Point of View February 17, 2025 – Hour 1 : President’s Day, Footsteps of Giants

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, Kirby Anderson. Thank you for joining me. It is the Monday edition of Point of View and it's President's Day.

[00:00:23] So first of all, don't go to the bank. It won't be open. Don't try to mail anything because post office is closed and a variety of other facilities where I was hoping maybe they wouldn't necessarily be closed down worse. So of course that is different. We will be talking about the importance of presidents. As a matter of fact, my commentary today is on presidential authority which will get us into some of the conversation about DOGE. At the bottom of the hour, we have our good friend Jerry Newcomb, serves as the executive director of the Providence Forum.

[00:00:53] Of course, he's been the host of D.J. James Kennedy Ministries and we'll talk about his book and some of the things we can learn from the founders. And so we're probably going to spend a little bit of time, especially in this first hour, either talking about DOGE or about presidential authority or about presidents. Second hour, I do want to spend some time talking about two speeches given by J.D. Vance.

[00:01:15] One that was in Germany, which has caused a flap and it shouldn't because interestingly enough, he raised some concerns about the fact that there is really an attempt to silence people that shouldn't be silenced. And one of the examples he used was from our good friend Lathan Watts, Alliance Defending Freedom. Another one came from actually a decision that because they didn't like the outcome of the election in Romania, that they canceled the election. It's like, what?

[00:01:46] And so I thought that was a really good speech. But of course, you wouldn't know that by watching the mainstream media. So I want to try to clarify some of that. And then he gave another speech, interestingly enough, in France. And this one was more about a I artificial intelligence. And I did decide to have a little bit of fun, not only at his expense, but also at Kamala Harris's expense. And you may have seen it where they take some places where J.D. Vance, who is very intelligent.

[00:02:14] And I'm very impressed with his understanding of, for example, the issue of artificial intelligence. After all, he did work in Silicon Valley. And then they underneath it, and I did this as well, put a little video of Kamala Harris trying to explain A.I. as if she was talking to fourth graders. And anyway, it was interesting there as well. So we're going to get into some of those topics.

[00:02:35] But first of all, my first article gets into how much can Elon Musk or Doge, the Department of Government Efficiency, really go too far? And where are the limits? And of course, my article today, my commentary is on presidential limits.

[00:02:51] But here, the first article, a federal judge in Washington handed Elon Musk's government efficiency team a win by declining a request to block it from accessing information at at least three federal agencies. These would be the Department of Labor, Health and Human Services, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which I talked about last Thursday.

[00:03:15] And the district judge, John Bates, wrote an opinion that the government was likely correct in categorizing Doge as an agency. But he also referred to it as a close question and said it was a Goldilocks entity. I don't know if that's a technical legal. I'm having fun with him here. A Goldilocks entity. Just about the time you think, you know, sometimes law is so complex that I don't even understand all these references and everything.

[00:03:42] He refers to it as a Goldilocks entity, not an agency. And so there's probably going to be some follow up. And before it's all through, some of this may just have to end up on the Supreme Court, because what is the authority of an agency within the executive branch created by the president to actually evaluate the executive branch? I think that's pretty straightforward, but you wouldn't necessarily know that.

[00:04:09] And so if you find yourself saying, well, OK, what is happening? In just a minute, I'm going to talk about how big the government is and why this is an issue. I was struck by the fact that if you go to the U.S. debt clock, they now not only have the debt clock showing how much we're spending and how much revenue we have, but also has the Doge clock in there as well. So when people say we don't have transparency, you can click on a number of websites now and find that out.

[00:04:36] But here are just two things from the weekend that we're covering. Maybe nobody else will, but I think they should. The first is the Department of Education has canceled about $350 million in contracts and grants because they were basically tied to DEI. And this happened because of Christopher Ruffo, who I've quoted before. As a matter of fact, I have a commentary coming out next week where I quote him again, posted some of the programs on social media.

