Guest Host, Alex McFarland, is joined by President of Amerisearch, Inc. William J. Federer and Vice President of the Discovery Institute, Dr. John G. West.

Transcribed with OpenAI Whisper (base.en). Timestamps are approximate. Lightly cleaned for readability; quotations from on-air callers may include filler words. Use the audio player above for the authoritative recording.

1. 0:00Darkness is not an affirmative force.
2. 0:02It simply reoccupies the space vacated by the light.
3. 0:06This is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.
4. 0:10It should be uncomfortable for a believer to live as a hypocrite.
5. 0:15Delivery people out of the bondage of mainstream media.
6. 0:18And the philosophies of this world.
7. 0:20God has called you and me to be his ambassador.
8. 0:23Even in this dark moment.
9. 0:26Let's not miss our moment.
10. 0:28and now the Hamilton Corner.
11. 0:33Well, good afternoon America.
12. 0:34Alex McFarland here on the American Family Radio Network.
13. 0:38It's a very special day and a very special week.
14. 0:41Later on in the program, we're going to talk about Holy Week
15. 0:45a little bit and Jesus going to the cross.
16. 0:48This is the most significant week we commemorate in world history.
17. 0:53It makes our salvation possible.
18. 0:55But right now I would also acknowledge the significance of this day, April 15,
19. 1:01as we record this program, it's famously or perhaps infamously known as Tax Day.
20. 1:08And I hope you've got your return ready to file or have filed it already.
21. 1:15And I always have a great joy when I'm asked to sit in for Abe Hamilton on the Hamilton Corner.
22. 1:20If you recognize my voice, it's probably from a program called Exploring the Word,
23. 1:24which we've done for over 15 years now, but I also have the great privilege of
24. 1:30addressing cultural, social, moral, political issues on the Hamilton corner.
25. 1:36And whenever we do, you know the old saying, if you're in the lion's den, it's good to
26. 1:41have a lion tamer. And one of the colleagues from whom we have learned so
27. 1:46much over the years is William J. Federer, Bill Federer, prolific author, and you
28. 1:52probably know him for his prolific work on American government, American history, but also Bill
29. 2:00Federer, yes, has written and knows about income tax and the IRS. And for one thing, Bill, I want to
30. 2:09say welcome, my dear, scholarly brother. It's always a joy to converse with you. Thank you for being
31. 2:15with us this evening on the Hamilton Corner. Oh, great to be with you. And hey, before we dive into
32. 2:22some topics. Give your website, the American Minute, and how many people find your travel
33. 2:28schedule and all that you've written, Bill? Sure, you're kind. My website's AmericanMinute.com,
34. 2:33AmericanMinute.com, and I actually have a book called The Interesting History of Income Tax,
35. 2:39and I do touch on tariffs in there. And you'll see how what Trump is doing is basically what
36. 2:46America did for its first 150 years, but I'll get into that in a moment.
37. 2:51Okay, my Lord Jesus said, render to Caesar what is Caesar's, but I have to be honest with
38. 2:59you, my pastoral friend, I don't like paying income tax.
39. 3:05How do I reconcile the two?
40. 3:07Right, well, matter of fact, the Constitution of the United States forbade a federal income
41. 3:12tax, and there was no income tax in America until the Civil War Lincoln had an emergency
42. 3:16income tax, which was repealed after the war. No income tax again in America until 1892,
43. 3:23a peacetime income tax, but the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in Pollack versus
44. 3:28Farmers Loan and Trust 1894. So no income tax again in America until Woodrow Wilson pushed
45. 3:33one through 1913, 16th Amendment. It was a 1% tax on the top 1% richest people just taxed
46. 3:41The Rockefeller's Carnegie's, J. Paul Getty's, the Asters, the Flaglers, all the rich people,
47. 3:46didn't text us.
48. 3:47It would be like today, taxing, George Soros, Bill Gates, Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, you know,
49. 3:56Larry Fink with BlackRock.
50. 3:57It wouldn't text us.
51. 3:58It was Franklin Roosevelt, who during the emergency of World War II pushes through the
52. 4:05largest tax increase in American history, makes everybody pay income tax, and this creates
53. 4:11something called outsourcing.
54. 4:14So, gee, rich people aren't rich because they're stupid.
55. 4:16They're rich because they make good decisions.
56. 4:18And so they realized we're rebuilding Germany and Japan
57. 4:21with brand new equipment after World War II,
58. 4:24and they're producing stuff cheaper
59. 4:26and bringing it into American cheaper,
60. 4:28and they're undercutting American businesses.
61. 4:31And so as business owners realize,
62. 4:33hey, I can escape FDR's taxes simply by moving
63. 4:37my factory overseas.
64. 4:38I'll use cheap labor, don't worry about unions,
65. 4:40don't worry about government regulations and all the red tape.
66. 4:44And then I can take my profits and contribute to politicians
67. 4:49in America.
68. 4:50And so they'll vote to lower the tariffs even more.
69. 4:54So I can bring stuff into America even cheaper.
70. 4:57And they called this free trade.
71. 5:01Now, it really wasn't free trade because foreign governments
72. 5:05realized that if they gave subsidies to their businesses,
73. 5:08they could sell stuff cheap or put American factories out of work.
74. 5:12And then once America is dependent on their foreign cheap goods, they could threaten to
75. 5:18withhold them if we didn't cave to them when it came to negotiating foreign policy.
76. 5:24So let's say they have rare earth metals and very computer chips and stuff we really need.
