Pastor Jeff Schreve: Well, good Friday morning and welcome to Real Truth for today. I wanted to read to you from Psalm 33. Psalm 33 is a great psalm. It says this beginning in verse 6. By the word of the Lord, the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their hosts. He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap. He lays up the deeps in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of. Of him. What does it mean to fear the Lord? It means you stand in awe of him. You recognize that God is God and you're not God, and you stand in awe of him. You're not afraid of him. God doesn't want you to be afraid of him, but he wants you to fear Him. It says, for he spoke and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast. The Lord nullifies the counsel of the nations. He frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the Lord stands forever the plans of his heart from generation to generation. And then Psalm 33, verse 12. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. Well, as you know, we celebrated 250 years as a nation. And, we say blessed is our nation because our nation, was founded on biblical principles. It was founded on the word of God. And, our nation was blessed. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. But we're getting away from that. we're trying to get away from it as fast as we can. Sadly, tragically, as a nation. And so, we can say, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, and cursed is the nation whose God is not. Well, there's a new book that comes out September 1st called Born of How Principles, Faith and Courage Forged America. It's a story driven history of the American founding, told through the lives of the men and women whose principles, faith and moral courage made the country possible from the Mayflower Compact of 1620 to the bill of Rights. Author Larry Reed traces the intellectual and spiritual currents that shaped what he calls first a revolution of ideas that produced a revolution in governance. And, he is our guest today, and we're working to get him, connected via zoom. And, I see. Larry? Larry, can you hear me?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Yes, I can.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: All right. Well, it's great to have you, my friend. Author, speaker, economist, historian. You got a lot of, titles behind your name.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Well, thank you. But you can do like, Ed McMahon used to do on Johnny Carson, and just say, here's Larry if you want.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Okay. So this is the latest book, Born of Ideas. I know you've been studying this for a long time, America and how it was formed. And so what's different about this book?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Well, this book, makes the case that America wasn't really started in the 1770s. If you ask most Americans today, when did America begin? They might be tempted to say 1776, when the Declaration was issued. But, my book starts with the mayflower compact of 1620, because I think it is of enormous historic significance and is more emblematic of what came to be America than any other single event in that entire century. it was the first time that two groups of people agreed on future governance and that it would be of mutual consent, not a dictatorship without involving a monarch. It was, the Mayflower Pilgrims, as well as the other strangers that were on the ship, they arrived at this agreement. And that really symbolizes, the America to become that we would become more than anything else.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: You know, Larry, I think that most people today don't realize how difficult it was to get on that ship and, and traveled to the NewSong World. you didn't know if you were going to make it or not. I haven't researched lately how long it took them to go from M point A to point B. how long was that trip, do you know?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: About three months.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Three months. And how many were on the ship?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: A, little over 100. Half of them being Pilgrims.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Okay, so it's not like going on a Princess cruise.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: No. In fact, they were lucky that, they didn't have quite a few of them die on the way. That was not uncommon in those days, depending on, weather delays and temperatures and a million other things.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: So in the mind, if you were going to be one of those persons that went on that ship in 1620, what was motivating you to do that?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: There were two groups of people, aside from the crew on the ship and the Best known, of course, were the Pilgrims. And they were there because they were fleeing religious persecution in Great Britain. Now, they had, left Great Britain 10 years before and stayed in Holland until a vessel could be located and investors could be found to put some money into their venture. But those investors put another group of people, about equal number to the Pilgrims, on the ship that were not there for religious persecution reasons. The investors put them on the boat because they thought the Pilgrims would need their skills in the NewSong World. And it's those two groups of people, just offshore from what is now Massachusetts, that arrived at the so called Mayflower Compact. They had to do something. They were about to land and when they realized they were hundreds of miles off course, way up in what is now Massachusetts instead of where they were supposed to be, down in Virginia, that's when the stranger said, hey, we're out of here. We're not bound by our agreement anymore, so we're not going to necessarily stay once we land. The Pilgrims said, no, we got to stick together. Why don't we come up with an agreement that says we will, establish a government by mutual consent. No king. We're not going to lord it over you. no dictatorship. And that is quintessentially American.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yes. And that's birthed out of the scripture, is it not?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Yes, it is. The Pilgrims, largely wrote the compact and convinced the strangers to sign it. They were deeply Christian people and they knew that they had a mission. It wasn't just to get to the NewSong World and start a new life. It was to carry out the commandments of the Creator as they understood them.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: So Larry, from the standpoint of, world history, there had never been a nation founded like America. Is that right?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: That's right. that's true. Both of the Mayflower Compact and then later the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution, both very unique in history. In the case of the compact, the Mayflower Compact, it was the first time in the history of the world that two groups of people agreed with each other on the nature of their governance without the involvement of, of a monarch or any government at all. It was truly a voluntary social contract, unanimous and voluntary, between two groups of people, no monarch involved.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: So Bill Federer is a friend of mine. He's been on the program a number of times. he likens the, government that was set up in America. He said it was patterned more after the judges, in Israel before there was a king, where they kind of self governed, but, you know, as judges Went off the rails because there's no king in Israel. Everyone does what is right in his own eyes. We shared yesterday on the program the, famous quote from Jon Adams that the Constitution was, designed for moral and religious people. It's wholly inadequate for the governance of any other. Larry, we're fast forwarding a little bit, but as you look at what our country is today, we're no longer moral and religious, and the Constitution can't really handle that.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: That's right. And it's no coincidence that as our moral character has, declined, as evidenced by any number of measures, our liberties have begun to disappear as well. And we are, for instance, burdening our kids and grandkids with a $40 trillion national debt. How much liberty are they going to have, by the time they grow up and have that kind of a debt that, so much of their income is going to have to go to pay? no country has ever lost its character and kept its liberties. And we are in the process, unfortunately, of, proving that to be the case once again. Hopefully we can salvage it all.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Okay, so, Larry, we have obviously in America the rise of socialism, the democratic socialists of America, who try to distance themselves in some degree, I guess, when they're on talk shows from communists, but everybody knows it's the same thing. And you have those that say, well, hey, in Acts chapter two, they were selling property and possessions, sharing them with all as anyone might have need. This is just some kind of big love fest and it's going to. You're going to own nothing and you're going to love it. Why is that a distortion of what happened in Acts chapter two?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Yes, socialists love to point to those passages in Acts where some early Christians shared their, wealth, after selling, their wealth and then shared the proceeds equally. that was never a commandment from Christ himself. It's not a doctrine of Christianity. It's something that some Christians in Jerusalem decided to practice. Now I can understand why, they are pioneering a new faith. They're up against Roman authorities and the religious authorities who are going to be quick to shut them down the moment they see something they don't like. The moment they can say, ah, you're just in this for the, for the money. So that might have been a motivation, but that's not the way, Christians are commanded to live. And probably 99.9% of Christians who have ever lived did not practice that kind of communal, socialism. And even in Jerusalem, it didn't last. Paul in Thessalonians, seems to register a kind of complaint about the, Christians back in Jerusalem when he exhorts other Christians to give more so we can get it back to those Christians in Jerusalem who really need it. So he was kind of suggesting that, even though they were living in the richest city in, in the vicinity, they need help because their socialism perhaps is not working.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Larry, one of the questions that's been asked over the years, relates to the American Revolution and how these guys that knew the scripture, how they wrestled with Romans 13 and subjecting themselves to governing authorities. And, was the revolution a rebel rebellion against the king, and was that wrong?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Yeah. Well, the revolution was certainly a rebellion. Whether it is sanctioned, or prohibited by the message of Romans 13 is another question. In my belief, Romans 13 is frequently misunderstood. It comes across to some people who don't look for context and consistency with other passages, as if it's saying everybody should obey anything that any government issues at any time. Well, Paul himself, who wrote Romans, he didn't abide by that. He was arrested three times.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Right.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: And each time he didn't quit what he was doing just because the authorities told him to. He went right back to doing it. Romans 13 presupposes that government is doing what it is supposed to do and ordained by God. Governments should be protective of people's rights, their lives, lives, their property. And when it isn't, when it makes war on those things, when it becomes a tyranny, we are not, as Christians, obligated to simply roll over and say, go ahead, do it to me. because, we think Romans 13 commands it. That's just not proper context.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yeah, for sure. Well, the movie came out. I know you touch on this in the book about George Washington, one of the. One of the greatest Americans to have ever lived. And the kids aren't being taught about George Washington anymore. They know more about, Jasmine Crockett than George Washington, sadly, or some JLo or whoever the newest star is. George Washington was an exceptional person. I, don't know if you saw the movie Young Washington, but, wow, that was powerful. Now, from a historian's perspective point of view, we have about a minute till break, but was that pretty accurate, that movie?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Yes, it was. I loved Young Washington. I strongly recommended it. Recommended. I regard it as one of the three best movies of this year. The other two being the Brink of War and my favorite, A Great Awakening.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yes.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: which involves this very period we're talking about.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yes, a great awakening. Okay, when we come back, we're to going, going to get into more about the book and about the, the arguments people make. Benjamin Franklin was a deist, Thomas Jefferson was a deist. They don't like to talk about the other guys that were steeped in scripture, but they, they really lied on those guys. And lots to be learned about the framers. And you go into depth on a lot of these guys as you look at their lives and what they believed and what they stood for and what they really doing this, I think we lose sight of that. Well, we're talking to Larry Reed, author, speaker, economist and historian. And the book is called Born of Ideas. You're listening to Real Truth for today on American Family Radio. I'm your host, Pastor Jeff Schrieve. We'll be right back.
