David Barton and Rick Green of WallBuilders Live! discuss the cultural implications of the 2016 election, specifically as it relates to ballot initiatives. These comments, which have been edited only slightly for clarity, have been taken from the November 11 broadcast of Wallbuilders Live! See below for more information.
David Barton: The final thing we can go through quickly is those 154 ballot initiatives. It’s interesting that while overwhelmingly in the presidential election the things that drove voters tend to be on the conservative side, what the ballot initiatives showed is that they don’t tend to be on the moral side. And so we’re starting to see a distinction between conservative and morality, which is a new thing because it used to be that conservatism was driven by conservative moral principles. And so now some of the libertarian thinking is starting to track in, were we don’t think there’s moral absolutes. Two out of three voters did not think there were moral absolutes, and that scares me. You don’t think rape is a moral absolute? You don’t think other things like that are moral absolutes? Two out of three don’t. And so we now have 28 states who’ve approved marijuana usage. We think smoking dope is a good deal, or at least everybody should be able to do so if they want to. We don’t think that’s a right or a wrong…physician assisted suicide…over the counter drugs, over the counter drugs to kill yourself, we don’t have any problem with that. If you want to kill yourself, no longer does live come from God, no longer do we think that suicide is a wrong deal as the Bible teaches. We think that’s fine if you want to…all truth is up to you. So that’s the bad side of this.
Rick Green: Go back to that moral absolute number. That was two-thirds of…
David Barton: Two-thirds…
Rick Green: …all those that were polled in the exit polling…
David Barton: …and two-thirds of Christians agreed that there are no moral absolutes.
Rick Green: That’s at the heart of all the other negatives.
David Barton: That’s at the heart of all the other negatives. And if you believe that, that there are no moral absolutes—mygosh! The strange thing is there was a very strong conservative undertone in the exit polling, but not a strong moral tone. And for those two to be separated is not a good deal, because conservativism will not last long if its separated from biblical principles. And by the way, I don’t choose the term conservative. We were talking about this on the network last night, that if I look at you and I say, you know, I know that you’re pro-life. I know that you are pro-traditional marriage. I know that you are pro-traditional sexuality. I know that you don’t think that bakers and florists and others should be forced to participate in gay weddings. Then what you’re going to say is, “Oh, then you’re a right-wing conservative.” Now why does that make me a right-wing conservative? Because that’s what the culture says right now. I don’t choose the term conservative, or liberal. Here’s my values. My values are what drive me. But where the culture is—what it says—is that that will make you a conservative. But more and more that’s becoming not the case. It’s becoming the case that, “Well, my values over here are pretty far left, but my political views call for limited government. Well, we know from the Declaration of Independence that limited government starts with your view of God. If you don’t have a God-view and a moral view of government, you will not end up with limited government. So that’s the one thing that I think we have to work on in coming years…
Rick Green: That’s the big thing!
David Barton: Yeah, that’s right! That is the big thing. Otherwise the conservative movement, the biblical movement has no future unless we get back into moral values, moral rights and wrongs.
Background:
On Thursday and Friday, November 10 and 11, Wallbuilders Live! radio broadcasts featured highlights of the 2016 election. Co-hosts David Barton and Rick Green discussed, not just the presidential race and the implications for America and for Christians, but other races as well, and numerous ballot initiatives.
The November 10 broadcast is available at the WallBuilders Live! website here, and the November 11 broadcast here.
For your convenience, both broadcasts also can be heard here:
Wednesday, November 10
Thursday, November 11
The above transcript was lifted from the November 11 broadcast, beginning at 23:14 and concluding at 16:16.
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