Defending Faith, Family and Freedom Podcast

Gary Bauer: Welcome to another installment of Defending Faith, Family and Freedom. I'm Gary Bauer, and I'm really glad that you're joining with us today. Usually, I talk to you about some event in Washington, some big battle in the United States Congress, or something happening at the White House or whatever. This show's going to be a little bit different.

I would say, and as you all know, I'm kind of a guy that's been sentenced for whatever reason by God to do my work in Washington, DC. But I actually believe, I think most of us do, that the big battles happening in America are really being fought out in the culture. For way too long, Christians have been pushed out of the culture.

Well, the other day, my wife Carol and I went to see a movie that a number of people we respect have recommended to us. I haven't gone to a lot of movies since COVID. We tend to wait until things are on TV or whatever. But we went to this movie, *A Great Awakening*. My friends, I can't—I'm actually having a little bit of a hard time this morning coming up with the right words. It was simply incredible.

Carol and I are not particularly emotional people, but both of us found ourselves near tears a number of times. Let me just tell you one more reason why I think this movie is so important. It's the 250th anniversary of America. Half the country doesn't know the actual facts about the American founding.

We're literally teaching our children that Christianity had nothing to do with the founding. In fact, in some textbooks, we say that the purpose of the American Revolution and the reason people came to America was to get away from religion. I mean, you talk about lying. That's just a bold-faced lie.

This movie, *A Great Awakening*, tells the story of the American Revolution and the role of Christianity in it. But it does it through the story of George Whitefield, a great evangelist, and the relationship that he had with one of our Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin.

It is gripping. It's emotional. As a Christian, I'm telling you, you will be deeply moved. But even more than that in some ways, I believe you can take a non-Christian to the movie with you, and it won't turn them off. In fact, it not only will teach them some American history, it's a great way to introduce them to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So, we are very fortunate this morning because we have as our guest the producer and director of the movie, Joshua Enck. Joshua, welcome to Defending Faith, Family and Freedom. Let me begin our conversation by saying one of the things that I was thinking about when I saw the movie is how I wish that Dr. James Dobson was still walking the earth with us, because, Joshua, he would have loved this movie. I'm assuming over the years you met Dr. Dobson. I know your in-laws were very close to him. But how do you think Dr. Dobson would have reacted to this movie?

Joshua Enck: Gary, thank you so much for having me on your program. It is truly an honor. I was so looking forward to this conversation with you. Thank you, and thank you to all those who are watching, who are listening.

I had the great privilege of meeting Dr. Dobson outside of our small theater here in Lancaster, Pennsylvania called Sight & Sound many years ago. His presence was so warm and had such authority, and I had an immediate respect for him and all that he has done for the Kingdom.

So to be connected with his program now, with his ministry today with you, Gary, is an absolute honor. I saw how he reacted over our shows. I saw that firsthand. I think with this film being about the only kind of liberty that can come through Jesus Christ and the birth of our nation, the foundation of our nation, and the revelation that came before the revolution, I can only imagine that he would be on cloud nine right now, excited for the impact of this film.

Gary Bauer: Joshua, I want to spend as much time as we can on the film itself. But you've got a great story from how you began. I understand you started out with Sight & Sound as a stagehand. Share a little bit of that with us.

Joshua Enck: I was born in a very American lower middle-class blue-collar family. My dad was a foundryman. My mom was a stay-at-home babysitter. At the age of 12, mom and dad bought a VHS video camera for the family, and I picked it up and I never put it down.

I made movies over the weekends with my buddies. Any project that I was given in high school, I always chose to do a unique feature film. They would show it in front of the whole school, and so I felt alive when I told stories. I felt alive when I would connect with the hearts of people and move them toward an emotion.

Once I graduated, I thought, "Well, I guess only the lucky few get a chance to do this." You go to New York and LA, and I grew up in an incredible home, a loving home, but it wasn't a Christian home. We went to church Christmas and Easter. So I didn't have a lot of understanding at all on the things of faith.

But when I was isolated at the age of 18 or 19 years old after high school, all my buddies had a plan and they went somewhere. I was working at a lumberyard, and I got born again. Somebody came into my life that taught me and showed me the love of Jesus, and it was a light switch went off.

I oftentimes would take walks before that and talk to God, but I never knew who Jesus was. In fact, "Jesus Christ" was a swear word in my circle. It wasn't a person. So I got saved at the age of 19 years old, and the Lord put that spark back in me to be a storyteller.

Providentially, this theater called Sight & Sound came to my attention through my late mom in 1995. I came down here, 30 minutes away from my home, and I walked into the theater. It was the first year that they were doing *Noah* on stage, and I thought, "Wow, this is not the kind of theater that I was picturing."

