Was America Founded on Faith? Dr. Ben Carson

Was America's founding a genuinely Christian project, or has that idea been read backward into history by people who want it to be true? Dr. Ben Carson, famed neurosurgeon, former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and founder of the American Cornerstone Institute, joins Joshua Lewis to make the case that the founders' faith wasn't incidental to the American project, but was foundational to it.

ABOUT THE EPISODE:
Carson walks through the well-known stories: George Washington's providential survival during the French and Indian War, Benjamin Franklin's call to prayer at the Constitutional Convention, John Adams' conviction that the Constitution was built for "a moral and religious people." Carson recounts these as evidence that the founders understood their rights as God-given rather than state-granted and argues this conviction is what allowed the young nation to move as fast as it did.

But this episode tackles some of the harder questions about America's Christian roots. In fact, many Christians today are wrestling with where the line falls between honoring faith's role in government and slipping into theonomy or Christian nationalism (using the Bible not just to inform conviction, but to enforce practice). Josh and Dr. Carson walk through the difficult cases, including Thomas Jefferson's private letters calling Paul "the first corruptor" of Christ's doctrine, the Treaty of Tripoli's explicit statement that the U.S. government is "not in any sense founded on the Christian religion," and the uncomfortable reality that some founders held views far messier than the Sunday-school version of American history.

What emerges is a conversation about the difference between a Christian moral framework shaping a leader's conscience and a Christian theocracy shaping a nation's laws and why the founders, having fled state-enforced religion in Europe, were careful to avoid recreating it here. Dr. Carson also addresses the founders' inconsistencies head-on, including slavery, and how a constitution "inspired" by Christian conviction could coexist with such a profound moral failure.

If you've ever felt caught between two unsatisfying camps with "America was a secular Enlightenment experiment" on one side, and "America should be governed by biblical law" on the other, this conversation gives you a third way to think about it: historically honest, theologically grounded, and avoidant to both extremes.

0:00 – Introduction
0:51 – Built on Faith Children's Book
1:00 – Washington's Providence Stories
4:34 – Christianity Twisted by Marxism
6:09 – Founders and Deism Debate
8:00 – Declaration vs Constitution
11:06 – Theonomy and Theocracy
12:47 – Christian Ethics and Lawmaking
19:12 – Washington's Christian Faith
20:50 – Jefferson's Mixed Beliefs
26:49 – Benjamin Franklin's Faith
33:39 – Treaty of Tripoli Question
35:32 – James Madison and Constitution
38:05 – Christian Political Involvement
 
RESOURCES MENTIONED:
- Dr. Ben Carson's children's book, Built on Faith (co-authored with Kirk Parrish): https://www.amazon.com/Built-Faith-Ben-Carson/dp/1967002711
- American Cornerstone Institute: https://americancornerstone.org
- Andrew Wilson, Remaking the World: How 1776 Created the Post-Christian West: https://www.crossway.org/books/remaking-the-world-hcj/
- Carl Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: https://www.crossway.org/books/rise-triumph-modern-self-hcj/
- Treaty of Tripoli (1797), Article 11 (full text): https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/bar1796t.asp

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey everybody, welcome back to the wonderful world of Remnant Radio. I've got Dr. Ben Carson with us, and we're going to be talking about the early religious foundation of American history. It's going to be an interesting program. You guys stay tuned. Dr. Ben Carson is a world-renowned neurosurgeon and former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and best-selling author, and has been guided and inspired by his Christian faith throughout his personal and professional life, founding the American Cornerstone Institute to help renew the principles that built this country. In his new children's book, Built on Faith, Dr. Carson invites children to learn how faith and freedom have been interwined since America's first beginning. Well, I'm really excited to talk to Dr. Carson today. Thank you so much for jumping on the program with us. Man, tell us about this new children's book that you have just put out or in the process of putting out. I know that we're going to have a link of it in the description for people who are going to want to go pick it up. But tell us a little bit about that book before we dive into early American uh religious uh history.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

