The Hamilton Corner featuring Alex McFarland on Raising Our Children

Darkness is not an affirmative force.

It simply reoccupies the space vacated by the light. This is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio. It should be uncomfortable for a believer to live as a hypocrite. Delivering people out of the bondage of mainstream media and the philosophies of this world. God has called you and me to be his ambassadors, even in this dark moment. Let's not miss our moment.

And now, the Hamilton Corner. You know, one of my favorite quotes is by G.K. Chesterton in 1908, so we're talking, you know, 112 years ago. Chesterton wrote a biography of Thomas Aquinas, and Aquinas is a Christian leader from 800 years ago that you really ought to know about. You might say, why should I care about Thomas Aquinas?

Well, Aquinas was very influential in his own lifetime through apologetics, defending the faith, and I would say in the West, in Europe and America in the West, we are not Muslims today, at least in part, due to the Christian influence of Thomas Aquinas. But to familiarize moderns with Aquinas, G.K. Chesterton 100 years ago wrote a biography of Thomas Aquinas, and it's called The Dumb Ox. And Aquinas was really thoughtful and quiet, and some of his peers mocked him and called him a dumb ox, because he was really large of stature. And one of his teachers, a guy named Abelard, said, hey, one day the world is going to hear that ox roar. So anyway, Chesterton in 1908 writes this biography of Aquinas called The Dumb Ox, and it's an easy read.

It's a short book, and if you want to get familiar with Aquinas, it's a good book. Anyway, in the introduction, one of my favorite quotes, Chesterton 100 years ago says, as much as we need to win the loss to Christianity, more and more increasingly, we need to win the Christians to Christianity. Let me give that quote again. G.K. Chesterton, 1908, as much as we need to win the loss to Christianity, more and more increasingly, we need to win the Christians to Christianity.

And if that were true a century ago, how much more so today? I wonder what Chesterton would say in 2020. But I welcome you to the program. My name is Alex McFarland. I'm very, very honored to be sitting in for Abe Hamilton. Abe is traveling on behalf of the ministry, and we're so grateful for the work that he does.

If you listen to this show regularly, you know the Hamilton Corner is hosted by just a brilliant thinker and Christian leader, Abe Hamilton, who is general counsel for the American Family Association. And so, whenever I am asked to sit in in his absence, I say my prayers and do a little bit of study, because that's big shoes to fill. But very honored to do that.

I have a show every day from three to four central, four to five eastern, called Exploring the Word, and we're heard every day on the AFR network. And so, anyway, I feel very privileged to serve the Lord through this incredible ministry. But today, in the spirit of that quote about winning the Christians to Christianity, and making sure that our view is on point with God's Word, I've got a very special person I'm just so honored to get to know.

His name is Daniel Venturino, and he wrote a book called The Battle for Main Street. And I'm going to let him explain about that. But we had some good conversation a few minutes ago before the program. We were talking about when a culture changes its gods, changes its loyalties, what do you believe is absolute truth? What do you believe is the foundation for values and truth?

In other words, who is your God? And so we're going to talk about this, and talk about his book, and just somebody really, really insightful that I'm glad we have a chance to get to know. Daniel Venturino, I'm a little jealous, because you're calling in from Florida, am I right, Daniel? You've got it, Alex, I sure am. And so it's not 20 degrees rainy and cold down there, is it? I got to sit during my lunch in some 69 degree sunshine, so it's a little bit better than what you described.

Crimea River, eating outdoors and enjoying summertime in January, right? Hey, it's not easy having all four seasons in one day, Alex. Wow. Well, thanks, man. First of all, thank you for making time to be with us on the American Family Radio Network, and thank you for your scholarship.

Give people just kind of a snapshot of who Daniel Venturino is. Well, thank you. Yeah, so I wrote the book because I just have such a compelling interest in faith, culture, seeing people live their lives out loud, trying to just encourage believers to actually get vocal and get holy. You know, it's kind of like the battle for Main Street is a metaphor for the culture wars. It's raging all around us. It's being fought on every imaginable front. Facebook, we fight them at our kids' Little League games, in the boardroom, in the bedroom. We didn't start the fight.

I feel like Main Street America, normal, everyday, blue-collar folks, they wake up, they go to work, they earn a paycheck, they want to raise their families. But we've been intruded upon. K Street and Madison Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard and all these leftist kind of cabals got together and brought the fight to us. They brought it to our doorstep, and now we don't have any choice. We're caught up in this saying whether we want to be or not.

And so since it's Main Street, it's important to get to know your neighbors and let them get to know who your best friend is, and that would be the Lord Jesus. Well, amen. And you're right. This wasn't a fight that conservative, Christian, constitutional Americans started.

