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Jul 8, 2024 · 49 minutes

Guest Host, Alex McFarland, is joined by Bilingual Apologist & Writer with Reasons for Hope, Dr. Juan Valdes and Nationally known speaker and best-selling author, William J. Federer

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Guest Host, Alex McFarland, is joined by Bilingual Apologist & Writer with Reasons for Hope, Dr. Juan Valdes and Nationally known speaker and best-selling author, William J. Federer

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7,797 words, in two-minute parts. Made by machine, so a few words may be off.

0:0048:54

  1. 0:00

    Darkness is not an affirmative force. It simply reoccupies the space vacated by the light. This is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio. It should be uncomfortable for a believer to live as a hypocrite. Delivery people out of the bondage of mainstream media. And the philosophies of this world. God has called you and me to be his ambassador. Even in this dark moment. Let's not miss our moment. and now the Hamilton Corner. I witnessed something this week that I think would inspire you. Hi, Alex McFarland here, and welcome to the program. We have a great show. We have later on in the program Bill Federer. And trust you had a great 4th of July. I trust like myself. You're praying for this nation and thanking God for all that we have in America. And later on in the program, a claimed historian, prolific author Bill Federer will be on. and we'll talk about some of what's going on in the news. But first, we have from Reasons for Hope, Dr. Juan Valdez. And before I queue up Dr. Juan Valdez, I want to share an illustration that relates to his most recent book. We were just in Indiana. We're doing seven summer camps this summer. And five of those are with Reasons for Hope, our dear friends Carl Kirby, Frank Figueroa, Dave Glander. And we were in Indiana in front of, I don't know, 120 teens. And I was speaking, and I asked the kids, I said, why do you think Christianity is true? And, you know, they were talking about the empty tomb and Jesus fulfilled prophecy, that's wonderful. Great answers. And one young man raised his hand, he was a middle schooler. He said, well, Christianity just makes sense. I mean, it's got facts to back it up, but we send, Jesus paid for our sins, we trust Jesus, we're forgiven.

  2. 2:02

    You know, it just makes sense. And I committed him and we talked with all the students about this. And you know Christianity is the faith system where the biblical God says in Isaiah 1, 18, come now, let us reason. So many like Eastern philosophies urge the practitioners to really don't think. Turn off your mind. And yet Christianity, as C.S. Lewis so eloquently said, is a factual faith. It's backed up its claims with historical, verifiable events. And as I quoted Isaiah 1, 18, the Bible says, or God gives this invitation to the human race, come, let us reason together. Well, somebody who is helping people everywhere reason meticulously and think critically and logically. His name is Dr. Juan Valdez. I've known him for a long time. He's a great speaker, Christian leader, professor, and he is the author of a book on logic. We'll talk about what that is and why Christians of all people should endeavor to think reasonably, logically. But he's with us now, Dr. Juan Valdez. Welcome to the American Family Radio Network. Thank you for making some time for us. Hey, I'm so blessed to be with you guys today, man. Thank you so much for the invitation, Alex, and for your kind words. I love what you're doing, what your ministry is doing. I love what AFR is doing. I think it's a great time to be a Christian. I think women in Rhodes, the darker it gets in this world, the brighter light shines. And so I think we're doing something right. Because we've got a good example. And we're reaching this next generation, like more than we've ever had, so we're excited. Well, us as well, and it is a great time to be a Christian, isn't it? I mean, I know there's a lot of bad news, and there are many things in the world that are deeply concerning, and our religious freedom, and freedom of expression can be at risk.