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Pastor Jeff Schreve: Welcome back to the program. Pastor Jeff here talking to Larry Reed. He is an author, speaker, economist, historian, and he's written a book called Born of Ideas How How Principles, Faith and Courage Forged America. And in this book, he delves into the lives of different key figures. Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine, Samuel Adams and others that were key. Now Larry, as we were talking off air, probably no one was maybe more key in the founding of America than Benjamin Franklin. And you have those liberal historians that like to say, well, America wasn't founded as a Christian nation. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin weren't Christians, they were deists. And how do you Respond to that kind of argument.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Benjamin Franklin is, a little bit of a mixed bag over his life in that he didn't, stay the same. He evolved. He started out as a confirmed deist, by which I, mean a person who thinks that, there was a creator. He sort of wound everything up and then walked away and never thereafter paid any attention to or got involved in any way in the affairs of men. But if you've seen the movie that came out on Easter Sunday, A Great Awakening, which accurately portrays his evolution on this, you know that, he may not have gotten to the point of accepting Christ as his savior, but he was deeply affected by the preaching of people like George Whitefield of the Great Awakening. And in the Constitutional Convention, way into his 80s, as depicted in the movie, Franklin rises to speak to the assembly, and you can tell he's no longer a deist because he implores the convention to call upon God to, provide guidance on their deliberations. he makes it plain, and he believes that God does govern in the affairs of men. Those are his precise words. So he was no longer a deist. Whether you could say he accepted Christ, on a personal level, and quiet level, he might have, but it was not ever publicly evident.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Okay, when you hear these guys, Larry, supposedly learned historians, they get on television and they say, well, you know, America was never founded on Christian principles, and, it's not a Christian nation. The Founding Fathers made sure not to put in language like that that made us a Christian nation. you know, I wonder. It's like, okay, I know you're not stupid. I know you can read the literature. It's there for everybody to read. What these guys said outside of the Declaration of Independence or of the Constit, they were obviously greatly influenced by Christianity, by the Scriptures, as you said, even Benjamin Franklin, you quote Psalm 127, unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain that build it. Well, how many people that never pick up the Bible know that verse? obviously they were influenced by that. As a writer and a historian. Does that just make your blood boil when you hear these guys say that?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: It does. I have a position that might be a bit more accommodative to both extremes on this. and that is this. First of all, the Founding Fathers were profoundly influenced by Christian teaching. Some of them were very personally, and profoundly followers of Christ and publicly said so. Others may be less so. But I think the beauty of what they did was they set up a system Whereby, you could worship as you choose. They didn't set up a theocracy like, say, the, Islamists in Iran did. They just set up a system that said religion is not a matter for government and it should not establish and favor one or subsidize one, at the expense of others. And that this is going to be a country where you're going to be free to worship as you please, because that's the way we read scripture. It doesn't say to, put people in jail who have a different religious belief.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: From your perspective, Larry, if the Founding Fathers were to come back today and evaluate America, okay, this is what we built, this is what we framed and founded. Now let's look at it 250 years later. Give me some of your feedback on what they would say.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Okay. I think they would, at first glance, be appalled, at, so much of what they might see. Jefferson in particular, who warned constantly about the growth of debt, he would be blown away by a $40 trillion national debt and would probably say, we warned you about that. You are enslaving yourselves and you're enslaving your children and grandchildren, which is an even greater moral offense. other founders would say, we set up a government of limited scope, and yet you've given it all sorts of powers, never intended. When Ben Franklin left the Constitutional Convention, he famously was asked by someone, Mr. Franklin, what form of government have you given us? And his reply was, a republic, madam, if you can keep it. And that second part of that, answer, I think, is the most important. He knew that all they had done was to put some great things on paper. But if future generations ignore them, vote for politicians who violate them, and then are never held accountable, well, then it will not continue to exist. There's no guarantee that when you write a constitution, it will forever survive. It depends on people. And today, I think they would be appalled if they could see how little the American people understand, how little of it is being taught. about, the founding of this country, why we're exceptional, why constitutional government is, critically important. that's not being taught in schools typically anymore. So you have young people growing up saying, well, let's have socialism, let's put the government in charge of everything. the founders would be very, very unhappy about that.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Well, you know what it's strikes me about those guys is how smart they were, how well studied they were. you know, Jon Adams, a moral and religious people. Well, all those guys of the, what, 56 signers. They were all moral and religious, and they might not have all been born again Christians, but they were all moral and religious. You didn't have a drunk in there, did you?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: No. and many of the founders, on one occasion or another talked about the important importance of moral character. Jon Adams said that our Constitution has been written for a moral and virtuous people. It won't work for any other. and that's exactly right. when people ask me, what do you think the most important issue in the country is? I, always say it's in a single word. It's the same as it's always been here and everywhere. It's character. Because a nation that gets that wrong is going to get everything else wrong. And so when you abandon character, a commitment to honesty, responsibility, courage, patience, gratitude, humility, when you, abandon all those things and take on the, character of bad people who don't value truth, don't expect to be a free people. Sooner or later, there'll be enough chaos that the strong man will ride in, knock heads together to bring order out of the chaos, and there go your liberties.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Okay, Larry, let me ask you this. As we have midterms, coming up, you have one party that, their platform is just rotten. I mean, just from top to bottom is totally rotten. Jon MacArthur used to say, the Democratic platform is straight out of the sins of Romans 1. That's what their platform is championing. But then you have, on the other side, you have candidates that don't exhibit moral character. Their lives are just riddled with immorality and duplicity and all that stuff. And people with President Trump, people really struggle with, how do you support this guy? He's Nebuchadnezzar. I mean, he is so stuff. Full of himself. And so how do you navigate that between. Okay, in Texas, we have James Talarico, who's a seminarian, looks, like Howdy Doody, you know, kind of comes across like that, Mr. Rogers. And then you have Ken Paxton, who has a lot of skeletons in the closet there. But one guy stands for things that are just evil, and the other guy doesn't help us navigate that.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Well, you know, our founders would say, hey, the fact that you have choices that aren't perfect, the fact that even, the party that talks good about a lot of things like federal spending still has candidates and office holders who are, who have personal flaws, that's all the more reason to keep government small in the first place. But, but, you know, we're going to have to work on fixing that. But the bottom line is, when you go to the polls, you have a choice between the names on the ballot. You can write somebody else's in, but whoever that is has no chance, of course. So you have to kind of take what's, in front of you and make a choice. Sometimes in history, God, uses bad people, sometimes really bad people, to produce good effect. And so, although I always wish the candidate I'm voting for was not only right on the issues, but a person of high character, I realized that's not always the case. And then I look at, well, what are they going to do in office? And, then I have to make a judgment on that. If I think they're going to largely do the right thing, I'll vote for that person, even with, his or her character flaws. But you're right. There is one of the two major parties today that, is just wrong on everything. I never thought we'd get to the point in America where one of the parties didn't at least get one thing right, but they're wrong on everything. And, sometimes I think some of their extreme positions cannot be explained except as being, something right out of the pit of hell.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Well, I saw a quote, Larry, from Allen Dershowitz, where he said, as a lifelong Democrat, I'm working overtime to try and make sure the Democrats don't take power. Paraphrase. But he sees that this will be just a disaster, if the country embraces socialism like we see the young people being taught. This is such a great thing. as an economist, pull out your crystal ball and tell us what that does to the country.