I was reading a news story today about Franklin Graham, who was in Britain, or was going to speak in Liverpool, and they're calling for his appearance in public to be cancelled or banned even because his views are, quote, out of step with the LGBTQ trans message. And I think about this. Before America even existed, Great Britain was the seat of a law theory called natural law. In other words, good civil government and laws were based on this moral code that we all really did know. And it was a British common law that definitely influenced the creation of American law, and part of that worldview assumed there are moral rights and wrongs. And there were in early America anti-sodomy laws, and those were known as laws against crimes against nature because there was a natural law.

And the reason I say that is this. Here in Britain now, they're saying Franklin Graham can't speak because he believes in a view of morality that really, up until 30 years ago, the entire world had believed for 6,000 years. So it's not us that have brought aberrant views to the table.

It's the world that's turned against history, law, culture for 6,000 years. Yeah, and the Church of England just actually kind of surprisingly came down on the side of traditional biblical merit. I believe it was just last week.

So if Franklin Graham can't speak, what are they going to do with Justin Welby? Yeah, wow. The Church of England, so you're saying they have taken a stand more for traditional values? That's great. Yeah, so it seems like somewhat begrudgingly they said, this is the Church's position on biblical sexuality and marriage. And of course, that was in the news I believe just last week, and so the Church has decided that they're going to be who they have been since their inception under Henry VIII.

So bally for them. Yeah, wow. That's amazing. Well, what do you do when you hear these little tidbits of good news? Does that give you hope that there could be, at the very least, a preservation of morality and maybe even another Great Awakening?

Absolutely. It's my heart-cried that there would be another Great Awakening. If you look at our country, the America as founded could not have happened, I believe, without the first Great Awakening. So what we have is preachers like Edwards and Whitfield, and they're actually giving disparate countrymen one unified vision of what it means to be an American. So what did a New York farmer have to do with a Georgia plantation owner?

Not very much, until they started to share a common interest in their country, because before it was, I'm a Virginian-er, or I'm a New Yorker, or I'm a New Jerseyan. So now it becomes more of, I'm an American. And so that first Great Awakening gives us an identity. The second Great Awakening actually makes us more religious and a little bit more Methodist. Methodism really came in during the second Great Awakening, and I don't know if there is a third, but I really look to kind of the Jesus people movement. Yeah, me too.

That was more about charismatic, so charismatic and penny-costal. But I hold out hope each time our country shifts, either for the better or for the worse, it's in response to an awakening or a move of God. So either we're reacting against it, or we're reacting in favor of it and becoming more like the people that we have always been since our inception.

Pilgrims came here because they wanted a place that they could be free to worship the God they saw in the Scriptures. And so as long as we have that, I believe the Lord will honor us. I believe that He can give us our identity back.

We have to press in, we have a responsibility. You know, I'm so glad that you're bringing this up. And folks, if you're just tuning in, this is the Hamilton Corner, Alex McFarland guest hosting for Abe Hamilton and my very special guest, Daniel Venturino. He's written a book called The Battle for Main Street.

Hey, before we go too much further, we've got a break, and I'm hoping and praying you can hang on and stay with me, because there's so much I want to pick your brain about, Daniel. Where can people find your book, and do you have a website? Yeah, most definitely. So people can go to danielventurino.com slash book, and there will be a link for the Amazon.

Just go on Amazon and purchase it the way that you normally would. Other places I would be found would be godlyculture.com. I do some blogging there, but those are the two main organs. It's a great book from a great author.

I highly recommend it. Let's talk about Awakenings. You mentioned the Jesus movement. How did you come to know about the Jesus movement, Daniel?

Because I'm probably older than you, but it was even a little before my time, and I'm assuming it probably was before your time, late 60s, early 70s. How did you come to know about that, and what are your thoughts on it? Well, interestingly enough, like most of your listeners, I happen to listen to a lot of Christian radio. One of the founders of a ministry out of Israel called Chosen People, he talked about—I can't remember the gentleman's name—but he talked about his experience as kind of a hippie, and then of course there's Dr. Michael Brown, a very ardent scholar, evangelical scholar, Jewish person, and his famous thing is kind of from LSD to PhD, and so yeah, I just move in those circles, I guess you'd say, intellectually.

I want to know about the founding, I want to know about the Civil War era, I'd like to know about what happened. You mentioned Teddy Roosevelt in your article for the Christian News. I was actually happily learning some things about that president that I never knew. I hadn't realized he was so in favor of pro-family, pro-religion, pro-God, guns, government, so that was interesting for me. Well, yeah, and you know Teddy Roosevelt, I read a biography of him about two years ago that when he left the presidency, he was offered to be president of about half a dozen different colleges, and one of the things Theodore Roosevelt did in his post-White House years, he wrote, printed, edited, distributed on his own time with a small Christian newspaper, that after the White House, Teddy Roosevelt published for just a few years very limited circulation, but a Christian newspaper.