We have a number of children's books, the latest one called Building Faith. And basically it shows that the founders of our nation were people who did have relationship with Covenant. Many people are showing, well, they believed that God existed, but they didn't think that he had any purpose or any influence on what actually goes on. And uh, you know, how he interacted and showed things uh to the founders would kind of give that a false narrative because you look at somebody like George Washington, who was a courier during the French and Indian War for General Breeddock, all the other couriers were killed. George Washington had two horses shot from beneath him. He had four bullet holes in his overcoat, no flesh wounds. And he recognized that as a blessing from God. Many years later, he was back in the same area, the Monongahill area of Pennsylvania, and one of the Indian chiefs who was involved in the war heard that he was going to be there and he said, Please take me, I must see this man. And they brought him to Washington. This was still before he became president, and he said to Washington, Sir, I'm an expert marketing, and I shot you 17 pounds, and my men shot you. And pretty soon I told him just to stop shooting at this man who's protected by the great spirit above. And I just wanted to meet a man who would be the father of a great nation, who's protected by God. And that story used to be an honorable books until about 60 years ago when it was decided that we didn't want to put God into the public arena and teach it to the kids. But uh then you had John Adams, our second president, who said about our constitution that it was designed for a moral and religious people and is wholly inadequate for the government of any other. Now, it doesn't mean that they were perfect individuals themselves, but it does show some of the belief systems they have. It was Thomas Jefferson who said our rights come from our creator and therefore cannot be taken away by man. And on and on it goes, it was Benjamin Franklin, a very intellectual uh individual, who called the assembly and said, Look, we're about to split up because we can't agree on anything. And during the revolutionary war, every other sentence out of your mouth was Lord Save us, we need to pray. That began the tradition of opening sessions of Congress with prayer. And it goes on and on. And the point being, there's something unique about our nation. Our very founding doctrine says that our rights come from God. That's that was a radical form of government, considering all the other forms of government that had existed before that. And I personally believe that it was that belief in that relationship with God that allowed us to accelerate so rapidly from a bunch of ragged relationships to the pinnacle of the world. It really is something that has not been seen anywhere else. Now, somebody people might say, that's just a coincidence if they happen to talk about God and have a relationship with Him. But think about it. Here we are in a situation, 2026, where we have a faction of Christians, of people who believe in those Judeo-Christian traditions that say, love your neighbor. We have another group that says cancel your neighbor if they disagree with you. Now, I wonder which one of those is right. We adopted the love your neighbor philosophy, and it did us a lot of good. Now we're caught up in a situation where we have to decide which direction do we want to go. Do we want to become bitter enemies, fighting each other to the very end, putting everything in a political spectrum? Or do we want to love your neighbor as you saw and move forward with humanity?

SPEAKER_01 4:25

No, that's a really good point. I remember uh having read a book by a man by the name of Andrew Wilson, not the political commentator. There is an Andrew Wilson who lives in the UK. He was a pastor and theologian. Uh, and he wrote this book called 1776, you know, how that year changed the world. And it's uh it's a really good comparative work to go alongside, like Carl Truman's The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, that kind of goes through how we got where we are sociologically. And he just starts off his book talking about how uh right now in kind of woke politics, um, the idea is you find the most oppressed class, whether it be LGBT, Q R S T U V, W X, Y, and Z, I don't know. I don't, there's so many acronyms now. All of those, uh, you know, you've got women, you've got minority groups, and and what we have to do is any kind of criticism towards that group, uh, if that that's some kind of oppression, and we actually have to come in and rescue them from that oppression. But he he makes the argument, he says, look, this is actually a Christian worldview that you've twisted with Marxist ideology. He goes, the idea of defending the weak, like that's that's my argument. Like defending the oppressed, like you he he uses the illustration in the book. It's like a friend came up with me, up to me and started beating me with a stick, and he goes, That's my stick. Like, what do you what are you doing? Like, why are you like why are you weaponizing my Christian faith about defending the oppressed and the weak against me? Uh, it's just really funny how uh, well, I say funny, ironic, I suppose, uh, how that worldview has been actually adopted and so in the the ecosystem of the West, but if you don't have that foundation of Christian virtue and faith in Christ, how those very virtues can then then be twisted and distorted and weaponized against the people of God. So I I've I've got a question. You mentioned at the very top deism, just briefly. Uh my audience will be familiar with that word, some might, might not. Um, just that general argumentation is that God um, you know, created the world and spun everything into existence, and then kind of folded his hands back and you know, relaxed in his lazy boy and just allowed the universe to exist. Now, your argumentation uh is that they weren't deist in that sense. Um, maybe parse some of that out for us. What do you mean when you say they're not deist in that sense? Um did were they all Christian in their belief of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, died on the third day, rose again, ascended into heaven, is coming to judge the living and the dead? Uh are they Christian in that sense? Or are they more agnostic, believing in a higher power, just not sure who it is? I'd be I'd be curious how you would make sense of some of those founding fathers.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

