The American Soul
The American Soul
When Your Back is Against the Wall, God Does His Best Work
What if the America you've been taught about isn't the America that actually existed? In this eye-opening exploration of our nation's Christian foundations, Jesse Cope presents compelling historical evidence from Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story that directly contradicts modern secular narratives about American history.
The podcast begins with a challenging look at our personal priorities. "What you spend your time and energy on, that's your priority," Jesse states, confronting us with an uncomfortable truth: many of us claim God is important while dedicating hours to entertainment and mere minutes to prayer. Our calendars reveal our true values more honestly than our words ever could.
The centerpiece of this episode is the forgotten testimony of Justice Joseph Story, appointed by President Madison and the youngest Supreme Court justice in history. His unanimous 1844 Supreme Court opinion explicitly declared America "a Christian country" where schools promoting non-Christian beliefs were "not to be presumed to exist." Even more revealing is Story's commentary on the First Amendment's true purpose: not to separate God from government, but to prevent the government from favoring one Christian denomination over others.
Perhaps most startling is the 1992 Kentucky statute that had to be passed just to allow teachers to post historical documents containing religious references in schools. "It tells you that our history is so tied up with God and Jesus Christ that if you really want to teach history, you have to talk about God and Jesus Christ," Jesse explains.
Woven throughout these historical revelations is a deeply personal message about trusting God through difficult seasons. When prayers seem to go unanswered for years, we might be missing God's greater purpose. Your faithfulness during trials may be setting an example that saves someone else's soul.
Whether you're interested in American history, constitutional interpretation, or finding spiritual encouragement during challenging times, this episode offers profound insights that challenge conventional wisdom and inspire deeper faith.
The American Soul Podcast
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Hey folks, this is Jesse Cope, back with another episode of the American Soul Podcast. Hope y'all are doing well, wherever y'all are, whatever part of the day you're in. Sure, do appreciate y'all joining me and giving me a little bit of your time and attention, a little piece of your day. I will try and use it wisely. Hopefully it'll give us all some extra tools for full box, as we used to say in the Marine Corps, and hopefully it will draw us all a little bit closer to God and Jesus Christ, even if just a mite bit in our nation as well, even if just a might bit in our nation as well. For those of y'all who continue to pray for me and for the podcast, thank you so much, very, very grateful, extremely grateful for that. For those of y'all who continue to share the podcast with others and tell them about it, thank you for that too. I appreciate that, father. Thank you for today. Thank you for you, father, and your Son, jesus Christ and your Holy Spirit. Thank you for your love and your mercy, your grace and your forgiveness of our sins, for all your many blessings, the ones we admit and the ones we don't, for whatever reason. Forgive us our sins, father, our greed and pride and arrogance, judgment of others, lack of gratitude, lust, vanity, gossip, lust, vanity, gossip, cowardice and unbelief. Most of all, probably, maybe, father, all of them, though. Help us to do your will. Above all else, help us to follow the commands of your son, jesus Christ. To love you with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength. To love you with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength. To love our neighbors as ourselves. Be with our leaders. Be with our judges, our law enforcement, our military. Keep them safe, bring them home safe to their families. Be with our educators across the nation, here in America and around the world and the nations where people are listening. And be with those who are listening, father, thank you for them. Thank you for this time to record the podcast. Be with the people that are listening. Be with their families. Strengthen the marriages of those who are married, the people that are listening. Be with their families. Strengthen the marriages of those who are married. Guide those who have children in raising them to know you and your son, jesus Christ. Be with us. Lord, god, my words are your place. In your son's name. We pray Amen.
Speaker 1:Have you made time for God today? Have you made time to read his word, to pray, to spend time with him. Is he really at the top of your priority list, folks? How have you spent your time today? How did you spend it yesterday? What are you giving your time and energy to?
Speaker 1:I had a conversation recently with one of my most beloved friends with one of my most beloved friends and our pastor talked about it this weekend too, actually. In fact, I think that's why we were talking about it. We were talking about his sermon either from this weekend or the one before, talking about actions. It's really just what it all boils down to folks from kids. It doesn't matter whether you're in junior high listening right now, or high school or college, or in your 30s, 40s, all the way up to your 80s or 90s the way you act, what you spend your.
