Isaac Crockett:   

All right. Well, thank you so much for tuning into our program today. We are joined, of course, by the honorable Sam Rohrer, who is the president of the American Pastors Network and also evangelist Dave Kistler, who’s the president of the North Carolina chapter of the Pastors Network. He’s the founder and president of Hope to the Hill Ministries. I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett, senior pastor at Hamburg Bible Church in Hamburg, Pennsylvania.

Well, as we begin our program today, I want to think back to yesterday, where Martin Luther King Jr. Day we started out with some powerful and timely quotes directly from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Today, I would like to revisit a topic that we’ve talked about often and that really kind of hinges on that part of equality that we talked about yesterday and that is the topic of immigration in the United States. I want to examine what the Bible teaches us about this topic.

Now, many in our listening audience have heard me before and you know that my family is about as much of the all-American melting pot as one can get. My grandparents immigrated to the United States from different countries. They met here in college. My mother grew up in Europe. I’ve had family members living in five different continents and my wife immigrated to the United States from India. She became a citizen as a child in elementary or middle school. A few weeks ago, my family, we were walking into a restaurant, my wife and my three children, when two women who I don’t know were walking past and one of them started kind of staring at me and staring at my family. Then she turned to me and she said, “Mail order bride, huh?” Evidently, she thought it was strange that I would be with my wife, who is of Indian descent, and our children, who take after my wife, considerably darker than I am.

I thought about that. I thought wow, that was very unusual. It’s not normal. Usually, my family and I, we fit well in our country because we have such a diverse country. Dave, I wanted to just ask you on your thoughts. I know that your wife’s family immigrated to our country and then also know that as an evangelist, you’ve traveled all over the states, but also, all over the world. Just like to get your thoughts on this. Do you think that America is more diverse or less diverse than other countries and do you think that the people in America, that Americans are more accepting or less accepting of foreigners than most countries?

Dave Kistler: 

Well, Sam, or, excuse me, Isaac, that’s a great question. I think it depends on which country you would compare America to. Obviously, we are an incredibly diverse country. We’re probably on par with most of the European countries, certainly with the United Kingdom, but if you were compare us to maybe African countries or other countries, we may be more or less accepting and more or less diverse. I think we’re pretty much on par with the European continent.

Isaac Crockett:

Very interesting. I think sometimes we get kicked around as if we’re not very accepting when in reality, we probably are very much similar to other countries. Well, Sam, our president has made it clear that his goal is to put America first in all of our policies. Now, many people have reacted to that policy of him putting America first, including a lot of Christians and speaking myself as somebody and younger evangelical, I know a lot of my peers have criticized him and have claimed that that is very unloving and some even saying ungodly. Looking at that policy of putting America first, taking our nation’s and making our nation’s efforts important, looking at from a biblical worldview, putting on our biblical lenses, so to speak, is that in line with the Christian philosophy, do you think?

Sam Rohrer:

Well, Isaac, it absolutely is to favor one’s country, to support one’s country. Why do I say that? Well, because the idea that countries are nations factors into it that if we understand God’s view, a biblical worldview, we understand that God forms nations. The Book of Acts it actually talks about God laying out the nations with their borders, geographical borders, from before time, so God established them because God works through nations. He raised it up. That’s why He instituted civil government, which He talks about in Romans 13 and other places and so nations have borders. Nations have personalities. Think of Israel, very distinctive nation. God picked Israel and God said, “I’m going to make of you, Abraham, a great nation and I am going to bless the nations of the world,” so clearly God favors nations. With them comes along the ability and the right to support them and to pray for them. When we pray for those in authority, we are to pray for … We don’t pray necessarily for everybody in positions of authority everywhere in the world. The idea is that we pray for those in authority over us and who we answer to.

 

Isaac, the idea of our nation first is biblical. It fits the biblical precedent and it fits the model as what God established with Israel, so anyway, so I’m just going to stop right there, but no, the president is on solid ground when he talks about we should favor our nation because this is where we are citizens. We’re hopefully citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, but we are citizens of the United States, if we are, and therefore, we have a loyalty to this nation.

Isaac Crockett: 

Thank you, Sam. That helps as a Christian seeking to put God first, being a citizen of Heaven to realize that we can still be patriotic and still be a citizen of Heaven. Along with that, Dave, I wonder as we think through some of the things that are being said about our president because the refugees coming into our country and we’ve discussed this a lot on our program. That’s something that comes up often and again, comparing our country as a country that was founded on Christian principles, unfortunately, we’re getting away from those principles in many ways, but what makes us good is the good things that we were founded upon. Do you think that the average Muslim-majority country is anywhere near as accepting of foreigners and of people from other religions as we are in America and even with the refugee crisis, do we see Muslim countries stepping up to do more for Muslim refugees than what America and European countries are doing?

Dave Kistler:

Well, Isaac, let me answer the second question first. The answer is a definitive no, we do not see the Muslim countries stepping up and accepting refugees. In fact, over the last couple of years, as we’ve seen this influx onto the European continent of Muslim refugees, the Muslim world has not responded. They’re expecting Europe to respond. They’re expecting America by extension to respond, but they are not responding.

Then to answer your first question, are Muslim countries as accepting of foreigners as we are here in America? Again, the answer to that is a very definitive no. I have traveled a good portion of the world. I have been in countries that are either majority Muslim or are approaching, very rapidly going to become majority Muslim and here’s the dirty little secret. It’s the grand hypocrisy. What the Muslim world crusades for in America, what they want to do is have their opportunity to worship in their mosques and live their Sharia law lifestyle. If that were reversed and Christians were to call for the same thing in a majority-Muslim country, they would be denied. They have been denied. They are being denied. There’s a grand hypocrisy here going on, Isaac.

Isaac Crockett:  

Thank you, Dave. That’s good, I think, for all of us to remember this context. I know growing up in a family where my grandfather was in the Dutch Underground, he saw the totalitarian regime of Hitler firsthand. He loved this country. He loved this country before he ever came to it and became a citizen and yet, he loved God. He got saved actually seeing Christians give their lives for the cause in the Dutch Underground and was able to come over to America eventually. He loved what America stands for and he loved being a citizen and so what an important time to remember the context of what God has done in this country and to be able to be proud of that.

Well, welcome back to the program. We are talking about the issues that we are facing in our country, especially with this topic of immigration. I want to start out this segment by playing a clip of then Senator Barack Obama when he was running for president in 2008. In this clip, he’s going to promise comprehensive immigration reform and border security as a top priority in his first year as president. Russ, if you could go ahead and play clip one, please.

