Building on the American Heritage Series - Politics in the Pulpit

British generals feared their sermons, and John Adams credited them by name. We open the door to a forgotten story: how American pastors shaped the ideas that fueled independence, guided legislators, and ultimately informed the First Amendment’s protections—then connect that legacy to the questions pastors and voters face today.

We walk through the tangible links from pulpit to policy: reprinted sermons that taught equality under God, consent of the governed, and taxation limits long before 1776; clergy who counseled governors, served in congresses, and even held the Speaker’s gavel. From there, we cut through modern confusion about “separation of church and state,” clarifying that the First Amendment restrains Congress, not churches, and was never meant to secularize society. Along the way, we explore why early state bans on clergy in office were short-lived, how Jefferson and Witherspoon defended ministers’ civil rights, and why free exercise means robust moral teaching in public life.

Grounding the conversation in Scripture, we show how Romans 13 names civil rulers as “ministers of God,” how prophets confronted kings with truth, and how Jesus addressed issues we’d now call policy—contracts, marriage, justice. We offer a practical hierarchy for conscience-driven citizenship: public acknowledgment of God, protection of innocent life, preservation of marriage, and respect for private property, with additional biblical guidance on taxes, labor, and courts. We also tackle the IRS chill effect with facts and legal strategy that protect pulpit freedom, encouraging pastors to disciple believers for Monday—not just Sunday.

If you value clear thinking where faith meets freedom, press play and share this with a friend. Tell us which topic your pastor should tackle next.

Chapters

• 0:00 Faith, Politics, And The Black Robe Regiment
• 1:05 Preachers’ Ideas In The Declaration
• 3:00 Sermons To Governors And Founders
• 4:05 Audience Q&A: First Amendment Myths
• 6:45 Ministers Who Framed Early America
• 9:15 What The First Amendment Actually Limits
• 12:10 State Bans On Clergy In Office
• 15:30 Bible Models For Speaking To Power
• 18:10 Did Jesus Address Policy
• 21:00 Priority Of Issues And Voting
• 23:30 Making Church Teaching Practical
• 25:35 IRS Fears And Pulpit Freedom
• 26:10 Great Commission And Whole-Life Teaching
• 26:25 Closing And Resource Mention
• 26:45 Speak Up Movement Resources
• 26:55 Leadership Training: Patriot Academy

Transcript

Rick Green [00:00:11] You found your way to the intersection of Faith and Politics. Wall Builders Live with David Barton and Rick Green, also found online at wallbuilderslive.com and wallbuilders.com and also on Facebook. You can follow us there as well and comment on the shows as you get a chance to listen to them. And in fact, you might have a show you'd like us to cover, a topic or an interview. You can email that to us at radio@wallbuilders.com. And we also encourage you to let your local station know. If you'd like to hear us locally, then we're not on a station there close to you. So if you're not familiar with which station we're on close to you, then go check it out at wallbuilderslive.com. Here we go to Building on the American Heritage Series with David Barton. Well, David, our topic today is pastors, the influence they had on the revolution and whether or not they should be having influence today in the culture. What about the revolution? 

