WarRoom Battleground EP 186: A Night Of Thanksgiving
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Summary
Join me for a special thanksgiving special featuring the Dean of Liberty University, Dr. Dave Bratt, as he walks me through the history of thanksgiving and why we should all be thankful for the blessings that have been given to us.
Transcript
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this is what you're fighting for i mean every day you're out there what they're doing is blowing
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people off if you continue to look the other way and shut up then the oppressors the authoritarians
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get total control and total power because this is just like in arizona this is just like in
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georgia it's another element that backs them into a quarter and shows their lies and
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misrepresentations is why this audience is going to have to get engaged as we've told you this is
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the fight all this nonsense all this spin they can't handle the truth war room battleground
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okay welcome uh to battleground this is our thanksgiving season special and i've asked dave
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bratt uh the dean of business school of liberty university to join me here uh tomorrow of course
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on thanksgiving morning we're going to have um a two-hour special and i've got uh larry swiker
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the author the co-author of the patriots history of america that's joining me there and going to
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go through uh some uh the background history motives of thanksgiving by s dave bratt dave you're down at
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liberty i would argue that liberty is the leading if not one of the leading christian universities
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in this nation also a huge believer in what your name says liberty that's the entire focus of the
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program down there it's what reverend falwell uh wanted when he started that as a very small
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college now it's a major university and what people i think don't realize is the reach you guys have
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internationally i think somebody told me one time you have a hundred thousand students
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through your uh remote learning program that's just absolutely incredible so for liberty from your
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perspective um in liberties walk me through thanksgiving yeah well i'm glad to have your
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you're having a uh patriot's guide to thanksgiving and the judeo-christian west because that will
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actually be the proper history of the u.s and so i just kind of want to go through the basic
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basics on thanksgiving and why i'm i'm utterly thankful i wake up uh with my health and things
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we all take for granted uh in the u.s we still have first world problems we're fighting to preserve
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those first world problems uh but when you think to thanksgiving everybody of course goes to the
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pilgrims and the uh the mayflower compact and coming over half the people died on the voyage over
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uh there's a modern historical debate on why they came over uh when you cross the sea for three months
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uh it's not for uh minerals etc right they uh they were uh came out of uh amsterdam to uk and set out
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for the u.s uh for religious reasons and so when they got there and they set up the traditions that uh
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set up our country on the right footing and we can get to those later uh they gave thanks to god
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and so we uh we go by that way too fast right in modern parlance then we get to the turkey real quick
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and all that which is great uh but it's thanksgiving to god uh for god's divine providence
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uh and those faithful people suffered like we cannot imagine suffering but through their faithfulness
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uh they set up the the new jerusalem uh that we have had the privilege of living in
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and now uh the the numbers are going down right the judeo-christian tradition the percentage of
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christians are going down uh but i just want to encourage people right when the numbers go down
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uh that's not a call to give up that's a call to for the faithful to be even more faithful you look at
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a small number of pilgrims that came over and founded just a a new creation and so i just want to go
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just keep drilling down on it why were they thankful right they weren't thankful for you know a
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corn harvest which was more in abundance than they expected and they were able to share uh finally
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some of a good bounteous year with the indian friends they made uh and uh you know that's the
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story but they were truly thankful to god almighty for for his providence bringing them over but more
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thankful in a christian tradition for for jesus christ and the work he did on the cross right
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so that's the utter thankfulness right everybody knows we're all sinful uh i i'm proud of this show
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for acknowledging reality on that score and so the death and resurrection of jesus christ is the
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moment in the christian history of course for which we are utterly thankful and then the rest of the
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judeo-christian west comes out of that and i say the judeo-christian west because in the hebrew
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scriptures of course the central event of the hebrew scriptures is the exodus uh which resulted
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in freedom uh from bondage and from the pharaoh etc and it's it's so central they say when your son and
