Marshall Foster's Blog
November 2, 2023
Travel, Learn, Experience
The sun is rising above the trees on the morning of July 4th, 2019, as a man dressed like Thomas Jefferson steps onto the Capital West balcony in Colonial Williamsburg. The sea of people decked out in red, white and blue are quiet and attentive as Jefferson confidently reads the Declaration of Independence. At his conclusion, the crowd bursts into cheers and applause with a number of attendants visibly moved to tears. We spend the rest of the day wandering the historic streets of Colonial Williamsburg, popping into log cabins where cobblers and seamstresses are busy at work adorned in ancient clothes. We listen to audio tours while driving through Jamestown and Yorktown and find a historic home turned bakery for a late afternoon snack. This was the start of our summer trip educating our then 7th graders about Colonial America and the foundations of our country.
We are a family of four that started our homeschool journey at 1st grade. We are currently in our 11th year of homeschooling and have made it a priority to take every opportunity to actually experience the subjects that we’re teaching. With every resource at our fingertips, there is an abundance of ways for our children to learn. Sometimes we watch documentaries or read books, but when we get to physically go to a location and walk through history, it’s a completely different learning experience. We get a front row seat when the switch flips for our kids and we hear, “Wait, I saw a picture of this in that book!”, or, “I recognize this place from that black and white documentary!”
We as parents get to benefit from their education when we go on these adventures as well! We often feel like much of the history we learned as kids was incomplete, biased, and often lacked the truth about the Biblical foundations our country was built on. It’s an education for all of us!
Our summer road trip of 2019 gave us an excellent opportunity to spend July and August traveling up the east coast in our RV and hitting every historic settlement, battlefield, city, museum, fort, monument …and well, anything else of interest that we could find! We spent time at Gettysburg, Valley Forge, Fort Ticonderoga, and Boston to name a few places, but we also took the time to visit Botanical Gardens in Delaware, a small family owned apple orchard in Vermont, and Acadia National Park. There is a historical treasure trove of destinations within a few hours of one another along the east coast that will take you back in time and give you and your children such a rich understanding of the beginnings of America.
We have been blessed to have the freedom to work from pretty much anywhere, a luxury we don’t take for granted. This particular road trip allowed for us to visit 16 states and 2 Canadian Provinces, but we realize not everyone can take on such a long voyage. Homeschoolers on average have more freedom than most, however, a two month road trip can seem very out of reach.
So how does the average family find the time to take educational adventures with all the work commitments, extracurricular activities, and busy schedules? Get creative! There is history EVERYWHERE around you if you do a little research! Some google searching or a trip to your town’s visitor center is a great place to start. My personal favorite trip planning website/app is called Roadtrippers and I use it not only to map out a route, but to find all the interesting, unique, scenic and historic spots that are worth seeing.
America is begging to be rediscovered by today’s generation. Your kids need to know the building blocks that our great country was founded on so they know what to stand for, what to fight for and what freedom really is!
The Ark Encounter Shenandoah National Park Colonial Williamsburg/Jamestown/Yorktown Gettysburg Valley Forge Rockwood Museum Longwood Gardens Mystic Seaport Narragansett Newport Rosecliff Cape Cod Provincetown Plimouth Plantation Providence Boston Salem Gloucester Kennebunkport Acadia National Park Quebec City Mount Washington Chimney Point State Historic Site Champlain Orchards Fort Ticonderoga Niagara Falls Mackinac Island Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore Indiana Dunes National Park
Ready for your own learning adventure? Be sure to check out the Stepping Stones Scholarship!
November 16, 2022
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August 15, 2014
Restoring Freedom in Times of Trial
This summer thousands of Americans will gather in Plymouth, Massachusetts to celebrate the 225th anniversary of the largest and most important granite monument in America – The Forefathers Monument.
The strategy of freedom engraved on this memorial to the Pilgrims is the same unchanging, biblical plan for restoring any collapsing republic. This plan was employed by our colonial ancestors in their time of trial.
The American colonists, in 1774, found themselves fatally estranged from their own countrymen in England. Just 150 years before, the English had spearheaded the birth of liberty in the English Civil War and the English Bill of Rights. However, by this time the English had strayed from their own “rule of law” traced back to Magna Carta. England invaded the colonies and boarded their troops in colonial homes. They were in the process of inflicting complete religious and political tyranny on the colonies.
What was the colonial response? They believed that they had a responsibility of highest impor- tance to God, their nation, and their children and grandchildren. The Continental Congress in Philadelphia unanimously declared, “It is an indispensable duty which we owe to God, our Country, ourselves, and posterity, by all lawful ways and means in our power to maintain, defend and preserve those civil and religious rights and liberties, for which many of our fathers fought, bled and died, and to hand them down entire to future generations.”
What was the source of the strength and character expressed in these words? The following roadmap outlines the essentials that the colonists developed over 150 years which enabled them to create and maintain the world’s most free and prosperous nation.
First, parents, clergy and schools were united in teaching all students to apply their biblical faith to every area of society. For example, their education included the biblically based political theory of liberty that had been developing for 700 years. They knew the impact of Magna Carta on the development of English common law and its influences on over 80 colonial constitutions and covenants written by the colonists themselves before 1776. According to a study commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson, the fathers read the Bible and the newspaper to their families for almost an hour every morning. This study and others revealed nearly 100% literacy in the colonies, while the vast majority of Europeans were illiterate and under the deceptions of tyrants.
Second, the colonists were diligent to create a virtuous, local accountable government which stood strong against the oppressive, tax, spend and steal government imposed from England. Professor Marvin Olasky says, “Many colonists, in short, tried to learn from English mistakes by moving consistently toward a small-government approach: they built up an authority that would provide an alternative to royal government, but they did not want that alternative to aggrandize itself. Rotation of offices [term limits] and limitations on legislation – and on the ability of those in office to bribe poor voters – were crucial in the battle to reduce corruption.”
