Roger Marsh: Well welcome to Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk, the radio division of the James Dobson Family Institute. I'm Roger Marsh thanking you for making us a part of your day each and every day. And remember, if you like what you hear, we do hope you'll share that good news with a friend. As we begin the second month of the new year today, Dr. And Mrs. Dobson extend to you their warm wishes and blessings for peace and good health. You know, the times may be challenging, unprecedented in fact, but we hope that our program will provide the encouragement and strength that you can use in your walk with Christ in today's culture.
Roger Marsh: Now, if you watch the inaugural address of President Joe Biden back on January 20th, the theme was unity. You would think he would want to enact a bipartisan agenda for the good of the American people. However, that ominous stack of more than 15 executive orders, which he signed the same day in the Oval Office revealed what some have described as a contempt for the 74 million people who did not vote for him. Now, Dr. Dobson is particularly concerned with President Biden's hostility toward religious liberty. Tyler O'Neil of PJ Media rightly said that Biden plans to, "Gut religious freedom protections that allow faith-based homeless shelters, charities and small business owners to act according to their consciences. Specifically, he will shove LGBT ideology down the throats of religious Americans in the name of fighting "discrimination."
Roger Marsh: Ultimately, Dr. Dobson believes that the president's advocacy of the homosexual transgender agenda is anti-ethical to the teachings of scripture. Genesis 1:27 says that God created man and woman. And Genesis 2:24 says that God has reserved marriage exclusively for one man and for one woman. That is why beginning today we are airing our top-rated two-part program from 2020. You'll hear Dr. Dobson's insightful conversation with David Horowitz, author of the book, Dark Agenda: The War to Destroy Christian America.
Roger Marsh: The evidence for the dark agenda is everywhere. We are all familiar with the story of Jack Phillips, the Colorado Christian Baker who refused to create a cake to celebrate a full homosexual "wedding" because it conflicted with his deeply held religious beliefs. While the Colorado civil rights commission ruled that he had discriminated against people on the basis of sexual orientation, appallingly comparing his views to those of the Nazis. Jack Phillips appealed his case all the way to the Supreme Court and won.
Roger Marsh: And just last month, the state of Virginia tried to compel Christian photographer, Bob Updegrove to photograph a pho homosexual "wedding." Unbelievably, he could face fines of up to $150,000 if he refuses to do so. Now Mr. Updegrove objected to government's desire to label him a bigot, to punish him and remove him from the public square. To his credit, the photographer said, "If the government can tell you what to do, what to say and what to create, then we do not live in a free America." The war to destroy Christian America is front and center.
Roger Marsh: Now what's intriguing about David Horowitz since he has mounted an unapologetic defense of America's Christian heritage is that he is Jewish. Indeed he warns that the rising attacks on Christians and their beliefs threaten all Americans, including Jews like himself. Horowitz argues that the left and their radical allies envision a new millennium in which Christianity is banished. He says that, "Judeo-Christian values are at the very root of America's democracy, kill off such values and all of our freedoms could perish." David Horowitz knows well what the left is capable of because he wants counted himself one of its most devoted disciples, having been raised by parents who were dyed in the wool communists. He was a long-time founder of the new left movement of the 1960s.
Roger Marsh: But after an epiphany, he founded the David Horowitz Freedom Center back in 1988. Unique among conservative think tanks, it's geared to fight a war of ideas that many still don't recognize. Here now is part one of Dr. James Dobson's conversation with David Horowitz on this special edition of Family Talk.
Dr. Dobson: I want to welcome you David to our program today. You've never been with me. I've been on the air for 42 years. Where in the world have you been, my brother?
David Horowitz: Well, thank you for inviting me. I've been embattled on these religious grounds before. This was an opportunity for me also to look at and understand the Christian foundations of America.
Dr. Dobson: As a Jew, why have you chosen to defend the Christian faith?
David Horowitz: Well, I was a radical in the 60s. My parents were actually brought up by card-carrying communists and sometime along in the early 70s, my eyes were open to the fact that I was part of a very destructive and evil movement, which is now called progressivism. When the Black Panther Party, which I had raised a lot of money for murdered a woman I had recruited to do the bookkeeping for their operations. And then when the left forced America to withdraw its support of its allies in Vietnam, and the communist proceeded to slaughter two and a half million innocent Indochinese people. And of course there were no protests from the left. And then I said, "I am involved in a truly evil movement and I have to rethink everything that I believed in."
