Jenna Ellis: Rights that our founders recognize come from God, not government
Jenna Ellis in the morning on American Family Radio. I love talking about the things of God because of truth and the biblical worldview. The U.S. constitution obligates our government to preserve and protect. The rights that our founders recognize come from God, our creator, not our government. I believe that scripture in the Bible is very clear that God is the one that raised up each of you. And God has allowed us to be brought here to this specific moment in time. This is Jenna Ellis in the morning.
Judge holds prosecutors in Charlie Kirk murder case in contempt over comments to media
Jenna Ellis: Good morning. It is Monday, June 29, and a lot going on in the murder trial in the Charlie Kirk murder case. And so this coming from Politico, a judge, the judge holds prosecutors in Charlie Kirk murder case in contempt for comments about the defendant. So Tyler Robinson, who, is charged with the murder of Charlie Kirk, has not yet entered a plea to an aggravated murder charge in the September 10th assassination of the conservative political activist is how Politico characterizes it. A Utah judge in the murder case held prosecutors in contempt of court on Friday over comments they made to media organizations about the defendant. The judge said the comments violated his restrictions on what the two sides can say about the case outside of court. And so basically the defense attorneys had accused one of the deputy, Utah county attorneys of trying to influence potential jurors by going on a media tour to talk about ballistics evidence in the case. And defense, attorneys also said, that because the prosecutor suggested to media that there was enough evidence to show beyond any and all reasonable doubt that Robinson murdered Kirk, that that was well outside of what the judge's restrictions were. And the judge agreed with that. But, but, the judge denied the defense request to take the death penalty off the table as a sanction for the violation. The judge said the problem could instead be resolved through the screening and questioning process for potential jurors, which is intended to weed out people who could be biased or have their minds already made up about the case before they hear the evidence.
Gerard Felitti: County prosecutor trying to correct false reports before trial
So let's welcome in Gerard Felitti, who is senior counsel at the Lawfare Project. And Gerard, you know, this raises a number of just, you know, some basic questions. And first, the, the county prosecutor, kind of going on media and trying to correct some of these false reports. that, that I think is, is a ultimately an interesting decision that he's trying to correct this before the trial begins, which shows that the prosecutors, like the defense, believe that at least the court of public opinion is still significant to this case before it ever reaches a jury.
Gerard Filitti: I think you're Absolutely right about that. what really started this, where this started going, into the spectacle that it is, is assertions that some of the ballistics evidence, may not match the rifle that was used. and aside from raising some eyebrows, what that really did was raise some voices on social media and in the media, including from Candace Ow, who immediately started, raising questions about whether there was some sort of a conspiracy or there was some sort of.
Gerard Filitti: Or whether Tyler Robinson was a patsy. And when you have that narrative percolating into the media, it's influencing a potential jury pool. So the prosecutor is in a tough position where he has to have a response to that instead of being silent. But there are constraints that the ethics system places on lawyers, especially prosecutors. And I know most people in the audience think that lawyers can get away with saying pretty much anything they want to, but we can't. There are some very set rules about what we can do and say, especially about a pending case that we're prosecuting. so there are limits there that were crossed. But ultimately it was precisely because there was information that got out there that started being used in a negative way to influence the jury pool.
Jenna Ellis: Yeah. And you're absolutely right that this is such a difficult position for the prosecution because of all of the attention and coverage by, the media and also alternative media and different voices, because everybody has an opinion on this case. Everyone is interested in this case. I mean, this is probably, the case that has more public concern and knowledge than, any other in recent history, just because of how many people, knew and loved Charlie Kirk and how influential, he is and how, he still is and how much this was just an absolutely terrible, terrible thing that happened. And so what's the balance here? Because, you know, the prosecutors obviously don't want the jury, the potential jury, and the public, of course, but they're most concerned about the jury to be influenced by false media reports or this type of speculation. But then when they go and try to correct the record, they can only go so far. And now, being held in contempt is not a great look for the prosecutor. And of course, media can spin that, however they will. And so where's the balance here for the prosecutor? And is the judge potentially contemplating, you know, some other types of remedies just to, ensure that the jury isn't persuaded by some of these false, media reports?
Gerard Filitti: Well, I think that. I actually don't think that this looks bad for the prosecutor.
Gerard Filitti: This is a civil contempt, not a criminal one. It's.
Gerard Filitti: Understandable to most people that the prosecutor was doing what he could to limit, collateral damage on a potential jury pool. Ultimately, I think those are the sorts of things that we will be looking at to see what the judge does to select an impartial jury, the type of questions that will be asked of potential jurors, how far the case will go outside of that county, or even potentially wider to find an unbiased jury, and the efforts that will be made to seek one. I think we will see the judge placing a lot of emphasis on process in this case and procedure and ethical rules, precisely because if you have a conviction, you don't want it to be overturned on something a prosecutor said to a news reporter even before trial started. So this is, we will see the judge, if anything, err on the side of caution, to make sure that the defendant gets, that Tyler Robinson gets the fair trial that he deserves. But at the same time, it's notable that the judge didn't say that the talking about the evidence violated the order. It wasn't the fact that the prosecutor was talking about the bullet, but rather that he said he had ample evidence to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that Tyler Robinson did it. Which, I mean, if you're bringing a case, you, you believe that you have ample evidence. So really I think that this shows or signals that the judge is going to give the defendant every opportunity to have a fair trial so that there are no questions raised on appeal if there is a conviction.
Jenna Ellis: Yes. Yeah. And that, that distinction, struck me as interesting as well, that, the prosecutors were allowed to talk about the evidence and perhaps because, that discussion specifically contradicted the news reports and was, at least able to correct them insofar as, what the documents actually showed. But it's still, it's still a measure of argumentation. Right. But then when Ballard went further and kind of went out, Ballard being the deputy, Utah county attorney, that was held in contempt when he went on, to then go beyond the scope of correcting that specific ballistic report. That's the argument that the judge said went outside of the media report. So how far they can go, and where he's drawing that line, does seem to be very contained. But the argument by the defense that the, that the resolution to this would be to take the death penalty penalty off the table as a sanction, I mean, is well beyond, anything that would be remotely reasonable here. And obviously the defense is going to go for that. I mean, they, they, they will have to try to defend their client in any way possible. the judge, I think, made the correct determination. That's not the appropriate sanction. but to the point of potential jurors, I mean, everybody, it seems like, that. That you talk to, knows about this case, has an opinion on this case. And I think it is going to be very difficult to find a jury not that doesn't come in already aware of certain things, but that would be able to say I will look at the evidence only as I hear it presented in court and make a determination solely based on the evidence in this case, not on any other opinions or or things that I've heard from media or from Candace Owens or, you know, anybody else, prior to coming into this trial. And I think that's going to be very difficult to find, 12 jurors that are able and honestly willing to do that.
Gerard Filitti: It may be, but it's also a problem that we have that's common to pretty much every trial, including civil trials. It's very hard to find a juror who is a complet. Blank slate. Everyone has had some influence in life that might predispose them in one way or another, or it might influence the way that they perceive evidence or have heard or think they know things. ultimately what I find it comes down to is finding and selecting for juries those people who can differentiate between what they think they know and the openness to understand that maybe they don't know things correctly. That openness to listen to arguments and to judge fairly. And there are people out there, plenty of people out there who can do it. I just think that here we're under a media spotlight and be. Because this is one of the most shocking and horrific assassinations, I think, of this generation. It's certainly something that everyone in the country is talking about and has some, Some thoughts on whether or not there is sufficient to form an opinion on Tyler Robinson's guilt. I think everyone in this country is talking about this or thinking about it.
Jenna Ellis: Yes, yes. And there were even questions about the jury and potential bias in the Carmelo Anthony case that we talked about recently. the. The young man in, Texas who fatally stabbed, you know, unfortunately, Austin Metcalf, and was convicted at that track meet, in. In Texas, and how race was involved, of course, because, the left would bring that up, you know, regardless. And and how the. A potential jury might not have been, unbiased. And you know, the left raises that because he was convicted and you know, all of these questions that go into high profile cases about jury selection. And all of that raises this, this question of whether juries in general are, and the process of the constitutionally protected right m to have a trial, with jurors of your peers. Whether that actually our process now flows with what the founders understood and what due process was supposed to be, originally, because we tend to completely, try to get those people who have absolutely no idea about the case or they're completely unbiased rather than when this was originally designed. Juries of your peers met people who knew you, they knew your character. They could actually make an informed assessment to say whether this particular action that you were accused of kind of falls in line with the rest of your history personally or not. And so we've, we've come a long way from that.
Gerard Felitti: The way we do jury selection has changed dramatically
And do you think that, Gerard Felitti, that there are some problems implicit in the way that we do jury selection today, as opposed to how the founders contemplated it originally?
