season and the fact that we are gathered here to discuss the mayflower compact and the fact that it is the 401st anniversary of the signing of this quintessential and inspiring american document just warms my heart. i am so delighted to see the young people here as well for this incredible conversation that we will have this evening. on behalf of our current president, and our president elect, dr. kevin roberts, i bring greetings and express our complete delight to partner with rfi and the museum of the bible for the 1620, the mayflower compact and america's founding event. at a time when the moral fabric of the american founding is constantly under assault we are so reminded of the power of storytelling. for thousands of years humans have relied on storytelling to transfer history and knowledge, to share emotions, and to relate personal experiences. so, the story of how the pilgrims sewed the seeds of liberty and self-government that made their new england settlement a cradle of democracy must -- must never be forgotten. it is a story that has the power to safeguard the sanctity of the american idea and exhibit its relevance to all americans, including those who have lost confidence that our nation is a place of hope, opportunity, and community for all americans. it is my honor tonight to introduce you to our moderators. my dear colleague, dr. jho low contact -- dr. john is a professor. in this capacity, he serves as heritage's leading scholar on western civilization and john locke. he has a former associate professor of history at the kings in new york. and also author of the new york times's bestseller "a hobbit, a wardrobe and a great war: how j.r.r. tolkien and cs lewis rediscovered faith, friendship, and heroism." his scholarship is respected across the nation and he serves as a senior fellow at the trinity forum in washington, d.c., and a scholar with the faith and liberty discovery center in philadelphia. he served as a distinguished visiting professor at the school of public power but see -- policy at pepperdine university where he taught on religion in public policy. i would also like to welcome our second moderator dr. eric patterson who serves as the executive vice president of the religious freedom interested that institute. he has a scar at large and i passed dean of -- he has a scholar at large and a past dean of the university. eric's interest in the intersection of religion, ethics, and foreign policy is informed by significant government service including two stands at the u.s. department estates bureau, of political military affairs along with 20 years as an officer and commander in the air national guard and serving as a white house fellow working for the director of the u.s. office of personal management. ladies and gentlemen, our moderators. please welcome them. [applause] >> thank you so much for that, can you hear me back in the bleacher seats? ok, and welcome everybody. it says a lot about you that you came out to hear a discussion about the mayflower compact. we are in the throes of a debate today over the meaning and genesee of our democracy. right? the latest conspiracy theory masquerading as history is that everything important about america can be explained through the lens of racism and oppression but at the very beginning may see something else, something remarkable in the history of world civilization. in 1620 we see a group of settlers establishing a political millions of people today, today live under governments that completely reject these basic democratic principles. and, the attempts to ignore this foundational moment in the american story and prepended -- pretended to not happen it makes you think that it coerced -- a tourist who traveled to italy and he is very unhappy and informs us that there were no wineries, vineyards and no grapes and no winetasting to be had anywhere. what are we to do p with this poor specimen of humanity? we can only pity him, but we are here to observe with our eyes open and to remember and engage in honest history. we have an all-star panel. i'm going to introduce them briefly and i will turn over to eric patterson. wilford mcclay, a professor of history at wells dale college. his most recent home -- book is "land of hope: an invitation to the great american story." it is like a vaccine, yes a vaccine that can inoculate the next generation of americans from the poisonous propaganda about threatens to infect our entire education system. william allen, a professor of political science. the chairman on commission on civil rights served as a kellogg national fellow, a member of the national council on the humanities. he has several books including george washington, america's first progressive. if today's progressive took the book seriously, they would repent in sackcloth and ashes. and then tim hall, senior fellow at the religious institute. he is an educator's educator. he has several supplements and popular history text including " the complete idiot's guide to world history." he advocates for civic, digital and religious literacy. he was recently honored as the teacher of the year in vance county. so let me turn it over to eric patterson some -- for some opening framing remarks. [applause] dr. patterson: good evening. it is a pleasure to be here with you tonight and on big -- and on behalf of our president and the religious freedom institute and is a pleasure to be here and we are honored to the museum of the bible and are heritage foundation partners. our mission is to achieve worldwide acceptance of religious liberties as a fundamental human rights and a source of a cornerstone of a successful society and as a driver of national and international security. the reason we are here tonight is because ideas have consequences. you will know that. and we believe in accurate history, and there is no more assailed moment in our history than the early years when people were coming to the united states as early colonists around 1620. there are two framings. one is the accurate history that has been happening for the last three centuries recognizing the sacrifice of the colonists who came, and asking the question what drove them towards this idea of prudential, ordered liberty? but you know there is another project going on, the 1619 project, which has been denounced by top historians like james mcpherson and gordon ward as largely phony history and one not focused on real evils in american history like slavery and things as our founding principal, not is not so, in part because the pilgrims did not practice that and they did not believe in it. what i want to note is that these are competing ideas right now, and they do have consequences. i have good news for you. freedom wins. freedom won in eastern europe in the 1980's and continues to win around the world and when you think about the american story is true that there has been slavery and injustice, but what beat it? the things that sprouted from the seeds that the pilgrims and then later americans cherished, and that is the idea of order and liberty for every single person in this country. that is at heart what is at stake when you talk about the real history of the mayflower compact tonight. it is history and tonight we will talk about that. it is also pedagogy, how we teach our history. we will talk about that tonight as well. one housekeeping bit of information and that is that