Speaker 1:A lot of people say what you spend your money on. I would argue that that's true, but I would say that what you spend your time and energy on even more so. What you give your effort to and, in a way, money, is effort. Right, because you had to go out and work and earn it, but nonetheless, time, energy, effort, whatever you're giving that to money, that's your priority and some of us. That ought to make us feel really uncomfortable. If we sit and watch a TV show for an hour but we whine about going to church for an hour once a week, right. And we sit and watch a TV show once every night for an hour, or we we have enough time to watch even just two football games a week during football season, or the equivalent of baseball, softball, basketball, right, volleyball, etc. We have time to watch two of those, which equates to around six hours of our time. But then we want to whine and complain about giving God even 15 minutes to read the Bible, or we want to complain about spending even 15 minutes with our spouse doing whatever they want to do Cooking, cleaning, taking a walk, having sex, sitting on the porch, going on a date, going for a drive, whatever it is.
Speaker 1:Folks, it doesn't matter the, it is irrelevant If it's important to our spouse. I've heard that. I've heard that a lot from one particular couple that does marriage counseling now for quite a while and they have said if it's important to your spouse, it ought to be equally important to you. And if you don't make what's important to your spouse important, you can't, shouldn't even expect it in return Right. So if your spouse tells you, hey, this is really important to me and that's not important to you each day, then don't even try and get them to find what's important to you important. Just move on with life and keep your priorities, however they are.
Speaker 1:I don't know if y'all are interested by this. I was sitting watching just a little bit ago and this bird that I couldn't really notice flew by and it had red on the top and black. It was interesting color and thankfully it landed real close, right outside the window and you could see it was a redheaded woodpecker. Just thought that was kind of interesting. And when the dogs and I went for a walk recently, these thoughts kind of came to me and it had to do with a couple sermons that I've listened to over the past week or two, one getting back to the School of Hard Knocks I think I talked about that sermon with y'all a few podcasts back and this was the follow on week.
Speaker 1:But you know I talk often about what we need to do as a spouse, as a Christian more so, how we spend our time, etc. But maybe you are that spouse that's doing their part and you need to be real careful here, folks, about assuming that you're doing your part, but if you are not just think you are but actually are, hopefully these couple little bits will give you some comfort. One you have no idea what God is preparing for you and what's coming around the bend. Even tomorrow morning you have no idea when you wake up what the situation on the ground is going to be. You can assume you can take a pretty good guess, maybe, maybe not Often when our back's really against the wall, right One of the pastors that gave this sermon on the series or School of Hard Knocks. He made that comment. He said you know, god does his best work when we finally are out in the wilderness. He was talking about the Israelites wandering through the wilderness, but there's so many times throughout the Bible you can see, and probably quite a few of y'all know from your own life when you really see God work often is when your back is against the wall, where you have absolutely nowhere else to turn, and so you just have no idea what's coming tomorrow morning.
Speaker 1:I've told this story on the podcast in the past probably been a while, but one of our great generals in the Marine Corps a man named Chesty Puller I think when he was, I don't know. I started to say Lieutenant Colonel, but he might not have been that. At any rate he was on Guadalcanal. And they got down to the last line of defense, the last row of foxholes fighting foals, and they were trying to defend. Lord, my brain just went away. It wasn't an airport, but landing strip on this island. They needed it desperately and the Japanese were just hammering them. And he told us men basically said there's nowhere else to go, folks, there's no relief coming Night's coming. We're not getting any relief. It's just us. We're either going to be here in the morning and there's probably no relief coming tomorrow morning either, folks. So for however long we can last, we can last. And that was it. There was nothing else to talk about, there was no more need to discuss anything, there was nowhere to fall back to. So it's not like that they could try and escape. And so they stayed there and they fought, and they fought, and they fought, and the next morning and it must have seemed like a miracle to them they were relieved. I don't remember if it was soldiers or Marines or some combination thereof that came to relieve them from defending that airstrip, but they were Almost with the dawn from the way. I remember reading the story.
Speaker 1:Some of y'all that are history buffs, especially some of y'all maybe from the Marine Corps or Marine Corps history, y'all know much better than I remember, but you just have no idea what's around the corner, folks, and it doesn't matter what it is, and I'm talking to myself here just as much as you, folks. Whatever your problem is, whatever your heartache is whether it's a spouse, work situation, kids, parents, illness, injury you have absolutely no idea what God's going to do with the rising of the sun tomorrow, and it may not be what you want or hoped for. It may be better what God's going to do with the rising of the sun tomorrow, and it may not be what you want or hoped for. It may be better. It almost assuredly is, even if we don't see it at the time, better. But even if it's not, even if you wake up day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, and God doesn't change your situation, he doesn't heal your illness, he doesn't heal your injury, he doesn't heal your marriage, he doesn't give you that job, you know, that dream job you've been chasing after for all these years.
