, they said that has always been a ridiculous standard. It’s not constitutional, that there’s not precedent for this. And the Supreme Court last summer said that unconditionally is overturned. That is a standard we will no longer use. It no longer applies. Well, there’s been more than 7300 cases where religious freedom was struck down because of the Lemon decision. That lemon ruling. One of the things that it led to, in 1980, there was a case, Stone v. Graham at the Supreme Court. There was a public school in Kentucky that displayed Ten Commandments. And they were told, you’re not allowed to display those because that’s religion. You can’t have religion in public for religious reasons. And the Supreme Court in 1980 upheld that the Ten Commandments couldn’t be displayed in schools. And so for the last several decades, the Ten Commandments have been removed from virtually every single school anywhere in the nation. The great news now is, because Lemon has been overturned, there’s actually states in Texas this is something happening right now when Texas, the state legislature has worked to get the Ten Commandments back in schools. They’re actually passing a law pass to the Senate. It’s going to the house. We expect the governor to sign this. That will require the Ten Commandments to be displayed once again in public schools. And the reason this matters, obviously, for home school individuals, for the home school mom listening, why does this matter? Because one of the things we need to understand is one of the things we’ve done incorrectly, I think, in culture, is we have played defense for so long, right? Just saying, hey, leave us alone. Let us raise our kids. We want to worship and serve God, just stay out of our way. We have just tried to be left alone, and we’ve played defense, but we’ve allowed the other side to advance so much. We have been now given one of the most unique opportunities in American history, that there are now opportunities where we can actually go on offense and once again promote religious freedom, religious morality in the nation. We can once again have prayer back in public schools. We can have prayer at school board meetings. We can have prayer at city council. We can have Christmas choirs and carols that sing nothing but Christian carols. Things that we were told for the last, literally 50 years we couldn’t do because they were religious. And you can’t have religion in public. We literally can do that now, constitutionally upheld by the Supreme Court last summer. And this is something as we talk about, where did schools go wrong? There were lots of ways they went wrong, but we are now in a unique place that we can actually see some level of restoration of these values back into the public arena. And certainly it doesn’t make me think that public schools now are going to be great and right, all of us. Stop homeschooling, send your kids back to public school. That’s crazy. That’s not what we’re advocating at all.
Yvette Hampton [00:17:40]:
Not do that, right?
Tim Barton [00:17:41]:
No, it’s not what we’re advocating, but it’s understanding the landscape we’re in. And if all we do is continue to play defense and all that happens is the other side continues to play offense, we’re not going to advance the ball down the field and we’re just going to slow what the other team is doing in this regard. If we would go on offense, we can push back in so many ways. And right, maybe it’s not for our kids, because our kids are home schooled and they’re not going to have this impact. But think about the fact that more than 80% of the nation, their kids go to public school. And if we can make a difference for 80% of the kids in the nation, this nation be better off. And if our nation’s better off, then we’re better off. One of the verses that we all know, Jeremiah 20 911, I know the plans are happy to clear the Lord plans to prosper you, not to harm you, to give you hope in the future. Everybody knows that verse. But if you back up a few verses before that, jeremiah was writing to the Israelites, to the Jews that were in captivity, and he said, where you’re in this land in captives, don’t stop living, don’t stop getting married and having kids. He said, in fact, seek the peace and prosperity of the land in which you live, for when it goes well with that land, it will go well with you. And one of the things we have to make sure that we are intentional about is that we don’t so disconnect from society that we’re not able to help seek the peace and prosperity of the land in which we live. Because when it goes better for the land, it goes better for us. We want to make sure that we are paying enough attention that we can stay engaged in this cultural fight as we are working to raise our kids in the fear and admonition of the Lord, that we can still engage in culture to make this land a better place so that our kids have a better opportunity with a land of more freedom. And as you mentioned, even coming out of last break, a place where maybe we can say that this is the greatest nation again, we can restore some of that greatness because we restore that biblical foundation that helped us be great in the first place.
Yvette Hampton [00:19:28]:
You said something that we often say to our kids all the time is sin causes pain, but obedience brings blessings. And we as a nation are suffering. We’re in pain just like the Israelites, just like we’re reading through kings right now with our girls. And man, you just read about these kings. And time after time after time after time, he was a bad king. He was a bad king. He was a bad king. He was a bad king. Oh, wait, there is a good one. Oh, and we’re back to a bad king. We’re back to a bad king. And these leaders who just refuse to follow the ways of God, and the thing is that God’s ways are not complicated, they’re not difficult, but they go against our sinful nature as human beings. And so we’ve done that as a culture. And so how do we because we discussed, we’re homeschool families. And so for the most part, I think we want to stay in our comfortable bubble of church and homeschooling and co ops and our safe place, right? And it’s hard to be in the world and not of the world. And so how do we as Christians and as Christian homeschool parents without putting our kids in public school and being in the world in that sense? How do we help to affect change in our nation to those who are around us?
