Become Who You Are
What’s the meaning and purpose of my life? What is my true identity? Why were we created male and female? How do I find happiness, joy and peace? How do I find love that lasts, forever? These are the timeless questions of the human heart. Join Jack Rigert and his guests for lively insights, reading the signs of our times through the lens of Catholic Teaching and the insights of Saint John Paul ll to guide us.
Saint Catherine of Siena said "Become who you are and you would set the world on fire".
Become Who You Are
#558 The Trump Presidency Offers Us A Temporary Pause From Societal Decline, But Now What?
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Can we rekindle the spirit of America's founding principles in today's divided landscape? Join Jack and Tom Hampson for a compelling where they unravel the fabric of America's essence as a nation founded on ideas, not ethnicity or religion.
We examine the erosion of unity and patriotism over the past 75 years, delving into the influence of global elites on political figures like Kamala Harris and the pressing need to return to the roots of federalism, individual liberty, and limited government. We also explore generational shifts as Generation Z challenges mainstream narratives and the portrayal of Donald Trump in the media, seeking authenticity over division.
Trump's presidency offered a temporary pause from societal decline, but now comes the crucial role of individual responsibility in safeguarding foundational American values against government overreach.
Read Toms Article "Divided" here!! or for more visit Tom's Substack
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I am excited to be back with Tom Hampson, my good friend, and he just wrote another incredible article called Divided that we're going to be talking about today. Tom, how are you? I'm doing good. I want to start out, Tom. Your article reminded me that I have a good book on the shelf, the Know your Bill of Rights book by Sean Patrick. I just want to read to you, tom, just the opening paragraph or so here and then talk about your article, and I am excited about Generation Z z.
Speaker 2:We'll get into all that, these young men, especially some young women too, thank goodness, but mostly the young men so far, but hopefully the women will follow that are realizing something's wrong. So so that's really it. When I reached out to you again, I said man, we gotta, we gotta talk about this on the podcast. This is what I had in mind these young people that are looking for a foundation. So let me start with this there's no record of history as bloody and battered as that as the power to rule.
Speaker 2:Countless millions have been marched to their graves during wars, fought over the whims and in the interest of lone individuals. Countless millions more have suffered lives of wretched, inescapable slavery simply because they were born into the wrong classes. Entire empires, built by the brilliance and diligence of generations, have crumbled in the hands of despotic kings with no more competence or intelligence than the lowliest beggar. For many centuries, man was locked in a social mechanism whereby a few elite arbitrarily wielded power, swinging the masses to and from, with little or no recognition or respect for the divine inspiration all right in us all. During man's trudge toward the dystopian dark ages, however, a radical idea emerged and, like a tale of Atlantis, fired imaginations to a dream of a world never known before.
Speaker 2:That world, tom, you describe in the opening of your article. If you have it handy, it just really just says hey, here we go right. And again, I just point out isn't this true, tom? That millions of people have died because of one lone leader whose lust for power and selfishness and glory has led millions of young men and women to die right, many innocent people to die. So, yeah, talk about your opening article there. It kind of will framework what we want to talk about today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the article was just published last week. It starts off the United States of America is unique. We were not established from an ethnic group or a tribe, or a religion, or an aristocracy or a race. Such things do not define us. We were not established from an ethnic group or a tribe, or a religion or an aristocracy or a race. Such things do not define us. We were forged from an idea. We were founded as a constitutional republic on the principles of federalism, individual liberty, limited government and separation of powers.
Speaker 1:We are not a kingdom. We are not an autocracy. We are not a democracy. There is no other nation on earth like ours. We are not a kingdom. We are not an autocracy. We are not a democracy. There is no other nation on earth like ours. There was a time when we were all united in patriotism around sharing such a unique and powerful form of civil government. Sadly, over the last 75 years, patriotism and unity have eroded. They've continued to deteriorate rapidly, and that's really the state that we're in right now that there is no unity around what our founding principles were, despite the fact that they were then, in 1776, 1780s, unique, and they are still unique today. There's no other country that brings together diverse groups of people in an equal footing, like we have here in the United States.