And our following doctrine said that our rights come from God. That tells you right there that they believe that he is an active entity, not someone who sits back with his arms folded and says, Entertain me. And uh there's there's nothing that they subsequently did that would make me believe that he subsequently adopted that kind of uh attitude toward man, just let them do what they want to do. And uh even to this day, you'll notice whenever there's a tragedy of some type, and the president, be it Democrat or Republican, always calls upon God. So I don't think that we have officially adopted that he is mentality, and I don't think any of them ever did either. But that doesn't mean that you're going to always act in a Christian manner. That would be very nice if we did, but we don't. Uh we're imperfect, and that is the reason that we need a savior. And that is a huge aspect of what Christianity is all about. Not about perfect people, but about people who are redeemed by a savior.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Indeed. Yes. I I'm I'm curious. In the you you mentioned a moment ago our founding document, you're referring to the Declaration of Independence, which is, I would say, uh deeply theistic through and through. Like you you mentioned, we've been given these inalienable rights, and it's the role of government to protect those rights, um, not to give us those rights, which has been uh a thing that has been uh regularly confused, I think, recently, as we've we've talked about our rights and who gives us those rights. Is it the state who gives us the right to bear arms, or has that been given to us by God? Um, argumentation of the Declaration of Independence. Hey, uh, you you guys have been given certain rights. And then we have this thing called the Constitution. Now, the Constitution is actually the governing document. You know, the other one uh is the equivalent, you know, the Declaration of Independence, maybe the equivalent to uh, you know, Luther's uh 95 thesis, right? Like it it's not a governing document. It's just a hey, here's some belief statements. I got some problems with this. But we have another document that is more governing in the Constitution, and the Constitution doesn't have any mention of God or the Bible or of Jesus Christ. Uh and it seems as if, I think it was even, I read a moment ago, uh, Article 6 that explicitly prohibits like religious tech tests uh for people holding public office. The skeptic might, you know, uh hear what you're saying and then actually look at the constitution and say, well, the thing is the actually the actual governing body that established our rules and laws when it comes to the Constitution, they seem to be setting up a secular state, even if the Declaration of Independence has got God language in it. You don't see that in the Constitution. What do you make of that? And how would you respond to those who have that objection?

SPEAKER_00 9:39

I make of that the fact that many of our fathers came here from a place where there was religious oppression or religious supremacy, where the state actually established a church and established rules for how people related to the church. They didn't want any part of that. So they were very careful when they crafted the constitution to make sure that we didn't have a situation where the church controlled the state, where the state controlled the church. I think they did a very good job. A lot of people, when they they think about the constitution, they say, well, the constitution says there should be a separation between church and state. It doesn't specifically s say that. And you know, we should read it very carefully and see that what it is really trying to do is to preserve your independence, preserve your rights to choose to live the way you want. Doesn't mean that you have to live without religion, without faith. Doesn't mean you have to check your religion at the door when you go into a government office as a worker. And that's been madly credited in the wrong way. And uh I think we should give our founders a lot of credit for the way that they so carefully crafted things to make sure that we didn't mix politics and religion, but not to say that you couldn't have a philosophy that governed how you the data show.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

No, there's uh there's been a popular discussion around um, well, theonomy and theocracy of late when it comes to the church governing uh the state in some sense, that the the laws of the land are being enforced by the scriptures. And and again, there's so many different flavors of that. I don't want to get into the particulars of it all. Um, but but there is a statement made by a very popular pastor, and he makes the argumentation that all uh all governments are theocracies, every single one of them. They just have different theos, right? Um, and it's kind of a play on words to say the theo, theonomy, it's like God, right? Like theology is the study of God. It comes from that same root word. And he's arguing that like when we are our own God and we determine what is right and what is wrong, then we are the arbiter of what is immoral and what is just or what is good. His argumentation is that the Bible actually shows us what is moral, just, and good. So for the Christian who gets involved in a political space, they should be governed in some sense by the Christian virtues and the Christian morality seen in scripture, while not necessarily meaning that we uh should then uh uh overthrow governments in such a way that we should enforce uh Christian practice. So those are two different kinds of uh worldview. One is a Christian moral system, and another is a Christian practice. So I think argumentation. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

And uh, you know, they they tried to basically create a little theocracy. And these were people who disagree were usually quite severe. Uh we learned from that. That's that's the beauty of it. We learned from that. So by the time we got around to writing the constitution, we knew what happens when you allow that kind of philosophy to govern.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

