tv Glenn Beck FOX News May 15, 2010 2:00am-3:00am EDT
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slash greta wire. bill o'reilly is next at the ♪ ♪ [ applause ] >> glenn: welcome to another friday from new york. hello, america. the premise of the fridays is to get to know our founding fathers. why? because back in the early 1900s, the progressives had an idea to fundamentally transform america. it crashed the first time. it didn't work. they've been doing it in bits and pieces the whole time. i didn't work the first time because they knew they had to fix three things. one, undermine the constitution. they had to get us off the constitution. stop reading it. it doesn't matter. it doesn't matter. look at the flaw. they also started case law, study case law instead of the founders' words. second thing, undermine the
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founding fathers. we loved these guys until about 1920-1940. then we started losing interest in them. we loved them! they had to take them apart. it's 1920ish that they first start revealing that they're just racist white rich guys. okay? chen the last one was undermine faith and religion. tonight, we're going to restore one of the founding fathers, one you probably never even heard about, and it will also teach you a little bit about faith and religion. it's two in one shot. we have studio audience in tonight and we'll talk to you a little bit, questions, but i want to know who here knew about george whitefield before you were invited to come? three people. three people. i had never heard of this guy. how many have read up since you got the invitation to come? okay. were you amazed at what you learned? do you think there would have been a revolution without him? there wouldn't have been.
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so how come, america, you've never heard of him? well, i'll explain throughout the rest of the evening. i have experts here to teach you about him. he is an amazing guy. first, i want to tell you a little bit about we're all looking for answers, right? that's what we're here. we're here to restore some of these things. if you want to hold on to america, you have to restore them. we're all looking for answers. there are a lot of answers. most people are just focused on politics and everything else. this show is going to be different. a year-and-a-half ago i started the 9.12 project. i haven't talked about it much on this program because it's not my project. i'm a proud 9. 9.12 ermyself, but this is for you. get together. i want to give advice to the 9.12 group. you need to double your efforts and get more people in the project.
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tea parties you play a valuable role. the role is washington. i invite the tea parties to be very careful because you're not rooted in values and principles. it doesn't mean you don't have values and principles, it means it's not your charter. what are your charter fodiding principles? and 9.12 members if you're not studying if value and principle, not looking at that and rooting yourself in that and the founding fathers, then you're doing something different. 9.12 was not a tea party or a political action committee. it was a preservation committee. i saw it as a way for people to get together, know they weren't alone and learn and teach ea other about the value and principles that were important to the founding of our country. this is really important right now, because just like any kind of movement, especially a rights movement, there will be others that join you. martin luther king wasn't alone. there were a couple of other people that wanted to change the world. malcolm x., and only one of
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them stood. another one, william ayers. which one succeeded? the one in values and principles. martin luther king. it's important. we're going to go through tough times in them coming months and years. europe is on its way, we're seeing the very beginning of europe falling apart. and things, when it falls, things are going to come that are going to come crashing down on our heads. they'll come down crashing quickly. we're all going to be, somebody is going to say come follow me, follow me. that direction is going to be a global direction. values and principles and remembering who our founders were. you need to teach your children now. you need to see these things for yourself and then you must teach yourself and then you must teach your children. i've said for years nnow, you must start to see yourself as sarah connor and equip your children with the information
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they need to survive an ever-changing world. ra ronald reagan said many years ago if this country fails and falls, where will the rest of the world go for freedom? he also said this. america is the last stand. on the globe, there is no other place. and if this generation loses man's freedom, according to ronald reagan, this generation will not see it again. i just the other day read a letter between thomas jefferson and james -- or john adams. it was 1920 -- 1823, 1824. and they were going back and forth and they were talking about wow, this is going to fall apart at some point. and thomas jefferson said yes, yes. if they lose freedom -- he's speaking of us. future generations, if they lose freedom, there will be rivers of blood. i mean he talks about rivers of blood three or four times before we finally gain freedom back. boy, i hope that's not true.