I started out as a stage technician pushing sets around in the dark and finding God-fearing people, brothers and sisters who just watered that seed that was planted in me. It was a quieter season. I actually demoted myself and went to the animal department to work in the barn because it had a better schedule than the show schedule.

I found a mentor there, an older man who was an elder, that really just grew me spiritually and matured me. This passion for storytelling just continued to grow. My father-in-law discovered that in me, and he pulled me aside and started to give me opportunities to stretch those wings. That was six stage productions later and two films later, and I'm still doing it and on fire for the Lord more than ever.

I can't thank my mom, who is not with us anymore, more. I can't thank Glen and Shirley Eshleman for believing in me. But most importantly, I can't thank them enough for giving me their beautiful daughter who is my bride of 25 years—26 years this September—and my four incredible children and son-in-law. I am a blessed man, Gary. I am a blessed man.

Gary Bauer: My bride of over 50 years is from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, so we have a connection there. You're obviously exactly where God wanted you to be, Joshua. I know you love Jesus and I know you're a patriot and love America.

So here we are, coming up to the 250th anniversary of the birth of our country. My understanding is you were thinking about that and you wanted to do something creatively that would fit into that anniversary. I read somewhere that you began thinking maybe it would be a movie that would zero in on the father of our country, George Washington, but God laid something else on your heart. Share that with us.

Joshua Enck: I was born in 1976, so I'm a bicentennial baby. I was born to be a patriot, and I am. I love my country. I love the Lord more. Putting those two things together is quite an opportunity and blessing.

I knew that we were coming up on our 250th anniversary. We were working on our second feature film, and I knew that it was about liberty because the Lord gave me a dream. In that dream, I was standing in our Lancaster theater and I saw the Liberty Bell, but it was huge. It was swinging side to side over the seats of our theater, and I could hear its sound and it was beautiful.

I woke up, and I knew that the Lord wanted Sight & Sound to proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof through a film—to be set free from sin, the true definition of liberty. We're on our 250th anniversary, and a lot of people are going to be using that word differently. They have different definitions of it. So we wanted to do a film that really centers in on exactly what liberty in Christ is.

I thought, "Okay, liberty, George Washington, Revolutionary War." I was getting very excited about that, but I kept hitting roadblocks. My wife was seeing that. She sent me away, just me and my dog, to an Airbnb outside of Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, which is not far from our house. I was praying and seeking the Lord, and on the second day of that retreat, the Lord spoke to my heart so clearly. Just as clearly as a bell ringing, He said, "You have liberty right. You have your Georges wrong."

I was thinking, "Well, what other George is there?" I remembered my writing partner, Jeff Bender, his favorite person in history aside from the Bible heroes is George Whitefield. He and I talked about George Whitefield many times over the years. In fact, a year before that, I was in Oxford University with my daughter who was taking classes there. We went to Pembroke College where George Whitefield met the Holy Club and where he was born again.

I called Jeff Bender from there, and I said, "Jeff, I'm standing in your hero's chapel. Would you pray?" I put it on speakerphone and he prayed for another Great Awakening to come to this land, America. A year later, the Lord put George Whitefield's name on my heart, and the rest just wrote itself.

He was so excited. I was so excited to write this. When I found out that the Lord providentially put arguably the most powerful evangelist of all time, George Whitefield, into the path of Benjamin Franklin, the most celebrated deist of the Founding Fathers, He providentially put those two together to spark the most formative event in American history called the First Great Awakening from 1739 to 1770.

It was George Whitefield's trumpeting voice behind the pulpit and Ben Franklin's hand behind the printing press printing all of his sermons and whereabouts that sparked the great First Great Awakening.

Gary Bauer: Joshua, the voice that Whitefield had is almost supernatural because there weren't any kinds of instruments, electronics to magnify a voice. When we do a podcast or a radio show, we're worried about making sure the volume's okay. We're talking back in the 1740s and 50s and 60s, and Whitefield would talk to crowds as you make so obvious and so emotionally gratifying in the movie, of tens of thousands of people. They all said, even at the total back of the crowd, that they could hear him preach the Word of the Lord.

Joshua Enck: It's incredible. He had a supernatural speaking voice. He was truly a trumpet blast. People could hear him two miles away down the Delaware. In Philadelphia, a city of 20,000 residents, 30,000 people showed up and could hear him speak. We know that because Ben Franklin could hear his voice as well and did a scientific experiment and measured how many people could hear his voice during that sermon in November of 1739 from the courthouse balcony. That scene's depicted in our film.