you should have received a card when you came in. for those viewing this online, you can hit the chat feature and send a question. if you send your card questions to the fellows in the back where if you raise your hand, or put a question into the chat, we will receive it on this ipad that neither dr. loconte and i know how to use since we still write with quails and we will ask those questions in a bed. i will serve as moderator to ask a question of each of our panelists. so let me start with dr. mcclay, welcome. and here is our opening question for you. tell us about the political and religious traditions in which the pilgrims were rooted that helps them frame their efforts of self-government? how -- how did their ecclesiastical doctrines and practices inform their assumptions? dr. mcclay: i do not know how far back to go in answering not what i would say one thing to begin with, this may add inflection to remarks about the two versions of history. i think that while the story has been told pretty well in the past, and i have very little good to say about the 1619 version, one thing that historians have not sufficiently emphasized is the religious mention of the american experiments and the american founding. that is where i would like to begin in talking about the mayflower compact. the pilgrims, there is a chapter in one of the leading books on the pilgrims that said they knew that they were pilgrims and that is so true. they were primarily motivated by religious sentiments, zeal, and the desire to go somewhere to practice the true religion and found a pure church, free of the corruptions of the church of england and to re-create a sort of english village life in a new continent 3000 miles across the sea. they were driven by religious faith. you look at the compact and you see that it begins with an indication of the glory of god and with the fact that this colony is being founded, in furtherance of the glory of god. if you read about it with religious assumptions a lot of people say this is a lot like john locke, who had not written yet, his ideas about the state of nature and how people came together to form a civil compact. not exactly. in fact, these people were not founding united states of america. they are our forebears and we are right to claim that they thought they were going somewhere to sound a -- found a pure church and to live out their lives as christians. so, that is part of the answer, i think in the question. one other thing i think is worth pointing out is that in the end the mayflower compact is a civil union, not a theocracy. and how did that happen? it is because when they landed near provincetown, one of the least puritan places on the planet right now in cape cod, that is where they landed and i knew that anything north of the hudson river was outside the charter that they had obtained so technically speaking they were outside of a legal authority. and some of them, those that were aboard this ship they were called the strangers, manon puritan, non-pilgrim elements, or not as vibrant as the core group was was saying we will be free to go wherever we please once we land since there is no controlling legal authority. and that is how the compact came about. it was in an effort to forge a civil community. to hold it together because the leaders of the pilgrims knew that they all needed one another. they needed the strangers who were not particularly fervent and some not even religious at all had scales that would be at -- skills that would be apposite -- absolutely necessary. it was a gesture driven by religious aspirations, but also accommodating itself to a civil society, a civil and secular order. and i think one thing that is interesting about this is that we are often told that america, the united states was founded as a secular constitution. it does not invoke god, and the first amendment indicates the capacity of our secular institutions to tolerate religion. if you look back at the example of the mayflower compact is the other way around. that religious people are partly out of principal or expediency went the other direction and created a civil society that could include everyone. it was still religiously based. we often forget or are taught wrongly about the religious heritage at the heart of our earliest foundational heritage. so i welcome that the heritage foundation's attention. it brings that ecclesiastical assumption. dr. patterson: it really is a fascinating story about people seeking religious freedom and the majority not imposing it on others and creating a civil compact that is a model 150 years before the revolutionary war. dr. allen, let us turn to you. nicole hannah jones's latest effort, the 16 object -- the 1619 project was released earlier this week. how does this new origin story of the united states compared to the historical reality of the pilgrims and the mayflower compact, what seems to be the greatest weakness of the 1619 project and why should that matter? >> in 30 words or less? i think it is important for us to understand the nature of the conversation that we are having. we have two stories, we have the story of family memory and national memory. we are not always aware were cognizant of how those things fit together, how they mesh. when i spoke about the mayflower compact i have spoken about it from the perspective of that opening reliance upon god and the instruction from the pastor. before they even mounted the ship they had the duty imposed on them not to arrive at the destination geographically but morally. but, we are perhaps let a stray when we focus too much on the purpose and too little on the ordinary soils, so -- souls, souls like ourselves. the real story of america, the mayflower compact of the pilgrims and settlement of this land is a story of the lens -- the length which ordinary souls would go. i have a very good friend, a descendant of one of the shipmates on the mayflower compact who signed the main -- the mayflower compact, and his ancestor was stephen hawking's. we might think, ok, what can we learn from stephen hawkins, he is on the mayflower with the rest of them. what does a story tell us about ourselves? we cannot begin to get there before we ask a couple questions. united states became a special kind of country, the country that could eliminate slavery, and it is important to ask why wasn't that kind of country? and it has something to do with who they were in the beginning. and that is why the 1619 project is relevant. the 1619 project has nothing to say about the old -- ordinary souls over there in the beginning. didn't leave us a diary or books to explain himself. no abstract principles. we only know he was sentenced to death. yes, because he had popped off. something had infuriated him and he expressed it. and that was called mutinase. please of mercy led to his partnering so he was not put to death. perhaps he wasn't executed because a new that they needed hands that knew how to labor and jamestown. he was there in 1609, 1610. he had left london, left his wife and three children. as he went off with a band of aristocratic adventurers, not religiously inspired, not pilgrims, people who are out looking for adventure and two. -- do not have very much of a commitment for labor for themselves. he went off as a ministerial -- assistance and he had functions for assisting the governor and being a reader, so he