  3. 4:09

    But don't you think if like the Apostle Paul were here, or some of the great thinkers of the early church, I think they would love to minister in a season like the one you and I are in. Would you agree? I totally agree, absolutely, to have access, and especially in a country like ours, to be able to go everywhere and speak about Christ and do so boldly. We gotta take advantage of that. We don't know how long we'll be able to do that, but as long as we can, man, we have to take advantage of every minute and every opportunity we have. Give us a little background how God brought you to where you are in your journey and your ministry. And honestly, I really don't know anybody who does as well as you do with teaching Christians the first principles of logic. How did you find yourself in this lane, Dr. Valdez? Well, yeah, I taught Alex. first of all i i found myself uh... needing to be in this lane because i had to teenage kids uh... and i was worried about them i was worried about their uh... how this world was going to influence them how our secular society was going to try to you know to just brainwash them uh... and i wanted to teach them how to be thinkers idea i didn't want anybody to tell them what to think i wanted them to be able to take anything that they were that they were from front of the list and be able to think through it logically, rationally, evaluate the idea. And that's the very definition of critical thinking. Critical thinking is defined as the pursuit of truth, using all of our faculties to determine what is true and what is not true. And man, if there is something, Alex, that our young people need today, and our adults do as well, is critical thinking, just the ability to take a proposition, take an announcement, take a commercial, take a news you know uh... uh... uh... uh... a new cast and say okay let me let me think critically about this let me try to figure out if this is true or not because we are being lied to left and right in every in every dimension in every aspect of our lives so we need to be able to think clearly and think for ourselves and then at a high school teacher uh... at a christian school i wanted to prepare my kids my seniors to if to you know hit that that secular university mama i live in miami florida we don't have any christian colleges in miami florida and so i know that all of them a majority of my graduates were going to go to you know secular university and their faith was going to be challenged and over the years i just kept hearing back from them over and over again at confirming the fact that their faith was being challenged my job was to equip them so that they could stand it with the storm uh... and stand firmly on the rock their ideological house built on that on the rock, not on the sand.

  4. 7:04

    Amen. You wrote the book How to Think, which the title itself might take people by surprise, because just because we wake up in the morning, we wake up and we, I think, take it for granted that our mind is working, but even as a born-again Christian, in whom the Spirit of God wills really Consistently thinking reasonably logically carefully That it's not automatic. We have to really cultivate that don't we? Well, absolutely absolutely we need to train ourselves on how to do it We have all the skills we have the ability I should say to think critically what we lack is training and skills So, by the way, the book, how to think a crash course in critical thinking. What is critical thinking? Is it like being a critic analyzing things or what do you mean by that subtitle, a crash course in critical thinking? Sometimes people hear the word critical and they think about just being judgmental and negative and somebody that's not fun to be around and that's That's not the meaning at all. When we talk about critical thinking logic, we're talking about, again, using all of our faculties to determine whether something is true or not. That's the simplest definition of critical thinking. To be able to hear something and not just buy it, not just accept it or not just reject it, but rather stop, think about it, use the skills that we acquire and apply them to whatever the proposition is to determine whether it's true or not. Dr. Valdez, what is a fallacy? What does that mean to be fallacious or to maybe in speaking or thinking to have a wrong conclusion based on following victim to a fallacy?

  5. 9:10

    First of all, what is a fallacy? A fallacy is simply defined as an error in reasoning when we reason wrong and there are so many fallacies because there are so many ways that we have figured out how to reason wrong but it's actually kind of funny. Yeah, and some of the most popular ones I think a lot of people are aware of like in that homonym fallacy where somebody is just, you're discussing, you're dialoguing, you're talking about something and when you give a good reason and a person cannot respond, then they change the subject and you start calling your names. And so they're abusing you, changing the subject, attacking you instead of the argument. And that's an error in argumentation and logic. So well let me throw one out here. Dr. Valdez, there's a church that brought my wife and I in to consult for them a little bit. They had a church split, they're trying to build back, and the church split was over morality, gender, homosexuality. And so I met with their core leaders, and they're in general that they lean biblical. But I could tell around the table were some that felt like, you know, standing up for traditional marriage was hateful and judgmental. And so they were asking me, they said, you know, have times changed. What about homosexuality, gay marriage, transgenderism? And I said, well, you know, the human biology and the Bible say what it says. And somebody from the roundtable quickly said, well, I guess to, you know, to hear conservatives tell it, somehow we just hate these people. Now, what fallacy is that? And because I'm thinking, no, we don't hate anybody. We love people, but we love people enough to tell the truth. But let's just say you're giving what God's word really does say, and you're doing it respectfully, and somebody replies, well, I guess you think we have a license to hate somebody. Are there one or more fallacies present in that retort?