Tim Barton [00:20:51]:
This is such an important question. It’s something that obviously has to be navigated with wisdom and discernment as well as intentionality. Because all of us, we want America to do better. We want America to be better. And if we read the Bible very clearly, proverbs tells us that righteousness exalted the nation. But sin is a reproach to any people. If our nation would just be righteous, we could be exalted, right? We could enjoy God’s blessings. But this is where often we have a disconnect. How do we get a righteous nation? You only get righteous nation based on righteousness being promoted. Well, who’s going to promote righteousness? It can only be the Christians, because heathens will never promote righteousness. And the more that we disengage, the more that we say, hey, we’re just going to stay in our lane, right? We’re going to take care of our kids, we’re going to take care of our friends and our family, right? We got a garden, we got chickens, we’re self sustaining, we’re living off the grid. Like we’re good. We don’t even care. The more disengaged we get, the more that there’s an opportunity for chaos to abound, the more there’s an opportunity for this sin to thrive. The Bible tells us in Proverbs 29 two that when the righteous rule, the people rejoice. When the wicked rule, the people groan. And here’s where again, there’s a disconnect, because so often for the homeschool community, we want to live and let live. Just leave us alone, right? Don’t cause me trouble. And that’s kind of our thought. But the Bible tells us when the righteous are in authority, people rejoice. When the wicked rule of people groan. You don’t need hearing AIDS to hear all the groaning that’s been happening in the nation, certainly over the last several years. How do we stop the groaning? Well, you have to have righteous leaders. So you need righteous policies because righteousness exaltation, you need righteous leaders. And this can only happen if Christians once again start getting engaged in the process and navigating that right. Obviously, homeschool, families, we are consumed with raising our kids and raising our families. And this is where we need to be discerning and strategic and intentional about how we’re navigating this. Because if all of our time is consumed on our family, which I’m not downplaying spend time with your family, if we never spend time on where our family is going to have to live in the future, right? If we’re not having the foresight to go, if there’s not freedom left in this nation, even though my kids might have been raised in this loving protective bubble, there’s not going to be freedom for my grandkids. They’re not going to have the opportunities that we once had. We have to recognize, we have to be intentional about getting involved in the process. And getting involved in the process is not always as difficult as people make it out to be. We live in a nation that we are saturated by the national story. People that have paid attention on social media, we’ve heard about some of shootings that have happened recently. We’ve heard about issues with the border and with the ending of title 42 and this flow of migrants. And we hear national stories. We hear about what’s happening in Washington DC. Or the lack thereof in California. We hear national news. And when we hear national news, it oftentimes has an impact of making us feel a little paralyzed. We’re overwhelmed because I cannot fix the border problem by myself. I can’t fix Washington DC by myself, right? I can’t fix what’s happening in California and San Francisco, and I can’t stop all these trans drag shows by myself. What am I going to do? And this is something I think at times is maybe even part of the enemies. The devil’s strategy is to make us feel overwhelmed so we don’t get engaged and involved in the process. Our organization, we’re called Wall Builders and we take the name from the Bible book of Nehemiah intentionally. Nehemiah was the one that was part of the Babylonian captivity. And then Philips, god called him to go rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, and when he went back to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, people said, man, there’s no way you can do that. There’s no way this can be done. It’s too big, the project’s too much. You don’t have the resources and tools. And Nehemiah just said, hey, I’m just calling the whosoever wills, right? Whoever will come live with me inside the city and then let’s work together and let’s rebuild the city. They were told it couldn’t be done and in 52 days they rebuilt the city. But part of how they did it becomes important for the strategy. If you read through Nehemiah, you’ll see several examples like. Nehemiah told the priest, he said, hey, you come and set up. And if you can just put some stones up in your own backyard right behind your house, just put some stones up on the wall. This is an important strategy because if everybody just said, I’m not going to try to solve the nation, I’m not going to try to solve the whole wall, let me just put some stones up in my backyard. If we just started in our local area saying, hey, you know what? I go to church and I’m going to encourage my church. Let’s pay attention to the local city council race. Let’s pay attention to the local school board race. Because most school boards, most city councils only have dozens, maybe a couple of hundred at times show up for those elections. These are not big things that if we just got involved on the local level, this is again important strategy. There are churches in every single community, in every single county in the nation. If the local churches just said, we’re going to take care of our community, we’re going to take care of our county, all of a sudden, every community and every county would be taken care of in this nation. And we can turn what appear to be national problems around. Nehemiah rebuilt the wall in 52 days. This can be done at an incredible pace if we’re not paralyzed by the breadth of the problem. And I think for a lot of people, they look at the big problem, they go, man, there’s too much I’m overwhelmed by this. Don’t think about solving the big problem. If you go back to even Acts, when Jesus told the disciples, right, wait, and when the Holy Spirit comes and you’ll be my witnesses, first in Jerusalem, then Judea sumeria the uttermost parts of the earth, well, Jerusalem is where they were. He said, Start where you are right? This is where you’re my witnesses first. And then from here, then we can work our way out. But let’s start with where God has planted us first. And this is something that I think if we’re not intentional about saying, I’m going to engage myself in the community. Our kids are going to grow up in a place where, because Christians haven’t been involved for so long, in the process, there will be ungodly leaders, there will be a lot of groaning, there’ll be ungodly policies. You won’t have God’s blessing. This is where we have problems because Christians have disengaged. And part of the solution is we need to get reengaged and not necessarily on the national level. Don’t get overwhelmed by the problems of the nation. Just say, you know what? I’m going to show up at a city council meeting. Most people couldn’t even tell you who the school board members, who the city council members are in their own community, we have no idea because we’ve never gotten involved locally. We should start saying, I’m going to try to make a difference where God has planted me on the local level. I’m going to try to get my church to get involved locally. Because if we got involved locally and think about it, if you were able to get some of the deacons, some of the elders from your church on the school board, on the city council, maybe, would there be some different policies? Might there be more Godliness and righteousness right in the midst of COVID When you had mayors shutting down cities, saying churches couldn’t meet anymore, if that city council was made up of your church members, do you think they would have said, no, it’s okay for us to have church? Right. That could have been very different policies if we would have had Godly people in those positions. And we need to start focusing on the local level and stop being overwhelmed by the national problems.