Speaker 1:Each day that we follow his example, I have to assume, is a day that we've added some extra treasure in heaven for eternity. You remember the verse God talking about storing up for ourselves where our heart is, there are treasures right, or where our treasure is there our heart is. And storing up for ourselves treasures in heaven, not here on earth. And storing up for ourselves treasures in heaven, not here on earth. And I won't go into all the details. This pastor gave an example back out of the Karate Kid movie from the 80s.
Speaker 1:But the point was sometimes we just have no idea what we're being asked to do or why God's making us do it. And that's really hard. At least it is for me. I assume it is for some of y'all. But if we really trust him, if we're going to trust him, there's nobody else better to be in charge than him. And I know that's hard. I'm not saying it's easy, I'm not trying to make light of whatever it is that you're going through. But you don't really want to be in charge, folks. You want God of the universe in charge, because you have no idea what would happen if he gave you exactly whatever it is that you've been asking for all this time. What if he gave you whatever it is that you wanted, and in the process you would lose your soul, and he knows that and you don't Again, talking to myself as much as anybody else here, because there are things, really things that I've backed myself into in my life, that just folks. There's stuff I've prayed about for years, but just folks. There's stuff I've prayed about for years and, as far as I can tell, there's been no discernible movement on those prayers. What if I got what I was praying for and it ended up being worse, even though I can't possibly imagine how that could be? What if it was? What if, most importantly again, it endangered my soul and where I was going to spend eternity? Well, in that case I'd just as soon go along with what God wants.
Speaker 1:1 Timothy, chapter 4, apostasy, branding iron Men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude or it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer, a good minister's discipline In pointing out these things to the brethren. You will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine which you have been following, but have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women. On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness, For bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance, for it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers.
Speaker 1:Prescribe and teach these things. Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather, in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity. Show yourself an example of those who believe Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and teaching. Do not neglect the spiritual gift within you which was bestowed on you through prophetic utterance with the laying on of hands by the Pres, today, here. As you do this, you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you. I'm going to start at the end today, here, verse well 16. First, pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching. Persevere in these things, for as you do this, you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you. How do you know, also folks going back to our earlier discussion how do you know that the pain that you're going through whether it's injury or illness, or a horrible marriage or a horrible job, or injury or illness of those that you love, like a spouse or a kid or a parent how do you know that you, being faithful in that trial, isn't going to set such an example for somebody that sees you that it might save their soul? You know we often talk.
Speaker 1:I've heard that verse over the years time and time again God's thoughts are not our thoughts. His ways are not our ways. You think God's more concerned about healing your body or the person that you love close to you, or saving souls? Do you think he's more concerned about us getting the next size up vehicle or adding on to our house or saving souls for all eternity? Because you see, the point that at least I forget so often is that everything in this life is going to go away and no matter how successful we are or what we store up, at some point we're going to pass from this life into the next and all that stuff we stored up is going to stay here. It's not going to come with us. It's not like the pyramids, right? Or some of the ancient civilizations where they buried things and even people, sadly with their leaders who died. That's not how it's going to go. And really, what should we be more concerned with? What? Should we be more concerned with Things, comfort in this life, or saving souls, both our own and those around us? Just struck me when we read verse 16. And then verse 15, take pains with these things. Be absorbed in them, so that your progress will be evident to all. Just the absorbed in them part.
Speaker 1:How many of us are absorbed with God and Jesus Christ? How many of us are absorbed with reading scripture each day and praying? Do you think about it constantly? Like even if you're a lineman for an electrical company, right, and you're out on the road, or a trucker, or a cowboy out riding horses and working on fence, or a teacher that's going from one class to the next, to the next, to the next, right. How many of us, even in those situations, pray in those little breaks that we get throughout the day? How many of us think about God in those little breaks throughout the day. How many of us think about God in those little breaks throughout the day?