[00:05:05] So even apart from Doge, other people are getting into the act and saying, well, here's some other places you could cut if you'd like to do so. And in this case, the Department of Education cut them without even a request from the president. And for those of you that receive Social Security, this was puzzling and maybe even more troubling. Elon Musk posted this as a friend of mine described it. He's talking about the whole issue of Social Security.

[00:05:35] It's like an amazing puzzle uncovering the secrets of an ancient civilization that went extinct, except it's still around. And his argument is the logic flow diagram for the Social Security system looks insane. No one person actually knows how it works. That should not make you feel good. The payment files that move between Social Security and Treasury have significant inconsistencies that are not reconciled. It's wild.

[00:06:04] Now, there's one individual that saw some of the posts that he put on X and said, well, maybe you need to bring Kamala Harris in. And she's good with these Venn diagrams. Maybe she can help with this. But here you have an individual who, again, would expect that you should be able to reconcile all the funds. Let me just say that as the president of a different organization than Point of View at Probe, each month we have to reconcile our funds with the bank.

[00:06:31] And if it doesn't come to the same conclusion, we go and dig for a while to try to find that out. I fortunately have a bookkeeper, but sometimes when it doesn't look good to me, I say we need to go give it a try again. But here is a good example. We have funds in the Social Security so-called trust fund. We have the Treasury Department. And then we have the Treasury Department actually interacting with Social Security Administration, sending you the Social Security benefits that you receive.

[00:07:01] And you would say, well, then certainly those have been reconciled. And Elon Musk says they are not. As a matter of fact, he says the logic flow diagram for the Social Security system looks insane. And if he's right about this, no one person actually knows how it works. That probably brings me to what we're going to talk about after the break. And that is, is the government, as Kelly Shackelford was suggesting on Friday, maybe just a little too big?

[00:07:30] And I'm going to give you some notes from actually a commentary I did six years ago, but actually now maybe is more accurate than ever. And then I want to talk about the fact that as we provided for now it's 75,000 federal employees to actually take a fork in the road. There are some in one of those. This is an article from NPR.

[00:07:53] Liz Gogan is an individual that was with the Veterans Health Administration who thought that she could simply resign and be paid all the way to September 30th and then found out that she was exempt. And so I've begun digging into that as well. I've looked at a couple of law firms that actually advise government employees, looked at a couple of other explanations, and we'll try to get into that as well.

[00:08:17] Because that is what you're probably going to hear over the next couple of days, that this was a bait and switch or that the government doesn't know what it's doing or Doge made a mistake. We'll see if we can dig through and find some reasonable answers to that because that's going to be, I think, one of the biggest issues in the news. So we'll come back and talk about that right after these important messages.

[00:08:58] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. Progressive activists often talk about the long march through institutions. For the last few weeks, we've had a fast sprint through the institutions by President Trump followed by Elon Musk. The flurry of activity by the president and his administration have raised an important question. What are the limits to presidential authority? U of 11 provides a rule of thumb for executive power debates.

[00:09:25] Of course, we can find the limits to executive power in the Constitution, in the Federalist Papers, and in various court decisions. But he breaks Trump's power down to two contexts. In relation to the executive branch over which he presides, and in relation to the larger constitutional system in which he plays a part. When it comes to the president's authority over the executive branch, his power is supreme. The Constitution says the executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States of America.

[00:09:52] Of course, there are some limitations to that power, as illustrated by the confirmation hearings in Congress that have been taking place. However, when it comes to the government as a whole, the president's role is constrained and is in many respects overshadowed by Congress. His core function is to take care that the laws Congress has passed are faithfully executed. The Constitution and subsequent court decisions deal with both sets of presidential powers.

[00:10:17] It allows the president to have expansive powers in dealing with the executive branch, but constrains those powers when dealing with the whole government. Although many Supreme Court judges would hold to this same view found in the Constitution, we are seeing some federal judges rule against some of President Trump's presidential actions. I predict that many of those decisions will later be overruled. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my Point of View.