Yvette Hampton [00:27:55]:
Yeah, and getting our kids involved, too. We’ve taken our girls to city council meetings, and it’s so eye opening for them to actually see what’s going on and what people are saying and what they’re doing and what they’re fighting for. And it’s so overwhelming sometimes because it seems like the left is that those who are fighting for the sin of the world, they’re fighting so much louder and there’s so many more of them while Christians are sitting back and just again wanting to just hold tight to their families, which, yes, we need to do that. We need to protect our kids. It’s why we home school. We need to show them Jesus. It’s why we home school. But we also need to be out showing Jesus to those around us. And so even giving financially, I mean, I look at organizations like Planned Parenthood and I think, how in the world do they get their billions and billions of dollars? And my daughter, as a matter of fact, my youngest daughter, she just did a paper this past year on abortion and what’s going on in the abortion world nationwide, and she talked a lot about Planned Parenthood. And the amount of money that is given by donors, private donors, to end the lives of babies is overwhelming. It’s astonishing. And I’m like, where are the Christians? Because I know that there are a lot of Christians who have money, and so why are they not supporting organizations like Wall builders and like, other Christian organizations that are really working to make a difference in the culture around us, in the world around us, and to raise up and train up leaders who I mean, they’re up and coming, right? We’re raising leaders, we’re raising adults. We’re not raising children. And then prayer, just being in prayer about it, if you’ve got little kids at home and you can’t go to these meetings, you can’t be involved, you can still pray, pray for our leaders. And I think we miss that oftentimes. It’s just getting on our knees and praying. Our family is guilty of that too. We sometimes pray for our leaders, but not often enough. And just pray, oh, Lord, please show them their need for a savior. Because imagine it’s so interesting when you sometimes you’ll hear of a celebrity or somebody with a big name who has surrendered their heart to Christ and it can change so much. Talk specifically about kids, and we talked a little bit about that, but how can we really be raising up this next generation of kids all the way from the itty Bitty’s? I know your girls are still little. They’re teeny tiny. Mine are not so little anymore. How can we be raising up this next generation to impact God’s kingdom around them?
Tim Barton [00:30:40]:
Yeah, and we talked a little bit offline about this. I’m so excited. We can talk about this now on the program. It’s something that when we look at where we are so often, parents can get overwhelmed by the problems and the challenges and the issues. But I will tell you, I’m encouraged as an individual, I love the time we are living in, and I think it’s one of the best times to be a Christian in the history of our nation because we really haven’t seen moments where truth was more uncertain and where more people were looking for truth than right now. At these moments in America, there are people that are so hungry for truth and they just don’t know where to find it. And one of the challenges in culture is you mentioned so often the left. I had a mentor growing up who’d say the devil’s crowd is loud. The other side are very loud at times, but they’re not often the majority. Usually it’s the minority, but they’re so loud. Christians often find ourselves at a place that we maybe get intimidated. We don’t want to cause trouble. We don’t want to stir things up. And so we end up being quiet. And because we’re quiet, it makes the other side seem even louder and more powerful. And it comes down to at some point we have to have the courage to stand up and do the right thing. One of the verses that we’ve been referencing a lot over the last year or so, it really came alive to us during COVID is Revelation 21 Eight. It’s a verse that when I was growing up, I learned as a kid, there was a song about liars going to hell. And so I learned that song about liars going to hell. Don’t be a liar. But it’s interesting as it goes to the list of the people that will have their place in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone. The very first group listed, and just to give a little context, it talks about the murderers and the adulterers and the sorcerers and the liars and people who are generally doing very bad things. The very first group identified on that list, it said the cowardly and the fearful. Now, the cowardly and the fearful, that’s a totally different category, because that’s not people actively doing the wrong thing. That’s people who know what’s right and who aren’t standing up for what what’s right. It’s a little bit like James 417, where it says to him, who knows the good he ought to do and does it not to him to sin. If you know there’s something good you should be doing, you don’t do it. That’s sinful, because you know you should have been doing the right thing. This is the culture we are living in, and unfortunately, there are so many Christians who know the truth, but they would rather not ruffle feathers, right? Maybe for some of them, they’re like, Man, I can’t risk it with my job. Me providing for my family is too important. The problem is, when you have the majority of the nation that’s cowering, that they’re afraid of being canceled, they’re afraid of being fired, they’re afraid of offending somebody, they’re afraid of losing friends. Whatever the backlash is, they think, if we don’t have the courage to stand up for truth, then we will not stop this onslaught of evil, this onslaught of lies, which is what we’re seeing happen in our culture nation. But this is why I think that there’s never been a greater time to be a Christian in America than right now, because people are actively looking for truth and they’re not finding it. But this is where there’s an opportunity for us as we’re raising our kids. One of the things we want to be intentional about with our children, with a rising generation, is to tell them more stories like Daniel