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now your daughters come to you uh because the daughters are now part of our modern government
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uh and they tell them tell you what should we say to our sons you you should tell them hero israel the
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lord our god is one he delivered us out of land of bondage uh into the promised land flowing with milk
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honey uh and so that judeo-christian tradition uh has a few components that i want to just go over
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with you i know you're well acquainted with all of them but first and foremost is the belief in a
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transcendent realm hang on hang on hang on before we get ho ho ho hang on whoa whoa hang on slow down
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before you get there why were they called the separate i want to go back so people understand about
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the the lived experience of these people they the the um the church of england was formed in in part of
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the reformation by henry the eighth because of a host of reasons henry eighth and the wanting assets
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etc but one of it was they wanted more control of the church by the political authorities in england
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so you had anglican church was very catholic in its services and and and much of it except that the
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it the archbishop of canterbury reported to uh the the the king um the pilgrims and the or the
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puritans of the pilgrims rejected catholicism but they also reject rejected the anglican church
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and they were more congregational in other words they were more uh from the grassroots up they they
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did not they did not want a hierarchy in their church tell us about the puritans and tell us about
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the pilgrims because their beliefs were so powerful so strong that it was able to get them through uh
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just horrific conditions horrific conditions on the sea voyage the 50 of the people dying barely
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hanging on to the small coastal community this had a tiny foothold in a hostile you know primeval
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forest right and able to hang on because of this deep belief that this was the new jerusalem so walk me
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through who were they and tell me about their religious beliefs yeah well i think i think that
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the major major revolution uh which stands uh right underneath them and right before them was uh
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gutenberg and the printing press right and then you have the the protestant reformation
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and sola scriptura you know the bible is the key and if you look at any of those pictures of the
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pilgrims and and the history the the guys you'll have on and the women experts you'll have on
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uh they'll check these people were people of the book for real i mean they knew the book they taught
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the book and once you read the book it's very liberating and so the catholic church has a rich
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tradition you're saying you're saying you're saying you're saying you're saying you're saying that the
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gutenberg bible was that they could actually print the bible in the language of the people not the
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vulgate latin of kind of the uh elites of the of the catholic church that you're everybody knew how to
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speak latin but you actually got it in your native tongue whether that was german or whatever that
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that revolution you're saying caused a revolution that led to the reformation and led to this kind of
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different aspect of christianity yeah yeah and you know that the catholic church and the protestants
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still share you know the apostles created the bible uh the nicene creed all these uh formal statements
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of the faith uh are shared but the governance right peace and and you know we're all fallen people all
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churches are fallen but there were debates over church governance and monopolies right i'm in general
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not against monopolies in the corporate sector uh etc and so you've got good popes and you got bad
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popes etc and you got central command and then in england you had the church and the founders you know
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that's one of the hugest misconceptions over here this separation of church and state what they all
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meant back then was they just did not want a monopoly church they wanted the freedom uh to choose the
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church they wanted uh because in the jewish and the christian tradition it's vertical right it the
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relationship is between you and god and as later folks luther the bondage of the will or even kant in
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the secular tradition kant would go to say and he was a son of a pietist minister very religious you'll
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never hear that these days but he said in secular terms the only thing that is categorically good
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is the good will and the only one who knows the heart and your will uh is god almighty right and so you
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can put on you know an act and machiavelli and all these guys would say to put on an act and you know
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that sets up the modern world we're all living in it's hard to determine who the good guys and who the bad
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guys are on a certain day uh but that freedom to read the book interpret it for yourself have your
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own preacher uh and then ed christian education of course blew up right harvard was founded not too
