Point of View November 13, 2024 – Hour 2 : F3 Initiative

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, and now, Kirby Anderson.

[00:00:20] Second hour today we're going to talk about again what we want to try to do to encourage people that are younger to get involved in the political process, to understand some of these issues, and to be, in a sense, those who will carry the torch into the 21st century.

[00:00:35] You probably have noticed that we like to do this. Yesterday we had our Millennial Roundtable, and we had a number of guests there.

[00:00:41] One of my guests in studio right now will be with us on Friday when Liberty McCarter will actually be the host. I'll be off speaking.

[00:00:48] And I think you can see that we have a real dedication to getting young people involved in a variety of different areas, which is why I'm excited to spend this hour talking about the F3 Initiative.

[00:01:00] It is something associated with our friends at First Liberty Institute, and I have in studio with me Nathan Shackelford.

[00:01:08] He is the Associate General Counsel at First Liberty Institute, individual that got his undergraduate and master's degrees from Texas A&M, his law degree from SMU School of Law.

[00:01:20] If I remember right, James Ho actually did the Oath of Office, right?

[00:01:24] Yeah, that was just amazing.

[00:01:25] And so Nathan Shackelford, great to have you in studio.

[00:01:28] Yeah, thank you for having me.

[00:01:29] And you will be back here on Friday, so people will get to hear you on two separate occasions.

[00:01:33] We also have by phone an individual that I've seen on some videos, and I was at one of your events where they were talking, and he was talking as well.

[00:01:41] Sean Fredrickson, he's a speaker, a writer, a content creator.

[00:01:46] You perhaps have seen some of the material he's done in the past with PragerU or InfoWars or Epic Times, Turning Point USA.

[00:01:53] He's probably best known for some of us as one of those individuals that really kind of produced a couple of these Freedom Revival events.

[00:02:01] He's a creative director and also the co-leader of F3 Initiative with First Liberty Institute.

[00:02:07] So, Sean, thank you for joining us today as well.

[00:02:10] It is a pleasure to be here with you guys.

[00:02:12] Well, let me first of all try to have Nathan explain this.

[00:02:16] We've mentioned it in passing, but I think what we need to understand is that so many incredible successes from First Liberty.

[00:02:26] Four cases just in the last two and a half years before the Supreme Court, nine over the last about five or six years.

[00:02:32] Your dad and First Liberty are making history.

[00:02:35] It's just amazing.

[00:02:36] But there's been a real desire, Nathan, hasn't it, to really try to educate the next generation about the freedoms that you have.

[00:02:44] Can you speak to that issue?

[00:02:46] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:02:47] I mean, if you look at the cases that First Liberty has, a lot of our cases either involve people that are in their 20s to 40s or they're parents of people that are in that range.

[00:03:01] So there's a huge importance for people to understand what their rights are, especially as they're starting to raise a family and their kids are in schools and they're presented with different curriculum for the first time that might go against their faith or in the workplace and something comes up.

[00:03:15] And if this generation doesn't really understand what their rights are, we could be giving them away and letting people kind of trample on those.

[00:03:22] So that's really where the idea of F3 came from is educating, equipping, empowering those in their 20s to 40s, those that are having kids, young families, young careers, to know what their rights are and really be leaders for that in their community.

[00:03:34] I might just mention we do have a link there to the F3 initiative, which talks for the future of faith and freedom.

[00:03:41] But, Sean, you're out there in California.

[00:03:43] I was born in Berkeley, so I can certainly relate to that.

[00:03:45] And we have a number of radio stations in California.

[00:03:48] And it seems to me that sometimes some of these victories from First Liberty haven't exactly made it out to the West Coast.

[00:03:55] What have you found?

[00:03:57] Well, you know, First Liberty is really paving the way here for us in Southern California.

[00:04:01] I think they're giving us a lot of hope where we see a governor and a legislature that really don't respect religious liberty.

[00:04:08] And it's beautiful to have an institution that is established on protecting faith for all Americans, including those in California, where, you know, for example, we've got this ambassador program, which we'll probably talk about here later on.

[00:04:22] But First Liberty has really found a way to inspire us in the 20s and 40s to pay attention to, wait, we have rights.

[00:04:30] What are those rights?

[00:04:31] And when we see those rights that are removed, you know, they have the ability to really stand up for us.

[00:04:36] And there's a couple of cases that are really exciting that have come out of Southern California, specifically San Diego, that we're really hoping to really influence the city of California.

[00:04:45] Let's say, if we can maybe talk about this next generation, I've given you our next generation booklet there, but it just occurs to me that those of us that are older and recently I was speaking to a group and I said, everybody in this room either has gray hair or no hair at all.

[00:04:58] So, okay, we can remember a time before there was the lemon test in 1971.

[00:05:04] We can remember a time before there was a ruling in a case in 1980 against posting the Ten Commandments.

[00:05:11] We can remember when there was a time in which you could have the Ten Commandments in the classroom.

[00:05:16] You could have even a prayer in a classroom, but certainly you could study the Bible.

[00:05:20] You could mention Jesus.

[00:05:21] But, Nathan, you've grown up in a time when, for example, in Plano not so long ago there was a ruling that said not only can we not talk about Jesus, we can't even talk about Christmas.

[00:05:32] We can't even have red and green napkins in the celebration, a winter celebration.

[00:05:38] So, unfortunately, your generation is growing up saying we have no constitutional rights, and what you need to do is tell people, yes, those constitutional rights have returned.

[00:05:49] Yeah, I think kind of like you said, no one in our generation has known life before a lemon.