Barack Obama: 

The American people need us to put an end to the petty partisanship that passes for politics in Washington. They need us to enact comprehensive immigration reform once and for all. We can’t wait 20 years from now to do it. We can’t wait 10 years from now to do it. We need it done by the end of my first term as president of the United States of America and I will make it a top priority in my first year as president not only because we have an obligation to secure our borders and get control of who comes in and out of our country, not only because we have to crack down on employers who are abusing undocumented immigrants instead of hiring citizens, but because we have to finally bring undocumented immigrants out of the shadows.

Isaac Crockett:

All right. Sam, I think there’s a lot of things he said in that speech that are very good. In fact, I almost think that if President Trump were to say those same things, the liberals, progressives, the mainstream media would take it apart and claim that it was being racist or something. Unfortunately, I do not think that President Obama tried to make comprehensive immigration reform and border security a top priority during his first year of office. In fact, I believe it wasn’t until 2012 that he actually enacted DACA. Could you maybe tell our listeners why DACA is unconstitutional and explain why President Trump and his Department of Justice said that they really had to reverse it for legal reasons?

Sam Rohrer: 

Isaac, I would like to and if I could, let me interject a thought here because I think you made a good point. You said what Barack Obama said long ago, if President Trump would have said the same things, what would we see? I want to bring something here into application because what Barack Obama said and what Donald Trump said is that they both recognized a problem that faces all Americans, all the citizens know it. The difference is what is the goal of immigration reform? What was Barack Obama meaning by what he said? Well, it’s evidenced by what he did. What he said and what he did was he also, other clips could be played, he made it a point, if you recall, where he said his goal was to fundamentally change America. That was including that it wasn’t run by old white men. He made those statements. He wanted to change the mix and the culture of America.

Well, how do you do that? Well, through immigration. When Barack Obama said he wants to have immigration reform, he used the right words, but his goal was clearly something totally different than a Donald Trump who says immigration reform is needed because everybody knows it, but I want to make America great again. One diminishes the role of America and our culture as we have known it, Barack Obama. Donald Trump said we have to control immigration or we’re going to fundamentally forever change the culture of America so that it’s no longer what it used to be.

Into that context walks the whole DACA thing. Now, that’s when President Obama stepped in, made an executive order to try and make the children of illegal immigrants basically legal. Well, he couldn’t do that because immigration law is passed by Congress, so it was an executive order. President Trump has to deal with it because it’s a matter of being up in statutory law and so when the president just a couple weeks ago said we need to deal with this issue, he made it very clear Congress needed to deal with this issue and to make it a statutory, congressional-acted thing because he said, “I don’t have the power to actually do it.” You have that circumstance. You’ve got the children here. Barack Obama said all the way up to 31 years of age we’re going to let them stay if they want. Well, that was not something that he could do.

I’m answering your question in a different way, that President Trump has got to deal with it because President Obama did by executive order, usurped congressional authority relative to any matter of immigration, which happens to focus on the children who are here by illegal parents, immigrants, but Congress is the one that has to deal with it. That’s what President Trump has been appropriately saying. We got a problem. Everybody knows it, but Congress, you’ve got to deal with it. He’s saying we’ve got to deal with it so that it makes America great, basically, what America used to be and the immigration law reflecting that, counter, though, to what Barack Obama was doing, saying, and enacting.

Isaac Crockett:

With that, Sam, I was very disappointed when Barack Obama did not make comprehensive immigration reform. I know a lot of dreamers and the difficulties that they go through because of what happened and by putting it in this temporary executive order that every two years they have to be declared again, they’re not really citizens. They’re in no-man’s land. They’re kind of in limbo. Dave, kind of along with that, in this speech, President Obama said that we have to secure our borders and get control and he talked about bringing the undocumented immigrants or illegal immigrants out of the shadows. I have heard harrowing stories from some of my friends who have come over to the US illegally. I wouldn’t wish those experiences on anyone. They are not like the Superbowl commercial of a mother and daughter jumping on a pickup truck and coming to the border. A large number of those who cross illegally, they die. Many of the women and children, if not most of them, are violated in the worst imaginable ways. When they get to a place in America, many of them are still at the mercy of those same corrupt human traffickers that brought them here illegally. Dave, can this sort of painful and violent system of illegal immigration, how can anybody consider that humane or helpful to keep that going and why do you think maybe many progressives and liberals are against a crackdown on this illegal activity?

Dave Kistler: 

Well, again, Isaac, the questions you are asking are outstanding and again exposes the grand hypocrisy on the part of so many in Washington, DC who claim that we need to be a nation that just accepts anyone and everyone and they overlook the very scenario you’ve just described. It is horrific and women are treated in the most horrific ways when they attempt to immigrate here and many of those that attempt to come die either before they get here or die after they get here. It is an incredibly tragic scenario.

The question you asked though that demands an answer is why do they not want to crack down on this kind of activity. Why do they want to continue to allow immigrants to come here illegally and these kind of things happen? Well, you’ve got to understand and Sam, I think, alluded to it very well in the last response that he gave you. We’ve got those that want a globalist approach as opposed to a president right now that wants to have a very nationalistic approach. I don’t mean by that white nationalism. I mean a strong love of country and there’s nothing wrong with that. I think we established in the first segment that that’s biblical.

Some on the part of the left, some of the progressives, see this influx of illegal immigrants as a great way to pad their voter base. That’s a very selfish thing, while others have a far more sinister thing in mind. They literally want to see the influx of immigrants coming into this country illegally to reshape the entire United States of America and remake it, as Sam so eloquently said Barack Obama stated very, very clearly. Either way, this has to stop and as Sam said, our president must deal with it.

Isaac Crockett:  

Sam, when it comes to DACA, when it comes to the refugee crisis, many well-meaning Christians and we talked about this just a little bit, but they’ve spoken out against President Trump for his actions. Could you maybe share with our listeners some of the things, some of the Scriptures that these professing Christians are twisting out of context to call for open borders and then could you maybe give us some biblical context for having the borders that you started to allude to in the first segment?

Sam Rohrer:  

Yeah, I can just briefly, Isaac, and that is this. The whole concept of nations is God’s idea. That’s where we got to start, God’s idea. The United Nations concept of today are trying to convince people that borders mean nothing, that we’re global citizens, rather than citizens of a particular nation. God established nations. Acts 17 talks about that, so we have nations. Nations have borders. Nations have a common worship of a common view of God. They have a common language. That’s the definition of a nation. When there is an attack on those things, there is an attack on nationhood, which then moves us right into the global concept which ultimately we know as believers there will one day stand up and there’s going to be an antichrist that’s going to stand up and take a leadership of the nations of the world and they’re going to yield to him their leadership. That right now is not what we want to do. That’s not where we’re going. That’s only where we’re going to end up, but the nationhood concept comes from God Himself, Isaac, and so open borders, any of those kinds of things, common, multiple languages within a country. They all speak against what God has established for nations and it works against God’s plan for the nations.