Dr. Dobson: You went through a crisis during that time didn't you? Where everything that you had been taught as a child, your parents were communists or at least your father was.
David Horowitz: Both of them were.
Dr. Dobson: Both of them were and you've been part of the communist movement and the leftist agenda for all those years. You were 35 years of age all of a sudden-
David Horowitz: So all my work was also, it was bad. I didn't want people to read the books I had written, because they were attacks on America. So I had to rethink America. I had to take another look. And one of the first things that occurred to me is you can't have an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness unless there's a God or unless you have respect for the idea of God, and respect for people who believe in God. Because of your rights are given to you by the government, they can be taken away.
David Horowitz: So that was the beginning of my search into America's religious foundations. Now, America was founded and was settled by and founded by 98% Protestant Christians. So I looked into that too. And I saw that every value that we have, everything that we really cherish, the idea of the equality of all beings, the idea of tolerance, the idea of inclusion.
Dr. Dobson: Free speech.
David Horowitz: Free speech, freedom of expression, freedom of conscience. These were all Christian ideas and they're Protestant Christian ideas. America is a product of the Protestant reformation. It could not have been founded by any other religion, including and especially atheism. Until the reformation or before the reformation, you couldn't get to heaven except by going through the Catholic church and its priesthood. But the Catholic church like every church is a human institution. Therefore, it's subject to human corruptions.
David Horowitz: So when the Protestants came up with this idea of the priesthood of all believers and that is the idea from which America was created. Think about it for a moment. The idea of the priesthood of all believers is that everybody is on an equal footing in terms of confronting their creator one-on-one without the intermediary of a church or a priest, the priesthood of all believers. Well, that includes black slaves. And that's why America was a pioneer in freeing the slaves.
David Horowitz: America gets blamed for a lot of the sins of the English. I mean, there's a lot of racism out there, particularly among progressives. They want to trace America's sin of slavery back to 1619 when first settlers came. But there was no America in 1619. America was born in 1776 behind the proposition that all men are created equal and that everybody has an inalienable right to liberty.
David Horowitz: Immediately, the slaves were being freed in the Northern States or I think they were completely free by the beginning of the 19th century. The slave trade was ended. The reason that they couldn't liberate the whole country was because this plantation economy in the South was a livelihood. And it was what the wealth of the South was built on. There wasn't a case where a country abolished an institution, which was its economic foundation.
Dr. Dobson: So there was a lot of evil there-
David Horowitz: And they knew there was going to be a Civil War if they did that.
Dr. Dobson: That's what it took.
David Horowitz: And eventually they bit that bullet and went into a Civil War, really one generation. They gave 350,000 union lives and freed the slaves. America can be proud of its heritage. Slavery was an evil institution, but the slaves were not enslaved by Americans. They were enslaved by black Africans and sold at slave auctions in Ghana and Benin to Englishman who brought them to America. You have to judge America by what happened from their revolution. And what happened was the immediate freeing of slaves and eventually the abolition of slavery, not only in America, but in the Western hemisphere.
David Horowitz: In a sense, you could look at it this was the greatest gift given to black people in 3000 years, because nobody had said that slavery was immoral until a Christian in England, Wilberforce really led this movement and then Thomas Jefferson wrote it into the Declaration of Independence.
Dr. Dobson: Let's go back to what you said about the presupposition that the American foundational documents presupposed a God. And yet, you're not speaking as a God-fearing. You are an agnostic.
David Horowitz: I am an agnostic. It just means that I don't know. Look, atheism is a faith. You can't know that there's no God. It's a faith. In my view, it's a very bad faith and a very destructive one and it's full of hate. But a believing Christian or a believing Jew has to be touched by faith. Who knows? My personal history is in constant embattlement. At first, I was a leftist attacking this country. And then I spent the last 40 years defending it and taking on the left, whatever it is. I don't know that there's a God. I don't have that faith, but I believe and I have written that the greatest wisdom that I know of about our condition or who we are and where we are is to be found in the Bible.