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but i can tell you there will be rivers of blood if we don't have values and principles. second attempt, third attempt, fourth attempt. it will take a while to turn it back around. you must see yourself as guardian, to preserve what is true and pass it on. be a guardian. we don't need militants or revolutionaries. we need guardians, leaders. there are plenty of minute men. people willing to be minute men. where are the people that want to be george washington? where is benjamin franklin and where is john adams or sam adams? that's what the 9.12 is. not to create warriors but to create great minds to understand freedom and be able to be the next george washington. that is your role. now it may be your george washington, it may be that you're george whitefield. it may not be that. it may be that you have to inspire somebody to be that.
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you may be raising the next george washington. guide them, shape them. live the principles and the values. almost nobody in this country is living them. learn the truth. liver the life of our founders and be a decent, righteous, forth right honest man and woman. do this one thing. promise yourself you'll never deal underhanded to anybody and be honest all of your business dealings. that is hard. conquer that one. demand it of yourself. demand a higher standard for yourself and your children and do it now. your children need to see an example, your children need to learn these things and must be prepared. your children need to know what is true and what is not. what it is to work. what merit is. there's one thing, there's one thing that i learned from george whitefield. and that is individual rights
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and standing out alone, being a guy who this guy took eggs and tomatos to the head all the time. this guy was an outcast all the time. he was a preacher. look at him. i don't think i can take him seriously. look at him. i hope that's not really what he looked that. [ laughter ] he stood there. he wasn't in a church. no church would let him speak. he went outside in the snow and the rain. alone! he was fascinated by moses and so am i. when moses went out in the wilderness, the israelites were constantly complaining. "i'm hot, i'm cold. are we there yet?" over and over and over again. moses got to the point god, just kill me, okay? i can't be with these people anymore, okay? they were having a tough
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time. god was not some distant concept. he was personal to moses. just take me now. just kill me now. god said i'm going to send fiery snakes because i'm sick of those people, too. here is what happened. he said to moses, "moses, just take one of the snakes, make a representation of it and put it on a stick and tell everybody to look at it." if they are bitten by the fiery serpent, tell them to look at the stick and they'll be fine. what would you do? what would you do? i'd be like you got to be kidding me, right? i'm going to look at the stick? i don't think so. if i would have had seas open up and the water from the rock and everything else, i might have listened to moses but a lot of them different, because it was too simple. it was too simple. didn't make sense. what is that story really about? what is the message?
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the message moses was bringing is look to god and live. look to god and live. there is going to be a lot of answers. a lot of them are going to be complex. don't dismiss the simple one. it's not about you. it's not about me. it's really about our children and their freedom. their freedom to look to god to live. i want to bring in two experts on george whitefield. thomas kidd, associate professor and history of baylor university, author of kwelt gr "great awakening." how are you? have a seat. joined by jerome hathe. how are you? >> fine. >> glenn: associate professor of communications at indiana university east and author of "preaching politics: the religious rhetoric of george whitefield and the founding of a new nation." guys, first of all, neither of you thought i'll do a national show on george
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whitefield soon. right? am i the first person to say -- yeah. he's totally relaced from most people's history books. most people never heard of george whitefield. how big of a role do you think he played? >> well, one of the things you have to start with, with whitefield, he was the best-known person in colonial america, period. >> glenn: how is that possible? that's like in 200 years people saying michael jackson, who? what? he was that big of a rock star, right? >> he was. the equivalent of saying they hadn't heard about billy graham or something not to know about whitefield. the primary instigators of the great awakening of the 18th century and he spoke to and was seen by far the most people in colonial america.
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before the revolution, the best known person in america. >> glenn: he actually, he had this weird ability to be able to speak in front of crowds, outside, because nobody would let him preach in church. so he would speak out in crowds of sometimes 20,000 people. and everybody could hear him, they said, without screaming. >> right. he was trained in the theater as a youth. he was a talented actor. of course, they would develop your vocal projection and your ability to get your voice out there. he also had a gift, a gifted voice. sarah edwards, jonathan's wife, called it "sweet." ben franklin called it like a beautiful piece of music. that's all they could compare his voice to. so he had a voice that people love toed listen to just for the sound of it.