[00:10:46] For a free booklet on a biblical view of Israel, go to viewpoints.info slash Israel. Viewpoints.info slash Israel. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again, one of the things that we talked about on Friday, Kelly Shackelford brought it up, is the fact that the federal government is just very big. And I think we sometimes fail to understand how big it is.

[00:11:15] In the past, we've talked about, you know, big business and big pharma and big labor and big ag and all sorts of things. But big government maybe is a little bigger than you realize. And back in 2019, I wrote a commentary called Too Big, and I decided to update it here because, if nothing else, it's a reminder of the fact that those numbers have gotten even worse. And that is, I pointed out that the federal budget at that time was $4 trillion.

[00:11:44] Annual budget was $4 trillion. Now it's $7 trillion. Are you with me? $7 trillion. And our tax revenues are about $5 trillion, which means we have a $2 trillion deficit every single year. As I've said before, imagine if you're making $50,000 a year, but you're spending $70,000 a year, and you've been doing that for decades, I think you'd say you were in difficulty.

[00:12:11] And as a result, so that's the numbers or the dollars. In terms of the size of the government, the president and Congress are supposed to manage a bureaucracy, which they are saying right now is $2.4 million. But if you add all the employees, so that would be military, civilian, and contract, it's really $4.8 million. So I don't care if you want to use the $2 million or the $4 million. Still, that is very large.

[00:12:40] Okay, let's compare that then to the two largest corporations. Now, off air, some of us were saying, well, is it fair to compare the government to a business? Not necessarily, but it just gives you at least a sense of what we are talking about here, because Walmart actually employs 2 million people worldwide, about 1.6 million here in the United States, and its annual budget is $482 billion compared to, of course, $7 trillion.

[00:13:09] So you can see there's a little difference there. All right, what about Amazon? Well, Amazon back then, interestingly enough, was a little bit smaller, had only about a half a million people worldwide. Now it has 1.6 million people worldwide, about 1.1 million in the U.S., and it has a budget of, you know, about, what is it, $477 billion.

[00:13:35] So it's very close, if you will, to what you have in terms of the Amazon or Walmart are pretty much the same. But here's the bottom line. If Walmart or Amazon were part of the federal government, they're not, they wouldn't even be the largest federal programs. Now, during the confirmation hearings, there were some good questions, and one of those was a question of Pete Hegseth. And I've had the privilege of sitting next to him at a dinner,

[00:14:03] and some of the questions were saying, do you have enough experience? Do you have enough managerial background to manage the Pentagon? My answer is, it's a good question. It's a very relevant question. It's a question to ask. The only difference is I would like to go back and ask the individual that was asking it, do you know anybody that has the managerial experience of managing such an enormous bureaucracy? And the answer would be, not really.

[00:14:32] So this is where we find ourselves, and I think it's back to something I've said many times before in this program. Maybe you're even tired of hearing me say it. And that is you can't fix a problem if you don't think there's a problem. You can't begin to talk about how we're going to someday balance the budget and maybe even pay back our debt if you're not convinced that $36 trillion is a problem.

[00:14:57] You can't even begin to balance a budget if you're convinced that bringing in $5 trillion to fund a $7 trillion monstrosity is an effective way to keep the United States government going. And so even as I've had a chance to watch some of the interviews over the weekend of the people complaining about this or that that Elon Musk is doing,

[00:15:24] a lot of it comes back to, all right, do you actually believe that there's a problem? Because if you don't believe there's a problem and you are upset that there is an attempt to try to cut back the size and scope of the government, I can see why you're upset. There are all sorts of other issues. We're starting to find out some of these payments that shouldn't have been made and all the rest. But if you're not convinced that the government is too big,

[00:15:52] and if anything, you think that when it moved from a $4 trillion budget six years ago to a $7 trillion budget now, a lot of that due to spending during the pandemic and most of that coming during the time when Joe Biden was president and he was able to move various things through Congress, we now have a much larger government than we did six years ago, and we have an enormous number of employees which are part of the reason for the expense.