Amazing. Yeah, but you know, okay, the First Great Awakening, and folks, this is some American church history worth knowing, because I think it can inform us on how we can respond to our present world, and like Daniel says, you know, fight that battle for Main Street. The First Great Awakening, predominantly under Jonathan Edwards, but also George Whitefield, 1748 to 1760, let's say, the Second Great Awakening in the mid-19th century. Here's a question we might unpack after the break.

Was there a Third Great Awakening, and that being in the 20th century, and we know there were some little pockets, or maybe are we still waiting on that Third Great Awakening? Daniel, give your website again, and we're going to take a brief break. It's going to be DanielVenturino.com slash book. DanielVenturino. All right, folks, the Hamilton Corner, and we're going to take some questions.

Sue, the number is 888-589-8840, 888-589-8840. If you've got a question you want to join in on the conversation, talk about the battle for Main Street. I love it. Our guest, DanielVenturino.

Stay tuned, AFR, and the Hamilton Corner is back after this. Protecting prayer in public schools. I am Matt Staver with Freedom's Call. The Department of Justice and the Department of Education unveiled new federal guidelines to protect students' constitutional rights to pray in public schools. The Trump Administration's efforts will level the playing field between religious and non-religious organizations competing for federal grants, as well as protect First Amendment freedoms on campuses and the religious liberty of faith-based institutions. Now the Department of Education is sending letters to officials in all 50 states to ensure students and teachers don't face discrimination for practicing their right to religious freedom. We certainly commend the Trump Administration for taking measures to educate the public on the legal protections of prayer and other religious expression in public schools. Schools must not censor religious viewpoints and must provide equal access to students exercising their freedom of speech. Stay informed at Liberty Council's website, LC.org. For American Family Radio, this is Gateways to Better Education.

I'm Eric Beuer. School principals hear a lot of complaints from parents. If you need to talk to your child's principal about a concern, there is an approach that just may break through all the chatter. Approach the principal as a friend and a supporter of the school. Begin the conversation by saying, I thought I should alert you to a potentially embarrassing problem. You're not there to cause a problem, but to help the school avoid a problem.

Explain what you've discovered when you talk to the teacher, which you'll need to do first, and then ask the principal's advice for how to resolve the problem. You also may want to bring a friend or your spouse along. You'll feel less intimidated, and if you get flustered, they can help you express your concern. When you have a concern about your children's school, you can be a gateway to better education. For help, visit GoGateways.org.

That's GoGateways.org. Brian Fisher here with today's Life and Liberty Minute. A pastor I once knew was fond of declaring that, quote, Christians have no rights. What he meant is that we must be prepared to set aside our personal preferences to serve others. But he also created the impression that there is something sub-Christian about going to court to press our legal or constitutional rights. Yet when Paul was being railroaded by the Jewish authorities, he had no hesitation about claiming his legal rights. Paul, as a native-born Roman citizen, had the legal right to appeal to Caesar as a last resort. Paul claimed his full legal rights as a citizen when he declared, I appeal to Caesar. Said the governor, to Caesar you have appealed, to Caesar you shall go.

God in our day has given us the Constitution, and as Christians, we have the same legal right to its guarantees as anyone. Catch Brian Fisher on Focal Point weekday afternoons at 1.05 Central on American Family Radio. Shining light into the darkness, this is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio. You know, whenever I read in the book of Exodus, like in Exodus chapter 1, there arose a king that did not know Joseph, and there arose a generation that did not know God. I often think about that, that here in America, as much as I love this country, and I really do, I'm a Christian first, I'm a patriot second, but I think we're several generations into an America that really doesn't know its history, and specifically I'm talking about the robust Christian history that gave us America. We're talking with Daniel Venturino.

He's written a very good book called The Battle for Main Street. So Daniel, let me ask you this. I can tell you're a student of history. If 1776 had been 2020, and now think about culturally, morally, just all of the worldview that gave us the American Revolution and the U.S. Constitution, think about the worldview and just the populace of today. If 2020 had been 1776, would we have America?

I don't believe that that's possible. Our country is so divided. We have rejected every kind of authority there is. Gosh, you can't even believe what's on television.

You can't believe the media or the newspapers, let alone your parents, your pastor, or your teachers. So what made America happen, what made the Constitution kind of coalesce, is that there were people who actually saw themselves as countrymen. And that was due to the Great Awakening, as we said before. They had a similar religious experience.