What the colonists were attempting to avoid was the pernicious corruption of London. Benjamin Franklin, a former devotee of English society, came to see the problem. He said “When I consider the extreme corruption prevalent among all orders of men in this old rotten state [England] …I cannot but apprehend more mischief than benefit from a closer union.” Franklin saw the leviathan nature of the British Parliament as he criticized London’s “numberless and needless places [government jobs], enor- mous salaries, pensions, perquisites, bribes.” He concluded that Britain’s governmental class would “devour all revenue, and produce continual necessity [poverty] in the midst of natural plenty.”
Third, the colonists developed private charitable welfare societies that flourished throughout the colonies. They were able to avoid the dangerous deceitful web of big government welfare of all kinds. Individuals, churches and voluntary associations provided care for the truly needy, charity schools for the poor and immigrants to prepare them for productive jobs. These were far more effective and loving
than any British “Poor Laws” [government welfare]. There was no taxation needed because these activities were funded and staffed primarily through family giving and volunteers (at a minuscule fraction of big government welfare costs).
Fourth, the colonists highly refined the biblically derived free enterprise system built on private ownership and stewardship. This engine of prosperity had eluded nations throughout history because they lacked the civil, economic and religious liberty that are essential to keep rulers and bureaucrats from stealing the fruit of the labor and property of the people. Samuel Adams, the father of the American Revolution, speaks not only to British economic tyranny but to the leaders of any national welfare state. He says, “The Utopian schemes of leveling [redistribution of wealth], and a community of goods [socialism], are as visionary and impracticable, as those which vest all property in the Crown, are arbitrary, despotic, and in our government unconstitutional. Now what property can the colonists be conceived to have, if their money may be granted away by others, without their consent?”
With these foundations of a biblical worldview education, accountable and decentralized government, a welfare net of private charities and free enterprise as the engine of prosperity – our founders bequeathed to us the greatest freedom and prosperity any nation has known.
We have inherited the greatest roadmap for liberty. Let us dedicate “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor” to rebuilding our nation from the grassroots up – God’s way.
-Dr. Marshall Foster
From Scotland to America: Passing the Torch of Freedom
For over 1,000 years the brave Scottish people reasoned, prayed, and fought for the cause of liberty. The spirit of bravehearts like William Wallace, Robert the Bruce and John Knox still runs deep in the American soul. To understand our great hope for recovering freedom and prosperity in America today, it is vital to understand the Scottish fight for liberty.
As the 14th century neared, the English King Edward “Long Shanks” was brutally tyrannizing the Scots and men like William Wallace. Long Shank’s hyper-taxation, land theft, and wholesale murder without trial broke all the rules of Common Law and Magna Carta (the heart of the English constitution). He even passed laws giving his nobles prima nocta (or first rights of nobles to rape Scottish women on the day of their weddings).
After his wife was brutally ravaged and killed by the English, William Wallace raised a citizen army of Scots to throw off English oppression. He became Scotland’s greatest patriot by inspiring his men to fight for liberty based upon their God-given rights guaranteed in Magna Carta and Common Law, all rights derived from the Bible. Wallace was eventually defeated and martyred. But in 1314, Robert the Bruce, King of the Scots, picked up the torch of freedom. He defeated the English oppressors at the Battle of Bannockburn, obtaining liberty in Scotland for 200 years.
Soon after, the Scots wrote the Declaration of Arbroath. This was the first of their biblically based freedom documents. Their words cry out to us through the ages and inspire millions even today. “For as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honors that we are fighting, but for freedom – for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.”
But over the next 200 years, the government abuse under the so-called “divine right” of kings, nearly wiped out freedom once again. The kings of England were burning Scotland’s most sincere believers in the streets.
Then, gloriously, in the 16th century, the original document of freedom, the Bible, was unleashed in the language of the people in Scotland. In 1558, after centuries of semi-pagan barbarity, the Scottish people were led to the Savior and His Word by a former bodyguard, galley slave, and then powerful preacher, John Knox. With their new biblical understanding, they were the first nation to put limits on the power of government (checks and balances). Within a decade the Scots succeeded in dethroning their tyrannical queen.
The struggle for liberty against government oppression would go on for another century. But a number of precious freedom documents were created during this time of trial in Scotland. They set the stage for America’s Declaration of Independence.
When the English Stuart Kings, James, and Charles, attempted to destroy true biblical faith, the Scots met in the Greyfriar’s church yard and signed their National Covenant of 1638. Many Scots signed the document in their own blood, swearing never to compromise their faith or that of their children.
The Christian Scots were declaring to the world that their rights came from God, not from the king (or any government leader, court or legislature). Therefore, a ruler, cannot force his arbitrary laws upon the people and expect them to passively follow.
To understand this bold National Covenant we must realize that these Scottish men in kilts were not just playing war games. They did not promote anarchy, as have most modern revolutions up to our time. They were biblically and intellectually prepared to stand against oppression, even unto death, by men like the eminent Professor Samuel Rutherford. Rutherford’s book, Lex Rex, written in 1644, stands even today as the premier defense of the biblical rights and responsibilities of people to resist tyranny (out of control government) and to restore the rule of law (God’s law).
For hundreds of years the people had been erroneously taught, by ruler and prelate alike, that the king was God’s absolute authority on earth and was always to be obeyed. Rutherford unraveled this argument biblically. He powerfully defended the right of the people to resist, with force if necessary, a ruler who abuses his trust and his people, just like an abusive father or husband may be removed from leadership. Rutherford made it clear, as did Calvin and others, that the people have no right to riot, but must act formally through their representatives, publically naming the wrongs the ruler has committed. America’s Declaration of Independence directly parallels the principles delineated in Lex Rex.
