Judge Mark Boonstra spent seven years compiling every statement America's Founding Fathers made about God into a three-volume work with extensive footnotes. He argues belief in a divine creator was central to the nation's founding and warns the U.S. has been moving toward secularism through schools, journalism, and entertainment.
Hi everybody, Dennis Prager here. If you called in and you're on, stay on. I'm talking about how the last 2 years, or nearly 2 years, have affected you philosophically, personally, emotionally, psychologically, familially. The root of our problem, as I have said all of my life, and I am certain of it— I don't believe it, I know it. An atheist could know this. You don't even have to be a believer to know this. The God issue is the issue. So I received the book in the mail. You have no idea how many books I receive in the mail, and many of them are wonderful. But obviously I could only feature a tiny fraction. But this one just came in, and I asked the author to come on in their own words. It's 3 volumes. Today's Godless America: What Would Our Founding Fathers Think? The research that made this possible is astounding. Everyone is footnoted, all the founders what they said about God. My favorite is Benjamin Franklin, because people call him a deist. Benjamin Franklin and I— and I am known as religious, quite rightly— have identical views about life and God. Identical. Just for the record, if he's a deist, I'm a deist. The man who did this is a judge, actually, in Michigan. Mark Boonstra, B-O-O-N-S-T-R-A, STRA. He has served since 2012 as a judge at the Michigan Court of Appeals. Judge Boonstra, welcome to The Dennis Prager Show.
Thank you, Dennis. It's an honor to be on your show. Thank you for inviting me.
I gotta tell you, uh, I, I can't tell you how much I admire what you've done. I mean, it, it's— this, first of all, there's no book that's more important If people give a damn about what this country was founded to be, they need to see your 3 volumes. I will cite from it prodigiously on my radio show. When did you begin this research? When you were 8?
Uh, not quite that long. I'm 64, so it wasn't quite that long, although I think the reasons for writing it probably began when I was about 8, when the effort to transform this nation from what it was founded to be into a secular nation probably began that long ago when they started taking over education in America and journalism in America and entertainment in America and shaping everything that we came to, to hear and therefore to believe. But no, I, I started working on this about 7 years ago, honestly, and I, you know, I have a full-time job and part-time thing, so I did it when I could. And there was a time when I thought I needed to get this out, and this was several years ago, because I thought it was important that people hear this message. But the truth is, it's so much more timely today than it would have been then. I mean, and that's sadly because we've, we've fallen further into the craters that we now need to dig out of. But I was concerned for many years frustrated and angered even about what has happened to our country and, and, and country that we want our kids and grandkids that they're going to have to grow up in. And it had strayed so far in so many ways from what our founders intended us to be that as over those 7 years, the thoughts crystallized in my mind, or before that even, I concluded that there was one really fundamental underlying overriding reason for all of that, and that is that we've lost God, and God was so central to the founding of this country. It was the reason our founders came here was freedom of religion, to be able to exercise their religion the way they wanted to, and we've lost all. We've banished God from so many areas of our society, in particular the school. And so our kids are not learning really who our fathers were. And what I wanted to do is to not so much to persuade people of my own views, but that's right.
Just provide that. That's what you've done here. It's awesome. It's truly awesome. I, the second I got it, I sent you an email. I wanted to help you. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a gift to yourself or to anybody. On your Christmas list. In their own words, it's with all— it's all footnoted, what all the founders had to say about the centrality of God. Judge Wiggins
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