They began to think of each other as Americans. Now we look at left versus right. We talk about this and that issue. And so the biggest thing I think that would prevent us is that we don't want to be brothers anymore. We don't want the other side to rule over us, so we fight.

Yeah. Did you happen to see a book about 20 years ago, and it was published by Christianity Today, back when Christianity Today was a little bit more biblical and more gospel and less activist, but it was a book called What Every Christian Should Know. And it basically, there's a line in the book, if I had thought of it I would have gotten this book out to be with me on the show, but he said, gone is the ability to think Christianly in common. And we've lost a sense of national identity, because we've lost a sense of unified authority. And basically, I think the editor of this book was David Neff, if I recall, and it said that the Church is fragmented, and therefore our nation is becoming more and more fragmented.

If that be the case, do you think that's an accurate assessment? What it reminds me of is actually ancient Israel. So what we saw was they took a king, the king's name was Saul, and then he lost his kingship, and then David became the king, and then his son Solomon. And Solomon really went after foreign women, which brought about foreign gods. And so then the kingdom was divided. So nobody knew, are we going to be for Yahweh, or are we going to be for the Baals and the Astra and the Moloch? There was confusion, and they lacked a national identity.

Nobody knew who the king was supposed to be, nobody knew who the priests were supposed to be, they couldn't tell who their god was going to be, so they didn't know themselves. And so now there's two kingdoms, there's Judah in the south, Israel in the north, and Israel kind of goes about its business and just completely departs from the ways of God, it's kind of like the theological left, you know? And then you've got Judah that tries to maintain a semblance of Yahwism, and they're more maybe like the conservative side, but neither one of them can really be united insofar as their identity is so different, because their gods are so different, their actual core worldview, their approach to what is the actual reality of the fabric of meaning and existence in which we find ourselves. They couldn't answer that question, so they could not be one country. And if Americans can answer that question, this is why we found a civil war, right?

Yeah. And into the disorder will come new order. And I pray that God would grant it would be a restoration of American unity around God and morals and truth and family and values, but I fear, and this is why, folks, we urge you, listeners, pray for this country, and be registered to vote and be informed and vote godly. I mean, you know, I would argue in the last several election cycles, and certainly in this upcoming presidential election, and you know, seats on the U.S. Supreme Court hang in the balance, and of course the next big Supreme Court vacancy probably will be that of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and that alone is enough to be fervently in prayer and to be consistently informed and engaged.

But we could lose. I mean, the freedoms, the Constitution, the America that we've really kind of taken for granted, I mean, Daniel, it could all be lost and never recovered in our lifetime, would you agree? So I certainly agree that we are here as one people in a land due to God's providence. And we have this conversation about privilege in America and white privilege and male privilege and this and that privilege, but I think every one of us is privileged to be born here.

And we didn't always call it privilege. We used to call it providence, God's providential grace that he gave us something special that we would have to vouchsafe and carry and pass along to our children as an inheritance, because this in and of itself is a ministry. It is ministry.

God always has an answer. And so we were talking before about the Jesus people movement, but look at what was going on in the society in the 60s and 70s. They were in the throes of pre-love and drug experimentation, kind of the youth and rebellion. Of course, there was alternate religious systems coming in.

The Beatles really introduced Eastern mysticism and kind of yoga and those kinds of things. But God made his move. He made his move. His move was, you want to be a hippie? We're going to take hippies and make them Jesus hippies. So he found this Hare Krishna devotee, a guy called Dave Hoyt. This guy has some kind of revelation of the uniqueness about Jesus.

He gets saved, and he starts to evangelize all these crazy hippie kids in Costa Mesa and Pirates Cove on the Pacific Coast. And this launches a movement that can only be called quintessentially American religious. So strange.

It's such a strange story. But God loves to take and do kind of spiritual judo. You know, if the devil throws his right hand, God's going to grab it with his left hand, pull him, turn his hip and toss him on the ground, because God loves to take the enemy's momentum and use it against them. I love that about the Lord.

Amen. Hey, I'm going to give this number. We're going to open up the phone line for calls a little bit early. We've got a question for Daniel Venturino, author of The Battle for Main Street.

It's a book I highly suggest be read. Here's the number, folks. 888-589-8840, toll free nationwide.

888-589-8840. We'd love to hear from you on the American Family Radio Network. This is the Hamilton Corner. Hey, by the way, folks, I've got to put a plug in.

Okay, listen carefully. Truth for a New Generation, the ministry that we've had for a number of years. We're doing our annual apologetics camp. It's going to be July 20-24. Western North Carolina, our ministry has rented this entire Y camp.