Speaker 1:The idea that diversity is our strength is nonsense. It's unity that is our strength, and our motto was e pluribus unum from many one, from many different kinds of people into one people united around a common principle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and St Paul talks about that in Corinthians, that we are all these different parts of one body.
Speaker 1:Yes, we are one in Christ. We're one in Christ.
Speaker 2:We're one in Christ, and so that's really what we mean there when we say that, that we have all of these different people with different ideas, different individuals. How can they be united? They have to be united, like you said, under an idea not some, you know and that idea was released to Judeo-Christian principles and the idea of God himself. Right, that we're individual persons but we're united under him in such a way that we can get along. We can create and not only get along but forge the greatest nation ever in the history of the world. And you made the point right in the history of the world and you made the point right before we came on the air. And there's no country like this.
Speaker 2:And, Tom, we are on the precipice. We were right at this election, Right, we were on the precipice. I feel like standing right on the precipice of going totally over. I really feel and I'd like to get your impression of this I really feel that if kamala harris became the president united states which is I, you know, I would say you know the usually the president united states is known as the most powerful figure in the world with her, she would be a figure, but only a figurehead, because we know the world elites behind her, the so-called world elites elites, the so-called intellectuals behind her were really pulling her strings, weren't they?
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, and she even came right out and said in various times that she was not in favor of the First Amendment or the Second Amendment. She claimed that she was in favor of the Second Amendment because she has a gun, but she doesn't believe that weapons of war should be allowed to be in the hands of anybody in the country other than the military. Well, what's a weapon of war? I mean, anything is a weapon of war.
Speaker 2:She gets back to that point with that opening statement right, we have these lone despots, right, these tyrants that lead millions and millions into battle. And that's exactly where she was taking us, tom.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, she wanted to disarm everybody and you know the Revolutionary War started with the British going to seize the private weapons of the citizens in lexington and concord and they said, no, we're not having any of that yeah, and in the declaration of independence.
Speaker 2:Right, this is our shared value. Yes, no, lady, you know you. You don't get to take 300 million of us, you know, off to wars, off to your loony bin of you know. Let's just kill as many unborn children as we can. Let's put all these LBGTQ rules together. And you know what? Whether you believe in that stuff or don't believe in that stuff, tom, you could see what happens if you don't get back to the Judeo-Christian principles. You know, we know what they are. And again I get back to this Generation Z, these young people. How, how are these young men especially, again, you know, young women too voted in larger numbers for Trump? But everybody was surprised by how many generations Z they thought they were gone. Right, right?
Speaker 2:The culture, and these and these and these educators and these schools thought hey, this is three or four generations of this indoctrination. There's no way these young people are going to have any idea that they can think for themselves and not only not get blown around by the spirit of the age. There's an echo in their heart that said, ooh, I don't know exactly what that is, but there's got to be something more right, there's got to be something more.
Speaker 1:Well, I think one of the things that they did was this whole transgender issue was a bridge too far for people to accept, and the result was that when you tell people that you can change from a male to a female, anybody with common sense knows that's not possible. So when they see that lie being spread, then they start taking a look at all the other lies. What else has been told to us that isn't true? And they begin to discover on their own that there's so much that's out there that's been told to them that just simply isn't true. And I think that's one of the reasons why the youth, the younger people, are coming back to a more conservative position, because they're realizing that they're being fed a whole bunch of lies. And I think also they're told that Donald Trump, for example, was the next Hitler. They could see with their own eyes that this isn't true.
Speaker 1:He was on Joe Rogan. They heard him talk about all different kinds of subjects. He was talking about whether or not there's aliens in these UFOs, all the way to being a whale whisperer, and talking about how the windmills off the coast are causing the whales to kill themselves, commit suicide because of the vibration in the water or something I don't know.