Another scene that's depicted in our film that really affirms his supernatural speaking voice is when George Whitefield was born again. He got kicked out of the Anglican Church because he was a little too theatrical, which I think is pretty cool coming from a theater background.

He set up a traveling pulpit in the middle of a coal field in Bristol, England. This is a true story. He started to preach the Word of God, and the anointing fell upon him and his voice carried down into the earth. Whitefield's own words in his journal, which we know exist because Ben Franklin printed them, he said, "Like black ants, they came up out of the earth and came to his pulpit."

He said, "I knew the Holy Spirit took hold of them when I saw white gutters going down their black cheeks." That scene in our film is so powerful. When we shot it, we actually experienced a move of God while we were shooting that scene. We captured it in this film, a true move of God on people's hearts.

Gary Bauer: As we sat there watching, that scene was unbelievably gripping. I'm originally from Kentucky, and of course, Kentucky's a coal state. There's been a lot of improvements made, but back in the 18th century, people working in those coal mines, that was a death sentence. They were miserable people.

Of course, child labor was allowed. So seeing those poor children and the women and the men all covered with this black soot, and they even in the scene, which is so dramatic, when he first shows up, they want nothing to do with him. In fact, there's an effort briefly to stone him. So he delivers the scripture of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ while he's bleeding from the stones that hit him.

Joshua Enck: This film is really firing up and igniting the evangelists in our nation. We have heard from notable pastors all over the nation and influencers of how inspired they are. There's a line in the film—it shows up three times—"One tiny candle illuminates a thousand."

We are seeing candles being illuminated in the hearts of influencers and leaders like yourself, Gary, that just can't keep it quiet and they are just creating an inferno of enthusiasm and excitement around preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ boldly just like George Whitefield did.

From 1739 to 1770, 80% of the colonists heard George Whitefield's voice with their own ears. What if 80% of Americans would hear George Whitefield's voice again? What could happen? Because politics are downstream of culture. We know that.

The only way to invade culture is with truth and power, and we have a young generation of believers that are looking for authenticity. The First Great Awakening, which is what this film is really about, is an authentic, bold move of God. This next generation is looking at that and saying, "Can we have one of those too? Can we see that happen again on this land?"

We're saying, "Why not?" This film is ushering that spirit into this nation. It's not a movie. It's a movement. We're very thankful and blessed to be a part of that.

Gary Bauer: You should be proud to be part of it, Joshua. It's just incredible. God has done this in our history at key existential moments. This was a time where the question of whether there would even be America was up for grabs, and what George Whitefield did in bringing the message of Christ to the colonies played a major role in the Revolution happening.

There was another Great Awakening in the years leading up to the Civil War in which the country had to decide whether one man could own another man. Thank God, unfortunately it took 700,000 people to die, but the answer was of course not because we are all made in the image of God.

Joshua, I think we're in one of those existential moments now about whether we're going to be one nation under God going forward. If we're not, the American experiment is over. So you may very well be playing and this movie may very well be playing a Whitefield-type role in this moment in America about whether we're going to rediscover our Christian roots or not.

Joshua Enck: I could not agree with you more, Gary. A prophet's role—and we believe that this film is prophetic—is to cry truth above the noise of culture, to cut through the noise all around us. That's the kind of climate that we're in right now.

That's what this film is doing. It's cutting through all the noise. It's uniting people. It's not divisive. It's uniting people. It's taking people from all different denominations and pulling them together. That's what happened in the First Great Awakening. It was the colonies' first shared experience because they were very fragmented.

But it was their first shared experience. They were experiencing the Holy Spirit together. They were experiencing a move of God together. That's what I believe we are teed up to do again in this nation. It's a jubilee year for our nation, the 250th. That Liberty Bell was a gift given to us on a jubilee year of William Penn's Charter of Liberties.

I believe that the Lord is doing something in the foundation of our DNA and our identity as a nation right now. This film is resonating with politicians and pastors and influencers. It was great to hear Ted Cruz took his 91-year-old mother to see the film, and he said it was fabulous. To hear of other key people in the nation who are experiencing this.

What we want to do, Gary, and what our heart is here at Sight & Sound, this is not entertainment. This is not about the box office. This is about doing our role, being obedient to the voice of God and being a part of His big plan. The arts, storytelling, it's the method He used when He taught through parables for those three and a half years.

When we go from the head to the heart of man and we move them toward truth through the power of story, we start to see change. So what I want, and if anybody who's listening to this right now, I beg of you, use this film as a banner. Use this film as an anthem. Use it. Take it. Show it to your congregations. Show it to your communities. Show it to your families.