and Shadowak and Mishak and Abednago, right? The people that in those moments I mean, you mentioned Esther, right, early on as we were having this conversation, the people that in those defining moments, man, they could have just kept their mouth shut. They not got in trouble, right? I mean, Daniel could have said, hey, I still believe in God, but God understands, and so I don’t want to cause any trouble, all right? I don’t want to cross the king. And no, Daniel still three times a day in front of his window so people could see him. He wasn’t going to back down, right? I mean, shattered me shacking a bed and go in front of everybody. They’re like, no, we ain’t going to do it. That’s people of courage. And this is where we need to be intentional about not only giving our kids the truth, but then encouraging them to have the backbone and the courage to stand up for truth. Obviously, everything we want to do, we want to do it in the love of Jesus. Jesus spoke the truth in love, but he always spoke the truth. And we want to make sure that we are even setting the example as parents that we have the courage to speak the truth even when it’s in love, knowing at times we might face backlash. And obviously for us too, we both know this firsthand. As we take some of the positions we take, we deal with backlash from people commenting and posting and write confrontations at times at these public forums. We deal with this firsthand. But that’s not something that should deter us. Jesus told all his followers, he said, they persecuted me. They’re going to persecute you too. And the Beatitudes, he said, bless her to you when you are persecuted for righteousness sake. We don’t want to raise kids in a bubble and tell them, right, don’t cause trouble. We don’t want you to be persecuted. No at. Sometimes we need to say, man, this is a great thing. When you stand up for truth and righteousness and there’s pushback, that is a godly place to be and God will honor and reward you taking a stand. In addition to the fact that cowardice literally is on the list of things that were the people that are going to be in the Lake of Fire in Brimstone at the very end. Right? The second death, second judgment, revelation 21. That’s not a place we want to be. We want to make sure we’re promoting our kids to have the courage, but not just have courage and be obnoxious to have courage to speak the truth and love, which also part of why we home school. We want to make sure that our kids know the truth. We live in a culture they don’t even know male and female anymore, right. They’re so confused on the basic issues. We want to make sure our kids know truth and part of helping our kids know truth. And again, we talked about this a little bit offline. We need to make sure that our kids don’t just know what’s true, but understand why it’s true. Have the apologetics because they’re going to go to church with kids who are going to say, well, I just kind of feel I’m a guy, but I feel like girl right now. They need to know what is true and why it is true. So they can even help some of their peers, some of their friends, some of the people maybe they play sports with, they go to church with, whatever youth group, whatever the situation is, they’re going to be around people that are growing up in this worldly culture, right? This Egyptian, Babylonian, whatever kind of nation, we want to ascribe it to from the Bible stance, they’re going to grow up in that culture. And we want to make sure that not only we’ve given them the truth, that we’ve encouraged them to have the courage to speak the truth, but to have the apologetics and discernment to know why this is right and how to help guide and lead even some of their friends in that conversation that search for truth. It’s a great time to be a Christian. We just want to make sure we are intentional about how we raise our kids to engage in this culture.
Yvette Hampton [00:37:23]:
I love that so much and what a responsibility we have to be that example for our kids, because we can sit and we can read about Daniel and Esther and Shadrak Mishak and Bengal. As a matter of fact, it’s so funny. I saw a meme. It was in May. It was back in May, and it was on May 4, specifically. And did you see this one? It said, May the fourth be with you. Yes, it was so funny. And it had a picture of Shadrak Mishack and Abednago, and then it had Jesus in the fire with them. And I thought, yes, may the fourth be with you. And really, that’s the picture that we should have of us, because we are in the fire right now, and God is with us. If we are obeying Him and we are doing the things that he’s called us to do, he is going to be with us. He is going to strengthen us. And you know what? If we get burned, we get burned just like Shadrak Mishek and Benigo. They’re like, if we die, we die. Just like Esther. If I die, I die. And I don’t say that flippantly. I mean, like, truly, if we are following God’s plan, our days are numbered anyway. But do what we came here to do. Do what God sent us here to do and be that example to our kids. Because our kids cannot be strong. They cannot stand strong. They cannot put on the full armor of God unless we put it on ourselves first. And then as we’re raising our kids and homeschooling them, we’re putting that armor on them piece by piece, a little bit at a time. We’ve got our armor on, and we’re just placing that armor on them a little bit at a time, so that when they go out into the world, they can stand strong and they can fight this battle. Because it’s one of the things that still astounds me, is that people will say, oh, our kids need to be missionaries in the public schools. Okay? You want them to fight a battle that adults are having a hard time fighting. These kids aren’t prepared for this battle. It’s our job to prepare them, but we have to do that by setting that example. So what a great reminder. Tim, thank you so much. Talk about the 1619 Project, because I know this is something that you have involved yourself deeply with. I know that you’re very familiar with what’s going on. And I want you to start out talking to the person who knows absolutely nothing at all about what the 1619 Project is. What is it? Why does it matter, and what’s happening with it?