Speaker 2:I don't think Hitler would be talking about things like that? No, no, he sure wouldn't be. And the other thing is, tom, you know, not only is the trans thing so preposterous, right, that a man could become a woman, and the absurdity of people in higher education. I really lost my respect for the PhD types. I call it psychological head damage.
Speaker 2:If you've got a PhD and it's really true you get down these little defined nooks that you think you know a lot, and you do, maybe a little poke a hole and you know a little bit about one thing, but you don't know anything about the rest of it or how it all fits together. And so, for whatever reason, tom, they go down these holes. It's a spiritual battle at the end of the day. But you saw it so well with what you described with Trump. You know, he was just at a UFC fight and he walked in with Elon Musk and, of course, joe Rogan was there, dana White was there, tulsi Gabbard was there and they walked in and it was like a rock star, right, and you know, talk a little bit about that because you were, you were alluding to, right before I hit the record button, that image you know of them walking in well, he can.
Speaker 1:He can talk to anybody, no matter what a position in life they might be. In you can you see him just talking to average people like they're just on on par with him. The same he doesn't talk down to anybody. He doesn't talk up to anybody, he's, he's just eye to eye with people and he's very genuine and and and comes across as being very sincere and and, and you know he's authentic.
Speaker 2:That's the thing that's important and you may like him or not like him, but, but. But the but but to your earlier point, when the trans movement and queer right. So you know the queer and queering is just a Marxist, revolutionary term that they that you know which, which which we actually have are abusing the language. You know, queer used to be a derogatory term. Now it's this great term and all it means is a a total upside turning, upside down of everything we stand for, which is what we're talking about here the constitution, the bill of rights.
Speaker 2:And here's the other absurdity, tom. You know, when we start to talk about a guy like donald trump, you know, and with all his flaws, you know, we're all sinners, we all got all our flaws, but it just shows you when you put your foot firmly on the ground and you say, okay, I got my flaws, I don't know everything, but let's leave it to the people pot did nothing but release the american people into into whatever businesses they wanted to run into whatever religion they wanted. He did the opposite. The guy was actually president for four years and now you're telling us all this is the absurdity, tom that that he's going to turn the country into hitler. He was just the president. He didn't do any of those things. This is how stupid they. I guess they think the rest of the world is. It's amazing.
Speaker 1:Well, they said that he was going to go after his enemies with the Department of Justice, and who's done that? It isn't him that did that, it's the current administration that went after him. Not only did they go after him using the Justice Department and having the Justice Department encourage other local prosecutors to go after him, but they also went after Catholics. They put undercover agents in Catholic churches because they thought they were too far on the white supremacy side or something. They've arrested and jailed 78-year-old grandmas for praying at an abortion clinic.
Speaker 1:This is just outrageous. They used the power of the government to send armed squads of agents into people's homes in the early hours who did nothing violent whatsoever, just to harass them and to terrorize them and their families. These are the Gestapo tactics that have been going on in this country for the last four years and that has to stop, and I'm glad that the new administration is going to get away from doing that yeah, but here's the thing and here's, here's, here's what I really want to get get get back into is these future generations have to know that you don't leave this up to donald trump.
Speaker 2:You know he. All we got tom was a reprieve. It's a reprieve, but we were at the precipice. I mean, really, I thought we were at the precipice, and I'm not the only one, but now all we did now is step back a few feet. We're off the precipice and now we have to take a deep breath and say who am I?
Speaker 2:Everybody, all these young men and women that are starting to wake up, have to say who am I? You know, I have to get my feet solid. I have to know what I believe. Who am I? You know what's the meaning and purpose of my life, and it's not just about hooking up and using and abusing people. You know, you have to stand up for what's true, good and beautiful and you have to understand what this is. This is what it means to be a man. You know I. You know, when I start to talk to young men tom, generation z they, they respond. They respond because they know that a man is supposed to be more than some wishy-washy guy, you know, that's supposed to be addicted to porn, addicted to sex. Uh, standing up for the, the, the right to kill children, and then get all of these ideologies pushed on you Somehow.