Isaac Crockett:

Dave, we’ve all heard a lot of emotional, impassioned diatribes against President Trump, saying that he’s even a racist, but when we think especially of these dreamers who were brought over as children, does the fault of that situation lie on the families that brought them over and the countries that were so horrible they felt like they had to escape or does that fault fall on our president and our people?

Dave Kistler:

Isaac, let me say this very, very quickly. Our president is not a racist. If you’ve ever visited any of his properties, the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC, in New York, and I visited some of them and I will tell you this, he employs all kinds of ethnicities and nationalities. Those people love working there. It’s obvious they are treated well and their response is over the top good toward the president, so he’s not a racist. There is enough blame to go around on a number of levels. Our immigration policy has encouraged people to come here and attempt to come here illegally, so we do bear a little bit of the blame. The countries that are so horrific that people want to escape them, of course, bear some blame, as well.

Isaac Crockett: 

Well, thanks so much for summing that up to me. This is a very important topic. I hope that you’ve enjoyed listening to it. We have a lot more to talk about in this way. I’ve lived in Central America, worked in Mexico. I have a lot of friends who have come over here and so I want to continue talking about this. Well, we’ve been talking about immigration and seeing what’s been happening under the new administration regards to DACA and to refugees. We’ve looked at biblical teachings on nationhood and boundaries and borders, but I want to tie this into what was talked about earlier this week on this program.

It was pointed out that the Muslim population in America is growing significantly. Sam, you referred to that a few moments ago, as well, and under President Obama, a large number of the refugees coming to our country were identifying as Muslim. Now, in November of 2015, towards the end of his time as president, there was an article in the Washington Times and this was the title. The title was, “US Discriminates Against Christian Refugees, Accepts 96% Muslims, 3% Christians.” The author of that article pointed out that of the thousands of Syrian refugees being accepted to our country, only 3% were Christians and 96% were Muslims.

Now, in an interesting turn of events, an article that I read earlier this month in the Washington Examiner has this title, “In Switch, Trump Favors Christian Refugees Six to One Over Muslims.” The author in that article, Paul Bedard, writes, “Since the fiscal year began, 60% of new refugees admitted into the United States have been Christian and just 13% Muslim.” Dave, I want to go to you on this one. What is your reaction to this major shift in refugees under the current administration?

Dave Kistler:  

Well, Isaac, one of the things we need to recognize and need to never forget is that immigration policy reflects priorities. It reflects a nation’s priorities and it certainly is a strong indicator of a president’s priorities and under the Obama administration, the president was merely being in those days consistent with his philosophy. Many of those listening to this program right now will remember the now very famous speech where the president said America is not a Christian nation. In fact, if we were to calculate the number of Muslims in this country, we could be considered one of the world’s leading Muslim countries. He constantly demeaned the Judeo-Christian background of this country. Now you come to 2017 and 2018, we have a different president, Donald Trump, and his immigration policy reflects the priorities that he believes and I’m going to say it this way, the priorities that are consistent with the founding of this country. We are a Judeo-Christian nation. We were founded upon such and so my response to this dramatic shift is that it cannot and will not be anything but good for the United States of America.

Isaac Crockett: 

All right. Sam, Dave has said this is a good shift. It’s showing a priority back to our Judeo-Christian roots. It’s also showing that we believe that Christians who are being persecuted in the Middle East need to be able to find refuge here. What do you attribute this shift in refugees to? Are there policy changes that President Trump has made directly that are relating to this matter? What’s going on that’s making this happen so fast?

Sam Rohrer:

Well, I think what’s happening, Isaac, and Dave pointed well to it, you have to say it’s an understanding of what constitutes a nation. Every nation is comprised of a certain body of law, a certain predominant ideology. Effectively, the definitions of a nation is a common borders, common language, common view of God. That’s the definition of a nation. Well, here in the United States, God is the God of the Bible. The Constitution is the governing body, the highest body of law based on biblical principles.

You go to Saudi Arabia, you go to Syria, you go to Iran, it’s not the Bible and it’s certainly not a common view of God. Allah is not the God of the Bible, so in effect, what you have here is that you have this common view of what constitutes a nation, but it’s based on a God and we are in a constitutional republic, so Barack Obama, when he did what he did, he was consistent with his philosophy. His philosophy is not governed by the Constitution, nor is it governed by our law. What you see Donald Trump doing, when he stands, takes his oath, and puts his hands on the Bible, he’s operating consistently, more consistently with what our Constitution says, what the Bible says, and what our law says and so this is a very, very big contrast that we’re seeing here in this matter and this president, I think, understands his oath, hand on the Bible, not the Koran, and the Constitution based on God’s word, not the Koran or not some Marxist document that a Soviet Union may be following. Those are the distinctions. Comes right down to what you perceive as the basis of law.

Isaac Crockett:

It really goes back to what we were talking about in that first segment is that they can use same terminology about immigration reform, but they have different goals. We’re seeing that President Trump has the goal of seeing our Constitution as the law of the land and the moral authority of the Bible that gave us the Constitution is being used. Well, it really brings up something that came up in our show yesterday that Gary had talked about Voice of the Martyrs and the persecution of Christians.

Dave, you’ve traveled all over the country and you see how we are very comfortable as Christians in our country for the most part. We don’t see a lot of persecution in the way our brothers and sisters overseas have. We’ve had people on our program who have faced persecution, especially in the Middle East, people on our program who have lost families and friends, who’ve been tortured, even killed for Christ. Dave, what would you say to our listeners so that we could encourage them and encourage ourselves to pray more for the persecuted church?

Dave Kistler:

Well, Isaac, I would say this. All it takes is listening to one of the many guests as you’ve referenced that has been on this program citing and I’m thinking of one dear brother who watched his own physical brother beheaded because of his faith in Jesus Christ. Of course, this occurred in a majority-Muslim country. In addition to listening to that, all it takes is traveling outside these United States into some of these countries that are now rapidly falling under the sway of Islamic ideology and Islamic Sharia law and you see something that motivates you like you will never be motivated to pray.