had some religious background. hawkins got into trouble. remember jamestown went through terrible times, they nearly starved to death, amos banished the place and would not work for themselves and abused natives. for some reason, we do not know, because he did not leave us a diary or books, no abstract principles, we know that he was nearly sentenced to death because he had popped off, something had infuriated him and he expressed it, and i was called mutiny. pleas of mercy led to his pardon so he was not put to death, perhaps he was not executed because they knew that they needed hands of labor and that was a very indulgent thing to do to and -- to execute someone who could do that. but, his wife died. he got a letter and he returned to london. that is why he was in london when it was time for the group to leave their haven in the mayflower. they were blown off course and they landed in a far harsher climate. hawkins was on that crew with that second wife because his first wife had passed. he was a man who actually had lost several wives because in those days mortality was very severe and harsh it was not unusual for people to die prematurely. he had a large family, mostly girls, many of whom also died early. i guess you need to imagine in this story who does -- to this life was about. do not think about bradford matter, think about the ordinary soul, what on earth sent them into those dangerous waters, seeking this new life. why was he a signature to the mayflower compact? we do not know because we -- he left us no method. we know him from birth -- records and baptismal records and legal records, that is how we know him. we can to do something about him. and we can see whatever it was, maybe he did not like the way the natives were being treated. when they came to the shores on the mayflower. he had not only has new wife and children. also had a couple of sermons. we know that he got in trouble there just as he had done it jamestown why because in addition to his administrative functions. he had maintained an ordinary that isn't him or public house. and he was reprimanded for letting anybody sit and drink in his inn servants and other sorts was what the language was that was expressed. who were the other sorts. well, maybe natives maybe the handful of slaves that were present. my point is this. 1620 there was a stephen hopkins there. who was someone who was fighting to build a life? that had nothing to do with the question of slavery and had everything to do with a solid grasp on those middle-class principles and values and individualism. which ultimately characterized the society? and i would submit. far more characteristic of this society than anything you see described in the 1619 project. i think it's the project itself. the 1619 project is focused on privilege because of new york times came into being in the early 1850s after defender of privilege has never changed and that's all they know how to talk about. but the point is this. ask yourself. remember i said they're still descendants of hopkins here. ask yourself this question. why would the university become the kind of nation that could end slavery might have something to do with the kind of soul that stephen hopkins was? and the fact that they were very many of them. remember as we whip through the civil war. over 600, americans lost their lives on both sides. half of them muslim confederacy the other half were of course for the union. and of those we don't know how many but in the army of the union as abraham lincoln gives us evidence. there were a hundred and sixty some thousand who were emancipated many of them had emancipated themselves, of course. now this is the environment in which you see. a spirit growing among the people the spirit represented in stephen hopkins that has more to do with what this country is where it came from and how it should be understood. then the handful of slaves and perhaps they were only indentured servants. brought over in 1619 at that point there was no racial defense for slavery. no one even dreamed of that until much later. that was simply something that happened in the course of some people's practices of convenience that ultimately had consequences that extended far beyond what anyone to anticipated what they did anticipate we know from the mayflower compact what we did anticipate we know from lives like stephen hopkins. we know because we have his will he didn't have slaves. he left no slaves. we know because most people where people more like stephen hopkins? then they were like slave owners. so the story being told that the 1619 project is a false story. or let me put it differently. it dishonest story. it's possible to make the kind of argument that what makes in that project sincerely because one thinks it's an argument. let's try it out. let's engage this dispute with people debated and see how the argument fares. but that's not exactly what has happened in that project. without disparaging the participants in it at all. it is clearly dishonest precisely because it ignores stephen hopkins. in the same way that it ignored abraham lincoln. for it calls lincoln a man fundamentally racist. who in fact was not opposed to slavery and who did what he did in order to satisfy the needs of white privilege. that's effectively, but they're arguing they know it's dishonest. i put it out. i said a note to eight through to mr. silverstein the editor. i said look, it's alright for you to make this argument about lincoln, but don't you at least only the courtesy of response? because it turns out he did respond himself. he actually written a letter addressing point by point the very questions that respond to the accusations they make you never acknowledged my note. they never published lincoln's response. that's why i say it is not just a false argument. it is a dishonest argument. now vegans argument captures the heart of the life of stephen hopkins i won't read it to you. perhaps we'll come back to it later. i do have a copy of but it's a brief letter that he sent to someone from kentucky, but it is interesting because the person he was writing to was someone who would have been sympathetic to any information to defense slavery, or at least express racism. and lincoln went out of his way to do exactly the opposite. he was not catering to any opinion of the age. he was declaring outright firm principles moral principles and beliefs. those firm principles tell our national story. and they have meaning because we all have families like stephen hawkins that have been nurtured in them. we remember our families good and bad. because they made us what we are. that we remember our history good and bad. because it made us what we are. dr. allen, thank you for that and i think we'll and in this time where dishonest history for how someone feels history ought to be is so apparent in writing. it's a great corrective. free to remind us that things really happen. there were real people real we have the evidence. and we ought not to go beyond that. so thank you very very much for that. and that us to teaching. that dr. hall is a distinguished teacher. he's partnered with rfi inheritance and writing of a curriculum that will come out later very very shortly on the mayflower compact for high school students. let me ask you dr. hall. what do we need to teach young people about the meaning of significance of mayflower