  6. 11:32

    There's probably a couple, but the most blatant is a non-sequitur, which means the conclusion you reach does not follow from the argument that has been made. We're telling you that the Word of God says that this is wrong, and we're telling you that biology says this is wrong, and you're telling me that that gives me a license to hate. Where did you get that from? That doesn't follow. It's like, you conclusions have to follow from the arguments being made. So what is a premises? We say we've got a premise, then another premise, then a conclusion. So what are the nuts and bolts of a line of reasoning or a syllogism? Right. Well, we call that a simple syllogism where you have two arguments that support a conclusion. Alex, everybody has a conclusions, a dime a dozen. You know, conclusions are what we think about things. It's what we think about anything. But it's much harder to put legs on it, to give it support, to come up with the reasons of how we reach that conclusion. That's what the premises do. That's what the premises do. And going back to a very classic, you know, a Greek argument that says, you know, all men our mortal and Socrates is a man. Therefore Socrates is mortal. So it's easy to say, hey, Socrates is mortal. But how do I prove that? So as a husband, as a husband, we do this. You tell me if I'm being valid here. We have one doughnut left. If I eat the last doughnut, my wife will be angry with me. Therefore, I better have a bowl of cereal. Is that valid? That's fallacious in about four different levels. But it works.

  7. 13:32

    It works. Hey, folks. If you jump into a serial, leave with the donut. Don't eat the last donut, husbands. Hey, we're talking with Dr. Juan Valdez. He is the author of How to Think, a Crash Course in Critical Thinking. And he teaches people how to think, myself included, how to think carefully and biblically. We've got a break. So before we take that break, I want to hear your website. One or more websites where we're made people find you online. One of our more popular websites is GetDebunked.org. That's GetDebunked.org. Man, you'll find all of our latest three to five minute powerful videos, debunking common misconceptions. Our latest one is up. It's called, Hell in a Bad Play to Be, Debunked. Because you hear me when you're evangelizing and say, hey, you know, I'm gonna have fun with my friends in hell You guys can go to heaven and play harps all day, you know And we debunked that whole notion and we have 26 of those on there that people can walk down low chair Powerful powerful videos Stay tuned folks. This is the American Family Radio Network Alex McFarland with Dr. Juan Valdez sitting in for attorney Pastor journalist Abe Hamilton the third This show will be archived at aFR.net. You can listen again, but stay tuned. We've got more with Juan Valdez. Don't go away. You've heard a lot about saving babies on this show. That's because it's important to me personally. And let me just be frank with you. We need to save them. That's why we've partnered with Preborn, the nation's leader, in introducing mothers with unplanned pregnancies to their babies. And once she hears that heartbeat and sees that precious life growing inside of her, she is twice as likely to choose life. Now that's a miracle. But quite honestly, if we don't save them, who will? Preborn receives no government funding, so their work is completely dependent on us. Preborn has rescued over 280,000 babies, and that's not all.

  8. 15:36

    They provide love, support, and counseling for up to two years for free, saving lives and souls. One ultrasound is just $28, or $140 helps to rescue five babies' lives. Abortion doesn't stop, so we can't. Together, you and I can save lives. Just dial pound 250 on your cell and say the keyword baby. That's 250 baby. Or go to preborn.com. That's preborn.com. Christ and make him known. We're talking with somebody who's given his life to that endeavor. Dr. Juan Valdez, he's been a colleague and friend for many, many years. His book, How to Think, a Crash Course in Critical Thinking. It was my honor and I mean this with utmost sincerity to write the forward for that book. And, you know, I've written endorsements and I've been asked to write for books and some I've accepted many I've turned down. This one I really read every word in the book. I prayed over it. I'm so committed to Dr. Valdez's message because of all people, believers need to think and think well. First of all, welcome back to the program, Dr. Valdez. But critical thinking, would it be fair to say this is the stewardship of the mind? Something, no matter who you are, no matter what intellectual depth you think you may or may not have, folks, all of us really are to be stewards of the mind God has given us, aren't we? Amen, amen, amen. That's exactly right.