That's right. I would I would ask, um, I guess in conjunction with that, um, how how do you see your role? Uh like I I know that you're not as involved in the political space when it comes to governance uh in in the way that you have been, um, but for the the the congressman, for the uh the judge, for those who are in the process of lawmaking, if they were to ask me, okay, this guy has committed murder, right? Uh, what is a just just penalty for that murder? As a Christian, I look back to the law of God. I can see it in Deuteronomy, I can see it pre-law, pre-Mosaic law, and back to the book of Genesis in chapter nine, where God talks about for every man who takes a life, his life shall be taken. Um, and I go, okay, a just penalty for murder um is some kind of capital punishment, according to Paul, Romans 13, the sword uh has been given to the state to execute swift justice, right? So I look at that, I go, okay, it seems moral for a government to do this. So when someone asks me, Josh, what do you think is a uh a moral punishment for this crime? My Christian ethic affects the way that I see this justice. The same is true of abortion. If they say, Josh, you know, um abortion's bad, right? And I go, yeah, it's it's bad. Well, what's what what should uh should should we should we commit this? Uh, you know, I'm sorry, on what grounds do we think it's bad is is the question that's typically offered. I I would say that's a human life. And I can make the argumentation and the classic sled, size, level of development, environment, and dependency that on a scientific level to say that human is a human, even if it's in an embryotic state, uh, it possesses unique human DNA. Um, and so we should defend that life because it's all human life. But I'd be just lying in some sense if I didn't allow my Christian virtue to tell me that every single human life has dignity, value, and worth, and that it should be defended and protected. So I guess my question to you would be how do how do we as Christians affect that space and allow the moral ethic of Christianity to reign while not also making the error that the Puritans did and allowing the Christian governance to rule on like everyone worships on Sunday, and you know, that that kind of like enforcement of Christian practice? So uh how help me parse some of that.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

Well, you know, that baby in the womb is innocent. It's an innocent soul. And somebody's thinking about killing it. You know, in the book of Proverbs, 24th chapter, 11th and 12th verses, it says, What about the innocent ones who are being led to the slaughter who are going to be killed? Did you say anything? Did you do anything? Does not the Father in heaven who sees all know what you said and did? That would tend to indicate that biblical Christian beliefs would give you some guidance in a situation like that. Would say you shouldn't just fold your hand and say, That's not my problem. If you see something going on that is clearly wrong, do something about it. And you say, Well, how do you know it's wrong to kill somebody? You know, you can go to the deepest, darkest jungles of Borneo, uh, where no missionaries have ever been or they haven't seen the Bible. And the thief waits the might time. Why does he do that? Because anybody didn't see him. Why doesn't why anybody see him? He knows it's wrong. Same thing for the murderer. So there is a natural sense of right and wrong that we have as human beings, even to mammals.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Yeah, I I think that's right. I I guess my my primary question would be again, how how do I allow the Christian worldview, those Christian morals to affect how I affect the policy without allowing that moral framework to transform my requirements of others to worship as I worship? Does that make sense? Like I don't I I want to I want to be informed by Christian virtue and Christian morality, but if if the error and the warning is like, don't become a Puritan, where's that line between uh don't murder babies, which I think is bad? Um, hey, make sure to put to death those who are uh uh active murderers and committing homicides. Um the Bible tells me that this is just and right as well. And and then the Bible also tells me to keep the Sabbath, right? Like, okay, so how do I how do I navigate what virtues of what morals that I allow to affect governmental uh you know change and and transformation? So I'm I'm curious again, like where is that line and how do you navigate that personally?

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Well, when you have a relationship with God, you have a much stronger sense of how you should treat others. Jesus summed it up very nicely. He said, Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind and soul, and your neighbor as yourself. Now, would you steal from yourself? Would you kill yourself? Would you lie to yourself? Would you cheat yourself? See, those things are kind of summed up in that one command. Love God and love your neighbor. It takes a lot of the arguments, the philosophical arguments of people like these twist themselves into a matwa. It's really quite simple. Love your neighbor as yourself.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Well, and this maybe maybe I'll give some pushback here because I've got some friends who are seventh-day observers, and they're like, hey, the Sabbath must be followed on a Saturday. It's it's this is a mandatory thing commanded in scripture. And uh, that is a law that they hold to themselves. That is something that they hold themselves to. So they ex, you know, I I love myself and I love God, and the Sabbath was given for me. So I'm gonna make the Sabbath something that I observe. What's preventing them then from forcing others to observe that same thing in practice? And I know maybe I'm taking too much time hanging out on this point. I promise we'll move off of it. Um I guess it's it's a difficult thing for me to wrap my head around where the line is.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

It's a good point. I mean, it's one of the Ten Commandments. In fact, it's the longest of the Ten Commandments. But Jesus also said the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. You don't make this rule, let's let's make some people so that they can follow this rule. Sabbath is given to you for a day of rest, a day of refreshment, a day of reconnecting with God. You're so busy during the other six days of the week. Take time to rest, to relax, to reflect. God did it himself, made the world in six things, and rested for the seventh day. That's pretty good. If it's good enough to day, good enough for me.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

Well, uh, let's walk through some of these guys. You mentioned George Washington a moment ago. Uh, you talked about how his life had been spared in great battles. Um, you know, you there's quite a few battles you've mentioned on uh your interviews where he comes out unscathed, you know, fog enters in, giving them the upper hand, that kind of thing, like some pretty spectacular events that take place. Can you point to you know moments in George Washington's life, whether it be his you know inaugural address um or his uh farewell address, uh, that that kind of shows his Christian foundation, his belief uh in Christ and God, that kind of thing. I'd be curious. Uh, I think George Washington might be one of the shining lamps when it comes to examples of faith here, where I think some of the other founding fathers have got a you know kind of a mixed past and mixed commentary on Christian faith. So let's start with Washington. Uh tell me, what would you point to as evidence of his strong Christian faith?