Speaker 1:I tell you right now, I have had a couple jobs in my life where I was constantly busy for 10, 12 hour shift. I didn't do much thinking about God. And I'm not telling you, if you're working a piece of heavy machinery, to, just in the middle of something, quit focusing on what you're doing and start to pray. We had a young man I've told the story before, it's been a while One of the MIT teams, the military training teams we were with over in Iraq and we had this young Muslim man that we were working with and he was, from all outward appearances, super faithful and I was around for this, but I didn't see this particular event. But a fellow lieutenant told me this story and they got in the middle of this tick, this troops in contact right this firefight, and he looks over and this young man who I think happened to be a lieutenant for the Iraqi army, he's rolling out his prayer mat. It's time to pray and this fellow lieutenant of mine walked over and snatched him up and jerked him up and he said hey, look, I get it. I appreciate that you're trying to honor your faith, but not right now. So I'm not telling you to stop If you're a crane operator, as you're moving an ISO container or a big box to load onto a ship or something, to just take your eye off the ball.
Speaker 1:But when you get those breaks, you know you, we have little moments. Even in the busiest jobs I've had, we have little breaks. Do we take a minute to? Hey God, thanks for getting me through that last shift. Hey God, can you watch over my wife and kids wherever they are today? Hey God, can you make sure I don't do something stupid? I'm kind of tired today. Can you keep me sharp through the rest of this workday? God, can you just help me to do your will. I don't even know what to pray anymore. Just help me do your will. Right, verse 1,.
Speaker 1:But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons by means of hypocrisy, of liars seared in their own conscience. As with a branding iron, there's always something that's going to fill the vacuum If we don't fill it with reading scripture and praying and reading books and listening to music and watching shows that are beneficial to build up our faith, it's going to get filled with something else. I'm so guilty of this folks far too often but we think that we can sit there and listen to whatever we want to listen to and watch whatever we want to watch and read whatever we want to read and it's not going to have an effect on our character. And that's really condemning for those of us that are Christian, that have put our faith in Jesus Christ, especially when others know it. Kids right, kids are super, super humbling. If you don't have kids, I highly recommend it. But be forewarned they will identify every single failing and weakness that you have, almost, and if they're good, they'll do it with a smile, but they'll still do it. They're going to call you on it and I was listening to something the other day, a country music song.
Speaker 1:I may have told this story already recently. If I did, I apologize, forgive me, but it's a great story, at least to me, and as a lot of country music does. It was talking about women and alcohol and something else, and one of my kids walked in the room and looked at me and said Debbie, you know that song's not honoring God very much, and they were smiling big time when they said it, because I know full well that they've listened to that particular song before. But it kind of hurt a little bit and I just kind of snarled at him or something you know, and moved on with life. But even the little stuff, folks and it's not trying to be a Bible thumper or a Puritan although I think we we condemn those things a lot more often than we really should I think a lot of times we're the worst of the offenders. We just don't like the fact that we don't want to be that strict, we don't want to follow God and Jesus Christ that closely, we want to still have our fun. How many times has having your fun gotten you into trouble? How many times have you opened your eyes and ears to those deceitful spirits and those doctrines of demons and watched something that you know you shouldn't have been watching or listening to or reading? Just a thought, folks. That's longer than I intended to take on timothy today, but I'm sure that there's a reason, probably for myself, if nobody else. I want to go back and read this. I said I was going to and so I'm going to because I think it's important. I probably ought to read it every day.
Speaker 1:1992, kentucky revised statute, title 13, education 158.195. Reading and posting in public schools of texts and documents on American history and heritage. No-transcript. Us Supreme Court decisions and acts of the US Congress, including the published text of the congressional record. There shall be no content-based censorship of American history of heritage in the Commonwealth based on religious references in these writings, documents and records. What does that tell you? That Kentucky had to pass that law 30 years ago, in 1992? It tells you that our country was founded as a Christian republic, a Christian republic, but the left has done such a good job of convincing us otherwise that we made laws and rules saying that you couldn't talk about God and Jesus Christ even in the classroom, and so there had to be another law made saying that the writings of our president, founding fathers, mayflower Compact, for example, things that came before it, congressional records, any of those things that referenced God and Jesus Christ, were still okay to post and read inside school classrooms and at school events. It tells you that our history is so tied up with God and Jesus Christ that if you really want to teach history, you have to talk about God and Jesus Christ and the relationship between our nation and Him, them, this podcast we've been doing for about four years. If you went in a classroom and a lot of classrooms across the nation and simply posted these writings that we talk about from our founders and leaders etc. There's a lot of schools where you would get in trouble, folks, because they mentioned Jesus Christ and the left cannot.