Gerard Filitti: Well, I think the problem that we have today is we have a much bigger population base and people who are disconnected even from their neighbors. And how well do any of us really know our neighbors, especially in larger metropolitan areas or the bigger suburbs. So I, I think that's really the issue. It's not that the system itself has changed, it's that society has changed with time. so even our peers, it's hard to know what to know them as well as we used to back in the days of our fathers, the founding of a nation. I think you're absolutely right that there was that intent, that when there is a jury, it's not someone who's coming at this, who doesn't know you, has never heard of you, you're a complete stranger to them. Which is essentially what the jury process we're looking for today is. It was meant to be more of a ju jury who is understanding of your circumstances in life and the circumstances that brought you to be prosecuted. So today I think there is much more of a disconnect. Life is more impersonal, the media depersonalizes, doesn't make things more personal. So we've lost that connection. Jury by your peers really just means jury by people who think they can be, forthright with their opinions, and be receptive to listening to arguments, rather than people who actually understand or have been in, or could be in your shoes.
Jenna Ellis: Right. And, and it's really fascinating. I mean, I still think we have overall the best legal system, in America and the best protections for for defendants, frankly, as it should be with the power of the state. obviously there are issues with lawfare. I'm no stranger to that, obviously. so there, you know, there we could continue to perfect the system. but overall the intent for process to allow for convictions obviously, but to protect the defendant, with due process are the best that that we have ever seen, in terms of what this country protects through our U.S. constitution. And real quick, Gerard Felitti, there have been some talks about this case already being set for trial. is that something that you've heard or are we still just in the preliminary stages?
Gerard Filitti: We're still in the preliminaries. We will know more after the fourth of July weekend when this goes to probable cause. But I think that it will be set for trial quickly. So I think that's what we've been hearing is that there will be a fast trial date, probably September or October. welcome back to Jenna Ellis in the Morning on American Family Radio.
Texas Board of Education gives final approval to Bible infused school standards
Jenna Ellis: Welcome back. Well, speaking of correcting the right, the secular lie of separation of church and state and that the Christian faith cannot inform a Western civilization is back in the headlines with the state Board of Education giving a final green light to Bible infused school standards on Friday after months of intense debate. So this will include the Bible now as part of classroom instruction for all 5.5 million students in Texas public schools is coming from the Houston Chronicle. The Republic Republican led board cemented a new required reading list for every grade level on Friday with a 9 to 5 vote, then passed a rewrite of the state social studies requirements for kindergarten to 8th grade. Bible concepts and figures are embedded in both plans which, according to the Houston Chronicle, is among the most aggressive efforts to mandate the teaching of Christianity in the country. And so this is part of required literary list. And the discussion of course online now, has devolved to whether this amounts to proselytizing in the classroom when really this is all about literacy, it's all about history, it's all about philosophy and understanding that the Bible is part of our nation's heritage. You can't possibly understand what it means to be an American when we're talking about due process, having our values of liberty and freedom and self government and understanding that our rights come from God our Creator, and it's the sole legitimate purpose of government to preserve and protect them. You can't understand what that means in the American and the Western context without understanding the principles of Scripture. But of course the left and Even some Christians, disappointingly, are suggesting that this amounts to just proselytizing. And well, if we allow the Bible, well, then, you know, we'll allow the Koran and will allow all these other religious texts. Well, the Koran had nothing to do with the founding of America. And if you want to have, you know, the Qur' an in maybe a comparative religions class in college, you know, fine. But this is all about history, literacy and recognizing that we actually, I mean, like it or not, we actually are founded as a, as a nation built upon Christian principles. And we need to be able to teach that to the next generation. And no one other than Charlie Kirk himself, actually expressed that so incredibly well at a, at a Q and A that he was at. And I want to play this clip and it's about two and a half minutes long. But this is one of the finest defenses of why we need to understand that the Bible needs to be part of the American understanding so that we can continue to defend our country's values. Listen to the question and then Charlie Kirk's response. This is cut 1, 1. Our country was found on common law because the, declaration only refers to God four times in the Constitution, doesn't refer to God at all, and it only articulates the structure of government.
Charlie Kirk: So first of all, remember that we were a collection of states and colonies and you need to read the state constitutions before anything else. 13 or 13 required a declaration of faith. 9 out of 13 required you to be a Protestant, except Maryland which was Catholic, which still required a declaration, declaration of faith. Every single one of the original state constitutions, Pennsylvania included, they had I profess Lord and Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior in the original state constitutions. Secondly, 55 out of 56 of the original signers of the declaration were Bible believing church attending Christians. You asked about common law. So common law is inherited from Blackstone, who was Christian. A common law is an outgrowth of the scriptures. So let's go to three principles of common law. Presumption of innocence, due process, and jury of your peers. All three are biblical principles. So. And all wrapped into the ultimate biblical principle that you shall not favor justice if you are richer. Report which is in Leviticus 19, right before the most famous part of Leviticus 19, which is that you should love your neighbors yourself. But before that is that in the administration of justice you shall not favor the rich or the poor, which is the idea of blind justice. We get that in the west, which is incorporated also in the NewSong Testament ideal. Neither Slavery, nor Greek nor Jew. You're all one in Jesus Christ who's regret the idea of human equality. These are all biblical ideas, they're not enlightenment ideas. But more importantly than that, they say that God was only mentioned four times in the Declaration of Independence. Well that's a big deal. Okay. Laws of nature and nature's God. The last paragraph of the Declaration reads as a prayer. It says we appeal to the supreme judge of the universe. Who's the judge of the universe? Jesus Christ. It says in Revelation that Jesus will judge the earth's eyes on his throne. This so in the Declaration they were praying to Christ our Lord as a prayer very specifically. Thirdly, as I said on the stage yesterday, Deuteronomy was by far the most quoted book, religious or non religious, in the time of the founding when they were putting together Constitution more than Jon Locke, more than Montesquieu, more than Blackstone. So the book of Deuteronomy which talked about laws, customs, traditions, it was Moses farewell address as he's, you know, by about to say goodbye, say hey, good luck in Canaan guys, here's how you should set up your form of government. But finally, and most importantly, let's look at actually what the founders said. Jon Adams famously said the Constitution was only written for a moral religious people. It was wholly inadequate for the people of any other. The body politic of America was so Christian and was so Protestant that our form and structure of government was built for the people that believed in Christ our Lord. One of the reasons we're living through a constitution constitutional crisis is that we no longer have a Christian nation, but we have a Christian form of government and they're incompatible. So you cannot have liberty if you do not have a Christian population.
Jenna Ellis: So well said.
Ryan Walters: We can't have American government without understanding biblical principles
Well let's welcome in Rhyen Walters, who is the CEO of the Teacher Freedom alliance and the former Oklahoma State Superintendent and was on the forefront of bringing the Bible back as literacy. And Rhyen, I think that Charlie Kirk expressed this so well that we can't have our society, which is a Christian form of government without understanding the principles from which it was derived. And so everyone who's objecting to this is wanting to excise the Bible but still benefit from the blessings of liberty that come specifically from the Bible and just say, well we're going to benefit from that, but we're not going to actually teach it, which I think is so hypocritical.
Ryan Walters: so well said. Again, you know, follow it up. Jenna Ellis and Charlie Kirk, you guys were so by the way, incredibly helpful to us in Oklahoma getting this done. So I appreciate all your help. Charlie was incredibly helpful. We talked a lot about it. He helped us strategize around it. But you're exactly right. So there's this tremendous experiment of Americanism that we've got in this country. The founders, again, not only did they cite the Bible more than any other book, throughout the founding era, they cited the book of Deuteronomy in the Bible more than any other book. So this is the context of which America came together to create a system of government, recognize our rights come from God, our society is built around this moral infrastructure from the Bible. And yet, to your point, you even have some Christian leaders coming out going, well, I know, but we can't talk about it in school. Well, first of all, we are not going to continue to be a great country if the next generation doesn't understand why our system of government was put together, how our society functioned, number one. Number two, it is absolutely academic malpractice to not have an understanding of the Bible. Throughout your academic experience, how in the world do you understand not only the systems of government, not only, the broader society in America? So you're going to go in. You know, I was just looking at this the other day. My daughter was asking me about Steinbeck's east of Eden book. Okay, you're going to go read east of Eden from Jon Steinbeck and not have any understanding of the story of Cain and Abel? I mean, how do you even understand literature throughout American history if you don't understand the themes and the. And the influence that the Bible had on nearly every prolific writer in American history? It is absolutely absurd. And what a great move by the state of Texas. Huge shout out to, Governor Abbott. Huge shout out to the commissioner down there, Mike Morath, who's a rock star. They're doing a great job of saying, listen, of course you have to understand these biblical stories to understand the American government and American society and literature at large.
Jenna Ellis: Yeah. So well said, Rhyen Walters. I mean, this would be like trying to teach, you know, calculus and advanced math and assuming that students could go on to be good, you know, engineers and plane constructors without first teaching them addition, subtraction, and multiplication. I mean, the, this is literally the foundation and the building blocks of society to teach these biblical principles. And to be clear, this isn't about reading, through the entire Bible or having a Sunday school class in school, which, there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, historically, we have done that and only as we have moved to this kind of pluralistic, secular progressive nation, have we tried to, to advance this false notion of separation in church, of church and state? But we can't teach our kids the founding principles of what it means to have liberty, what it means to be Western civilization in general. And we won't give them context for all of these other great literary works that, discuss scriptural principles. I mean, you know, you go back to any of, these historical, books and these arguments that, a lot of these thinkers, ah, including the founders proposed, I mean, even the Federalist Papers, you can't understand that without first having the context of the framework of liberty, which is derived from the principles of Scripture. And so for the Christians who are saying, okay, well, you know, that's all well and good, but if we open the door to this, then we're opening the door to a blue state mandating, you know, the Qur' an or some other, religious text. How were you able to kind of head off that argument in Oklahoma, and what's your response to that?