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far uh distant 1640 by john harvard a puritan uh trained in at cambridge a christian university that
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was founded by the catholics and so uh you just get this historical continuity that i just want
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everybody that doesn't know this story to encourage the young ones at home to get all over this if you
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don't know every name i'm naming this is just the 101 course right you got to have this stuff down
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cold uh to be an informed american this tradition has given you all the great uh universities all the
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great hospitals all the great culture music art everything it's not some god of the gaps uh this
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judeo-christian tradition is the west which founded science and freedom and the constitution
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and everything we take for granted we just think it came easily uh in this modern world and there
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were tremendous price paid for each of those moves
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walk me through this concept you said they came here and they one of the reasons they sacrificed
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they thought they were founding they thank divine providence right and one of the things they thank
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for is that they believed and there was a very small number these people it was not a large number
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but they believed they were founding a new jerusalem what does the concept of new jerusalem uh mean
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yeah well it's uh if you you know it's the it's the third temple uh for the for the for the jewish
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people uh where in the christian terms you're waiting for the uh the the coming of of christ uh the the
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the next the second coming of christ uh but the new jerusalem uh just stands for god's ultimate
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uh sovereignty and providence and promises uh for redemption where you can live out uh the law
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in freedom uh worshiping uh god almighty right and you know the the founders uh were were geniuses and
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were great they may have made a mistake uh they made the the sovereign in our constitution is we
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the people right and this is right aligned with that they they gave sovereignty to we the people
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with under the assumption that this judeo-christian tradition was so strong it could never falter uh and
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now it's faltering right in our major ivy league institutions that call themselves elite uh they cannot
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answer the fundamental question why is there something instead of nothing right they can't
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answer the the primary what is ethics what is morality what is freedom is there freedom are we
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locked in a deterministic uh void of newtonian mechanics uh or do we is there a realm of transcendence
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and a realm of freedom and a realm of morality and this isn't new to me i'm not making this stuff up
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right this is the judeo-christian west from moses uh to jesus to plato and the greek plato had the
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transcendent uh without which you do not get morality and without which you do not get freedom
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and then of course that continues into great philosophers like kant uh who was awoken from his
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dogmatic slumbers uh by david hume who was an empiricist and they were serious back then right but
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he so he was locked into newtonian mechanics uh which does if you're a straight empiricist and
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knowledge is limited only to sense perception there's no realm there's no possibility for moral
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freedom there's no realm for a transcendent god there's no room for morality and so the smart
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people out there right that the folks in the suburbs i hope i'm hitting right now who think they know this
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stuff uh but if you don't know where the sense of transcendence comes from uh you got some homework
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to do and everybody believes it right at the time you're born uh you see the miracle everybody knows
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that's a miracle uh when it's time to die everybody knows uh time to focus a little bit right uh everybody
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knows there's an up and there's a down a deep in their souls uh but in the meantime we uh we create
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false gods that we look at in the mirror all day long and so uh this country has been given all of
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this tradition uh which has been examined by the greatest minds uh in theology and philosophy and
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it's the only uh system left standing and i think that drives some folks on the but but but but but
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but hang on a second hang on a second yeah you talked about the the um the products of the
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judeo-christian west and how today people have taken it for granted and they think it was too easy
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but all the great architecture and art and music and literature and philosophy is all informed
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it came from that framework of the universities in the learning and this is why i want to go back to
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the puritans and the pilgrims and why that voyage is so important such an inflection point in human
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history of all the stuff that's going on it's one of the most important things and they're hanging on
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barely in that vast wilderness in the in the deprivations they had in those first couple of