77. 5:31But for decades, we have not been producing them here at home and they can say, well, we're
78. 5:35going to threaten to hold it back unless you cave and do what we want you to do. And so that's sort
79. 5:41of what we're experiencing today. Well, people say, how did America get money if we didn't have
80. 5:49income tax? It's called tariff taxes, also called imposts, I am P O S T. And these along with customs
81. 5:59duties, these were taxes on things brought into America from other countries. And so England burned
82. 6:10coal and they had coal mines that would fill up with water. And so in 1769, Isaac Watt invented a
83. 6:18steam pump to pump water out of coal mines. And the steam pump turned into a steam engine that
84. 6:24it ran factories.
85. 6:26And so in what?
86. 6:27Isaac Watt.
87. 6:29And matter of fact, because they began to gauge
88. 6:33how much power it takes to lift something,
89. 6:37they use that term Watt.
90. 6:39But he's also the one who came up with horsepower.
91. 6:42And so there was a how much kind of horse lift,
92. 6:45you know, using a pulley and then there are two horses
93. 6:48that can pull so much and so that they figure out
94. 6:50how much weight that was.
95. 6:51And so the unit would have these.
96. 6:53known as horsepower. Yeah. Yeah. And so we have that in our car study. How many horsepower
97. 6:57is it? Well, there's no horses under the hood. That was Isaac Watt that came up with that.
98. 7:01Anyway, they could produce bolts of cloth really cheap with these factories and America, we
99. 7:10still had, you know, women spinning thread and weaving cloth. And so the British did not allow
100. 7:17manufacturing factories to be built in America. They wanted a monopoly. They wanted to have
101. 7:22a market. And so we were sort of stuck buying from them. Well, when we become independent,
102. 7:28the second bill George Washington signed was a tariff bill. And the tariff act of 1789,
103. 7:35it was a 5% tax on all goods brought into America from another country.
104. 7:41And he had a secretary of the Treasury who's in charge of government revenue. His name is Alexander
105. 7:49Hamilton. And Alexander Hamilton decides to start the start the Coast Guard for the purpose
106. 7:56of capturing ships that are trying to smuggle goods into America without paying the tariffs.
107. 8:04And that turned into the Coast Guard. And this was our predominant source of revenue as a country
108. 8:09wasn't it? Correct. For the federal government. And so the fastest ships of the day were called
109. 8:14cutters. And so these were called revenue cutters. And that was the origin of the Coast Guard.
110. 8:20Well, now you have Thomas Jefferson. And he is the president and April 6, 1816. He says,
111. 8:28it may be the duty of all to submit to this sacrifice to pay for a time and
112. 8:33imposed on importation of certain articles in order to encourage their manufacture at home.
113. 8:40So, okay, look, we need to buckle down. We're going to tax these foreign goods. We're going to make
114. 8:44make them more expensive, but it's a sacrifice we have to make because then we can afford
115. 8:49to make factories right here on our own soil. The businesses can put out the expenses and
116. 8:55the risks and they can begin to and then we can begin to make stuff cheaper. And in the
117. 8:59long term, it worked. So they had spinning jennies, which could take a whole bunch of,
118. 9:06you know, wool and pull it into thread. If you put a sheep wool under a microscope, it
119. 9:13They have these little hooks and then they'll grab a low and the tighter you pull it, the
120. 9:18stronger it gets and it turns into thread.
121. 9:20But they could do this with machines and then they had looms where they could take this thread
122. 9:25and make bolts of cloth really quick and made chemicals and clocks and machinery for
123. 9:32fact, for farming, they called them reapers.
124. 9:35So now instead of the farmer have to hire lots of people to walk through, they could have a
125. 9:40a machine go through it and we experience the fastest growth in the standard of living in human history
126. 9:47and because of these tariffs and so I've got a question forgive me before we get too far and
127. 9:55Run in danger of having no more time. I want to ask you. I remember
128. 10:011215 years ago Hillary Clinton
129. 10:03Was talking about I mean she was very open about the redistribution of wealth based on the tax
130. 10:10code where we are at least up until the previous administration. I mean, we egregious amounts
131. 10:18of waste and certainly does just uncovering that. How much of the current, you know, the
132. 10:24tax code has been, if you could quantify it, has been, you know, the revenue of hardworking
133. 10:33Americans wasted on government largesse and then the intentional use of taxation to confiscate
134. 10:41earnings and redistribute wealth.
135. 10:45How much is going to that and can it be reigned in?
136. 10:50Realistically, this giant sucking sound of our hard earned dollars going to the federal
137. 10:55government.
138. 10:57How bad is it and can it be reigned in?
139. 11:00Yeah, so started really getting bad with Franklin Roosevelt. And matter of fact, most people made
140. 11:06around $5,000 a year. And we had a tax during the emergency of the civil war, a tax during the
141. 11:12emergency of World War I, now it's a tax during the emergency of World War II. They would have a
142. 11:17government propaganda campaign to use that term. But it was pay your taxes, fight the axis,
143. 11:23A-X-I-S, you know, and so, you know, the buy, you know, buy war bonds and Uncle Sam needs
144. 11:33you and pay your taxes.
145. 11:35But people didn't save up money to pay their tax at the end of the year.
146. 11:39And so, Beardsley Rummel, chairman of Macy's department store, who was put on the head of
147. 11:43the Federal Reserve, he came up with the idea of paycheck withholding.
148. 11:48So they take a little bit out of your paycheck every week, and so by the end of the year,
149. 11:51don't have to pay a lump sum and nobody really noticed it and they kept it going after the war.