[00:05:56] And so we've always seen Ten Commandments coming down and prayer not being allowed in certain places and nativity scenes and things like that.

[00:06:06] And so it's always been normal for us to think, well, I guess those things don't really have a place there.

[00:06:12] But the lemon case, like you were saying, or Coach Kennedy case that overruled that case, the impact of that is something that not a whole lot of people know about.

[00:06:22] But every time that we speak about the lemon case and what Coach Kennedy did and now the things that are permissible that weren't before,

[00:06:29] we find that people generally had no idea that that's changed, that that shift has occurred, which is a big part of F3-2,

[00:06:35] is an educational piece of here are the rights that you actually have now, here are the things that have changed,

[00:06:40] and here's what you can do now to take back some of that ground that we've never had.

[00:06:43] Let's talk about what this involves because it's a group of everyday people in their 20s or 30s or 40s,

[00:06:48] and you want to educate people about their religious freedom rights, you want to raise awareness.

[00:06:54] And really, I think what you're trying to do is move the needle because the generation that has said,

[00:06:59] oh, an individual who was praying at the 50-yard line, that's unconstitutional, he should be fired.

[00:07:06] I guess that's the rule of the law.

[00:07:09] They may have heard about that and maybe even heard that he won, but they don't realize what that's going to mean in their day-to-day lives.

[00:07:16] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:07:17] There's a lot of education.

[00:07:19] First, you have to start with education of just telling people what their rights are.

[00:07:22] Generally, when Sean and I go speak places, we start with a little bit of a trivia thing to just ask people,

[00:07:27] how many rights are in the First Amendment?

[00:07:30] And generally, even the best people in the room maybe can get three or four.

[00:07:34] Maybe you can occasionally get someone that gets all five.

[00:07:38] But just showing people how much they don't know, and then there's a great quote by Justice Roberts that says,

[00:07:42] you can't stand up for your rights if you don't know what they are.

[00:07:44] That's very good.

[00:07:45] So we have to educate people on what their rights are, show them how that plays out.

[00:07:48] So we talk a lot about our cases, what those look like, and then educate people so that then they can recognize things in their community

[00:07:55] and kind of be watchdogs in their community to stand up when they see things that kind of are off.

[00:07:59] We're going to take a break, and when we come back, I want to ask Sean some questions as well.

[00:08:03] But we have a link.

[00:08:04] If you go to pointofview.net, you can click on the link, or you can go to firstliberty.org slash F3.

[00:08:11] Either way, F3 stands for Future, Faith, and Freedom.

[00:08:14] And we're going to talk a little bit more about this because they can bring a program to your community.

[00:08:20] So my goal here is not only to educate you today about the rights that you have that maybe you don't know you have,

[00:08:26] but maybe even think about what you might want to do to motivate the next generation to begin to get involved

[00:08:34] and to have an awareness of their religious liberty issues and their freedom.

[00:08:38] So that's what we're going to be talking about.

[00:08:40] Need to take a break?

[00:08:41] You might want to go to the website right now and check out F3 Initiative.

[00:08:44] We'll be back right after this.

[00:08:58] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:09:04] The U.S. dollar has lost half of its purchasing power in just the last 30 years.

[00:09:08] Put another way, that means that one dollar today can only buy 50 cents worth of goods and services compared to the 1990s.

[00:09:15] In less than a single generation, the dollar in your wallet or purse can only buy half as much.

[00:09:20] Once you understand this depressing statistic, you can begin to see why the wealth gap in this country is increasing.

[00:09:27] If you have your wealth sitting in cash, like bank accounts, checking accounts, you're losing ground.

[00:09:32] However, if you have your wealth in investments, like stocks, housing, or land, you're doing much better.

[00:09:38] 30 years ago, a dollar would allow you to buy two apples.

[00:09:41] Today, we'll buy you only one apple.

[00:09:43] By contrast, if you put that dollar or many others with it to buy stock, the value of the stock is worth twice as much because it takes twice as many dollars to purchase it.

[00:09:52] This problem isn't just affecting young Americans who would like to buy a house.

[00:09:56] It is also affecting seniors who put their savings in pensions and retirement plans.

[00:10:01] They are becoming aware that the money they set aside in their retirement plans is not kept up with inflation,

[00:10:06] and there won't be enough for them because of the dollar's declining value.

[00:10:10] The simple illustration helps focus on the real problem facing America in the future.

[00:10:15] The dollar is broken simply because more and more of it is being printed each year.

[00:10:20] Yes, we can lower the cost of living, some, by increasing energy production.

[00:10:25] Yes, protecting American markets will provide more jobs for the American people, but we need to fix the money.

[00:10:31] Until we do so, the problem I just illustrated will be worse for the American consumer.

[00:10:36] I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view.

[00:10:46] For a free booklet on biblical reliability, go to viewpoints.info slash biblical reliability.

[00:10:53] Viewpoints.info slash biblical reliability.

[00:10:58] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:11:04] Back once again, privileged to have with us today Nathan Shackelford in studio, Sean Fredrickson by phone.

[00:11:10] And again, they're associated with, especially Nathan is associated with First Liberty.

[00:11:14] It's the largest legal nonprofit organization in the United States solely dedicated to defending and restoring religious freedom.

[00:11:21] A 9-0 win rate at the Supreme Court, a 90% win rate in the federal courts.

[00:11:26] All sorts of huge precedent-setting victories, but they aren't any good if people don't know about them.

[00:11:32] So one of the reasons we're talking about this idea of F3, stands for Future Faith Freedom, is certainly something I wanted you to know about.

[00:11:40] If you go to the website, firstliberty.org slash F3, or just simply go to pointofview.net, we have the link.

