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for your generosity. This is Dinesh

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D'Souza. I wanted to let you know about my friend

0:33

Kirk Cameron's new podcast, The

0:35

American Camp Fire Revival. With

0:37

the focus on faith, history, and the

0:40

Bible, Kirk is sparking a revival in

0:42

the hearts of American I'm sharing a short excerpt

0:44

of the podcast with you here, but make

0:46

sure to subscribe to hear full episodes

0:48

on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and

0:50

anywhere podcasts are heard. And there's a link

0:53

in description making it easy for you.

0:55

Now, here's a preview of Kirk

0:57

Cameron's new

0:58

podcast. The American Camp

1:00

Fire revival.

1:04

What we're talking about is the actual

1:06

battle plan that God gave

1:09

to us that transforms the

1:11

human heart, transforms families,

1:13

and ultimately transforms nation. These

1:16

things we're talking about are one hundred percent

1:18

essential and they're nation changing.

1:21

I think one of the things we've we've forgotten

1:23

is that God doesn't just change individuals. He

1:25

changes nations. And the United

1:27

States of America was one

1:30

of those nations that was so unique

1:32

in the history of the world And so we're gonna

1:34

talk about these ideas that

1:36

we're discussing today. Ideas

1:39

are perhaps most important thing in the world.

1:41

Some dictators in the past have said

1:43

things like ideas are more powerful

1:46

than guns. If we don't give people

1:48

guns, why would we give them ideas? Ideas

1:52

have great consequences. And

1:54

when ideas are

1:56

used as the starting point,

2:00

for the battle of the control of

2:04

the hearts and minds of people, the

2:06

battle of leadership around the world always

2:08

start with ideas. And then those

2:10

ideas have great consequences.

2:13

If an idea captures

2:16

the minds of the youth,

2:19

no matter if it's a good idea or a bad

2:21

idea, once it roots

2:23

itself in the minds of young people,

2:26

that can often start a

2:29

transformation of society, a revolution,

2:32

if you will. And it begins

2:34

to spread not just into the schools,

2:37

but into all aspects of society.

2:41

Ideas have consequences. We

2:44

have forgotten the principles

2:47

that not only made us

2:49

such a great nation in history, but can reform

2:52

us again. We need a

2:54

rebirth and a reformation

2:58

of those principles and ideas

3:00

that made us so great in the first

3:02

place. I wanna give you

3:04

a quick example of how ideas can

3:07

change a nation. There

3:09

was a small group of only

3:11

five men in nineteen o

3:13

five who met in a loft above

3:15

a restaurant in New York. They were

3:17

meeting in Lower Manhattan, and some of

3:19

these guys actually turned out to be quite

3:21

famous. You've heard of Upton

3:23

Sinclair, a young twenty seven year old

3:26

socialist. You've also got

3:28

Jack London. The famous writer

3:31

and Clarence Darrow, the famous These

3:33

were socialists along with a couple of

3:35

others and they would begin to meet in

3:37

this loft and discussed their ideas

3:40

called socialism. And

3:42

it was handed down to them by

3:44

a guy named Karl Marx. And

3:46

as they they began to formulate

3:48

their mission and their purpose, they

3:50

their stated purpose was quote,

3:53

They were to promote an intelligent

3:55

interest in socialism among

3:57

college men and women. They

4:00

wanted to promote an challenging

4:02

interest in socialism. We've

4:04

we've heard about that. Right? Well,

4:06

history has a lot to say about socialism and

4:08

how disastrous it has been. But

4:11

they were going to start at the college level

4:13

and get young men and women interested

4:16

in it. And it worked they

4:18

were incredibly successful. Let

4:20

me read to you just how successful they

4:22

were. They used a method called

4:24

gradualism, which means you slowly give them

4:26

a little bit more. A little bit more. You start with

4:28

a premise that sounds like everyone's equal.

4:30

Everyone's gonna be fair. And

4:32

then you slowly begin to

4:35

to ramp it up into the full

4:37

flower of what it really is. It's

4:39

kinda like the frog in the pot. How do

4:41

you boil a frog in a pot? Well, you

4:43

don't sticking in boiling water, he'll just jump out. You

4:45

put him in in water that's very

4:47

comfortable and pleasant, and

4:49

then you slowly put a little flame

4:51

there and raise the temperature one degree at

4:53

a time. It's in fact so slow that the

4:55

frog doesn't realize that it's warming

4:57

up. It eventually gets him

4:59

tired and lethargic It's like

5:01

being in a Jacuzzi too long. And by the

5:03

time he realizes it's too hot, it's

5:05

too dangerous, it's too late because he's

5:07

too tired. He's too worn out and he has

5:09

no strength to jump out of the pot and

5:11

he's cooked. And that's exactly

5:14

what they did with socialism in America.