Speaker 1:Whatever you do, don't forget this. At the core this is true of leftism, socialism, communism, islam the core is anti-Christ, it's not anti-American, it's not anti-Trump or anti-whatever senator or representative you want to think about. It's not even anti-liberty or anti-man or family or anti-woman or anti-life necessarily symptoms of the true disease. The disease, the cancer is antichrist and that's the core value. And you're never going to understand the actions not understand them anyway, because they're not logical but you're never going to even have a clue about why the left does some of the things they do until you understand and acknowledge that that's the core principle. And this is a great this.
Speaker 1:1992 Kentucky revised statute. I mean, listen to this. Local school boards may allow any teacher or administrator in a public school district of the Commonwealth to read or post a public school building classroom right the national motto, national anthem, pledge of Allegiance, preamble to the Kentucky Constitution, declaration of Independence, mayflower Compact. Why do you need a law that says you can post those things? As a teacher or administrator or coach, I mean that makes no sense. Of course you ought to be able to post those things. It's part of our history Because, folks, when you really start to dig into history if you've been with this podcast for any length of time you start to see how tied our nation's founding was to God and Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, who he raised from the dead, who went to the cross to pay for our sins.
Speaker 1:You see, the faith of our founders Right. How much trouble would get stirred up in many a public classroom and or hallway etc. If all you did was simply read the faith of the delegates at the Constitutional Convention 28 Episcopalians, 8 Presbyterians, 7 Congregationalists, 2 Lutherans, 2 Deformed or Deformed Dutch Reformsists, two roman catholics, one unknown, three deists, 93 plus percent right members of christian churches. And just put that up on a board somewhere in a hallway in a school tells you a lot, folks. Okay, joseph's story. We're going to get back into Justice's story, I think, for the rest of today. See how long that takes us. I wanted to read through a couple more things. So just a little quick reminder. Joseph's story. So just a little quick reminder, joseph Story.
Speaker 1:Professor at Harvard Law School from 1821 to 45, youngest person to serve as a Supreme Court justice, appointed by President James Madison, he was on the bench for 34 years. Number of different works. One of them we talk about pretty often commentaries on the Constitution of the United States. In 1844, so a year before he died, in the case of Vidal versus Girard's executors, he delivered the Supreme Court's opinion, which was, by the way, unanimous.
Speaker 1:Christianity is not to be maliciously and openly reviled and blasphemed against, to the annoyance of believers or the injury of the public. You might want to read that one again Supreme Court, unanimous decision. Christianity is not to be maliciously and openly reviled and blasphemed against, to the annoyance of believers or the injury of the public. Heck of a lot closer to our founding than we are today. Founding than we are today.
Speaker 1:It is unnecessary for us, however, to consider the establishment of a school or college for the propagation of deism or any other form of infidelity. Such a case is not to be presumed to exist in a Christian country. Wouldn't they be surprised at public schools today. It's unnecessary, they said, for them to even consider the establishment of a school or college for the propagation of deism. The left has told us for the last 80 years that we were a deist nation, that we were founded by deists, seculars, pagans.
Speaker 1:And yet justice, supreme Court, justice, joseph Story in the case of Vidal versus Gerard's executors, giving the Supreme Court's unanimous opinion, says that we don't even need to consider the establishment of a school or a college that's set up for the propagation of deism or for any other form of infidelity, right, meaning worshiping of false gods. Right, that's what it means. Let's see real quick, let's see what the definition. Hang with me, it won't take just a second hang with me. It won't take just a second of. In fidelity is, if I can get my webster's, all right. So infidelity right, the fact or state of being an infidel.
Speaker 1:What's an infidel? A person who does not believe in a particular religion, especially the prevailing religion, right, so, for example, among Christians and non-Christian, among Muslims and non-Muslims. So Joseph's story, the unanimous Supreme Court decision, is saying here we don't even have to consider a school being set up, not just atheism, deism, right, but Muslim, hinduism, buddhism. We don't even have to consider that, because it's presumed in a Christian nation, it doesn't even exist Again. Wouldn't they be shocked by the state of things today, disappointed, probably horrified, and rightly so.
Speaker 1:Why may not a layman instruct in the general principles of Christianity as well as ecclesiastics? And we cannot overlook the blessings which such laymen, by their conduct as well as their instructions, may, nay must impart to their youthful pupils. Why may not the Bible, and especially the New Testament, without note or comment, be read and taught as a divine revelation in the school, be read and taught as a divine revelation in the school, its general precepts expounded, its evidences explained and its glorious principles of morality inculcated? What is there to prevent a work not secretarian, upon the general evidences of Christianity from being read and taught in the college by lay teachers? It may well be asked what is there in all this which is positively enjoined, inconsistent with the spirit or truths of the religion of Christ? Are not these truths all taught by Christianity, although it teaches much more? Where can the purest principles of morality be learned so clearly or so perfectly as from the New Testament?