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: If the country embraces socialism, and in some ways we kind of have one party certainly has, then our $40 trillion national debt will look pretty cheap. in the space of a, generation or two, it might be $100 trillion, and, your liberties will be substantially curtailed. Socialism, after all, is a philosophy of force. they talk a good game. We're going to help people, take care of them, give them stuff. but, you know, we take care of people better under capitalism. socialism does what it does through the use of force by vilifying the successful, taking their money, robbing Peter to pay Paul, effectively enslaving the entire population by making them dependent upon government. I just can't imagine the sanity of a person facing a $40 trillion national debt, offering the voters a program that would do nothing to reduce that debt and everything to Double or triple it over time. That is fundamentally morally reprehensible.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Larry, what do you say to the person that points, to President Trump and say, well, the debt has increased a lot under his presidency. I thought Republicans were supposed to be financial hawks and, you know, no new taxes get the spending down, but it seems to be the opposite. How do you respond to that?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Yeah, I wish the, president would be more concerned about cutting spending. I got excited about DOGE when it was announced a year and a half ago, but that seems to have gone by the board. The problem is that, you know, anybody who comes along in that position and promotes spending reduction gets hit from all sides, even many of his own party. And, the Democrats will sabotage anything they can to prevent anything from being cut, except important things. You know, they, they would happily leave us defenseless by cutting defense, but they'll more than make up for for it by massively expanding other spending. So you got to have the country behind you if you want to really cut spending. And at some time, when we really absolutely have to, because there's no other choice because everything's going bankrupt, maybe the public will finally see that. but, there aren't many politicians today who are helping educate people, to stop asking for more from government.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: So, one, conservative was asked on a talk show about, what he thought of Zoran Mamdani. And he said, well, you know, in one sense, obviously grieved that they would vote for a Marxist Islamist to be your governor, but said in one. Or mayor. He said, but in one sense it's like, okay, well here's a test case. You're going to see how destructive and disastrous this is. with socialism, typically, how long does it take before the bottom drops out?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Well, of course, it depends upon how fast, and how far socialism goes. I mean, if you were to thoroughly socialize everything tonight, unfortunately Mamdani doesn't have that kind of power, then it would be obvious in weeks that this doesn't work. But, you know, when you boil the frog slowly, he never jumps out because, you know, it's a slow process, but it won't be very long before we'll look back and say, okay, let's look at these government grocery stores and their impact. We'll discover, I'm sure, that the cost of providing groceries through the government is, is probably two or three times. maybe the prices won't be higher, but taxes will make up the difference. government does whatever it does at two or Three times what it costs anybody else to do the same thing. And it's, ah, ah, an open door to corruption. Politicians and demagogues buying people's votes, with other people's money. so he's laying the foundations for disaster in every one of these initiatives he's undertaking, taking, and I'm quite confident before his first term is done, a lot of that will be evident. And it, should he be elected to a second, NewSong York will be chasing him out of town with a pitchfork, in eight years.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yeah, well, hopefully that'll happen quickly. I mean, you hate it for the people, but it's like that's what you voted for.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Yeah.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: I go back to Barack Obama's famous quote, election have consequences. And it seems to me today, Larry, that younger people don't realize that voting, in these people is not like saying, I'm going to paint the room, from white to off white. It changes things significantly.
Caroline: Yeah.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: what a damning indictment it is of NewSong York city schools, which 90% of the, residents children go to. They can graduate and look at the world and say, we need to put that same outfit that's 40 trillion in the red in charge of everything else.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: That's crazy. Well, we're talking to Larry, Reed, and the book is called Born of Ideas. You're listening to Real Truth for today. Pastor Jeff Schrieve here. When we come back, we'll take your calls. 888-589-8840. That's 888-5898.
: If you'd like to contact Pastor Jeff, email pastor jeffromhisheart.org now back to Real Truth for today with Pastor Jeff Schrieve.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Welcome back to the program. We're talking to Larry Reed, author, speaker, economist and historian. He has a brand new book out Born of How Principles, Faith and Man, My Eyesight's Going Bad. Principles, Faith and Courage Forged America. And it's a story driven history of the American founding. Okay, so Larry, story driven history. As you were studying for this book, what stories really caught your attention? It's like, wow, I didn't know that.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Yeah, well, there were big ones and little ones. let me share a little one with you first. It involves George Washington and I think is a testimony to the character of the man which was off the charts. We were so fortunate as a country, to providentially have him in that position, when he was in it. this was after the battle of Germantown which the British won during the Revolutionary War. The two armies separate and go back to their camps. And along comes a little terrier from the British lines romping across the field over into the American lines. And of course, the men, in the Continental army, are, mesmerized by this cute little dog. But they look closely at it and discover that it has a collar with a name on it. And, the name on the collar is General William Howe, who was the top commander for the British in all of the North America. The number one guy. It's his dog. And the American men, of course, they're saying, well, let's keep him. That'll serve him. Serve the general right. We'll just keep his dog. And that's when George Washington intervened. He was a dog lover. He had more than 50 in his lifetime. And he said, this is not what gentlemen do. This dog is not a combatant. He, belongs to someone. We know who it is. And so he dictated a letter handwritten by Alexander Hamilton, that said, basically to General Howe, we came upon your dog. It's obviously yours. We're pleased to return him. And they sent the dog with the note and the soldier, to the British side and returned the dog. I think, Washington set a nice example there, but he was good at that sort of thing all the time.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yeah.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: So that's a little story.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yeah. how do you think, Larry, how do you think if George Washington were alive today and they got him to run for president, do you think the America today would vote for somebody like George Washington?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Well, if we really thought it was him, I think we'd be in such awe. We just might. He would shine above every other, candidate for the office for sure. But, you know, he would not run on a platform of promising people more and more, at other people's expense through the government. He would say, I think that you have so overreached. What government was supposed to do that? We're going to eliminate that national debt in the first year or two. We're going to slash spending. No more robbing Peter to pay for it. Right when he started talking like that, I'll bet a lot of Americans would say, oh, no, we, we're not sure we want to go. Yeah, yeah.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Well, just like when you saw the movie Young Washington and how they conducted themselves in battle. you know, people today, they're not rules. they had. They had strict rules of combat. I mean, it seems almost crazy when you watch this, just, you know, the patriot. Hey, you line up, we line up. You shoot at us, we Shoot at you. It's like, who wants to do that?
Frank Gaffney: Yeah.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Well, I have to say there was one aspect, of the war when Americans broke an important rule before the War for Independence. It was sort of the rule, especially in wars in Europe, that, the soldiers were never to shoot at the commanders. That was just uncouth. But the American colonials, they said if we get a clean shot of their top guys were going for it because, you know, they were fighting for their lives. And, so they thought a good way to bring the war to an early end is to make sure you. You, shoot the British commanders.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yeah. The courage that those guys had to have. you're probably, ill equipped to, obviously, to handle the weather, and your uniforms aren't. You know, it's not like you have big coats everywhere you go. That's just brutal. And, we owe those guys a tremendous debt. And one of the things, as we were saying, they don't teach this in school. So there's no appreciation for what those guys did to hand us this baton of freedom. And what I'm concerned about, Larry, is I think about my children, my grandchildren, what kind of America are they going to inherit from us?