David Barton [00:00:52] Well, when you go back to the Revolution and look at people who were actually there who participated, like John Adams from start to finish, signed the declaration, signed the peace treaty to end it. John Adams, 1816, when giving a list of who was most responsible for independence in America, went through and said, Well, you've got the Reverend Dr. Samuel Cooper, you got the Reverend Jonathan Mayhew, there's George Whitdfield, there's Reverend Charles . Preachers? Not only did Adams point to it, the British did as well. The British were the ones who named the American preachers the Black Rope Regiment. And the British said if it hadn't been for the preachers, America would still be a happy British colony. So they gave them a military name. Oh, they gave them a military name regiment. And they also went after them in a military manner. When they came to America and were going through the various states, the British burned church after church after church. They went to New York City, 19 churches burned 10 to the ground. They went across New Jersey burning churches, they went across Virginia burning churches. We lost 4300 soldiers to British bullets. We lost 11,400 soldiers to prisoner of war camps. But when a preacher got put in a prisoner of war camp, you can just about count that off. Because they didn't blame them for revolution. They specifically blame them for the revolution. You go, what'd the preachers have to do with the revolution? Why would John Adams point to preachers? And historians have documented that every single right set forth in the Declaration of Independence had been preached from the American pulpit prior to 1763. That means the Declaration of Independence is nothing more than a list of the sermons we've been in the church leading up to the revolution. Now we used to study that. Here's some old books. This is one called The The Chaplains and Clergy of the American Revolution. It's an old book, 1860s. It's online. People can read it to Google Books, but it talks about all these preachers who who built America. You have one here, the pulpit of the American Revolution, also from the 1860s. And these are the famous sermons that were preached that shaped America. And sermons and preachers, I mean, this is a great example. This is a guy named the Reverend John Wise. He preached in America in the 1680s. He did two books in 1710, 1717, talking about rights. But back in the 1680s, he has already preached that all men are created equal, that they're endowed by their creator with certain inelable rights. He's already preached that according to the Bible, when you look at taxes, taxation without representation is tyranny. He's already preached that when you look at forms of government in the Bible, that the consent of the government is what God prefers. And we go, wait, those are all lines in the declaration. Those are some of the most famous lines that's a hundred years before the government was a very good thing. In 1772, the founding fathers took his sermons and printed it in this book. This is from 1772. They spread this all over America. So they wanted to republish it back out. They wanted Americans thinking right. And so they republished his sermons. Two years later, they had to reprint it because it was so popular. Two years later, they write the declaration, and guess what? Lines right out of here show up in the declaration. So when you look at the role of pastors, they had a huge impact. Here's for example, a sermon preached by Reverend Foster, but it's in front of John Hancock. What are they doing preaching in front of? Because there's preachers who help government officials think right about government. Here's a sermon preached in front of Oliver Wolf. He's a signer of the Declaration. Yeah, but he's the governor of Connecticut. This preached in front of the entire government of Connecticut. Here's a sermon preached in front of John Taylor Gilmant. He's a signer of the Constitution. Yeah, but he's the governor of New Hampshire. This is a preacher preaching to the government saying, Hey guys, here's what God says about government. So I mean you look at all these preachers, you look at what we had in the beginning, America would not be the nation it is with the rights we have if it hadn't been for preachers. And that's why John Adams lists all these preachers as being responsible for what we enjoy in America today. 

Rick Green [00:04:06] All right David, how about some questions from the audience on pastors? Sounds good. 

Speaker [00:04:09] I understand preachers were involved in the revolution, but that was before the first amendment of the Constitution. So aren't they now supposed to stay out of politics? 

Rick Green [00:04:16] Well I have to admit I'm at at my age, my first picture of pastors in the revolution is from the movie The Patriot and remember the pastor going in to fight, and so that was a depiction of some of the pastors being involved. But that was before the Constitution. 

David Barton [00:04:28] Well, you you have pastors involved in the revolution as military guys, as chaplains, as legislators, as guys writing state constitutions. Then you move into the period of the Constitution Convention. A number of those guys, Constitutional Convention, were ministers. 29 of the 56 signs of declaration held seminary degrees. So you get all these ministers involved in every area, every category of life. As a matter of fact, when you look at the First Amendment, it is signed at the bottom by a minister, the Reverend Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg. That minister had been back at a pastor of the church in New York City in 1777. That minister in New York City, when the British came into New York City in 1777, there were 19 churches now. They burned 10 of them to the ground. He stood outside his church watching as it gets desecrated. He said, I've got to be involved. And he got involved. He helped write the original Constitution for the state. He he turns around, gets elected to the Continental Congress, then he's elected to the Federal Congress. He's elected Speaker of the House in Congress. He does the First Amendment. 

Rick Green [00:05:29] We got to stop for a second. This is a pastor serving in congress. Not only a member of Congress, Speaker of the House? 