It took another 40 years and the martyrdom of 18,000 courageous ministers, until the brutal Stuart Kings were swept from power. In 1688, England and Scotland experienced true freedom under William and Mary and the Glorious Revo- lution and the English Bill of Rights. Again the revival of liberty can be traced to brave defenders of God’s justice, who remembered the paper trail of freedom.
Two hundred years later, liberty was again at risk. The English King, George III, had chosen to brutally oppress his colonies in America. Defying 800 years of English law and the blood bought freedom documents back to the biblically based law code and Common Law of Alfred the Great, he taxed without representation, boarded his troops in American colonists homes (giving the English the right to steal and rape), and took entire cities captive.
But those Scots, 900,000 of them, had immigrated to America during the 18th century. They made up one-third of the colonies during the American Revolution and most of the army. They led in a historic remembrance, calling the colonists back to the documents of freedom. The Declaration of Independence was a re-statement of the Scottish and English biblical resistance to tyranny documents of the past 1,000 years! The Founders rose up, stood on principle, and created the finest constitutional republic in history.
This brief history reminds us of the invaluable sacrifice of the brave Scots who came to America and helped plant the tree of liberty. Now, 200 years later, we have once again forgotten the freedom documents which have been the only safe and secure anchor of liberty throughout history. Like America’s Founders, the Scots and the English before us, we must turn humbly back to our God, remember the essential lessons of history and work diligently to restore true freedom and prosperity again.
-Marshall Foster
June 17, 2014
Magna Carta: The Foundation for Freedom // 1215-2015
Magna Carta grasped in his left hand, a sword in his right, the American colonist stands prepared to fight in defense of his liberties. The seal of Massachusetts in 1775 is shown here in one of the windows of the State House in Boston.
On June 15, 2015 the English speaking world will celebrate the 800th anniversary of the world’s foremost liberty document: Magna Carta. This ancient sheepskin may seem irrelevant to us in the 21st century as we face financial chaos and the usurpation of private property on a scale never before seen in America. Why should we care about what some archbishop wrote 800 years ago?
We should care because Magna Carta was the foundation and inspiration for America’s freedom documents. Most Americans have forgotten that Magna Carta was a spiritual charter declaring God and His law as Sovereign over the king and his law. “The Magna Carta doesn’t start with barons, and doesn’t start with individual liberties. It doesn’t start with political considerations, and it doesn’t start with the issue of who holds what power. Magna Carta starts as a religious document, concerned with the “health of the soul” of the King, and with the “honour of God,” and with the “exaltation of the Holy Church.” In addition to that, the King acknowledges that the “advice” for signing the Carta comes from the bishops first, and then from the barons.”1
Like Americans today, the English of the 13th century had nearly forgotten their great heritage of Christian liberty. Their nation was filled with corruption and lawlessness. A small group of landowners and business leaders at that time experienced much of the same anger and frustrations that we face each day. They were overwhelmed by a lawless monarch, in their case, a king.
King John had killed the true heir to the throne and began tyrannizing the people. He confiscated more and more of their wealth, imprisoned them without trial, and even violated their wives. In 1214 he demanded such high taxes from everyone that the poor serfs were starving in the streets.
The nobles and landowners, wrote a letter to the king demanding that he abide by the law. King John refused their request and multiplied his efforts to tyrannize nobles and peasants alike. So the nobles made a wise choice and went to the most committed spiritual leader of the time, Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury. They asked him to write a document that would force the king to limit his power based on the law of the land (the biblically-based common law). Langton was well motivated to write this document since he had seen some of his own family torn from his house and exiled by this wicked monarch.
Langton’s writing became known as Magna Carta, the foremost document of liberty ever produced. Magna Carta, and its 63 articles, became the masterpiece of Christian liberty for the next 800 years. Its first article insured that the church shall forever be free from state interference. It stipulated that there could be no taxation without representation. It demanded a trial for every freeman by a jury of peers.
“The question here is: If the signing of the Magna Carta was a conflict between the King and the barons, as the history textbooks tell us, then why does it start with a solemn clause to defend the liberties of the church? Why were the barons so concerned with the inviolability of the rights of the church rather than with their own rights? Why did it start with acknowledging the fact that the advice was given by the bishops, and only then by the earls and barons of the Kingdom? Isn’t it strange that a document presumably initiated by the barons pays such high homage to the church? Also, if Magna Carta was based on the “traditional liberties” in the Saxon Law, why doesn’t it mention those liberties, and why does it refer to God as the source of all liberties?
“The answer is: Magna Carta wasn’t drafted by the barons, and the English liberties did not come from a political struggle. The liberties of England came from the Church, based on the ideological foundation of the faith in Jesus Christ, and the application of His Law in the English society. The signing of Magna Carta was the culmination of a centuries-long war between the pagan and the Christian concepts of law and power. At Runnymede [where Magna Carta was signed] the Church won the victory for Christianity, and by this victory England—and consequently America—was blessed with freedom more than any other nation in Europe.”2
Magna Carta’s greatest legacy is the concept of a nation of laws rather than men. In its final article it called for armed resistance by the people if their rulers would not obey the law. This same obligation of the people to rise up and throw off tyrants is stated in our Declaration of Independence. All of the articles of Magna Carta were rooted in a long history of biblical principles and the Ten Commandments.
Because of King John’s arrogance, the nobles were forced to raise an army which they called the “Army of God.” They marched on the king’s troops and they prevailed. They then forced the king to sign Magna Carta on the field at Runnymede on June 15, 1215. It was said that after signing the charter, John escaped back into his castle at Windsor and threw himself on the ground, beat his fists and ate straw like a mad man.