Tim Barton [00:39:39]:
So this is a very important topic. Earlier in the week, we talked about we want to be intentional with our kids and helping them know not just what is true, but why it is true. Because even if we’re not worried about them being misled, that they might need to help navigate for their friends, and maybe some of their friends who go to public school or they’ve heard some of these things, they will need to know how do we help answer this? One of the things that the Bible, even admonishes, is we need to be ready to even account for everyone who asks, what is the hope that is in us? Well, that’s part of the apologetics. We want to know the apologetics, why do we believe what we believe? And part of that actually is important when it comes to American history and the reason it really does matter. And I’m going to set a little context and I’m going to dive into the 1619 Project. But part of the context it matters is obviously we’re living in an era where truth itself is being questioned. And it’s subjective truth, subjective morality, that there’s so much of this thought and this postmodern era of ideology. But the reason truth only matters. We know that Jesus said, first of all in John 14 six, that he was away. The truth and the life. Truth is found in Jesus, found in God. It’s found in God’s word. Truth does exist and why it matters. Big picture jesus said in John 832 to the disciples, he said, you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. Truth brings freedom if we know truth, but we have to understand truth and then be able to communicate it, which for all of us who have had to teach things, there’s a different level of understanding from you being able to do it to you being able to teach it. We want to help our kids know the truth well enough they can communicate this to help navigate their friends. The 1619 Project is one of the major things happening right now in public schools, happening around the nation. It was done back in 2019. The New York Times sponsored this initiative, and it was on the 400th anniversary of the 1619. And what they say this is when the first African slaves arrived to America. Now, they make a lot of claims that almost all of them are historically inaccurate in this initiative. They try to show incorrectly, but they show when they argue that America was built and birthed on the back of slavery. And they say instead of 1776 being the founding of America, 1619 should be the founding of America, because that’s when the first slaves arrived in America and all of America was built in the back of slavery. And really, all white people in America oppressed all black people in America. So all black people were victims. All white people were oppressors. And this is the way the narrative goes. Now, this also is very similar to critical race theory. For those who maybe have paid attention. Critical race theory is a Marxist ideology. It’s built on the idea of critical theory. And critical theory, when Marx did this, it was much more of an economic theory. It was the idea that if people have money, the only reason they have money is because they stole from other people. And if you don’t have money, the only reason you don’t have money is because you were stolen from. The whole idea of Marx is a class and power struggle. So you have the oppressor and you have the oppressed. And there’s only two categories. So you are always either in the category of the oppressor or the category of the oppressed. Well, this Marxist ideology was initially promoted in America early 19 hundreds. It was never embraced in America because in America, there’s too much fluidity in the market. Everyone, every one of us right now involved in this conversation. Everyone listening to this podcast. Everyone, either you or your parents or your grandparents, only three generations somebody in that was in dire poverty, right? Either we are our parents, were our grandparents, somebody came from crazy poverty. And yet for most of us, we have seen our parents, our grandparents rise from that. Maybe we’re that generation that we’re going to help our kids, we’re going to set a new standard and tone. We’re not going to live broke, we’re going to have some financial freedom. But the reality is, in America you have the possibility there is opportunity to rise above that. But this is the point that’s the reason that this idea never worked in America, because there was too much fluidity in people’s ability to come out of poverty and to achieve some financial stability, to gain some wealth. And so the idea of critical theory never took root in America. But back in the 1960s at Harvard, they said, well, what if we apply critical theory instead of in an economic sense? What if we applied it to race and we look at the disparity of outcomes and races and we can say it’s based on the law? Well, this is where critical theory first kind of was exposed to crutin America, and now it’s grown to the place. Critical race theory is literally being taught in public schools. And the way it’s being taught is that all people who were not white, European, Anglos, so whether you were Native American, whether you were Hispanic, whether you were Spanish, whether not always Hispanic, even, because sometimes they’re a little too white in this kind of mantra of the way they’re doing the comparison. They press and oppressor. But if you’re a black American, if you’re an African American, if you do not have white skin, then you fit in the oppressed category. And if you have white skin, you are in the oppressor category. Now, they don’t care that for virtually all of these white people, none of them have had slaves, right? None of us had slaves. And arguably, for many of us, not even our ancestors had slaves. Because if you go back in American history, there was an abolition movement, and there were white people leading the abolition movement in America. But they don’t care about that. They