  9. 17:38

    And so before the break we were talking about some fallacies and you mentioned non sequitur like Would that be like Latin for not not sequential in other words that doesn't follow at all? Exactly what it means? Yeah, so does not follow the sequence So what do you say like? And I get this a lot dr. Valdez Christians when we talk about politics and you know I'm on the road preaching like literally every Sunday I'm in a church somewhere or a conference and I'll say, you know, pray for America and pray and vote godly. People come up to me very often pastors and they'll say, oh well I didn't get the memo, my home is in heaven, not earth. Come on Alex, you're supposed to be making disciples. Why are you trying to save the world when our job is to get people into heaven. Now, help me out because I suspect there's a mistake in the reasoning there. It's almost like, either you're making disciples or you're trying to build a tower of Babel here on earth. Can't we do both ends instead of either or? That's correct. It's the policy of bifurcation. It's the technical name for it. All it is, is that you're presenting two options as if there were mutually exclusive options. When there is a third option, the third option is that maybe both of those are both equally valid or maybe there's a third option that is not included in those two that were mentioned. But I think the word of God is clear. We are to be light of the world and salt of the earth. We're not to be light of heaven and salt of heaven. Yeah, we're gonna send people there. God's gonna save them. We're gonna preach to them, but we live here. And Jesus, I think the John 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, where Jesus, those chapters are Jesus is just saying goodbye to his disciples and getting them ready, he's leading, are so powerful that way.

  10. 19:43

    Because all he says to them throughout that whole is, look, you're in the world, you're not open, I'm praying to God that you won't be contaminated by this world, but go out there, go make disciples, go preach to them, teach them, help them. And that's what we need to do. And part of what we do when we make disciples is showing people how to be good citizens from a god be perspectives. How to honor God with our voting, how to honor God with our politics, our economics, our bank accounts, our investments. We live in a world and everything we do, we should do for the glory of God, as Paul said to the Corinthians. And part of this cycling is showing people how to do that, what that looks like. You know, Juan, I believe the Christian faith is a very well reasoned faith. It's like in 2 Peter 1, 16, where Peter wrote, we have not followed cleverly devised fables. In other words, the gospel is true, backed up by eyewitness evidence, empirical evidence, Jewish, Greek, and Roman sources. So here's my question. How did it come to be though, when Christianity is very reasonable and very factual? And there is the historical nature of Jesus, But how did it come to be that the lost world thinks that we just have blind faith? You know, it's like oh, I don't believe faith. I believe in science as if Christians, you know, just Pull doctrines out of thin air. How did we get to that point in your opinion? I Think we it was a slow transition, but I think we we have become a post-truth world and in a post-truth world, you know Christianity is seen as nothing more than a flavor of ice cream. You choose your flavor, I choose mine, you want to be a Christian fine. You think that's a God good for me, God doesn't exist. We've changed the way people think about Christianity, about religion. And when they call it a blind faith, it's because the narrative, today's narrative is that the only way to acquire knowledge is to the science, which is a fallacy.

  11. 21:52

    It's not true. That is simply not true. that that that is a religion. It's called scientism. It's the idea that you know the only the only worship we have is for science. Right. And by the way science doesn't say anything, discover anything, do anything scientists do. And scientists have opinions and they have world views and they have way of seeing things. And by the way, every school of modern science was founded by a believer. So don't tell me you can't have you have to choose one or the other. No you don't. You can be both. So what is your best, most concise response if somebody says, well, I get it, Dr. Valdez, you're a Christian, but I believe in science. How do you respond? Yeah, my first question is how did you come to that conclusion? Okay. What leads you to believe in science? Science tells you that you are a collocation of atoms, that there's no rhyme or reason, you're not meant to be, no purpose, you're an accident that happens, that probably will never have happened, except it did. Why do you even trust your intuition? Why do you trust your mind? Why do you trust? I mean, we can go down that road, or we can go down the road of faith being blind. Who really has blind faith? Because when I believe God's promises is because there's thousands of years of history showing me that every time he promises something, he's done it. That's not blind faith. That's trust that's built on a track record, a perfect track record. Everything God prophesied, everything he promised, everything he said he would do, he's done. So whatever is left to be finished or done, I have utmost confidence that he's going to do it. And it's not blind faith. Now, whatever it is, do we have that there are aliens? We have none. But nevertheless, Nevertheless, aliens probably see the life on this earth. That's what science says.

