America at 250: How the Bible Shaped a Nation w/ Dr. Carlos Campo

Episode 289: Summary & Transcript

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Episode Summary

Dr. Carlos Campo, President and CEO of the Museum of the Bible, joins the Truth Changes Everything Podcast to explore how Scripture shaped America’s founding principles, government structure, and cultural identity. As the nation commemorates its 250th anniversary, discover why the Bible was “the air that people were breathing” during the revolutionary era and why its truths remain essential for the next 250 years.

Episode Transcript

Dr. Carlos Campo (00:00):
Where do our rights stem from? And the idea that certain things are unalienable, that there are certain things that are known to all. And those truths come directly from scripture, and it’s a reality that underpins our very government.

Dr. Jeff Myers (00:23):
This year celebrates America’s 250th anniversary. It’s a milestone that gives us an opportunity not only to celebrate, but also to look back at the ideas that have shaped our nation over the past two and a half centuries.

No book has influenced American history as profoundly as the Bible. Its language, its ideas, its scope of history have appeared all throughout America’s past, from the founding era, the fight for independence, to debates over religious liberty and slavery and civil rights and human equality. But what role did the Bible actually play in America’s founding and how should Christians understand the legacy of the Bible today?

Well, my guest today is Dr. Carlos Campo. He’s the president and CEO of the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC. I can’t say enough good about this place. You absolutely have to make a point to go to DC and to spend a day at the Museum of the Bible.

(01:22):
The Museum of the Bible’s Bible in America 250 Initiative explores the Bible’s influence on America’s founding and history. They have a lecture series. They have an exhibit on the Bible in American history, and we’re going to talk about all of that today. It’s fascinating stuff with Dr. Carlos Campo. Please welcome him to the Truth Changes Everything Podcast. Dr. Carlos Campo, welcome to the Truth Changes Everything Podcast.

Dr. Carlos Campo (01:49):
Thank you. Great to be with you, Jeff.

Dr. Jeff Myers (01:51):
I really love the work that you do with the Museum of the Bible. It is fantastic. It’s one of my favorite places in Washington DC. And it was really neat that recently, Stephanie and I had the opportunity to come to the Museum of the Bible and you let us sort of do a night at the museum tour where the museum was closed to the public, but we went through this exhibit on the Bible in American history. Absolutely amazing. Things that I didn’t know, and I’ve studied this quite a bit.

And also Bibles that were present at some of the most significant moments in American history. And you’re just standing right in front of them looking at them, thinking back to, “Wow, this is so amazing and so shaping.” But it’s a really significant topic as we talk about America’s 250th. How significant was the Bible in shaping our nation’s ideas and values and culture at its founding?

Dr. Carlos Campo (02:51):
Well, I think it’s almost impossible to overestimate its influence, Jeff. And here’s why. It’s one thing to do a word search, which if you even do that, of course you see this extraordinary connection between founding documents in the Bible, but it’s more than that because it’s the idea of, it was the air that people were breathing.

So even those who are often called deists or enlightenment people, you name the term that’s used, what you don’t realize is because the Bible was proliferated, it was the method of learning to read, for example. It was part of every lesson in every language. If you follow literacy rates, they’re directly tied to people wanting to learn to read the Bible.

So I think that’s the one aspect that often gets missed in this discussion. But even if you just distill it down to the reality of the language from the declaration, and that’s one of the things that you saw, I know in our exhibit, and that was this idea of where do our rights stem from?

(03:55):
And the idea that certain things are unalienable, that there are certain things that are known to all. And those truths come directly from scripture and it’s a reality that underpins our very government.

Dr. Jeff Myers (04:12):
Now, this was significantly a Protestant tradition, for the most part in the United States.

Dr. Carlos Campo (04:22):
That’s right.

Dr. Jeff Myers (04:24):
But there were people from all different Protestant denominations. I mean, Quakers are very different from Presbyterians, and yet all seem to have been focused on looking at scripture and really asking God, how does this apply to us as we try to form out our state or even our union of states?

Dr. Carlos Campo (04:46):
That’s right. So you’re seeing, of course, this battle because they came from a land where there was an imposition of faith. And that’s one of the things our founders had such a strong reaction against. They said, “Let’s make sure that we set up a government that of course is underpinned, is girded by.” We use the term framing, this idea of if you have a puzzle that you’re putting together, you’re always looking for those outside pieces first. That’s what scripture was to them.