SPEAKER_00 20:06

I would say the fact that uh he treated slaves and gave some of them lamb and property to give them a head story because he realized that it was wrong. And he obviously spent time thinking about that. He obviously read his Bible and carried a Bible around with him all the time. And uh he basically did what we just talked about love your neighbor as yourself. Would you want to be a slave? Even if your master was kind and generous, would you really want to be a slave? And I think he understood that, and that's why he acted the way that he did. That's important.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Yeah, that's that's that's good. Yeah. Uh let's talk about Jefferson. This guy would be one of those that has more of a uh uh sordid commentary um when it comes to Christian faith. I I've heard some divided opinions on this, and it's hard to know, even with Washington and Jefferson, you know, how much of this is like hagiography, how much of this is like, you know, as legends have progressed, you know, stories have been added on to their history that might not be original. Um so I have a hard time knowing what's what in some of this. Uh, but Jefferson is supposedly has had this Jefferson Bible where he's gone through and he's, you know, essentially used a black highlighter to uh uh scrap out all the sections that have any kind of miraculous activity in it. I've heard others um defend against this idea and say that Jefferson wasn't taking sections out of the Bible. What he was doing is he was only giving selected sections of scripture that involved governance to uh those who were going to be in charge of making laws. Again, I don't know how much of that I believe on either side, but it's part of the story. Uh along with that, in his personal letters, he's written some things pretty explicit that sound anti Christian. Um, you know, he he calls the Apostle Paul the first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus. He describes the book of Revelation as the ravings of a someone who's manic. Um he wrote that uh uh John Adams. That the gospel's authority were uh was pinned by ignorant and unlettered men uh who were uh uh I'm sorry, who produced a uh ungrounded and vulgar ignorance, uh speaking of the scriptures. That that does not seem like a deeply Christian guy. Um, you know, as I'm reading that, I'm like, it sounds like maybe he believes in Yahweh, but maybe not in uh Christ as Messiah. I don't know. Uh it's kind of hard to understand. Well, maybe Christ is Messiah, but not Christ as as God in the flesh. I'm not quite sure because again, my my knowledge of uh early church, uh uh well, early church, early American uh Christian uh Christianity is very limited. You go back a couple hundred years, Protestant era, you go back to early church. I I can hang with some people when it comes to that kind of uh church history, but this is a little bit more modern for my understanding. How do you make sense of Jefferson's views here? Um, uh, if we're gonna frame him as uh a deist, uh and does this kind of undermine your confidence in the founding fathers and their view of Christian faith?