I say to the patriarchs of the family, the men of the family, do your role as a patriarch. Be responsible and teach your children the truths of our history here in this great country before we lose it. The sun, I believe, is still rising on this nation. I don't believe it's setting. I think it's rising because the Son of God is rising in this nation.

Gary Bauer: The sun rising or setting is a great point, and it's one of the themes of the movie because Benjamin Franklin at the Constitutional Convention saw a display of the sun behind the speaker's chair, and he pondered whether that sun was rising or falling.

Later when the Constitutional Convention decided in their division that what they needed to do to be united was to turn back to God and pray again, he concluded that in fact the sun still was rising on the new American nation.

Joshua, it's astonishing that our children don't know that speech. I found myself sitting there mouthing the words a little bit ahead of Benjamin Franklin, not because I'm special but because when I was in school, those sorts of things were routinely being taught.

You go to Washington. If you just walk around Washington, DC, etched into multiple buildings and statues and so forth are words from our Founding Fathers that are often words from the Bible. You would have to sandblast half the government buildings in Washington to erase the history of America's reliance on scripture and on God.

Some people may say, "Well, he's the producer and director. Of course he's going to like the movie." Well, I'm not the producer and director, and I've seen a lot of poor examples over my life of people that were well-meaning but didn't have the skills and talents of their artistic craft to produce something as Christians that we could be proud of and we would want everyone to see.

This movie does that. I add my voice to yours. Please, folks, put some time on the schedule now before you get more busy with summer, etc. Go see this film. It's a life-changer and it could even be a nation-changer if enough people see it.

Joshua Enck: Amen. The definition of a generation in some biblical terms is 30 years. From 1739 to 1770, the colonies were in a revival and it was known as the First Great Awakening. So an entire generation of American colonists came to this place of becoming a self-governing people, a people who were able to say our inalienable rights aren't a gift given to us by a king but a right given to us by God.

They didn't just wake up on July 4th and say that and decide to then declare independence. They were saturated in that culture and that truth, and they became a people that naturally and organically just believed that way.

So when they went into the Revolution, they were a people who were just experiencing an entire generation—three decades—of revivals through George Whitefield, through Jonathan Edwards, through the Wesley brothers. The greatest promoter of those times for those revivals was none other than Benjamin Franklin.

God used Benjamin Franklin incredibly. What we're so excited about with this film is how it ties those two stories together, those two lives together, and what Ben Franklin stands up and does in June 1787 in the Constitutional Convention. The words that he says—and we have it in the film word for word, we didn't omit a single one—his speech needs to be heard again.

Gary Bauer: Joshua, it's astonishing that our children don't know that speech. I found myself sitting there mouthing the words a little bit ahead of Benjamin Franklin, not because I'm special but because when I was in school, those sorts of things were routinely being taught.

We really have stolen the legacy of our own children and grandchildren by not teaching them the shoulders of giants that they sit on that are responsible for the liberty they enjoy that even today most of the world does not enjoy.

Joshua Enck: And Gary, as a man of God, doesn't it just make you want to square off your shoulders and stand up and be courageous and bold for Christ? It does for me. I have a 15-year-old son, and this film is for him. It's for my daughters. It's for their future husbands and my current son-in-law.

To put Ben Franklin's speech out there for the nation to hear once again, it was collecting dust in many schools and colleges, even faith-based ones. I don't know. But to hear the testimony of George Whitefield, our spiritual Founding Father and arguably the most powerful evangelist that's ever stepped foot on our soil, it's right here.

It's a two-hour and nine-minute film and banner and anthem that you can use as a dad, as a ministry leader, as a mom, as a community leader. It's right there. We're meant to be the body of Christ and use the arts, use the songs, use the films, the things that are in culture to advance the Kingdom of God.

Every time that scene—I've seen the film several hundred times obviously—and every time Ben Franklin stands up and he delivers that shot. Can I tell you this, Gary? Just a little behind-the-curtain fun fact. The day that we shot that scene of Ben Franklin's big speech at Independence Hall was election day. That was not planned.

If you would have spun the camera around, we were all wearing our red, white, and blue "I voted" stickers. Word has it that some of the actors actually went in their costumes and voted. You can't script those things. The square footage of the flooring for the Independence Hall that we rebuilt in our shop here in Lancaster was 1,776 square feet.

Gary Bauer: What a coincidence, right, Joshua? What a coincidence.