They didn’t need to embed Bible verses within our founding documents. They knew that individual states would take on specifics when it came to things like how faith was exercised, but it was remarkable. We call it a sacred liberty. That’s what we believe. It’s a sacred liberty. They saw the sacredness in what they were doing, asking God for direction and wisdom with every meeting.

(05:40):
So the idea of a Christian nation and all these things that are often discussed, as you well know, it’s the atmosphere and the setting and the air as we say that they were breathing that was the culture and the environment, but they wanted to ensure that they would set up a government that would be by the people and for the people and people would not be forced as it were to attend church and all of the rest.

Dr. Jeff Myers (06:11):
When I think about that term liberty, that’s such a critical term. And I had a guest recently who kind of compared America’s founding to the Israelites coming out of Egypt. It was one thing to get them out of Pharaoh’s land. It was another thing to get Pharaoh out of their hearts. They had developed a slave mentality.

And in the United States of America, you have all of these people, they never had the choice of religion. If you’re in England, you’re Anglican. If you’re in the Netherlands, you’re Dutch reformed or whatever. And now all of a sudden you’re in this place where there are maybe dozens of different denominations and everybody’s free to pursue how they see fit, what their conscience tells them to do.

Before we go on any further, I’d love to just hear a little bit from you about, how did the founders think that through? Because it certainly would’ve been easier to say, “Well, most of the people here are Virginians and since we have the majority vote, we’re going to go ahead and make America Anglican and just repeat what our forefathers did.” I mean, how did they learn to actually be free, to have religious liberty?

Dr. Carlos Campo (07:33):
Well, you make such a great point. And I think we both know Meyer Soloveitchik, a tremendous Jewish scholar who has written about this very thing, and that is that our founders truly did see this relationship between the Exodus and their Exodus from Europe as it was, and from the UK in particular, but for others in different areas. But that mentality did take time.

And so we often hear about this separation of church and state. What they separated in their minds from my perspective was this idea of liberty, but this diffusion of the way faith would be exercised. You talked about Anglicans in Virginia. I’m trying to think of what year it was. It was far later than 1776. It was late into the 19th century before it was still a law that if you didn’t attend the Anglican Church in Virginia, you’d be fine.

So individual states did carry over some of those traditions, but they understood that this was an American experiment that required them to see differently the framework for nation building.

(08:42):
And they understood that to build a nation and to build it freely, they would have to have freedom of worship, this free exercise of worship and the declaration declaring to the world the reasons for their separation, but then understanding they would need the support of the world for understanding why it was that they would be a new nation and a free nation.

And here we are 250 years later, Jeff, and this experiment is still holding. And I think it is this balance between the sacredness of an individual’s right to follow God and the liberty to allow that person to have the free exercise of that faith.

Dr. Jeff Myers (09:25):
Carlos, I’m curious, as we are here recording this in America’s 250th year, 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, now it seems like the debate that people are having has transformed somewhat and those who believe that their religious convictions apply to their citizenship are labeled as Christian nationalists. So we hear this kind of thing all of the time, and I’m wondering, is that, from the perspective of America’s founding, is that the right question to ask?

Dr. Carlos Campo (10:00):
Yeah, it doesn’t feel like the right question. And I think what happens is when you have a phrase like Christian nationalism, it’s easy to just throw it out as a label, but let’s define what exactly the term means. And what I find, Jeff, is that it depends on the context. People often use it as though Christians in America are pushing toward planting some sort of Christian flag over the White House and that Congress would follow every statute that would be related to scripture.

And what’s next? Would we then have some sort of faith test for public office? It almost seems as though people want to go that far. I think every Christian person understands the distinction between patriotism and faith. We understand that difference. So people who want to conflate those two and say that’s what Christians are all about, I think are pressing an issue that I don’t really see as something that exists.

(10:57):
No person, it doesn’t matter your faith background. No person can separate themselves from their faith. They can’t. Of course, there are ways that you express your faith in appropriate settings, but the idea that you are somehow supposed to flip a switch and somehow not be a Christian in a certain setting, I think is the sort of retort to this idea that depending on whether you’re serving in Congress or serving in some other position, that your faith would be more or less expressed.