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years and then the the the the um the act of thanksgiving they would say to you dave brad yes the
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art the architecture the uh literature the music yes that forms a culture and civilization but we
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reject that in fact if you look to them day one the concepts in america today of the modern world
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modernity is the mainstream these people are outside the mainstream you know these deplorables are
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outside the mainstream you could not get more outside the mainstream england was a christian nation it had
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a state church that state church had the anglican church if you just go go back to the queen's burial
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of all the pageantry and all the music and how beautiful it was and how everything that
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the pilgrims are the puritans absolutely totally rejected not only did they reject essentially
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because they were part of cromwell's uh you know the the what informed or the basis of the civil war
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of rejection of even the cavaliers which essentially was jamestown the freebooters the entrepreneurs that
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entrepreneurial spirit of the english the freebooter spirit of the english the pirate spirit of of drake
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and all the you know great english sea captains right they rejected that they rejected your
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theory of art they rejected your theory of of the fact they said all of the forms of this
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they they were the ones about the stripping of the altars not like henry the eighth to basically steal
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the assets of the church for himself for more uh of his personal depravity right but these were
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these were people you couldn't even have i think it may say they didn't want to cross on the altar
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and they wanted a they had a they had a such a a um a austere view of their religion and if you and
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what strikes me is that i'm not sure that you could have survived up in massachusetts in those winters
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to actually form this that um that you know unless you had that intense intense belief that you had the
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answer and that answer rejected you just once again remember in all the beauty of english society that
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we know and everything's been passed down in the pageantry and the great literature and everything
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that informed our mother country our revolution was against kind of the economics and the in the
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politics of it all the the oligarchs and the landed gentry and and how that this what these people at
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our bases rejected the thing itself right and that's why they became their their their pilgrimage
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yeah well they're they're the most serious of the most serious uh real deal christians right uh all
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over the scripture right with the jewish people all the way up to jesus uh and and the teachings of
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jesus god always chooses the lowly god god chooses the lowly and you know the the the seeming fools of
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this world right that that seem uh not to understand the pageantry and all this stuff that doesn't matter
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uh but their hearts are pure before god right the bible is just a continuous story of god choosing
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the low over and over david david was the not the eldest son and he looks over all the samuel to anointing
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king he says where is this all you got and then they pull in this ruddy little david guy and uh he's
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god's anointed and uh goose up like everyone does but for for some reason and we know the reason he had
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a true heart before god and so these pilgrims and the puritans who are mocked and scorned uh because they
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knew what the truth was right and the and the jewish people before knew what the truth was they have
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suffered and suffered over and over the the babylonian captivity for hundreds of years uh bad
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kings bad choices uh and when uh nations uh turn their back on god god still loves us uh but when
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you turn away from god you turn away from god and so the puritans did not they they were steel they were
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made of steel in their faith something very few uh folks today right to get to that level of of faith
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and determined like you're talking to be that determined uh to set up a a true uh new church
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right i mean that's that's what they're going for right they're going for the the apostolic true church
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right off the bat when jesus teaching doing the sermon on the mount and ethics that if you read that
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right the sermon on the mount uh everyone read that try to live in that one out love your enemies
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right it's man it's hard enough loving your friends on a good day right it that's some tough tough
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teachings and the pilgrims believed every word of it and so yet they didn't i'm not resting my case on
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the music and that culture and that's just the extra special sauce you get on top of it all uh that
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comes with the rule of law and the puritans again as an example they knew that true freedom comes from
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law right from obedience to god right in in the in the catholic baltimore catechism or the protestant
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heidelberg catechism which no kids learn anymore no one even knows what it is anymore but uh centuries