Speaker 2:John Paul used to say this Tom, there's an echo in the human heart for something more. And that echo, if you just listen to it, it will start to speak to you. It'll say no, I was created for something more. I have to find out what that is. Say no, you know, I was created for something more. I have to find out what that is. And and again, you know, when you get back to the education today that these kids received you allude to it in this article again the power. You know that we've taken prayer out of the schools. We've taken all the meaning and purpose out, so we've taken their foundation out and then tried to indoctrinate them with CRT and DEI and the social-emotional learning. And yet there's a spark within them. It's really miraculous in some ways.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, john Eldredge said in his book Wild at Heart that every man has a desire for a battle to fight, a beauty to save and an adventure to live, and I think that what we need. It's true that Donald Trump has given us a reprieve, but every person has to take up that battle and begin to fight it. We can't just leave it to somebody else. We have to reestablish our commitment to the founding principles of this country and not allow things like the not allow the Justice Department to come out and start going after people for political purposes. Ever again this idea.
Speaker 1:You know, when I was in law enforcement we didn't even have in the early days we didn't even have bulletproof v. Early days we didn't have bulletproof vests like they've got now. You know these ballistic vests when, when we went out on arrest, there would just be one or two of us to go out and just pick somebody up. We didn't go out with a SWAT team with guys with machine guns and armored cars and everything, especially not to somebody that was a a non-violent offender. You just figured out where can I get them, where it's going to be the least problem. You didn't go knocking in their door at 4 o'clock in the morning and terrorizing everybody in the house. Doing things like that is where you can start a gun battle and much easier to get them when people are off off guard. And we certainly didn't send anybody into into undercover, into a, into a church, for crying out loud I. I just can't understand what's happened to this country to have what's been going on the last four years. Go on yeah.
Speaker 2:So here let me answer that and and right. I mean, what went on is, first of all and I can't blame all these young people and I and I really can't blame even the you know the, you know everything on the millennials or generation x or even the boomers. You know we had this thing, you know started with the sexual revolution right and on. You know, marriages came apart, families came apart, the indoctrination at schools with the, with the sexual revolution right, and marriages came apart, families came apart. The indoctrination at schools with the National Education Department. All these things were infecting kids when families and marriages started to weaken, when the church no longer spoke the truth and so people just started to say, well, why do I need that?
Speaker 2:I remember in the Catholic churches, tom, where I was going as a kid, when the pastors and the priests stopped preaching the fullness of the truth. It's like kumbaya. And I said I mean, even as a young man, I said you know, if the churches are only going to bring the culture into the church, you know I don't need the church. I mean I can get this craziness out in the world. So I went and searched for something else, and so that's really what I love talking about, you know, is that we have to get back to our roots, the roots of you know, this US Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, the Bill of Rights that you allude to in your article. These are important things for young people to understand, aren't they?
Speaker 1:Right, yes, they are, and they don't understand them. They don't know them. And why, tom?
Speaker 2:talk a little bit about why they don't know them.
Speaker 1:Well, because the news media promotes every day even the people that we've elected into office. They keep saying this is a democracy, this is a democracy. We were created specifically not to be a democracy. This is not a democracy. This is a constitutional republic, and democracies all devolve into tyranny at some point. If you have rule by the majority, solely rule by the majority, that eventually we you turn into mob rule and the mob makes decisions that aren't very wise.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because they can be blown around by the spirit of the age in a second college campuses, didn't we? Where, yeah, where you know, some professors can get kids to stand up for anything and they have no idea when, when reporters would go around and saying why are you protesting? I don't care what, what it would be. How many of those college kids could not even tell you why they were there holding whatever you know? I don't even want to get into specific issues right now, but they have no idea.