It's beautiful ropes course, rock climbing, all kind of the fun camp stuff. But I'll be there. We're going to do 15 sessions on apologetics, defending the faith. Folks, listen, I've spoken at more than 200 American universities, and I believe in education, but I will tell you, unless your child goes to a solidly Christian school like Liberty University or, you know, there are a lot of great Christian schools.

Look, I can promise you what Ben Shapiro said when I interviewed Ben Shapiro, that college has become a four-year attack on America and God. And so, folks, the apologetics camp that we do, last year we had students from seven states, 86 decisions for Christ. Listen, your young people being able to defend their faith, it could mean the difference between them standing strong for Christ, or listen, four years of college can dismantle what you've worked 18 years to instill. Go to my website, which is alexmcfarland.com, it's just my name, alexmcfarland, M-C-F-A-R-L-A-N-D, and check out what we're doing this year to equip kids to stand strong in our apologetics camp. And folks, we care about this.

Look, we're in it for the long haul. Job one, obviously, preach the gospel, the Great Commission, of course, but we have got to save America. We have to raise young people that not only love the Lord, but love this country.

And understand that socialism is wrong, we do not want to become a nation of socialists, and we could lose everything that we've had for 240 years. So the apologetics camp is coming up, now's the time. And your kids, in addition to learning a lot, they're going to have a great time, they'll make friendships that will impact their life for a lifetime. And so pray, promote, plan to attend our summer apologetics camp. And so we're going to go to some calls now. Our guest, Daniel Venturino, so much I want to ask this author of The Battle for Main Street, 888-589-8840, we're going to go to Pete in Georgia. Pete, thanks for holding, are you there, my friend?

I am, Alex, indeed. And before I start, I just want to say thank you so much. I love Abraham, I love you, and Bert, and the entire group on AFR, it's just an amazing program. Everybody on it, the talent is awesome, you guys are doing great work.

Oh, you're so kind. We give God the glory. Thank you for listening to our conversation with Daniel. What do you have for us, Pete?

Well, you know, I started an organization a couple years ago, which I'm now getting off the ground for real, and I won't mention the name because it's not been invented by AFA yet, but I hope to reach out to you guys soon. But I'm going to get your book, but my goal is to change the school system, not only in Georgia, but in the entire country that they, and I work with legislators on doing this, but that require that our schools teach the Christian story of this country as part of an American history curriculum, but it's got to be done with every child, every student, every school, every grade, every year. Not just once every five years, but they've got to teach the Christian story of this country, the pilgrims, the Charter of Privileges written by William Penn, the Liberty Bell, the biblical scriptures on there, you know, all this, yeah, Eric Tubman, you name it.

That sounds good. What do you say about that, Daniel? Well, I think that's amazing. I think that's a very needed ministry today.

We just have disconnected from our religious heritage, but I will tell you this. I devoted an entire chapter, chapter 14, to the public school, education, children, spiritual development. I call it Bad Learning, and there is a book called The Crimes of the Educators that will make your hair turn white and then stand up on end, and every American should read it, especially if they care about the public schools. I myself am a huge proponent now of private schooling.

If you can't afford it, you're outsourcing 40 hours of your child's life every week to some stranger, and you don't know what they do behind closed doors or what kind of things that they have in their hearts, and you don't want to take these chances with your precious kids. Exactly. I completely agree. And hey, that's a good book. Name that book again that you mentioned.

The Crimes of the Educators, and they're written by 30-year veterans of the teaching profession. Wow. Wow. We're going to go to Bobby in Texas. Bobby, thanks for holding. Welcome to the American Family Radio Network. Oh, thank you, Alex. I sure do love Abraham Hamilton III, but it's nice to hear your voice too, sir. Well, God bless you. You know, when I introduce Abe, we've had Abe at a number of conferences, and I'll say, okay, folks, the IQ points in the room are about to go up exponentially. Abe Hamilton, he is great.

It's an honor to sit in for him, and great to hear from you. So welcome to the conversation there, Bobby. Yes, Daniel. My poignancy here is that every—and Alex knows me well enough—I want to find the root of this problem. And where I believe the root of this problem is, is that we have slowly drifted, because each—your parents, their parents, my parents, everybody's parents—raised each generation to a euphemism of sayings that mostly came from the Bible.

As we both should know, God only helps those who help theirselves. Well, that's all right. And we've taken half-truths, and we've deducted them down to these little euphemisms, to where we—the parents have lost the answer to tell a child, a rebellious child says, parents, take the trash out. The child says, why? Because I said so.

How come? Well, the correct answer is, because I have to answer to God for your upbringing. So when the child knows that it's not you with your authority that's directing them to do it, if they understand them, then they just do it. But we've lost this ability to teach our children in the way that they're bent to learn.