say, no, if you have white skin, you’re an oppressor. If you have dark skin, you’ve been oppressed. And kids are literally learning this. There’s so many news articles over the last couple of years of elementary school students coming home in tears to their parents, and mom would say, what’s wrong? And they would say, I was told at school that I’m bad because of the color of my skin. Or I was told at school that I’ve been oppressed because of the color of my skin. Literally, elementary kids are learning their value system based on the color of their skin. So instead of following the MLK standard, he had a dream. Remember the famous MLK speech? I have a dream. I have a dream that one day his daughters would not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. The 1619 Project and critical race theory go a diametrically opposite position of that. They say we should judge people based on the color of their skin, not based on their lifestyle, their manners, their behavior. We should judge them based on the color of their skin. Well, the 1619 Project goes so far as to say that in the American Revolution, the Founding Fathers actually fought the revolution to protect and preserve the institution of slavery. Now, if you’ve never read the Declaration, there’s 27 grievances, and nowhere in there does it say the Founding Father say, we want to protect slavery. That’s why we’re fighting revolution. That’s not true. Nearly everything that is said in the 1619 Project is historically inaccurate. But this is literally what kids are learning. And this is why most kids right now, if you talk to most high school students that have come from public school, they can tell you more bad things about America. Then they can’t tell you anything good about America because they’re being indoctrinated with America’s evil and America’s racist, and America is awful. And this is the narrative they’re hearing. This is part of the narrative, the 1619 Project. It’s certainly the narrative of critical race theory. And right now, this has been adopted, those two things 1619 Project, critical race theory that’s been adopted in thousands, literally thousands of public schools in America. And even the schools, because some states have said, we will not teach critical race theory. We will not have the 1619 Project in our schools. But there are woke teachers in these public schools who are saying, okay, I won’t teach the 1619 Project. I’ll call it something different. But they’re teaching the same thing. Our kids are being taught to not only hate America, but to hate each other and to judge people based on the color of skin. There’s a reason that we’re seeing more racial tension in our nation than we saw ten or 15 or 20 years ago. This is being programmed into students. And we need to have the awareness that this is what kids in public school are learning, because we need to help our kids be able to navigate and have these conversations when they have students tell them, well, we know that America is systemically evil because systemic oppression of white, systemic slavery, and systemic blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, is that true? And how do we have that conversation? How do I help my friend who I love so much, but they’re so misled, and they believe this nonsense so strongly? How do I help guide them in truth? This is why it matters that as individuals, we are aware of what is happening in these public institutions because this is what rising generations are going to believe. And we want to help our kids not only know what is true, have the apologetics for what is true, but be able to have wisdom and discernment and engage in conversation with their friends who are buying into this nonsense.
Yvette Hampton [00:48:19]:
Yeah, and it’s filtering into the church as well. Not every church, of course, but you see that coming into the churches and pastors who simply don’t know they’re speaking of these things from the pulpit, and what a scary, scary place to be. And so much of it is that they don’t know God’s Word, and they don’t know the history of our nation. And so that’s a crazy place to be as a nation. We’re talking about critical race theory, which most people call CRT, and the 1619 Project, which, as you said, oftentimes it’s being called something different because that’s what Satan does, right? He disguises truth. He disguises things, and so he will disguise that. It’s actually called the 1619 Project. So parents will say, oh, it’s not in my school, right? That’s not being taught here. We have a good public school that our kids go to, and my kids teachers are Christians, and so it’s fine. And it’s safe for them to go there because they’re not teaching that. And really, in reality, they probably are teaching that. You just don’t know that they’re teaching that because you’re not in the classroom with them. But these things I talked about how they’re filtering into the church, but what we’re seeing happen a lot of times with a lot of things is that it’s also filtering into the homeschool community. And we’ve talked about this before in the podcast. The homeschool community is changing in a big way, especially since COVID because so many people brought their kids home from COVID for COVID. And it used to be that homeschool parents were running to something, and now it’s homeschool parents. For a large majority of them, they’re running from something, but they don’t know what they’re running to. And so there are a ton of homeschool families now who. Don’t really know exactly what it is that they’re supposed to be doing, what direction are they supposed to go. And so they’ll just take any curriculum, they’ll take anything that’s thrown at them. A lot of it is government funded, a lot of it is government published and supported. And they’re saying, oh, we get this free curriculum, all this stuff, talk about that. Are you seeing this filter into the homeschool world as well?