: Yeah.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: And, you know, as parents, people complain sometimes about, this very thing, but how many of them do something about it? I mean, if I had a kid in a school and he was about to graduate from high school, and I discovered that he didn't know who our founders were, what they stood for, but he knew a lot of the conventional, criticism of them. I would march into that school and demand that somebody be fired. I would say, say, I'm never having another one of my kids in this school. at whatever cost I'm putting where they're going to get a real education. But instead, most parents kind of think, oh, well, it's the public schools. It's free babysitting. I like the football games. And why raise a fuss? And so, you know, we, let the country slip away as those who were doing the harm in the classroom get ever greater funding. I mean, is that national suicide or what?
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yeah, it really is. Well, we're going to the phone lines. 888-5898-8408-8589-8840. If you have a question or comment for Larry Reed, we'd love to hear from you. And we have our friend Linda on the line from Texas. Linda, welcome to the program.
Caroline: Good morning. I'm telling you, I just get blown away every time I Listen to this. But I was telling him I heard the word character and that I have a intercessors for America sends, prayer requests. And this one is called American Leaders. And, Donald Trump, J.D. vance, Pete Hegseth, Mike Huckabees, Steve Wicke, and Jared Kushner are the pictures on the front. Okay, what I'm getting to here is I came to this scripture, probably Proverbs 25, 13. To those who sent him, a trustworthy envoy is like the coolness of snow on a harvest day. He refreshes the life of his masters. And I think that I wrote these ambassadors, on this scripture, and I just really feel like God has raised up not just them, but a team of people who really have character in them. And that makes a difference in the things they decide. So that's why I wanted to, I just wanted to share that.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Well, I appreciate that, Linda. Well, character matters. And one of the things, Larry, that I admire about Donald Trump, his persistence and perseverance, and he's a Timex watch on steroids. He takes a licking and keeps on. You can't knock him off the, the horse, so to speak. I share this as a pastor. I say, I don't know any pastor who could take the criticism that Donald Trump takes on a regular minute by minute basis and not quit. But he doesn't ever quit. And to me, that speaks volumes about the fact that this guy loves America and he wants to right the ship.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: That is certainly to his credit. He has a tough shell. He's taken more slings and arrows than any president in my memory. Pretty much holds fast to the things that he believes in. And, you know, that's a good quality in a leader. You don't want a leader who just blows with the wind. you don't want one like the character played by Groucho Marx, who's a favorite comedian of mine, but in one of his movies, Groucho plays the leader of a fictional country, and he says to a crowd, those are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others. In other words, I really don't have any. I'll have whatever you want me to have.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yes, that's true. Okay, so, we talked about George Washington. If he were running today, how do you think, how do you think Ronald Reagan would do running today?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: I've lost of all your sound.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Did you lose my audio? Oh, okay.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Oh, now you're back.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Now I'm back. Okay. so Ronald Reagan as, you know, Very winsome, very charismatic. Not, a mudslinger. do you think the. The political landscape. Landscape has gotten so dirty that, an upstanding candidate would have trouble?
Frank Gaffney: Oh, I'm.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: I'm sorry, Jeff. It's so broken up. I can't understand. something's wrong with. I didn't touch anything.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Okay, Jameson, let's just get him back on audio. Maybe he can call in. So. Okay, they'll work on that. Well, we have Raul. Raul on the line from Texas. Raul, welcome to Real Truth for today.
Frank Gaffney: how would you defend our founding Fathers that are accused of being Masons, like George Washington and others?
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yeah, that's a good question. Okay, we're trying to get Larry back. he had lost audio, so, Yeah, well, I'll ask him that question, Raul, when he comes back. And that's, you know, you wonder about some of those things and, and it's hard sometimes to put yourself back into that time period. What was that like for them? And what were they signing onto, being Masons and that kind of thing? Because we obviously put it into today's understanding and their understanding might have been different, from what we understand today. You know, it's just like with the slavery issue. You know, we look at it from our perspective today. their perspective back 250 years ago, was different. I like, what one historian said, though, about George Washington and his Christianity. upon his death, he freed all his slaves. That was in his will. And, this guy brought up the point that, you, know, if everybody had done that, slavery would have been, it would have gone away all on its own. So. Okay, Larry, the question from Raul had to do with, the Founding Fathers, some of those guys being Masons, how did they square that?
Frank Gaffney: I think, the. Sorry, we're getting a little bit of an echo because my computer is still on across the room. but as far as being Masons are concerned, I don't think that that is the, you know, the evil thing that a lot of people seem to think it was, at least not at that time. I don't think it, is a testimony, ah, to anything but, Washington's desire to mix, and mingle with other important people. I don't think it was a conspiracy of any kind. so I just think it's kind of overblown.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yeah, that's kind of what I thought too. Good question, though, Raul. Okay, so, Larry, born of ideas, who would you like to purchase this book and what do you want them to learn from it?
Frank Gaffney: I think any American who wants to understand better what makes this country exceptional, who the, most exceptional people were at the time of our founding, what the ideas were that motivated them, should read this book. And, it's not some 500 page tome that you're going to have to spend months reading. You can read it in a couple evenings because it's under 200 pages. and also share it with young people, high school kids and college kids. This would be a great refresher for them. Maybe much of what they'll read, they'll be reading for the very first time. And they should know these things because, if a country doesn't know where it came from, it's probably not destined to go anyplace that's important, that's for sure.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Well, are you encouraged or discouraged when you think about our future as a country?
Frank Gaffney: I'm a pathological optimist, Jeff, and I am well aware that there are trends and other developments that we should be very concerned about. Don't try to dismiss those. But I also think that pessimism is a self fulfilling prophecy. If you've already given up, if you think we're going to lose, what's the use? Well, then you're not going to work very hard for what you know to be right. You've given up, you've done just what the other side wants you to do. and secondarily, if you give up, you're not going to convert others to your cause because most people want to sign up for something they think is going to win. So, I think it's important to be optimistic. Why be down on a future that hasn't happened yet and that you can, affect by doing the right thing?
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Amen to that. we just have about a minute and a half left, Larry, but I wanted to get you to weigh in on this. The situation in Iran. very, very difficult to defeat an enemy like Iran that just won't quit until you cut off their head. it seems like it's impossible unless you're going to send troops in there. It's impossible to just keep bombing them and, doing what we're doing. How do you see that conflict coming to an end?
Frank Gaffney: Boy, I don't know. I wouldn't have expected it to still be lingering, six months after it started. I just wonder how much we're holding, holding back our ally Israel. I would certainly unleash them if we can and say look, if you know how to, decapitate the guys who are running the show now, let's go ahead and do it. I haven't given up on our ability militarily to take, them out and hopefully foment a popular revolution there, too.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yeah, it seems like the people are all for it, for sure. Well, Larry, Larry, this has been wonderful to talk to you about your new book, Born of Ideas. I encourage, people to check it out. And I love what you said. Get it into the hands of younger people that don't know about our history, that don't know about the ideas that built the greatest country, ever formed. And, we need to get that out. So, Larry, thanks for coming on today.