David Barton [00:05:32] Speaker of the House. And so now he's over the writing of the First Amendment. And we're going to think that a pastor over the writing of the First Amendment is going to write an amendment that says I can't be involved? I don't think so. He got involved and he wrote the First Amendment or helped write it. He helped oversee the writing of it as a Speaker of the House so that pastors wouldn't be protected. Then that's where our problem today is we misunderstand the First Amendment. The First Amendment is not to secularize government in any way, shape, fashion, or form. It's to limit government from secularizing society. The First Amendment says Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or everything for exercise there of. Only limitation of the First Amendment is what Congress can do. It's not what pastors can't do. It's not what churches can do. It's not what religious individuals can do. It only says Congress, you can't set up a national religion. And Congress, you can't stop anybody from expressing their faith. That's all the First Amendment's about. That's no limitation on a pastor. I mean, it is wide open. That let pastors still serve in Congress and let pastors still be legislators. And by the way, you actually had several pastors who helped frame the First Amendment. Hugh Williamson is a signer of the Constitution. He's also a minister. He's a framer of the First Amendment. Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, the Speaker of the House, a pastor, his brother was serving in Congress with him. John Peter Gabriel Mullenberg. He's a pastor as well. So you get all these pastors serving in Congress, and we're to think that they wrote an amendment that would limit themselves from doing anything? 

Rick Green [00:06:47] So they didn't stop with the with the fighting for the revolution. Even before that, they were planting the seeds of liberty from the pulpit. 

David Barton [00:06:52] You bet. 

Rick Green [00:06:52] They were in the state legislatures after that and they were in Congress giving us the First Amendment. 

David Barton [00:06:58] All they did was limit the government from stopping those expressions from occurring. They did nothing to limit the expressions themselves, nothing to limit pastors, nothing to limit churches. The only thing the First Amendment limits is Congress shall make no law. Now, prior to the First Amendment, there was actually a couple of states that tried to limit the role of pastors. You had, for example, down in Georgia that said no minister can serve in the legislature. Virginia had that. They have the same rights of every other citizen. They don't lose rights. And when Georgia did that in 1777, John Witherspoon, who's a signer of the Declaration, who was in Congress throughout the revolution, he wrote a letter down to the legislature in Georgia to say, why would you say a minister can't serve? Is he less of a citizen than anyone else after having done so much in the revolution? Does he now lose the rights to participate that he fought for? 

Rick Green [00:07:47] So he was a minister. 

David Barton [00:07:50] Serving in Congress. And now they're saying, hey, ministers can't serve in Georgia. And the reason they gave was the gospel is so important. You shouldn't be distracted from the ministry of the gospel by being in the civil arena. And it's kind of interesting. Withersman actually got humorous. He said, so I I guess if I was profligate and immoral, I could serve in the legislature, but being a minister of the gospel and having a moral and religious position, I can't serve. So are you saying that I can only be in the legislature if I set aside my religion and my faith and my morality? So what you find is by 1791, so many of those states had dropped that provision. There had been an early attempt, and it's an understandable attempt, because even Thomas Jefferson supported the early prohibition ministers because so many of the ministers were Anglican, they had been part of the state-established church by Great Britain. And so when Baptists or Methodists or Quakers or whoever would try to preach, the Anglican ministers would whack them. They would fine them, they would throw them in jail. They would even kill them. And so what happened was after we separate from Great Britain, Jefferson puts in a prohibition, we don't want minister serving because he's seen these guys trying to whack the other ministers. Well, just a couple of years later, he said, hey, it's real clear that this is not the position of the Anglican ministers. As a matter of fact, Jefferson said of all the Anglican ministers in Virginia, I think there were about a hundred, a hundred and twenty Anglican ministers, only twenty supported a state-established church. So it was real clear the majority didn't. He said, let's lift the prohibitional ministers. These guys aren't trying to create a theocracy. They aren't trying to create an established denomination. And that's why the First Amendment says Congress can't create that established denomination. And it takes away any ability of whatever minister to get together and say, we're going to all be Anglicans or Baptists or Presbyterians or whatever. So while there were a couple of states that tried to limit ministers, the founding fathers quickly put that to rest. So it's real clear then in the First Amendment they weren't trying to limit ministers because when that popped up in other states, they went and whacked it in other states, whether it be Jefferson or John Witts. 

Rick Green [00:09:34] I remember you saying on the in one of our programs we talked about separation of church and state and so y here you're saying these were actually pastors able to move w within both arenas. They were able to do state and church because they weren't trying to take over one or the other, they were just serving 

David Barton [00:09:46] As citizens and is pastors simply reading the Bible because Jesus tells us in Matthew 22, 21, you render to Caesars what's Caesar's, and you render to God what's God's. You got spiritual duties, you got civil duties. You're supposed to be doing both, and they were doing both. They were rendering to Caesar and they were rendering to God, and they never separated their faith from either either arena. There was nothing in the First Amendment to separate faith. It only separates institutions. We're not going to let the Anglican church take over the Congress. We're not going to let the Presbyterian anything else. Or the Congress take over. Or the Congress take over the church. So what it says is Congress. You can't establish a national denomination, and Congress, you can't stop anybody's free exercise of religion. No limit there to secularize any aspect of society. Okay, Dave, back to the audience for a question about pastors. 