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>> glenn: franklin actually walked the perimeter one time, right? >> whitefield took a lot of criticism for overinflating the numbers in the newspaper. they said oh, 20,000 people, c'mon! >> glenn: right. >> so franklin actually checked it out because franklin and whitefield were very good friends. among the major founders, franklin is whitefield's closest friend. a time that franklin went to philadelphia and marked out the boundaries and say is this true? could 30,000 people or so hear him at one time? franklin said absolutely. >> glenn: strange we're told that franklin is a godless heathen and it's strange that he would become friends with a guy responsible for the great awakening. despite the fact that franklin wasn't a godless heathen, what did they see in each other? >> probably saw a bit of each other in one another.
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they were public figures and celebrities in a sense and both involved in the printing industry. franklin, of course, a printer, and whitefield as the writer. they were, they did a lot of projects together early on is how they came to know each other. in fact, they were close enough that franklin wanted to move to ohio, the ohio territory with whitefield and start a new colony. >> glenn: i think that's amazing. i never read that before. it can't imagine anybody saying this. they said that whitefield was emotional and fake about it. they said he was an entertainer and he didn't believe this stuff, that he was just doing it for money. >> no, no, no. >> glenn: why would they say that? >> they feared him. ben franklin would have known a fake, i think. and maintained a close relationship with him throughout whitefield's life.
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whitefield died before franklin. nobody ever accused him of sounding fakes, even the critics. that wasn't one of the problems they had with it. they were afraid of him, afraid of what he said. >> glenn: you know, i want to get into what he said but let me go to this. you said franklin would have sensed a fraud. tell the story. which one of you knows the story when franklin came to listen to him and said, "i'm not giving this guy a dime"? >> franklin, he came as you said to a meeting one time. one of the reasons that whitefield was criticized is he raised a lot of money for the orphanage in georgia. >> glenn: the first televangelist without the television. >> right. that kind of religious celebrity is what he was about. he raised enormous amount of money for charity, especially for his orphanage.
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franklin and whitefield, they had a funny relationship. if you ever get a chance and go back and look at franklin's autobiography, he has a nice section in there about his relationship with whitefield. funny, they were different on religion. franklin believed in god, believed in providence, but skeptical about traditional christianity. >> glenn: right. >> they kind of understood one another. franklin went to one of his meetings and he said i know he is going to ask for money and i'm not giving anything. franklin -- whitefield started speaking and frank lynn said i guess i'll give the coppers in my pocket. next thing you know he had given the silver. by the time the sermon was over he emptied the whole thing out, including the gold. >> glenn: now this guy is the reason, this is the guy that really, the black robe brigade started, the preachers started talking about individual freedoms and there probably wouldn't have been a revolution if it
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>> glenn: tonight we're talking about "founders' fridays" about george whitefield. there are plenty of stories you can find i promise you, you never learned in school. more stories on the insider extreme at glennbeck.com/extreme. you will find more stories tonight on george whitefield. also, this weekend, insider extreme will stream the speech at the nra an conference, i'm giving it on saturday. details on glennbeck.com. i'm also giving the commencement address at liberty university. both of those will be carried live on insider extreme. okay. back with thomas kidd and jerome mahaffey. we are talking about george whitefield. i want to, i just want to set the scene a little bit. when he is young, he is over in england and he's famous in england first. he converts and becomes a methodist. but then he has kind of a really strange -- or strained relationship with most of the preachers.