150. 11:55And even John F. Kennedy talks about this. He says, introduced during the war when the income tax was
151. 12:04extended to millions of new taxpayers, the withholding tax was able to bring in large amounts of money
152. 12:13without people complaining. And so they kept it in place. So, and then you began to see this
153. 12:22outsourcing take place. One of the things that's part to understand is this redistribution of wealth.
154. 12:29Where'd that come from? Immigrants from Germany that had been infected with Karl Marx's Marxism.
155. 12:36And back in Germany, they had entrenched elites for centuries and the common people, and they really
156. 12:43had no upward mobility. And so these German immigrants came to America and they saw the wealthy, even
157. 12:48though they just got wealthy within one lifetime, but nevertheless, they were the wealthy. And so
158. 12:53socialism started with Germans and in unions and in union halls. And they pushed for a redistribution
159. 13:00of wealth tax. And that's when the Supreme Court said it was unconstitutional. And so that's when
160. 13:06they had to amend the Constitution with the 16th Amendment. There's question whether it was
161. 13:12ratified properly, but the fact was it wasn't going to tax us, it was just going to tax the
162. 13:17rich people. Then you had another ingredient. It was John Maynard Keynes, an economist during
163. 13:25the time of FDR. And he came up with the idea of debt stimulated economy. So it's good to
164. 13:31the government going debt to spend money in the private sector to create jobs. The jobs
165. 13:35will pay taxes and pay off the debt, like a big circle on a chalkboard. Sounds good theoretically.
166. 13:41in practice it never worked because the politicians would go in debt to put money in their district
167. 13:46to buy votes and then they would never want to raise the taxes to pay off the debt they would just
168. 13:50kick the can down the road to the next Congress and they would go more in debt more and more and
169. 13:55now we have $30 trillion of debt and nobody's even thinking about paying off.
170. 13:5939 trillion. So Bill let me ask you this and then I want you to give well oh my goodness we're almost
171. 14:06that a time. We have got to talk further on this because I really got hope maybe I'm naive
172. 14:12that under Trump maybe some of this taxation, confiscation and waste can be reigned in. Bill,
173. 14:18we've got a break in a few seconds. Give a book, a website, where can people find more of your
174. 14:24research and writing on the subject of our taxation? Sure, americanmina.com and the book is
175. 14:30is the interesting history of income tax.
176. 14:35The interesting history of income tax.
177. 14:37I also, another book.
178. 14:38Interesting is a unique word.
179. 14:40The distressing history prep.
180. 14:42Bill, we gotta go.
181. 14:44Blessings, my dear brother.
182. 14:45We look forward to visiting again, soon folks.
183. 14:48Stay tuned, Alex McFarlane here.
184. 14:49When we come back, we're gonna talk about
185. 14:51Stockholm syndrome Christianity, John West, the author.
186. 14:55Don't go away, the Hamilton corner is back after this.
187. 15:01Their mission statement says,
188. 15:03the Global Methodist Church exists to make disciples
189. 15:06of Jesus Christ and spread scriptural holiness
190. 15:08across the globe.
191. 15:10Dr. Andy Miller III says those two words,
192. 15:13scriptural and holiness kept Wesley Biblical seminary
193. 15:16out of the United Methodist Church.
194. 15:18Now they are the exact things that have set us up
195. 15:21to serve the Global Methodist Church.
196. 15:23You can read the article,
197. 15:25no compromise by Matthew White on thestand.net.
198. 15:28Shining light into the darkness. This is the Hamilton Corner, an American family radio.
199. 15:40Welcome back to the program Alex McFarland here. You know if you have heard me on
200. 15:47AFR I recommend books but I do it only carefully and judiciously and we have
201. 15:53kind of a saying that I never recommend a book that I myself have not read but
202. 15:59when I have read a book and it makes an impression on me I love to
203. 16:03enthusiastically, heartily recommend the book. So in February, I believe it was
204. 16:08February, I was in Texas at NRB National Religious Broadcasters, which is a
205. 16:15convention that we go to, the American Family Radio staff. And you know, we hear
206. 16:21a lot of seminars. Well, I heard a speaker, John G. West, he holds his PhD in
207. 16:27government from Claremont. He is the vice president of the Discovery Institute in
208. 16:32Seattle and we've interviewed Discovery Institute principles in times past, but I
209. 16:40got a book called Stockholm Syndrome Christianity and I was leaving this
210. 16:45convention, had an arm load of materials, and I almost tossed this aside. But I was
211. 16:52intrigued by the title and I noticed on the back that my dear friend Eric
212. 16:57Metaxus had endorsed this. Eric Metaxus says that this book is quote a monumental achievement.
213. 17:05So I thought, well, I'll keep it. And I got on the plane. I begin to read and I'm now just
214. 17:09finishing my second trip through this book. Imagine my excitement when I realized with
215. 17:16the opportunity to interview the author of the book. Stockholm Syndrome, now listen, why
216. 17:21America's Christian leaders are failing
217. 17:24and what we can do about it,
218. 17:26the author, Dr. John G. West.
219. 17:28He's with us now, Dr. West.
220. 17:30Welcome to the American Family Radio Network
221. 17:32and thank you for squeezing in a little bit of time
222. 17:36to talk about this book.
223. 17:38It's the reaction, the endorsements,
224. 17:41as troubling as some of the research was,
225. 17:45it's gotta be gratifying to see that your book
226. 17:47is getting a hearty reception in the marketplace.