compact what's missing in our current approaches our current history textbooks and teaching about this subject and how do teachers whether they're they're parent teachers and homeschools or private schools or in public schools. what do what do they need to be able to strengthen our commitment to citizenship as to the mayflower compact? well first let me say, thank you. glad to be here excited to be part and always there's a privilege to be on the stage. so i'm very excited for that and and know that this is just a journalization from my 20 plus years of being an educator and you know writing different standards at the national and state levels and participating in the national endowment or the humanities institute on separation of church and state and harvard divinity schools religious literacy institute. so so these are gentlenizations so i'll say that so first, i mean, that's a great question. like what is what's missing for for our students and and how my more informed understanding of the mayflower compact build civic literacy because that's what we're trying to do and that's what we need. i think dr. allen and we were talking about that beforehand here, so i really informed understanding if we're going off. of understanding the religiosity of the document and i think that's something that needs to be pushed put out there is that we need to understand the religiosity and as rooted in that christian nature now i get it most teachers are fearful of that because they're well, they're a variety of reasons. i mean they're afraid to teach about that because they're afraid of push back from parents and students. maybe they're not comfortable with that religious literacy beast and possibly, you know, they're afraid that they're going to be biased. oh religious trad. ition, so they're they're hesitant, but we really need to recognize that christian piece to that mayflower compact. with an understanding that we're approaching the document from a cultural studies approach which is you know, three three things will know about the cultural studies approach is you know, first off is that religions are internally diverse? second they are change over time. and third they're embedded in culture. meaning the culture gives to the religion and religion gives the culture. and so with the mayflower compact in particular you can see where it is influenced by its christianity. okay, and so we need to recognize that in the classroom. and that's important. and then going back to the pluralistic nature of the mayflower compact is important as well. i'm drawing on the work of amy gutman here. we're really wanting to look at deliberative democracy, you know, which requires the principles and methods of education that promote a shared commitment to the rights and responsibilities of a civil body politic. with people that don't share the same concept of a good life. so this democratic education helps cultivate moral agency, you know meaning making one's own ethical decisions through the development of critical thinking skills self-confidence and humility. is this type of democratic education that promotes the condition that enables doc democracies to flourish now and in the future so in teaching the compact with this christian religious roots and the pluralism of the separatists and strangers. students are able to witness a deliberative democracy in action. if teachers gloss over these distinctions which they have and when you look at the textbooks, it's twitter brevity, you know, you know, it's a self-roll government of the consent. let's move on very quickly if you if you do that if you gloss over these distinctions, the historic moment loses its real educative power. for deliberative democracy i also argue there are many other movements and events in american and world history that need this more rigorous approach. that foster that deliberative democracy that we're talking about so end this question by stealing and modifying a famous line from ben franklin. about the new republic of the united states a republic if you can teach it. that kind of thing. that's a great modification. i think you're going to start being quoted on that one. well, i just want to remind you about our process for questions and we have about 30 minutes for q&a and then we'll wrap it up, but i want to remind you if you have a card if you'd raise your hand our ushers will come and grab those from you right now. i see them moving with some. churchillian haste remember churchill said make haste slowly. they're moving and for those who are online a reminder that you can type your question right into the chat box dr. loconte will have it and we'll read it. these questions will be entered into that chat box as well. let me turn if you dr. loconte. but the gate in what way? does the mayflower compact account for non-christians in their society? how does the compact account for non-christians? signatory, i mean that it accounts in that way. they everyone and it was important that non-christians. or non let's just say the people who are not fervent. puritanism might well been christian. we don't know a lot about many of them but it doesn't definitely definitionally deal with that, but i think the very fact that they participated on equal dangerous. here's the profound means. but maybe others have i would follow i would say we must remember and this is specific in the compact. it is a covenant. a covenant among people who agree so that their agreement among themselves defines the community. the idea of accommodating non-christians or non members of the community doesn't rise in that context. why should they? being mindful of non-christians, but they have done is extended in invitation to like-minded people to form a community together. well, guess what? he was going to do that. they don't have to say here's what you know on christians can do you can do it, too? anybody can do that? attract like-minded people and former communities therefore it is present in their very act and affirmation of the humanity of all. they want to pick this question to you as well because you get such a background religious freedom remember historical context of 1620. the 30 years war is making its way through your up right now. i mean, they are embroiled in religious conflict. they're not able to accommodate their religious differences, we're seeing something. like that here and accommodation. go ahead. okay, that's exactly right on the european continent. there's going to be four. overlapping wars that we call the 30 years war that end in 1648 and england is going to have its own civil war which has a religious dimension that will happen in two decades later after the mayflower compact but this group of separatists. take a theology from the reformation about the priesthood of all believers which flushes itself out in their ecclesiology and their local church as a certain equality among the members and a respect for one another rather than a hierarchical authoritarian type of church structure. and so when they have to figure out, how are we going to compromise? how are we going to work together? they have a model that they had been practicing since the 1570s in england and then in the netherlands of coming together of covenanting in a contractual sense to together for the common good. and it's in its rooted in a theology. that is so different than the religious wars that are