[00:16:20] So one of the questions you really need to be asking in the back of your mind when you're seeing people protest, even this investigation, and the attempt to try to be somewhat transparent, is whether or not the people complaining are actually believing that the government is too large. And if they don't, well, then you can see why they're saying that. But I would think I would have, this weekend, loved to have had somebody say,

[00:16:48] look, yes, the government's too large. We need to maybe reduce the size and scope. We need to make it more efficient. But I don't like the way Elon Musk is going about that. Okay, I accept that argument. That's a very legitimate argument. But the argument that we shouldn't be cutting anything in the federal government, that just doesn't pass what we oftentimes call the straight-face test. The other thing you're going to hear is how people have been hurt. And this one may be a good example. And again, I want to give full credit to Steve Miller, my producer,

[00:17:18] because this comes from an article that was put out by NPR. Since then, I found some others like this. And this tells the story of Liz Gogan, a licensed clinical social worker with the Veterans Health Administration. By the way, I've had friends that have worked with the VA before, so I'm very familiar with some of the issues there. And she received, as did so many others in the federal workforce, what was called the fork-in-the-road email. It arrived on January 28th.

[00:17:47] The email blast came from the Office of Personnel Management, went to nearly all federal employees. In this case, they see 2.3. I've got different numbers, but I think some of them were already not mailed to, because as I'll explain in just a minute, I don't think they mailed to individuals that have sensitive areas like national security or a variety of others. So at least 2 million-plus received those. And the memo very simply said, if you offer your resignation by February 6th,

[00:18:15] all you have to do is put resigned in the particular content. That would be enough. And she was one of the 75,000 federal employees who agreed to resign. And that has been moving forward, because as we also talked about on Friday, a federal judge in this case cleared the way for Trump administration's deferred resignation program. You with me on that? So we've had two judges that have opened the door for some of the things

[00:18:44] that have been happening to other judges, which have closed them down. So we're kind of two for two. But here's the issue. As soon as she did that, it turns out that she was listed as exempt. And so unknown, and I don't know the number yet, could not dig it up. A number of people have since learned that after they put resigned in the subject line,

[00:19:10] actually were not able to take the deal because their positions are exempt. And so we're going to have to see where that takes us. Now, I've done some digging, and I won't give you all the details, so I'm pretty unbelievable. But there are a few places where you have the fork in the road exempt list. First of all, a person that is in what is called a critical role in terms of the mission of the agency

[00:19:38] is so important that that person cannot resign. Now, you've got to recognize those people probably know who they are because oftentimes when we have a government shutdown, by the way, we're headed for another government shutdown, certainly by March 11th, but maybe even earlier, then only about a quarter of those individuals in the federal workforce go to work. So you'd probably say, okay, I'm probably in one of those critical roles. The other category is security concerns.

[00:20:08] In some cases, individuals working in sensitive areas like national security might be excluded from the buyout program. And then finally, there are some where the agency has some discretion to exempt individuals. Which may have been what happened in this case. Is that, if you will, attempt to manipulate these individuals? You know, it's a possibility. But it also, I think, is an illustration of something I began to read as I went to some of the websites of various law firms

[00:20:37] that do any kind of consultation with federal employees. They all warned, you need to understand all the ramifications. And just a quick typing in resignation in the subject line is not giving you a chance to understand all of the ramifications. So I don't know how many people that are in the federal workforce listen to Point of View. In the old days, when we had radio stations in Maryland and Virginia, quite a few. But if you are a federal employee,

[00:21:06] you might want to go and check first with a law firm and find out what those might mean. Because there is a difference between what's being called a buyout, which you could do in a private agency, and what is deferred program in the U.S. government. Anyway, that's what we know so far. We'll keep following the story. We'll be back right after this. In 19th century London, two towering historical figures did battle,

[00:21:36] not with guns and bombs, but words and ideas. London was home to Karl Marx, the father of communism, and legendary Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon. London was in many ways the center of the world, economically, militarily, and intellectually. Marx sought to destroy religion, the family, and everything the Bible supports. Spurgeon stood against him, warning of socialism's dangers.