227. 17:51Yeah, well, it's very humbling and Alex, thank you for having me. I felt really a burden to write the book, but you never know what influence it will have. So I hope it will be helpful to people.
228. 18:02Indeed. Before we get too much into the book, just for those that may be on where a little thumbnail sketch of the Discovery Institute and the work that you do.
229. 18:12Yeah, so discovery is primarily known for two things,
230. 18:16intelligent design.
231. 18:17So people like Biochemist Michael Behe or Flosser,
232. 18:20Steve Meyer or Bill Damp-Ske,
233. 18:22people have argued over the past 20 years that there's
234. 18:25dramatic evidence in science pointing basically to God,
235. 18:29to a creator.
236. 18:31And then more on sort of free market economics,
237. 18:34we're known for George Gilder.
238. 18:35Some people might remember him from wealth and poverty
239. 18:37and being sort of a prophet of the benefits of free market
240. 18:41economics and he was a co-founder of our institute. So we also have things in that area.
241. 18:47It's been my privilege to interview Behe, Meyer and Dimmsky, all three great thinkers and great
242. 18:56voices. But part of the reason I think I resonated so much with your book is, you know, in my own
243. 19:02background as I became a Christian in college 30 years ago and then traveling and speaking,
244. 19:08I've seen, I'll call it the weakening and the wokening of American denominations.
245. 19:16I'm going to give a C.S. Lewis quote, then you take off on your book.
246. 19:20C.S. Lewis in one of his compendiums, Lewis, and this is 60 years ago plus,
247. 19:28but he said he opposed the clergy that undermine and deny the very doctrines they are paid
248. 19:38to uphold. Comment if you would on your book in light of that observation.
249. 19:48Yeah, well, the thing that really drove me to want to write this book is when I...
250. 19:53the more people I knew I was a college professor for 12 years at a Christian,
251. 19:57historically Christian institution. And when I looked at colleagues and also in
252. 20:04my own interactions with the work at Discovery Institute, that we as Christians
253. 20:09often like to complain about atheist and agnostics ruining our culture. And I think there's a lot of truth to that.
254. 20:15But I came to the realization that a lot of these terrible things happening in our culture were actually being aided and facilitated and sometimes even encouraged by self-identified, I think in many cases sincere Christians.
255. 20:28And so that was sort of a head scratcher.
256. 20:30And I think it's the sort of head scratcher in that quote
257. 20:33that you had from Lewis, which is,
258. 20:36it's one thing to have the people who don't know Christ
259. 20:39or Jesus out there ruining things
260. 20:41because their light is darkness.
261. 20:43They don't really know what's going on.
262. 20:45But when you have self-identified Christians,
263. 20:47and I'd say in many cases, people personally sincere
264. 20:51who are basically doing the same thing
265. 20:53and basically aping or mimicking
266. 20:56what the secular elites are saying.
267. 20:57They're actually adopting the worldview of the secular
268. 20:59elites around them.
269. 21:01Then I think Houston, we have a problem.
270. 21:03And how can the church be light and salt to culture if we
271. 21:09aren't clear ourselves among our own leadership of what we
272. 21:12should be doing?
273. 21:14Well, in some of America's historically Christian
274. 21:17universities and historically orthodox denominations,
275. 21:23and then, of course, from the mouths of individual leaders,
276. 21:27how did we get to where we are neutral, if not negative,
277. 21:33towards biblical truth?
278. 21:36Yeah, so I think it's good to remind people
279. 21:38that America's universities at the very beginning,
280. 21:41like Harvard, Princeton, Yale, were all established pretty much
281. 21:44as devoutly Christian, even evangelistic institutions.
282. 21:48But then by the 19th century, depending on the institution,
283. 21:52certainly by the mid 19th century,
284. 21:54a lot of them had fallen away.
285. 21:56And so then you had evangelical Christians start a whole new batch of institutions in the mid-
286. 22:01to late 19th century to sort of convey truth again.
287. 22:04And a lot of those institutions have been faithful historically.
288. 22:09Some are still faithful today.
289. 22:10But I think what we've seen over the past couple of decades, especially, is that they're going
290. 22:16the way that Harvard, Princeton, Yale did.
291. 22:18And I think for myself, what I saw in colleagues, you know, this idea of Stockholm syndrome,
292. 22:25you know, goes back to an infamous bank robbery where hostages were held by these
293. 22:30captors in Stockholm, Sweden, and then about a hundred hours after they were
294. 22:34held, something strange happened, many of the hostages ended up feeling grateful
295. 22:39towards the hostage takers. And they end up identifying more with the hostage takers
296. 22:44than, you know, ordinary people around them. And I think that's what we're seeing
297. 22:48among many Christians and leadership classes. And I think it's, you know, if
298. 22:51If you are a college professor to Christian college, for example, you probably spent a lot
299. 22:58of your time in training going through graduate school that was run by secularists.
300. 23:04And it just happens if you spend years studying under people who basically really don't believe
301. 23:10in Christianity, you may think you're not imbibing it, but you end up, some people end up identifying
302. 23:16with their worldviews, their operating assumptions.
303. 23:19And that's what I saw with my colleagues, when I was at a place called Seattle Pacific University,
304. 23:23which was founded by the free Methodist in the late 1800s, that many of them who had gone
305. 23:29through these secular graduate schools, they adopted the same assumptions.
306. 23:34And even on basic things like the Bible, is the Bible true?
307. 23:38Is it historically accurate?
308. 23:40Well, sadly, most of my colleagues would have said no.