Joshua Enck: Last one I'll share with you, the rising sun chair. My wife and I bought that a year before we even knew that this film was an idea from a furniture maker who was commissioned by the state of Pennsylvania to build two replica rising sun chairs for the bicentennial of the signing of the Constitution in 1987. He lives one mile from my house. This has God's hands all over it, Joshua.

Gary Bauer: So as we're—I could talk with you for hours about this. But if we do that, we'll keep people away from the movie, and the movie's much better than even us talking about it. But there's a hymn that was written just for the movie, is that correct? I found the hymn unbelievably moving. Tell us a little bit about that, because I think this hymn could become over time an American classic.

Joshua Enck: I believe it will be. It was written by my close British friend, Chad Marriott, who actually moved to America. He married an American missionary, and he's an incredible talent.

He got the script and he saw that the townspeople in Philadelphia sing a hymn after George Whitefield's sermon on Market Street. He just started to play around with that. I was up in his office, and on the whiteboard, he had these lyrics to this hymn. I said, "What is that?" He said, "That's the hymn that I wrote."

I said, "You actually wrote a hymn?" He said, "Yeah, do you want to hear it?" He started to play it on his piano and sing it, and people started to come into his office, eyes filling up with tears. He finished, and in his British accent, he asked if we liked it.

Yes, we are moved by it. He is so passionate about this country. He has a dual citizenship. He's so passionate for this country and he's so passionate with the message of this film. That hymn, *Awaken Us Today*, was originally penned by Chad Marriott for this film. You can go and listen to it on Spotify. You can download it in all the places that you want to hear your music. In fact, the entire album is now available online. It's exciting.

Gary Bauer: So when we got back from the movie, the first thing I did was put up the computer and went on and brought up that hymn to listen to it again, because I wanted to have that same feeling I had when it was, as I recall, it's definitely during the credits. But it's also in that wonderful scene on Market Street in Philadelphia as people are walking to hear him preach.

Joshua, it wasn't a surprise to anybody, it wasn't a surprise to God, that we were born in America. He knew exactly where we were going to be born, and there's no bigger blessing God could have given any of us when He allowed us to be born here, because there are many places around the world where we could have been born and the very act of going to church would have been putting your life at risk.

The question before us is, are we going to be ingrates and not protect this great gift that we were given by being born here, being a citizen here? Or are we going to show our gratitude by being Christian citizens and boldly going into the public square with our message?

If we're not there, we've seen already forces that are very dark take that place of us in the public square. They will decide what kind of liberty or whether our children or grandchildren have any liberty.

So you have done, you and Sight & Sound and the Eshlemans, you've done a wonderful, blessed thing by producing this film. I hope and know that God will bless it and get it to the eyes of, I hope, millions of people. Joshua, thank you for this creative work.

We want to do everything we can to help you at the James Dobson Family Institute to make sure more and more people see it. If you've got a final brief thing you want to share with our listeners and viewers, feel free to do it. So I'll give you the last word. But again, God bless you and thank you for doing this work.

Joshua Enck: God bless you, Gary. Thank you for being such dear friends to Sight & Sound over these 50 years that we've been in ministry. Thank you for promoting and supporting our sophomore film called *A Great Awakening* that's out in theaters right now.

We're coming up on the National Day of Prayer. We're coming up on the rededication of our nation on May 17th. Right here is a movie, right here is a banner, right here is an anthem that if you love the Lord and if you love your nation, you can wave that banner and sing this anthem and usher in the Spirit of God in a powerful way so that we can actually experience a similar awakening that will wash over this land and saturate the hearts of men once again.

So thank you for everybody who's watching and listening. Tremendous honor to be partnering with all of you and doing this incredibly important work to advance the Kingdom of God. *A Great Awakening*, folks, go see it today. God bless you all.

Chad Marriott: (Singing)

From the oceans through the valleys,

From the mountains to the shore,

Let Your Kingdom be awakened

In the hearts of men once more.

Call Your children into freedom,

Captive souls to liberty.

Come awaken, Holy Spirit,

Come awaken us today.

For the broken, for the weary,

The thirsty and the poor,

Bring the lost into Your presence,

Wash away the stains of war.

Bring salvation, Great Redeemer,

Holy fire unto the land.

Offer hope for us through kindness,

Comfort us by Your hand.

Come awaken, Holy Spirit,

Come awaken us today.

Precious Jesus, onto Thee I give it all.

Lay my hands onto the servant

And my heart onto Thy call.

Every shepherd, Father, bless them.

Raise us up by Your decrees.

Through the darkness, lead us forward,

Come awaken us today.

For Your Kingdom, for Your glory,

Come awaken us today.

(Music continues until end)