Speaker 1:Well, even the most recent thing, with the Palestinian issue, from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. Well, they don't even know what river it is and they don't know what sea it is. They're just chanting things that mean nothing to them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and look at this, Tom. Now Biden has allowed the you know, in Ukraine to send US made missiles that we gave to them into Russia. And you know, I mean you know again. I don't want to get into the specifics of that war right now, you know, but the reality is all we're doing is provoking a larger war. More people would get killed. You know this is evil, tom. And and when you allow these despots again, these tyrants, and look at, we know Biden's not pulling all the strings here. You know there's people behind them but the end of the day.
Speaker 2:It's the destruction of humanity. If anybody's listening to this today, it's the destruction over and over and over. It gets back to that beginning that I said that there is despots and tyrants that want really the destruction of humanity. This is a spiritual battle. They will lead you into any battle they can. We got the military industrial complex. They love this stuff because they could make money, but behind them is just evil, the destruction of humanity. Look how many millions of people, tom, that have died in this war that we're funding and we're actually helping to promote war. And again, I know that to get granular about that is not our purpose today's show, but it's really. This human suffering is what we don't see when we just start sending missiles into other countries and stuff.
Speaker 1:Well, and where is the church in all of this?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's not just. It isn't just the wars, it isn't just the cultural issues, it's everything the church has sold out to the wrong side. I mean really half of the denominations embrace the idea that same-sex people can be married.
Speaker 2:When you start. And why is that important, tom? Because when you go down those roads and you get away from actual biblical teaching, again you get back to the foundations that made our country great. Well, why? Because they seek the truth. They seek what's beautiful, they seek what's real reality, you know, and what's good in the world. Good in the world. And so when you take those you can say, hey, I'll just take that away. You start to compromise. If we start to compromise, very quickly everything unravels, whether we realize it or not. And again, I'll say this to young people because they're not hearing it enough to your point from the pastors we come into a world, when you're born, that it actually has a morality around it. It's actually run. God created a universe, tom, that actually is based on a certain morality. Right, it's really God's heart.
Speaker 1:It is morality.
Speaker 2:And so if you start to poke around and say, well, it's a woman's right to choose, or marriage, and it doesn't mean anything, it's meaningless, families start to come apart Again. What you get back to is the destruction of individual human beings, right, and when that happens, we get into a place where we can get blown around by the spirits of the age. And so my last thing I'll say here, tom, is that young people have to take it upon themselves now to seek the truth and find that truth, and I think what we can do on our shows and I know I do this as often as I can, tom, and you do too is to try to just give them some resources, tell them where to go, tell them where to start, so that they could get on a firm footing for themselves. We have to take this. We have to take this responsibility as individuals, don't we?
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, and the United States was founded on biblical principles, and so the way it was created, conformed to the biblical principle of the biblical morality that was prevalent at the time, and one of the things that was very that virtually everybody in that age, whether they were Christians or not, whether they didn't believe in God, didn't make any difference. They still had a fear of God. They knew that there was something out there that they would be answerable to, and if they and they had to they had to watch out and be careful or or bad things were going to happen to them at some point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know today, that's not today.
Speaker 1:That's not the case. Most people don't don't have any fear of God.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so somebody will say yeah, because I don't really believe in him. Or why should I believe him? You know, the most interesting thing, you know I love the Gospels, of course, and so do you. And so right away, the book of and I'm just going off the top of my head now, but the Gospel of John, you know, very soon, starts out with you know, john the Baptist is there. You know he's a, he's a cousin of Jesus, he's he's baptizing, and they're in Bethany, near the Jordan river, and and he sees Jesus, who's who's his cousin. And you know he's just starting a ministry, he's just starting to publicly go public, and he's walking down toward the bank of the jordan and and john the baptist looks up and he goes the lamb of god who takes away the sins of the world. And he does it again. And in the bible it's got exclamation points right. This is like he's out yelling this.
Speaker 2:Two of his, uh, disciples of john the baptist disciples, start to follow jesus, like who is this guy that John is pointing to? We find out that they're Andrew, the brother of Peter, and John, who wrote the gospel, and they start to follow Jesus. And this is the main point here Jesus turns around, knows they're following. He turns around. He says what do you seek and what do you seek? He doesn't give us an ideology, he doesn't try to push some morality down, he doesn't say you have to live by biblical Judeo principles or believe in God, or anything.