[00:11:46] You'll also see a video, and that's a video of Sean Fredrickson.

[00:11:50] And so you can see what he looks like.

[00:11:53] Actually, I guess he's cut his hair, but that's another story.

[00:11:55] That's another story.

[00:11:56] But, Sean, talk about this, because one of the things you guys do is you go to events.

[00:12:00] Talk about the one you did, for example, in San Diego.

[00:12:03] What is involved?

[00:12:05] Because I know that we have a lot of young people listening to this program,

[00:12:08] but we also have parents of young people who might want to get them to go to an event.

[00:12:12] But what happens when one of those events take place?

[00:12:16] Well, you know, one of the cool things about the F3 movement is it's welcoming to anyone that's curious.

[00:12:22] The objective is really focused on drawing people in for the hope of empowering them with some knowledge.

[00:12:28] Many of the people that show up don't have a great comprehension of necessarily what our religious liberties are.

[00:12:35] So the hope is give them some tools, give them a general idea of what the First Amendment is,

[00:12:41] the rights that are in that First Amendment, and the focus of First Liberty,

[00:12:44] really focusing on the two clauses that are established in the First Amendment,

[00:12:48] and then what we can do with them.

[00:12:50] So we go from the education point to showing cases that we've won and cases that we're currently in the middle of,

[00:12:56] to give them an idea of average people just standing up for their rights.

[00:13:00] This is the byproduct and the fruit of it.

[00:13:02] You mentioned those nine Supreme Court cases.

[00:13:04] Well, the clients were just average people that decided to stand up for their rights.

[00:13:09] Like Coach Joe Kennedy was a retired Marine that ended up deciding that he knew that something was wrong,

[00:13:15] and he contacted First Liberty.

[00:13:16] And from his decision to be courageous, he changed the scope of the United States of America

[00:13:22] and overturning Lemon because of his courage.

[00:13:26] And what we're trying to remind people is average people making decisions to be courageous

[00:13:31] has a national impact if we're willing to stand up for our rights.

[00:13:35] And that's really what the focus of those F3 events are,

[00:13:38] get you plugged in to what it means to really be an American

[00:13:42] and understand your religious liberties and getting us plugged in to F3.

[00:13:46] Nathan, what does some person need to do to get involved?

[00:13:50] Because I noticed that on some of these places where there was an opportunity to join,

[00:13:55] and I thought about joining, but I thought, well, I'm an old guy.

[00:13:57] I guess I don't need to join.

[00:13:59] But I was thinking I would like to somehow be associated with you,

[00:14:02] donate to it or something like that so I could know.

[00:14:05] But if somebody's saying, oh, this is something that I want to do

[00:14:08] or this is something my children or grandchildren need to know about,

[00:14:12] can you tell them where to go and what to do?

[00:14:14] Yeah, so if you go again on that, firstliberty.org slash F3,

[00:14:19] there's a couple different things on there.

[00:14:20] We have a couple different ways people can get involved.

[00:14:22] For people that kind of just want to watch from the sidelines a little bit,

[00:14:25] they want to see what's going on, maybe they want to be invited to an event

[00:14:28] if they're in the 20s to 40s, there's a page that says sign up.

[00:14:32] They'll get our newsletter.

[00:14:34] They'll get our info.

[00:14:35] If we have an event in an area, we'll send it to them.

[00:14:38] But if people are saying, hey, I want to take that next step,

[00:14:40] I want to get really involved, I want to be a leader in this in my community,

[00:14:43] that's called our ambassador program.

[00:14:45] And our ambassadors are the ones that really want to be educated.

[00:14:49] So we do a once-a-month Zoom call with our ambassadors,

[00:14:52] walking them through things going on right now they should be aware of,

[00:14:55] cases, that kind of thing.

[00:14:56] And then they are the ones that are connecting their communities to us,

[00:15:00] so they're doing events in their home where they're doing a Bible study,

[00:15:02] bringing their friends in.

[00:15:03] And so we do these smaller events to get people together.

[00:15:08] Eventually we do a bigger event, and those are our hosts at a bigger event.

[00:15:10] And then all of our ambassadors are in different stages of life,

[00:15:13] but they all know that we're a 501c3 nonprofit.

[00:15:16] And the only way that Coach Kennedy, like Sean talked about,

[00:15:19] could get to the Supreme Court $5 million case

[00:15:21] is by other people bearing his legal burdens for many years

[00:15:25] through donating to First Liberty.

[00:15:27] So all of our ambassadors donate in some way that's meaningful to them.

[00:15:31] So that way they're just fully invested into the program.

[00:15:33] They're leaders in the community, and they're really bought into what we're doing.

[00:15:37] So for those people that want to take that next step and kind of bring things,

[00:15:41] that ambassador step would be the next step.

[00:15:44] We have ambassadors right now from coast to coast,

[00:15:47] from Southern California to Texas all the way to Miami up to New York.

[00:15:52] So I'd say the main areas we have right now are Southern California, Texas.

[00:15:56] We have Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth.

[00:15:59] And then we've got Miami, Birmingham, Alabama, New York City,

[00:16:05] just added South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, St. Louis, Missouri.

[00:16:10] So we're all over the place, but we're trying to get to every major market in the country

[00:16:13] because really any time that there's these big community centers

[00:16:16] where people are just starting their careers,

[00:16:19] a lot of times those are the people that are put in the situation of,

[00:16:22] what do I do when my faith comes into conflict here?

[00:16:24] And so that's why we want to get in front of those people.

[00:16:26] Well, again, this is where we broadcast, as you well know.

[00:16:29] I just was in Stockton, California, and that's KYCC.