So I do think it’s the wrong question. I think it’s quite clear that the government has been established in the United States to give people that freedom and freedom of expression. But also we know that things like the very bifurcation of power is a direct reflection about the idea that if all men were saints, you wouldn’t need a government at all.

(11:57):
You wouldn’t need a police force. You wouldn’t need a government that ensures the safety of its people and that we didn’t want the control of power to be in any single place because we understood what it meant when a monarch began to think that they were not just God’s appointed, but in a sense they were gods themselves and capable of all kinds of miraculous actions.

So we knew that the concentration of power was wrong because scripture tells us it’s wrong. And so we can go ahead and call that an enlightenment thought, but that is not the case. The reality is the very bifurcation of our government is a direct result of the fact that we need checks and balances and we need accountability because we’re all fallible people.

Dr. Jeff Myers (12:40):
I love that. And I want to chase that down a little bit because as we are celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, it begins by in the preamble talking about truths that are self-evident and that all men are created equal and they’re endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Human dignity, equality, liberty, natural rights. Can you really derive those from traditions other than the Christian one ultimately?

Dr. Carlos Campo (13:14):
Well, one of the things we’ve done is we’re being a bit provocative in naming our lecture series. We hold these truths are not self-evident because from our perspective, you don’t spring from the womb understanding these truths.

You know, Jeff, that my father was born in Cuba. Tomorrow we will have five Cuban artists. Four of them are journalists. All of them are exiled from their nation, and they’re going to be talking as part of our 250th celebration. They were born in Cuba, they were exiled from that country, but they’re going to speak to Americans about what it means to have your religious liberty stripped from you because when your religious liberty is stripped, your other rights are right behind it. So one of the things that we find is these truths, we don’t believe they are self-evident. They were evident to those men and why? Why?

(14:09):
Because concomitant with that is this idea that you just read, and that is from where do those rights stem? We both know that a fairly prominent Virginia legislator said he’s frightened by the idea that our rights stem or come from God. Well, it’s what we have always believed. No one in America has ever had to defend that belief. The moment we surrender our rights to any human entity, no matter how perfect it may seem to be, it is destined to fail.

And so that tenant, along with this idea of equality, with all the arguments about three-fifths and everything that we know, the thought that God created us equal and our rights derived from him is unquestionably something that is not self-evident. Go to Cuba, go to North Korea, go to so many nations where it’s not evident in the least. If America is exceptional, we believe it is, that exceptionality can be directly tied to scripture.

Dr. Jeff Myers (15:11):
Scripture talks about suppressing the truth by unrighteousness, and it does seem like when you give the example of Cuba and your own family and another place like North Korea where we think that two thirds of the people who are believers in that country are actually imprisoned right now in concentration camps, in work camps.

So you’re right, like Ronald Reagan said, this freedom doesn’t come to you in the bloodstream. You have to renew it every single generation. I’d love to bring up the aspect of human nature and sin here for a minute. I don’t love talking about sin. Nobody does.

When we’re with our students at Summit Ministries though, we tell them, look, if you don’t understand the concept of sin, you really can’t understand the concept of spiritual or even political or economic or religious freedom. And I think you and I probably agree on this. There’s some sense that the true recognition of human fallenness is not a negative downer kind of thing for us, but it actually makes it possible for us to be free. Just curious what your thoughts are on that.

Dr. Carlos Campo (16:26):
Great. So here we’re going to dip into philosophy for a moment. I love it. I often talk to parents. We’ve got a brand new 10-week-old granddaughter, and I tell people if they don’t believe in the fallenness of humankind, they haven’t spent a whole lot of time around two and three-year-olds.

The people who dive into linguistics, for example, and then they talk about cognitive linguistics and what is the first word that a child understands and says. The first words are babble. They’re echoic in nature. They’re echoing mama da-da, that kind of a thing. But one of the first words certainly is the word mine.

(17:06):
So I don’t think it’s a coincidence that if I walk downstairs and see the statue of Moses and the 10 commandments are there, the first one’s there for a reason. You’ll have no other gods before me. Well, of course, we’re all our own gods. We are. Mine is the first word that we learn, and to relinquish the mind to thine is a lifelong process that we never get completely right.