  12. 23:52

    So who's got the blind face? You're believing something that you have absolutely no evidence for. It could mean people play word games, but they don't stop to think about what's really behind their conclusions and their arguments. You know, in all of my travels and by God's grace, I'm in front of teenagers almost every weekend of the year. And I have found people of all ages, but especially young people, when you lay out the facts of Christianity and the evidence, which would include reasonable conclusions and even the mind, oh my goodness, even if life did evolve out of a primordial soup, which I don't believe, but even if it did, I mean, physicalism has no explanation for the origin of consciousness. That's correct. mind-body problem. But Dr. Valdez, I've found that young people, elementary, middle school high schoolers, they receive this apologetics like somebody on a hot day that's thirsty, receives cool water. I mean, I believe people really, really, eagerly embrace teaching like what you and I do. And I think that's an encouragement to churches everywhere, parents, and especially churches to really teach critical thinking skills. Because people are hungry for it, wouldn't you agree? Absolutely. They're hungry for it and they desperately need it. They're in a battle and without apologetics, their hands are tied and they're blindfolded. It's kind of hard to fight that way. But when you give them reasons for the hope that lies within, and you show them how to use those reasons and how to use God's Word and how to defend what they believe because they are defending the truth, you're giving them the tools they need to be able to defend themselves. They no longer feel like they have nothing to say and they're not going to feel abused because they now have a response that makes a thousand percent more sense than the attack you're giving me and the argument you're making.

  13. 25:59

    You know, we're almost out of time for this segment, but the website you mentioned, Debunked.org. Folks, these videos are so well. I'm sorry, get debunked. So the premise of these, they're these common assumptions, like the Bible has errors or something, and you debunk those accusations and get debunked.org. And then RFORH, R4H as in reasons for hope.com. I know you're on staff with reasons for hope. What else about that ministry briefly if you would? That's an apologetics ministry. We're going after this generation with everything we've got. We've got equip camps all over the country. On the summer camps for kids, we have events at schools, universities, we have events at churches, conventions, youth conferences, pastors. We use every venue we can to teach people how to share the gospel, how to win people to Christ, to respond to the attacks of your face, how to be confident in your face, so forth and so on. That's what we do. And we're going after the tough question. Every debunk answers a tough question. And we debunk it. So you think Lucy's the real deal? Let's think about it. Let's debunk that. It's all consensual sex, okay with God. Let's debunk that. We have, I mean, just every attack that, or all of the major attacks, we have a debunk for or we're working on one if someone wanted to invite you to their city or to an event where could people find you and extend an invitation to you dr. Valdez at the reasons for what website are for age dot com r f o r h dot com they could request the speaker they could order my book if you're interested in getting the book on how to think which i think every teenager in the world needs to read but that's the place to get it and you can I can be reached through there as well?

  14. 28:01

    Well, the book again, How to Think and thanks for being with us today because you have made us think. So thank you Dr. Juan Valdez and this is the American Family Radio Network. Thank you. Alex McFarland here, by the way, my website is AlexMcFarland.com and we're going to change gears here folks. I mentioned earlier, I hope you had a great 4th of July, great 4th of July weekend and we're We're going to bring up a friend who, when I think about America and how much we have to be thankful for, my goodness, Bill Federer, like nobody I know, he has educated masses of people on the true history of America. And he's with us now, Dr. Bill Federer. Thank you for holding and welcome to the American Family Radio Network. Hey, Alex, great to be with you. Hey, you know what, in honor of having Bill Federer on, I looked, I thought, I've got get a trivia question or something. So you may know this, but July 8, 1800, do you know something very significant? And I hope I have my history right because folks, you don't want to get your history wrong in a conversation with Bill Federer. What happened July 8, 1800? Do you know Bill? Let's see. In our nation's case. We would be. Yeah. Lots of things, but yeah, there's a, you know, that's when they had the first cowpox vaccination. Really? That you had the British East India government, established their Fort William College to promote or do Hindi and other vernacular controls in the subcontinent? What do you have in mind? I don't mean to put you on the spot. I was looking through some books, getting ready for our conversation today.

  15. 30:02

    And I think that on this date in 1800, Washington DC was made our nation's capital, July 8, 18, okay, at least I've got that in a book. But anyway, I don't mean to put you on the spot. But what is your latest book? They bought the land from a Catholic who was Daniel Carroll, who was the cousin of Charles Carroll that signed the Declaration of Independence. And Washington picked the spot. It was surveyed by Benjamin Benaker, who was a black astronomer. He was a Quaker and they actually had the school in Washington, DC named Benjamin Benaker School. He produced an Almanac like Ben Franklin had his poor Richard Almanac. Well, this was Benjamin Benaker's Almanac and yeah, it definitely was a key part of our history. You know, we just got back just a couple of days ago from Indiana, our third of seven youth camps this summer, and you know, the Hoosiers, I was looking up what that meant. And again, more Christian residue on our history that one of the, in the colonial era, one of the great evangelists was Harry Hoosier, a black evangelist pastor that multiple people said he was the greatest orator in America. And Bill, I read that so many, he evangelized so many people that settled on the Indiana side of the Ohio River that Harry Hoosier's converts that settled in what we now know as Indiana were called Hoosier's. Had you heard that anecdote? Oh, yeah. I wrote about him in my book, Miraculous Milestones, Volume Two.