[00:16:33] And, of course, we were just up in Illinois, WPEO.

[00:16:36] And, as a matter of fact, I'm going to be doing some things with both those stations next year.

[00:16:38] And, of course, we just came back from South Carolina where we were both in Buford, South Carolina,

[00:16:44] and Georgia.

[00:16:45] We were in Savannah and Augusta.

[00:16:47] And, of course, you just mentioned Birmingham.

[00:16:48] We have a station in Birmingham,

[00:16:49] and we would encourage people to go and check out those centers already.

[00:16:53] But since we broadcast from Florida to Maine and from California to Alaska,

[00:16:58] any of you can be involved in that way.

[00:17:00] And I think that's really helpful because, Sean,

[00:17:03] as you are maybe an individual that has not gone to law school,

[00:17:07] I bet nevertheless just hanging around somebody like Nathan Shackelford,

[00:17:11] you probably learned a few things about some of the legal issues, haven't you?

[00:17:14] Oh, man, what a journey it's been.

[00:17:17] So just for the audience to understand, at this point,

[00:17:20] I feel like I've gained a master's degree in understanding from where I once was.

[00:17:26] You know, five years ago, I knew nothing about the Constitution.

[00:17:29] I knew nothing really about American history.

[00:17:32] I didn't know what it meant to stand up for my rights.

[00:17:34] Around the time of the lockdowns, I began to ask questions like,

[00:17:37] what's going on?

[00:17:38] This doesn't seem right.

[00:17:39] And so I picked up a couple of history books from, you know, the 1700s,

[00:17:42] Thomas Paine, reading a little bit of that common sense to figure out,

[00:17:46] like, some context, I guess, for how we got here.

[00:17:49] And through that process, I ended up meeting Nathan and his father, Kelly,

[00:17:54] and I began to see, wait a second, there's a greater necessity for citizenship,

[00:17:58] that we are the ones that hold government responsible.

[00:18:01] And if we don't know our rights, then how in the world can this republic stand

[00:18:07] when there are immoral and non-religious people that are controlling

[00:18:11] and influencing those believers around the country?

[00:18:15] And it has been really fantastic learning about these cases and the significance of it.

[00:18:20] It's so exciting to know that there's something to be hopeful for.

[00:18:23] Many of us pay attention to the news,

[00:18:25] and we see all these depressing things happening around America,

[00:18:28] but we don't realize there's an undercurrent of religious liberty that's growing

[00:18:32] because of Lemon being overturned in 2022 and the other cases that we've won as well.

[00:18:37] And now we have the freedom and the ability to really build on those

[00:18:42] and take that across the country.

[00:18:44] And if you don't know about it, like me, how I was a few years ago,

[00:18:48] then you don't know that you have the ability and tools

[00:18:51] to really expand that liberty in your community.

[00:18:53] Well, again, one of the things I find when I travel around is a lot of parents and grandparents

[00:18:59] love the Millennial Roundtable because it gives them hope.

[00:19:02] And, of course, we did the Millennial Roundtable yesterday.

[00:19:05] Of course, you'll be back here, Nathan, on Friday with, again,

[00:19:09] a relatively young group of individuals because they have heard so many times

[00:19:13] about the problems with the Generation Y, Generation Z.

[00:19:17] But also I was just thinking, Sean, I'm giving to Nathan some of the booklets we have here

[00:19:22] on things like government and America's godly heritage

[00:19:25] and interpreting the Constitution and the patriot pastors and on and on and on

[00:19:30] because it seems to me that those resources can be helpful in educating people as well.

[00:19:36] So, again, let's take a break.

[00:19:37] But also let me open up the phones.

[00:19:39] I'd love to get your thoughts.

[00:19:40] We have, of course, really emphasized young people getting involved politically,

[00:19:45] actually wanting to maybe even serve in their community.

[00:19:49] And if you think about this, it was Michelle Bachman, who was at the age of 19 listening

[00:19:55] to Point of View, that then decided to run for Congress and then eventually began to consider

[00:20:01] even running for the presidency, is now the head of the school there at Region University.

[00:20:06] And of that regard, you think of some of the broadcasters.

[00:20:10] You think of Janet Partial listening to this program.

[00:20:13] And now, of course, the broadcaster there at Moody Broadcasting.

[00:20:18] Or even one of the people that used to be around our Millennial Roundtable,

[00:20:22] Allie Bestucki.

[00:20:23] I think most people know who Allie Bestucki is.

[00:20:25] Allie Bestucki won the Marlon Maddox Award last year at our banquet.

[00:20:29] The one that won the year before is a guy by the name of Charlie Kirk.

[00:20:33] I think you've heard of him, too.

[00:20:34] So I am hopeful about the future.

[00:20:37] And it seems to me that this could be a real possibility of building a whole new generation

[00:20:43] through F3 initiatives.

[00:20:45] So if you'd like to join the conversation, maybe you'd like to ask a question, make a comment.

[00:20:50] We have a lot more to cover.

[00:20:52] Let's open up the phones.

[00:20:53] That number is 1-800-351-1212.

[00:20:57] 1-800-351-1212.

[00:21:00] If you're one of those young people looking for information, maybe you've actually been to an F3 initiative event,

[00:21:05] we'd love to hear from you.

[00:21:06] But even if you want to ask a question or know a little bit more about how to bring it to your community,

[00:21:10] I think this would be a great opportunity.

[00:21:12] We have in studio with us today Nathan Shackelford and Sean Fredrickson by phone.

[00:21:17] And if you'd like to join us, 1-800-351-1212.

[00:21:21] We'll take a break.