Selfishness is so deeply ingrained, and it’s the root, isn’t it? It’s the root. It’s the reason why it’s the first commandment. Can’t have a God. You have to relinquish it all. If you’re a Christian, this idea that Bonhoeffer talked about, when Christ bids a man come and die to take up his cross, he bids him come and die. The call is to death. And so because we know that human nature is flawed, there is a release.

(17:56):
There is a release to say, “Hey, here’s something we all share in common.” And we can begin with humility then, right? We begin with this understanding that we can’t put any person in a place whereby we say they are infallible and the very nature of humanity is fallible. And there is, I think, a commonality there that can lead to community that can be very powerful.

I think while people look back at these early Puritan communities, they weren’t perfect, Jeff, but they were pretty amazing. They were pretty amazing. People didn’t starve in those communities. They did look out for one another. You didn’t have to wait. After a storm, you didn’t have to wait for some social service to call you. People came, they showed up. It was a reality. And I still see that in America. You do too. We see it in communities left and right.

(18:45):
Those are not just vestigial. Those, to me, are the underpinnings of the hope for America. If people are despairing about America, they just need to spend some time around your students. There are a myriad of young people interning at our nation’s capital today that will restore your hope in America, but these are people who have a deep and solid faith, who believe in family, all the things that make America extraordinary.

And I do believe that it does get back to the sin nature, our understanding of sin nature and the way to overcome the sin nature is to reach out to a savior and say, God, help me today to make great decisions, to glorify you and not myself. It’s just a starting point.

Dr. Jeff Myers (19:30):
Yeah. And along that path, you have where Jesus taught his disciples. If you want to be first, you must be the very last and the servant of all. It is fairly remarkable when I go to Washington DC, and I hope that everybody who’s watching or listening, if you haven’t been there for a while, go now, go now. We were there over the 4th of July. It was safe. It was pleasant. It was clean.

Go now. Block out an entire day to spend at the Museum of the Bible. They have unbelievable exhibits there you’re going to love. But when you go there, you realize that public service is a high value. And there are a lot of people there for whom that’s a cynical phrase, but there are a lot of people who genuinely sense that. They’re going to work not because the salary is so fantastic.

(20:20):
They’re going to work because they believe they’re doing something that will make America better. And that is inspiring to people like me. And I see it in the economic realm too. And I think you and I’ve talked about this before, that if you are in a communist country and you want to succeed, the way to succeed is to collect political power.

(20:44):
If you are in a free enterprise-based country, the way to succeed is to serve other people. The better you serve, the more successful you will be. And it’s just so fascinating that the founders, limited men, sinners just like us, somehow saw all of this and said, “Well, let’s see if we can set in motion something that would really change the world.”

Dr. Carlos Campo (21:11):
Right. Were these not men who, from their earliest recollections, were told their place in the world, “Here’s your place in the world, and your aspiration is to put all people above yourself.” I mean, these simple things, it is the thing that is the distinctive of their faith. They followed a man who was unlike any other leader, a foot washer who was willing to take on the most ignominious death of all, these extraordinary qualities of Christ and to try to embody those.

And so thanks for calling out the museum and our staff here because we work hard on that. We do. We work hard to say we have to be different. Museums aren’t really known for guest services, but we really try to ensure that we reflect the highest and best of the Lord in the way that we approach the work every day. And yes, it does take nine, eight hour days to go through the whole museum, so that won’t happen.

(22:05):
But I often go back to that letter that Washington received, and it was one of his own men. So he’s serving with him and he is not sure if the Republic is going to hold. And he says to him, “Mr. Washington, won’t you consider being the first regal person? Won’t you consider the crown?” It’s the first time that someone takes that idea to him and looks at his response. He immediately says, “Strike that from your mind.”

Maybe he was the greatest American ever, but he upholds this ethos. I’m proud to be in a city that is named after him. And I know he was just a man, but if there is one founder who is our founding father, you don’t have to go to Mount Vernon to see it. It’s suffused throughout this city. It’s suffused in his way of life. But that letter to me bears out.

(22:55):
He was this follower. You can dig down into his works and call him by whatever denominational name that you’d like, but his actions certainly reflected the highest and best that we see in scripture. And that passage and how he responded to that letter to me is one of the great moments in American history.