  16. 32:06

    And so he was a key preacher. He traveled. He was assistant to Francis Asbury. Right. Asbury was the bishop that broke the Methodist church away from the Anglican Church. And Harry Hoosier was traveled with him. And Harry Hoosier was illiterate. And yet he listened to Francis Asbury's sermons and memorized them. And Francis asbury would read the bible out loud as they were riding on their horses that uh... going from town to town and and uh... perry hosher would memorize both entire passages and he was people would rather hear perry hosher preach then uh... frances asbury and uh... benjamin right was to this day we've got a break uh... we we talk about hoshers in indianic Alex McFarland here with our guest, William J. Federer. Stay tuned. We're back after this brief break. Hamilton Quarter Podcast and One-Minute Common Terrets are available at eFR.net. Back to the Hamilton Quarter on American Family Radio. Welcome back to the program. Alex McFarland here, sitting in for attorney, pastor, and journalist Abe Hamilton III. We're talking with William J. Federer, Bill Federer, prolific author. By the way, folks, let me encourage you to look at my the most current iteration of my own website if you would. And here's a URL I want to give everybody, AlexMcFarlane.com, slash Vote. AlexMcFarlane.com slash Vote. I and my staff have written several articles on what you should think about if you're a first time voter. Or maybe you haven't voted in a long time and maybe you think, you know, what's the use? Well, there is a reason, and I do think our vote is a stewardship issue.

  17. 34:08

    So check out my website if you would, spread the word. There's a downloadable church bulletin, a PDF, very well designed if you want to put that in with a QR code, and really encourage those around you, please pray for our nation, be informed, equipped, plan to vote, and I would urge you, urge others to do the same. influencing countless masses of people for God and country, just I really don't know a scholar for whom I have more respect and appreciation than Bill Federer. And Bill, I want you to give your website and give us the title of your latest book if you would. Well, thank you, Alex. The website is AmericanMinute.com AmericanMinute.com and the book that you had mentioned, Harry Hoosier, is called miracles in American history volume two and it was in December 24th of 1784 that Francis has very split the Methodist Church away from the Anglican Church and Harry Hoosier was present at that meeting the very founding of it and so was Richard Allen and so that's when you have the African Methodist Episcopal Church getting started but the the area was correct and Harry Hoosier preached to crowds in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Boston, and Cag, at Philadelphia, Delaware, Baltimore, New York. He was just a powerful preacher. You had people like Benjamin Rush, who was one of the signers of the Declaration, saying that he was the best preacher in the world. And so anyway, but another, my latest book is called Silence Equals Consent, The Cinnabo Mission. And it wrestles with this. I did a two hour special with George Barnum, who does polling. And one of the things that he pointed out was the areas with the highest percentage of Christians have the lowest voter turnout. It's like, say that again. The highest percentage of Christians has the lowest voter turnout.