[00:21:21] Come back with more right after this.

[00:21:23] At Point of View, we believe there is power in prayer.

[00:21:35] And that is why we have relaunched our Pray for America campaign,

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[00:21:46] Imagine if hundreds of thousands of Americans started praying intentionally together on a weekly basis.

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[00:22:01] Just go to pointofview.net and click on the Pray for America banner that's right there on the homepage.

[00:22:09] Each week you'll receive a brief news update, a specific prayer guide,

[00:22:15] and a free resource to equip you in further action.

[00:22:18] We encourage you to not only pray with us each week,

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[00:22:28] Join the movement today.

[00:22:30] Visit pointofview.net and click on the banner Pray for America right there at the top.

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[00:22:40] Let's pray together for God to make a difference in our land.

[00:22:47] Point of View will continue after this.

[00:22:57] 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.

[00:23:10] And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson.

[00:23:13] Back once again as we talk about the F3 initiative.

[00:23:16] Nathan Shackelford in studio, Sean Fredrickson by phone.

[00:23:20] I want to get to both of them in just a minute,

[00:23:22] but it just occurred to me that one very good and important question, Nathan,

[00:23:26] is that when you do some of these events,

[00:23:28] I've heard that some of these events and some of the things you learn actually have resulted in court cases.

[00:23:35] So what about that, Nathan?

[00:23:36] Yeah.

[00:23:37] So really part of the program of ambassadors is to, like we were talking about,

[00:23:41] educating the community and being on the watch for things in the community.

[00:23:45] So really what we want is ambassadors that are aware of their rights and are watching for things as they happen in the communities.

[00:23:50] So a perfect example of this is in Southern California and San Diego,

[00:23:53] where we had an ambassador that did a home event, invited about 15 people over to their house.

[00:23:58] And then afterwards I opened it up for questions and answers,

[00:24:02] and a young mom got up and said,

[00:24:04] hey, you know, I have a fifth grader and he's in public school here locally

[00:24:11] and was asked to read this book called My Shadow is Pink,

[00:24:15] which is about a boy that feels like a girl on the inside promoting transgender ideology.

[00:24:20] And she said, you know, we're people of faith, so we didn't really feel comfortable with that.

[00:24:24] But then it even went farther than that when he was asked to read that to a kindergarten buddy.

[00:24:28] The kindergartners, yes.

[00:24:29] And then had to ask the kindergartner what color they wanted their shadow to be.

[00:24:32] So now not only are they asking him to read it, but they're now also asking him to engage in it.

[00:24:36] So the parents said, hey, we're people of faith.

[00:24:38] We want to opt out of this curriculum.

[00:24:41] And the school came back and said, you can't opt out of it.

[00:24:43] You have to do it.

[00:24:45] Then they sent out a memo the next week saying, hey, we're going to have a pink out the hate day.

[00:24:49] So we want everyone to wear pink to basically, you know, shame this kid essentially.

[00:24:54] And so the mom said, I just never thought this would happen to us, and I don't know what to do.

[00:24:58] So I went and talked with her afterwards, connected her with one of our attorneys.

[00:25:01] And now we have a lawsuit against NCISD to allow parents of faith just to be able to opt their kids out of curriculum that goes against their faith.

[00:25:12] And that's directly from an ambassador seeing something in the community and saying, hey, this just happened to this person, and they can't do that.

[00:25:20] Sean, I want to get your comments because I'm sure you were there as well.

[00:25:22] And we've talked about that case right here on Point of View.

[00:25:26] Yeah, for me it's exciting because it's the fruit of information and education.

[00:25:31] And it's really something that I believe that can happen across the country.

[00:25:34] And in major cities there are things that we hear about regularly that are taking place that shouldn't be.

[00:25:39] For example, there was a prison that was opened up, I believe in Wisconsin, that had decided that they wanted to put the Ten Commandments up inside this prison.

[00:25:49] And it looked like it was maybe influenced by maybe the owner, might have been Christian.

[00:25:53] I don't know those details.

[00:25:54] But he put the Proverbs and Psalms all over inside this facility because he had the hope that those people that are inside that institution who have been there because of crimes would read those things and that they would become more biblically literate and understand that they can have self-government and come out stronger.

[00:26:11] Well, that person was sent a demand letter and because of the demand letter being intimidating, they decided that they would acquiesce to the request from the demand and they took down the Ten Commandments.

[00:26:20] They took down all these scripture verses in that prison.

[00:26:23] And unfortunately, with London being overturned, there's much more rights, many more rights that we have in public.

[00:26:29] And it ought to be we ought to have stood against that that pressure.

[00:26:34] But with information, people recognize that we have the authority to stand and protect our rights, just like that family here in Sanitas.

[00:26:42] And with that, that family being courageous, that will likely affect the entire state of California, which parents in public school will have more rights because of it.

[00:26:52] Well, and again, let's just get into the weeds for a minute.

[00:26:55] You have in 1980 Stone versus Graham, and that's where it said you cannot post the Ten Commandments in a Kentucky classroom.

[00:27:01] And, of course, the Supreme Court ruled that, yeah, the students might read the Ten Commandments.

[00:27:07] They might believe the Ten Commandments and act on the Ten Commandments.

[00:27:09] So we have to call that unconstitutional.

[00:27:12] But First Liberty has changed all that now.

[00:27:15] Those ideas and those precedents that prevented that now open up the door.

[00:27:19] And I think it just makes the case for why you need the F3 initiative because, first of all, some of the people in authority, even some of the lawyers and some of the governors and administrators don't know it.

[00:27:31] What chance do the average American people know unless you're out there explaining some of that to them?