Dr. Jeff Myers (23:14):
That’s so good. I’d like to address some of the controversy that I think comes up when we talk about the Declaration of Independence. And we’ve had a show talking specifically about the issue of slavery, but I’m just curious how there were people who did appeal to the Bible who were on opposing sides of major issues, issues like slavery and abolition.

And I’m curious how, from your perspective, we’re to understand scripture to shape our beliefs, to shape our politics, but not use it to just find verses to justify the positions that we hold to be true. Just personally, are there any things that you’ve thought through that help you?

Dr. Carlos Campo (24:08):
Yeah, so many things, Jeff. I think we know that in every generation we have our blind spots. What are the blind spots, God, that I have in my own life where I’m not seeing? Because you’re right, scripture is so remarkably diverse. It’s so comprehensive. These 66 or 73 or 84 books, depending upon your background and tradition that have so much wisdom, it is easy to cherry-pick and say this or that supports my position. Immigration, you talk about it, right to life, so many things.

And yes, we have gotten it wrong in the past. We have. We’ve taken scripture out of its context and not seen the full context. I understand that. And I wonder today, what is that today, Lord? What are we not seeing in your word that would help us govern better, govern our own lives first? Then as we talk about our marriages and our homes, how could they be governed more effectively, our own communities?

(25:09):
So yes, I do see those things, and I do understand that the inquisition, if you went back to those days, is it possible that the inquisition was led by people of faith who believed that it was so crucial that you converted to this faith because our lives are a passing breath, but eternity is eternal.

And so even if it leads to torture and maybe even death, that I’m going to put you to death in hopes that I will save your soul. Is it possible that well-meaning people were behind the inquisition? I can’t exhume their bodies and question them and know for certain, but we understand that even religious fervor can often lead to really bad outcomes.

And so my prayer individually, as I think about leading, there’s an ancient prayer, one that you know well, God, I want to see thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, follow thee more nearly day by day, this though.

(26:18):
So who today sees God most clearly? I ask that question and I mean it realistically, who? Is there someone on earth today that sees them most clearly? I guess we could say yes, there probably is. Who’s that person and how is it that they’ve come to a place of wisdom and they see God more clearly than anyone else? Without becoming too philosophical, I don’t think this is a small question, Jeff.

I’ve often been said, Carlos, you see the world through this rose-colored lens of Christianity. You have this idea that there’s a benevolent God that is responsible for everything. Literally, he is the theory of everything. He embodies it. He’s the way, the truth, and the life. These are rose-colored classes, but the minute they make that statement, I understand that they have their own perspective. You have to have some basis of judgment, right? If mine are rose-colored, what are yours then?

(27:05):
Yours have to be clear because for you to call mine rose-colored, yours are clear. And if theirs are, I want those glasses. I must be following a God that wants me to see him as clearly as I can, see the world, see the truth. And to me, that’s the thing about our museum and our lives as people of faith. People say, “Well, you’re so blind so much. You don’t see the world clearly. If you’re right about me there, then I’m not following God clearly.”

People say, “Well, this exhibit you’ve got up, it seems to highlight.” We literally had people saying, “You call the Jews the chosen people.” And I said, “No, we don’t. We lift up the Bible and in the Bible they are called such. We would diminish the word if we were to say that that is not the case. We’re simply lifting up what the word says.” So to me, these aren’t small things, and that’s one of the things I’m so encouraged by because there is a growing demand for, they’re calling it genuineness, right?

(28:07):
All this new generation, they’re looking for something that’s genuine. When was that not true? When I meet a Christian person, they say, “I come from the holiness tradition.” I know what they’re saying, but I want to say, “When was that not part of every Christian tradition?” So I’m encouraged, Jeff. I know that there’s plenty to be dismal about in this world, but I do believe that truth is truth and the pendulum will always swing back to truth. And I hear it. I feel it.

That pendulum is swinging back, Bible sales being a new generation of young men, especially in America, but young people across the globe. Bible sales in Russia are up 200%. Amazing. Isn’t that great? So I think there’s a lot to be said, that, yes, we’ve got our blind spot, but there’s plenty of good going on as well.

Dr. Jeff Myers (29:04):
Carlos, I could talk to you all day about the museum too, because I do love it. I especially love how many young people have been in the building every time I’ve been there. Sometimes it’s a class. Sometimes it’s a young family, but they’re young people. They want to know, okay, I’m going to go get a Bible and I want to read it and I want to understand it, but I want to understand its impact and all of history as well.