Speaker [00:10:26] Shouldn't pastors keep their focus on the church and not on politics? 

Rick Green [00:10:30] Well that a little bit of what you were referring to earlier. Some of these states had said we don't want pastors doing both. Should they just be focused on the gospel? 

David Barton [00:10:37] Well, outside of American history, you do have a biblical precedent for what's happening. And what's happening today is we have really a false paradigm that's pre-created of what a minister is, a minister of the gospel, as a preacher, you stay in the pulpit. Well, actually, if you believe the word of God is inspired, is inerrant and infallible, which I do, that's a tenet of Christianity for 2,000 years, you go over to Romans 13, in Romans 13, the inspired and infallible word of God, twice in verse 4 and once in verse 6, it says that those that are in civil government are, quote, ministers of God. Really? God calls God uses the same word for those guys in government that he does for ministers in the pulpit? He he doesn't see a distinction between them. They're both ministers? Same word. And then as you get into Hebrews 11, which lists all the heroes of our faith, as you look from verses 22 through 34, everybody listed as a hero of our faith was involved in civil government. Now, why would God hold that up to us if he thought it was wrong to be involved in the 

Rick Green [00:11:33] So not just the American history in the revolutionary period did you have pastors involved you have ministers. 

David Barton [00:11:40] Consider how many just go through the kings of Israel. Just just read the book of Chronicles, read the book of Kings, read the book of first second Samuel. The six books deal with the kings. Look at the role of ministers in all those kings. Samuel, did Samuel keep his mouth shut when he got around Saul? He's always given guidance to Saul. Saul, you shouldn't have done that. I told you to do this. You got a minister speaking in the civil arena. You turn around with with David, was a minister speaking. Yeah, Nathan and Gad jumped up and said, David, the immorality, gotta go. You can't do that. You murder your right, you're in trouble. Oh, by the way, David, you want to build a temple? Here's what God says about it. But they weren't the advisors. You have even Ahab and Jezebel wouldn't go out to war until they got a minister in and got a prophet and said, Hey, what's gonna happen? Jehosaphat, the same thing. The role of the prophet was to speak to the king. And that's God's minister. You you take any prophet in the old testament, God had them speaking into the civil arena. 

Rick Green [00:12:28] And you just gave me a I had a picture of pastors now today being those prophets, being the pastors. We the people are the king, if you will. We're sitting in the congregation, the pastor should be speaking. Speaking to that. 

David Barton [00:12:39] Arena on all those issues. And everything. And those that we, the people elect in the government position, the pastors should be speaking into that arena as well. That is the biblical precedent. So even though it is also American precedent, who cares if American history says it, if it's against the Bible? But in this case, American history lines up with the Bible, and you really do have ministers involved in the civil arena from the Bible and from American history. Okay, David, another question. 

Speaker [00:13:06] Jesus didn't seem to spend much time talking about government or politics in his time. So what about my pastor? 

Rick Green [00:13:14] Well did Jesus talk about politics? In fact I think he talked two politics, maybe even called some politicians. 

David Barton [00:13:19] He called some folks out and he called Herod out, he called the civil leaders out, he addressed them specifically on several of their policies. And in addition to that, I guess the answer to this question is what constitutes politics? Does policy constitute politics? Because Jesus sure talks about policy. And by the way, who defines what politics is? Now, we talk about marriage. Is that a political issue or is that a biblical issue? Well, as it's become a political issue, 20 years ago it was only a biblical issue. It was not a political issue. 

Rick Green [00:13:47] And if it becomes a political issue, is it no longer a take it away from the. 

David Barton [00:13:51] Abortion, the acknowledgement of God, all these things that have become political issues, they were biblical issues long before. So are we saying that every time the government says, oh, that's our issue, we suddenly can't talk about it if the Bible talks about it? 

Rick Green [00:14:02] Yeah, just because it's controversial, does that now take it off the world? 