[00:27:36] Yeah.

[00:27:36] I mean, the Stone versus Graham opinion that you were listening, I mean, that case depended heavily on the Lemon decision.

[00:27:42] And when you can kind of trace all that back, you go, okay, wait, if Lemon's gone, then Stone v. Graham is now kind of gone.

[00:27:49] You can post the Ten Commandments again.

[00:27:51] Which is what you're seeing in Louisiana, of Louisiana putting in that law, allowing that.

[00:27:55] And we played a role in that, but that's because Lemon's gone.

[00:27:59] And so the more that everyday people kind of know what you can do and the grounds you can take, we're seeing people that are on school boards that are trying to pray during school board meetings and people that are a part of different city government official positions that are trying to say, what can we do?

[00:28:19] And so if these people know what they can do, they know what their rights are, we can advise them on that and we can try to take back some of this ground that we've lost because of Lemon.

[00:28:27] Sean, let me talk to you for just a minute.

[00:28:29] One of the things you have as an end goal here is making it acceptable once again to express your faith in today's culture without fear of reprisal.

[00:28:38] It does seem to me that your generation sometimes isn't as vocal because you've grown up around what I call the cancel culture.

[00:28:45] And I'm sure, Sean, you've run into that there in California.

[00:28:50] And, of course, you were probably best known as an individual that really produced some of these revival events because you said, wait a minute, we've got all these lockdowns and everything.

[00:29:00] I thought I had some First Amendment rights.

[00:29:03] And it does seem to me that one of the things we're going to have to teach the next generation, your generation, is that even though you've grown up in the cancel culture, it is okay.

[00:29:12] And as a matter of fact, it's encouraged for you to speak out about your rights, isn't it?

[00:29:18] Yeah, that's very well said.

[00:29:19] I believe that we just need more examples.

[00:29:21] My generation is desperate for people to replicate as we observe that there are people of faith that are leading these institutions that aren't necessarily speaking out or leading by example for my generation and our generation to really replicate and resemble.

[00:29:40] And so those pastors and those imams and those rabbis who decide that they are willing to put their beliefs on the line and stand up for their faith, they're in desperate need across America because people recognize that cancel culture is a very real thing.

[00:30:01] And for myself, being a Christian, I knew that something was wrong.

[00:30:05] And in my spirit, I recognized something was wrong.

[00:30:07] And then I realized that there are constitutional protections that don't come from government, but that come from God.

[00:30:14] And we have the ability to assert those rights if we know what they are.

[00:30:19] And when I challenged cancel culture, I came to find out there's a lot of bark, but not nearly as much bite as what I perceived online or what we observed through the Internet.

[00:30:32] And it's really exciting to challenge that and stand up boldly and really profess your faith openly and live it out.

[00:30:39] Again, as you've said before, Nathan, you don't have your rights if you don't express them.

[00:30:45] And I can think of many cases where First Liberty had the, I'm thinking, the Kuntz cheerleaders.

[00:30:51] They were told that they couldn't post Bible verses on some material that they had created on their own.

[00:30:57] And they could have said, oh, okay, we won't do that.

[00:30:59] No, they said, wait a minute, we need to do that.

[00:31:00] Or we've had young people saying you couldn't pray over your meal at a lunch counter.

[00:31:05] We've had various people in positions of authority, maybe even at city council saying, well, you can't pray or you can't use Jesus' name.

[00:31:14] Or valedictorian say you cannot use the name Jesus Christ in your speech, which you wrote.

[00:31:20] And it seems to me that in so many cases, the individuals that have come to you are willing to say, wait a minute, wait a minute.

[00:31:27] I think I have those rights.

[00:31:28] But it could have been very easy for them in the midst of the council culture to simply say, okay, I'll just not say anything.

[00:31:35] I'll just rewrite my speech.

[00:31:37] I won't say my prayer.

[00:31:39] I won't actually put a Bible verse on a sign or whatever it might be.

[00:31:44] And so in some respects, we need to be bold in the midst of a culture that sometimes is going to try to actually resist us.

[00:31:52] But if we do so, we'll get our rights back.

[00:31:55] Yeah.

[00:31:56] I mean, the only way that, I mean, people have to be willing to take a stand for things to assert their rights.

[00:32:03] And then when those are challenged, a lot of times people feel like they're in the situation of, well, I think some people are worried of not only cancellation, but saying, if I stand up for this, I could also lose my job.

[00:32:18] Or I could also, what happens if I have to pay for an attorney?

[00:32:24] So it's, okay, I'm going to have thousands of dollars or I just give up.

[00:32:28] And so what's great about First Liberties, we can say, hey, you can take a stand and we'll take care of the legal bills.

[00:32:35] There'll be no legal bill for you.

[00:32:36] We'll handle all of that, which will allow little girls like Laura Walker in Seattle who just wanted to start a prayer club and her family to say, okay, well, if this was thousands of dollars, maybe we can't do it.

[00:32:46] But if it's free, then yeah, let's take a stand.

[00:32:49] So just encouraging people that are everyday people that may not have the budget to take on these fights to say, if you'll stand up, we'll take on that fight with you.

[00:32:57] I love that story because here he is in the state of Washington, just down the road from where in Bremerton you had Coach Kennedy.

[00:33:04] And it's kind of like, did you not understand that the Supreme Court just ruled on a man that was praying the 50-yard line?

[00:33:11] And that was constitutional.

[00:33:14] And then you say she can't have a Bible club.

[00:33:16] So, again, sometimes in the same state, just a few miles away, they're not getting the message, which is all the more reason why I think the F3 initiative makes some sense.