Frank Gaffney: My pleasure. Thank you, Jeff.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: God bless you. Well, go out this weekend, show Shine for Christ. Share what great things the Lord has done for you. Speak the truth in love. Be willing to stand up and be courageous for Jesus. the wicked flee when no one is pursuing, but the righteous are bold as a lion. God bless.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Well, good Friday morning and welcome to Real Truth for today. I wanted to read to you from Psalm 33. Psalm 33 is a great psalm. It says this beginning in verse 6. By the word of the Lord, the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their hosts. He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap. He lays up the deeps in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of. Of him. What does it mean to fear the Lord? It means you stand in awe of him. You recognize that God is God and you're not God, and you stand in awe of him. You're not afraid of him. God doesn't want you to be afraid of him, but he wants you to fear Him. It says, for he spoke and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast. The Lord nullifies the counsel of the nations. He frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the Lord stands forever the plans of his heart from generation to generation. And then Psalm 33, verse 12. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. Well, as you know, we celebrated 250 years as a nation. And, we say blessed is our nation because our nation, was founded on biblical principles. It was founded on the word of God. And, our nation was blessed. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. But we're getting away from that. we're trying to get away from it as fast as we can. Sadly, tragically, as a nation. And so, we can say, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, and cursed is the nation whose God is not. Well, there's a new book that comes out September 1st called Born of How Principles, Faith and Courage Forged America. It's a story driven history of the American founding, told through the lives of the men and women whose principles, faith and moral courage made the country possible from the Mayflower Compact of 1620 to the bill of Rights. Author Larry Reed traces the intellectual and spiritual currents that shaped what he calls first a revolution of ideas that produced a revolution in governance. And, he is our guest today, and we're working to get him, connected via zoom. And, I see. Larry? Larry, can you hear me?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Yes, I can.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: All right. Well, it's great to have you, my friend. Author, speaker, economist, historian. You got a lot of, titles behind your name.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Well, thank you. But you can do like, Ed McMahon used to do on Johnny Carson, and just say, here's Larry if you want.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Okay. So this is the latest book, Born of Ideas. I know you've been studying this for a long time, America and how it was formed. And so what's different about this book?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Well, this book, makes the case that America wasn't really started in the 1770s. If you ask most Americans today, when did America begin? They might be tempted to say 1776, when the Declaration was issued. But, my book starts with the mayflower compact of 1620, because I think it is of enormous historic significance and is more emblematic of what came to be America than any other single event in that entire century. it was the first time that two groups of people agreed on future governance and that it would be of mutual consent, not a dictatorship without involving a monarch. It was, the Mayflower Pilgrims, as well as the other strangers that were on the ship, they arrived at this agreement. And that really symbolizes, the America to become that we would become more than anything else.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: You know, Larry, I think that most people today don't realize how difficult it was to get on that ship and, and traveled to the NewSong World. you didn't know if you were going to make it or not. I haven't researched lately how long it took them to go from M point A to point B. how long was that trip, do you know?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: About three months.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Three months. And how many were on the ship?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: A, little over 100. Half of them being Pilgrims.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Okay, so it's not like going on a Princess cruise.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: No. In fact, they were lucky that, they didn't have quite a few of them die on the way. That was not uncommon in those days, depending on, weather delays and temperatures and a million other things.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: So in the mind, if you were going to be one of those persons that went on that ship in 1620, what was motivating you to do that?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: There were two groups of people, aside from the crew on the ship and the Best known, of course, were the Pilgrims. And they were there because they were fleeing religious persecution in Great Britain. Now, they had, left Great Britain 10 years before and stayed in Holland until a vessel could be located and investors could be found to put some money into their venture. But those investors put another group of people, about equal number to the Pilgrims, on the ship that were not there for religious persecution reasons. The investors put them on the boat because they thought the Pilgrims would need their skills in the NewSong World. And it's those two groups of people, just offshore from what is now Massachusetts, that arrived at the so called Mayflower Compact. They had to do something. They were about to land and when they realized they were hundreds of miles off course, way up in what is now Massachusetts instead of where they were supposed to be, down in Virginia, that's when the stranger said, hey, we're out of here. We're not bound by our agreement anymore, so we're not going to necessarily stay once we land. The Pilgrims said, no, we got to stick together. Why don't we come up with an agreement that says we will, establish a government by mutual consent. No king. We're not going to lord it over you. no dictatorship. And that is quintessentially American.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yes. And that's birthed out of the scripture, is it not?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Yes, it is. The Pilgrims, largely wrote the compact and convinced the strangers to sign it. They were deeply Christian people and they knew that they had a mission. It wasn't just to get to the NewSong World and start a new life. It was to carry out the commandments of the Creator as they understood them.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: So Larry, from the standpoint of, world history, there had never been a nation founded like America. Is that right?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: That's right. that's true. Both of the Mayflower Compact and then later the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution, both very unique in history. In the case of the compact, the Mayflower Compact, it was the first time in the history of the world that two groups of people agreed with each other on the nature of their governance without the involvement of, of a monarch or any government at all. It was truly a voluntary social contract, unanimous and voluntary, between two groups of people, no monarch involved.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: So Bill Federer is a friend of mine. He's been on the program a number of times. he likens the, government that was set up in America. He said it was patterned more after the judges, in Israel before there was a king, where they kind of self governed, but, you know, as judges Went off the rails because there's no king in Israel. Everyone does what is right in his own eyes. We shared yesterday on the program the, famous quote from Jon Adams that the Constitution was, designed for moral and religious people. It's wholly inadequate for the governance of any other. Larry, we're fast forwarding a little bit, but as you look at what our country is today, we're no longer moral and religious, and the Constitution can't really handle that.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: That's right. And it's no coincidence that as our moral character has, declined, as evidenced by any number of measures, our liberties have begun to disappear as well. And we are, for instance, burdening our kids and grandkids with a $40 trillion national debt. How much liberty are they going to have, by the time they grow up and have that kind of a debt that, so much of their income is going to have to go to pay? no country has ever lost its character and kept its liberties. And we are in the process, unfortunately, of, proving that to be the case once again. Hopefully we can salvage it all.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Okay, so, Larry, we have obviously in America the rise of socialism, the democratic socialists of America, who try to distance themselves in some degree, I guess, when they're on talk shows from communists, but everybody knows it's the same thing. And you have those that say, well, hey, in Acts chapter two, they were selling property and possessions, sharing them with all as anyone might have need. This is just some kind of big love fest and it's going to. You're going to own nothing and you're going to love it. Why is that a distortion of what happened in Acts chapter two?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Yes, socialists love to point to those passages in Acts where some early Christians shared their, wealth, after selling, their wealth and then shared the proceeds equally. that was never a commandment from Christ himself. It's not a doctrine of Christianity. It's something that some Christians in Jerusalem decided to practice. Now I can understand why, they are pioneering a new faith. They're up against Roman authorities and the religious authorities who are going to be quick to shut them down the moment they see something they don't like. The moment they can say, ah, you're just in this for the, for the money. So that might have been a motivation, but that's not the way, Christians are commanded to live. And probably 99.9% of Christians who have ever lived did not practice that kind of communal, socialism. And even in Jerusalem, it didn't last. Paul in Thessalonians, seems to register a kind of complaint about the, Christians back in Jerusalem when he exhorts other Christians to give more so we can get it back to those Christians in Jerusalem who really need it. So he was kind of suggesting that, even though they were living in the richest city in, in the vicinity, they need help because their socialism perhaps is not working.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Larry, one of the questions that's been asked over the years, relates to the American Revolution and how these guys that knew the scripture, how they wrestled with Romans 13 and subjecting themselves to governing authorities. And, was the revolution a rebel rebellion against the king, and was that wrong?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Yeah. Well, the revolution was certainly a rebellion. Whether it is sanctioned, or prohibited by the message of Romans 13 is another question. In my belief, Romans 13 is frequently misunderstood. It comes across to some people who don't look for context and consistency with other passages, as if it's saying everybody should obey anything that any government issues at any time. Well, Paul himself, who wrote Romans, he didn't abide by that. He was arrested three times.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Right.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: And each time he didn't quit what he was doing just because the authorities told him to. He went right back to doing it. Romans 13 presupposes that government is doing what it is supposed to do and ordained by God. Governments should be protective of people's rights, their lives, lives, their property. And when it isn't, when it makes war on those things, when it becomes a tyranny, we are not, as Christians, obligated to simply roll over and say, go ahead, do it to me. because, we think Romans 13 commands it. That's just not proper context.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yeah, for sure. Well, the movie came out. I know you touch on this in the book about George Washington, one of the. One of the greatest Americans to have ever lived. And the kids aren't being taught about George Washington anymore. They know more about, Jasmine Crockett than George Washington, sadly, or some JLo or whoever the newest star is. George Washington was an exceptional person. I, don't know if you saw the movie Young Washington, but, wow, that was powerful. Now, from a historian's perspective point of view, we have about a minute till break, but was that pretty accurate, that movie?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Yes, it was. I loved Young Washington. I strongly recommended it. Recommended. I regard it as one of the three best movies of this year. The other two being the Brink of War and my favorite, A Great Awakening.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yes.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: which involves this very period we're talking about.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yes, a great awakening. Okay, when we come back, we're to going, going to get into more about the book and about the, the arguments people make. Benjamin Franklin was a deist, Thomas Jefferson was a deist. They don't like to talk about the other guys that were steeped in scripture, but they, they really lied on those guys. And lots to be learned about the framers. And you go into depth on a lot of these guys as you look at their lives and what they believed and what they stood for and what they really doing this, I think we lose sight of that. Well, we're talking to Larry Reed, author, speaker, economist and historian. And the book is called Born of Ideas. You're listening to Real Truth for today on American Family Radio. I'm your host, Pastor Jeff Schrieve. We'll be right back.