I’m reminded, Isaac, of a trip to the African continent. I remember a young man, young pastor coming up to me. He was so full of the joy of the Lord. He was one of the most wonderful representatives and advertisements for the gospel of Christ I’ve ever met. A gentleman saw me talking to him. He pulled me aside later and he said, “Dave, that young man’s church is surrounded on three sides by Muslim mosques.” Then he said this. He said, “Unless something dramatically changes, that young man will one day die for his faith because he is so vocal, so vibrant about sharing the gospel.” Those kind of things will motivate you to pray for the persecuted church. We don’t see much of that in the United States of America, but unless something changes, unless we get our immigration laws fixed, we’re going to see more of that in the United States, as well as around the world.

Isaac Crockett:

Very powerful. Dave, that reminds me of very close family member of mine. I won’t say who and what country in Africa it was, but he and his wife were discipling a young girl whose family was Muslim. She asked, “What does it mean to take up your cross?” They said, “What would happen if your parents find out that you’re studying the Bible?” She said, “Oh, I understand.” Shortly after that, she came back beaten and bloody and she said, “I have accepted Christ as my savior and I’ve taken up my cross.” We don’t see that in our country so many times. Sam, what can we do as comfortable Christians in America? What can we do to pray for, but not just to pray for, other things that we could do to help our persecuted brothers and sisters of Christ in other parts of the world?

Dave Kistler:

Well, Isaac, it’s a great question. One of the most fundamental things as American Christians we know they just need to understand what the Bible says because most Christians in America who call that name by their own words, Isaac, don’t really have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. To be a cultural Christian, which is just to say I live in a Christian nation and I like the benefits that come from Christian laws is far different than to be a true believer in Jesus Christ, who understands who God is through Jesus Christ and the salvation that He provides and to live accordingly.

What do we do is that American Christians really need to look in the mirror and say, “Do I really know Jesus Christ as my own personal savior or am I trusting in something else?” That’s where it starts. If we don’t understand as a true believer in Jesus Christ in this country, Isaac, we will lose our nation because we will not understand the basis of our laws or who God is through Jesus Christ that makes all this possible. I submit that part of the true reason we’re in trouble in our country because we have too many cultural Christians who enjoy the benefits of what God have done, but they don’t know Jesus Christ personally.

Isaac Crockett: 

Amen. Our currency says in God we trust and a biblical worldview of God’s redemptive plan will make all the difference in the world when it comes to this topic of immigration, of praying for our brothers and sisters in Christ. Welcome back, folks. We’ve been talking about the diversity that we have in our country and the strengths that we have here in America because of the melting pot effect that we have, but especially because of the foundation that we have in our founding documents on the word of God and from a biblical, Judeo-Christian, Bible-believing worldview.

We’ve also seen that there are many dangers and warnings out there for a convoluted and broken immigration system and so now, as we’ve talked through so much of that, I want us to be able to wrap these things up with some solutions to what’s going on. I want to think about our opportunity to use this country that we live in as Americans to reach souls from all around the world that are here in our own backyard. Before we go into that, Sam, could you maybe once again just briefly delineate the role of government on this issue of immigration and of boundaries and nationhood as opposed to the role of the individual or the role of the church in responding to other individuals who are in our communities that may be from other parts of the world?

Sam Rohrer:  

Absolutely, Isaac. I think that’s a great, great question. When we on this program talk about biblical worldview and I’m going to use that word right now, that means looking at the world from a biblical perspective as God looks at it. We can’t talk about government or church or the individual or differences between nations without saying well, what does God say about them? Well, what we know is that God has these institutions. He has the individual. We all answer to God independently for ourself. He has the family that now is its own structure, fundamental bedrock of all nations. Then you have civil government, which can vary one nation to the other, but that’s what forms the nation. Then you have the church. All of these work together in God’s plan.

Now, the purpose of government is to, Romans 13, enact justice. Now, what that mean? That means praise those who do well and I’m going to put in praise those who do well biblically according to the definition of what God says is good, and punish those who do evil, to enact justice against those who break that law. That’s the purpose of civil government, to put into effect a structure that can allow all people to come and experience freedom. When that happens, then you have a nation to which people want to come. When you have a nation that does not do what God wants, then you have a nation from which people want to flee. The reason that people wanted to come to the United States is because we’ve had a system based on biblical principles, God’s design, and so like a light to the nations, the people have come and want to come for the freedom that is here. If we don’t keep it anchored, Isaac, to biblical principles and the purpose which God made it, we will not only lose our freedom, but the light to the nations will also go out. It’s very, very critical, but it’s anchored on God’s word and God’s design for what a nation is and its relationship to who God is.

Isaac Crockett:

What a wonderful reminder and everything we do is connected to that and even as Christians, we’re told to walk carefully in these evil days as children of light, not as children of darkness, so important. Dave, kind of building on that and we’ve been talking some about this in between the breaks and you’ve shared some things that have been happening in your own ministry, but you’re an evangelist. You get opportunities to evangelize all over the country. How can we use the diversity that we have in this country as individual Christians and churches and how can we take opportunities to evangelize the world by witnessing and evangelizing to our own neighbors?

Dave Kistler:

Well, Isaac, let me back up and just kind of underscore something that Sam so powerfully said in his last response. He’s talking about areas of jurisdictional authority. The government has jurisdictional authority and they are responsible before God, Romans 13, to do certain things. Sam stated it about as clearly as it could be stated. They’re to enact justice. That is the role of government, praise good, punish evil. The church has a different area of jurisdictional authority. That authority and that commission is sometimes called the Great Commission, is to win a world to Jesus Christ. The two are not in conflict with each other. We still have laws that we have to live by. We have a government that must protect its citizenry and allow people into the country only through legal means and those coming to the country that are intent on bettering the country, being a part of the system, not trying to overthrow the system.

All of that being said, with all of the people that are coming into our country, we now have a mission field that has come to us. We don’t even have to leave this country necessarily to find a mission field that is global in nature. They’re here among us and I praise God for this in very recent days. We had the opportunity of seeing two Muslim young men come to know Jesus Christ as savior who have come into the United States of America and, by the way, came in legally and they have had the opportunity now to trust Christ and live now for him in a country that affords them the freedom and the liberty to live for Christ, not one that attempts to squelch that.

Isaac Crockett: 

Well, what a powerful opportunity, what a responsibility that we have with this light that we have been given from God to share that and historically, America has been a great country to send forth missionaries. You know-

Sam Rohrer:  

Well, when I read reports like the one yesterday, it was on the front page of drudge and now it’s across the world on many articles, it said this. It was a wake up call frankly to me, and I think to all Americans. It was a Pew Research survey, just released, the findings on it were in this title.

This was the title that caught my eye. “Islam on track to be second largest religion in the USA.” And then went on by saying, by 2040, 20 years from now, it will surpass the Jewish population, which is now in second position behind those who identify themselves as Christians. That’s here in America.