Dr. Dobson: It is very obvious to anybody who's paying attention that we are at war today. There is a war of values, we called it a civil war of values, but there is an antipathy to anything Christian or conservative, which is sometimes the same thing versus the leftist agenda and they are determined to destroy the foundations of this country.
David Horowitz: To deny the role that Christians played in ending slavery, to deny the role that America played in ending slavery is to attack America in its very foundation. If you understand the role that Christian values have played in creating this country, that it could only have been created by Protestant Christians.
Dr. Dobson: Even though George Washington had slaves and so did Jefferson.
David Horowitz: Yeah, I mean, he freed them and his wife Martha didn't. But the fact of the matter is this country is responsible for the global idea now that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with an alienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Dr. Dobson: Take us quickly through the history of this antipathy, this hatred, this violence in many cases against Christian thoughts. You dare not stand up as a member of Congress and talk about Jesus Christ.
David Horowitz: No.
Dr. Dobson: You're going to pay a price for it. You may be not even keep your seat.
David Horowitz: Yeah. The contempt for Christians, the disrespect is part of the disrespect for America.
Dr. Dobson: Where did it start?
David Horowitz: It started with the Supreme Court, a series of Supreme Court decisions, which were driven by the ACLU and Planned Parenthood lawyers. These are all radicals. My mother actually when she lost her job in the school system because she was a communist was hired by Planned Parenthood because Planned Parenthood was run by communists. And she created the Margaret Sanger Library and got the first Margaret Sanger Award. In 1962, there was a Supreme Court decision that said that prayer in the schools was unconstitutional.
David Horowitz: And I have to tell you, I was a Jew, I was a young person when there was prayer in the schools. I was always fascinated by the Lord's prayer, I loved the language, I liked the ideas and it didn't make me a Christian. It was part of my learning experience, but they drove prayer out of the schools, the prayer that they found offensive. And it was a bunch of leftists who were the plaintiffs. It was a prayer that said something like, "Almighty God, thank you for protecting me, my family and my country." Was about 23 words, non-denominational.
David Horowitz: Prayer had been going on in the schools for 170 years, but a majority of six justices versus one said it was unconstitutional. Now you hear these people on the left they talk about stare decisis and precedent. Here's 170 years of precedent. Nobody ever complained about prayer in the schools until the Supreme Court, until the ACLU brought these suits to the Supreme Court. Justice Potter Stewart who was the lone dissenter pointed out the hypocrisy of the court because the court opens every session with God bless this country in this honorable court. But that didn't make a difference because leftist, they have contempt for what other people think. They think they know better than everybody. And they're not at all shy about running rough shot over everybody's rights and everybody's attitudes by using six Supreme Court justices who happened to be leftists.
Dr. Dobson: And that you say was the opening battle of what's going on to this day.
David Horowitz: You can't teach school children that the pilgrims were Christians and that they were fleeing persecution as Christians. You can't understand American democracy if you don't understand that. Why do we have a secular nation if it was founded by believing Christians, which it was? We have it because these Christians understood that churches are human institutions and therefore subject to human corruption. And they didn't want one church to become the established church and persecutes them the way they have been persecuted in Europe. So they settled on a secular republic.
David Horowitz: So every aspect of what we cherish as Americans in our political system comes from Christians, Protestant Christians. It's as simple as that. And when you look, I mean, just to take something contemporary, the attacks for example on Chick-fil-A, throw them out of the airports. Why because they make bad chicken? No, it's because Chick-fil-A has a charitable arm and it gives to organizations that express their Christian views.
David Horowitz: So the first amendment, which is the cornerstone of all of our freedoms, if you don't have free speech and free conscience, you can't defend any of your freedoms. And that's what the left wants to take away from Chick-fil-A and all Christians for that matter. There's no end to that. Once you lose that right, it's all over.
Dr. Dobson: The second battle in that war was related to the first and it had to do with Bibles in the school, Bible reading.
David Horowitz: Correct. And the spearhead of this, the plaintiff in this case was a lunatic communist named Madalyn Murray O'Hair who founded Atheists of America. And on the eve of when she went to, of course, she was aided by the ACLU lawyers. When she went to war against Bible reading in the schools, right before she did that, she took her family to Europe and tried to defect to the Soviet Union, the communist empire. But the KGB, I guess, saw that this was a lunatic woman. I have stories in there that you wouldn't believe in the book of what she did.