SPEAKER_00 23:03

Jefferson had over 2,400 books, and I think he read them all. So he was coming from lots of different directions, well, a lot of data, trying to integrate it into what was logical. And he he sort of finally reached the point where he said, I don't want to deal with anything that I can't explain. Well, let's just go with the stuff that we can prove or explain. And I think that was responsible for a lot of those statements that he made. I don't know that he still felt that way by the time he died, but he was trying to make sense of all these different philosophies, studied every governmental system in the world that anybody ever knew of in history, trying to be an eclectic who extracted the really good things and discarded the bad things in the process. Well, he had all kinds of thoughts, some logical, some maybe not so logical. Well, because you're always going to be influenced by those things that you and I think that explains a lot of the variance in the things that he said. But remember, he was the one who really convinced everybody, of the founders, that our rights should come from our creator. He that was a strong belief of his. And that's the lasting belief that is one of the foundations to our nation, and one of the reasons that we fight so hard against Marxism and against communism, which extract God completely because they want the government to be the supreme director of all things. And you can't have a God if you're gonna have a supreme government.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Yeah. No, I think that's that's uh a wise take because you know, Jefferson, he's a mixed back, you know, like he wants the uh what is it, the American seal, I have it here in my notes somewhere. Um, that well, in the declaration he wrote that we are endowed by our creator. He also proposed that the Great Seal of the United States depict Israel being led through the wilderness by a pillar of fire, uh, which again pretty deep biblical imagery. Um, so it's it's an interesting idea to think that someone who's been so shaped by the enlightenment and modern thinking to say, like, if I can't prove it, I don't know that I want to have confidence in it, and yet still pulling from uh these ancient stories as a source of wisdom. You know, I I think of guys like uh Jordan Peterson who, man, I feel like he's just one Tolkien away from becoming C.S. Lewis. Um, you know, he just needs one really good friend to give him a little push. Um, but uh anyway, you know, he'll look at these ancient stories and see as them as great lessons that describe view, while not necessarily at times believing that some of those miraculous things maybe actually happened exactly as they happened. Um at least that's what he has said in the past. You know, I I remember listening to uh podcast with him and the cosmic skeptic, and he was like, Jordan, I put a Panasonic camera outside of the tomb, Easter Sunday, tomb rolls away. Is Jesus inside? He goes, I don't think so. I think he rose. I'm like, dang it, dude. Like, well, just say it. You're you're so close. Anyway, so I I I don't know if you're with Peterson. This isn't a conversation about him. Um, but yeah, I I think that Jefferson seems to kind of uh flirt with that same kind of idea of pulling truths and truisms from uh the biblical text while maybe not necessarily believing it wholeheartedly in the way that uh you know maybe a modern evangelical today would if the scriptures are inerrant and inspired and and you know have no error or flaw within them. Um okay, any kind of commentary on that? Because I know I just said a bunch of words. There wasn't a really question there, but uh, I'm sure you want to uh jump onto that.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

It's all very personal, a personal relationship with Christ. That's where your belief comes from. It can't be proved. No, faith by definition is not something that you can prove, but it is something that can constrain your life and the way that you treat people and the way that you act. And and people know when they're around someone who is constrained by Christ's thought, they're a different kind of person.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

Well, let's talk about another one who, again, maybe a a mix back here, and Benjamin Franklin, you know, he's pretty well known for uh uh being a really rather rumbunctious uh young man uh who got involved in uh lots of say say what?

SPEAKER_00 27:05

Who was who were you talking about?

SPEAKER_01 27:08

Oh, I'm talking about Benjamin Franklin, not not a young man. I said that with tongue in cheek. Uh uh, he was rather rumbunctious as in uh he got around quite a lot. Uh so people would look at him and go, I don't know if this guy is the epitome of all things creature virtuous. Uh, but at the uh constitutional convention, uh, there's kind of gridlock, there's delegations that are being uh, man, it's really hard to hammer out what we're gonna do here. Franklin stands up and as like we should pray. That that seems what do you make of that? Like uh how when you look at Benjamin Franklin, what do you think about his faith um in his his relationship with with God? How how do you think about this character in uh American history? Um, but where do you place him?

SPEAKER_00 27:48

Well, you know, he was all all over the place. He was a man who traveled a lot, uh spent a lot of time in France, uh, was a womanizer, um, but also was a keen observer, very smart guy, or an inventor, a publisher. But he saw something that was very important going down the drain, because at that last constitutional conventions, you know, it was very hard for the smallest states and the large states to get along together. They had very many arguments. He was 81 years old at the time that you were talking about. So he was and people didn't live that long spectrum, he was way out of the ordinary, but he had a lot of experience. And he looked at all the things that he had observed throughout that long line, and he recognized, despite some of the things that he had said earlier, that there was a reason for the establishment of the United States of America, and it had a lot to do with our creator, and that's what he said during the Revolutionary War. We prayed a lot because we were in deep trouble. We had absolutely no chance of winning. He didn't even have shoes for the soldiers. Think about that. Fighting against the most powerful military force on earth. What were the chances of their succeeding? Zero. There was no chance, except for the providence of the Father of God. And he knew that. And that's why he made that statement. He was a very incredibly smart and thinking guy, but he was by no means a perfect Christian.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

Yeah, and James, James Madison is the one who actually uh wrote that quote at that same uh uh uh uh constitutional convention, from what I understand, about this pharaoh falling from the ground and the empire rising without the Lord's you know attention. Uh and I love that quote. Um, I'm curious, can we talk about James Madison? You know, uh sorry, John Adams, not James Madison. We'll get to uh James Madison in a moment. John Adams uh is I think he's attributed for this quote. You can correct me if I'm wrong, uh, that the constitution was made for a moral and religious people and is wholly inadequate for any other. Um can you unpack that claim and what it means? Um, because I think that's important. But I want to know what he meant when he said of religious people, um, because he's also said some things that strike me as like this is he doesn't mean necessarily this has to be a Christian nation, but the people of the nation need to be religious. I'm curious what you what you think about them.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

Well, I think he was basically making the point that in order to follow the constitution that we created, there had to be a sense of decency and fairness in you. If you don't care about fairness, you don't care about other people, then our constitution is not for you. It's not adequate, it it won't work for you. But I think that's that was simply what he was saying. This is for a reasonable, decent, and logical people. It's not for people who, for instance, think that little girls should be little boys and little boys should be little girls. That's not logical. That's not thinking it wasn't made for that abnormalities or abnormalities doesn't mean we shouldn't love people who are at level, but we don't have to try to become people who are that doesn't make any sense. That our constitution was not designed for illogical, abnormal individuals. That's basically what he's saying.