Speaker 2:He's saying to those Generation Z young people that somehow voted for Trump, not because Trump's perfect, but because they saw that everything was somehow taken away from them. Jesus would turn to them and say what do you seek? That's it. And then they say to him rabbi, which means teacher, rabbi, where are you staying, you know? In other words, can we, you know? We want to come and learn more about you. And all he says to them is come and see, yes, come and see. And so inviting them to just come and see who he is as a person, and then they will know him, they will know the truth, and the truth will set you free, tom, because you'll know a foundation and you'll feel it in your own heart. I mean, this is the power of this. This isn't more information. This is what's going on in the individual human heart, and the only way to know this is to step back and understand what we're talking about here today.
Speaker 1:Right. I think the founding of our country is the same thing that if these young people need to go and read the original documents, learn about the people that put their lives on the line to create this country that we have, and to learn about the struggles both the military struggles and the intellectual struggles they had in establishing this country. Because what's become prevalent in this throughout the educational system in the United States now are false narratives, like the 1619 Project and Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States. These are lies. There's elements of truth that are spread throughout that narrative that they have, but essentially the narrative itself is a lie. This country was founded on noble principles for noble purposes. It was unique then and it remains unique, and there's a reason that everybody in the world wants to come to the United States it's because it's the best country that's ever been.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the lie, tom, is what they'll tell you when you're talking about things like the 1619 projects and stuff and critical race theory and all this stuff. The lie isn't that there wasn't racism. The lie isn't that slavery wasn't really real. The lie is that we can become more racist and we're systemically racist right, we're systemic. This is in you, buddy, you can't change. And we're systemically racist right, we're systemic, this is in you, buddy, you can't change and create a net division.
Speaker 2:That's the lie, see. The lie is that we can't solve these things. And we can solve these things, but we're going to have to learn the principles of God himself, the principles that this country was founded on, because the lie is, tom, that they'll take something out of context himself. The principles that this country was founded on, because the lie is, tom, that they'll take something out of context to your point, point to the truth that men are fallen. We're sinners, but they'll forget to tell us that what united us, what made us a great country, is that we were striving for something more. You know how many young white men died on a battlefield in the Civil War of trying to not only unite the country but to free all men from being slaves. People forget this and, to your point and I'll throw this back at you, tom our founding fathers also suffered. Their wealth was taken away from them. In cases, People lost their lives.
Speaker 2:We think that this is the world elite, you know, and they put it all on the line, just like I would say and I'm not trying to make a direct connection here, because I'm not but guys like Trump and people that'll stand up for the truth. They also put their wealth and they put their prestige on the line and to try to do something that's true, good and beautiful, despite all our sins. Founding fathers had sins, trump has sins, I have sins. Everybody listening to this have sins. But do we want to just keep going down that road or, do you know, is there an end to this and do we have a vision? To your earlier point, tom, a young man. Know, that's an adventure, it's a battle, and we're going to battle for the beautiful, especially the beauty of love. And that battle starts on the human heart, not not on a battlefield of war.
Speaker 1:It starts in the individual human heart well, one of the things that people need to remember is that the those that founded this country, when they were engaged in founding the country, they were willing to die for each other.
Speaker 1:Yes, they were. And I remember at 9-11, right after it happened, I watched the second plane fly into the second tower on TV, live on TV, and I remember the sense of the entire country. We were all united against the people that did these things, that knocked down those towers. We were united, we were ready to die for each other. At that time again, and we were united around that for just a brief moment. And I can't imagine what it would be like if we could maintain that sense of wanting the good for each other, wanting to be willing to die for each other, that, if it would last for years, decades, if it would be just the standard kind of thing that we would experience every day. We were there, that we were, we had each other's back. Yeah, what a different country it would be instead of this what a different world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, such a car.