The next year John recanted his agreement to obey Magna Carta. The barons were forced into another war with the king. But the king was caught in a rising tide while he was trying to escape with all his treasure, and he lost his wealth in the ocean. He died of dysentery three days later. From that time forward all the kings of England were periodically forced to deal with the brilliant biblical principles laid out in Magna Carta by Stephen Langton. America’s foundations of liberty are built upon these principles and others, reasoned from the Bible.
The story of Magna Carta reveals the strategy of how to restore liberty to a nation in chaos. The force of arms is not the central means of security and maintaining freedom. The people of England, by holding their leaders accountable to a higher power, God and his just principles, checked tyranny without massive bloodshed. We in the 21st century, still have the finest heritage of liberty in human history. We have our treasured freedom documents which call our nation peacefully back to a nation of laws.
But, like the people of England, we must inspire and educate our children and fellow citizens. John Adams, Americas 2nd president, reminded us that, “…it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles, upon which Freedom can securely stand….The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People….They may change their Rulers, and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty. – They will only exchange Tyrants and Tyrannies.”
Dr. Marshall Foster
May 5, 2014
A Legacy of Freedom and Prosperity
Americans are longing to give their children a legacy of freedom and prosperity. History clearly details the only proven plan for such a legacy. Sadly, the pages of history are filled with the stories of poverty and tyranny that have dominated virtually all civilizations for 5,000 years. The few exceptions have followed the only proven strategy to sustained wealth and economic growth.
America’s forebears were Biblicists. They understood that the pattern of economic failure began with the first covetous murder of Abel by Cain. They knew that as men progressively turned from their Creator, they looked to enrich themselves at the expense of others. The ancients soon discovered that rather than kill others to obtain wealth, they could, through force and deceit, make those individuals slaves or servants. They then could confiscate the wealth of the people in the name of the state or the will of their fickle deities.
The economic theory or practice of all ancient societies (except for the Hebrew Republic) was that of a forced big government bureaucracy or “command economy.” Professor and historian Rodney Stark defines command economies as those in the ancient or modern world in which “both markets and labor are commanded and coerced rather than allowed to function freely, and the exaction and consumption of wealth is the primary goal of the state.” These command economies operate in nations in which the government controls the peoples’ wealth. They lead people of all economic brackets to produce less and hide or hoard whatever wealth they have.
The command economies of the world kept virtually the entire human race in a near Stone Age standard of living for thousands of years. Even in the mighty Roman Empire the residents of Rome, most of whom were slaves, subsisted in poverty. They lived off of the crumbs of the booty plundered from the world by the Roman legions. Except for the elite few, the people never progressed beyond living in mud and stick shacks or tenements. No matter how productive one individual or family might become, their wealth was always subject to arbitrary confiscation by lawless rulers.
With the entrance of the Savior of the world and His life, words and transforming power the principles for religious, economic, and civil freedom were understood. These were the roots of Western Civilization and Christendom. Other nations of the world were held back from innovation, freedom and prosperity by constant tyranny. Their religions were often mystery cults that focused on the superiority of the past and deemphasized reason and progress.
In contrast, Biblical faith taught that each individual was created with infinite value and an immortal future. It taught that all individuals are to be treated equally before the law. Even Nietzsche, the father of modern atheism, had to admit that all human rights came from Christianity. Christianity was also future-orientated. It presented a reasoned and logical plan for economic progress and happiness. Only with the truth and power of the faith and its inerrant Word, could a governmental and economic system be developed that did not allow all the peoples’ wealth to be taken by the elite in power.
Nations without the rule of law and Christian economic principles have never been able to sustain a lasting economic renaissance. For example, in the 11th century in China, a strong privately owned iron industry developed in one province. Huge profits and high paying jobs resulted in the region. But when Chinese emperors realized that commoners were getting rich they said that this violated Confucian values and social tranquility which was built upon a rigid class structure. In their view, only royalty should possess wealth. So they declared the iron industry a state monopoly and the economy collapsed. The Chinese did not escape poverty until biblical free enterprise principles were initiated 1,000 years later in modern China – after the Communist leader Mao died. This same pattern of economic tyranny dominated all continents for 5,000 years until the rise of biblical economic truth.
By 1215, the people, nobles and clergy in England with the biblical view of free enterprise, private property and the limitations on civil power, created Magna Carta. With the base of English Common Law and the Ten Commandments, Steven Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury wrote this landmark document of economic, civil, and religious liberty. This set the stage for the explosion of Christian free enterprise 400 years later in the Protestant Reformation.
Magna Carta in essence was a stand against the tax, spend and steal policies of out of control government (King John). It contained a long and detailed list of private property rights. It restricted taxes and import duties. It provided representatives to hold the government accountable to obey its provisions.
How does this brief economic history give us hope in our desperate situation today? It gives us tremendous hope because most Americans still have the biblical work ethic deeply embedded in their hearts through the heritage passed down to us by our ancestors.
Even today, most Americans know that it is wrong to steal private property and to turn over businesses and most decisions in life to unaccountable bureaucracies.
We have inherited the world’s greatest heritage of economic liberty. America has the heritage of all three of the freedoms necessary for prosperity – economic, civil and religious.
In our current crisis we must re-ignite the passion and conviction that our inheritance of Christian free enterprise and family ownership of property is a sacred trust before God, not just a personal preference or economic theory. We must be united in what Patrick Henry called the “holy cause of liberty” that is to be protected with our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor. God’s honor, not just our personal wealth is at stake.