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of folks were trained in on these things and the q a the first question in both the catholic and the
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protestant what is the chief end of man and the chief end of man is to glorify god and so that
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it's not about me you anybody right every single thing we do here i heard a sermon last week in
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church a great sermon uh even you know you have abraham isaac jacob joseph jacob was kind of a
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prankster and a trickster and goofed up uh but then uh abraham isaac jacob and joseph comes along
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and is uh pretty good uh in human terms and even he uh is made to live in a dungeon in a cell
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after he lives a god life turns down the queen of egypt uh and her advances and uh delivers prophecies
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but the guys forget about him he spends another seven years in there but out of him and his suffering
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and his faith uh comes israel and moses and the judeo-christian west right so it's it's very hard
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for us moderns right we i'm an economist i like calculating what's what's the benefit what's the
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happiness to me right now uh god's time ain't that time and the uh the pilgrims knew it they knew it
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wasn't about being rich and and having all the uh the the the you know all the wealth and all the
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things that come with it right they knew what really constitutes life uh on this planet and that's
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obedience and happiness in god right it's not a down story it's a story of freedom
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uh and salvation and so they they were utterly thankful and they wanted to set up an order based
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on that happiness talk about the the thanksgiving you're saying they didn't the the popular opinion
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is that they had a couple of bad winners and then uh was it squanto came up and he spoke english because
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he had learned it from a merchant man and he'd actually gone to england i think as a slave and
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you know and he's with one tribe and there's a huge alliance very complex there's a very complex
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alliance system and they were always at war with each other and they didn't see the whites as something
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they should fear they saw the whites as a potential ally um but and then they held on and they had
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surplus in one year and they decided to give thanks to god you're saying that's not actually the case
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that that is a simplistic notion it wasn't about the surplus of their bounty of of of the farming
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techniques that squanto taught them and this whole concept that they started as marxist and communists
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and they actually went to individual um you know plots and the young men who have been kind of laying
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around got got more engaged you're saying they gave thanks for something deeper than that what what
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is your theory of the case yeah a good theory right so you can go into sociology and psychology and
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economics and and stay about as deep as a waiting pool right those are secondary effects uh but if you
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want to look at this system right their system is very well laid out it's called judeo-christian
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theology right and it had been around for you know 3 000 years already and uh it it was getting more and
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more developed with the reformation and the printing press and the reading etc but the uh that's what i was
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getting at in terms of the the first principle of why we're all on the planet in the judeo-christian
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tradition is to give glory to god every day for everything we have and the rest are afterthoughts
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right some smart people on the bible have said if you if you had all the host of characters in the
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bible uh without god uh it'd be uh you know a nice read of some history but there's nothing to it
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right the whole point of the biblical narrative is from abraham abraham wasn't even jewish yet and he
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got a call out of the land of ur and god calls him it says get up and take your whole family and out of
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faith he does this right like the pilgrim and then right on abraham isaac just tremendous tremendous
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uh sacrifice and then moses was placed in a high spot in egypt and gave it all up and had a passion
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for his people and came back and delivered them out of bondage uh and then and then jesus uh christ in
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in the new testament uh is born in a manger right the whole thing is the high becomes low it's all
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inverted the logic of human thinking is inverted god almighty becomes man and chooses to live in a
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manger uh for his birth the king of kings right the whole thing is upside down and that's meant to be
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that way because it's the only thing that'll shock us out of our comfort systems right uh we have a
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you know bad election cycle or something and everybody gets all upside down and bent out of
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shape god's working out his plan there ain't no thwarting that right god's at work got for the good
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of of his people and the faithful it there are promises in the bible you don't know god's timing
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uh but if you stick to your faith uh god will listen god hears the cries of the orphans the
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widows those in prison uh and god does answer right maybe not the way we expect or the way we want