  18. 36:10

    Yeah, they bought into that it's wholly not to be involved. I mean, they've reached this level of spirituality where they literally don't care what kind of country we're leaving our children. And I go through where that idea came from. And it's important because of what we're facing today. I go through the 1600s, the Calvinist Puritans founded New England, followed by the Baptist founding Rhode Island and the Congregationalist following, founding New Hampshire. And they had a covenant form of the church government that traces its way all the way back to the first 400 years of Israel being out of Egypt, where they had millions of people in No King and everybody's taught the law and the council's gotten to follow it. That's why they taught Hebrew of Yale and Harvard. but after a century, it got a little dry and it became academic. And some even took it the next step and says, well, God in his infinite wisdom already knows who's gonna be in heaven. So don't even bother preaching the gospel. And they became unavangelistic. And so in the 1700s, you had the new lights. The Puritans are now called old lights, but the new light said it's more than a plan, even if it's a good plan, you have to have an experience with Jesus. And when you do your life will change and you won't do worldly things anymore, like go to bars and brothels and get involved in government. Like what was that last name? Yeah, government, it's worldly. If you're really a Christian, you're not gonna be involved in government. Well, do you get a difference? And the Puritans and the Baptists and the Presbyterians had founded New England. They said that everybody's involved in church and everybody's involved in government. It's a covenant form of government based on ancient Israel that first 400 years out of Egypt. But the new lights said don't get involved because it's worldly and it turned in started in germany and it was this to kingdom concept the kingdom of the government the kingdom of the church the two don't touch and more centuries of that teaching in germany a lot hitler to put jews on train cars and i go right past the church crime for help and the church is responsible that the government doing that and where the church we can't get all the government stuff is where holy bill and away from wrong with that picture is this in a way what happened after the scopes trial in nineteen twenty five in Dayton, Tennessee. I remember when I was in seminary, I read a book by Francis Schaeffer called The Great Evangelical Disaster, where he talked about how to a large degree after the Scopes trial, many Christians, not all, but many said, look, we're going to pull away from the public square. We're going to pull away from the sphere of government or school boards or city council, and we'll be over here because we are the church and we won't sully ourselves with the world. But really, 50, 60, 70 years of that has opened the door for the lawlessness and the darkness we see all around us. But what happened in Germany is what has happened here? Is it related analogous to it? Would you say Bill?

  19. 39:06

    Yeah. So you had Martin Luther starts the Reformation in 1517 because he had a personal experience with Jesus. So personal, he was willing to stand up to the most powerful government leader in the world, the King of Spain, and tell him to his faith, unless you can prove me wrong from scripture. Here I stand so help me God. Very personal to Martin Luther, but some German princes have been looking for a chance to break from Rome. And they say, this is my chance. Kingdom of mine. I just decided you're all Lutherans and the people in the kingdom are like, OK, great. We're Luther. Now, what do we believe? What does that mean? Well, in the Kingdom, it's not the same personal experience, Martin Luther, just a new state doctrine. So this revival movement starts called Piotism, that said, be it Christians more than doctrine, even if it's good doctrine. You have to have an experience with Jesus and when you do your life will change and you won't do worldly things anymore, like bars and brothels and government. Now this actually helped these Lutheran Piotists be commissionaries all around the world. called Moravians, a little kingdom in the eastern Germany. And so they were able to go into kingdoms around the world and say, look, we're not here to change your politics and overthrow the king. And the king was fine. Come on in. They didn't realize though, when they brought that doctor into America, that in America, the people are the king. And so this doctrine of don't get involved, you're basically producing a negligent king. So it goes back to ancient Israel. So the Puritans looked to the pre-King Saul part of the Bible, his 400 year period of millions of Israelites, everybody's taught the law and accountable to God to follow it. But when the priest stopped teaching the law, every man did what was right in their own eyes, turns into chaos and they all go to Samuel of prophet. And they say, we want to be like the other countries, we want the king. And Samuel can rise and the Lord tells them, they didn't reject you, they rejected me. And so they get King Saul. So this is important because the kings of Europe to the Bible for their authority. They looked to the king Saul and on part of the Bible, the divine right of kings. The Puritans have found the New England, they look to the pre-Kings all part of the Bible. So king Saul is the divider between England and America.

  20. 41:15

    Why is this important? Romans 13, which says, let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, Romans 13 is understood differently in a monarchy versus a republic. In a monarchy, subjects submit to the king. In a republic, the citizens are the king. We're going to submit to yourself, right? And so Bill, let me jump in here. Let me jump in here. Let me jump in here. I'm so glad you're bringing this up, that we are a republic, and let me qualify and you correct me if I'm wrong. We're a representative republic, and I'll take it even farther. We're a Judeo-Christian representative republic. Add infinitum, we hear democracy, we must restore our democracy. Well, we're not really a democracy. We're a republic. Am I right? Yeah, and I write about this in my book, Silence Equals Consent. So the word democracy has two meanings. One is a general reference to a popular government, popular meaning the populace or the population, folks. And this came into use during World War II and the Cold War, where you have of Harry Estruman, in his inaugural address, contrasting us to the communists. And he says, in communist countries, there's no individual rights. In our democracy, there's individual rights. It's just a general reference to the people being involved in government. But as far as an actual form of government, like Athens, where they had 6,000 citizens, and the word demos means people, cross-seemings rule. And so everybody had to be involved in politics every day. You had to go to every meeting. And if you didn't keep up with what they're talking about today, your nickname and idiot. Like, what are we talking about today? Oh, you have no, right? He's an idiot. And so democracy's only worked on a small scale where you physically had to be there. And so they were called city-states.