Speaker 1:Probably need to go back and do a podcast on this particular court case at some point. Probably should have looked that up before today's, but I didn't, so we'll try and come back to it at some point. But again, folks, I think the key here is the identification of America as a Christian country, right, and the acknowledgement by Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story and the court as a whole unanimously, that we shouldn't even consider the establishment of a school or college that's for the propagation of something other than christianity, of deism or any other form of infidelity, because it shouldn't even exist. Right, and and maybe even perhaps the paragraph before that or the part before that christianity is not to be maliciously or openly reviled and blasphemed against. It goes back again to something that our founders understood really well, that we don't today, and it's kind of two sides of the same coin, and that is one.
Speaker 1:They knew that you couldn't force a man to faith or to no faith. You know their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents, a number of them, had lived in European countries where you either went along with a state-ordained denomination or there were going to be severe consequences ordained denomination or there were going to be severe consequences Imprisonment, torture, murder, confiscation of property, eviction, ejection, exile. You look back at the pilgrims they had to flee from England to Europe and then finally to America, right. And so our founders understood you can't force somebody to be Catholic. You can't force somebody to be Methodist. You can't force somebody to be Catholic. You can't force somebody to be Methodist. You can't force somebody to be Baptist or Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist or atheist or deist or whatever else. You can't force them to pick a particular faith or denomination within that faith, faith or denomination within that faith.
Speaker 1:But they also knew at the same time that if our nation didn't have a rock-solid foundation on the general principles of Jesus Christ, we weren't going to make it and that anything that hurt those general principles of Jesus Christ, not denominational doctrine folks, not stuff outside of Scripture, not whatever the Roman Catholic or Orthodox churches or Methodist or Baptist or Church of Christ churches say, but they're talking about Scripture, the general principles of Jesus Christ. He says right, somewhere. Where did it go Talking about? Why may not the Bible, and especially the New Testament, without note or comment, be read, taught as divine revelation, right Revelation from God, in the school, at any rate? One more this is a commentary. I think we read it just a few days ago. I'm going to read it again.
Speaker 1:The real object of the First Amendment. This is just commentary on the First Amendment's original meaning by Justice Joseph Story. The real object of the First Amendment was not to countenance, much less to advance, moabitism, judaism or infidelity by prostrating Christianity, but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sex denominations and prevent any national ecclesiastical patronage of the national government. The point of the Hearst Amendment was never to lower Christianity to the level of other false religions. It was never, as he said, to countenance, much less to advance Mohammedanism, islam, Judaism or infidelity, whether you're talking about atheism, hinduism, buddhism or to prostrate, he said, christianity. It wasn't to lower Christianity and it wasn't to advance any of those other false religions. That wasn't the purpose of the First Amendment. The purpose of the First Amendment? This one of our greatest Supreme Court justices, who was a heck of a lot closer to the Constitution than we are today, said that the purpose of the First Amendment was to exclude all rivalry among different Christian denominations and to prevent any national ecclesiastical patronage of the national government.
Speaker 1:Our founders, the fears that they had from Europe. The fears weren't fears of general Christianity, they weren't afraid of the principles of Christ being associated with the government and our courts and our laws. In fact, they very much wanted the general principles of Christianity in our institutions, in our schools, our law enforcement, our court systems, our constitutions. What they didn't want is they didn't want the Anglican Church involved, they didn't want the Roman Catholic Church involved, they didn't want the Greek Orthodox Church involved, they didn't want the Southern Baptist Church involved, they didn't want the United Methodist Church involved. They didn't want a particular denomination associated with the state, but they very much wanted the principles of Jesus Christ associated with the state and they had no intention of this coexist nonsense that we have today and pretending that islam and hinduism and buddhism and mother nature, ism, etc.
Speaker 1:Were on the same playing field as christianity. One is true christianity, the rest are false. That's the way our founders saw it. That's the way Supreme Court Justice Joseph's story is elaborating on it here. We've forgotten that, or if we were ever taught it in a school, most of us weren't. But as a nation we've forgotten the real point of the First Amendment. I think I'm going to leave you all alone for today. God bless you all, god bless your families, god bless your marriages, god bless America, god bless your nation, wherever you are around the world. Listen, folks. We'll talk to you all again real soon, looking forward to it.