We still have the skeleton framework of a Constitution and the Declaration of Independence that calls us to stand against the yoke of tyranny. But do we have the resolve such as that of Joseph Warren, the great patriot physician and Christian, who led from the front at the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775? He spoke of how, “Our fathers having nobly resolved never to wear the yoke of despotism, and seeing the European world, at the time, through indolence and cowardice, falling a prey to tyranny, bravely threw themselves upon the bosom of the ocean, determined to find a place in which they might enjoy their freedom, or perish in the glorious attempt.” Dr. Warren, covering the retreat of his men and out of ammunition, died with a bullet through his head in the final moments of the first great battle of the War of Independence.
Our liberties, as one of our founders said in a Connecticut newspaper, are “a sacred deposit which it would be treason against Heaven to betray.” May we study and learn this “sacred deposit,” apply it to our lives and share it with all who will listen. It is treason against heaven to do any less.
- Dr. Marshall Foster
___________________________________________________________________________________
FROM THE DESK OF DR. FOSTER
May 2014
Dear Friend,
As Americans, we are finding it increasingly difficult to leave our children a legacy of freedom and prosperity.
Our children and grandchildren, the rising generation, are a primary focus of the World History Institute. We must reach them with the truth. We must energize them to spread the truth in their spheres of in fluence. We must not stand back and let our true history die in the memories of the baby boomers. Once this new generation knows the truth, the Truth will set them free!
Working together with you, we are teaching “the mighty deeds of God” (Psalms 78:4) including His works in the founding of America, One Nation Under God.
This month I will be traveling to New England and Washington D.C. to lead Christian high school students on tours of our nation’s historic sites. Please continue to pray for America’s youth as we challenge them to dedicate their lives to God’s victorious cause. I see their eyes light up and their parents and teachers literally jump out of their seats, when they hear for the first time the thrilling stories about God’s hand in the founding and preservation of our nation.
More than ever we need your partnership to accomplish this great mission. Please prayerfully consider your most generous contribution to the WHI’s efforts to instruct and inspire millions of young Americans.
Our special gift offer this month is an audio CD of one of my recent messages entitled, “The Secrets of the American Revolution.” You and your family will learn the biblical strategy for the renewal of freedom and prosperity in America.
May God richly bless you,
Marshall Foster
Donate to the 501c3 non-profit ministry of WHI here!
Please email us at info@worldhistoryinstitute.com if you would like to take advantage of the free CD offer or give us a call at 805.523.0072!
April 17, 2014
The 21st Century: Century of Christianity?
Students from over 20 countries train under Dr. Hammond in the Christian history of the world and discipling the nations.
Peter Hammond is one of the foremost Christian evangelists in the world. For over 30 years, Dr. Hammond has pioneered missionary outreaches across the globe, including into the war zones of Mozambique, Angola and Sudan. Peter has travelled hundreds of thousands of miles to deliver Bibles to persecuted Christians in Africa and Eastern Europe. In the course of his missionary activities, Peter has been ambushed, come under aerial and artillery bombardments, been stabbed, shot at, beaten by mobs, arrested, and imprisoned. His invaluable insights into the seeming collapse of Western Civilization are seen below:
The 19th century was the greatest century of missionary advance. It was a century of astounding inventions and of spectacular advances in technology. Many countries in Europe and overseas experienced dramatic spiritual revivals. Christian missionaries won whole tribes and nations to Christ, in the remotest regions of the globe. Christianity came to the beginning of the 20th century on a rising and apparently unstoppable tide. Christianity was gaining spectacular momentum, as missionaries from Europe were evangelising and discipling virtually every tribe and nation.
The Protestant faith had far outstripped the Catholic and Orthodox branches in missionary activity, vitality and initiative. From being confined almost entirely to North Western Europe, the British Isles and a narrow strip on the Eastern seaboard of North America, and with a very small outpost at the Cape of Good Hope, the Protestant faith in the 19th century had become a truly international faith. It was the dominant faith of the most productive, powerful and prosperous nations in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres. Amidst irrepressible optimism, many were openly speaking of the beginning of the Biblical millennium on earth.
In 1910, Christian nations ruled virtually the whole world. With the exception of China, Japan, and the Ottoman Empire, the globe was dominated by Christian powers. Either Protestant, as in the case of Great Britain, Germany and the United States; Roman Catholic as in the case of the Austrian, Hungarian Empire, the French Empire, Italy, Spain, Portugal, etc.; or Orthodox, as in the case of the Russian Empire.
Following the Battle of Waterloo and the defeat of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of Vienna had ushered in a century of comparative peace, astounding increases in population, and unprecedented increases in productivity and standards of living. The 19th century had been a century of astounding achievements, growth and expansion.
By 1910, the world was being led by people who had traditionally been known as Christian. At the first World Missions Congress in Edinburgh in 1910, delegates were anticipating the extinction of all false religions by 1960. The consensus of the speakers at Edinburgh 1910, was that every tribe and nation will have been thoroughly evangelized and discipled by 1960. They were anticipating the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the beginning of the Biblical Millennium on earth – before the end of the 20th century!
No one in 1910 could have anticipated the wholesale abandonment of entire nations to communism, to false religions and heathenism. Nor would any have predicted that the Church would retreat from victory to such an extent that they would even be questioning the existence of the devil, or hell, or reinterpreting marriage to include that which God in the Bible describes as perversion and an abomination.
What no one at the 1910 Conference could have envisaged was the devastating impact of two World Wars. The heartland of the Church and of Mission sending agencies, wiped out millions of one another, and at the end of it, Europe was no longer the greatest economic, political and spiritual power on earth. Instead of discipling the world, Christians allowed themselves to be manipulated into devastating one another’s countries.