Ryan Walters: I think we should absolutely have that debate publicly. They need to show us where the Quran had a heavy influence in America's founding, because it didn't. This is history. So one of the things that we talked about a lot throughout our fight to get the Bible back in the classroom, we're very proud of that in Oklahoma, was, okay, this is history, whether you like it or not, whether you're an extreme leftist and you just hate Christians and you hate the Bible. Okay, let's, let's debate this. And it's academic merits. Here's all the references to the Bible. Here's our history. Here's what. This isn't what I say. This isn't what. So, no, this is what Benjamin Franklin said. This is what George Washington said. So. So show me where the Quran was heavily quoted throughout. The funnier. It wasn't that. That is just absolute.
Ryan Walters: And the reason they can get away with that today is because they haven't taught. They have, they have pulled any, reference, to the Bible out of our history classes. And I have adults that actually believe stuff like that. I think some of them do. I think some of them are just, you know, pushing lies intentionally. But some of them, yeah, they, they never got a real history class. And they're, they're up there going, well, why would. Why we got to have everything in there? And I'm going, well, did you ever read the Constitution? You ever read the Declaration of Independence? You ever read any of Thomas, Jefferson's letters. Did you ever see any of these? Did you read about the Great Awakening, the influences there in the founding era? Of course they didn't. And then you go to other places, and I go, okay, well, how would you teach? Why did Pilgrims come to America? What was the context for that? How do you do that without referencing the Bible or their beliefs? I go all the way up to, you know, more modern history. I go up to Martin Luther King Jr. A letter from a Birmingham jail. So he's sitting there in a jail cell, being criticized by everybody, or being criticized by a lot of leaders around the country. you broke the law. Why did you break the law? He writes this letter and says, well, hey, look, I'm a Christian. I'm actually, you know, he's Reverend Martin Luther King. You know, they don't, like, tell that part of the story, but he says, hey, look, I'm looking at biblical examples of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego Daniel, that broke unjust laws because it didn't align with God's will and God's law. Okay, so you're gonna. We're gonna read that letter to the kids and they're go, well, who? Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Well, what's the story of Dan? Well, of course, you have to know what those biblical references are. Or again, like the left, y' all just want us to take that part out. You want us to leave out the whole arguments for why so many people in American history did the things they did. And so, again, I welcome that debate. We should have that debate publicly. But the reality is, as we know, we have a large part of Americans that don't know American history. We have a large part of Americans that have been indoctrinated to by a left wing education system.
As America celebrates its 250th anniversary, it's important to teach Christian values
And Jenna, I am amazed how many people, just the last few weeks, as we're coming up on America's 250th anniversary, isn't it funny how many times this conversation has come back to Christianity and its influence? Because you got a lot of people that are going back and they're starting to look at some, you know, hey, they're starting to go, hey, I'm getting in the spirit. This is cool. This is a big moment for America. And they go back and go, wow, there's a lot of references to God, God's providence. There's a lot of references to the teachings of the Bible. It's an amazing moment here in American history as we're Coming up on this 250th anniversary, a lot of people are going to be looking at this in a deeper way than they normally do. So I think it's a great opportunity. Let's have the debate publicly.
Jenna Ellis: Yeah, absolutely. Because, of course, the, Bible will win out. I mean, history is what it is, and regardless of the left trying to change it and manipulate it and go back and rewrite history, we, know the truth. And that's what needs to be taught to children and even needs to be taught to adults. I mean, a lot of the Christians, that I've seen online, on social media who are objecting to this have unfortunately, been persuaded by the lie of secular pluralism. And to suggest that it's better ultimately for American society and better for Christians in the church if we separate the Christian faith out and say, no, we can't teach anything, in our public schools because we don't want to teach, the Koran. We don't want to teach, you know, the lgbtq, narrative. And we want to take all of the bad stuff out, so we, we don't want to then argue to replace it with the good stuff. But what they don't understand is that we can't have, and we wouldn't have this great American society without the principles of Christianity. And this won't persist past our 250th and into the next 250 years if we fail to instill those same principles and values in our children to understand how this republic came m about and how we keep it. I mean, and even famously, Richard, Dawkins, the prominent atheist, said that he wants to live in a Christian culture even if he doesn't believe the principles of Scripture. And so anyone who is advocating, the point of that is that anyone who's advocating for, American society to save the west, that, you know, we've got to close our borders. I mean, all of these things, things that we are advocating for with the Trump agenda and overall conservatism, you can't argue for those principles without arguing for biblical principles. And the people who are, the godless populace who are saying, well, I'm a Republican, but I'm not a Christian, or I'm a conservative and I believe in capitalism, free markets, all of this stuff, private property, without being a Christian, they're borrowing from Christian principles anyway because you can't have genuine freedom, liberty and self government in the American system without understanding and actually, abiding by, in the, in our community and in our society, Christian Values. And so we have to understand, Rhyen, why this is so important to teach our kids. This. This actually isn't about proselytizing. I mean, I'm all about, teaching scripture and bringing people into a saving knowledge of Christ. But in terms of public schools right now, I, with this advancement, I'm much more concerned, at least in, in this context, simply about teaching the values of liberty and freedom and opening the door to then the, the kids saying, well, this makes a lot of sense. Let me go and read more of the Bible and understand why our rights come from God. And then understanding, you know, the full scope of the redemption narrative.
Ryan Walters: Oh, you're, you're 100% right. Well, as well, very well said. you know, and I look back at it like this as well. You know, our founders looked at this and said, look, we look at world history, we look at the Bible, we look at where truth comes from. We believe our rights come from God, not from government from God. That is what our Christian beliefs lead us to believe. We sought out truth. This is what we found. This isn't.
Ryan Walters: This is a core building block of America is that concept. If we, remove ourselves from that concept, government can take, they can give. It's just whatever the government says every day. They understood the dangers of that. They saw that in world history. They saw that that wasn't, what they believed God intended for government to look like. They looked at the book of Deuteronomy. They'd studied this. So our young people have to understand that. And again, they can draw their own conclusions on policy and, the minutiae of how they want things to work inside, America moving forward. But that concept is crucial to understand how we got to where we are today and American exceptionalism. And frankly, it's one of the great blessings God gave our country is our founders relied on him. They relied on the Bible. This debate is a debate about American history that the founders left us. And we are doing an incredible disservice to them 250 years later. If we allow the left to gut that from the next generation and say all of the things that the founders believe is core to making America a great country that defies the path that so many other countries took before us. This understanding, this belief in God, this belief in God's role in American society, we are not going to tell the next generation about that because the left doesn't want us to. Well, of course the left doesn't want us to. Okay. They are out for a political means to Convert kids to be Marxist, atheist, transgender worshiping, you know, social justice warriors. That's what their goal is. Of course, they don't want kids to understand that. The founders would have still rejected that view. They did reject that view. They gave a view that was grounded in understanding rights came from God, not from individuals, not from government, but from God. That's where it started. And then again, the more that kids read, the more they'll be fascinated by this, the more they will do their own deep dive, the more they'll dig into primary sources, the more, frankly, they're going to be attached to the founders, the more they're going to fall in love with them and go, hey, this is fascinating that these individuals dug this deep, were so prescient in their thoughts or so many things. You go back and read and it was like, man, it's like, boy, talk about predicting the future. Well, they were grounded in truth. They were grounded in history. They were grounded in their belief system. And so it enabled them to have a wisdom, that was really, really tremendous for that time and stands the test of time.
Jenna Ellis: So well said. Well, Rhyen Walters, we have to take a break here, but really appreciate it. And you can follow Rhyen Walters on X. See the great work, that he is doing now over at the Teacher Freedom Alliance. And, this is just the plain facts. If we want to make good citizens for the next generation, we want to keep America, then we have to teach the principles upon which America was founded. And that necessarily requires a teaching of scriptural principles. And if we don't want that, and we want the left to win and have our children, you know, turn to Marxist principles, to other principles that the left would like our society to be built on and tearing down Western civilization. Yeah. Then don't teach the Bible. And that is exactly, unfortunately, what a lot of Christians are advocating for, not understanding why these principles are necessary. So hats off to the state of Texas. More states need to do this because we have to tell our kids why America is great and it is only because God is good. We'll be right back.
The UK is currently giving us a cautionary tale of what happens if pluralism
Welcome back to Jenna Ellis in the Morning on American Family Radio.