Ladies and gentlemen, that sobering thought leads me to the very issue of asking the question, what has happened in America? Particularly, when it was established on Biblical principles and so heavily impacted by the Bible that now we see, this ideology, being undermined by such ideologies as Islam, the teachings of the Quran, which command death to Jews, death to Christians, and frankly, death or subjugation to anyone and everyone not a muslim, right here in this country.

Here today, on Stand in the Gap Today, we’re going to focus the program on the Bible in the public square and specifically prayer and the Bible in the public square and in public schools. Our theme is going to be this, is prayer and Bible reading in public schools constitutional? To help us walk through this discussion today is going to be our returning guest, David New, he is a constitutional attorney, he is an accomplished historian and a Biblical Scholar as well and with that, I want to welcome you today to Stand in the Gap Today.

I’m Sam Rohrer, I’m president of the American Pastors Network and host here of Stand in the Gap Today, and I’m going to be joined today by Evangelist Dave Kistler, president of our North Carolina Pastors Network, and Hope for the Hill in Washington DC, and Doctor Gary Dull, executive director of the Pennsylvania Pastors Network and senior pastor of Faith Baptist Church of Altoona, Pennsylvania.

Men, I’d like to start today’s emphasis on the Bible and it’s importance to the history and the continuance of the United States as we have none. I want to jump right into that. This Pew research I mentioned just a minute or so ago, is startling.

Although, in some respects it’s not new since we’ve been saying for some time that aggressive Islamist activity and goals throughout Europe and the United States in particular, was on track to overtake and subjugate the western world and it’s values. We saw it happening before our eyes, well, now this research really confirms it.

Let me read just one little piece more from this Pew research report just released. It said this, “According to the report, the muslim population is growing at an accelerated rate and it will more than double from an estimated 3.45 million in 2017 to an estimated 8.1 million in 2050.” Now in the meantime, it’s going on saying, “Muslims are expected to surpass Jews as the second largest religious group. The research showed a record number of muslims immigrating to the United States in 2016, a record number, which means,” now get this, “Which means that 3/4 of muslims currently in the United States are immigrants or children of immigrants.”

Now Gary, let me go to you first, this question here if I can. My purpose now and in this program is not really so much to focus on Islam and the Quran or the teachings of Mohammad as found in the Hadith, but as much to indicate that every ideology has some book they hold authoritative. They pull from that their moral justification for how they live. Their legal system or educational system, how they think about life.

For evolutionist and humanist, it may be Darwin’s Origin of the Species. For Nazis, it’s Hitler’s Mind Comp.  For Islam, it’s the Quran and the Hadith, but for Jews, it’s the Old Testament, for Christians, it’s the Old and the New Testament. It’s the Bible.

Start here Gary, give us a simple statement as to why the Bible is so important for our nation or frankly any nation who wants to be blessed of God and have freedom as we’ve come to enjoy in our nation.

Gary Dull:

Well the simplest of all statements Sam would be the fact that the Bible is God’s Word to all of mankind. Whatever nation of the world you’re talking about, it’s God’s Word that reveals God’s way to God’s people. Any particular nation that is going to be blessed by God needs to indeed follow the principles and the policies and the doctrine and the commands of scripture.

The Bible teaches us that the blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, and in order to get to know God and have him as our Lord, we need to get to know the Bible. It’s the Bible that directs us to that conclusion that God will be our Lord. The United States of America was founded on biblical truth, that’s what made it great and if we want our nation to be greater again, or any other nation on the face of the earth to be greater, then biblical principles need to be followed according to the truth and the teaching of scripture.

Sam Rohrer: 

Okay Gary, I think you were clear. I think our listeners look and say, “Yeah, if people are listening and are believers they would say, Yeah, rah, rah, rah. Dr. Gary Dull, you are right,” but there are obviously many people in our culture who do not believe at all what you say. Have redefined history, have denied that the Bible had any place.

I want to go to you now, David New. I want to bring you in early at this point. From an historical perspective, you’re a historian, you’re a constitutional attorney, from an historical perspective, if there is one book, or maybe there’s two books, but the most important books that have contributed most to the fabric of the United States are foundation for the legal system, the structure of our government, the framework from the beginning, our Declaration of Independence, our constitution, what would that book or those books be David New?

David New: 

Well in my opinion, they clearly would be the Bible and here’s the reason. The Bible teaches monotheism, the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence are both monotheistic documents. The substrata on what they assumed to be true in each of those documents, is that there’s one God.

One God whom makes one law. When you have a monotheistic system, human rights take on a definite form. When you have a polytheistic system, which as the ancient world had, then you have many gods and then you have many laws and that means human rights vary from one god to the next. Your rights and [inaudible 00:06:56] with the Greek gods would be one thing. If you go to Egypt, your rights could change. They could go up or down in depending on what the Egyptian gods want, but your rights are not absolute. They are local depending on what god you’re dealing with.

The Declaration of Independence when it says we hold these truths to be self-evident, when Jefferson makes that statement, he is looking for truth … We’re out of time.

Sam Rohrer: 

Well, David New, you set it up perfectly, you were calling out the Bible was the primary book, it teaches monotheism, one God from which we recognize the creator from who these truths come, embodied in our declaration and in our constitution.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to further this discussion as we go into the next segment here, because we’re going to talk about how the Bible and how that thought that David New just laid up was actually inculcated into two major institutions, education and that of law and government.

In approximately one generation, our nation here, the United States and our culture at large has not only moved away from the Bible as the sole source of truth, it has moved at a breakneck speed towards counterfeit sources of authority with all of them. All of them, being in competition and in the end, the total opposite of the Bible.

Such is the basis for the continuing and developing division in our nation. We once were ladies and gentlemen, were together on a common view of God, which we talked about just briefly in this last segment with David New and we’re going to pick up on that just now.

Throughout this last generation, the insistent denial of history and the facts of our nation regarding the role of the Bible, has within it the seeds of total destruction for our nation since a denial or reality of the facts of history and documental history will come to bring us to our knees.

Now in this segment, we’re going to look at just two, been very briefly, important segments of society that were once dominated by the Bible, but now become openly hostile to the Bible and the God who wrote it. Those two are education and government. With that I want to officially welcome now into the program David New, he’s a constitutional attorney and recurring guest on this program, historian and biblical scholar.

David, I’m going to want you to be thinking in this segment, in just a little bit I want to come back to you about how the Bible influenced directly civil government and the [inaudible 00:09:27] of law and the judiciary, but I want to go here first if I can, with Gary and Dave, to the matter of education in America.