[00:22:04] Spurgeon understood Christianity is not just religious truth. It is truth for all of life. Where do you find men with that kind of wisdom to stand against darkness today? Get the light you need on today's most pressing issues delivered to your inbox when you sign up for the Viewpoints commentary at pointofview.net slash sign up. Every weekday, in less than two minutes, you'll learn how to be a person of light to stand against darkness

[00:22:33] in our time. It's free, so visit pointofview.net slash sign up right now. pointofview.net slash sign up. Point of View will continue after this. You are listening to Point of View.

[00:23:02] The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station. And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson. Back once again, it is President's Day. We're going to spend some time learning about the presidents, and if you have comments or questions, 1-800-351-1212. Dr. Jerry Newcomb is a good friend and guest on this program many times. He's Executive Director of the Providence Forum, also served as, and has served

[00:23:30] as the senior producer as the on-air host of, again, Truth That Transforms. Of course, you've seen him on D. James Kennedy Ministries. I might mention some of his books. For those of you watching online, there is a book that he co-authored on One Nation Under God, a book that I highly recommend. One that is going to relate very much to our conversation. This one, Answers from the Founding Fathers that he has written. And if I can get this one up without breaking my back because it is a more than

[00:24:00] an 1,100-word book, it's called Sacred Fire, which, again, he co-authored. So just a few of the many books over the years that Jerry Newcomb has written on the subject of America's godly heritage. So, Jerry, always great to have you on the program. Oh, thank you, Kirby. Good to be with you. Your new book coming out here, in some respects, is similar to the one I have in front of me, In the Footsteps of Giants, Solutions from the Founders

[00:24:29] for a Nation Gone Astray. In some respects, I see that a lot of that gets into some of the material that's in this book that I've had on my shelf for some time because many of these ideas that we take for granted were really created out of the ideas expressed by the founders and the various messages and sermons preached from the pulpits, weren't they? Yes, that's exactly right. And, in fact, I think you can really summarize the essence of the American experiment,

[00:24:59] and it's articulated so well in the Declaration of Independence. It's basically self-rule under God. In other words, our rights come from the Creator, not from the government. They come from the Creator, and here we have the consent of the governed. So we, the people, are a free people who get to determine what our government should be according to the founders. And, frankly, throughout history, that's very, very rare. And also, it became a model

[00:25:29] for other countries to try and follow. In fact, one time I did an interview in your state of Texas with, he has now died, but Dr. Donald S. Lutz Yes. of the University of Houston, and he wrote a book called The Origins of American Constitutionalism. And he said, frankly, the constitutions of most of the countries in the world, whether they follow them or not, is patterned after the U.S. Constitution. And that was very much patterned after

[00:25:59] ultimately biblical source type documents. When I say that, what I mean is like the Mayflower Compact, the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, you know, different covenants, frames of government, Penn's, William Penn's frame of government, you know, from around 1701, thereabouts. So, anyway, bottom line is the Bible played a key role in the founding of America. And, frankly, as a nation,

[00:26:28] we're suffering today because so many of our elites have gotten away from the things of the Bible. And, unfortunately, a lot of young people today are just not acquainted with this kind of stuff. And you talk about the presidents, this is President's Day, and you just look at some of the aspects of the, you know, some of the key presidents in past, you know, as far as where they served with God. And it's really amazing. I mean, George Washington, for example, was very much shaped by his Christian faith. Yes. You know, one of the things