This year, 2014, marks the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the greatest catastrophe in the history of civilisation, World War I. Prior to 1914, Christian nations ruled the world. The 19th century was the greatest century of Missions. Europe was succeeding in bringing the Gospel of Christ, literacy, civilisation and the rule of law to even the most remote and primitive parts of the globe. However, after two world wars, Europe went from being a majority church-going population to a spiritual wasteland, where only small percentages of each nation still attended church.
The Christian era of bold Missionary expansion came to an abrupt end as the guns of August 1914, erupted. The great European countries which had been the heartland of Christendom, and the source of most of the missionaries, devastated each other’s economies and annihilated millions of one another’s young men, in what has to be recognized as the most tragic and senseless conflict in history.
Patrick Buchanan in his book, Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War documents the futility and the catastrophic consequences of this 30-year civil war of the West from 1914 to 1945.
Before the First World War, no continent had ever been as powerful as Europe. There was no hint of any possible challenge to its leadership of the whole world. 1914 marks a far more drastic turning point than 1815, or 1648, or any other of the watershed events of history. Nothing could have stopped the positive, onward march of Christianity worldwide, except that Christians were persuaded to kill one another so enthusiastically and so efficiently. Far more devastating than the actual numbers of people killed, crippled, or severely injured, was the damage to the spiritual life of Europe, and the world.
It is absolutely essential that we learn the lessons of history and rediscover our purpose as God’s people, to refocus on the fulfillment of the Great Commission, to make disciples of all nations, teaching obedience to all things that the Lord has commanded. The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. Our purpose on earth is to fulfill the Great Commission of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Dr. Peter Hammond
Frontline Fellowship
Cape Town, South Africa
February 28, 2014
PRAYER: The Power Behind a Peaceful Revolution
The Church of St. Nicholas and the Peaceful Revolution Memorial.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Many see that dramatic event as the most symbolic victory for liberty in the 20th century. The peaceful dismantling of the wall was followed by the complete disintegration of the Soviet Union, resulting in the liberation of tens of millions of people and the birth of freedom in many Eastern European nations. Through those miraculous events the world was saved from the terrifying threat of thermonuclear holocaust.
Many historians credit the demise of the Berlin Wall to a devastated Soviet economy, coupled with President Ronald Reagan’s call for Mr. Gorbachev to “tear down that wall!” But there is a virtually unknown story behind East Germany’s liberation in 1989. I first learned of it several years ago when I was in Germany preparing for a Reformation Tour I was about to lead. In Leipzig, Germany, I visited a beautiful 16th century Lutheran cathedral and heard a lecture by the pastor, Rev. Christian Fuhrer. After the lecture, Pastor Fuhrer and I met privately and he told me about a remarkable prayer movement that began with a handful of people in his church in 1982, seven years before the wall came down.
For almost 40 years the tyrannical, Soviet- dominated German Democratic Republic (GDR) had ruled East Germany with an iron fist. Under dictator Erick Honecker, death or imprisonment awaited anyone who dared to defy the GDR or attempt to cross the wall between East and West Germany. Rev. Fuehr decided to begin a simple prayer meeting called Prayers for Peace. Every Monday at 5 p.m. the faithful would gather, light 40 candles representing the Jews’ 40 years in the wilderness, and pray for peace.
For some time, the meetings were largely ignored by East German authorities; but eventually attendance at the weekly prayer meeting grew to thousands and the GDR could not turn a blind eye. Government spies infiltrated the meetings and recorded names of those present. Agents of the GDR tried to intimidate Pastor Fuhrer, once leaving him out in the snow to die. Numerous adults who attended the meetings were fired from their jobs, even though there was no political agenda, only prayers for freedom. Soon, German youth took the place of their parents because they had no jobs to lose. Despite persecution and seemingly no answer from God, the intercession continued for seven years and the meetings turned into a prayer movement.
On October 9, 1989, Pastor Fuhrer convened the weekly prayer meeting. This time, however, he handed out candles to each attendee. He instructed each person to light their candle as they left the gathering and to join other East Germans in the streets of Leipzig. Together they would peacefully march to the city center.
As the 2,000 prayer warriors emerged from Pastor Fuhrer’s church, they were met by approximately 100,000 fellow candle-carrying Germans. Facing possible death, the peaceful army approached the GDR troops. Never had Honecker allowed this kind of defiance. Previously, troops would have shot demonstrators against the regime. Russian tanks were lined up behind the soldiers who pointed their machine guns at the ever-growing crowd. The demonstrators bravely approached the soldiers (their fellow Germans) and offered them lighted candles. Amazingly, one by one, soldiers began to put down their weapons and receive the lighted candles. Soon all the soldiers had lowered their weapons and joined with the protestors. The Russian tanks backed up and returned to their barracks. Fuhrer said that East German officials would later say that they were ready for anything, “except candles and prayer.”
The next week Honecker resigned, knowing that he had lost the loyalty of the German army. He knew that he could no longer intimidate anyone, least of all people armed with the power of prayer! A month later, Soviet Premier Gorbachev began tearing down the Berlin Wall, and the German people knew that the miraculous, courageous events of October 9, 1989, had been the true power leading to Germany’s reunification.
Without the church it would have been like all other revolutions before – bloody and unsuccessful. “We did it,” Fuhrer said, “because the church has to do it.” Now, 25 years after the miracle at Leipzig, Fuhrer warns the church of lethargy:
“Today that feeling of belonging together has largely given way to a shallow materialistic prosperity. Faith in the future and in the power and possibilities that God can bestow on us has disappeared. But the church is only the church if it is there for other people… The church must be open to all and must champion the disadvantaged. When an individual has no other aims, visions or hopes than those relating to his next holiday, shopping spree or share prices he will begin to cease to exist. That is why we need the vision of Jesus: a vision not only of sharing but of taking on responsibility for each other so that faith and hope…can sweep through the masses again like a fresh wind.”