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but there is an answer and so the pilgrims are living out that logic
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hang on one second hey yeah hang on we're gonna i want to get to that as as a punchline when we come
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back we've got dave bratt dean of the business school uh from liberty university and you know
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him as the economist that comes on here talks capital markets and economics but he also understands
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particularly the moral and political philosophy of the judeo-christian west we're gonna get into it
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next how did these uh very austere uh pilgrims how did they how did their thinking blend with the
00:26:52.500
children of the enlightenment that led to the revolution 170 years later next in the war room
00:26:59.040
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okay welcome back dave bratt is our guest uh we're having some a series of specials over the next couple
00:29:59.380
days to really get to the meaning of what these holidays are about and how they inform uh the
00:30:06.100
direction of the united states of america our beloved country um this concept of meta time or
00:30:11.760
the concept of uh time and i think this is quite important for for you to take a crack at to explain
00:30:17.060
the audience the pilgrims thought in or the period and start in longer reaches of time and that was
00:30:23.220
because of their deep study of the old testament and obviously the new testament but the old testament
00:30:29.960
also talked to us about i call it meta time you know we get caught up in new cycles and what's the
00:30:35.400
latest and we're on our phones and what's up on drudge and daily mail and what's breaking on politico
00:30:41.120
and then a two-year cycle for midterms now the presidency's kind of chopped up in two-year cycles
00:30:45.580
not four-year cycles we're completely we're the slaves of time they to a degree stood and tried to
00:30:53.860
stand out of time dave brad explain that to us yeah there's a uh a built-in conflict there right god's
00:31:03.680
ways are not our ways even the most astute of the pilgrims or uh you know moses moses himself was not
00:31:11.660
allowed to see the face of god right so god is infinite it's not even a good word is the sovereign
00:31:19.280
beyond sovereigns right uh not graspable by our our tiny finite little minds right and so that said
00:31:29.140
uh the pilgrims had the right sense that history is for god it's god's history and so they knew that
00:31:36.700
and so they lived out and did their part at their time the way they saw best to glorify god
00:31:43.140
and uh and so they're a good model uh for all of us that that basic uh step toward god as the first
00:31:51.440
principle because god is god's always been the first principle in in the liberal arts since the greeks
00:31:56.520
right the the quadrivium and the tribium all of that was based on it was god-centered until very modern
00:32:03.080
times when we hit the enlightenment uh and so they they view the long run of history and the building
00:32:11.280
of the kingdom of god right so the kingdom of god is in the first place in your heart right so jesus
00:32:17.440
taught over and over and over the central teaching of the new testament spent more time on the kingdom
00:32:22.280
of god than anything right the kingdom of god is like this it's like this seed the kingdom of god is like
00:32:28.060
this it's just over and over and over so go go read on that and you'll see most of it's internal
00:32:34.660
uh but jesus had a ministry that was unique we don't have that we're not uh called to die for the
00:32:40.960
sins of the earth so there's a wonderful exchange where christ takes our place uh for our sin and we get
00:32:48.800
what's called the wonderful exchange where we get to live out life in history now and so that
00:32:54.280
does pivot and and god made that creation for a reason we're supposed to be building the kingdom
00:33:00.320
on earth so we do have a responsibility in the earthly realm as well uh where god is sovereign over
00:33:07.280
every single piece of it and the end of pilgrims knew that full and well and that's part of their
00:33:12.420
upset with the uh the english royalty and whatever uh they didn't show uh quite enough due deference to
00:33:19.020
the idea that god is sovereign over all of your wealth uh your household your family your job
00:33:25.400
choice uh your health that every every aspect of modernity that uh we we just assume uh came along
00:33:33.580
because we built it and so you're right as we we flow through time our way emmanuel kant right the
00:33:40.980
great german philosopher uh at the end of the enlightenment uh saw the this long-run arc of
00:33:49.180
history and he was not happy with what you call scientism uh this this misunderstanding uh between
00:33:58.520
rationality and reason right plato saw a lot of this with just secular glasses on right he saw the realm
00:34:07.240
of the good uh he saw a realm of transcendence of freedom of ethics of morality at console all that
00:34:13.980
and tried to uh write up a secular system uh that would embed the judeo-christian system within a
00:34:22.340
philosophy that did not degrade christians from being fully reasonable right but rationality took
00:34:31.760
over right this uh trying to reduce everything all knowledge to just our sense perceptions
00:34:37.960
so i won't get in the weeds on that but folks that are interested you can look up bertrand russell
00:34:42.680
and the logical positivists and the vienna circle and carl popper and they were at least
00:34:48.400
academically uh serious they they tried to limit all knowledge to one-on-one matching between words and
00:34:54.540
sense perception uh to get rid of god right the intent of the enlightenment was to get rid of god
00:35:00.640
that was the first and foremost goal uh and it blew up on them because they had a little problem with
00:35:06.960
this thing called science and the theoretical terms necessary to do science have you ever seen a
00:35:12.780
science if you have please let me know what it looks like uh so there's a little summary snapshot
00:35:18.820
have you ever seen a hypothesis no those are terms created that are necessary to do science okay
00:35:25.160
so so so so with this don't seem to know their own limitations
00:35:29.140
with this austere version which they think is the is lived christianity right they think this is the
00:35:37.920
version that everything else is encumbered by things that are not the thing itself and they're going to
00:35:43.760
try to live among the precepts of the new testament particularly the sermon on the mount and it's
00:35:48.480
their interpretation of the teachings of christ is that it's very austere and everything is to
00:35:53.660
is about the kingdom of heaven which is quite internal but they're trying to build a new
00:35:58.020
jerusalem here as a framework that can propagate the the the the the kingdom of heaven but 150 years