Jenna Ellis: Welcome back. And as we are talking, talking about ensuring that we're protecting American values and overall Western civilization and Christendom, the UK is currently giving us a cautionary tale of what happens if your leaders buy into pluralism. And, His Majesty King Charles III has betrayed his oath to be a defender of the faith. Coming from, Calvin Robinson on X. because coming from the telegraph The King is set to quote unquote, protect multi faith nation in a revised definition of the monarchy. His Majesty's redrafted job description also includes strengthening the UK social fabric and cohesion. So Calvin Robinson goes on to say, changing the definition from the one true Christian faith to some globalist nonsense about multifaiths is not only treasonous, but it is also the heresy of pluralism act worthy of dethronement. I could not agree more. So let's welcome in Calvin Robinson. And you know, this is exactly what we are trying to prevent here in America. Instead of embracing the lie of secular pluralism and this whole idea that that as far as the state goes and the values that the government is premised upon and the principles are open to debate and every faith comes to the table equally, which is the definition of pluralism. We need to stand firm that Christendom is built on the values and principles that come from Christ and the Bible.
Calvin Robinson: Absolutely. You have a harder fight on your hands over here in the States as well. Remember in Britain, explicitly Christian country, not just implicitly so. The monarchy is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. We have Lord Spiritual, which means we have 26 bishops from the Church of England who sit in our Senate in our House of Lords. We've got legal and historical foundations in the Christian faith. It's all very much tied to our country. And yes, my title from defender of the Faith to defend other multi faith nation. And this is taking into consideration that when he was sworn into office, when he took his oath to become the King of the realm, to the utmost of your power maintain the laws of God. And true. This they said, will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the united Reformed religion established. I promise to do this. They say, will you maintain, inviolably the settlement and the doctrine and government
Jenna Ellis: there and Calvin, you're breaking up. I'm sorry, you're breaking up really bad here. We're going to try to reconnect to Calvin Robinson because what he's saying is so incredibly important that I want to make sure that we're not breaking up so bad. But. And so my producer, Adam is going to try to get him back. Let me know when we have Calvin Robinson back. But the point of course is that the UK Western, civilization, not just America of course, was built on the foundation of the principles of Christ. And obviously the system of government is different in the UK than it is in America. We have a constitutional republic, they have a monarchy and A parliament. But the point of saying that our rights come from God our Creator, is, no different. And how the government system preserves and protects that, may look a little bit different. But ultimately the call under Scripture and the only legitimate, exercise of government is to preserve those rights. And that's what, the history, of course, of England and coming out of, the Middle Ages and with, the Magna Carta, essentially for the first time in world history, saying, you know, our rights don't belong to, the king and to an earthly sovereign. We're retaining certain rights, not exchanging them for protection from the king. I mean, these were principles that are derived from Scripture. And as you go along throughout a, world history, and especially with Western civilization, you see explicitly, and not just implicitly, as Calvin said, that these principles of government are specifically derived from Scripture. We have Calvin back. So I'm sorry for interrupting you. I just didn't. I didn't want you to be breaking up while you're, speaking truth. So go ahead.
Calvin Robinson: I apologize. Obviously, the enemy does not want us to have this conversation on air, but it's important because we have to protect the Christian rights and privileges of our nation. And this is one of the other pledges that the king swore an oath to. The archbishop said, will you preserve, unto the bishops, the clergy of England and the churches there committed to their charge all such rights and privileges as by law. And he says, yes, I promise to do so. So he's undoing all of the oath that he swore during his coronation. And that is no small fate that is worthy of dethronement, that is worthy of abdication. and I think we should be seriously having this conversation as Englishmen in Britain, saying if the king is no longer willing to protect this Christian country, first and foremost, should he still be our king? And as I pointed out, you can have a harder fight over here because you don't have all of that explicitly. It's all implicit in your. In your founding documents. And people are still arguing today saying, this is not a Christian country. Well, of course it is a Christian country. It was founded by 13 Christian colonies. But the enemy does not want to believe that or does not want us to believe that. And so we've got to fight that every step of the way, because otherwise multiculturalism is hell, quite literally hell. When we tell people it doesn't matter what you believe, doesn't matter who you believe in, doesn't matter how you worship or what or whom you worship. That is the pathway to hell.
Calvin Robinson: And our Job as Christians is to lead people to heaven, which means leading them to Jesus Christ. It's really as simple as that, that it's all about the enemy wanting more company.
Jenna Ellis: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, and wanting secular pluralism to be the expressed religion of the society so that we can then break down the principles of a legitimate government and have government instead of protecting the rights of the people, infringing upon them. And you know, the one thing I would disagree with you on Calvin, is that our American society is explicitly based on Christian principles. Yes, it's implicit as well. But there are so many references, specific requirements in the Declaration that then led to the U.S. constitution that requires our government to look toward God as the supreme judge of the universe and as the sovereign and only to have legitimate ah, powers that are derived from God himself under consent of the people. And so we need to understand all of this and what protects a Christian society. And so as you're, as you're mentioning, and I totally agree with you that this is worthy, what King Charles is doing is worthy of dethronement or abdication. Are there any members, of Parliament or anyone else in the British government that sees this the same way that we do and understands how big of a deal this is, that is calling for that and is willing to stand up to King Charles on this?
Calvin Robinson: Unfortunately not. I think there are many people in the population, the general population, who are rightly angry about this, with righteous indignation. But I don't think there are many people in the House of earlier. There are 26 bishops in the House of Lords. They should all of them be asking for his head. They should be saying to the Tower, as would have happened with previous kings. but at this point most of the bishops of the Church of England are so liberal that they are in favor of having a king who is in charge of being multi faith instead of defender of the nation. Bear in mind that this title has been with our king for over half a millennium. It was Pope Leo xiii, now it's Pope Leo X who said, you are the fidei defensor, the defender of the faith to King Henry vi, eighth of all people. And since then all of our kings and queens have tried their best to defend the Christian faith. This is the first time that king has let us down in this way. And I think it's probably because our country is getting in by 2060 will probably be a m predominantly Muhammadan country unless something changes. That's why we need a king to defend the Christian faith, make sure I stick around and make sure I keep the monarchy in this country. To do so, I'm going to have to make sure it embraces Islam instead of as previously.
Jenna Ellis: Okay, yeah, we're losing Calvin a little bit again. hopefully he's still there.
Jenna: Calvin, what impact does this decision have on British law
And Calvin, what authority and what actual impact does this decision from the king, have in terms of the actual governing and rules of the King of England? I mean how, how does this work in terms of the monarchy versus the Parliament in, in terms of how this actually impacts British law and and, and the, the general sense of how England is going to continue.
Calvin Robinson: So Parliament pretty much already tells the king what to do and which laws to pass. The king centuries, he's so he's not really doing his job anyway. He's really not standing up for the Christian faith faith when laws come through that push abortion or euthanasia or any kind of really dark anti Christian policy, he doesn't stand up against them. So really and truly it's not going to make a practical difference. It's the, it's the spiritual differences, the giving our country to the multiface. It's going to have a, an implicit difference to the rest of the country. We're going have to stand up and say enough is enough. No longer no more kings.
Jenna Ellis: Yeah, yeah. And, and I mean, and this hopefully won't have the influence on Parliament then to say, okay, if the King is wanting to protect a multifaith nation, then you know, we need to kind of borrow that worldview. And this is why it's so important as we've been talking throughout the program about teaching our kids the principles and the values that are derived specifically from Scripture because we can't have, have Christendom, Western civilization, liberty, freedom, all of these things that we value and cherish in the United States, in in Europe, at least historically. And what Christians value now, without an understanding of these principles and if we fail to pass that on to future generations, then we ultimately are simply giving over our societies to the Marxists, to the Pluralists. And and these are people who are not going to shrink back and say, you know what? We want a secular state and we're going to just teach Marxism in the confines of our, of our churches. We're just going to teach you know, Islam in the confines of our churches. I just saw Calvin, a, video this morning of Dearborn, Michigan and all of the Muslims that are marching basically saying, you know, we're trying to take over society. I mean, this is something that, secular pluralism is not going to persist. It's going to be a handover to, eradicating the principles of liberty and value and our Christian way of life. So, last 30 seconds, your comments.
Calvin Robinson: I saw that. I'm in Michigan myself. I saw that video. I thought, what country is that? And then I realized it was airborne. They're making a stand for what they believe in. We need to do the same. And you're absolutely right. We need to teach our children. We need to double down with our children because we can't expect them to be taught these perspectives, principles that we've all been learned when we were growing up, because it's not there anymore. We've got to pass it on, and we've got to make sure that they know that this is a Christian land and they need to defend it. We need to defend it. The name of Christ.
Jenna Ellis: Amen. Amen. Well, thank you so much. And absolutely, I mean, it used to be taught in public schools, and hopefully, at least in the state of Texas, it'll be taught a little bit again. But it's incumbent upon parents, upon Christians, pastors, teach this to the next generation. You can reach me and my team. Jennaafr.net.
Jenna Ellis: Rights that our founders recognize come from God, not government
Jenna Ellis in the morning on American Family Radio. I love talking about the things of God because of truth and the biblical worldview. The U.S. constitution obligates our government to preserve and protect. The rights that our founders recognize come from God, our creator, not our government. I believe that scripture in the Bible is very clear that God is the one that raised up each of you. And God has allowed us to be brought here to this specific moment in time. This is Jenna Ellis in the morning.