Enslaved for 70 years under the Nazis and Commu- nists, the East German people were ultimately blessed by a faithful praying remnant and guided by God’s gracious hand. Their country was restored and our world was transformed, and it began with the power of prayer. In light of this history, cannot believing Americans peacefully pray and courageously act to restore our liberty under God? May God help us to do just that for His glory and for our children’s children.
-Marshall Foster
January 31, 2014
Freefall of American Education
For centuries, American education was parentally controlled at the local level. The Bible was the basic textbook from which every subject was taught.
Lingering visions of ivy-covered prestigious institutions of higher learning and academic excellence still remain a part of the American Dream. Parents mortgage their homes and, together with students, indenture themselves with loans of more than $100,000 to finance a single bachelor’s degree which they hope will ensure success.
However, on the billion dollar, tree-lined campuses and behind the ivy-covered walls is a “shadow university” that is hidden from parents and students, but which is harming their lives and futures. Many authors including Professor Jim Nelson Black uncover the façade of this shadow university. He says “It’s in this arena, where administrators exercise absolute control over students, that one finds the enforcers of political correctness, the mandatory sensitivity classes, the seminars on race and gender, and the encounter sessions through which students are indoctrinated, often by invasive and manipulative means, including various kinds of role-playing, in the dogmas of “diversity” and “tolerance” that are a mask for the anti-American and hyper-sexualized agenda of the universities. The doctrines being forced on students are distinctly counter-cultural and contrary to any interpretation of traditional morality, and it is easily the most sinister element of what’s happening today.”
Authors and professors Alan Kors and Harvey Silverglate powerfully expose the shadow university calling it “a hidden, systematic assault on liberty, individualism, dignity, due process, and equality before the law.” They say, “The ultimate force of the shadow university is its ability to punish students and, increasingly, faculty behind closed doors, far from public and even campus scrutiny.” They say that the universities “have become the enemies of a free society.”
Not only is modern education a faith-killer; it is an intellectual disaster. “Ninety-five percent of the kids who go to college in the United States would not be admitted to college anywhere else in the world” states Albert Sanker, head of the nation’s second largest teacher’s union, the American Federation of Teachers. American education has left over forty million American adults illiterate and over fifty million more have only survival level academic skills.
Truth is “whatever your colleagues let you get away with,” according to Professor Richard Rorty at the University of Virginia. Rorty, one of the icons of the Left, admits openly that “the power base of the Left in America is now in the universities.” He is not alluding to a playground game of “king of the hill.” The souls of America’s youth are the prize and parents are paying “big time” to place their most precious resource into professors’ hands, only to see them stripped of their beliefs and secretly reprogrammed. Today, only 3% of the Ivy League faculties identify themselves as conservatives.
The president of the Heritage Foundation, Ed Feulner, says that America’s best colleges have totally failed at their fundamental responsibility. The core curriculum of a liberal arts education, the standard of America’s colleges for 300 years, has been ripped out and forcible purged from higher education. This hidden agenda includes the dumping of the historical, cultural, political and scientific foundations of our society. From kindergarten thru graduate school entire generations of young people don’t know the essential facts of our history or culture.
Legendary Yale professor, Dr. Donald Kagan, one of only two conservatives on the Yale faculty, laments the destruction of our society caused by the universities’ cynical trashing of America and her history. He says, “The terrible thing about the disappearance of a focused program of some kind that tries to teach you the heritage of Western civilization is that it hasn’t been replaced by anything….The university is telling students that ours [America’s] is a terrible civilization, and the less they know about it the better. Except, of course, that they need to know that it’s wicked, chauvinistic, racist, and all that.”
What is being taught in college curriculum? Thousands of “elective” courses are mandated in order to alter values, facts, and social behavior. An example includes the ever-so-popular “Homosexuals, Heretics, Witches and Werewolves” at Stanford. Other typical classes at various first tier colleges and universities include “Feminist Critique of Christianity,” “Sorcery and Magic,” and “Queer Theory, Queer Texts.” Or for history buffs there is “Love and Eros in Japanese History” or “Fetishism, Gender, Sexuality, Capitalism.” Even courses that may sound traditional or beneficial have a hidden meaning. Longtime USC professor, Dallas Willard, warns that these names are simply a cover for the unyielding agenda of the humanist ideologues that dominate the schools.
* * *
The good news is that Americans are awakening to the truth as the above deceptions are being exposed. Throughout Scripture the mandate is clear: education is the responsibility of the parents. Consider the words of Moses:
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.” (Deut. 6:5-7)
Here is our hope – the ultimate, no-fail plan that is given by God throughout Scripture. (Gen. 1:26-28; 9:1-5; 18:17-19; Deut. 6:4-10; Eph. 6:4; Ps. 78:1-10; Prov. 1:7; 9:10; Col. 2:3; 2 Cor. 6:14; 2 Tim. 3:14-17).
Noah Webster, the Founding Father of Education, said, “The education of youth [is] an employment of more consequence than making laws and preaching the gospel, because it lays the foundation on which both law and gospel rest for success….Education is useless without the Bible.”
For centuries parental, biblical education of children was the central pillar of our republic. Once again in our generation, millions of young minds are being trained by godly parents, especially in home schools and private schools. They are being taught to apply the cause and effect principles of Scripture to family, economics, government, and all areas of life and society. Doing all we can to prepare these covenant children is the sure way to reverse the freefall of education.
-Marshall Foster
December 10, 2013
Fearless Optimism: The Story of the Geneva Bible
The Embarkation of the Pilgrims painting was commissioned in 1836 by the US Govt for the Capitol Rotunda. (Note the open Geneva Bible in the hands of John Robinson.)
The struggle between tyranny and liberty today in America is at a critical tipping point. Yet the force that transformed the world still holds the solutions for our crises. The road to liberty has never changed.