309. 23:44And in fact, they prided themselves at my institution,
310. 23:47even though it was part of a conservative denomination
311. 23:50that held at least the infallibility of the scriptures.
312. 23:53Words like infallibility, let alone inerrancy,
313. 23:56were bad words when I was on faculty there.
314. 23:59And they prided themselves in rejecting that.
315. 24:01And then it sort of went downhill from there.
316. 24:03So I think you have a lot of the culture forming disciplines,
317. 24:08whether it be in media, academia, government,
318. 24:11these people, many Christians who go into these things
319. 24:14are surrounded by people with really anti-Christian worldview and they end up adopting those operating
320. 24:21assumptions.
321. 24:22And then they act accordingly.
322. 24:25Indeed, if you're just tuning in folks, Alex McFarland here, tackle with Dr. John West,
323. 24:31the author of Stockholm Syndrome Christianity, a book I have read, a book I hardly recommend
324. 24:36you read.
325. 24:38You've got a chapter pleasing the wrong people.
326. 24:41But hey, let me just say, to take a bold stand for truth, moral objectivity for the
327. 24:49authority of Scripture takes courage.
328. 24:53And isn't it?
329. 24:55Did you recognize that very often, especially in academia, because it seems like, and I've
330. 25:01spent my adult life in Christian higher education, and I'm talking among Christians, it seems
331. 25:07like pride and insecurity are to, I call them the evil twins. Even Christians can
332. 25:15sometimes rather than boldly stand for God and truth, they want to placate people
333. 25:22who don't follow God or truth. Would you agree? Sadly I do agree and I saw that
334. 25:29all the time and in fact I mean we all are subject to that because we don't want
335. 25:33to be hated, we want to be liked. And so here's the problem. As the culture, that may be okay
336. 25:39for a while. If your culture is semi-decent, then you could still get by with some semblance of
337. 25:45Orthodox Christianity. But as the culture collapses and becomes more and more hostile,
338. 25:51if you're trying to get approval and looking towards the powers that be for approval and
339. 25:56validation, you're going to slide down right with the culture. And I did see that. And I think,
340. 26:02I mean, you can see that when I was on campus, and I'm sure you remember this book, it was
341. 26:06Christianity Day, everyone was talking about it in the 1990s, the scandal of the
342. 26:10American, you know, of the evangelical mind by historian Mark Knoll. And there's some good things
343. 26:15about it, you know, his idea was that Christians should have a life of the mind. But the subtext,
344. 26:21the way I saw that book at my own campus, the way it translated was not just do excellent research,
345. 26:28which it was become validated.
346. 26:31The way you were proven of doing excellent research
347. 26:34is if secular authorities loved you.
348. 26:37Well, the further the secular authorities go
349. 26:40from a biblical worldview,
350. 26:41that validation from those secular powers
351. 26:44that be actually far from the good housekeeping seal
352. 26:48of approval that you're doing excellent scholarship
353. 26:50from a Christian standpoint, it may be the exact opposite.
354. 26:53And so, whatever Mark Nol intended by that book,
355. 26:56When it was received, at least when I was a college professor,
356. 26:59it I think set people on really the desire to be praised
357. 27:05by the New York Times or published by Harvard.
358. 27:08And that is, that's not the standard.
359. 27:12And in fact, Mark Knoll came out with a redo of his book
360. 27:15and update just a couple of years ago.
361. 27:17And it was really telling because although in his first book,
362. 27:20he actually did say, well, I don't mean that you just
363. 27:23should be validated by the secularist.
364. 27:24not the standard, yet that actually is the standard he himself is embraced. If you read the second
365. 27:30version of the book, basically if you're skeptical of Darwinian theory or skeptical of the most extreme
366. 27:36climate day alarmism or all these sort of left-wing shibboleths, if you disagree, then that's a test
367. 27:42of not having a mind. I mean, now according to Mark Knoll himself, and so yeah, I think that the
368. 27:48desire to please the wrong people can explain a lot of what's going along in the Christian leadership
369. 27:54classes. You know, I got your book just shortly after the passing of Jimmy Carter
370. 28:00and I had written a couple of editorials and I was interviewed on a couple of
371. 28:06media outlets and you talk about how, you know, a Christian, a lifelong
372. 28:13professed Christian and yet on a number of occasions President Jimmy Carter
373. 28:19took wildly unbiblical perspectives on different issues.
374. 28:25And let me just say, and we've got to visit again,
375. 28:29because I wish we had much more time today, Dr. West,
376. 28:34isn't it just part of the territory?
377. 28:36It's just an occupational hazard
378. 28:38that if you're a Christ follower
379. 28:40and a Bible-believing Christian, invariably,
380. 28:43you will have to take positions
381. 28:46that are biblical yet counter-cultural,
382. 28:49faithful to God's word, but not going to win you any popularity points in the public square.
383. 28:55That's just part of the territory, isn't it?
384. 28:57It does come with the territory and it's come increasingly with the territory.
385. 29:01And so I think Jimmy Carter, you know, I think he was personally devout and I understand people
386. 29:07and he helped build homes for the homeless.
387. 29:10Great.
388. 29:11But I think he's really an exemplar of the Christians who think that all we need to do
389. 29:15is recruit more Christians into politics or culture,
390. 29:18and that things will be fine culturally or misguided,
391. 29:21because we have actually lots of self-identified,
392. 29:24even evangelical Christians in Congress, in judges,
393. 29:30in the media.
394. 29:31The issue is if they're Christians like Jimmy Carter,
395. 29:35when it comes to public policy,
396. 29:37you're not gonna see a difference.