SPEAKER_01 31:11

Yeah. Well, I think that the again, if if I'm going to make argumentation here about morality, I want to make the argumentation that the only way to have an objective standard of morality is to be theistic, right? So the other standards are based on social contract, evolutionary chain, those kinds of things, and they just really fall apart quite quickly. Um because at the end of the day, what's wrong with raping and pillaging if the biological chain says the strong will survive? Isn't it my duty to procreate if I'm the strongest with everyone you know I possibly can and murder all the other men? Like on a biological level, I can't get my standards of morality from that because that would encourage all forms of evil that they all instinctively know is wrong. Then you've got the social contract, right, which says, well, if everyone in Nazi Germany was okay with killing the Jews, must be okay. Also, not an acceptable framing of what is just and what is unjust, that if a group of people just decide it's okay, that's not an objective standard. Both of those standards just allow us to kind of be pushed through by every wind of morality as it comes along. The only real objective standard is to say that there's something exists outside of us that formed the world and has standards. You know, if I if I use a screwdriver and I flip it around and I'm holding the metal bit and I'm nailing uh, you know, uh a nail in with the handle of the screwdriver, I'm perverting its intended design. It's not right. Now, can I get the job done? Maybe, but I'm doing damage to the nail and uh to the screwdriver and likely to myself uh because I have perverted its intention. And I think that's what we get when we remove God from the equation. We say, well, it works, let's do it. It's complete pragmatism. We caused harm to ourselves and to the objects by which we try to enforce our morality. Uh, and ultimately, the only objective standard for uh, hey, these rules are right, just, and good is a religious people because they believe in those moral standards existing outside of themselves. Um, so I I think that's extremely insightful for founding fathers to make statements like this. Um, because again, I think it roots us, and at least we can disagree on what God thinks is right and wrong, but if we don't even think there's a god, then we can't even disagree on what's right and wrong. Like there's there's no standard by which to argue by.

SPEAKER_00 33:38

That's right. If you live by yourself or the own, no problem. I'll go ahead and declare what's right and wrong in your eyes, because it doesn't matter to the other ones, effective. But whenever your decisions and your actions involve other people, then you have to begin to have some type of regulation, some type of rule, some type of standard.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

Well, well, tell me uh about John Adams, because he writes oh, in 1797, the United States Senate unanimously ratified the Treaty of Tripoli and Article 11 of that treaty, it reads that uh that it is an official government uh okay, the treaty is an official government document, and it reads and that the government of the United States uh of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion, and it was signed by John Adams himself. If the founders believed they were um again trying to establish a nation around these moral principles, doesn't this kind of seem contradictory to what he said? Um, I I'm just having maybe a hard time consolidating these two ideas. How do you make sense of that statement?

SPEAKER_00 34:42

Well, I think uh basically it's it's consistent uh with the First Amendment. We shall make no rule establish any type of religion. Because uh whether it's Christianity, whether it's uh uh Judaism, Islam, whatever you don't want to impose it on people who want to do and believe differently. So he acknowledged he wasn't saying that we shouldn't be decent, reasonable people, he was just saying when we decide that everybody has to be governed by a particular reason, that we're not really providing people with true freedom. Let them choose for themselves what they want to do. And if we say that we're a Christian nation, uh and everything that we do is consistent with Christianity, uh that's a that's a very hard thing to do, as a nation.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. Um I'd be curious. Uh I mentioned James Madison on accident a moment ago. Let's circle back around to him. He's seems to be the architect of the constitution. Uh, and some argue that, like, hey, he is a brilliant guy. He's got these checks and balances of these governmental powers. Um, they see that as just like sheerly like pragmatically, like, oh, he was just really bright. That's how he came up with this idea. Others argue that it had really to do with the anthropology of humanity seen in scripture, that we're deeply corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and one branch of government should not be, you know, uh, you know, uh given all supreme power. And I think what's really interesting to me personally is this seems similar to the uh big fancy word theologically here, the ecclesiological arguments I have about how church should be governed. Again, I make the argumentation of plurality of elders, not having a CEO kind of mentality, well, one guy's at the top, unject authority. And I'm curious, do you think that Madison's uh construction and architecture of the Constitution there is informed by a biblical theological reading of things like ecclesiology and human anthropology?