Judge holds prosecutors in Charlie Kirk murder case in contempt over comments to media
Jenna Ellis: Good morning. It is Monday, June 29, and a lot going on in the murder trial in the Charlie Kirk murder case. And so this coming from Politico, a judge, the judge holds prosecutors in Charlie Kirk murder case in contempt for comments about the defendant. So Tyler Robinson, who, is charged with the murder of Charlie Kirk, has not yet entered a plea to an aggravated murder charge in the September 10th assassination of the conservative political activist is how Politico characterizes it. A Utah judge in the murder case held prosecutors in contempt of court on Friday over comments they made to media organizations about the defendant. The judge said the comments violated his restrictions on what the two sides can say about the case outside of court. And so basically the defense attorneys had accused one of the deputy, Utah county attorneys of trying to influence potential jurors by going on a media tour to talk about ballistics evidence in the case. And defense, attorneys also said, that because the prosecutor suggested to media that there was enough evidence to show beyond any and all reasonable doubt that Robinson murdered Kirk, that that was well outside of what the judge's restrictions were. And the judge agreed with that. But, but, the judge denied the defense request to take the death penalty off the table as a sanction for the violation. The judge said the problem could instead be resolved through the screening and questioning process for potential jurors, which is intended to weed out people who could be biased or have their minds already made up about the case before they hear the evidence.
Gerard Felitti: County prosecutor trying to correct false reports before trial
So let's welcome in Gerard Felitti, who is senior counsel at the Lawfare Project. And Gerard, you know, this raises a number of just, you know, some basic questions. And first, the, the county prosecutor, kind of going on media and trying to correct some of these false reports. that, that I think is, is a ultimately an interesting decision that he's trying to correct this before the trial begins, which shows that the prosecutors, like the defense, believe that at least the court of public opinion is still significant to this case before it ever reaches a jury.
Gerard Filitti: I think you're Absolutely right about that. what really started this, where this started going, into the spectacle that it is, is assertions that some of the ballistics evidence, may not match the rifle that was used. and aside from raising some eyebrows, what that really did was raise some voices on social media and in the media, including from Candace Ow, who immediately started, raising questions about whether there was some sort of a conspiracy or there was some sort of.
Gerard Filitti: Or whether Tyler Robinson was a patsy. And when you have that narrative percolating into the media, it's influencing a potential jury pool. So the prosecutor is in a tough position where he has to have a response to that instead of being silent. But there are constraints that the ethics system places on lawyers, especially prosecutors. And I know most people in the audience think that lawyers can get away with saying pretty much anything they want to, but we can't. There are some very set rules about what we can do and say, especially about a pending case that we're prosecuting. so there are limits there that were crossed. But ultimately it was precisely because there was information that got out there that started being used in a negative way to influence the jury pool.
Jenna Ellis: Yeah. And you're absolutely right that this is such a difficult position for the prosecution because of all of the attention and coverage by, the media and also alternative media and different voices, because everybody has an opinion on this case. Everyone is interested in this case. I mean, this is probably, the case that has more public concern and knowledge than, any other in recent history, just because of how many people, knew and loved Charlie Kirk and how influential, he is and how, he still is and how much this was just an absolutely terrible, terrible thing that happened. And so what's the balance here? Because, you know, the prosecutors obviously don't want the jury, the potential jury, and the public, of course, but they're most concerned about the jury to be influenced by false media reports or this type of speculation. But then when they go and try to correct the record, they can only go so far. And now, being held in contempt is not a great look for the prosecutor. And of course, media can spin that, however they will. And so where's the balance here for the prosecutor? And is the judge potentially contemplating, you know, some other types of remedies just to, ensure that the jury isn't persuaded by some of these false, media reports?
Gerard Filitti: Well, I think that. I actually don't think that this looks bad for the prosecutor.
Gerard Filitti: This is a civil contempt, not a criminal one. It's.
Gerard Filitti: Understandable to most people that the prosecutor was doing what he could to limit, collateral damage on a potential jury pool. Ultimately, I think those are the sorts of things that we will be looking at to see what the judge does to select an impartial jury, the type of questions that will be asked of potential jurors, how far the case will go outside of that county, or even potentially wider to find an unbiased jury, and the efforts that will be made to seek one. I think we will see the judge placing a lot of emphasis on process in this case and procedure and ethical rules, precisely because if you have a conviction, you don't want it to be overturned on something a prosecutor said to a news reporter even before trial started. So this is, we will see the judge, if anything, err on the side of caution, to make sure that the defendant gets, that Tyler Robinson gets the fair trial that he deserves. But at the same time, it's notable that the judge didn't say that the talking about the evidence violated the order. It wasn't the fact that the prosecutor was talking about the bullet, but rather that he said he had ample evidence to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that Tyler Robinson did it. Which, I mean, if you're bringing a case, you, you believe that you have ample evidence. So really I think that this shows or signals that the judge is going to give the defendant every opportunity to have a fair trial so that there are no questions raised on appeal if there is a conviction.
Jenna Ellis: Yes. Yeah. And that, that distinction, struck me as interesting as well, that, the prosecutors were allowed to talk about the evidence and perhaps because, that discussion specifically contradicted the news reports and was, at least able to correct them insofar as, what the documents actually showed. But it's still, it's still a measure of argumentation. Right. But then when Ballard went further and kind of went out, Ballard being the deputy, Utah county attorney, that was held in contempt when he went on, to then go beyond the scope of correcting that specific ballistic report. That's the argument that the judge said went outside of the media report. So how far they can go, and where he's drawing that line, does seem to be very contained. But the argument by the defense that the, that the resolution to this would be to take the death penalty penalty off the table as a sanction, I mean, is well beyond, anything that would be remotely reasonable here. And obviously the defense is going to go for that. I mean, they, they, they will have to try to defend their client in any way possible. the judge, I think, made the correct determination. That's not the appropriate sanction. but to the point of potential jurors, I mean, everybody, it seems like, that. That you talk to, knows about this case, has an opinion on this case. And I think it is going to be very difficult to find a jury not that doesn't come in already aware of certain things, but that would be able to say I will look at the evidence only as I hear it presented in court and make a determination solely based on the evidence in this case, not on any other opinions or or things that I've heard from media or from Candace Owens or, you know, anybody else, prior to coming into this trial. And I think that's going to be very difficult to find, 12 jurors that are able and honestly willing to do that.
Gerard Filitti: It may be, but it's also a problem that we have that's common to pretty much every trial, including civil trials. It's very hard to find a juror who is a complet. Blank slate. Everyone has had some influence in life that might predispose them in one way or another, or it might influence the way that they perceive evidence or have heard or think they know things. ultimately what I find it comes down to is finding and selecting for juries those people who can differentiate between what they think they know and the openness to understand that maybe they don't know things correctly. That openness to listen to arguments and to judge fairly. And there are people out there, plenty of people out there who can do it. I just think that here we're under a media spotlight and be. Because this is one of the most shocking and horrific assassinations, I think, of this generation. It's certainly something that everyone in the country is talking about and has some, Some thoughts on whether or not there is sufficient to form an opinion on Tyler Robinson's guilt. I think everyone in this country is talking about this or thinking about it.
Jenna Ellis: Yes, yes. And there were even questions about the jury and potential bias in the Carmelo Anthony case that we talked about recently. the. The young man in, Texas who fatally stabbed, you know, unfortunately, Austin Metcalf, and was convicted at that track meet, in. In Texas, and how race was involved, of course, because, the left would bring that up, you know, regardless. And and how the. A potential jury might not have been, unbiased. And you know, the left raises that because he was convicted and you know, all of these questions that go into high profile cases about jury selection. And all of that raises this, this question of whether juries in general are, and the process of the constitutionally protected right m to have a trial, with jurors of your peers. Whether that actually our process now flows with what the founders understood and what due process was supposed to be, originally, because we tend to completely, try to get those people who have absolutely no idea about the case or they're completely unbiased rather than when this was originally designed. Juries of your peers met people who knew you, they knew your character. They could actually make an informed assessment to say whether this particular action that you were accused of kind of falls in line with the rest of your history personally or not. And so we've, we've come a long way from that.
Gerard Felitti: The way we do jury selection has changed dramatically
And do you think that, Gerard Felitti, that there are some problems implicit in the way that we do jury selection today, as opposed to how the founders contemplated it originally?
Gerard Filitti: Well, I think the problem that we have today is we have a much bigger population base and people who are disconnected even from their neighbors. And how well do any of us really know our neighbors, especially in larger metropolitan areas or the bigger suburbs. So I, I think that's really the issue. It's not that the system itself has changed, it's that society has changed with time. so even our peers, it's hard to know what to know them as well as we used to back in the days of our fathers, the founding of a nation. I think you're absolutely right that there was that intent, that when there is a jury, it's not someone who's coming at this, who doesn't know you, has never heard of you, you're a complete stranger to them. Which is essentially what the jury process we're looking for today is. It was meant to be more of a ju jury who is understanding of your circumstances in life and the circumstances that brought you to be prosecuted. So today I think there is much more of a disconnect. Life is more impersonal, the media depersonalizes, doesn't make things more personal. So we've lost that connection. Jury by your peers really just means jury by people who think they can be, forthright with their opinions, and be receptive to listening to arguments, rather than people who actually understand or have been in, or could be in your shoes.