5:16

Check this out. By nineteen twelve, there were

5:18

forty four chapters. In

5:20

forty four colleges, by nineteen seventeen,

5:23

there were sixty one chapters in

5:25

schools and twelve chapters in graduate

5:27

schools. And

5:29

then by the mid-1930s, there were a

5:31

hundred and twenty five chapters of

5:33

student study groups, studying

5:36

and promoting this idea called

5:38

socialism across college campuses,

5:41

and John Dewey became

5:43

the president of their

5:45

society. All of this socialist progressive

5:48

ideas started in the schools

5:50

and it took like wildfire and eventually

5:52

became the dominant view in

5:55

replacement of biblical Christianity

5:58

which formed the most prosperous

6:00

culture here in America. Not

6:02

just in the church, but in business, in

6:04

arts, in entertainment, and in everywhere.

6:07

And now we, as

6:09

people of faith, we are on the defense.

6:11

Have you noticed that? We're not

6:13

the dominant force in our culture we're

6:15

now backpedaling. We feel like we're we're

6:17

being pushed back to our own ten yard line and our

6:19

own five yard line. And we wonder if

6:22

the game has been lost. And that's

6:24

because we've failed. We've

6:26

abandoned our original command

6:28

from God. We have abandoned the

6:30

cultural mandate that God gave us, and

6:32

that is not to run from the culture. When

6:34

you abandon leadership in the culture,

6:36

it gets filled by those

6:39

who have worse ideas. And

6:41

now we are are having

6:43

to be subject to people with worse

6:45

ideas than god's good

6:48

and healthy ideas. And we

6:50

consigned ourselves to this little subculture

6:52

where we've become less and less

6:54

effective to promoting health

6:57

and prosperity across the

6:59

world. The battle of ideas

7:02

is the most dangerous place to

7:04

be because it's the most effective.

7:07

And the enemies know that. And

7:10

it's only a few brave

7:12

men and women who will actually engage

7:14

in the arena of ideas.

7:17

The loving creator has given us

7:19

his ways and his ideas,

7:21

and those always produce the

7:23

very best consequences and results.

7:25

And if we have those ideas and

7:27

we are armed with the truth of

7:29

God's word and the example of our

7:31

forefathers, we can return

7:34

and renew the culture

7:36

and the goodness and the spiritual

7:38

health in the very best possible

7:40

ways. But, you know, people of

7:42

faith, sad to say, have have

7:44

been duped by

7:47

well educated people who don't

7:49

have faith that learn how to use

7:51

the just the tricky questions or

7:53

the phrases that guilt us

7:55

into compliance or submission

7:57

or relegating ourselves outside

7:59

of the public square. And and they'll say

8:01

things like, well, you you want a theocracy.

8:03

What you're talking about with faith

8:06

being involved in the public

8:08

square or in government is

8:10

is basically a theocracy

8:12

or a church I'm sorry, a church

8:15

run government Well, that's

8:17

the furthest from what we want. But

8:19

but some Christians, because they don't know

8:21

their history, think that those are the only two

8:23

options. Either we have a church

8:26

run country, which we

8:28

know we don't want. But we think the only other

8:30

option is, well then no God at all. Just a secular

8:32

government, a secular society, everybody can do

8:34

their own thing in private. Well, we know where

8:36

that leaves. You actually don't end up with no

8:38

religion. You actually end up with a different religion

8:40

called secular humanism. And we can

8:42

look through history to to to look at all those statistics of the

8:44

death and destruction produced by secular humanism

8:47

because ultimately man sets himself

8:49

up as the ultimate authority

8:51

and causes everyone else to bow

8:53

down to them. Those are evil

8:55

dictators. Now,

8:57

there's a third option that that I wanna tell you

8:59

about, and our founders understood this. There's a third

9:01

option that allows justice and freedom

9:03

for all people, brings

9:05

blessing to everyone, both

9:08

believers, and unbelievers. And

9:10

to understand the answer to

9:12

what that is, we gotta ask the question,

9:14

what is the the meaning of the

9:16

separation of church and state? The

9:18

separation of church and state, it

9:20

was a personal phrase used by

9:22

Thomas Jefferson in a personal

9:24

letter to someone who was

9:26

a personal faith in a

9:28

group of Baptist and congregationalists from

9:31

Danbury, Connecticut, and

9:33

they asked him his position on

9:35

what is the role of government with

9:38

regard to the church. And what he said is, no,

9:40

no, no, you don't have to worry about a king

9:42

controlling the church or an

9:44

official government church because there's a

9:46

there's a wall that keeps the

9:48

government from reaching in and telling you the

9:50

church what to do. The king's not gonna come in

9:52

and declare that you're the the

9:54

official government church. And what

9:56

protected the church? From the government sticking

9:58

its controlling hands into the

10:00

church, this wall of

10:02

separation between church and state as

10:04

Jefferson put it. Those who wanna take God

10:06

out of everything have used the separation of

10:08

church and state to say it's it's it's

10:10

unconstitutional, and it couldn't

10:12

be more wrong. That's exactly the opposite.

10:15

Faith in America supports

10:17

the government. The government

10:20

is to stay out of the church's

10:22

business. That's the real

10:24

meaning of the separation of

10:26

church and state. Hey.

10:29

Thanks for listening to this preview of my

10:31

new pod cast the American

10:33

Camp Fire Revival. If you were

10:35

inspired by what you just heard, please

10:37

subscribe to the American Camp Fire

10:39

Revival podcast on Apple

10:41

Podcasts spotify or wherever you get

10:43

your podcasts.