Speaker 1:it's this constant attacks, this, these efforts to divide us and they are specifically targeting different groups of people that try to keep us divided and that we have to overcome. The young people can do that if they try.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but they're going to have to take it on themselves and they're going to have to find the truth. They're going to have to find a good church, I think, and it's not so easy, you can't just walk into any church now you have to really be discerning, you know so you yourself have to be reading, I think, scripture.
Speaker 2:You have to be reading, you know the constitution yourself, and you really have to find mentors out there that are going to speak the truth to you, find good, you know good, solid grounding for yourselves. As we wind up here, tom, you know you finished your article like this. I'm going to read it. This is your article.
Speaker 2:I heard the actor James Woods on a podcast the other day say that he wanted to make America great again. What he meant by that is to return to a time when we were united despite our differences, when we had each other's backs, regardless of our party allegiance, when we could express what we believed and debate our positions without fear or being blacklisted or fired from our job. When we could respect and celebrate each other's faith traditions, when we showed reverence to our flag and honored those who served it. We need to return to being one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all, and we all need to renew our allegiance to the flag representing our nation one flag, don't you want that? If so, get engaged. Elections are fleeting. You wrote Our culture needs a makeover. What we need is a revival. You want to expound on that a little bit, tom, because that's exactly right. We need a revival, and I think Trump gives us a window to bring that in Well the people that founded this country were dedicated.
Speaker 1:It was really. Many of the religious leaders in those ages were leaders of the revolution. They, they spoke about, they were the, the spiritual and ideological mouthpiece for the revolution, and all the different congregations throughout the country at the at the time, throughout all the colonies. They, and so I think that today, even of those people who claim that they're Christians which only 63% of the country claim they're Christians now, and less than that actually know what that means, Tom Right but less than 9% of those who claim to be Christians actually have a biblical worldview.
Speaker 1:Yeah, who claim to be Christians actually have a biblical worldview? That means 91% of the people who claim to be Christians don't have a biblical worldview. Well, in the early days, if you were a Christian, you had a Christian worldview in this country because they had pastors that were teaching people what that meant, and today it's whatever you feel is being taught. As to what, however the Bible, however you interpret the Bible on your own, that's what it means.
Speaker 2:It's just ridiculous.
Speaker 1:So we need that kind of revival to have the true spirit inspire us in everything that we do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you for that. And thank you for this article, tom. Where, where, where can they get this article from? If they want to read it up, I'll put it in the show notes.
Speaker 1:It's on the Illinois family Institute website. Okay.
Speaker 2:Illinois familyorg. I'll link that and and it's also on my sub stack.
Speaker 1:It's on Thomas Hampson sub stack Okay.
Speaker 2:I'll put both of those links in so they can find it. They can read some of your other articles there too. Thank you so much, tom. I really appreciate your time and for all the young people listening especially, pick up the Gospel of John, read how that whole thing starts and you're going to find out that religion is not about ideologies. Going to find out that religion is not about ideologies. It's not imposing some rules and regulations on you. It is about really finding meaning and purpose in your own heart.
Speaker 2:You'll know and just follow this crazy person we call Jesus Christ, who literally took on a body, came into the world and started to talk and started to lead us to someplace, and he started to talk about love and truth. And to your earlier point about the founding fathers giving their lives up for us, you know the early pastors around that time were some of the—they joined the military and they brought their whole congregations in to fight against slavery and against people that would take our freedoms away. And we could use pastors like that again, not to promote war but to promote this idea that we need a revival and men need to stand up, women need to stand up for this and read Jesus Christ, you're going to find something that he'll put that solid founding under your feet and you'll know it. You'll know it. Find something that he'll put that solid founding under your feet and you'll know it. You'll know it in your heart because, again, this echo in your heart when you hear the truth. We're made for that truth.
Speaker 2:And so this is the difference between this reading a gospel and reading the newspaper is they can both express good ideas, say, but one is going to touch your heart in a certain way that you're going to go oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I get that, I get that. Hey, god bless you, tom. Goodbye everyone. Thanks for joining.