And these people would just come back to common sense. It's our job to train these children. Great point. Daniel, what do you say? Bobby, I think that—didn't mean to step on you there—but I think that your point is salient. It isn't that Christian parents aren't talking to their kids, it's just that their voices blend so well with the chorus of the culture that they're just impossible to distinguish. So let's take some responsibility. We can't help what our parents did, or their parents before them, but we can raise our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And in my book, I actually talk about, there are degrees of influence. The first level of influence that you have, Bobby, is with yourself. So get sanctified. The second level of influence you have is in your home.

So you bring that. Whatever God is doing in your life, you press into it, and you let it bleed. Like Jesus said, that it would be like a spout flowing out of your body, unto life. And so you let that sprinkle on your kids and on your spouse, and then from there you can go out to the workplace, etc. But it's kind of like when you toss a little pebble into a calm pond, and you just see the ripples out, where the first ripple is you.

Let God do a work in your life, get sanctified, and then breathe that into your kids. We've got a break. We will stand before God. Hold that thought. We're going to come back. We've got a brief break. We'll be back with more of the Hamilton Corner. Stay tuned.

Save more, you'll save more. Get yours today at AFAstore.net so we can use the word of God as we pray for our nation in 2020. Have you been looking for a way to serve others?

Are you able to serve in a ministry without being paid? You and Friendships might be the perfect match. Friendships is currently taking applications for volunteers providing aid to disaster victims, refugees and the impoverished, both here at home and around the world.

Get more information at Friendships.org or by calling 337-433-5022. Same-sex attracted Christian? This is David Wheaton, host of the Christian Worldview. Is it right for a professing Christian to accept homosexual desires as quote, who I am, even if not engaging in the physical act? This idea is advancing in the Evangelical Church, as evidenced by the Revoice Conference, which seeks to quote, support and encourage gay, lesbian, bisexual and other same-sex attracted Christians. The Bible says, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and greed.

The Christian should never accept sinful desires, but through the truth of God's word and the power of the Holy Spirit, always strive to crucify them. Hear more about this debate within the Southern Baptist Convention at TheChristianWorldview.org, and then tune in this weekend for another topic that will sharpen your worldview. Listen to The Christian Worldview with David Wheaton, Saturday mornings at eight central on American Family Radio.

Hello, Americans, I'm Todd Starnes with news and commentary next. Hi, this is Todd Starnes and folks, Liberty University believes a private Christian education should be affordable to everyone. That's great, right? It doesn't matter if you're from California or Maine or anywhere in between.

You may qualify for up to twenty thousand seven hundred eighty dollars over four years through Liberty's Middle America Scholarship. For more information, text M.A.S. to the number eight three nine eight five eight today. Again, that's M.A.S.

to the number eight three nine eight five eight. Mayor Pete Buttigieg told a pro-life Democrat she has no place in today's Democrat Party. Kristin Day is a member of Democrats for Life, and she asked the mayor during a town hall meeting whether he would support more inclusive language in the party's platform. Mayor Pete replied he stood by the party's current language, which supports late term abortions. Last week, President Trump told pro-lifers that when he sees the image of a baby in the womb, he glimpses the majesty of God's creation. But when Democrats see the image of a baby in the womb, they see tiny body parts that can be sold to the highest bidder. The truth is, there really is not a place for anyone who believes that life begins at conception in the radicalized party of Barack Obama and Pete Buttigieg.

Embrace someone wearing blackface and a Klan robe before they would ever welcome a pro-lifer. I'm Todd Starnes. The Hamilton Quarter podcast and one minute commentaries are available at AFR.net. Back to the Hamilton Quarter on American Family Radio.

Welcome back to the program. Alex McFarland sitting in for Abe Hamilton on the American Family Radio Network. The number toll free nationwide.

Triple eight five eight nine eighty eight forty. We're talking with Daniel Venturino, author of The Battle for Main Street. And, you know, I didn't know Daniel prior to our conversation today, but I like him already because our heart is beating the same pulse.

Revival in America, a great awakening. And I I love this this author's knowledge of our history. And Daniel, we've got calls stacking up here.

We're going to get to you. So hang in there, folks. But Daniel, give your Web site, because I want people to know about your book. Thank you. Yes, it's Daniel Venturino dot com slash book. So that's Venturino spelled B-E-N-T-U-R-I-N-O. Yeah. Let's get an Italian name.

Yes, Italian. So let's go to Carrie from Texas. Thanks for holding. Carrie, welcome to the program. Hello, Carrie. Are you there? Hello, welcome. Yes. Are you... can you hear me? Yes, now we can.