[00:26:57] I might also hold up, and I'm going to hold up a lot of books today for those of you watching online, this is Jerry Newcomb's book, which is entitled The Book That Made America. And, of course, I'm very familiar with Dr. Donald Lutz. As a matter of fact, I think you probably quote him more than anybody in this book other than D. James Kennedy himself. So, it illustrates, again, that if you want to understand the American experiment, you really need to understand, first of all, the Bible, and you then need to understand that preachers

[00:27:26] in the 18th century, because we have a booklet that we've made available on the patriot preachers, were preaching about all these different ideas that found their way into the Constitution, and Dr. Donald Lutz and my major professor there at Georgetown University who worked with Dr. Lutz, George Carey, by the way, George Carey wasn't a Christian, but nevertheless had to admit that most of these ideas really just came from the text of sermons that were actually preached in that day.

[00:27:56] Yes, in fact, I remember this very well that Dr. Lutz said, in that time, let's say the time of the founding era, let's just, you know, so 1760s, 1770s, 1780s, okay, he said, what was their form of mass media? He said, believe it or not, it was sermons, sermons that were written up, you know, in pamphlet form, little booklet forms, monographs or whatever, that were circulating up and down the, you know, the Atlantic Seacoast.

[00:28:26] It's like, what? That was what was circulating around. They didn't have mass media, they didn't have, you know, social media, they didn't have movies and so forth, but they did have these messages and these messages were getting around. And he said, for example, even people who weren't necessarily Christian, but they were, they were, I mean, sorry, people who were Christian, but they weren't quoting from the Bible. In other words, biblical quotations were the single most widely

[00:28:56] cited sources for, you know, in the political writings during the founding era. But then even when you look at human sources, okay, going beyond the Bible, we find that it was, you know, people like Montescue, number one, number two was William Blackstone, number three was John Locke. These were Christian writers with Christian ideas and, but where did people learn about these? From the sermons. Yes. So in other words,

[00:29:26] these sermons were so influential during the founding era and the Bible played such a key role and so, you know, the idea, for example, that by the time you get to the founding fathers, these were all just men of the enlightenment, in effect, virtual atheists, that's just not true at all. And even some of the more liberal ones were very much influenced by the Bible

[00:29:55] for good. You know, George White, I mean, take the example of Ben Franklin. Ben Franklin during the Constitutional Convention when things were going very poorly, he stood up and he gave an impassioned speech saying, you know, gentlemen, we need to pray. And, you know, it was just a very powerful speech and a variation of his request was adopted and they did have prayer together and they were able, you know, finally to finish the Constitution. But may I quote part of that prayer?

[00:30:25] I just know it from heart because I've quoted it so much. I have lived, sir, the sir is George Washington, the, you know, presiding, you know, the president of the Constitutional Convention. I have lived, a long time. And the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall without his notice, can an empire rise without his aid? We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings, that unless

[00:30:55] the Lord build the house, they that labor, labor in vain. And so, you know, he gives this big, you know, impassioned speech and they act on it, not directly the way he requested, but they did act on it by praying together and the acrimony ceased and they were able finally to finish the, you know, accomplish the task. And so I think that's really great. When you look at, you know,

[00:31:25] how so many the founding fathers, you know, were influenced by the Christian faith, it's just really a powerful point. George Washington said, for example, of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. Listen, we can take a break and we come back and talk about George Washington. First of all, I might just mention that we have a link to the video, the documentary on George Washington.

[00:31:54] We also have a link to your book in the footsteps of giants that takes you to jerrynewcomb.com and you can read all of that material there as well. But again, I'll hold up this book without straining it too much because it's an 1100 page book. But there's a section in there which you talk about the biblical source of George Washington's understanding of providence. And that's part of the problem. You have individuals, Jerry, and you know that only so well, that say, well, if George Washington was a Christian, he certainly didn't talk like it.