Jenna Ellis: Right. And, and it's really fascinating. I mean, I still think we have overall the best legal system, in America and the best protections for for defendants, frankly, as it should be with the power of the state. obviously there are issues with lawfare. I'm no stranger to that, obviously. so there, you know, there we could continue to perfect the system. but overall the intent for process to allow for convictions obviously, but to protect the defendant, with due process are the best that that we have ever seen, in terms of what this country protects through our U.S. constitution. And real quick, Gerard Felitti, there have been some talks about this case already being set for trial. is that something that you've heard or are we still just in the preliminary stages?
Gerard Filitti: We're still in the preliminaries. We will know more after the fourth of July weekend when this goes to probable cause. But I think that it will be set for trial quickly. So I think that's what we've been hearing is that there will be a fast trial date, probably September or October. welcome back to Jenna Ellis in the Morning on American Family Radio.
Texas Board of Education gives final approval to Bible infused school standards
Jenna Ellis: Welcome back. Well, speaking of correcting the right, the secular lie of separation of church and state and that the Christian faith cannot inform a Western civilization is back in the headlines with the state Board of Education giving a final green light to Bible infused school standards on Friday after months of intense debate. So this will include the Bible now as part of classroom instruction for all 5.5 million students in Texas public schools is coming from the Houston Chronicle. The Republic Republican led board cemented a new required reading list for every grade level on Friday with a 9 to 5 vote, then passed a rewrite of the state social studies requirements for kindergarten to 8th grade. Bible concepts and figures are embedded in both plans which, according to the Houston Chronicle, is among the most aggressive efforts to mandate the teaching of Christianity in the country. And so this is part of required literary list. And the discussion of course online now, has devolved to whether this amounts to proselytizing in the classroom when really this is all about literacy, it's all about history, it's all about philosophy and understanding that the Bible is part of our nation's heritage. You can't possibly understand what it means to be an American when we're talking about due process, having our values of liberty and freedom and self government and understanding that our rights come from God our Creator, and it's the sole legitimate purpose of government to preserve and protect them. You can't understand what that means in the American and the Western context without understanding the principles of Scripture. But of course the left and Even some Christians, disappointingly, are suggesting that this amounts to just proselytizing. And well, if we allow the Bible, well, then, you know, we'll allow the Koran and will allow all these other religious texts. Well, the Koran had nothing to do with the founding of America. And if you want to have, you know, the Qur' an in maybe a comparative religions class in college, you know, fine. But this is all about history, literacy and recognizing that we actually, I mean, like it or not, we actually are founded as a, as a nation built upon Christian principles. And we need to be able to teach that to the next generation. And no one other than Charlie Kirk himself, actually expressed that so incredibly well at a, at a Q and A that he was at. And I want to play this clip and it's about two and a half minutes long. But this is one of the finest defenses of why we need to understand that the Bible needs to be part of the American understanding so that we can continue to defend our country's values. Listen to the question and then Charlie Kirk's response. This is cut 1, 1. Our country was found on common law because the, declaration only refers to God four times in the Constitution, doesn't refer to God at all, and it only articulates the structure of government.
Charlie Kirk: So first of all, remember that we were a collection of states and colonies and you need to read the state constitutions before anything else. 13 or 13 required a declaration of faith. 9 out of 13 required you to be a Protestant, except Maryland which was Catholic, which still required a declaration, declaration of faith. Every single one of the original state constitutions, Pennsylvania included, they had I profess Lord and Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior in the original state constitutions. Secondly, 55 out of 56 of the original signers of the declaration were Bible believing church attending Christians. You asked about common law. So common law is inherited from Blackstone, who was Christian. A common law is an outgrowth of the scriptures. So let's go to three principles of common law. Presumption of innocence, due process, and jury of your peers. All three are biblical principles. So. And all wrapped into the ultimate biblical principle that you shall not favor justice if you are richer. Report which is in Leviticus 19, right before the most famous part of Leviticus 19, which is that you should love your neighbors yourself. But before that is that in the administration of justice you shall not favor the rich or the poor, which is the idea of blind justice. We get that in the west, which is incorporated also in the NewSong Testament ideal. Neither Slavery, nor Greek nor Jew. You're all one in Jesus Christ who's regret the idea of human equality. These are all biblical ideas, they're not enlightenment ideas. But more importantly than that, they say that God was only mentioned four times in the Declaration of Independence. Well that's a big deal. Okay. Laws of nature and nature's God. The last paragraph of the Declaration reads as a prayer. It says we appeal to the supreme judge of the universe. Who's the judge of the universe? Jesus Christ. It says in Revelation that Jesus will judge the earth's eyes on his throne. This so in the Declaration they were praying to Christ our Lord as a prayer very specifically. Thirdly, as I said on the stage yesterday, Deuteronomy was by far the most quoted book, religious or non religious, in the time of the founding when they were putting together Constitution more than Jon Locke, more than Montesquieu, more than Blackstone. So the book of Deuteronomy which talked about laws, customs, traditions, it was Moses farewell address as he's, you know, by about to say goodbye, say hey, good luck in Canaan guys, here's how you should set up your form of government. But finally, and most importantly, let's look at actually what the founders said. Jon Adams famously said the Constitution was only written for a moral religious people. It was wholly inadequate for the people of any other. The body politic of America was so Christian and was so Protestant that our form and structure of government was built for the people that believed in Christ our Lord. One of the reasons we're living through a constitution constitutional crisis is that we no longer have a Christian nation, but we have a Christian form of government and they're incompatible. So you cannot have liberty if you do not have a Christian population.
Jenna Ellis: So well said.
Ryan Walters: We can't have American government without understanding biblical principles
Well let's welcome in Rhyen Walters, who is the CEO of the Teacher Freedom alliance and the former Oklahoma State Superintendent and was on the forefront of bringing the Bible back as literacy. And Rhyen, I think that Charlie Kirk expressed this so well that we can't have our society, which is a Christian form of government without understanding the principles from which it was derived. And so everyone who's objecting to this is wanting to excise the Bible but still benefit from the blessings of liberty that come specifically from the Bible and just say, well we're going to benefit from that, but we're not going to actually teach it, which I think is so hypocritical.
Ryan Walters: so well said. Again, you know, follow it up. Jenna Ellis and Charlie Kirk, you guys were so by the way, incredibly helpful to us in Oklahoma getting this done. So I appreciate all your help. Charlie was incredibly helpful. We talked a lot about it. He helped us strategize around it. But you're exactly right. So there's this tremendous experiment of Americanism that we've got in this country. The founders, again, not only did they cite the Bible more than any other book, throughout the founding era, they cited the book of Deuteronomy in the Bible more than any other book. So this is the context of which America came together to create a system of government, recognize our rights come from God, our society is built around this moral infrastructure from the Bible. And yet, to your point, you even have some Christian leaders coming out going, well, I know, but we can't talk about it in school. Well, first of all, we are not going to continue to be a great country if the next generation doesn't understand why our system of government was put together, how our society functioned, number one. Number two, it is absolutely academic malpractice to not have an understanding of the Bible. Throughout your academic experience, how in the world do you understand not only the systems of government, not only, the broader society in America? So you're going to go in. You know, I was just looking at this the other day. My daughter was asking me about Steinbeck's east of Eden book. Okay, you're going to go read east of Eden from Jon Steinbeck and not have any understanding of the story of Cain and Abel? I mean, how do you even understand literature throughout American history if you don't understand the themes and the. And the influence that the Bible had on nearly every prolific writer in American history? It is absolutely absurd. And what a great move by the state of Texas. Huge shout out to, Governor Abbott. Huge shout out to the commissioner down there, Mike Morath, who's a rock star. They're doing a great job of saying, listen, of course you have to understand these biblical stories to understand the American government and American society and literature at large.
Jenna Ellis: Yeah. So well said, Rhyen Walters. I mean, this would be like trying to teach, you know, calculus and advanced math and assuming that students could go on to be good, you know, engineers and plane constructors without first teaching them addition, subtraction, and multiplication. I mean, the, this is literally the foundation and the building blocks of society to teach these biblical principles. And to be clear, this isn't about reading, through the entire Bible or having a Sunday school class in school, which, there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, historically, we have done that and only as we have moved to this kind of pluralistic, secular progressive nation, have we tried to, to advance this false notion of separation in church, of church and state? But we can't teach our kids the founding principles of what it means to have liberty, what it means to be Western civilization in general. And we won't give them context for all of these other great literary works that, discuss scriptural principles. I mean, you know, you go back to any of, these historical, books and these arguments that, a lot of these thinkers, ah, including the founders proposed, I mean, even the Federalist Papers, you can't understand that without first having the context of the framework of liberty, which is derived from the principles of Scripture. And so for the Christians who are saying, okay, well, you know, that's all well and good, but if we open the door to this, then we're opening the door to a blue state mandating, you know, the Qur' an or some other, religious text. How were you able to kind of head off that argument in Oklahoma, and what's your response to that?