David Barton [00:14:04] That's right. 

Rick Green [00:14:05] No longer can it be addressed? 

David Barton [00:14:06] What we have to do is say, okay, if it's in here, I'm going to talk about it. Oh, by the way, in Matthew 20, Jesus dealing with the inviability of contracts between employers and employees. Wait, that's labor relation stuff. Yeah. That's politics. We don't talk about that. Jesus talked about it. Why shouldn't we talk about it? You have in Luke 19, Jesus talking about no fault divorce. He says, look, Moses allowed divorce for the hardness of your heart, no fault divorce, you can put away your wife for any cause. He says, from the beginning, it was not so. He made the man and woman and said, don't divide. So no fault divorce, that's a big political issue. We got probably two dozen states today trying to do something to reform divorce, make the waiting period longer, get away from no fault divorce, cause it caused divorce, whatever it is, have covenant marriage. That's political stuff. 

Rick Green [00:14:52] Well, let me ask a different way then. If Jesus spoke to it and pastors should speak to it, I know our topic today is pastors, but for me as a voter then, should I not be voting based on that biblical view of each of those issues? Not just abortion and marriage, but also taxes. I mean there's a biblical view on all 

David Barton [00:15:07] There is. Now, God does create a prioritization of issues. He gives us his top ten in the Ten Commandments. This is a tenor of my teaching. So we do have to look the four things that appear in the Ten Commandments. You have the public acknowledgement of God. You have the protection of innocent life, abortion, you have the protection of the preservation of marriage as he created it. 

Rick Green [00:15:24] It's obvious biblical, . 

David Barton [00:15:27] Biblical position on marriage. You have the protection of private property in the eighth and the tenth commandments. Beyond that, there's all sorts of guidance on taxes, there's all sorts of guidance on labor relations employees, there's all sorts of guidance on and and divorce would relate to the marriage thing. 

Rick Green [00:15:40] My personal responsibility to read and study and do those things. But if if my pastor's not speaking to those things, most citizens are not going to know. 

David Barton [00:15:47] The pastor should be expounding the application of the Word of God on every aspect of life. And this is one of the problems we have in America today is on any given Sunday, about 60% of the nation is in church. 67% of the nation thinks the church is irrelevant today. Now that means the people who are going to church think it's irrelevant. And quite frankly, I agree with them in many areas. I am a Christian. If I hear a salvation message 52 weeks out of every year, what do I get for Monday morning? I I'm already a believer. I mean, I need something I can go out on Monday morning and apply when I go to work, when I go to school, when what when I go to my family. What what do I take and apply? I need something practical. Some discipleship, some display application to the things that are gonna happen. We have made the word of God irrelevant by talking about one or two or three things and nothing else. And if you go back and look at what Jesus taught, you bet he talked about eternal life. He talked about repentance, but he also talked about a ton of what we would call public policies. And we need to say, hey, I'm gonna follow the model of Jesus. I'm gonna talk about all these things. So Jesus told Peter, feed my sheep. Well, the sheep, not not the ones who are outside the fold, feed the sheep. And that's what pastors need to take responsibility to do. 

David Barton [00:18:04] Jesus in the Great Commission says all the world is given me in heaven and earth, so go and teach and he says, Teach them everything I have taught you. Now that includes evangelism, but it's everything I have taught you. 

Rick Green [00:18:20] Now you just listed off a lot of things. What a difference the the pulpit would have on our nation if we were teaching them things. 

David Barton [00:18:22] That's exactly right. And we need to change our paradigm as the church, as pastors, as people who sit in the pews and say, wait a minute, we can't let the government take these things off the table just because it wants them. If they are in the Bible, I'm going to talk about them. They're not political if they're in the Bible. They're even though they're policy issues, they're not political, they're biblical. And that's a big difference. We need to talk about what's biblical and not let the government tell us what we can't talk about, which by the way leads to another thing. There's a great website, the Speak Up Movement. And what you find is the government and secularists have really intimidated the church into thinking there's certain things they can't talk about. That is not true. Even though they say, Oh, you lose your IRS Act exemption, go to Speak Up Movement, look at the website. Government can't take your exemption away. That exemption came from the Constitution, not from the government. All the government does is give you a letter recognizing that you're tax exempt. You lose the letter, you don't lose your 

Rick Green [00:19:11] You're hitting on a big issue right here, David, because a lot I think a lot of pastors, if they were listening to the things we just talked about, might say, Well, I'm afraid to talk about that because I might lose that tax exemption. Speak say the website again. 