[00:32:24] He didn't go to church all that often, so you make the case. And Peter Lobach, who is your co-author in this, make the case that he's a Christian. So I thought we might come back and take on perhaps one of the more vexing questions about certainly where George Washington stood on that. And of course, when you go to some of the other framers of the Constitution or go all the way back to some of the founders, all the way back, as you mentioned, to the Pilgrims, the Mayfowler Compact, and things of that nature are

[00:32:54] the orders of Connecticut and a variety of others. These were obviously Christian individuals, but since we're talking about President's Day, when we come back, I want to have you maybe explain a little bit, since people might not read your 1100-page book on the sacred fire of George Washington, what would we say to individuals that say, well, it wasn't a Christian nation, and a good illustration is the first president was not a Christian, and I think you have a very good answer to that. And if you find yourself saying, well,

[00:33:24] I'd like to know a little bit more, of course, you have these documentaries that are provided by the Providence Forum. This is a great resource, and we have all the links necessary for it on the website. Let's take a break. We'll talk about George Washington right after this.

[00:33:55] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back for a few more minutes, and again, for those of you watching online, I thought it'd hold up a number of books. One of those is Dr. Donald Lutz. This is the book there that we just talked about, The Origins of American Constitutionalism, and it was published by Louisiana State University Press, and again, I highly recommend that because it makes the case that these ideas came from the political sermons. You might say, well, I'd like to actually read the political sermons, so I'll hold up this book.

[00:34:25] This book is entitled The Political Sermons of the American Founding Era. So again, these are some of the books on my bookshelf because it seems to me that a lot of people that want to argue that America was not a Christian nation really needs to go back and look at maybe a few of the sermons, a few of the academic research projects that all came together, and certainly we do quote some of that material in, for example, my Patriot Preachers booklet and others. But let me just take the

[00:34:55] tough question since we're talking about President's Day. It seems to me, Jerry Newcomb, a lot of people will say, well, George Washington, good guy, maybe great general, but he was probably like a Unitarian or maybe some kind of nominal person that had some moral ideas, but he certainly wasn't a Christian. How do you respond? Well, that doesn't comport with the facts. I mean, from all the outward evidence, George Washington was a devout 18th century

[00:35:25] Anglican. He went to church whenever he could, even in very difficult circumstances. One of the charges brought out sometimes is that, well, he didn't always take communion. And it is true that during the war in his own church, which is the Anglican church today in America, that's the Episcopal church, which was much more conservative back then, by the way, in those days. But he was, you know, he was leading the

[00:35:54] rebellion, if you will, against the head of the church, who was the king of England, George was a third. And so he didn't think that was wise to participate. And that later, after the war was over, we won our independence, then he did participate in communion, you know, at his native church. Not always necessarily as faithfully, but, you know, as he did before the war. But part of that could have been his schedule and so forth.

[00:36:24] And Dr. Lillback pointed out, you know, in those days in Virginia, where Washington was living, they only had communion, what, three or four times a year in those churches. So, you know, it wasn't like he, I don't believe in the atonement of Christ, therefore I'm going to refuse, you know, participating in communion. He did participate in communion, according to different eyewitnesses, even during the war. But, as I say, it wasn't Episcopal in, you know, Anglican churches.

[00:36:53] It was, for example, Presbyterian churches. There's even a stained glass window at a Presbyterian church in Morristown, New Jersey. And in the stained glass window, they show George Washington himself worshiping with them, you know, and receiving the Lord's Supper. So, bottom line is, but, but, you know, let me just keep going. George Washington was a huge reader of the Bible. He read it so much that it's almost as if you

[00:37:23] caught him, he would have bled scripture. Appendix 2 in our book, George Washington's Sacred Fire, just has all kinds of different scriptural phrases that come right out of the Holy Writ, but they're found in George Washington's writings. And it just, it just, to me, it just shows you the man was a big reader of the Bible and also a big reader of the Book of Common Prayer, 1662, version, which is replete with scripture verses. So this was a big deal to him.