I just want to pull this as an example. A lot of people aren’t aware of this, but it was in 1636 that the first university was founded in the United States, it happened to be Harvard University and it was founded not to train people to be craftsmen or engineers, both of which were notable then and now and very important, but they prioritized it, because they said we have to have an institution that teaches young men how to preach the Bible, preach the Gospel.

Harvard was a Bible based university to teach men to preach the Bible. Let me read just a short statement as to the purpose of education at Harvard. First placed on its wall, then still hangs there to this day. I would say it’s totally disregarded today, but it’s still there and it’s called the rules and the precepts of 1646 and it says this. This is what the plaque says, the purpose. “Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well that the main end of his life and studies,” now get this, “is to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life.” And then it writes and cites from the Bible, New Testament, John 17:3, “And therefore to lay Christ in the bottom as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning.” Gary, let me go to you right now. In your lifetime, just give a list of a quick look back. How have you seen education move from this foundational purpose and goal and which hinged on the Bible then, to what it is now, being something more hostile certainly, towards the Bible? Just give us something you recall back in history.

Gary Dull:     

Well Sam, as you and Dave often say, you’ve got a preacher here that’s been around for generations teaching and preaching the Bible-

Sam Rohrer:

I know, that’s why we’re asking you to come here.

Gary Dull: 

Yeah, I thought so. I kind of figured that was the reason, but you know, I remember when we had prayer and Bible reading in the public schools. I went to a public school and every day the Word of God was read, and we prayed and the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. But in 1962 and ’63, the prayer and Bible reading was taken out of the public school through the efforts of Madalyn Murray O’Hair.

From that time on until where we are today, I’ve seen an increase of an attack against biblical principles and against biblical truth in public education. You know, we see that on the elementary and the secondary level as well as on the college level. You talk about Harvard University or Yale, how they were started to train people for the Gospel. They are very, very far from that today.

Sam, one of the things that concerns me, and I think this is tied into it. We won’t get into it right now, but I can give you illustrations of Bible colleges and seminaries in our generation that have gotten away from the unadulterated teaching of the Word of God, basically based on Genesis 1 through 11 and consequently they have even departed from a solid biblical education that is weakening education across the board. We are living in very serious times.

Sam Rohrer:  

Okay Gary, you made it very clear, within your lifetime, you’ve seen it from Bible reading in the public school to none and even in our seminaries, you’ve laid that out. I want to go to another one now, because our founders back then started with college levels, so they could teach pastors, but the next thing was that they integrated and developed a new curriculum.

That new curriculum that they used all the way from 1600s up until 1890s was called the New England Primer. It was produced in New England, it was used throughout the colonies, it produced some of the most literate and character rich people in the world. They started out by doing this. They called the primers and the A, B, C’s.

They started like this to how to teach children the letters. A as an example, the verse was, “In Adam’s fall, we sinned all. B, Heaven to mind, the Bible mind or thy life to mind is what they say in different versions there. And then C, Christ crucified for sinners died. The A, B, C’s taught all about who God was and it went to the Bible.

Matter of fact, Noah Webster who gave us Webster’s dictionary, he said this, That primer, that methodology of teaching our young people to read, “It taught millions to read and not one to sin.” Interesting. Dave I want to go to you next right now Dave Kistler. It brings up a basic question. It’s the point to which I believe the American public’s been fed a lie, and that is believing that you can have education separate from morality and teaching. Just apply something here Dave if in fact we were still teaching the A, B, C’s according to the Bible, New England Primer, how might America look a little bit different today?

Dave Kistler: 

Well Sam, America would look vastly different and I want to back up what Gary just said. In 1962, ’63, the Bible and prayer was taken out of public schools, but I attended a rural North Carolina school in 1967 as an elementary school student, and we still had Bible reading and prayer in that public school, so we have moved far a field from the foundation of this country, but if this were all reinstituted or if this had continued unabated, we would have a vastly different country than we have right now.

Sam Rohrer:

We would indeed and I think with all that we’re struggling with, with all the attacks in the schools, the divisions and the sexuality, the perversions of this and the drug usage and all that, Webster said, “It taught millions to read the Bible, that lesson, and not one to sin.” Ladies and gentlemen, go to Egypt as what David said, or go to India where they have some … go to an Islamic school and find out how the people live. They live based on what they were taught and what they believed. Here it was the Bible. That’s what caused Webster to say, “It taught millions to read and not one to sin.”

David New, I want to go to you now in these closing minutes. Go now into the realm of government. The judiciary law of congress, all that kind of thing. Lay out some examples there of how the Bible was specifically used to infuse the structure, the foundation, for what we understand freedom to be and that which we have come to enjoy in these United States.

David New: 

Well, number one again, number one on that list is monotheism. That statement where Jefferson says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” He is looking for a source that will make these statements true a thousand years ago and they will be true a thousand years from now. They are eternal truths that never change.

Now for the secularist, they believe that what is true for you, may not be true for me. What is true for me, may not be true for you, but Jefferson wouldn’t have had none of that. He wants an eternal truth and that requires God. The evolutionist has a problem with this statement as well. When did man cease to become a descendant of an ape? Or have a common ancestor of an ape? Well, Jefferson wouldn’t have none of that either. He believes God is the creator and that’s why when he says, “All men are created,” he’s looking for a truth that is universal, absolute, and doesn’t change and the only way you can have that kind of truth, ladies and gentlemen, is a deity, a God who does not change.

Sam Rohrer:

Well, David New, you cited some things from Jefferson and you were talking about things that were principles that were built right into the Declaration of Independence, which really lays the foundation down, but talk to me a little bit more as well. You’ve been to DC, what used to hang, what hangs behind the desk of nearly every court in the country?

David New:

Well, there is the motto … Pardon?

Sam Rohrer:

The Ten Commandments?

David New:

Well, no. What hangs behind every court in the United States and many courts is the motto, In God We Trust, but the other thing to remember also is that when the constitution was written, in it the foundation of the constitution is the Declaration of Independence, and monotheism is the principle behind the constitution, because there’s a phrase on the supreme court that says, “Equal justice under law.”

The concept of equality is a very modern concept. It began with Moses. Before Moses, people were not equal, many gods, many gods favored one group of people over another people, another group. Moses said, that’s nonsense, there’s only one God, and everybody’s equally human in His eyes. The concept of equal justice under the law is a biblical concept.

Sam Rohrer:  

Ladies and gentlemen, you’re hearing just a very, very quick focus on the Bible, in our nation, how it under pinned the very foundations of our educational system from our original colleges, like Harvard, and Yale, to our instructional system of teaching our young people how to read, by teaching them the Bible so that they’d know how to read, but they would also know how to live and not to sin as Noah Webster said. It’s all throughout government as well, the entire concept of justice and the separation of powers all comes right out of the Bible.