397. 29:39You know, Carter, when he became president,
398. 29:41he convened something called the White House Conference
399. 29:43on families that was designed to redefine what the family was. This was back in the 1970s.
400. 29:50And brought in lots of radical nature on abortion. He was personally opposed to abortion. He
401. 29:56didn't favor some public funding, but he appointed people who were radical on the issue of abortion
402. 30:01to judges. And then, more recent years, he was at the Vanguard of Giving interviews that, well,
403. 30:08of redefining marriage and saying that Jesus would have loved gay marriage. So if you actually
404. 30:15look on these things where the Bible is pretty clear, he was pushing in a whole other direction
405. 30:20that really was coming from the culture, not coming from Christianity. Indeed. Well, time
406. 30:27fleets away the call to action and folks in the strongest possible terms and I don't do this often
407. 30:35at all. I urge you to read this book, Stockholm Syndrome Christianity. I like to think I'm pretty
408. 30:41dialed in on the vicissitudes of the culture and the spiritual dynamics at play and yet I learned so
409. 30:48much from this book. The author John G. West is with us. Call to action websites. Where can people find
410. 30:55this book? Yeah, they can go to Stockholm syndrome Christianity dot com and there's a lot of free
411. 31:02resources there, you'll find out more about the book. And so I'd encourage you do that.
412. 31:06Of course, you could get on Amazon. And let me just say, although the book is a critique,
413. 31:11there's, I spend several chapters trying to outline what people can do. In fact, one chapter
414. 31:15gives 21 things. And so the point of here is not just to make, is not to make you upset
415. 31:20or grieved, it's to show that there are ways that we can be faithful to what God wants.
416. 31:25And I think God will bless that. You know, God is, is responsible for what actually happens,
417. 31:30but I think we're called to be faithful and there are lots of things you can do in your own church your own family among your friends and
418. 31:37That you can do to sort of stand up for the truth in a wise manner
419. 31:41And by the way may I commend you for having a meticulously foot-noted book and a book with an index
420. 31:50God bless the authors to have an index in their book
421. 31:54Yeah, I love having index and I guess you can't get the college professor out of me
422. 32:00So I did want to document everything I did so people could go back and if they want to
423. 32:05you know read more or or test whether I'm you know being fair.
424. 32:09Well the book Stockholm Syndrome Christianity published by Discovery Institute Press, Dr.
425. 32:16John West.
426. 32:17A great work.
427. 32:19Thanks for being with us.
428. 32:20Folks stay tuned.
429. 32:21We've got more to come.
430. 32:22When we come back I'll be talking about natural law and the U.S. Constitution.
431. 32:26Stay tuned.
432. 32:27Gossip. It isn't easy to kick. Who doesn't want the insider info? Who wouldn't want to be the
433. 32:36bearer of this week's most exclusive whisper? How then do we bless the name of the Lord when we were
434. 32:42just cursing his child? How do we bear his name while we so flippantly defame his very likeness?
435. 32:49So put on the full armor of God and let one of us who is without sin throw the first stone.
436. 32:54I'm Lauren Bragg and you can read Gossip and the Gospel on thestand.net.
437. 32:59The Hamilton Quarter Podcast and One-Minute Common Terrets are available at
438. 33:08AFR.net. Back to the Hamilton Quarter on American Family Radio.
439. 33:14Welcome back to the program Alex McFarland. So honored to be sitting in for
440. 33:20Attorney, Pastor, broadcaster Abe Hamilton III. It's a great honor that he
441. 33:26would entrust me to his microphone when he is traveling. And if you've been
442. 33:32listening, we had Bill Federer on a longtime colleague and friend, Dr. John West of the
443. 33:38Wokening and Wakening of the American Church. With the time left, I want to share a couple
444. 33:43of things with you. For one, folks, coming up soon. I need your help. Okay? We've got
445. 33:49a speaker series this summer that the Lord has led me to organize, and it's called Conversations
446. 33:56that matter. And my own website which is AlexMcFarlane.com and then slash conversations.
447. 34:03May 4th, so we're talking two and a half, three weeks away. Dinesh Dinesh is a longtime
448. 34:10friend and colleague. He served in the Reagan White House. I've got him speaking. He's the
449. 34:15first of several lectures we've got where Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I know we have
450. 34:22a lot of listeners on the Eastern Seaboard. Myrtle Beach is this just great, great beach
451. 34:28town. A lot of people think about golf and there are a lot of restaurants there. Myrtle
452. 34:33Beach has kind of a music and theater industry like Branson, Missouri. So what I've done, I've
453. 34:39rented a couple of pretty big theaters. Now May 4th we have Dinesh D'Souza talking about
454. 34:47the overlap of Christianity and our government,
455. 34:51and where our government is at Trump's 100-day mark,
456. 34:55then in June we've got Dr. Gary Chapman.
457. 34:58He famously wrote the five love languages.
458. 35:00And Dr. Chapman has probably contributed
459. 35:04to the saving of more marriages
460. 35:06than just about anybody out there.
461. 35:09And then we've got Charlie Kirk, July 21st.
462. 35:13And he is one of the most famous commentators,
463. 35:17one of the, in the top 10, you know,
464. 35:20social media voices in the world, Charlie Kirk, yes,
465. 35:24in person.
466. 35:26And you can hear him and meet him.
467. 35:28Then in September, the conversations that matter,
468. 35:32speakers, we've got Lauren Green of Fox News,
469. 35:35longtime friend and colleague.