[00:37:53] And it's almost as if, I like to use this phrase, it's almost as if you cut the man, he would have bled scripture because it was so much a part of his vocabulary and his thinking. And, you know, furthermore, George Washington, you know, extolled Christian values and Christian virtues. And he said, we must, and he said these in his writings, he said, we'll never be a happy nation unless we imitate the divine author of our blessed religion. And that is, of course, talking about Jesus Christ.

[00:38:21] When the Indians, some Indian chiefs came to him and they said, we'd like our sons to be like yours. And he said, you do well with that, you know, for your sons to learn our way of our, of life and our arts and so forth. But above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. Washington said that. And so he was always, you know, in his own way. Now, if you say, well, why did he talk about providence all the time? Because that's what a lot of the preachers did at the time, the evangelical

[00:38:50] oriented preachers. Providence is just a fancy name and word for God. You know, are we to basically judge people of previous generations? You know, why did you use this word versus that word if you, you know, I think that's, that's just not accurate. In other words, the, the idea of providence, in fact, it goes totally against the idea of a deist. Right. God, you know, where there's,

[00:39:19] there is a God, but he's far and distant. He certainly does not answer our prayer as opposed to the one who provides for us, the one we find and read about in the Holy Scriptures. In other words, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let me just mention too, you talked about appendix two, but appendix three has George Washington's written prayers. Appendix four has George Washington's daily sacrifice prayers and all sorts of other prayers. And again, if you're a deist or a Unitarian or a humanist, I don't think you pray quite that way.

[00:39:48] So there are just all sorts of appendices in the book that just help us understand that as well. But just before we run out of time, I would like to talk about what people that want to educate themselves and most importantly educate their children and grandchildren can do because you have at least, I think now have counted seven documentaries with the Providence Forum. There's that word again, the Foundation of American Liberty series.

[00:40:16] And you interview, of course, Bill Federer has been on the program. Paul Lillbacker just mentioned. David Gibbs, I just mentioned as well. Eric Metaxas, Oz Guinness, you know, John Idesmo, all sorts of people that we interview on this program. So if people said, OK, I want to maybe set my kids down, my grandkids down and say, here's a video I want to have you watch. What can they do and how can they find some of those resources? Sure. ProvidenceForum.org.

[00:40:46] And at ProvidenceForum.org, I always try and make it so that virtually the first post you see when you open it up is, you know, the Foundation of American Liberty series film series. I'm sorry, the Foundation of American Liberty series, which, again, is a part of ProvidenceForum.org. And it's seven part series, as you noted, seven documentaries. Plus, there's a lot of bonus footage as well. And so we have, by the grace of God,

[00:41:15] we're able to get all kinds of wonderful guests, including Dennis Prager, of course, the ones you mentioned as well. And the late Walter Williams. Yes. But what I tried to do was do this in story fashion. In other words, it's basically telling the story. George Washington, for example, he's the only person where we just focus on one person in any of these seven episodes for the whole episode. But basically telling a story,

[00:41:45] including his commitment early on to a life of, you know, Christian faith and how his mother, his dad died when he was young. He died when he was 11. And his mother, Mary Ball Washington, was very devout and made sure that he, you know, was reading the scriptures on a regular basis. So, you know, it's interesting. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Yeah, I was just going to say, we're just out of time.

[00:42:14] But again, I want to also mention the bulletproof George Washington. And we just had a bulletproof president. So I don't know if those two correlate at all. But it is kind of intriguing. And let me just mention. Yeah, God and his providence spared them. Yeah. Here it is. Providenceforum.org. So if you go to the website, pointofview.net, you will see a picture there of Jerry Newcomb. Hit the button. See more. Scroll down. And you will see under his bio, which I've only read part of it, is the Providence Forum. I've had many of you say, well, where do I find the videos?

[00:42:43] And he's made it very easy for you to click on those and to find those materials. And if indeed we can sit here and lament about the fact that the younger generation doesn't know about America's godly heritage, well, then I leave it up to you to make a difference. Jerry, as always, great to be with you and look forward to the next opportunity. Okay. Thank you, Kirby. God bless. We'll be right back.

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