going to take place in europe. well a religious foundation for religious pluralism. that's right. isn't that interesting? we got another great question here as an educator of middle school age children. what book would you recommend i use in teaching middle school age children well, we got to say bill mcclay's book. well out of the game. i've been struggling with with my sense of modesty just to promote myself the matter is winning here. but no, i i think i think men of hope is probably the reason levels a little too high for that, but we are about to come out with a young readers edition, which i'm actually working on the page proofs right now. i mean not right now, but i will go back to my hotel and work but to get them out in time for next year's. at school classes so and that's really aimed at 56th graders, which is the age of which most students have their first exposure to us history. so yeah, but i'm a little there are a lot of a lot of wonderful older books biographies of figures in american history. i wouldn't of the newer stuff coming out of publishing houses today, but but older older biographies of the founders of some of the great sort of figures that david crockett. so talk to extremely interesting figure by the way, politically in terms of his relations with indians. and his consciousness of your view rights of you know that i would i would do a lot of that with those younger students. i think conveying a and not just a a story but as a conjuries of storms and many stories which was stories often stories of i think in one way the great american stories of things that that bill allen has eluding to is the it's we're a nation that has given unprecedented opportunity to ordinary people. to make to actually say make something of themselves to have opportunity to have hoped of enterprise and and there are lots of there lots of books about that kind of thing earlier little books short books. very manageable digestible by young people i would recommend. heavy dose of that kind of thing. this is this is your bread. yeah, and i take a shot of this. yeah. i'll take a shot. that's so i would avoid all secondary sources. i would say go ahead and go to the primary sources with all of it get into the us documents. i mean, those are readily available online a variety of places and really scaffold does reading so that the students can actually, you know, get deep into those primary source documents and start sourcing those documents and join close reading of the documents and collaborating with the corroborating those documents and all the things that you need to do. so avoid the secondary sources, they're really good to the primary sources the unfiltered primary sources. we love those, okay. i think it's very powerful recommendation. i was religion i would say this however thinking about that age and the question of teaching you we have a tendency in the modern narrative. and i embrace dory's daughter says his perspective. that's the age when they are most obsessed with challenging and questioning things and what you should be teaching them with logic. paul comes over here. yeah, joe. can i mentioned something? story is the younger people and i think i agree with you, but i'm very excited and i don't mean fish catch them. so me, this is what i'm probably what i've always done wrong about if you just read the mayflower compact and have no other supporting information. it's hard to draw from the kinds of things that we're drawing from it tonight because we are ringing it about with and we haven't given a sort of presentation the story i i'm tempted to to say we should do that, but i guess we can assume all of you know, most of the but i think that's what it's the interaction between the text and the context. that is the most meaningful way to my mind to purchase. so while i'm not at all opposed to plunging into primary sources, i think without some kind of narrative account surrounding them and being the third frame of the picture. you're not going to be able to get as much i particularly younger people, but i defer to your greater experience and compare and read the events when isolation people with that back to go and say is this that it is a mistake. i have felt and ggb to them what to think. yes, it's a big mistake our attempt to create narratives too much all of the category of say here's what you must think. yeah, and we fall into that effect. it was going to send them the other direction. yes. yeah. i don't think these narratives should be esaux fables. i think they go. we saw stables are well. yeah, but that's pretty zydacty joe's and i can tell you in a worry about that is all they work because they can't do what you've already know. it's not that festival. well, that's another story. i'll tell you another day. yeah. okay great stories don't need to have a point a didactic. they carry young people along simply by the force of their flow and and they're in interest. eric patterson, you're going to jump in there. tim scott. tim's got something i think well go back to what dr. allen said is, you know. starting out with some primary sources in a compelling question associated with that that those primary sources really framing that inquiry is the way to approach it and and i think you're right. i think eventually students start to develop their own interpretations and we cannot provide that interpretation form a lot of times. we need to have them pull that out and question them and make sure that they understand those source as well. i would simply say that we have a high school curriculum that's free. it's five lessons on religious liberty that are tied to key themes but it also rooted in the work of martin luther king jr. and others and a junior high version of that's called the america's first freedom curriculum. they can download from the religious freedom institute website. it's at the 11th grade level like your text, but after in february or march, we'll publish a eighth grade version of that. that'll be freely available it ties some of these things. they illustrate this if we say they're going to read the zippy 19 project says george washington bought the revolution because he to keep his legs. there's no antidote to that other than george washington's own words and 1783 and what motivated meets the deal with a civil and religious liberty. yes. that's what they need to see if you don't need me to tell them they need to be there and meet george washington beautifully said let the text speak. let me speak. i got a question from our virtual audience. i'm glad you're here. almost can you speak to the effect that the mayflower compact had on roger williams and the founding of rhode island, you know great hayden for religious liberty there right? i see that as something against religious freedom. that's your understanding left about a question. can you speak to the effect? they may feel come back had on roger williams and the founding of rhode island. is there a connection? well, yeah, the one thing i say about roger williams that's been well documented for instance in that biography of him by i think it's john barry. is that right is when you when you look at roger williams, what is often missed is his early life in his early adult life in the united kingdom. so for instance, he was the personal secretary to oliver cromwell. so he saw what was going on in england and the the political