And there’s so many amazing exhibits. By the time some people hear or see this show, you probably won’t be able to see the Dead Scroll exhibit there, but absolutely stunning to be able to look back and say, no, this is something that God has preserved. His word is eternal.

Hey, just thinking about the Bible in America exhibit, when y’all brought that in, and you have the most amazing designers and Bible scholars working for you. It’s truly incredible. Thank you. But when you brought that in and you looked over the catalog of what you would be putting in it, what are some of the things that were most exciting or interesting or astounding to you?

Dr. Carlos Campo (30:22):
One that we really focused on is called the Aitken Bible, A-I-T-K-E-N. It’s amazing because on September 12th, and I want to say 1789, I may have that date wrong, but Congress actually called it the Revolutionary Bible.This Bible was the first Bible published in English in America. Wampanoag was the first published Bible in America because we were hoping that the Native Americans could read the Bible in their own tongue. The translation effort never stops depending on the era.

But this Aitken Bible was fascinating to me because we know the King James Bible we remember is the authorize and that authorization is about control. So it was the only Bible that could legally be sold in English in any of the colonies. And so the moment this Aitken Bible was published, it was held up as, “Hey, this is our Bible. This is a new America and this is our Bible.” And it literally became kind of the calling card of people of faith to say, “I’m not using the Geneva Bible or I’m not using the King James version.”

(31:30):
“I know it’s the authorized one, but I’m using this one.” So that Aitken Bible really does stand out to me as a remarkable Bible because of what it says about the new nation. And what I would say is also fascinating was the power of sermons.

I mean, people in America, early America, they’re struggling with this choice because they’re choosing between, it says in Romans very clearly, “I’m supposed to follow these rulers. God put them in place. And how is it that I am going to turn my back on George and say, I’m sorry, but you’re a tyrant and I can no longer follow you despite the dictates that I read in scripture.”

And who tipped the scales there? They were the preachers, the preachers of the day. And so we are publishing those sermons because people are astounded when they say, “I had no idea that those words came directly from a pulpit, which had much more power than any political realm.” As powerful as the founders were, they weren’t touching thousands of lives in a month, but boy, people like Mayhew certainly were and others.

(32:35):
So it’s another thing that we found striking in our exhibit and how many people have been drawn to that part of the exhibit is to read the sermons and see the impact that they had as well.

Dr. Jeff Myers (32:48):
Yeah. Being able to speak the word and speak it in truth is vital in every generation, but it’s amazing to look at what they had as sermons in the day where they were like philosophical lectures.

Dr. Carlos Campo (33:03):
Yes.

Dr. Jeff Myers (33:05):
The pastor would take on Romans 13, “Okay, we’re supposed to obey the authorities. What do we do with King George?” And they would literally give a philosophical exposition of no, what it means to follow the authorities is legitimate authority. What is a legitimate authority? And then they kind of walk all the way through that. We are to respect those who are in authority, but we are not to let evil win. So are we letting evil win by having the system perpetrated? It’s just fascinating to see all of the thinking that went into it.

Dr. Carlos Campo (33:41):
So striking. I think it’s one of the things that’s so lost on a contemporary generation where now our attention is drawn to these two minute videos, not even what, 20 second videos, what you can cram into when you consider that the average lecture, so let’s just say a public lecture, the average lecture would’ve been two hours or more.

When Lincoln’s most famous speech was an insert at a lecture given by a president of a university, his lecture that day was three hours and 39 minutes long. Wow. And people were riveted, riveted by these things. It was the very nature of the oral tradition.

And so I think another element that we don’t understand is how powerful these speeches were and how people were willing to listen. And that’s how they dug in. So it wasn’t just on Sundays, but they were really digging in, as you say, philosophically to understand these are big decisions with extraordinary consequences.

Dr. Jeff Myers (34:46):
I’m sure there’s some people who are watching or listening saying, “I didn’t know this about all these sermons and I think I would like to read them.” Are they published someplace?

Dr. Carlos Campo (34:56):
They are. And matter of fact, if you go to our website, we have a lot of it available and free. They’re not behind paywalls. So look at our digital assets there and we have references that will take you to many of them. That’s one of the wonderful things about the age that we live in. Nearly everything now is available for free online. And those sermons, the powerful sermons that really framed America through a number of organizations are available and they’re free.