SPEAKER_00 36:43

I think Madison and the others were inspired by God Himself. You think about it. Do you know of any other nation that had a governing document that had lasted for 250 years and still go out through? That is if you look throughout the history of nations, that would be incredibly unusual. In fact, I dare say we're the only ones who've ever done it. And I think that the reason that is that God inspired it. All the various things, and you look at them, they were for the good of the people, they served the people. Now, sometimes it was difficult, there's no question. And the whole issue of slavery in the constitution. But ultimately, by adopting the components of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, we were able to end that evil. There was a lot of bloodshed, no question about it, a lot of turmoil and grief. Subsequently, even after the North won the war, you had to deal with Jim Crow mentality or hatred. But keeping an eye on the Constitution, delivering on the promise of the Constitution, as Martin Luther King quoted, it worked. It has worked. It is working, and it will continue to work because I believe it was inspired by God.

SPEAKER_01 37:57

Well, on that note, uh we can I ask this question and maybe some closing thoughts from you. Um when we when we think about Christians today, there are groups of Christians that are on a spectrum for sure. Uh, you've got Christians who are really involved in the political space, want to keep up to date on everything that's happening, want to be involved with their voice to be heard. And you have other Christians over here who are like, look, politics, it matters. And some people are going to be called to that space. That's great. But I'm just going to focus on like loving my neighbor and preaching the gospel here in my community and trying to make Christ famous here. How how much should I be involved in the kind of political space and the you know, defending the Constitution and defending these, you know, kind of founding principles that have kind of seen our nation to the place that it's been today? Um, how much should a Christian get involved? I'm curious what your take on that is.

SPEAKER_00 38:54

As Ronald Reagan says, no, we're never more than one generation away from losing our freedoms. And Christianity has a lot to do with freedom. Because you care about other people, you care about the quality of their lives. So that's why Christians should be involved. Everybody has a share of influence. Doesn't mean that you have to go on and become a senator or a congressperson, but it does mean you have to live a life that is a life of love and service for other people. But they will know that they're Christians by you alone. That's all. Doesn't mean you have to be the school superintendent.

SPEAKER_01 39:29

Yeah. Which we might need a few of those, uh a few Christian superintendents. Uh so some of them are off their rocker recently. You you've seen those school board meetings where dads just go in and read the books that are being given to elementary school kids. It's insane. Um, okay. Let me let me uh let's do this. We're we're closing up the program, Dr. Carson. Um, we've just talked about a lot of American history. Uh, we've talked a lot about religious liberty, separation of church and state, kind of our role in participating in all of that. Uh, what would be like a major takeaway that you would want someone who watches this program to go away thinking about meditating on? Where would you point them to get some more research to understand the founding of American history better as it relates to our Christian faith?

SPEAKER_00 40:16

I would say you should do two things. Read your Bible daily, pray before you read, ask from the Spirit to guide you and help you to truly understand it. And read your history. Don't just listen to what other people say. Read several sources of history, find out who we really are and what our values are. Because it's the loss of those values which has led us to a point where instead of being a united nation, we're a very divided nation. And that puts us on the brink of destruction. Jesus said first, Abraham Legan echolet, a house divided against itself cannot stand. And we have forces that try to drive wedges between us on the basis of race, age, income, gender, religion, political affiliation, you name it. And if those forces secede, then all these things we just talked about go into garbage, and we become a nation enslaved by prominent individuals. It always ends the same way with Marxism and communism. There's no variation on anything. We don't have to go that route, but we have to be diligent. We have to study, we have to know what we're talking about, and we have to be willing to stand up for what we believe.

SPEAKER_01 41:25

Yeah, that's right. Praise God. It's been uh a blessing to have you on, I'll be honest. Uh, my mom doesn't watch our podcast very often, but I was thinking, what do I say that would like pseudo-embarrass her? Um, I won't, but uh, I was thinking about it. Like as I know she'll watch this one. I'll pick on mom. Uh no, I've got a saint of a mother. It's pretty hard to pick on, but uh, we do nevertheless, we're honored children. Hey, uh Dr. Crosson, thank you so much for coming on the program. And uh, for those of you who are watching, you want to pick up uh Dr. Carson's kids' book, Built on Faith, got a link for it in the description of this video. We'll also have a link to his YouTube channel if you want to go over there and watch the conversations that he is having about our nation and about the Christian faith and the common sense that many of us need uh that is becoming less and less common. Guys, thank you so much for tuning into this episode. Dr. Carson, thank you again, and we'll see you guys all next.