divisions and there really also class divisions that that led to the conflicts that later we talk about is the the round heads and the cavaliers. he was right there in the star chamber watching some of that before he comes to the massachusetts bay colony, and i think i'm speaking kind of where would i best get at the early history of roger williams? i wouldn't go to the mayflower compact in my understanding i would start there. think that's right. yeah, right you go ahead. i was going to say it's important to remember the mayflower compact was never a legally binding form of government. it initiated a civil party, but it remained to construct the government and its legal foundation. so by 16 1640s the body of liberties is when they begin to setting whole set for the terms of relationship. politically speaking. that has more to do with what the williams of the mayflower compact does. i got a question here from our on-site audience. it's a big one for bill mcclay. are there historic examples of a civilization surviving and recovering from an elite that hates? the civilization is a little too targeted. it's got some punch to it. well love i i the part about the relief that hates its civilization hits it little difficult to to respond to but i think that when the fastest i think things about the history of rome. is that the extent to which rome? i mean there's a sort of way that we understand rob is falling and something sort of different happened brett. rome is transformed into the the of these western christianity. and christians were the despise minority. this little by little because of their personal example more than anything begin to well when they're away weave their way into the social structure of roman society to the point, whereby the time i mean diet lesion is sort of a last attempt to get rid of them and then constantine comes to power he is himself. converted some debate about how just how christian he was, but but he makes the religion acceptable and it really does become the official religion and it's transforms realms out of its decadence into something. that same leading edge of what would be a very disorganized with vibrant medieval era of and so onwards i don't know whether that's really the example of the questions but looking for it. i think we're looking for some hope it wasn't home states could turn itself. there is a warning embedded in the question though isn't there. i mean if you think about the french revolution the elites who are running the revolution ropes beer and company they do reject what has come before right? it's a fierce rejection not only of the monarchy but also the church and all the traditions that came before so the immediately alienate themselves from over half the population you get the bloody french revolution you get the guillotine and then you get the pulley that didn't end. well, we know that the thing about the americans that's so impressive though, which is so hopeful in my mind. is that the american revolutionary do not reject everything that comes before they're building on this earlier tradition it restore away and maybe that's something to talk about here just for a minute here gentlemen what they're are holding on to take it up past the mayflower right up to the american revolutionaries who are mindful of this mayflower experience. what are they holding on to even as they're they're going in some radical directions with the revolution. we understand that they end the monarchy, there's no national church. that's pretty radical stuff, but they're holding on to this is good. i think that's fundamentally, you know, we we always see there's that famous dialogue with the revolutionary veteran. i forget his name, but he was asked to you know, why don't you go to war. were you influenced by reading sydney? and so guys it never heard of them exist. what we the reason we went after those red codes was that we had always ruled ourselves and they were they were intent that we wouldn't anymore. yeah, so that's why we went after so that it's it's a tradition of self-rule it involved. fundamental rights inherited rights as englishman that were being aggregated through all the events that have yes, so i think it's it's it's that and and the religious element that i think it's really important. we talk about about with mayflower compact is less. evident but not absent not by any means. yes, dr. allan ready to say something. well, we're gonna disagree with my friend and colleague. i don't think it was the to be understood. why would coffee american family i think they were slightly that is a different point that you saw conscious that they were making. and they were principles they were worthy. and yes, i said no taxation without a representation, which is a ziploc before in england. but they actually understood it in different way. they of course the constitutional challenge to the british constitution as self-consciously did so so that they're set sale on overseas uncharted waters politically and more. oily speaking. they were not beholdened nearly two division himself rule. i understand they can talk though makes that argument that they were prepared to self-government. i think that part is true, but they were in affirming the past. they were not discarded him to be sure that they weren't affirming the past why because they have a special confidence in the god-given rights of humankind and they were referring that and that took president over everything else that idea that human being were capable of self-government. that's not preservative of anything in english. that is something specifically inferred in the context of the revolution it carries a whole moral weight of the purpose of the revolution in the whole freedom of conscience is embedded in it. and do you think it's present in the mayflower compact and the in the pilgrims as well? no, not in that sense that he just will beyond that was before the content has was a commitment to civil policy. it is not yet surface. for example the overriding importance of a beautiful conscience. yes, the exercise that they have not asserted it and defended it in those tourists the fundamental christian foundation of the freedom of conscience is what were found was recognized. as i said in some of my rights america is a christian nation because of the freedom of conscience. it doesn't matter or any christians in it because that is basically the christian principles. you can't get it any other way. that's what was happening. that was the revolution. and if you don't understand that we're going to short change ourselves. i attempts agree. i would say this going back to the compact, you know, if we lack when we're teaching it to really recognize the religious elements of it and the plurality of it part of the problem with interpretations in the classroom of the american revolution is that the founders got most of their ideas if not all of their ideas from enlightenment philosophers. and that really comes from that. and there might be some understanding of the gray awakening as being someone important, but it's really just very brief and really points all the way back just to the enlightenment philosophy. and i think that really short changes our students on the importance of religious traditions in our nation. can i just pick up on this on this point and it's it's simply that so how did these people think that they