470. 35:37And she's going to be doing a roundtable discussion
471. 35:40on the health and future of the American church.
472. 35:44Now maybe you're planning to go on vacation this summer.
473. 35:48Well come to Myrtle Beach, it's great.
474. 35:5017.2 million people a year from all 50 states go there.
475. 35:54It is the most visited beach in the USA, it is.
476. 35:59And people from all 50 states come, here's my vision.
477. 36:03They're gonna come to Myrtle Beach, eat some good seafood,
478. 36:07maybe go to the coast,
479. 36:08but get some biblical worldview training while they're here.
480. 36:12So please pray, promote, and if you can,
481. 36:15plan to attend conversations that matter.
482. 36:19Then let me say this too, just hang with me
483. 36:21and then I wanna do some teaching myself.
484. 36:23We've got our seven summer youth camps.
485. 36:26We're all over the country and the website
486. 36:28is equipretreat.org.
487. 36:31It's for middle schoolers and high schoolers.
488. 36:33Every summer we have about 1200 teenagers.
489. 36:36And I want to say we're in a brand new place.
490. 36:39We're in Virginia.
491. 36:40We've not done a camp in Virginia in a few years.
492. 36:44And so we've rented this wonderful camp.
493. 36:47It's an Indian name.
494. 36:48It's Camp Pianca Tank.
495. 36:50It's just right outside of Richmond, Virginia.
496. 36:52Beautiful camp, just newly renovated.
497. 36:55Listen, I promise you, having done youth camps for 25 years,
498. 37:00your kids will love it.
499. 37:01Now we do all the fun camp stuff.
500. 37:03We hike.
501. 37:04We horseback ride.
502. 37:06We, uh, Rose Marshmallows, all the fun camp stuff, but we do discipleship.
503. 37:12And every year, like last summer, we had over 168 kids pray to accept Christ and be
504. 37:17saved.
505. 37:18And then the kids, the hundreds, they want to know how to defend their faith.
506. 37:23We talk about apologetics, biblical worldview.
507. 37:26So check out the website.
508. 37:28There is still time virtually all of our camps fill up.
509. 37:32We need some kids to come to Virginia to camp Pianca Tank and that one's in August, but check out equip
510. 37:39Retreat dot org and then finally let me say this the activate summit
511. 37:45This is June 12th through 14th. I've got the great privilege. I'm going to be in Tupelo, Mississippi
512. 37:50American family has a worldview training ministry called activate Wesley Wildman fantastic leadership now
513. 37:59June 12th 13th and 14th
514. 38:02Abe will be there. I'll be there. Frank Turk will be there.
515. 38:06Ed Vitegliana. Amazing. One of my favorite
516. 38:09speakers and thinkers. Ed Vitegliana. So it's going to be phenomenal.
517. 38:14And you know go to the website, AFA.net
518. 38:18and just Google activate Summit. You'll find it.
519. 38:22And as you're planning your summer travel
520. 38:25it's for all ages. There's childcare and
521. 38:29for kids under five it's free, it's going to be great. Two plus an awesome place, a lot of history,
522. 38:35a lot of great restaurants, you're going to love coming to Tupelo in June. Plus, hey, I would be
523. 38:42remiss if I did not say this, you can see where Elvis was born. Isn't that great? There's of course
524. 38:49the birthplace of Elvis Presley. So anyway, I would love to see you at the activate summit,
525. 38:53June 12th, 13th, and 14th.
526. 38:56But right now I want to change gears a little bit.
527. 38:59You know, I was, when I watched the news,
528. 39:02and my goodness, this morning in a hotel,
529. 39:05I'm outside of Birmingham, Alabama,
530. 39:07and in the lobby of the hotel was MSNBC.
531. 39:12And I was listening to the commentators,
532. 39:15Chris Matthews and others, and they were just,
533. 39:18oh my goodness, they were talking about
534. 39:21how Donald Trump could get impeached,
535. 39:23And is there a way as Donald Trump tries to secure the southern border?
536. 39:29And they were lamenting.
537. 39:30They're saying, oh, can't somebody hold him in contempt and stop this president
538. 39:36who's destroying America?
539. 39:38That's what they were saying on MSNBC.
540. 39:41And I thought about it.
541. 39:41Ecclesiastes 2 verse 13.
542. 39:44Ecclesiastes 2 verse 13 says,
543. 39:47Wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness.
544. 39:53And we're living in a world of so much folly,
545. 39:57and we need wisdom.
546. 39:59And folks, if you're a Bible believer, you have wisdom.
547. 40:04The Washington Times back in the fall,
548. 40:09shortly before the election, they had an article,
549. 40:12said Democrats are taking crazy to a new level.
550. 40:16And I had to laugh, pressure is building to force people to pretend that crackpot ideas are saying ideas that men can turn into women, that the country is safer with an open border.
551. 40:29The idea that you can tax yourself to prosperity.
552. 40:33The idea that we can kick morality under the bus and not have any repercussions.
553. 40:40So in doing content and teaching and asking you to come to conferences and send your children
554. 40:48to Christian world view camp, we're believing that the church and that includes you if you're
555. 40:54a believer can make a difference.
556. 40:57You can make a difference.
557. 40:58You know, there was a Roman scholar and senator named Cato.
558. 41:02C-A-T-O.
559. 41:03Cato lived 234 to 149 BC.