[00:33:25] Let's take a break, though, with a couple more things we can cover, and we will certainly do so.

[00:33:29] If you find yourself saying, I'd like to know a little bit more about that, you can go to firstliberty.org or simply go to our link to F3, Future, Faith, and Freedom.

[00:33:38] We'll talk about that right after this.

[00:33:55] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:34:01] For a few more minutes, Nathan Shackelford with us in studio, Sean Fredrickson by phone.

[00:34:05] And Nathan, I wanted to come to you for just a minute because Sean mentioned about imams.

[00:34:09] And I just thought it would be a good thing to mention that religious liberty is for people of faith.

[00:34:16] Obviously, we just talked about helping Christian parents in California.

[00:34:20] But I know you've been helping Muslim parents in Minnesota with the same kind of issue.

[00:34:27] So if somebody wanted to come to an F3 initiative and they're Jewish, of course, you've defended a lot of Jewish believers over the years, Muslim or other Sikhs or whatever it might be, religious liberty is for all people of faith.

[00:34:43] And you've actually found that the problem you just talked about in California surfaced in Minnesota too, didn't it?

[00:34:49] Yeah, exact same thing, exact same situation in Minnesota actually happened before the California event.

[00:34:54] Yeah.

[00:34:54] Which was there was a young boy that went to school, had that book, My Shadows Pink, required reading.

[00:35:03] And Minnesota actually has really good parental rights law, so you have really good opt-out procedures.

[00:35:09] But they were denying the opt-out procedures.

[00:35:11] And so there was a group of Somalian refugees.

[00:35:14] So these are Muslim people.

[00:35:16] And a lot of these moms were just really upset by this book.

[00:35:21] And they kind of – they didn't know what to do.

[00:35:25] And we got in touch with them.

[00:35:27] And one of the things that they told our – one of the moms told our attorneys, one of our attorneys was, if I knew it was going to be like this year, we just would have stayed in Somalia.

[00:35:36] Yeah.

[00:35:37] Wow.

[00:35:37] And so we were able to send a strongly worded letter to the school, warn them of what was to come.

[00:35:44] And they backed down and, you know, nothing ended up happening there.

[00:35:50] But just shows that this can happen anywhere, even if the rights are strong.

[00:35:54] But, yeah, like you said, the U.S. Constitution doesn't say which groups have the right to express their faith.

[00:36:00] It's all people of faith.

[00:36:01] So even though we may be Christian people, we want everyone to have the right to express their faith equally.

[00:36:06] I think so.

[00:36:07] Sean, you brought up a good issue because this isn't just for the Christian world,

[00:36:11] although Christians certainly have been the primary beneficiaries.

[00:36:15] But if you have individuals that come to your F3 initiative events, whether they're Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist,

[00:36:22] you welcome all those individuals because, in some respects, when we defend the rights of one group, it defends the rights for all groups, doesn't it?

[00:36:31] That's right.

[00:36:32] Absolutely.

[00:36:34] Let's see what we can maybe for just a minute, Sean, have you talk about what would happen if people want to get involved.

[00:36:39] I'm looking at the website right now, and, first of all, it's a very good website.

[00:36:43] Some of these are always confusing.

[00:36:44] This one's easy.

[00:36:45] One button says learn, seeing learn what's going on.

[00:36:48] Another one says sign up.

[00:36:49] Another one talks about the ambassador program.

[00:36:51] Another button says give.

[00:36:53] So it's real easy.

[00:36:54] There's a video where they can watch you, Sean, kind of talking about this.

[00:36:58] Then there's some material where they can learn about the movement, join the movement, even lead the movement.

[00:37:04] But talk about what people can do and even what you have planned, because it seems to me that listeners all over the country are hearing this,

[00:37:13] and some of them might actually want to get involved.

[00:37:15] So what's the next step?

[00:37:17] Yeah, so the first thing is kind of deciding what it is they would like to do,

[00:37:21] because there's a couple of layers where you can either get a newsletter from us if they're just trying to get some information.

[00:37:26] They would like to be a part of just understanding what their rights are.

[00:37:30] If they want to really get involved, they have the ability to become a leader in their community, which would be an ambassador.

[00:37:36] So it's really taking ownership and understanding that we are a process of learning what our religious liberties are,

[00:37:42] and then it's deciding that you want to maybe host a gathering where you can teach and inform and educate those people in your community,

[00:37:50] your friends and family.

[00:37:51] And if you have, like, a social media following, too, you don't only have to have personal events.

[00:37:56] It's also there's some people that are ambassadors that have a pretty strong social media, so they create content for us.

[00:38:01] They share our content on Instagram as we're obviously attempting to reach out to a greater and wider audience.

[00:38:07] So if you want to be an ambassador, hosting local events, sharing information about what we're doing at First Liberty on social media.

[00:38:14] And then there's the ability to also, you know, really educate those people that are around you.

[00:38:20] And I might just mention that for your F3 ambassadors, you actually have a map.

[00:38:25] So some of you might say, oh, wait a minute, I already have one in our community here.

[00:38:32] Listeners in Nashville, listeners in Birmingham, of course, listeners in Texas and Dallas or whatever, Miami, up there in New York City,

[00:38:40] might already have access to one of those.

[00:38:42] Or even our listeners up there in Idaho, there's a place.

[00:38:45] So there may already be a place where you can join with like-minded individuals.

[00:38:50] But don't wait to join one.

[00:38:53] Take the time to start one.

[00:38:55] And what would that entail?

[00:38:56] If somebody says, I think it's about time for me to get some of my friends together, maybe in my Sunday school class, my youth group or something like that,

[00:39:03] to actually bring one of you to come and speak and begin to develop an ambassador network, what would that entail?