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that comes from the preachers really being, you know, church of england. it was like, you know, it was like having barack obama give your sermon all the time, i imagine, where the government spin through the eyes of god. they didn't really care about the poor, because the poor didn't vote. right? he is the first guy saying there are people throughout, guys, there are people out there cold and hungry. they caused some real -- that caused some real strain in england. >> one of the issues that caused strain was he would say about the ministers of the established churches that i don't think you are r really w what christianity is all about. you inherited your christianity, rather than chosen it as a belief. >> glenn: he was the first guy that really made popular the idea of "born again," right? >> he called it the new birth. that's the term that was circulating then. >> glenn: right. and they didn't like it because they were like --
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look at the way they were dressed. they're all stuffy and he gets emotional, he's like feel it! >> and the concept of being born again is something jesus talked about, that you will never see the kingdom of heaven unless you are born again. whitefield understood that as a heart-level relationship with god. it's h not just going to church, ascenting to doctrine and having a personal experience with god, that affects your heart, not just your mind, because it's a relationship. people got emotional about this. you said about the poor, he would go to the coal miners, for instance and say god loves you, god cares about you. i know nobody else cares about you, but god loves you. >> glenn: nobody said that. back in those days that was not done, right? he went to the coalmines. i read that he went to the woods and nobody -- these are people that couldn't read,
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write. nobody, they were outcasts of society. it took immense courage for him. he comes up on a hill and he says god loves you. and people stopped and listened to him for a while. and a crowd gathers. they had never been preached to before. they had -- at least that way. he didn't use the rhetoric, he was speaking the common man's language. >> he was a common man. he came i from a poor family. his father died and his mother struggled to make a living of the inn they owned. merchant class of england. but they weren't wealthy. he could speak their language. that was his language. >> glenn: now he comes to america and he's back and forth in america all the time. what is it that he is talking about that stirs -- we know he stirs people to trouble in england, because he's
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challenging the church of england. he says you have to feel it in here. you guys are dead inside. he's causing people to be unstable. he said they're whipping, he's whipping people up in a frenzy. they're all emotional. you know, all the stuff that obama says about the tea parties now. tell me about when he comes here to america. what is his message that begins to light the fire for the american revolution? >> one thing you have to understand about colonial america, most of the colonies had established churches. like in england, many colonies, the church of england was the state church. so he's addressing many of the same problems there. he says your religion has become routine and lifeless to you. i'm not even sure if the priests get it. are you priests even in your heart christians?
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of course, this is very offensive. it needs to be said, but it's also very offensive. so if you are a pastor and he says this about you, you are banned from the church. >> glenn: right. >> right. so he ends up in trouble almost everywhere he goes. he is often banned from the churches. but for whitefield, this plays right in his hands. then he has full permission to go in the fields and have the mass meetings. that's where he feels the most comfortable. >> glenn: now he is attacked. they've thrown rotten eggs at him, tomatoes. i read an account that someone threatened him with a bolt. you know, who is setting this stuff up? people who didn't like him or was this a set-up? >> this kind of opposition was going on in england. it didn't happen in america. and what whitefield felt the anglican established clergy were behind a lot of this. this was never proven in history. >> glenn: so like maybe the pastors unions.
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>> hiring some thugs to go out and break up the meeting. >> glenn: i'm just saying there was an andy stern in the story some place. [ laughter ] >> and i think sometimes when you strike a chord with people and you start gaining that kind of celebrity, sometimes it makes people mad. >> sure. >> you may have some experience. >> glenn: no. what are you talking about? back in just a second. cial repo"
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♪ ♪ >> glenn: last weekend i was in new jersey and speaking in front of a group and there were several pastors in the audience. about 1,000 people there. i started to talk about the guy we're talking about tonight, george whitefield. and i started to talking, telling the story about who this guy was and what he taught the american people. when i finished, an african-american pastor, evangelical got up and he was going to say the closing prayer. he got up and he looked at me and he said, "i am never going to preach the same again. i know exactly what i'm supposed to be doing now. it all make sense to m me." i think george whitefield is a man for today. he's complicated and controversial.
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we'll get to his views on slavery, which were bizarre, but a man of his time, i guess. he was a man years before the revolution, was teaching colonists they could have a relationship with god, they could stand up to authority, he's the man that laid the groundwork for the revolution. he's the guy who taught america stand up for yourself as an individual. whitefield. if there was no whitefield, no revolution. back with kidd, associate professor of history at baylor university and gre"the great awakeninawakening". could you make the title any longer? and jerome mahaffey, the associate professor of indiana university east and author of politics: the religious rhetoric of george whitefild and the founding of a new nation". ok okay. let's go back to the question i asked last time. why no george whitefield>> tellwhitefield>whi?