had agency? rather than a fatalistic which is much of human history kind of the gods do it or it's out of our control that comes from these ideas that come through the reformation and that is that the separatists the pilgrims are part of ordered liberty is the idea of this conscience, but it's before god and it assumes a natural moral order again not chaos, not moral chaos, and so these religious underpinnings that are become this cultural foundation. you don't get there some other way. it doesn't happen by chance. it's rooted in some of these religious presuppositions from the christian faith at the time and i've heard what you just said twice today. the earlier time was by my colleague at the religious freedom institute who heads are islam and religious freedom action team is male royer. he made the same case to me after an event that we had on antisemitism today that these values in the american cultural context came from christianity, but that they're now universal. well, yes that precisely how did it. virtual because they came to prevail and the force of their instantiation in the united states as a whole. yeah, that's how we became you. yeah diversity became universal because we're standing in camp university. it was the religion that managed to spread through the world without using the sword and i know that her crusades, i know they're inquisitions. that's not how christianity spread as a big the friendly outsourced and then when it took this concrete form in a culture and a political structure that he didn't thrust in the world, which was carried forward after 1648 and the curious asteria the rise of the nation state that james the whole foundation of human relationships, no longer tribe no longer blood no longer religion. the politics have been put in a cab. the nation-state now had to justify itself. it couldn't. as it were given the scientifically by the pope or anybody else. it had in fact it worked with people. well, every brand is own full and that's the foundation it had to work on in that pain is concrete reality through the founding of the united states. that's the revolution. i think it's really important to having this discussion about freedom of conscience and religious liberty because as you guys know that principle freedom of conscience is under assault in ways that none of us on this stage i think have ever seen at least in our memories, so it's good to have the discussion, isn't it? we got more questions here. go ahead. who didn't believe and destroyed multiscued philosophy he described a sinning and carthage going to rome to accuse animal thinking they were defending correct doing exactly the all the destroyed it and what is a count of that was reciting. those elites hated their country and couldn't save it because of that and guess what there is no carthage today. how we doing on time? yeah about 10 more minutes. okay. couple more questions here guys. how do we reclaim these stories? we tell ourselves about ourselves and preserve our national identity that arose from them. i'll say it again. how do we reclaim the stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves and preserve our national danny that arose from them and maybe the backdrop of that question is we've got so many sources in society telling us a different story about ourselves, but i think there's a lot of love there are a lot of lies out there about about our nation. stream, but how do we reclaim the stories? how do you recommend we go about it? well, i think one thing that we do is we don't in story of the stories become stale that they're told at the same way again and again and again, i mean the first ones tempted to give a first response to your question saying well, we need to tell the stories but i think as in all things even the bible i think has to be freshly appropriated by each generation there are and there are different things that we find to be of node in the past different very variations of the story that that become part of the way we want to tell them and we want to be accountable to what we actually know about by wave evidence about to make things up the way nicole hannah jones has done and the way some very well people have done. in their accounts of early america on a more positive dimension and activism slavery and indian removal of things. like weren't part of our history. we have to we have to continue. those but so i think i think a fresh. retelling, which is something that i welcome, you know, i've done a little bit of it myself is one way to do that because if the story it continues to be a story about us it can it can bear within itself all the resources of various ways of telling the story because it still our story. yeah because all of the event gives it life all of these gentlemen involved in that task in some way and trying to tell that story so maybe just practice a little bit more fresh ways. to tell story we tell ourselves about who we are you i love to build the story. yeah. well, you know, how about this is my story. this is my song thank you by saying here, of course is that the story gets built into you. and you don't want to escape. so you live it you don't tell it. i love to tell the story. because it's true. you live it. and it's living it out that transmits. it is not the relating. the size gear that we talk ourself into virtue. is a presentation of session that we have that is simply unjustified. wake up all ourselves in the virtue. virtue is what we do not what we talk about. and yes, it was having expectations. is important therefore to be able to convey especially the rising generations that they should perform at high levels and they should respond to moral demands. so that's not returning stories. let's say shake well do the right thing. be attended. all those common injunctions with shape character we were industries as we walked forward to we want justice. we don't want to believe. but in the modern era we tend to think that the needs to make engines. and by doing that we actually are enrolling. the moral foundations themselves, and we don't understand it. we're doing yoga starters. well observe how very religious people were seduced into talking about their values. rather than great. not understanding where this very term values came from. and that what it means is that your faith if only a belief is nothing more. let me give somebody equipped a chance because he was wanting to responding my friend looks like oh, yeah, we're gonna go to a quick little video clip but jump in. yeah, i'm just say this, you know as a teacher when i first started teaching i was the sage on the stage telling everybody the story, you know, and the story how i interpreted it and of course and i found that the story didn't stick very well with the students at that point and what really stuck with the students is when we started unpacking primary sources, they start weighing those sources and they started interpreting the source and i helped them weigh the sources. and then they take that story on for themselves. maybe in the beautiful way the bill allen did and communicating a kind of empathy historical empathy as your beautifully did taking us into the life of this man on them on the mayflower in a way that you know, we hardly ever do anymore back then and that's telling a story. i i profoundly agree with everything. built and and i do think that it indicates the importance