Thanks for holding. Yes. I'm setting this up a little bit. You have a hundred Christians, and they're in a congregation, and then one wants to say Holy Ghost and one wants to say Holy Spirit, and then the congregation splits. And then we've gone over that and over that and over that through this world. We have tons of Christian denominations. And how are we going to come together now as one body and one Christ?

I love this station. It focused me and made me become such a better Christian in my better walk. And I'm just... I don't understand how we can't be one body and one Christ with these different denominations. I'm just... I'm reaching for understanding in that.

Great question. Daniel, what do you say about division within the Church, and how big of a problem is it, and if so, what might we do about it, Daniel? So I'm reminded of the words from the Apostle Paul in the Ephesian letter, Chapter 4, because I urge you to live worthy of the calling you've received, be completely humble and gentle, be patient bearing with one another in love. So we need to be patient and bear with one another in love. And then verse 3 says, make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. Sometimes you keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace simply by not getting your way. If somebody wants to say, Holy Ghost, boy, I say, let them say it.

If somebody wants it to be green carpet and the color of, you know, baby vomit after they've eaten their peas, you know, I'm not going to love it. But I'm going to say, this is my Christian brother. They actually have the Holy Spirit. They actually are in right relationship with God. They are partakers of the divine nature. If we'll remember, the end of that little soliloquy from Paul said, there's one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. So I start thinking about my fellow believers' relationship to their God and the heavenly creature that they are becoming as they're sanctified, and they're going to look like Jesus the way that he looks when he returns. I won't care if they say, Holy Ghost, or want pea green shag carpeting.

I'll be thinking too much about how glorious they are when they come into the kingdom. Well, we've got to pick our battles, and the devil wants us divided. The devil does not want a unified church, does he?

No, he can't have it, because Jesus said it very clearly. Any kingdom that's divided on itself cannot stand. I have a little bit of a daily affirmation where I remind the devil, your kingdom has fallen, it's divided, and it cannot stand. But the kingdom of God is forever.

It's united. He prayed before he went to Calvary that we would have the same kind of unity that he enjoys with his father, and by gum, I aim for that. So if there are divisive people in church, and you can't get away from divisive people, of course they're going to find their way in, and loving them is a very big command. I mean, they're our brother.

They're part of our body. They are the servant of Christ. His blood was shed for them. Picking your battles means always not having it your own way, and just...it's like in a marriage, you know?

Sometimes you have to hand over the remote, watch something on TV you prefer not to, like The Bachelor. Yeah. Well, you know, I love John 17 21, you know, Jesus' high priestly prayer. He's on his way to the cross, and he's praying. And in John 17 verse 21, he says, Father, I pray for these, the disciples, but not for these only, but for those who will believe... Listen to this, folks, speaking about the unity of the church, that they all may be one, O and E, one, that the world may believe you have sent me.

And Daniel, one of the things that I've experienced traveling all over the country, 2,200 churches in the last quarter century, you know, I jokingly say this, some people sleep in the pews and some people jump over them. Look, if you believe in Jesus, the Son of God died on the cross, shed his blood to wash our sins away, he rose from the dead, he's coming again, his word is authoritative. The Bible is God's word. Jesus is the Son of God. Through Christ alone, we're saved. I mean, we're family. I mean, we need each other. And so I think fragmentation in the body of Christ has really been a weakening that gives Satan an opportunity. Would you agree? So he first divided Adam from his wife, right?

It's the age-old, most basic military conquest, divide and conquer. And so you mentioned that the high priestly prayer, wherein Jesus does pray that even the believers that came after would be unified, and I really believe that when he's praying that prayer, he's having a vision of his entire church. Not just his church, his body.

Not just his body, his bride. And then the writer of the Hebrews said, And so he saw that goal of that bride, a bride that was without bar, no scars, no pocks, not dirty, but dressed in clean robes, and we're a part of that. In other places, we're called the great cloud of witnesses, and we're told that we're already sitting in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

So if that's all true, these white, momentary, kind of earthly, temporal little bugaboos, they should just flick them away like so many gnats. We're going to go to line 3. John in Alabama. John, thanks for holding. Folks, you're listening to The Hamilton Corner. Alex McFarland sitting in for Abe Hamilton, and we're talking with author and speaker Daniel Venturino, the author of The Battle for Main Street. John in Alabama, thanks for holding. Welcome to the program. Thanks for having me.

Listen, I just want to make a couple of comments and hear your point of view on it. This is what I'm about to say can be verified from Josh McDowell Ministries. He spoke of a large Christian university that was essentially 100% of the young men who were joining that university were addicted to pornography, and about 80% of the young women. And I know in the church, I minister to people like this. It's roughly 70% among the men, and they're really growing fast among the women. What is the church if we're overwhelmingly infested with sexual immorality? And that's all it is.