David Horowitz: She was also a pathological liar, but the Supreme Court took this loon that even the Russians thought was a loon and they made her case change the fundamental law of the land. So now Americans are detached from their roots. They don't understand how our country was formed and why it has the particular freedoms that it does and why the institutions like the Electoral College or the Senate.
David Horowitz: Elizabeth Warren is apparently a professor at Harvard though. Who knows if she hadn't lied about her Indian heritage, maybe she wouldn't have been hired by Harvard. She thinks one person, one vote is what the founders wanted. No they didn't because they understood that the problem, the root causes of social problems is us. It's our natures.
Dr. Dobson: You're getting really close to inherited sin there.
David Horowitz: Exactly right. Well, it's inherited, it's in the genes, whatever it comes from people.
Dr. Dobson: David said, "In sin did my mother conceive me." We were born with it. It's not society, it's us.
David Horowitz: Exactly right. I mean, we live in a time when the heads of our intelligence agencies and including the FBI, but also the CIA, all three intelligence heads are corrupt. They did a terrible thing. They tried to engineer a coup. First they spied on the Trump campaign to try to sabotage it. And then they organized a coup to try to remove him from including invoking the 25th Amendment, which was an amendment passed after Kennedy got shot. Because they wondered, the people in Congress wondering what if he had just been incapacitated and not actually killed, lived on as a vegetable? He'd still be the president and still have all that authority.
David Horowitz: So when Democrats say that he needs to be removed and this was actually a plot of the Obama justice department, Rosenstein was going to wear a wire. You see how crazy this all is and how dangerous it is. You cannot trust your government. That's a fundamental idea of the American founders and it's a religious idea. It comes from my Christian view of human nature.
Dr. Dobson: Let me go back many years before this to what you write about this foundation of the hatred against religion. And I'm going to read from your book. This is page four of Dark Agenda.
Dr. Dobson: "Karl Marx famously described religion as the opium of the people and the sigh of the oppressed. Inspired by his hatred ever since, revolutionaries have regarded religion as the enemy of progress and the mask of oppression. In Russia, Marx's disciples removed religious teaching from the schools, outlawed criticism of atheists and agnostics and burned 100,000 churches. When priests demanded freedom of religion, they were sentenced to death. Between 1917 and 1935, 130,000 Russian Orthodox priests were arrested, 95% of whom were executed by firing squad. Radicals in America today don't have the political power to execute religious people and destroy their houses of worship. Yet, they openly declare their desire to obliterate religion."
Dr. Dobson: That really is one of the foundational concepts that goes all the way back to Karl Marx.
David Horowitz: Part of what I've tried to put into this book is my lifetime experience with an understanding of the political left. Leftists habitually lie and they lie because if they told you what their true agendas are, what their endgame is, they probably would be strung up from the nearest lamppost. So they pretend to be Progressives. My parents never referred to themselves as communists, even though they were, it was always Progressives. And they call themselves liberals. They're vindictive bigots. They're liberal at all. Conservatives are liberals. Christians are liberal. We believe in two sides to a conversation we believe in showing respect to other people.
Roger Marsh: I'm Roger Marsh and you've been listening to Dr. Dobson's conversation with conservative writer, David Horowitz. Visit today's broadcast page at drjamesdobson.org for information about David's book, Dark Agenda or his many other organizations. That's drjamesdobson.org and then click onto the broadcast page. Are you looking for resources that will encourage and guide you and your family? Well then be sure to sign up for Dr. Dobson's valuable monthly newsletter. Every couple of weeks, Dr. Dobson takes time to write a few personal thoughts on issues facing our Christian faith, whether it's wisdom for parents or tips for building a more lasting marriage, you want to have this resource.
Roger Marsh: Now you can get your hands on Dr. Dobson's newsletter without any further obligation. Simply call us at 877-732-6825 and a member of our team will be happy to sign you up and mail you our latest copy of the newsletter. That number again is 877-732-6825. Well, that brings us to the end of today's broadcast. Be sure to join us again tomorrow for the conclusion of Dr. Dobson's interview with popular conservative author and speaker David Horowitz. Don't miss their riveting conversation coming up next time right here on Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk.
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