560. 41:07before the birth of Jesus. At 80, 80 years old, he started learning Greek and somebody asked
561. 41:15Cato, why would you start learning Greek at age 80? He was known as Cato the Wise. He
562. 41:22was a soldier, a scholar, a historian. He was known for his conservative ideas and Cato
563. 41:30was really an opponent of Hellenization. Now what was that? That was Greek philosophy that
564. 41:36was tending toward relativism. Now I love Greek philosophy to a point. In fact I
565. 41:46teach on Aristotle, the father of logic. And Aristotle I can appreciate Plato for a
566. 41:54lot of reasons. Plato makes me nervous because Plato has a lot of ideas about
567. 42:02reality that tend toward very imaginative, if not delusional. And so
568. 42:10Cato was called Cato the Wise because he really stood against, they wouldn't have
569. 42:16used the term relativism, but he stood really against this idea that we can
570. 42:23create our own truth. And so when they asked Cato, why at age 80 would you start
571. 42:30learning Greek. And the Roman scholars said, well, 80 is the earliest age I have left.
572. 42:38Now that's really wise. Friend, we can't go back 10 years and start changing the world.
573. 42:46But we can start today. And you know, we've said it many times, if you've
574. 42:52listened to me much at all, you know that I always say that life is a stewardship
575. 42:56proposition. Now it would be nice if we had the leisure and the latitude to go back five
576. 43:03decades. Just like Benjamin Franklin said, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of
577. 43:09cure. But we can't do that. But right now today, like Cato said, it's the earliest age
578. 43:17you have left. And so today we can begin to make prayer the priority. Today we can begin
579. 43:24to recommit ourselves to learning the word of God and being a well equipped workman that
580. 43:31needeth not to be ashamed.
581. 43:34So I want to talk a little bit about this incredible blessing of being an American.
582. 43:40Just moments ago before Jeff McIntosh and I started recording the show, I was in a high
583. 43:45school assembly and I was talking to a group of high schoolers in Alabama about the U.S.
584. 43:51Constitution.
585. 43:52And I quoted from one of my books, I wrote a book some years ago called Ten Issues That
586. 43:59Divide Christians.
587. 44:01And I've got a couple of chapters in there on American exceptionalism.
588. 44:06Now Barack Obama, many years ago, Barack Obama the 44th President of the United States, Obama
589. 44:13said quote, the United States has been and will always be the one indispensable nation
590. 44:21in the world.
591. 44:22It's why America is exceptional."
592. 44:25End of quote.
593. 44:27That's pretty powerful because most left-leaning people nowadays bristle at the term American
594. 44:35exceptionalism.
595. 44:36But Obama was right.
596. 44:39But I don't know that we would agree on why America is exceptional.
597. 44:43I agree it's exceptional.
598. 44:45But it's not merely because we are an economic powerhouse.
599. 44:51We are the indispensable nation, not because we have military power sufficient to respond
600. 44:58to many of the situations in the world."
601. 45:02Reagan said this.
602. 45:04He said that America is the last best hope of man on earth.
603. 45:10Now the 40th president, Ronald Reagan, he said, quote, the leadership of the free world was
604. 45:15thrust on us two centuries ago.
605. 45:18We America is indeed, said Reagan, the last best hope of man on Earth.
606. 45:25I'm going to tell you why that is true.
607. 45:27Not only for the Christian culture, but the Judeo-Christian foundation of our Constitution.
608. 45:37You know, Jonathan Edwards, one of the Presidents of Princeton University, as we look at the question,
609. 45:45American exceptionalism and by the way whenever I speak at universities even some Christian universities my goodness professors
610. 45:53Nearly lose their mind when I talk about American
611. 45:59exceptionalism and you know
612. 46:01It's for some reason it's like fashionable or it's kind of chic to be critical to denigrate America
613. 46:08But the question you know is the United States superior to other nations
614. 46:12Edwards said this, quote, when England grew corrupt, God brought over a number of
615. 46:19pious persons and planted them in New England. This land was planted with a noble
616. 46:24vine. Yes, Christianity and Christians. So America has been exceptional, unique, and
617. 46:33I would say yes, superior in terms of its beginnings, its philosophical foundation,
618. 46:41our growth and stability, or at least until recently our stability,
619. 46:46certainly our accomplishments.
620. 46:48America has been exceptional in terms of our contributions to the betterment of the human condition.
621. 46:55Certainly America has been exceptional glory to God in our contributions to the spread of the gospel.
622. 47:03The potential for good and for godliness, our influence and our resilience.
623. 47:09America has been unique.
624. 47:13So there was the term that came about,
625. 47:17maybe you've heard of it, Manifest Destiny.
626. 47:22Manifest Destiny was a term that kind of came about
627. 47:27in the 1900s, the 18th century.
628. 47:32OK.
629. 47:33John O'Sullivan in 1845 was a newspaper editor.
630. 47:38and he coined the term manifest destiny to describe the pioneer mindset that God himself
631. 47:47had blessed was blessing and would bless our nation.
632. 47:52That was echoed in 1954 when Chief Justice Earl Warren, I love this quote, he said the
633. 48:01The Good Book and the Spirit of the Savior have from the beginning been our guiding genius.
634. 48:09So folks, we are a nation founded on Biblical principles, natural law, moral truth.
635. 48:17Please know it courageously, unapologetically speak it, stand for it, listening to the American
636. 48:23family radio network and all of our work and writing.
637. 48:27I hope it will help you be equipped to stand strong for truth.
638. 48:30Alex McFarland, thank you for listening, giving glory to God, make the most of this day for
639. 48:36God and country.
640. 48:40The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American
641. 48:45Family Association or American Family Radio.