of stories you think of that story stories are different from preaching precepts, you know, polonius, you know, tell us laterities, you know, all these very sound pieces of advice start with the last minute as he's about to leave is what makes it a comic scene, but amber but but that it what and shakespeare would have agreed with this statement that that things like plutarchs law biographies of famous and great individuals that that we read about and we think hi, i want to emulate that personally. i you know that that's different from the kind of precepts mongering that bill was talking about but it is something that is a sort of a middle ground being between precepts and behavior and i think that the stories can can have that inspirational effect that because we want to imitate. yes greatness when we see it it draws us a magnetically. yes. i need to see incarnated don't we? yeah, but okay. we've got a very short clip of video clip running through history over here clip as an introduction to the mayflower compact project that heritage has undertaken in collaboration with our visa. i think we're ready to see that clip. yes. hi, i'm dave stotts from drive-through history. the mayflower compacts was written by the pilgrims some 400 years ago remarkably that short document laid the foundation for key american principles such as the rule of law property rights and religious liberty. to unpack this amazing story. let's head to where it all began. plymouth, massachusetts with no king appointed person on board the mayflower with authority to take charge of plymouth colony. the pilgrims gave themselves authority and created their own government. they wrote the mayflower compact. the pilgrims called it a civil body politic a foundation for political liberty. they created a political community of equals who made a promise to one another we are going to abide by the laws that we ourselves will write in the future. they were establishing a world in which economic relationships were based on contract private property and economic freedom. just an equal loss. the mayflower compact was a truly unique document for that time in history. human beings are by nature free and that implies and indefinitely wide space to do many things including economic things. the mayflower compact helped establish principles of religious liberty and tolerance in the founding of america. the mayflower compacts. it's principles inspired the founding of the united states as a free republic undergirding a system of political economy. that would enable america to become the freest and most prosperous nation on earth. okay, lots of resources. yeah, how long that all right. lots of resources available in there the curriculum got a teacher's guide all kinds of resources. we working on i think. eric closes off with some closing remarks, but i want to first all let's have another round of applause for this all star panel and the discussion. i never get invited to be on the all-star panels for obvious reasons, but i get the least moderate to all star panel. so it's great being with you guys terrific discussion eric. take away. sure. i would just close by first thanking our our team of sponsors tonight the museum of the bible the religious freedom institute, and of course the heritage foundation, so thanks to the leadership from all three of those for making this possible and tonight. we we started with the idea ideas have consequences. we've heard about bad ideas like the in revolution and the consequences that flowed from that and that kind of revolutionism. we found in the russian revolution the chinese revolution. it happened in cambodia and again and again the things that tear down rather than build up. and some of the projects that we've talked about tonight are exactly that they tear down then build up and i think a closing framework is to think about e pluribus unum out of many one and these stories that we've been talking about tonight are about how the pilgrims and other seeds after the mayflower compact the charter of the commonwealth the virginia. later the constitution of massachusetts written by john adams. the twelve documents before the declaration of independence and then the declaration of independence. the us constitution the speeches of lincoln the reflections of jefferson and on and on and on tr fdr jfk ronald reagan that there's a set of seeds and those seeds are in civil society as well. they're in our poets and in our artists and in our statesmen, but they're also in our churches and then our families and there's this consistent theme about individual agency individual responsibility the fundamental right of the individual to seek transcendent truth and to live their life and to raise their family in that religious liberty and on and on and on and i think that that binding narrative that we could have today that's not divisive but rather it's creative. it's in the good sense progressive to use your word from where we started tonight is if we return to this idea of a shared american identity that within that is diverse and rich and vibrant, but it's committed to these central truths of respect for the other and those things come from these religious roots that go all the way back. to what was near and dear to the pilgrims in their religious understanding of what makes us human? and what makes and and why humanity is a shared enterprise e pluribus uno. well again, thank you all for being with us tonight and help me. thank joe in our panelists one more time. in a 1988 bbc interview president, ronald reagan talked about his work after taking office to restore the economy. his vision for us soviet relations and arms control the iran contra controversy and the assassination attempt that left him seriously wounded. here's a portion of that interview, right? oh, well, what were you just gonna ask i was going to ask you about the day that she was shot at the hilton hotel. and what's your feelings by then with i think in a way mr. president, that was one of the moments that solidified job popularity in the country the way you dealt with all of that. i was a crucial thing and do you agree the only unique thing i think about that was that i got all the way to the hospital and walked into the emergency room. and when the nurse came to meet me i said i'm having trouble breathing. i didn't know i'd been shot. it's extraordinary. i thought when the secret service man jumped on my back after throwing me into the car that he'd done the damage. yeah. i thought he'd broken a rib. and then when i started to spit blood i thought that the ribbon punctured a lung. yeah, that's amazing. and and when when were you first away what had happened? when they got my clothes peeled off of me. including cutting off a suit that i was wearing for the first time a brand new suit they found here the wound under my arm where the bullet had hit me there and i was not aware of it. what had happened is the bullet caramed off the side of the car and i was coming to the car went through the space between the door the hinge space and caught me right here watch the full interview and other presidential history programs anytime. cspan dot org slash history. good evening everybody. i'm betsy fischer martin the executive director of the women in politics institute at american university and welcome to our virtual series women on wednesdays. we are glad that you