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Pastor Jeff Schreve: Welcome back to the program. Pastor Jeff here talking to Larry Reed. He is an author, speaker, economist, historian, and he's written a book called Born of Ideas How How Principles, Faith and Courage Forged America. And in this book, he delves into the lives of different key figures. Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine, Samuel Adams and others that were key. Now Larry, as we were talking off air, probably no one was maybe more key in the founding of America than Benjamin Franklin. And you have those liberal historians that like to say, well, America wasn't founded as a Christian nation. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin weren't Christians, they were deists. And how do you Respond to that kind of argument.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Benjamin Franklin is, a little bit of a mixed bag over his life in that he didn't, stay the same. He evolved. He started out as a confirmed deist, by which I, mean a person who thinks that, there was a creator. He sort of wound everything up and then walked away and never thereafter paid any attention to or got involved in any way in the affairs of men. But if you've seen the movie that came out on Easter Sunday, A Great Awakening, which accurately portrays his evolution on this, you know that, he may not have gotten to the point of accepting Christ as his savior, but he was deeply affected by the preaching of people like George Whitefield of the Great Awakening. And in the Constitutional Convention, way into his 80s, as depicted in the movie, Franklin rises to speak to the assembly, and you can tell he's no longer a deist because he implores the convention to call upon God to, provide guidance on their deliberations. he makes it plain, and he believes that God does govern in the affairs of men. Those are his precise words. So he was no longer a deist. Whether you could say he accepted Christ, on a personal level, and quiet level, he might have, but it was not ever publicly evident.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Okay, when you hear these guys, Larry, supposedly learned historians, they get on television and they say, well, you know, America was never founded on Christian principles, and, it's not a Christian nation. The Founding Fathers made sure not to put in language like that that made us a Christian nation. you know, I wonder. It's like, okay, I know you're not stupid. I know you can read the literature. It's there for everybody to read. What these guys said outside of the Declaration of Independence or of the Constit, they were obviously greatly influenced by Christianity, by the Scriptures, as you said, even Benjamin Franklin, you quote Psalm 127, unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain that build it. Well, how many people that never pick up the Bible know that verse? obviously they were influenced by that. As a writer and a historian. Does that just make your blood boil when you hear these guys say that?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: It does. I have a position that might be a bit more accommodative to both extremes on this. and that is this. First of all, the Founding Fathers were profoundly influenced by Christian teaching. Some of them were very personally, and profoundly followers of Christ and publicly said so. Others may be less so. But I think the beauty of what they did was they set up a system Whereby, you could worship as you choose. They didn't set up a theocracy like, say, the, Islamists in Iran did. They just set up a system that said religion is not a matter for government and it should not establish and favor one or subsidize one, at the expense of others. And that this is going to be a country where you're going to be free to worship as you please, because that's the way we read scripture. It doesn't say to, put people in jail who have a different religious belief.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: From your perspective, Larry, if the Founding Fathers were to come back today and evaluate America, okay, this is what we built, this is what we framed and founded. Now let's look at it 250 years later. Give me some of your feedback on what they would say.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Okay. I think they would, at first glance, be appalled, at, so much of what they might see. Jefferson in particular, who warned constantly about the growth of debt, he would be blown away by a $40 trillion national debt and would probably say, we warned you about that. You are enslaving yourselves and you're enslaving your children and grandchildren, which is an even greater moral offense. other founders would say, we set up a government of limited scope, and yet you've given it all sorts of powers, never intended. When Ben Franklin left the Constitutional Convention, he famously was asked by someone, Mr. Franklin, what form of government have you given us? And his reply was, a republic, madam, if you can keep it. And that second part of that, answer, I think, is the most important. He knew that all they had done was to put some great things on paper. But if future generations ignore them, vote for politicians who violate them, and then are never held accountable, well, then it will not continue to exist. There's no guarantee that when you write a constitution, it will forever survive. It depends on people. And today, I think they would be appalled if they could see how little the American people understand, how little of it is being taught. about, the founding of this country, why we're exceptional, why constitutional government is, critically important. that's not being taught in schools typically anymore. So you have young people growing up saying, well, let's have socialism, let's put the government in charge of everything. the founders would be very, very unhappy about that.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Well, you know what it's strikes me about those guys is how smart they were, how well studied they were. you know, Jon Adams, a moral and religious people. Well, all those guys of the, what, 56 signers. They were all moral and religious, and they might not have all been born again Christians, but they were all moral and religious. You didn't have a drunk in there, did you?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: No. and many of the founders, on one occasion or another talked about the important importance of moral character. Jon Adams said that our Constitution has been written for a moral and virtuous people. It won't work for any other. and that's exactly right. when people ask me, what do you think the most important issue in the country is? I, always say it's in a single word. It's the same as it's always been here and everywhere. It's character. Because a nation that gets that wrong is going to get everything else wrong. And so when you abandon character, a commitment to honesty, responsibility, courage, patience, gratitude, humility, when you, abandon all those things and take on the, character of bad people who don't value truth, don't expect to be a free people. Sooner or later, there'll be enough chaos that the strong man will ride in, knock heads together to bring order out of the chaos, and there go your liberties.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Okay, Larry, let me ask you this. As we have midterms, coming up, you have one party that, their platform is just rotten. I mean, just from top to bottom is totally rotten. Jon MacArthur used to say, the Democratic platform is straight out of the sins of Romans 1. That's what their platform is championing. But then you have, on the other side, you have candidates that don't exhibit moral character. Their lives are just riddled with immorality and duplicity and all that stuff. And people with President Trump, people really struggle with, how do you support this guy? He's Nebuchadnezzar. I mean, he is so stuff. Full of himself. And so how do you navigate that between. Okay, in Texas, we have James Talarico, who's a seminarian, looks, like Howdy Doody, you know, kind of comes across like that, Mr. Rogers. And then you have Ken Paxton, who has a lot of skeletons in the closet there. But one guy stands for things that are just evil, and the other guy doesn't help us navigate that.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Well, you know, our founders would say, hey, the fact that you have choices that aren't perfect, the fact that even, the party that talks good about a lot of things like federal spending still has candidates and office holders who are, who have personal flaws, that's all the more reason to keep government small in the first place. But, but, you know, we're going to have to work on fixing that. But the bottom line is, when you go to the polls, you have a choice between the names on the ballot. You can write somebody else's in, but whoever that is has no chance, of course. So you have to kind of take what's, in front of you and make a choice. Sometimes in history, God, uses bad people, sometimes really bad people, to produce good effect. And so, although I always wish the candidate I'm voting for was not only right on the issues, but a person of high character, I realized that's not always the case. And then I look at, well, what are they going to do in office? And, then I have to make a judgment on that. If I think they're going to largely do the right thing, I'll vote for that person, even with, his or her character flaws. But you're right. There is one of the two major parties today that, is just wrong on everything. I never thought we'd get to the point in America where one of the parties didn't at least get one thing right, but they're wrong on everything. And, sometimes I think some of their extreme positions cannot be explained except as being, something right out of the pit of hell.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Well, I saw a quote, Larry, from Allen Dershowitz, where he said, as a lifelong Democrat, I'm working overtime to try and make sure the Democrats don't take power. Paraphrase. But he sees that this will be just a disaster, if the country embraces socialism like we see the young people being taught. This is such a great thing. as an economist, pull out your crystal ball and tell us what that does to the country.