David Barton [00:19:19] Speak Up Movement. 

Rick Green [00:19:20] So speakupmovement.org. They can go there. Okay, they can go there and learn about what they're trying to stand or not supposedly not supposed to say, but with the law's

David Barton [00:19:27] And by the way, we've been pushing the IRS on this to prove, because see the IRS, this this policy is about 50 years old. There was never, 350 years there was no limit on what the pulpit said. And in about 1954, Lyndon Baines Johnson passed an amendment that says, oh, you know, we can't do this. 501 C3, she keep the mouth shut on certain issues. That has never been challenged in court. It was not even a policy debated in Congress. They added it as an amendment writer to a bill that went through without debate. 

Rick Green [00:19:51] It's like sneaking it in in the dead of night because we're paying attention. 

David Barton [00:19:53] And so it's now become a national policy. We've never had a debate on it and we've never litigated it. Now if you take this and go into court, you're saying, no wait a minute, you're saying that pastor loses his right to free speech? You're saying that pastor loses his right to association to choose who he wants to associate with and talk about that association, whether it be political entities or anything else. You're saying that he loses his free exercise of religion. He believes with all of his conscience that abortion's wrong but he can't talk of that because it well consequently power Congress to censor what a pastor can say then. So what happens is there's really four constitutional grounds and protect a pastor on whatever he says in the pulpit. So with that this this group Alliance Defense Fund, speak up movement, has developed lawsuits that they're willing to take at the IRS but they can only take them at the IRS if they can get the IRS to come after a church. So what they've been doing for the last several years is getting pastors to clearly cross the IRS line and talk about political issues in the pulpit. Which are truly just biblical issues but they're pol and by the way they even call candidates names and political names from the pulpit because if I say you know I look at the president he's the most pro-abortion president we've ever had in history he's enacted over 41 proaboration policies is that politics or is that just reporting the truth? So all these guys have been going in they even said look you cannot vote for certain candidates because they are pro-abortion. You as a Christian cannot support the shedding of innocent blood and if you vote for that candidate you're wrong they're calling candidates by name we take those and we turn them into the IRS say oh IRS you got to come after this preacher. He crossed the line he could and we know they crossed the line. We're encouraging them to cross the line because we want the IRS to come years now IRS refuses to go after any of those guys. Now why would they do that? Because there's 3700 churches in America if they come after those guys we hit them with that lawsuit and we win the lawsuit then 3700 churches know that there's no limitation on what you say. So they would rather let 200 churches cross the line and not get in trouble than lose control of 3700 churches. 

Rick Green [00:21:42] This is huge, David. You so these pastors spoke from the pulpit on an issue as controversial as abortion,. 

David Barton [00:21:47] or marriage or all sorts of other issues in the Bible. 

Rick Green [00:21:48]  named candidates and the their positions on these 

David Barton [00:21:53] And let me let me say also, there's pastors speaking of the pulpit and things I disagree with, but that doesn't matter. 

Rick Green [00:21:57] But they have the freedom. 

David Barton [00:21:58] They have the freedom. There there's some guys coming out, all sorts of the Bible's against any war, anywhere at any point in time. I'm against the war on terror, I'm against President Bush when he did the war on terror, I'm against President Bro. They've got the right to do that from the pulpit. The government has no right to go into the pulpit and tell you what you can or can't them in that. Because you've got the right of free speech. You know, they don't limit anybody, they don't limit unions from saying what they want, they don't limit teachers from saying they what they want, they don't limit political parties from saying what why would preachers be the only one they would limit? 

Rick Green [00:22:28] Well it sounds like the IRS hasn't gone out. 

David Barton [00:22:32] These pastors have gone through legal training and they have deliberately crossed the line saying please come after me because I need to file a lawsuit. 

Rick Green [00:22:37] The IRS line, not the constitutional line, the IR line. 

David Barton [00:22:39] . Or the biblical line. Haven't crossed the biblical line with the constitutional line. They crossed the IRS line and. 

Rick Green [00:22:44] Which is really a paper tiger, it sounds like. 