I was addicted to pornography for many years. I want to hear your comments on that. And I'm going to hang up, and thank you, and really listen carefully.

Thanks. Oh, God bless you, thanks for calling. Daniel, you speak to that, and let me just throw this out there with it. Porn addiction, it messes with people's mind, their life, it definitely can decimate marriages, but is that an obstacle to revival and the movement of the Holy Spirit? Well, any kind of... And porn addiction is about being in service to a false god. That false god, the Greeks would have called Eros, we can call it Pornhub. It doesn't matter what name it goes by, but if we have other gods besides him, then it does interrupt his ability. Because he doesn't like competition.

The Heavenly Father, he expects to sit on his throne and basically dictate to his children, in love, because his ways are the ways of life. But getting back to the main point, and this is deeply personal for me, I can remember the first time I saw a naked woman on a video. And I was 19 years old. And I mean, I'm 35, and I can take you back to that moment. I can tell you the name of the movie.

It was a horror film, not anything pornographic per se, but it was a horror film where a woman was in the shower, and that's how vivid this memory is for me. And this was 26 years ago. So children, especially male children who are being subjected to this kind of material, you realize that in the United States at this moment, there are zero protections, essentially, for children who are online and who may encounter this material. In the year 2000, the Congress passed something called COPA, the Child Online Protection Act, and it went to the Supreme Court.

And Attorney General John Ashcroft actually lost there, and it struck down COPA. And now there are essentially no, at all, safeguards, no rails. I mean, you don't even have to push a button on a website that says, I'm 18 years old. So the kind of culture that we have in America, it's capitalism. Capitalism can be great, but it can also give you better drugs, better porn, more access to filthy things, whether that be online or at your local newsstand. So our children have to be safeguarded, otherwise they're on the road to ruin.

They're on the path to destruction. I believe that President Trump should establish a President's Commission on Infinity and Pornography. This was done under Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s, and I think we need to have another discussion about that. In fact, I read an article wherein some evangelical sent a letter to Mike Pompeo, the attorney general today, and said, why aren't we prosecuting these people under the Infinity Act? I think there's a good reason to revisit this in the courts. Now, Mike, it's in our Supreme Court.

It's in our favor. You know, I forgot about that that you mentioned, but I remember in the early days of the internet, there was that law designed to protect the eyes of little children. And you know what, when you think about this, for one thing, there was a time when business owners and leaders understood decency and the need for morality and modesty and decency. But the other thing I think about that we've lost are parental controls. The guardian of the soul and the psyche of the child was mom and dad.

And let me ask you this, and sadly time fleets away, but we can still squeeze in some good thoughts here in the next few minutes. But Daniel, wouldn't you agree that one of the gateways to the spiritual chaos that we're in right now, really the cultural and spiritual static, one of the things that opened the door for that has been the breakdown of the family, hasn't it? So when we gave men and women things like no-fault divorce, and then you have certain acts of Congress that actually give women incentives to raise children without men, there is a very outspoken black conservative woman named Candace Owens, and she talks about, particularly in the black community, but I think you could extrapolate this to all of American society, is we have a fatherlessness epidemic, and boys don't have a role model, they don't know how to treat women, so women become whatever they want to be. They want to be men because it seems like men have privilege, and what we end up with is emasculine, emasculated males and masculinized females, and it kind of upsets the entire apple cart in terms of God's design for human sexuality. He gave us sex in terms of our biology and our roles and our mission on the earth. Men need women.

We cannot fulfill our God-given mission. That's why, in Genesis account, he calls the woman a helpmate, which is more like a military ally, without whom I cannot fulfill my mission. It's like a necessity for me to be able to have a military victory. And so when the devil comes in, he's crafty and he's been at this for a long time, he's run this experiment many, many times, he knows what works, and so pitting men against women has worked since day one, and our families are suffering for it. But we've been talking a lot about the culture wars, and I think it's actually quite simple. It's not just about winning the culture war, it's about being a prophetic voice in America, raising the dead back to life.

So if you want to win, learn a trade, get a job, get married, have a family. Daniel, forgive me for cutting you off, we're running out of time here. Great conversation, got to have you back on again.

Folks, this is the Hamilton Corner. Hey, pray for America, stand for truth. Alex McFarland here, we're going to be back on tomorrow. More great content to encourage you in your walk and witness. Hey, keep American Prayer and keep your radio tuned to AFR. We'll see you again on the Hamilton Corner tomorrow. Hope you'll join us. The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.