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tell me about the idea of individual rights versus collective rights, the power of the individual. >> i think at the heart of the message he was trying to teach people in england and america was that an individual needs to take responsibility for his or her own faith. that god is offering them salvation through christ and they need to individually appropriate that. and it made, i think -- there was an implication within that, that all people are also equal before god. because they stand before -- in the same relationship to god. their need of salvation. they're all created by god. so they are equal before god. you mentioned slavery earlier. he had complicated views about slavery -- >> glenn: it's not complicated. he was for it. he brought it to georgia. >> and he was a slave owner, unfortunately. but he was clear that slaves
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had souls and needed to be saved. >> glenn: which was an odd idea in his time or not? >> this were some slave masters who were part of the church of england who said we don't even need to tell the slaves about christianity, because we're not even sure that they are even able to be saved. besides, if we tell them about christianity, they may start to get ideas about freedom and liberty. >> glenn:yes they would. >> and moses leading the jews out of egypt and this sort of thing. we don't want to tell them about that. >> glenn: strangely for slavery, but when he got it to maryland and made his first trek to georgia from new york, he comes through maryland and sees the plantation and he is horrified at slavery. he is for slavery, but horrifi horrified because he thinks they're being treated -- he said you be kind to slaves, they have souls. he didn't make the final
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leap. i found it bizarre that he was for slavery, but couldn't get his arms around the way you were treating -- like there is a good way to treat your slave. >> in that sense, he's as problematic as the bible is about this. the bible has verses that say masters be kind to your slaves and he took that at face value and hadn't quite gotten to the point he would question even the institution. >> glenn: but he did in england, if i'm not mistaken. he had influence on newton, john newton, right? >> right. >> glenn: john newton. play this clip, from one of my favorite movies. "amazing grace." watch this. >> slaves. >> i'm the last person you should come to for advice. i can't even say the name of any of my ships without being on board them in my head. all i know is 20,000 slaves
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live with me in this little church and there is still blood on my hand. >> will you help me, john? >> i can't help you. do it. do it. >> glenn: that is the man who wrote "amazing grace," the song. when you know the story, this is a guy that believed in slavery but played a role in inspiring that man. sometimes history is a little complex. back in a second.
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he is the guy who i said at the beginning of the 9.12. grow them. grow them. that is what he did. unbeknownst to him. barbara has a question on george whitefield. >> yes. as you say we want to grow more people like george whitefield. when i was reading about george whitefield, i was amazing at what he came from, that he grew up in such poverty he never had a father figure in his life. he was not a great student. he got into youthful scrapes and yet, i want to know, so many of your american youth share the circumstances. or many of them. what was it that motivated him at age 18 to decide to work his way through oxford? what can our youth learn from him? >> that is a tough question. he writes about this in his journal and he saw an opportunity to go to college and become educated. he wanted to become a
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clergyman. that was the career he had chosen without the personal relationship. >> glenn: yeah, it was more of a job, wasn't it? >> more of a job. >> a calling. >> prestige, too. early on. he decided to do that before his conversion. >> glenn: right. >> and then he was converted in college hanging out with john and charles westerly and others of what we call "the holy club" now, or they called it that back then, i believe. then his life, now he had a mission. at some point he made it his mission to make the whole world his parish. >> glenn: what i learned, ben franklin -- does anybody know ben franklin's view on poverty and the poor? it's shocking. nobody would say it today. he said you want to help the poor? make them uncomfortable in their poverty, they will pull themselves out. he was uncomfortable in his poverty. so he wanted to do something about it. get out. but then he fell in with the right kind of friends. and then was transformed.