The Geneva Bible has been the lost treasure of Christianity for over four hundred years. Nearly forgotten by the modern world, this version of the Holy Scriptures was translated and compiled by exiled reformers in Geneva (1557-1560) and stands alone in history as the force that transformed the English speaking world from the backwater of history into the center of civilization.
England in 1557 was a society beset by illiteracy, oppression, even barbarity. Hundreds of men had been burned at the stake merely for reading and teaching the Bible. Many clergymen, both Catholic and Protestant, received their parish jobs as payoffs and often were incapable or unwilling to preach. The impoverished and spiritually discouraged masses found solace outside of the church — in sloth and debauchery. The upper classes compromised their conscience and virtue to cater to the elites of the royal court.
Into this seemingly hopeless culture of corruption and error, the light of God’s written Word—in the newly translated, published, and distributed Geneva Bible— began to liberate the English-speaking people, penetrating hearts and transforming minds. The Geneva Bible was the most significant catalyst in the transformation of England, Scotland, and America from slavish tyranny to the heights of Christian civilization. By the time of the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, just twenty-eight years after the first printing of the Geneva Bible, it was already being said of the English that they were becoming a “People of the Book.”
As the first Bible to be read by the common people in English, the Geneva Bible inspired self-government, free enterprise, education, and limited constitutional government, protection of women and children, and godly culture. John Knox preached with power from the Geneva Bible at St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh, mightily influencing Scotland’s restoration from clan-dominated, semi-pagan barbarity to Christian faith and liberty. And it was the Geneva Bible that was carried and read by the Pilgrims as they landed in the wilderness of America. They extrapolated concepts of self & civil government from its pages as they laid the foundations of the world’s first constitutional republic since the time of Moses.
For more than 1,500 years the spread of the Gospel in the world was hindered. Not until there was a reliable, written version of God’s Word in the common language of the people could the Gospel be spread throughout the world. The providential invention of movable type, enabling not just the publication but the practical distribution of the Geneva Bible, freed God’s Book to enter hearts and homes of everyday people. Now, for the first time in history, every believing family could teach the whole council of God to their children.
The marginal notes of the Geneva Bible present a systematic Biblical worldview centered on the Sovereignty of God over all of His creation including churches and rulers. For example, the marginal note in the Geneva Bible for Exodus 1:19 indicates that the Hebrew midwives were correct to disobey their ruler. Dozens of similar Geneva Bible notes clarify the limited power of civil authorities and the rights and duties of individuals to resist tyranny. These notes infuriated King James I of England. He called such interpretations “seditious.” The tyrant knew that if the people could hold him accountable to God’s Word, his days as a king ruling by the “divine right” myth were numbered. Thus did the Geneva Bible begin the unstoppable march to liberty in England, Scotland, and America.
The marginal notes of the Geneva Bible also served to liberate believers from the ignorance, heresy, and tyranny of the Middle Ages. Calvin, Knox, and other Reformers, taught in these notes the central doctrines of Sola Scriptura—the Word of God alone, inspired and directional for our lives and culture; Sola Fide—faith alone as the only means of justification before God; Sola Christus— Christ alone as mankind’s only mediator, lord, and king; Sola Gratia—grace alone as the only hope of salvation and sanctification; and Soli Deo Gloria— God alone, not king nor pope, to receive the glory He is due in heaven and on earth.
When the Geneva Bible and its commentary were systematically taught and applied to life, entire nations and societies were transformed. Ultimately, the knowledge of and obedience to God’s written Word led to constitutional, limited government; the end of slavery and the caste system; free enterprise and the concept of private property; the biblical work ethic that fueled the scientific and industrial revolutions; wholesome, uplifting standards in the arts; and many other forms of progress.
The bold innovations of the Geneva Bible continue to have an impact in today’s world. Because of its revolutionary format and features, the Geneva Bible became the foundation for what we call group Bible study and was a catalyst for the acceptance of the liberating doctrine of the “priesthood of all believers.” Godly pastors expounded the Word and other believers offered commentary and invited discussion—all of which, today, might be taken for granted; but such practices had been strictly prohibited for one thousand years!
Almost five hundred years later, our culture is once again desperate for the Truth. Many people have forgotten, abandoned, or rejected the great lessons of the Reformation and the Biblical theology that inspired the greatest accomplishments of Western Civilization, freedom and prosperity.nnovations of the Geneva Bible continue to have an impact in today’s world. Because of its revolutionary format and features, the Geneva Bible became the foundation for what we call group Bible study and was a catalyst for the acceptance of the liberating doctrine of the “priesthood of all believers.” Godly pastors expounded the Word and other believers offered commentary and invited discussion—all of which, today, might be taken for granted; but such practices had been strictly prohibited for one thousand years!
As we read this sacred volume, let us remember the sacrifice of the persecuted scholars on the shores of Lake Geneva. John Calvin, in exile in Geneva, surrounded by pagan kings, wars, and a corrupt Roman church, said these optimistic words about the spread of God’s Word: “Whatever resistance we see today offered by almost all the world to the progress of the truth, we must not doubt that our Lord will come at last to break through all the undertakings of men and make a passage for His Word. Let us hope boldly, then, more than we can understand; He will still surpass our opinion and our hope.
May we be inspired from His Word, as our spiritual forbears were, to be fearlessly optimistic about the power of His Gospel and the furtherance of His Kingdom on earth.
“For unto us a child is born, and unto us a Son is given: and the government is upon his shoulder, and he shall call his name, Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The prince of peace. The increase of his government and peace shall have none end: he shall sit upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment, and with justice, from henceforth, even forever: the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.” (Isaiah 9: 6-7, Geneva Bible).
-Marshall Foster
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