Now, that’s changed. Our culture now says it never happened-

We started this program off by talking about how Pew Research just yesterday released facts that says that within 20 years, Islam will be the second largest religion in the United States, surpassing Judaism in the United States. Explosive growth. You say, how could that happen? Well, it can happen in a Christian nation when we no longer consider ourselves to be Christian and when we say and allow people to tell us that the Bible had no influence, had no role, and matter of fact, that some will actually stand up and tell us that it’s not constitutional to read the Bible in the public square or to pray in the public square and particularly, public schools.

Now that being the case, I want to welcome in now directly, David New. We’ve already introduced him, he’s a constitutional attorney, recurring guest on our program, he’s an historian and he’s also a biblical scholar. David, I want to go right here with you because I want you to lay out the facts if you could relative to, is school prayer and Bible reading constitutional as many so called experts will try to tell us that it is not? What are the facts David?

David New:

Well the facts are very simple and the first question we need to ask is this. Were the public schools created to keep religion out of the classroom? Is that why they were created? If you ask somebody that question after 1962, they would say, most likely, absolutely. The public schools were created for the purpose of keeping religion out of the classroom. If you ask that question to somebody before 1962, in some states they would say yes, but in many states they would say no.

The further back you go in time, the more often you will hear people say that religion was to have a role in public education. The modern public school system we have today started in the 1840’s by a man, by the name of Horace Mann. Horace Mann did not want to kick religion out of the public schools. What he wanted was to remove sectarian religion from the public schools, and that is what’s key.

For example, take the attorney general of the United States. In 1873, his name was George H Williams. The justice department had just been created in 1870 under President Grant, he just signed it into law, and this individual George H Williams, by law, is required to report to congress about his duties, and one of his duties involved reporting about the reformed school of the District of Columbia, this is a federal institution, paid 100% by tax dollars and this is what it says in the report that he submitted.

This is what it says in the report that he submitted, this is what it says about religion in the reformed school of the District of Columbia where the First Amendment is very much in play. He said, “Labor is a powerful agency and a reformatory, especially on the farm. Man improves the earth and is improved by the earth.” Then he goes on further and now says something very important. He says, “But after, and before all a religious sentiment, which all pains are taken to infuse in them, that is the students, that is the surest basis of permanent reformation. This school was set up for children who were disobeying the law.” Then it goes on to say, “No sectarianism is taught, no creed rehearsed, reverence for God, love for our Savior, and they believe in a future rewards and punishments are infused into the minds of the boys as religious in sentiments. The Bible is read, pure and simple, and portions of it are committed to memory every week, and repeated at the Sunday school. Clergymen and laymen of every denomination sometimes address the boys on Sundays, but no sectarianism is allowed in such addresses.”

Now here’s the Attorney General of the United States, working for the US Justice Department, reporting to congress what is going on in a tax payer institution. Why are they behaving that way, which is exact opposite of what we do today, the reason is because-

Sam Rohrer:   

David let-

David New:

… because of … go ahead.

Sam Rohrer:                           Well, David let me ask you this, you said that public education in America began in the 1800’s with Horace Mann, but if you go all the way back to the 1600’s with the third permanent English settlement that came to the United States and settled at Massachusetts Bay, 16 years after that settlement, they established a law in 1647 called the old Deluder Satan Act, the opening line of which says this.

“It being the chief project of that old deluder satan to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures,” and then goes on and lays out that when any communities in Massachusetts Bay reached 50 families, they had to hire a teacher to teach the children of those families to read so they could learn to read the Bible and not be deceived by that old deluder satan, so this is part of our history going all the way back, is it not?

David New:   

I was just on my way there. Now, one of the things … The reason why the attorney general is allowing religion in this school, in this reformatory school in the District of Columbia, it’s because of what we might want to call, America’s first school prayer law. It was passed in 1789 by the United States Congress, we call it the Northwest ordinance. Article three in that law says this, “Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government, and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” Because of that law, the attorney general 70 years later, is allowing the reading of the Bible in his public institution.

Because of that law that congress passed in 1789, the states of Ohio in 1872, Michigan in 1898, Wisconsin in 1890, and Nebraska in 1903 are all using that law either to permit or allow the Bible in their public schools. That law is America’s first school religious law. There’s absolutely no question what David Kistler just said, religion was in our schools.

One of the judges who voted against school prayer in 1962 was William O Douglas. Justice William O Douglas, and he quoted article three that I just read to you, and this is what he said about it. “Religion was once deemed to be a function of the public school system.” That is solid proof that non-sectarian religion is permitted under the First Amendment in the public schools.

Sam Rohrer:

And David, when you use that word-

David New: 

By the way, this particular law, this particular law ladies and gentlemen, this one article three, you will find it in many state constitutions. For those of you who live in … I’ll tell you, which state it belongs in right now. For those who are in Ohio, you can go to your Bill of Rights, you will see the Northwest ordinance article three, right in there. For those of you in Wisconsin, you can also see it in your law. Let’s see, for those of you in Michigan, you can go to the education article. For those who live in North Carolina, 1971, go to your education article, you can see it there. For those of you, our listeners in Nebraska, go to your Bill of Rights, you’ll see it right in there. This law that congress passed in 1789 effectively put prayer and God in the public schools nationwide. It wasn’t the Christian Church, it was the United States Federal Government that did it.

Gary Dull: 

That’s because of the fact that this nation was founded upon biblical principles, and back in those days, when they used the word religion, they were mainly referring to the Christian faith in their understanding. I’m very thankful David, to say that it’s true that even today, through release time programs and so forth, we can still get the Bible back in the public school, or I should say, before the public school students and I know our church has done that down through the years and others have as well.

But quickly in about a minute that we have left, is it not true that Charles Darwin coming along with his teaching on evolution, really was very much involved in secularizing the public school and getting the Word of God ultimately out of it, would you agree with that?

David New:

You just made a hole in one. The reason why William O Douglas, who knows very well that religion was a function of the public school system and never the less votes against it in 1962. The reason he does that is because he is a secularist in the modern sense of the word, which is based upon the theory of evolution. That changed everything. There is the First Amendment before Darwin, and there’s the First Amendment after Darwin, and they are not the same document.

Sam Rohrer: 

Ladies and gentlemen, you’ve just heard quite a discussion right here. Bottom line, Bible reading, prayer in public schools, is not only constitutional, even though the supreme court made the ruling that they did as what David New was saying. Constitution clearly affirms it, because that was the purpose for public education. Just think ladies and gentlemen, if in fact we were still teaching the Bible, God, rewards and punishments, would not things be different?