00:36:06.700
later virtually on the same spot remember plymouth is just south of of boston relatively south of boston
00:36:13.860
and boston is the in that area becomes the the the the hotbed of revolution obviously my beloved
00:36:20.600
commonwealth of virginia is is is driving this and one of it but but the the more revolutionary
00:36:27.020
fervor at first is clearly coming from boston and that's the hot hits in the in the in the british know
00:36:33.280
this right and part of this is that is the uh that kevin phillips great book the cousins war that
00:36:38.720
more of the english civil war types went to the commonwealth of massachusetts and the bay colony and more of the
00:36:44.640
cavaliers and the and the people that supported the crown went to to jamestown uh and you had more
00:36:50.400
entrepreneurs and freebooters there but 150 years after the founding which they barely hang on you
00:36:56.500
have the children of the enlightenment right that really become the forefront of of this revolution
00:37:02.220
how did that happen how did you go from this austere belief in uh in in this impuritanism as
00:37:09.420
embodied by the pilgrims to really having the enlightenment have such a massive impact
00:37:14.360
on the foundation of america and particularly its revolutionary leaders
00:37:18.660
yeah well the brief answer is genesis 3 called the fall of man and women and the the longer extended
00:37:29.780
edition is you know the entire new testament teaching of jesus and paul and everybody is you
00:37:35.460
you die to your old self and you take on the new self in christ in this higher new realm of the the
00:37:43.620
kingdom of god well that's austere that is very demanding and so how do you go from that to full-on
00:37:53.600
enlightenment and the answer is the enlightenment was hugely successful there's no doubt about it on the
00:37:59.560
materialist plane uh humanity saw economic growth of food abundance energy technological innovation
00:38:09.600
medical breakthroughs educational breakthroughs scientific breakthroughs and if you'll notice all
00:38:16.860
those things uh are lacking any understanding of human nature right so where the success happens
00:38:23.360
uh is in the material realm uh is in the material realm anything that has to do with human nature like
00:38:28.420
the politics and economics somewhat the control of power theology deeper psychology than
00:38:35.220
freud and the simplistic drives uh failed and so we're still living that out right it the abundance
00:38:43.660
delivered uh makes it very easy to get lazy and just say hey i'm working uh i got a decent job i'm making a
00:38:51.100
good check that's all there is to life uh i'm i'm doing my calculations to see how much i got in my 401k
00:38:57.900
to see when i can retire uh the choice of what i do on this earth is irrelevant uh what i counsel my kids
00:39:04.720
to do you know i want them to just make a bunch of money uh if the market price dictates you have to leave
00:39:10.000
your family in your city that's what everybody does these days and so it was it it it we just made the
00:39:17.700
modern moves uh without taking the meaningful uh analysis of life of what really matters uh into
00:39:26.660
full context and building those into our cities and our nation etc and now uh things are flying apart
00:39:32.800
right the bolts are flying off the machine and people are after covid having depression and anxiety
00:39:39.680
and all sorts of terrible issues because uh they don't know where to go right people are lost and
00:39:47.520
so you know the the church and the synagogue should be the first place of just welcoming people into this
00:39:53.920
deeper community of commitments and responsibilities uh but unfortunately even even uh the some of the
00:40:01.380
churches uh have failed to deliver on that they're they're watching their their money as well
00:40:05.920
so particularly with the younger generation i mean you do agree that if you look at any statistic
00:40:14.160
that uh that there's less church attendance less focus on religious matters uh than ever before in
00:40:23.160
the united states they're actually referring to the united states as a pro post christian nation at the
00:40:27.660
same time they're they're they're they're arguing that the trump movement and anything related to
00:40:32.540
populist nationalists is really nothing more than a white supremacist christian nationalism how we've
00:40:38.920
gone through these periods here in the in america in the united states that have what are called great
00:40:44.320
awakenings those great awakens and a lot of it i think is is it awakening to try to harken back
00:40:50.040
to the spiritual purity and the spiritual energy and quite frankly the spiritual toughness
00:40:55.280
of really our forefathers which are the puritans is it to is it to harken back to that
00:41:02.540
uh yeah that that's right and it's just a matter of you know what uh what degree of uh
00:41:11.600
of uh wreckage do we have to see to turn back right the term repentance means to turn around and to turn
00:41:18.940
back uh to god how could you get any more how could you get any more wreckage tonight than today i mean
00:41:25.380
they're actually questioning not just the foundational tenets of the judeo-christian west they're they're
00:41:31.120
they're questioning the basics of biology i mean you have gender affirming surgery you have um
00:41:36.340
the most radical i mean what is being taught or being pushed by our elites in schools today for
00:41:43.460
school children is not just indoctrination it's something that's more radical than the french
00:41:47.580
revolution more radical than mal's revolution the culture revolution which are probably the two most
00:41:53.020
powerful cultural revolutions more than even the nazis or the fascists or the bolsheviks
00:41:58.260
these were these these radicals were absolutely they wanted to change all of society deeply how do
00:42:05.320
you sit there if you can't have and look at this as a sentient being and understand that what is
00:42:11.980
coming at you is so outside the mainstream quote unquote for what's ever happened in american society
00:42:18.540
or culture and how that would not drive a new great awakening yeah well it's uh every issue you just
00:42:27.480
mentioned is very clearly a god versus no god issue all of them right you just go right down the list
00:42:35.320
right and in this uh this attempt to uh mess with human sexuality uh the left and the ccp and the
00:42:43.420
marxists know exactly what they're doing they got to get rid of any challenge to national uh globalist
00:42:50.620
uh sovereignty right and so the first threat is the sovereignty of god and then you got the
00:42:55.120
sovereignty of of the family and then you got the sovereignty of the constitution and the rule of law
00:43:01.180
and interestingly all three of those are under attack uh simultaneously right now by the same crew
00:43:07.500
and this this this sexual assault i i've never even read about anything on this level but it's
00:43:14.780
calculated uh because it's the one drive uh that if you get to the kid right through the school
00:43:20.620
through the leftists uh it's powerful enough to drive them from their parents and so that's what