Ryan Walters: I think we should absolutely have that debate publicly. They need to show us where the Quran had a heavy influence in America's founding, because it didn't. This is history. So one of the things that we talked about a lot throughout our fight to get the Bible back in the classroom, we're very proud of that in Oklahoma, was, okay, this is history, whether you like it or not, whether you're an extreme leftist and you just hate Christians and you hate the Bible. Okay, let's, let's debate this. And it's academic merits. Here's all the references to the Bible. Here's our history. Here's what. This isn't what I say. This isn't what. So, no, this is what Benjamin Franklin said. This is what George Washington said. So. So show me where the Quran was heavily quoted throughout. The funnier. It wasn't that. That is just absolute.
Ryan Walters: And the reason they can get away with that today is because they haven't taught. They have, they have pulled any, reference, to the Bible out of our history classes. And I have adults that actually believe stuff like that. I think some of them do. I think some of them are just, you know, pushing lies intentionally. But some of them, yeah, they, they never got a real history class. And they're, they're up there going, well, why would. Why we got to have everything in there? And I'm going, well, did you ever read the Constitution? You ever read the Declaration of Independence? You ever read any of Thomas, Jefferson's letters. Did you ever see any of these? Did you read about the Great Awakening, the influences there in the founding era? Of course they didn't. And then you go to other places, and I go, okay, well, how would you teach? Why did Pilgrims come to America? What was the context for that? How do you do that without referencing the Bible or their beliefs? I go all the way up to, you know, more modern history. I go up to Martin Luther King Jr. A letter from a Birmingham jail. So he's sitting there in a jail cell, being criticized by everybody, or being criticized by a lot of leaders around the country. you broke the law. Why did you break the law? He writes this letter and says, well, hey, look, I'm a Christian. I'm actually, you know, he's Reverend Martin Luther King. You know, they don't, like, tell that part of the story, but he says, hey, look, I'm looking at biblical examples of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego Daniel, that broke unjust laws because it didn't align with God's will and God's law. Okay, so you're gonna. We're gonna read that letter to the kids and they're go, well, who? Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Well, what's the story of Dan? Well, of course, you have to know what those biblical references are. Or again, like the left, y' all just want us to take that part out. You want us to leave out the whole arguments for why so many people in American history did the things they did. And so, again, I welcome that debate. We should have that debate publicly. But the reality is, as we know, we have a large part of Americans that don't know American history. We have a large part of Americans that have been indoctrinated to by a left wing education system.
As America celebrates its 250th anniversary, it's important to teach Christian values
And Jenna, I am amazed how many people, just the last few weeks, as we're coming up on America's 250th anniversary, isn't it funny how many times this conversation has come back to Christianity and its influence? Because you got a lot of people that are going back and they're starting to look at some, you know, hey, they're starting to go, hey, I'm getting in the spirit. This is cool. This is a big moment for America. And they go back and go, wow, there's a lot of references to God, God's providence. There's a lot of references to the teachings of the Bible. It's an amazing moment here in American history as we're Coming up on this 250th anniversary, a lot of people are going to be looking at this in a deeper way than they normally do. So I think it's a great opportunity. Let's have the debate publicly.
Jenna Ellis: Yeah, absolutely. Because, of course, the, Bible will win out. I mean, history is what it is, and regardless of the left trying to change it and manipulate it and go back and rewrite history, we, know the truth. And that's what needs to be taught to children and even needs to be taught to adults. I mean, a lot of the Christians, that I've seen online, on social media who are objecting to this have unfortunately, been persuaded by the lie of secular pluralism. And to suggest that it's better ultimately for American society and better for Christians in the church if we separate the Christian faith out and say, no, we can't teach anything, in our public schools because we don't want to teach, the Koran. We don't want to teach, you know, the lgbtq, narrative. And we want to take all of the bad stuff out, so we, we don't want to then argue to replace it with the good stuff. But what they don't understand is that we can't have, and we wouldn't have this great American society without the principles of Christianity. And this won't persist past our 250th and into the next 250 years if we fail to instill those same principles and values in our children to understand how this republic came m about and how we keep it. I mean, and even famously, Richard, Dawkins, the prominent atheist, said that he wants to live in a Christian culture even if he doesn't believe the principles of Scripture. And so anyone who is advocating, the point of that is that anyone who's advocating for, American society to save the west, that, you know, we've got to close our borders. I mean, all of these things, things that we are advocating for with the Trump agenda and overall conservatism, you can't argue for those principles without arguing for biblical principles. And the people who are, the godless populace who are saying, well, I'm a Republican, but I'm not a Christian, or I'm a conservative and I believe in capitalism, free markets, all of this stuff, private property, without being a Christian, they're borrowing from Christian principles anyway because you can't have genuine freedom, liberty and self government in the American system without understanding and actually, abiding by, in the, in our community and in our society, Christian Values. And so we have to understand, Rhyen, why this is so important to teach our kids. This. This actually isn't about proselytizing. I mean, I'm all about, teaching scripture and bringing people into a saving knowledge of Christ. But in terms of public schools right now, I, with this advancement, I'm much more concerned, at least in, in this context, simply about teaching the values of liberty and freedom and opening the door to then the, the kids saying, well, this makes a lot of sense. Let me go and read more of the Bible and understand why our rights come from God. And then understanding, you know, the full scope of the redemption narrative.
Ryan Walters: Oh, you're, you're 100% right. Well, as well, very well said. you know, and I look back at it like this as well. You know, our founders looked at this and said, look, we look at world history, we look at the Bible, we look at where truth comes from. We believe our rights come from God, not from government from God. That is what our Christian beliefs lead us to believe. We sought out truth. This is what we found. This isn't.
Ryan Walters: This is a core building block of America is that concept. If we, remove ourselves from that concept, government can take, they can give. It's just whatever the government says every day. They understood the dangers of that. They saw that in world history. They saw that that wasn't, what they believed God intended for government to look like. They looked at the book of Deuteronomy. They'd studied this. So our young people have to understand that. And again, they can draw their own conclusions on policy and, the minutiae of how they want things to work inside, America moving forward. But that concept is crucial to understand how we got to where we are today and American exceptionalism. And frankly, it's one of the great blessings God gave our country is our founders relied on him. They relied on the Bible. This debate is a debate about American history that the founders left us. And we are doing an incredible disservice to them 250 years later. If we allow the left to gut that from the next generation and say all of the things that the founders believe is core to making America a great country that defies the path that so many other countries took before us. This understanding, this belief in God, this belief in God's role in American society, we are not going to tell the next generation about that because the left doesn't want us to. Well, of course the left doesn't want us to. Okay. They are out for a political means to Convert kids to be Marxist, atheist, transgender worshiping, you know, social justice warriors. That's what their goal is. Of course, they don't want kids to understand that. The founders would have still rejected that view. They did reject that view. They gave a view that was grounded in understanding rights came from God, not from individuals, not from government, but from God. That's where it started. And then again, the more that kids read, the more they'll be fascinated by this, the more they will do their own deep dive, the more they'll dig into primary sources, the more, frankly, they're going to be attached to the founders, the more they're going to fall in love with them and go, hey, this is fascinating that these individuals dug this deep, were so prescient in their thoughts or so many things. You go back and read and it was like, man, it's like, boy, talk about predicting the future. Well, they were grounded in truth. They were grounded in history. They were grounded in their belief system. And so it enabled them to have a wisdom, that was really, really tremendous for that time and stands the test of time.
Jenna Ellis: So well said. Well, Rhyen Walters, we have to take a break here, but really appreciate it. And you can follow Rhyen Walters on X. See the great work, that he is doing now over at the Teacher Freedom Alliance. And, this is just the plain facts. If we want to make good citizens for the next generation, we want to keep America, then we have to teach the principles upon which America was founded. And that necessarily requires a teaching of scriptural principles. And if we don't want that, and we want the left to win and have our children, you know, turn to Marxist principles, to other principles that the left would like our society to be built on and tearing down Western civilization. Yeah. Then don't teach the Bible. And that is exactly, unfortunately, what a lot of Christians are advocating for, not understanding why these principles are necessary. So hats off to the state of Texas. More states need to do this because we have to tell our kids why America is great and it is only because God is good. We'll be right back.
The UK is currently giving us a cautionary tale of what happens if pluralism
Welcome back to Jenna Ellis in the Morning on American Family Radio.