Tim Barton [00:50:28]:
Yeah, unfortunately we are. We’re seeing some Christian school curriculum that often many homeschoolers use that is beginning to use the language of the left and beginning to promote some of the same narrative. And to be very clear as we have this conversation, this is not to say that America did not participate in the great evil of human slavery and bondage. Of course we’re not denying the reality, but we’re saying that a lot of the way it’s presented is being dishonest in the way it’s presented. And something that certainly for all of us as Christians, we want to make sure that we have a biblical perspective and all that we do, the way we analyze things should always be through a biblical lens. It’s part of the notion of having a biblical worldview. And for those of us that have a biblical lens, our starting place is that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Right. Our starting place is that everybody is jacked up and they need Jesus. That’s where we start. But if you read even some of the heroes of the Old Testament, king David was called a man after God’s.
Yvette Hampton [00:51:27]:
Own heart and he was jacked up, right?
Tim Barton [00:51:31]:
The dude that was a man after God’s own heart. Obviously he had some great moments, right, when he killed Goliath, I mean, great moments. He writes the majority of the Book of Psalms. Incredible. He’s a heart for God, a heart for worship. But this is the same guy that has Amnon as a son. Amnon is the one that raped his sister and David did nothing. So much so that Absalom gets angry and Absalom’s like, my dad’s not doing something, I’ll take care of this. Absalom kills his brother and David does nothing. The Bible tells us in one Kings, chapter one, verse six, it tells us about Adanija, because also remember, absalom is the one who, when he finally says, my dad’s ridiculous, he’s terrible. Absalom set himself up at the city gates. He was going to be a judge. And then when he started to get some power and authority, people began to know him. He finally said, okay, I declare myself king. He led a violent revolution trying to overthrow his father. Now absumb is the one also. We got his hair, cotton, a tree. David’s men used him as javelin, practiced and absalom was done. Well, literally. The story goes on and just a chapter or two later we are introduced to Adanijah. Adanijah first king, chapter one, verse six, it tells us that he began to set himself up to try to take the throne from his father, just like Absalom had done. And the Bible tells us in verse six that Adanijah was a son that David had never corrected to be a parent, and you’ve never corrected your child. You are a terrible parent, right? Because all of us who’ve had kids, my kids are so young. And so for me, it’s not like, have you ever it’s like how many times a day? Am I right? Because all the time like, hey, don’t touch that. Hey, put that down. Hey, come over here. Hey. We say this. We don’t say that every day. All I’m doing is offering instruction and correction. This is our role as a parent. David is a terrible parent. On top of the fact David is the one who has the affair with Bathsheba and then has Uriah assassinated, bumped off. David’s an adulterer and a murderer. Like, how in the world and this is important because we live in canceled culture, where culture would tell us, david should be canceled. He’s a terrible person. And yet every single church service, we are singing the Psalms of David, the murdering adulter, a terrible father. How does that happen? Because as Christians, we should have the intellectual and spiritual maturity to recognize that when we’re singing the Psalms of David, we’re not celebrating the sins of David. Instead, we’re recognizing that God anointed David to write something that was very significant. And what we see as we study scripture in general is we see how a perfect God used imperfect people and did great things through them. And it’s not to discount the fact they might have done evil, but it also doesn’t invalidate that God used them for something special and significant. This is the story of America, and we live in a culture today that says, whoa, whoa. America did something evil invalidated. Right? We should never celebrate. Wait a second. The American story is not simply defined by a bad moment. Instead, and this is where there’s such a disconnect with a 1619 Project Kirkgoy’s theory, where they are very dishonest about this, is they don’t tell the whole story. I grew up and maybe some people listening you might remember this, I grew up listening to Paul Harvey. Paul Harvey. Right. Famous radio commentator. And he had a segment called The Rest of the Story. And Paul Harvey would always he would tell you the beginning of a story and kind of set the hook. So you’re like, man, what happened? I want to know. And then he would say, and now The Rest of the story. What we are getting in the modern example of education, we’re only getting part of the story. And the part we’re getting often is dishonest and not correct the rest of the story. If you look at slavery, for example, in America, america, when we separate from Great Britain, actually the original draft of the Declaration. The longest grievance of the original draft was a grievance against the slave trade and against slavery. This had to be unanimous by the original colonies, and there were two colonies that were against that grievance. It was not included in the final draft, but the majority of colonies in America at that time were against slavery and against the slave trade. When we separated from Great Britain, every single northern colony, starting in 1776, every single northern colony began drafting legislation and passing antislavery laws. By 18 four, every single northern colony had already passed laws for the abolition of slavery. In 18 seven, Thomas Jefferson, the very first ever first ever in the history of the world, thomas Jefferson signed the first ever ban on the slave trade March 2 18 seven. England signed their ban on the slave trade March 2518. Seven. We were three weeks before England, and people might argue, well, but America’s didn’t take effect till January 1, 1819. Eight. So really, we were the second nation. Now, even saying we’re the second nation, that’s still impressive to get the silver medal. But I’m going to argue, really, we were still the first. Because when England signed their law to go into effect, part of the law said there’s a provision for those ships that already have contracts. They have one year from that date to fulfill their contracts. So America signed our law first, and when it’s a full effect, January 1 that year, england’s law didn’t go to full effect till March 