  21. 43:15

    A republic is where you can take care of your family and your farm and you have someone in your place that goes to the market every day to talk politics. They are your representative. to represent your views, right? Yeah, so the word Republic begins with three letters, R-E-P, and the word representative begins with three letters, R-E-P. So a Republican form of government is a representative form of government. So you can do other things every day. You don't have to keep up with politics every single day. And so the democracies can be swayed, and Plato talks about a battle that the Athenian Admiral 1 at sea, but some of the soldiers drowned. And when he gets back, the city of Athens is stirred up into this mob frenzy and they kill the Admiral. And Plato's like, this democracy thing, it's just mob rule. A republic is your one step away. So you can have the public all upset, but by the time they tell their representatives and by the time the representatives meet, the passions have cooled a little bit. So republics change slower. in addition to being able to get bigger, because you're not limited by the physical, you know, being able to be there every single day. And then you mentioned we're a constitutional republic. So our representatives can't do whatever they want. We're not like Canada, where the representatives can just vote to take away rights. Now we have rights from a creator and the government's job is to protect our creator, right? Then we have rules, borders, guidelines that these representatives cannot violate. So we have a democratically elected constitutional republic that's purpose is to guarantee to us our creator-given rights that are mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. Bill, let me ask you this. Do you have hope that our government will, and really our culture at large, will function again in an orderly, respectful, moral rule of law, fashion?

  22. 45:21

    Because I'm old enough, I remember, you know, even as a child, my parents were always watching the news. And, you know, even though, you know, of course there were partisan politics back then, Democrat versus Republican, I'm thinking, you know, as far back as the, you know, I mean, I remember LBJ and I remember Richard Nixon and then Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and the Reagan years. But at least it seemed like both parties cared about the country. Do you have hope that we'll get back to patriotism, rule of law, following the Constitution? What hope do you have? My hope is that the church members will realize that they are the king. The word citizen is Greek, it means co-king, co-ruler, cosever. And it's not just a blessing, it's a responsibility. And the latter part of my book is called Silence Equals Consent. It's in a wedding ceremony. And the pastor tells the church members, if you are silent when you hear these wedding vows, you're given your consent. Speak now forever, hold your peace. Well, if a church member's silence gives consent to wedding vows, it gives consent to other things. And if they're killing babies in the community and the church members are silent, they're giving their consent to killing babies. If they're mutilating children and the church members know about their giving consent to be relating children. I was in Colorado a couple months ago. They had a bill that the state rep Scott bottoms introduced into the Colorado legislature. A bill for a minimum punishment for those caught selling one to five year old children for sex. And as abhorrent as it is, he just wanted minimum punishment every Democrat voted against it. And where is it goodness? It's like, oh, we're so spiritual, we don't want to get involved. It's like they're selling children. Oh, we don't want to get involved. They're killing Jews. Oh, we don't want to get involved. We're so holy. God, I can't help you. Are you that holy? You know, Jesus said, if you allow one of these little ones that believes me to stubble better than a millstone we put around you, that can be thrown in the depths of the sea.

  23. 47:26

    So I think it's going to be a rude awakening for all these church members that think they're being spiritual by not getting involved. When they realize by their silence, they're giving consent to all that wickedness. They're inviting the judgment of God on their heads. Mm-hmm. On a somewhat different note, but related, you know, in Louisiana, the bill to put the Ten Commandments in all public schools. And of course, you know, secularists are saying that's unconstitutional. I know we've only got a few seconds, but to publicly post and make people aware of the Ten Commandments, that doesn't violate the First Amendment, does it? No, I put a book together for Matt, Matt Staber that he uses expert witness testimony in a 10 commandment case that he won before the Supreme Court. And I go through every single one of the commandments, how they're reflected in our law and, you know, no business done on Sunday that goes back to the 10 commandments. Hey, we've got a little out here bill for give me give us your website again bill Federer of the American minute. What's your website? AmericanMinute.com and the new book is Silent Equals Consent. Thank you for being with us folks. Thanks for listening. May God bless you. Tell somebody about AFR but tell everybody about Jesus. The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.

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