[00:39:11] Yeah.

[00:39:11] Yeah.

[00:39:11] So, I mean, really we're trying to get all over the country, but especially in areas that people can feel more isolated and more alone, not knowing what their rights are.

[00:39:21] And so we've seen a lot of success with this in some of those markets.

[00:39:24] But really any place that people want us to go, if they just fill out that form to be an ambassador, we'll follow up with all those people.

[00:39:31] And then every place that we have started, we've started with one ambassador or two ambassadors.

[00:39:36] We do some – they introduce us to a couple people.

[00:39:39] And then those people introduce us to more people to now where we have 20 ambassadors in San Diego and about 18 here in Dallas.

[00:39:46] And so it just starts with one person saying, let me introduce you to a free people.

[00:39:51] Sean or myself comes in, meets with some people, shares the vision, shares some stories, shares some cases, and then see if that could just grow grassroots from there.

[00:40:00] And feel isolated.

[00:40:01] I think it's striking that if I've paid attention to many of the cases, a lot of them have come from blue states or places where religious liberty isn't as well known or certainly isn't promoted by the individuals.

[00:40:17] So for people on the West Coast, California, Oregon, Washington, people find – I think you just got a contact a minute ago from somebody in Alaska – or people that are in Maine, in New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut.

[00:40:29] Those places probably are even – of course, we just mentioned some up there in Minnesota and those areas.

[00:40:36] Illinois, these are places where you may feel kind of isolated.

[00:40:39] And it seems to me that you've provided another opportunity to become an F3 ambassador.

[00:40:44] Yeah.

[00:40:45] I mean, the goal is, too, is that sometimes in these places people will hear people say, I just don't have a great community here.

[00:40:53] I don't really know.

[00:40:54] I have a couple of good friends.

[00:40:55] But after that – and so what we can do is as we grow that ambassador network, that's a whole new group of people that are like-minded, at least on this issue of keeping our faith, the rights to express our faith.

[00:41:06] And so F3 also can bring some community of like-minded people as we start to grow and develop in these areas.

[00:41:12] Let me again just encourage you to take the opportunity to at least learn, but maybe even become an ambassador.

[00:41:18] We just heard a story of one of those individuals in a meeting saying, wait a minute, I've got a problem here, and that's now a court case.

[00:41:24] So you just never know where that is.

[00:41:26] So, Nathan, I appreciate your vision in really being able to set the table.

[00:41:31] And, Sean, thank you for all that you're doing out there in California.

[00:41:35] And, of course, we remember some of the things you've done with those Freedom Revivals.

[00:41:39] And if nothing else, I appreciate your interest and your enthusiasm in this regard.

[00:41:45] So thank you for joining us today here on Point of View.

[00:41:48] Yeah, it's been such a blessing.

[00:41:49] Thanks for having us on.

[00:41:50] Well, again, we will cover that again.

[00:41:52] But if you find yourself saying, okay, where do I go?

[00:41:56] You can go to the website right now, pointofview.net.

[00:41:59] There's a picture there of Nathan and Sean.

[00:42:01] Click on that button that says See More.

[00:42:03] Scroll down, and there's one that takes you to the F3 initiative.

[00:42:07] Or you can go to firstliberty.org slash F3.

[00:42:11] And you can find it there as well.

[00:42:14] One other thing I might just mention before I run out of time.

[00:42:17] As you go to our website, pointofview.net, there's a button, a red button that says Watch or Listen.

[00:42:22] You probably are hearing somebody right now that you're hearing this right now and thinking of somebody that needs to hear this.

[00:42:29] So you could very quickly go to that button that says Watch and send it to them.

[00:42:34] Or just listen, send them a podcast that would, again, expand the reach of this program today.

[00:42:40] And maybe tell some other individuals, maybe like-minded individuals that would like to know more about the F3 initiative.

[00:42:47] And you can do that by going to the website at pointofview.net.

[00:42:51] Nathan, good to see you.

[00:42:52] And look forward to the next opportunity.

[00:42:54] Absolutely.

[00:42:54] Thanks for having me on.

[00:42:56] That's all we have for today.

[00:42:57] We are going to have a really good program tomorrow.

[00:42:59] But first of all, I want to thank Megan for her help engineering the program.

[00:43:02] Steve, thank you for producing the program.

[00:43:03] And we look forward to seeing you tomorrow right here on Point of View.

[00:43:10] It almost seems like we live in a different world from many people in positions of authority.

[00:43:16] They say men can be women and women men.

[00:43:20] People are prosecuted differently or not at all depending on their politics.

[00:43:24] Criminals are more valued and rewarded than law-abiding citizens.

[00:43:29] It's so overwhelming, so demoralizing.

[00:43:32] You feel like giving up.

[00:43:34] But we can't.

[00:43:36] We shouldn't.

[00:43:37] We must not.

[00:43:38] As Winston Churchill said to Britain in the darkest days of World War II,

[00:43:42] never give in.

[00:43:44] Never give in.

[00:43:45] Never, never, never.

[00:43:47] Never yield to force.

[00:43:48] Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

[00:43:52] And that's what we say to you today.

[00:43:55] This is not a time to give in, but to step up and join Point of View in providing clarity in the chaos.

[00:44:02] We can't do it alone, but together, with God's help, we will overcome the darkness.

[00:44:09] Invest in biblical clarity today at pointofview.net or call 1-800-347-5151.

[00:44:18] Pointofview.net and 800-347-5151.

[00:44:27] Point of View is produced by Point of View Ministries.