Well ladies and gentlemen, as we now move into our final segment, we also or often call it our solution segment. We try to bring the primary elements of the program focus into a position where we can actually take and put some of this into effect. A lot of information that we often hear is either not usable or we don’t know how to respond to it. You may say, why do you even think you’re talking about the Bible today and it’s role in our founding? Well, we’re doing it because history proves that it was there. We’ve heard incidences, we’ve seen, we’ve talked about how education, with elementary, and college was based on the Bible and the teaching of it so that we would have a people who knew right from wrong, knew who God was, could appreciate what became the principles of our Declaration of Independence and our constitution and the whole concepts of self-government hangs on the whole idea of God and a monotheistic Christian world view as we were to call it.

When you think of this as compared to today when someone, a coach kneels on the field to pray after a game and people cry, “Its illegal, it’s unlawful.” When our public schools long ago were told by the courts that you cannot pray publicly, you cannot read the Bible and even as we’ve talked about here. Gary and Dave and I all remember in our lives, I as far back as 1972, recently had teachers in a public school classroom who would read the Bible. This has been pretty recent.

Now we look at Pew Research that tells that Islam is on its way aggressively within 20 years to being the second largest religion in the United States of America, and yet we have people who say, “well, what’s the difference between whether you believe in evolution or believe in God, or believe in Islam?” Well, frankly, the whole concept of freedom revolves around that. David New, let me go back to you right now and ask you to answer this question.

People are hearing and are saying, “Well, fine I may have heard things this morning I never heard before,” or, “I do recall back when, yeah, there were prayer in the school, but of long ago I thought there’s nothing that I can do.” David, the average listener who’s listening right now, what can they do? What should they do in regard to the Bible? The Bible having a place in our society, not just the public school, but in the public square. Give us some thoughts that you would have at this point please.

David New:      

An educated consumer, an educated voter and citizen is an extremely powerful person. Don’t think just because you’re one you have no power. First of all, you’re not one. You are the majority. Remember, what you need to remember is the article three, the Northwest Ordinance was passed and signed by George Washington on August 7, 1789. One month later, September 25th, the congress just finished the Bill of Rights including the First Amendments. If you want to learn more about how monotheism underlies the constitution and the declaration, order my book, The Ten Commandments For Beginners, and I go into it in great detail. For those of you who are talking about the muslim situation.

This is a piece of factoid that a lot of people don’t know about the muslim community. When William O Douglas voted against school prayer, in 1962, to remove it, to ban it from the classroom, one of the reasons he gave in a book that he wrote in 1966 titled, The Bible and the School, just as Douglas said, wasn’t the only reason, but it was one of his reasons, was he did not want muslims to pray in the public schools. This is unbelievable for him to use that as a reason to remove school prayer. It’s absurd.

Sam Rohrer:

Well David, you make a very clear case that it’s going to be an ideology, there is a common unified ideology that governs the country. You can’t have multiple. Forget this pluralism nonsense ladies and gentlemen, that only means you’re moving from one dominant to another dominant. We are in America are moving from one dominant, Judaeo Christian as this Pew Research would indicate we’re moving to another one and that’s Islam and it means bad news for freedom as we know it.

Gary let me go to you, as a pastor, the pulpit has always played a tremendous role. We talked about education, Harvard being formed to teach pastors. What should the pulpit be doing in regard to this in the matter of the Bible and culture?

Gary Dull: 

Well simply, you know, answering that question we go to 2 Timothy 4:2 where it says, “Preach the Word,” and in that passage of Scripture, the apostle Paul is speaking to pastor Timothy and telling him what to do. The pulpit must get back to preach the Word of God, and the pastor in the pulpit, must recognize that he is the spiritual authority, not only in the local church but in the community that’s around him.

I remember hearing certain pastors say that we’re pastoring back in the early ’60s when Madalyn Murray O’hair was trying to get the prayer and Bible reading out of the public schools, they made statements like this, “We didn’t think she was going to get anything accomplished so we didn’t do much about it.” Well, look what happened. In 1962 and ’63, prayer and Bible reading was taken out of the public schools. In 1967, we had the rise of the sexual revolution. In 1972 abortion was legalized. In 1983 in that area, aids due to a lot of homosexual activity came on the scene and of course it’s just gone downhill since. Since prayer and Bible reading was taken out of the public schools, sin has increased in society and a lot of it goes back to the fact that in the early ’60s perhaps preachers were not as straight forward in the preaching in the Word of God as they should be. That ought to be a lesson to us today, Sam. As preachers that’s preached the unadulterated Word of God without compromise and allow it to have its effect on the heart of people.

Sam Rohrer:  

Gary, excellent. David, Dave Kistler, let me go to you right now. We have folks who are listening, most are probably parents or grandparents or somewhere in that category of relations or siblings of some type. What can parents or grandparents be doing right now? [inaudible 00:35:48] should lift up their hands and say, “Well, water over the dam, we’re changed forever.” How should they come at this issue if there’s going to build back in something that’s going to bring our country back to what it was?

Dave Kistler:

Well Sam, for every parent, grandparent, the Word of God has to become central in their life and their children and grandchildren need to see the Bible central in their life. I mean, they need to have a time in the Word of God as a parent, grandparent every day. There needs to be what we used to call family altar, family devotion time where the Scripture’s read, inculcated in the lives of our students.

Then I want to suggest this. Because of what we’ve talked about today, every child in a public school can carry his Bible to school and I would encourage parents and grandparents to encourage their children and grandchildren to carry their bible to school. They have a right to do that and to read the Bible even while they’re at school. During study hall, during down time, they have the right to do that.

My dad challenged my brother and I to do precisely that. We did that with our children who attended even secular non-Christian colleges, community colleges in the early part of their education, to do exactly that. It can work and it can have a dramatic effect.

Sam Rohrer: 

Well ladies and gentlemen, you’ve heard a few just very practical things there. Number one if I could summarize, David New, you said, understand that the Bible did play a great role at one point. It was the document that undergirded what we have. It is our source of information about who God is but interpretation of justice and freedom and self-government, it was here, it did play a role all the way up until the 1960’s all the way through.

Gary, you commented on the role of the pulpit. It used to be that the pulpit was the place that preached the Word of God, it was the great awakening through the primer, the A, B, C’s where kids learned how to read the Bible, understand who God was that helped to come out of that great awakening that changed our country. It’s from the pulpit, always must be there.

Dave Kistler, you just make it very clear, mom and dad, and grandad, you have a continuing role. If you can remember the way things were, you’ve got a responsibility to help bring things back to where they once were and that’s back before God.