David Barton [00:22:46] That's all point. It's a paper tiger. And that's why I recommend going to SpeakUp Movement, speakupmovement.org, Alliance Defense Fund, one of the premier constitutional groups in the United States. They defend pastors for free. We're finding out that you know what? There is no limitation. 

Rick Green [00:22:59] David, that's a wealth of information, not just for pastors, but for those of us in the pews as well. Let's get another question from the audience. 

Speaker [00:23:05] My church is full of different political views, but we're all united by faith in Christ. Should I be concerned that introducing politics into the pulpit will breed disunity in the church? 

Rick Green [00:23:14] Well here we go. Small or large church, they're all gonna be a diverse population in that church.

David Barton [00:23:19] The bigger question is who cares about unity? What you want is biblical foundations. Because Jesus said, you know, when I come, it's gonna I'm gonna be bringing a sword, I'm gonna divide a family, there's gonna be two against one, one against two. Because when you start holding up a standard of truth, there's people who don't want to embrace the truth. So your objective should not be church unity. Your objective should be to declare the word of God. That will wean things out. You may recall the disciples came to Jesus in Matthew 15. They said, Jesus, the stuff you just taught, don't you realize the Pharisees were offended over that? He said, Look, it's the truth. They're either going to get it now or they're gonna have to get it at the judgment. But I'm not gonna stop speaking the truth. So we when you go from that standpoint and you go, for example, to 1 Timothy 1 verses 8 through 10, where it says the purpose of law is to I mean Paul makes it real clear. He says the law is goods of used as it should be used, knowing this, the law is not made for righteous person, but for the lawless and wicked, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane. The law is made to regulate murderers and manslayers, murders of mothers, murders of fathers, fornicators, homosexuals, kidnappers, liars, perjurers, and all this other stuff. So if I come out in a position that says, wait a minute, the Bible says the law is made to regulate sexually immoral, whether it's homosexual or whatever, and so we need to have laws that they say this is which we had up until just a few years ago when the Supreme Court said, Oh, all those laws have to go away because we disagree with them. I don't care what the Supreme Court says. God's made it really clear what is right and wrong in the scripture. Even if your congregation is split on that issue, there's still a duty to preach what the truth is. 

David Barton [00:24:42] If I this is where Jeremiah called the pastors back then a bunch of dumb dogs, and that that is dumb, meaning they keep their mouth shut. They don't bark. They should bark. They should bark when they see danger approaching, but they were dumb dogs. They wouldn't bark at the danger. Well, if you go over to Revelation 21, 8 and 22 15, you find that there's another list of things that God says this is not to be tolerated in society. That's what formed the basis of the common law, which is the seventh amendment of the Constitution. This is still common law today, but suddenly we think we shouldn't talk about it because it's divisive. It's more important to get people to think biblically than it is to give them to have unity on a false basis. You need to have unity based around the continuity of what God says and God's word. And if people can't handle that, you don't compromise your message just because they don't like what God said. 

Rick Green [00:25:24] And not only to think biblically, but act biblically, like you said earlier in the program. We need that application. 

David Barton [00:25:28] That's right. 

Rick Green [00:25:29] On Sunday to be able to go out on the city. That's exactly it. 

David Barton [00:25:32] We need to get back to using this as the basis of building our lives, our churches, and our culture. Everywhere we go, everything we do. If it's in this, it's not off limits to talk about in the pulpit. If it's in this, it's not off limits for living in society. If it's in this, This is what has made America successful. You don't limit it just because somebody said the government says, oh, that's political stuff in there. You can't talk about that. No, no, no. What we want to do is Romans 12, 1 and 2, and the King James is it be not conformed to this world, be transformed by the reader of your mind. I love in the Phillips translation. It says, don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold. We've got to stop letting the government or secular people or critics within the church squeeze us into their mold. We need to go back and say, hey, this is the guidebook. This is the mold. This is the plan I'm going to follow. It was pastors who made America. It was pastors who kept America great. And it's only pastors who are going to keep America going the right direction. 

Rick Green [00:26:23] Thanks for listening today folks, many of you have the DVD set of the American Heritage Series. You can get the sequel, which is building on the American Heritage Series, a lot of new material, some fantastic programs you wanna you wanna have in your library. You can get it at our website today at wallbuilders.com.