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i think the lesson, those lessons, but then it's followed by stand up, know what you believe and then stand up for it. no matter what arrows come. tom? >> yes, i guess i'm starting to learn more about him as the show is progressing but there is still a part of my understanding that is dark. he affected the culture and the spiritual nature of the american spirit. what part -- except maybe indirectly. is there a more direct part he played in the political landscape himself? he died if i'm not mistaken, 1770, six years before the revolution. was there something to be had that had a direct impact on the political future of the country, or was it just through -- i don't mean to diminish it when i say "just." but it through the culture, society and the spirit of the
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country? >> well, you're correct. it was through the culture and society. he had probably a very profound impact on a lot of people. not everyone, but many. perhaps even a majority of american society. as the minister, as his enterprise, as it's cait's cal he became more politically active for the whig party. >> glenn: like the libertarian. they wanted freedom. >> and a strong parliament, the people having say in making of the laws. the torries, of course, were the pro-king party. >> glenn: i have to tell you -- we have to take a break. don't dismiss the power, look at what has happened to our culture now. the power of the suggestion that you can't make it. you'll never make it. you need a hand-out. you need this and you need that. his was the opposite message. his message was no, you got a
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direct channel here, that's all you need! and i think that idea of the power of the individual that has been lost in -- it wasn't here in america was lost in america. and needs to be regrown now, i think, is the key. back in a second. i got an egg [pop] i got gum a kazoo a candy necklace i got one of these [pop] a stamp helium fabric softener
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>> glenn: back with guests thomas kidd and jerome mahaffey. we're talking about george whitefield, our founder for friday today. >> i just wanted to follow up on this issue about whitefield's political involvement. as the 1760s went on, he did become very overtly involved with crisis between britain and the colonies. in fact, he may have been one of the earliest people from britain to start warning the
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colonists that there was trouble coming. there is reports that in 1764, he came to america and said there is trouble coming from britain. and your golden days are at an end, is the quote of what he said. began warning people ahead of time this was coming. >> he called it, "there is a deep laid plot against your civil and religious liberties." >> you're right. >> glenn: hang on, hang on. there is a -- what is it again? >> a deep laid plot. >> glenn: a deep laid blot. >> against your civil a liberties, your golden days are at an end. my heart bleeds for you, america. >> right. so when he goes back to england, with his good friend franklin. when franklin testifies before parliament on the colony's behalf because of their protests against the stamp act, and whitefield i think behind the scenes is advocating against the stamp act. by the time you get to
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whitefield's passing, the funerals by the colonial pastors say he's largely to thank for repeal of the stamp act. he was a true patriot, not just in words but also in actions. they interpret him having a significant role in the resistance. >> glenn: you can understand how significant his role was also by what benedict arnold's men did. before they went into batt battle -- this is shocking today. just as moses, right, was care aried in the land of milk and honey. the tablets representing him, what did they do here? >> in 1775 when the war started, impendence hadn't been declared but in 1775, benedict arnold, the man that later became a great traitor against quebec and some of
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the troops stopped in newberry port, massachusetts, where whitefield is buried. it was sunday and they want to keep marching along. they had a parade and church service. then this is where it gets weird. the officers went to the crypt where whitefield was buried, they opened up the tomb and took his clerical collar and wristbands and they cut them up and distributed them among the office officers to go out on the campaign. >> glenn: so they could wear it in battle. >> to take it with them. this speaks to the power and resonance of whitefield in the culture at that time. they see him as the representative of what the revolution is about. >> glenn: i think it also says something about how our culture has far too many spooky movies, because i'd be too chick on the go chicken toe crypt and get some stuff.
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[ applause ] >> glenn: sitting with a group of people in new york, and we're talking about george whitefield. yeah, this is a show that -- this is so sexy! i can see why people watch. a guy who most people don't even know and rhonda, yes, you had a question. >> why aren't our children learning more about george whitefield? he had such power and impact on our society. >> well, i think in america we have a hard time dealing with the topic of religion in the public schools. somehow if you talk about somebody like whitefield does it mean you are endorsing him? i don't think so. >> glenn: you know, america, it's time to start talking about religion and time to start talking about the truth about all of these guys and if jesus is involved, jesus is involved. get over it. the truth will set us free. from new york, good night, from new york, good night, america.
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