00:43:27.100
we're fighting uh right now it it's a disaster and it it it the basic trade-off is still right there
00:43:34.720
it's just a matter uh you you can't go to god lightly right if you go you got to go all in
00:43:42.080
right and and and it's free it's liberating right that's what the the left and the folks don't get
00:43:47.420
it's it's not there's no claim in the judeo-christian system that we're the holy rollers and everybody
00:43:53.860
else is awful uh christians still stay in sin and goof up regularly and we don't make that obvious
00:44:00.260
enough uh to the outside world we're just more thankful so hopefully we have smiles on our faces
00:44:06.140
but that's the move that when you say any sentient being obviously knows these things yes when
00:44:11.680
when they're getting ready to die these sentient beings all of a sudden uh have what are called
00:44:16.700
come to jesus moments right and uh we all pray for everybody uh in that respect uh and so it but
00:44:23.980
while you're on on the planet living out your life you have a choice to make kierkegaard all the great
00:44:31.180
thinkers right either or it's stark you got to make a choice uh to give up some of yourself uh to live
00:44:38.860
for god first and then for others which follows and that that can take that doesn't have to be
00:44:44.540
being a puritan right it can be your calling in health care it can be your calling as a police
00:44:50.220
officer it can be your calling uh being a a brick mason uh building beautiful things and giving glory
00:44:57.340
to god every day you do that uh right so there's no hierarchy of importance it's just that whatever you
00:45:04.300
do you do it for the right reason that your will is right your heart is right uh the puritans knew
00:45:10.400
that the pilgrims knew that a lot of americans still know that right they're just quiet our parents are
00:45:16.260
not courageous uh right now they're letting it go by they're going well you know it's just you know
00:45:21.400
the republicans take over for two years and then the democrats do and it's all honky dory uh no no no
00:45:26.040
this is this is way more serious folks uh this is some deep deep undercurrents cutting against you
00:45:32.460
your family your god your country and uh it's time to wake up and get serious with our lives
00:45:37.500
that over this thanksgiving holiday where people will have a moment maybe to reflect or make time
00:45:45.780
to reflect what are the two or three things that dave bratt would tell them to to reflect upon
00:45:51.760
that would prepare them you believe for the times ahead yeah uh i think you sit down and you read
00:46:02.360
the the uh matthew mark luke and john together as a family right uh open up the book read the book
00:46:09.720
reflect on it uh read a little bit about the pilgrims and see if it matches up with that book
00:46:15.420
uh see uh what those stories uh tell you and your family and your heart are you on track
00:46:21.700
are you off track uh but reflecting on you know just the big questions why am i here why am i on the
00:46:30.820
planet who created this thing the leftists have no answers for any of this where did morality come
00:46:37.420
from what is it what is ethics am i free am i really a free person is freedom important uh is it just
00:46:45.340
spiritual freedom uh should we just get run over by political forces all of the founders said
00:46:50.780
otherwise there are a ton of more clergy uh the civil war uh was a brutal awful uh mess because
00:46:58.120
there were great christians on both sides uh and so we we need to get uh serious and unfortunately a
00:47:07.140
lot of it has to do with eating your spinach right the kids have these games in their hands all day long
00:47:13.540
and uh all all the cultural stuff and you know i'm not a puritan to the extent that you got to get rid
00:47:19.360
of all that uh but if you don't know what's driving all that then your kids in for a long hard life of
00:47:25.920
suffering and you don't want that uh and so it's just that basic moral education and by moral education i
00:47:32.560
don't mean morality that it all comes uh from reading the good book uh that's what lit the puritans and the
00:47:40.860
pilgrims up their reading of that book lit them up and they set a forth on a journey that none of us
00:47:48.140
could imagine and the the dedication and the endurance and the perseverance and the strength
00:47:53.920
and the character of these people i look back and i don't know whether i could pull off half of it
00:47:59.240
because they were just incredible and then they're called terrible it's just the world's upside down
00:48:04.120
don't listen to it uh build a good faithful family and uh and get into the book uh together
00:48:10.640
and then get together with your church you do need to have a body of believers and friends around you
00:48:16.440
to support you uh when the going gets tough and if you build that up in advance you'll be very happy
00:48:22.500
you did that how to what what does liberty what type of resources how can people get access to
00:48:30.120
i know you guys have great learning there where where do people go uh besides just the reading of
00:48:35.780
the of the of the new testament scriptures where should people go yeah we have we have all sorts of
00:48:43.060
resources and we're you know a tech technologically savvy school everything's online on the web we have
00:48:49.320
support uh you can call uh the divinity school the the spiritual support centers the educational centers
00:48:57.120
uh the k to 12 uh kids uh schools or centers for support there the global outreach lu send uh
00:49:06.200
international student center if you're international and you want to talk to someone
00:49:10.260
because you feel something going on inside uh that something's resonating on this show or something
00:49:15.440
you've heard uh about thanksgiving or upcoming christmas and you know there's something there right
00:49:21.320
don't don't let it lay there go go explore uh and and you can do a lot right find a friend to share with
00:49:32.400
dave bratt your personal where do people get all your personal uh social media
00:49:38.260
but mainly it's bratt economics but there's a lot of worldview uh woven in there on the judeo-christian
00:49:46.440
west so bratt economics on getter and then i'm on the third floor of the divinity school i have a lot
00:49:52.940
of your folks come up and say hi to me and it's always with a smile so uh keep doing what you're
00:49:58.940
doing uh god bless you god bless uh everybody listening out there and uh let's get on the right
00:50:05.240
track and take it all back to glorify god dean dave bratt former congressman thank you very much for
00:50:12.920
joining us over this thanksgiving holiday season to lay this out for the war room audience really
00:50:17.620
appreciate it thank you very much thank you want everybody to have a great thanksgiving the entire
00:50:23.580
weekend thanksgiving day and of course the days after the traditional thanksgiving weekend i want to
00:50:28.160
thank everybody in our crew everybody in memphis and of course the crew here in the war room
00:50:36.000
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