Dr. Jeff Myers (35:21):
Yeah, I love it. Well, as we kind of wrap up here, Carlos, I’m looking back over thinking of 250 years and I lived for a fourth of it. So I have some perspective here, but I see sometimes that in my lifetime, going back to when I started really paying attention to public issues, which was probably age 16 because I was on the debate team, I was that nerd. And I kept a lot of those things. I’ve been looking through a lot of these papers from back in the day.

The battles that we face today are not new. They’re not. I’ve been looking at them even back, 1980s, 1990s, very similar issues on every front. But we tend to, I think I see that people either tend to idealize America’s Christian past in response to that or they minimize Christianity’s influence altogether and say, “We need to find a third way. We need to not talk about Christian influence in America. We’re in Babylon. We’re not really…” Do you see what I’m saying?

Dr. Carlos Campo (36:31):
I do.

Dr. Jeff Myers (36:31):
There are these different warring perspectives. And I’m just really curious, is it possible to acknowledge America’s greatness and its failures and the Bible’s genuine influence on the nation as a good rather than as a horror that somehow needs to be undone?

Dr. Carlos Campo (36:53):
Right. I think you’re so right, Jeff, because you think of American history and those 250 years. And there was a time, just ask Aaron Burr how volatile politics were, where men literally went back to back and paced and turned and shot based upon their philosophical beliefs. So we’ve come a long way since then, but there is a lot of vitriol coming back into this system, isn’t there?

And it’s perhaps impossible to do a podcast today and not talk about AI, but I’ll just use that as a closing thought. AI with all of the exciting and extraordinary potentialities that come from it, it is a modern day tower of Babel. To me, there’s no other way to see it in many ways. It is a way to say, could this lead to eternal life? Could it? Could it be a God of sorts? Could it solve every medical issue whereby we’re now going to replicate cellular structures and no one will age?

(37:55):
Can’t AI get us to that place? And if AI does and reigns supreme at some level without any moral basis, and what will that moral basis be when people say, “Well, I have a built-in inner morality.” When you distill that down, I’m frightened to think that it would be simply left up to a human being.

But to have something that reigns eternal and is unchanging, that has been proven not just over our 250 years, but in society after society when the Bible, not abused by mankind, but left to what it states has been deployed and employed in the human heart and life has always been an agent for good. And so that’s my hope for the next 250 years that we will not lose that goodness that is at the root and the heart of what American exceptionalism is all about.

Dr. Jeff Myers (38:49):
Well, Carlos, your personal story is amazing. Thank you for all the things you’ve done as a professor, as a university president, now as the head of the Museum of the Bible. And I really do hope that a lot of people will get excited to come and look at your website, but to actually come in person and experience the hospitality there, but look through the extraordinary exhibits.

It is really vital, especially in this time, that we understand the final thing that you just said, Carlos, that when you properly understand the scriptures and you properly apply them to life, it is a force for good. The abolition of slavery, the rise of medicine, the rise of education, the rise of political systems that are just, the rise of justice systems that are just, the rise of economic systems that are just, all of these things come back to scripture. If we are not intensively studying this every day, we need to be rethinking that decision and get back into God’s word.

Dr. Carlos Campo (39:51):
I’m with you. Jeff, thanks for all you do. Appreciate the time today.

Dr. Jeff Myers (39:54):
Thanks, Carlos. Thank you to my guest, Dr. Carlos Campo, for coming on the show today. Be sure to check out the Museum of the Bible’s Bible and America 250 series to learn more about the Bible’s influence throughout American history. Here’s how you find it. Just go to museumofthebible.org, museumofthebible.org. It’s easy.

This podcast is a resource of Summit Ministries. At Summit, we equip and support the rising generation to embrace God’s truth through scripture and to champion a biblical worldview that applies to every area of life. And we’re doing a lot of reflecting on 250 years of America’s history. Understanding the Bible can help us better understand where we’ve come from and remind us that as Christians, we’re to be about God’s kingdom business in everything we do, including politics.

So to learn more about Summit Ministries and access the resources we have available for you, just go to summit.org. Thanks for listening and we’ll see you next week.