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: If the country embraces socialism, and in some ways we kind of have one party certainly has, then our $40 trillion national debt will look pretty cheap. in the space of a, generation or two, it might be $100 trillion, and, your liberties will be substantially curtailed. Socialism, after all, is a philosophy of force. they talk a good game. We're going to help people, take care of them, give them stuff. but, you know, we take care of people better under capitalism. socialism does what it does through the use of force by vilifying the successful, taking their money, robbing Peter to pay Paul, effectively enslaving the entire population by making them dependent upon government. I just can't imagine the sanity of a person facing a $40 trillion national debt, offering the voters a program that would do nothing to reduce that debt and everything to Double or triple it over time. That is fundamentally morally reprehensible.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Larry, what do you say to the person that points, to President Trump and say, well, the debt has increased a lot under his presidency. I thought Republicans were supposed to be financial hawks and, you know, no new taxes get the spending down, but it seems to be the opposite. How do you respond to that?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Yeah, I wish the, president would be more concerned about cutting spending. I got excited about DOGE when it was announced a year and a half ago, but that seems to have gone by the board. The problem is that, you know, anybody who comes along in that position and promotes spending reduction gets hit from all sides, even many of his own party. And, the Democrats will sabotage anything they can to prevent anything from being cut, except important things. You know, they, they would happily leave us defenseless by cutting defense, but they'll more than make up for for it by massively expanding other spending. So you got to have the country behind you if you want to really cut spending. And at some time, when we really absolutely have to, because there's no other choice because everything's going bankrupt, maybe the public will finally see that. but, there aren't many politicians today who are helping educate people, to stop asking for more from government.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: So, one, conservative was asked on a talk show about, what he thought of Zoran Mamdani. And he said, well, you know, in one sense, obviously grieved that they would vote for a Marxist Islamist to be your governor, but said in one. Or mayor. He said, but in one sense it's like, okay, well here's a test case. You're going to see how destructive and disastrous this is. with socialism, typically, how long does it take before the bottom drops out?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Well, of course, it depends upon how fast, and how far socialism goes. I mean, if you were to thoroughly socialize everything tonight, unfortunately Mamdani doesn't have that kind of power, then it would be obvious in weeks that this doesn't work. But, you know, when you boil the frog slowly, he never jumps out because, you know, it's a slow process, but it won't be very long before we'll look back and say, okay, let's look at these government grocery stores and their impact. We'll discover, I'm sure, that the cost of providing groceries through the government is, is probably two or three times. maybe the prices won't be higher, but taxes will make up the difference. government does whatever it does at two or Three times what it costs anybody else to do the same thing. And it's, ah, ah, an open door to corruption. Politicians and demagogues buying people's votes, with other people's money. so he's laying the foundations for disaster in every one of these initiatives he's undertaking, taking, and I'm quite confident before his first term is done, a lot of that will be evident. And it, should he be elected to a second, NewSong York will be chasing him out of town with a pitchfork, in eight years.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yeah, well, hopefully that'll happen quickly. I mean, you hate it for the people, but it's like that's what you voted for.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Yeah.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: I go back to Barack Obama's famous quote, election have consequences. And it seems to me today, Larry, that younger people don't realize that voting, in these people is not like saying, I'm going to paint the room, from white to off white. It changes things significantly.
Caroline: Yeah.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: what a damning indictment it is of NewSong York city schools, which 90% of the, residents children go to. They can graduate and look at the world and say, we need to put that same outfit that's 40 trillion in the red in charge of everything else.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: That's crazy. Well, we're talking to Larry, Reed, and the book is called Born of Ideas. You're listening to Real Truth for today. Pastor Jeff Schrieve here. When we come back, we'll take your calls. 888-589-8840. That's 888-5898.
: If you'd like to contact Pastor Jeff, email pastor jeffromhisheart.org now back to Real Truth for today with Pastor Jeff Schrieve.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Welcome back to the program. We're talking to Larry Reed, author, speaker, economist and historian. He has a brand new book out Born of How Principles, Faith and Man, My Eyesight's Going Bad. Principles, Faith and Courage Forged America. And it's a story driven history of the American founding. Okay, so Larry, story driven history. As you were studying for this book, what stories really caught your attention? It's like, wow, I didn't know that.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Yeah, well, there were big ones and little ones. let me share a little one with you first. It involves George Washington and I think is a testimony to the character of the man which was off the charts. We were so fortunate as a country, to providentially have him in that position, when he was in it. this was after the battle of Germantown which the British won during the Revolutionary War. The two armies separate and go back to their camps. And along comes a little terrier from the British lines romping across the field over into the American lines. And of course, the men, in the Continental army, are, mesmerized by this cute little dog. But they look closely at it and discover that it has a collar with a name on it. And, the name on the collar is General William Howe, who was the top commander for the British in all of the North America. The number one guy. It's his dog. And the American men, of course, they're saying, well, let's keep him. That'll serve him. Serve the general right. We'll just keep his dog. And that's when George Washington intervened. He was a dog lover. He had more than 50 in his lifetime. And he said, this is not what gentlemen do. This dog is not a combatant. He, belongs to someone. We know who it is. And so he dictated a letter handwritten by Alexander Hamilton, that said, basically to General Howe, we came upon your dog. It's obviously yours. We're pleased to return him. And they sent the dog with the note and the soldier, to the British side and returned the dog. I think, Washington set a nice example there, but he was good at that sort of thing all the time.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yeah.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: So that's a little story.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yeah. how do you think, Larry, how do you think if George Washington were alive today and they got him to run for president, do you think the America today would vote for somebody like George Washington?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Well, if we really thought it was him, I think we'd be in such awe. We just might. He would shine above every other, candidate for the office for sure. But, you know, he would not run on a platform of promising people more and more, at other people's expense through the government. He would say, I think that you have so overreached. What government was supposed to do that? We're going to eliminate that national debt in the first year or two. We're going to slash spending. No more robbing Peter to pay for it. Right when he started talking like that, I'll bet a lot of Americans would say, oh, no, we, we're not sure we want to go. Yeah, yeah.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Well, just like when you saw the movie Young Washington and how they conducted themselves in battle. you know, people today, they're not rules. they had. They had strict rules of combat. I mean, it seems almost crazy when you watch this, just, you know, the patriot. Hey, you line up, we line up. You shoot at us, we Shoot at you. It's like, who wants to do that?
Frank Gaffney: Yeah.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Well, I have to say there was one aspect, of the war when Americans broke an important rule before the War for Independence. It was sort of the rule, especially in wars in Europe, that, the soldiers were never to shoot at the commanders. That was just uncouth. But the American colonials, they said if we get a clean shot of their top guys were going for it because, you know, they were fighting for their lives. And, so they thought a good way to bring the war to an early end is to make sure you. You, shoot the British commanders.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yeah. The courage that those guys had to have. you're probably, ill equipped to, obviously, to handle the weather, and your uniforms aren't. You know, it's not like you have big coats everywhere you go. That's just brutal. And, we owe those guys a tremendous debt. And one of the things, as we were saying, they don't teach this in school. So there's no appreciation for what those guys did to hand us this baton of freedom. And what I'm concerned about, Larry, is I think about my children, my grandchildren, what kind of America are they going to inherit from us?
: Yeah.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: And, you know, as parents, people complain sometimes about, this very thing, but how many of them do something about it? I mean, if I had a kid in a school and he was about to graduate from high school, and I discovered that he didn't know who our founders were, what they stood for, but he knew a lot of the conventional, criticism of them. I would march into that school and demand that somebody be fired. I would say, say, I'm never having another one of my kids in this school. at whatever cost I'm putting where they're going to get a real education. But instead, most parents kind of think, oh, well, it's the public schools. It's free babysitting. I like the football games. And why raise a fuss? And so, you know, we, let the country slip away as those who were doing the harm in the classroom get ever greater funding. I mean, is that national suicide or what?