Jenna Ellis: Welcome back. And as we are talking, talking about ensuring that we're protecting American values and overall Western civilization and Christendom, the UK is currently giving us a cautionary tale of what happens if your leaders buy into pluralism. And, His Majesty King Charles III has betrayed his oath to be a defender of the faith. Coming from, Calvin Robinson on X. because coming from the telegraph The King is set to quote unquote, protect multi faith nation in a revised definition of the monarchy. His Majesty's redrafted job description also includes strengthening the UK social fabric and cohesion. So Calvin Robinson goes on to say, changing the definition from the one true Christian faith to some globalist nonsense about multifaiths is not only treasonous, but it is also the heresy of pluralism act worthy of dethronement. I could not agree more. So let's welcome in Calvin Robinson. And you know, this is exactly what we are trying to prevent here in America. Instead of embracing the lie of secular pluralism and this whole idea that that as far as the state goes and the values that the government is premised upon and the principles are open to debate and every faith comes to the table equally, which is the definition of pluralism. We need to stand firm that Christendom is built on the values and principles that come from Christ and the Bible.
Calvin Robinson: Absolutely. You have a harder fight on your hands over here in the States as well. Remember in Britain, explicitly Christian country, not just implicitly so. The monarchy is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. We have Lord Spiritual, which means we have 26 bishops from the Church of England who sit in our Senate in our House of Lords. We've got legal and historical foundations in the Christian faith. It's all very much tied to our country. And yes, my title from defender of the Faith to defend other multi faith nation. And this is taking into consideration that when he was sworn into office, when he took his oath to become the King of the realm, to the utmost of your power maintain the laws of God. And true. This they said, will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the united Reformed religion established. I promise to do this. They say, will you maintain, inviolably the settlement and the doctrine and government
Jenna Ellis: there and Calvin, you're breaking up. I'm sorry, you're breaking up really bad here. We're going to try to reconnect to Calvin Robinson because what he's saying is so incredibly important that I want to make sure that we're not breaking up so bad. But. And so my producer, Adam is going to try to get him back. Let me know when we have Calvin Robinson back. But the point of course is that the UK Western, civilization, not just America of course, was built on the foundation of the principles of Christ. And obviously the system of government is different in the UK than it is in America. We have a constitutional republic, they have a monarchy and A parliament. But the point of saying that our rights come from God our Creator, is, no different. And how the government system preserves and protects that, may look a little bit different. But ultimately the call under Scripture and the only legitimate, exercise of government is to preserve those rights. And that's what, the history, of course, of England and coming out of, the Middle Ages and with, the Magna Carta, essentially for the first time in world history, saying, you know, our rights don't belong to, the king and to an earthly sovereign. We're retaining certain rights, not exchanging them for protection from the king. I mean, these were principles that are derived from Scripture. And as you go along throughout a, world history, and especially with Western civilization, you see explicitly, and not just implicitly, as Calvin said, that these principles of government are specifically derived from Scripture. We have Calvin back. So I'm sorry for interrupting you. I just didn't. I didn't want you to be breaking up while you're, speaking truth. So go ahead.
Calvin Robinson: I apologize. Obviously, the enemy does not want us to have this conversation on air, but it's important because we have to protect the Christian rights and privileges of our nation. And this is one of the other pledges that the king swore an oath to. The archbishop said, will you preserve, unto the bishops, the clergy of England and the churches there committed to their charge all such rights and privileges as by law. And he says, yes, I promise to do so. So he's undoing all of the oath that he swore during his coronation. And that is no small fate that is worthy of dethronement, that is worthy of abdication. and I think we should be seriously having this conversation as Englishmen in Britain, saying if the king is no longer willing to protect this Christian country, first and foremost, should he still be our king? And as I pointed out, you can have a harder fight over here because you don't have all of that explicitly. It's all implicit in your. In your founding documents. And people are still arguing today saying, this is not a Christian country. Well, of course it is a Christian country. It was founded by 13 Christian colonies. But the enemy does not want to believe that or does not want us to believe that. And so we've got to fight that every step of the way, because otherwise multiculturalism is hell, quite literally hell. When we tell people it doesn't matter what you believe, doesn't matter who you believe in, doesn't matter how you worship or what or whom you worship. That is the pathway to hell.
Calvin Robinson: And our Job as Christians is to lead people to heaven, which means leading them to Jesus Christ. It's really as simple as that, that it's all about the enemy wanting more company.
Jenna Ellis: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, and wanting secular pluralism to be the expressed religion of the society so that we can then break down the principles of a legitimate government and have government instead of protecting the rights of the people, infringing upon them. And you know, the one thing I would disagree with you on Calvin, is that our American society is explicitly based on Christian principles. Yes, it's implicit as well. But there are so many references, specific requirements in the Declaration that then led to the U.S. constitution that requires our government to look toward God as the supreme judge of the universe and as the sovereign and only to have legitimate ah, powers that are derived from God himself under consent of the people. And so we need to understand all of this and what protects a Christian society. And so as you're, as you're mentioning, and I totally agree with you that this is worthy, what King Charles is doing is worthy of dethronement or abdication. Are there any members, of Parliament or anyone else in the British government that sees this the same way that we do and understands how big of a deal this is, that is calling for that and is willing to stand up to King Charles on this?
Calvin Robinson: Unfortunately not. I think there are many people in the population, the general population, who are rightly angry about this, with righteous indignation. But I don't think there are many people in the House of earlier. There are 26 bishops in the House of Lords. They should all of them be asking for his head. They should be saying to the Tower, as would have happened with previous kings. but at this point most of the bishops of the Church of England are so liberal that they are in favor of having a king who is in charge of being multi faith instead of defender of the nation. Bear in mind that this title has been with our king for over half a millennium. It was Pope Leo xiii, now it's Pope Leo X who said, you are the fidei defensor, the defender of the faith to King Henry vi, eighth of all people. And since then all of our kings and queens have tried their best to defend the Christian faith. This is the first time that king has let us down in this way. And I think it's probably because our country is getting in by 2060 will probably be a m predominantly Muhammadan country unless something changes. That's why we need a king to defend the Christian faith, make sure I stick around and make sure I keep the monarchy in this country. To do so, I'm going to have to make sure it embraces Islam instead of as previously.
Jenna Ellis: Okay, yeah, we're losing Calvin a little bit again. hopefully he's still there.
Jenna: Calvin, what impact does this decision have on British law
And Calvin, what authority and what actual impact does this decision from the king, have in terms of the actual governing and rules of the King of England? I mean how, how does this work in terms of the monarchy versus the Parliament in, in terms of how this actually impacts British law and and, and the, the general sense of how England is going to continue.
Calvin Robinson: So Parliament pretty much already tells the king what to do and which laws to pass. The king centuries, he's so he's not really doing his job anyway. He's really not standing up for the Christian faith faith when laws come through that push abortion or euthanasia or any kind of really dark anti Christian policy, he doesn't stand up against them. So really and truly it's not going to make a practical difference. It's the, it's the spiritual differences, the giving our country to the multiface. It's going to have a, an implicit difference to the rest of the country. We're going have to stand up and say enough is enough. No longer no more kings.
Jenna Ellis: Yeah, yeah. And, and I mean, and this hopefully won't have the influence on Parliament then to say, okay, if the King is wanting to protect a multifaith nation, then you know, we need to kind of borrow that worldview. And this is why it's so important as we've been talking throughout the program about teaching our kids the principles and the values that are derived specifically from Scripture because we can't have, have Christendom, Western civilization, liberty, freedom, all of these things that we value and cherish in the United States, in in Europe, at least historically. And what Christians value now, without an understanding of these principles and if we fail to pass that on to future generations, then we ultimately are simply giving over our societies to the Marxists, to the Pluralists. And and these are people who are not going to shrink back and say, you know what? We want a secular state and we're going to just teach Marxism in the confines of our, of our churches. We're just going to teach you know, Islam in the confines of our churches. I just saw Calvin, a, video this morning of Dearborn, Michigan and all of the Muslims that are marching basically saying, you know, we're trying to take over society. I mean, this is something that, secular pluralism is not going to persist. It's going to be a handover to, eradicating the principles of liberty and value and our Christian way of life. So, last 30 seconds, your comments.
Calvin Robinson: I saw that. I'm in Michigan myself. I saw that video. I thought, what country is that? And then I realized it was airborne. They're making a stand for what they believe in. We need to do the same. And you're absolutely right. We need to teach our children. We need to double down with our children because we can't expect them to be taught these perspectives, principles that we've all been learned when we were growing up, because it's not there anymore. We've got to pass it on, and we've got to make sure that they know that this is a Christian land and they need to defend it. We need to defend it. The name of Christ.
Jenna Ellis: Amen. Amen. Well, thank you so much. And absolutely, I mean, it used to be taught in public schools, and hopefully, at least in the state of Texas, it'll be taught a little bit again. But it's incumbent upon parents, upon Christians, pastors, teach this to the next generation. You can reach me and my team. Jennaafr.net.
Jenna Ellis discusses the implications of the Charlie Kirk murder trial and the challenges faced by prosecutors amid intense media scrutiny. Joined by legal expert Gerard Filitti, they delve into the complexities of jury selection in high-profile cases and the ethical boundaries for legal representatives. The conversation also touches on the recent decision by the Texas State Board of Education to incorporate Bible teachings into public school curricula, highlighting the significance of biblical principles in understanding American history and governance with Ryan Walters
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