25 of 18 eight, we signed the law first, and we actually ended the slave trade before anywhere else in the world. Now, we didn’t end slavery until 1865, and that was with the 13th Amendment of December of 1865. England ended slavery in 1833, so they did beat us in ending slavery for their whole nation, although, arguably, they still had nations around the world where slavery was not ended, that they were part of the British Empire. However, England ended slavery in 1833. Then France, then Denmark. America was the fourth nation of the world in slavery, and there was more than 128 nations of the world at that time. We were the fourth of those nations. So we’re still at the front edge of nations ending slavery. But what’s more significant in America is slavery was ended at the end of the Civil War, where white people fought a war against other white people, and at the end, they freed all the black people, and more than 600,000 individuals died in the Civil War. And then, if you bring it to present, america does more today than virtually any nation anywhere in the world to fight human trafficking and human slavery today. The reason this matters is we started before anybody else. We paid a higher price in ending slavery than anybody else, and we do more today than anybody else to oppose the slave trade and slavery today. America has one of the most impressive antislavery records in the history of the world. And yet most people who are learning about slavery in America, they’re learning America was uniquely evil because of slavery. No. America did what every other nation in the world was doing, which was evil, not discounting it was evil. But we did the same evil everybody else did. Where America was unique is we’re the ones that took a public stand against that evil before anywhere else in the world. We’re the ones that set the tone, that set the precedent for ending that evil before anybody else in the world was doing it. Our Founding Fathers, when they wrote in the Declaration, wield these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal. That was the first governing document anywhere in the history of the world to claim equality. Where there wasn’t classes, there wasn’t a king and lords and nobles in this parliament. No, we said we’re all equal under God. This is where America is so unique. It’s not that America didn’t have sins, but it’s like King David. King David had some amazing moments, writing psalms, killing Goliath, but then he had some bad moments, too. That’s human nature in history. But it shouldn’t discount the fact that we can celebrate. David was a man after God’s own heart. It shouldn’t discount the fact that we can celebrate. America has been used to do more good for humanity, to bring more equality, more freedom, more prosperity to the world than anywhere else, any other nation in the history of the world. But this is not part of the narrative we’re hearing. And this is part of where what we want to do in raising our kids is we want to equip them with truth. We want to give them the apologetic of why it’s true and then encourage them to have the courage to have conversations with their friends, to help guide their friends and truths, because their friends are looking for truth, they just don’t know where to find it. And what they’re hearing in their schools is an attack on the reality of truth. We want to help equip our kids to know truth, to have the courage and confidence to speak the truth in love so we can reclaim part of culture.
Yvette Hampton [00:59:06]:
Yeah, love it. The last time you were on the podcast, we talked about your book, and it’s been out for a couple of years now. Very quickly, talk about what you’re I mean, you just gave an outline of the book, basically. But what’s the title of the book and how can this work for homeschool families?
Tim Barton [00:59:24]:
We have a resource that deals with some of this called The American Story. It’s really a biographical storybook. It’s a great resource for a history class. It starts with Columbus goes to the ending of slavery in America. And we try to tell an honest story, kind of like the Bible in King David where we tell some good, bad and ugly but we show how God used these individuals for advancing freedom and equality. How they were doing things before anywhere else. And we just give an honest story. There’s 1000 footnotes in it. So for people that want to do more research, they want to dive deeper. They can go to those original sources. They can actually see where these quotes, where these stories came from. We have links to stuff even on our website. There’s so many articles. And we actually have a second volume, volume two, coming out probably in a couple of months. That will be the next portion of the story. But for people who want to know more, a lot of this, we have free articles on our website. And then our book, The American Stories on our website is also on Amazon, so whatever is the easiest place for people to get it. But this is something we want to make sure that our kids know truth are equipped to handle the accusations coming against America. America is not perfect, but she’s also not guilty of most of the sins she’s being accused of. And we want to help our kids know that truth and be able to defend that truth.
Yvette Hampton [01:00:29]:
Yeah, great stuff. And of course, we’ll put links to those in the show notes so you guys can easily find them. What tim is one last piece of encouragement that you would give to our.
Tim Barton [01:00:38]:
Audience that we want to be pursuers of truth. When you look at Acts 17, the apostle Paul was sharing the Gospel of Jesus, right, with the Bereans, and there was no New Testament because he hadn’t written the majority of it yet. And so arguably, he’s telling them the prophecies of the Old Testament. He’s saying, Guys, we know Isaiah prophesied this. And the Brians were like, wait a second, we don’t trust you. We’re going to look it up. And they would look it up and be like, oh, he’s correct. You may continue, Paul. Right? And Paul goes on, he’s like, well, we know Joel prophesied. And they’re like, Wait a second. Somebody get the scroll of Joel and they bring it out, okay? They would not let Paul continue until they had confirmed what he said was true. And Paul actually praises them, saying, man, these guys are amazing that they’re not going to be misled because they pursue truth. We want to be pursuers of truth. We got to stop just listening to what somebody says. Stop just saying, well, we saw it online, we saw this article. Well, it was even in our textbook. We should start asking questions, be pursuers of truth so that we will not be misled and.
Keywords:
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