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yeah, it really is. Well, we're going to the phone lines. 888-5898-8408-8589-8840. If you have a question or comment for Larry Reed, we'd love to hear from you. And we have our friend Linda on the line from Texas. Linda, welcome to the program.
Caroline: Good morning. I'm telling you, I just get blown away every time I Listen to this. But I was telling him I heard the word character and that I have a intercessors for America sends, prayer requests. And this one is called American Leaders. And, Donald Trump, J.D. vance, Pete Hegseth, Mike Huckabees, Steve Wicke, and Jared Kushner are the pictures on the front. Okay, what I'm getting to here is I came to this scripture, probably Proverbs 25, 13. To those who sent him, a trustworthy envoy is like the coolness of snow on a harvest day. He refreshes the life of his masters. And I think that I wrote these ambassadors, on this scripture, and I just really feel like God has raised up not just them, but a team of people who really have character in them. And that makes a difference in the things they decide. So that's why I wanted to, I just wanted to share that.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Well, I appreciate that, Linda. Well, character matters. And one of the things, Larry, that I admire about Donald Trump, his persistence and perseverance, and he's a Timex watch on steroids. He takes a licking and keeps on. You can't knock him off the, the horse, so to speak. I share this as a pastor. I say, I don't know any pastor who could take the criticism that Donald Trump takes on a regular minute by minute basis and not quit. But he doesn't ever quit. And to me, that speaks volumes about the fact that this guy loves America and he wants to right the ship.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: That is certainly to his credit. He has a tough shell. He's taken more slings and arrows than any president in my memory. Pretty much holds fast to the things that he believes in. And, you know, that's a good quality in a leader. You don't want a leader who just blows with the wind. you don't want one like the character played by Groucho Marx, who's a favorite comedian of mine, but in one of his movies, Groucho plays the leader of a fictional country, and he says to a crowd, those are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others. In other words, I really don't have any. I'll have whatever you want me to have.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yes, that's true. Okay, so, we talked about George Washington. If he were running today, how do you think, how do you think Ronald Reagan would do running today?
Dr. Lawrence Reed: I've lost of all your sound.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Did you lose my audio? Oh, okay.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: Oh, now you're back.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Now I'm back. Okay. so Ronald Reagan as, you know, Very winsome, very charismatic. Not, a mudslinger. do you think the. The political landscape. Landscape has gotten so dirty that, an upstanding candidate would have trouble?
Frank Gaffney: Oh, I'm.
Dr. Lawrence Reed: I'm sorry, Jeff. It's so broken up. I can't understand. something's wrong with. I didn't touch anything.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Okay, Jameson, let's just get him back on audio. Maybe he can call in. So. Okay, they'll work on that. Well, we have Raul. Raul on the line from Texas. Raul, welcome to Real Truth for today.
Frank Gaffney: how would you defend our founding Fathers that are accused of being Masons, like George Washington and others?
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yeah, that's a good question. Okay, we're trying to get Larry back. he had lost audio, so, Yeah, well, I'll ask him that question, Raul, when he comes back. And that's, you know, you wonder about some of those things and, and it's hard sometimes to put yourself back into that time period. What was that like for them? And what were they signing onto, being Masons and that kind of thing? Because we obviously put it into today's understanding and their understanding might have been different, from what we understand today. You know, it's just like with the slavery issue. You know, we look at it from our perspective today. their perspective back 250 years ago, was different. I like, what one historian said, though, about George Washington and his Christianity. upon his death, he freed all his slaves. That was in his will. And, this guy brought up the point that, you, know, if everybody had done that, slavery would have been, it would have gone away all on its own. So. Okay, Larry, the question from Raul had to do with, the Founding Fathers, some of those guys being Masons, how did they square that?
Frank Gaffney: I think, the. Sorry, we're getting a little bit of an echo because my computer is still on across the room. but as far as being Masons are concerned, I don't think that that is the, you know, the evil thing that a lot of people seem to think it was, at least not at that time. I don't think it, is a testimony, ah, to anything but, Washington's desire to mix, and mingle with other important people. I don't think it was a conspiracy of any kind. so I just think it's kind of overblown.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yeah, that's kind of what I thought too. Good question, though, Raul. Okay, so, Larry, born of ideas, who would you like to purchase this book and what do you want them to learn from it?
Frank Gaffney: I think any American who wants to understand better what makes this country exceptional, who the, most exceptional people were at the time of our founding, what the ideas were that motivated them, should read this book. And, it's not some 500 page tome that you're going to have to spend months reading. You can read it in a couple evenings because it's under 200 pages. and also share it with young people, high school kids and college kids. This would be a great refresher for them. Maybe much of what they'll read, they'll be reading for the very first time. And they should know these things because, if a country doesn't know where it came from, it's probably not destined to go anyplace that's important, that's for sure.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Well, are you encouraged or discouraged when you think about our future as a country?
Frank Gaffney: I'm a pathological optimist, Jeff, and I am well aware that there are trends and other developments that we should be very concerned about. Don't try to dismiss those. But I also think that pessimism is a self fulfilling prophecy. If you've already given up, if you think we're going to lose, what's the use? Well, then you're not going to work very hard for what you know to be right. You've given up, you've done just what the other side wants you to do. and secondarily, if you give up, you're not going to convert others to your cause because most people want to sign up for something they think is going to win. So, I think it's important to be optimistic. Why be down on a future that hasn't happened yet and that you can, affect by doing the right thing?
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Amen to that. we just have about a minute and a half left, Larry, but I wanted to get you to weigh in on this. The situation in Iran. very, very difficult to defeat an enemy like Iran that just won't quit until you cut off their head. it seems like it's impossible unless you're going to send troops in there. It's impossible to just keep bombing them and, doing what we're doing. How do you see that conflict coming to an end?
Frank Gaffney: Boy, I don't know. I wouldn't have expected it to still be lingering, six months after it started. I just wonder how much we're holding, holding back our ally Israel. I would certainly unleash them if we can and say look, if you know how to, decapitate the guys who are running the show now, let's go ahead and do it. I haven't given up on our ability militarily to take, them out and hopefully foment a popular revolution there, too.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yeah, it seems like the people are all for it, for sure. Well, Larry, Larry, this has been wonderful to talk to you about your new book, Born of Ideas. I encourage, people to check it out. And I love what you said. Get it into the hands of younger people that don't know about our history, that don't know about the ideas that built the greatest country, ever formed. And, we need to get that out. So, Larry, thanks for coming on today.
Frank Gaffney: My pleasure. Thank you, Jeff.
Pastor Jeff Schreve: God bless you. Well, go out this weekend, show Shine for Christ. Share what great things the Lord has done for you. Speak the truth in love. Be willing to stand up and be courageous for Jesus. the wicked flee when no one is pursuing, but the righteous are bold as a lion. God bless.
Pastor Jeff Schreve welcomes author, historian, and economist Dr. Lawrence Reed to discuss the ideas, faith, and principles that shaped the founding of America. Reed shares stories from his new book, Born of Ideas: How Principles, Faith and Courage Forged America, including the significance of the Mayflower Compact, the influence of Christianity on the Founding Fathers, and the character of figures like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. Together, they explore what the founders believed about liberty, government, moral character, and the responsibility of preserving a free nation for future generations.
Pastor Jeff Schreve welcomes author, historian, and economist Dr. Lawrence Reed to discuss the ideas, faith, and principles that shaped the founding of America. Reed shares stories from his new book, Born of Ideas: How Principles, Faith and Courage Forged America, including the significance of the Mayflower Compact, the influence of Christianity on the Founding Fathers, and the character of figures like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. Together, they explore what the founders believed about liberty, government, moral character, and the responsibility of preserving a free nation for future generations.
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