Connecting World-Wide Revival and The U.S. Constitution

Connecting World-Wide Revival and The U.S. Constitution

November 6, 2025

Host: Dr. Isaac Crockett

Guest: David New

Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 11/6/25. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.

Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.

Isaac Crockett:

Well, hello and welcome to the program. This is our bimonthly deep dive into the constitution and the issue shaping our nation. Of course, all of this from a biblical and a historical perspective as we look through our biblical worldview lenses. I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett and today you’ll hear our regular guest constitutional attorney, David New who’s here with me. You do not hear the voice you normally hear on Thursdays, and that’s the honorable Sam Rohr, the president of the American Pastors Network. You could go on Facebook and see some pictures I posted, but Sam is over in Israel right now. He has some things going on. He and his wife are over there, and so I am trying to fill in, I’m trying to stand in the gap in Sam’s shoes. So David, our guest and those of you listening, please bear with me as I do this.

Our producer, Tim Schneider is helping out and we’re all trying to fill in, but the question today that we’re talking about with our attorney friend David New who’s on here all the time talking about these things is a question that maybe you’ve never thought kind of a connection here between worldwide revival and our constitution. So the question that we’re going to start with is, are we ready for a worldwide revival in the last few weeks, last seven, eight weeks or so since the Charlie Kirk assassination, things have been exploding. I know in the little church where I pastor out in a rural area right on the board of New York and Pennsylvania, we’ve had the highest attendance that we’ve had since I’ve been there for a few years and the pastor before me said that it’s the highest it’s been in a really long time, especially of young people.

It’s maybe been more than a decade since we’ve had this many young people coming. I was recently in Virginia and I was down at Liberty University and Charlie Kirk was supposed to have been speaking that day that I was there for a fall convocation and one of his friends was there, obviously in his stead. It was just amazing to see a stadium packed out with tens of thousands of mostly college students excited to sing the word of God, excited to talk about their salvation and things. It was really, really amazing to watch, and this has kind of been exploding. There’s been this uptick of people going to churches, a number of colleges, even secular colleges are experiencing things that look like it might be a revival among the students. And there’s been a lot of increased baptisms of young people. Almost all the reports are coming back saying that there is a growing interest in spiritual matters in America, especially with the younger generations.

New York Times has reported that young men in the Gen Z generation have had a huge increase in spiritual interest even more than ladies have of that age. And now we’re heading into our 250th anniversary for American Independence and there’s a lot of things happening that could be a sign of revival in America 250 years after our founding. And it’s not just in America. It’s really amazing to see it’s in other parts of the world as well. And David and I have been sharing some information and David has shared a lot of information with me today and he’s talking about things that going on revival in Germany, France and Italy. These are some of the European countries that seem so dead to spiritual revival. Even Brazil, which is really traditionally a Catholic country, they are seeing a Protestant evangelical movement spreading. It’s estimated that the number of evangelical Protestants will overtake the Catholic population in Brazil, maybe in the somewhat near future.

And then another incredible thing to think about is the numbers in China, and I’ve been looking at even the percentages have been growing by leaps and bounds of Christians in communist China. Red China is officially an atheist country, and yet there are many more, some of the numbers I’ve been seeing Christians there than in Europe, for example. The number of Christians that go to church on Sunday morning in China seems to far outnumber all of the European countries put together. So what does that mean for America? What does that mean for you and me? Is revival about to spark or has it already? We’re going to look today how the US Constitution, and that’s where our good attorney friend David nw, is really good at putting these things together. It’s uniquely suited for allowing an American revival, and we’ve had several revivals in our American history and some believe that the Constitution, that’s what we’re going to hear from you, David about that. That’s one of the reasons it’s happened. So again, welcome to this Thursday program, Thursday edition of Staying in the Gap today. David New thanks for all the information you sent my way and welcome to the program.

David New:

Thank you so much for having me. It’s wonderful to be with you and blessings to everyone who is listening with us today. We hope you enjoy the show.

Isaac Crockett:

Well, thank you David. And we have so many numbers to jump into and dive into, but I would be remiss not to talk about this week’s elections. We had some very notable elections going on across our country. So before we get into the numbers that you’ve sent my way, what would you like to say about the elections we had this week on Tuesday?

David New:

Yes, I would like to make a few brief comments about the election on Tuesday. It was a rough night for Republicans, a good night for Democrats and other sorted creatures. One thing to know is that just because the socialist won in New York City, that does not mean that everybody who voted for him wants socialism or is interested in socialism. I suspect many of the people that voted for him want free childcare, which he is offering free public transportation with buses, which he’s offering free government food stores. I don’t think they would be free, but they would be subsidized and a lot of people voted for him for trying to get something. So it doesn’t mean that they’re socialists. Now, many people call this gentleman a communist. Is he a communist? Yes, he is communist. Well then why doesn’t he call himself a communist? He calls himself a democratic socialist.

They are communist democratic socialists in that they both have the same goals. They want to eliminate private property, they want to eliminate private property, but there’s one very important difference between the communist and a Democrat socialist. The Democrat socialist says, we will not use violence to bring the socialist communist state to power. We will not do it by violence. In other words, that’s why the word Democrat is included in democratic socialists. Communists on the other hand, are more than willing and Marxism does call for a violent overthrow of the capitalist system. Democrat socialists say, no, no, no, we’re going to vote it in. So there is very important similarities. The goals are the same, eliminate private property, but their methodology is very, very different. One uses violence. The Democrat socialists says, no, no, no. Now if you want to make rich people, poor Democrat, socialists and communists will do that for you. Socialism will make rich people poor. The only problem with socialism is that everybody will be poor. You’re going to lose a lot of wealth. Now, if you notice, there are certain words that Democrat socialists do not use very often, and that’s the word freedom or the word liberty. Pay attention to what this guy says while he’s in office. How many times he talks about freedom or liberty. It’ll be almost zero. Why? Because he believes in the abolition of private property. When you take away private property, you can forget about having freedom and liberty.

Isaac Crockett:

Well, those are some very important points. Again, thank you for being on our program with us. We’re going to hear a lot more from constitutional attorney, David New. We’re going to take a quick break to hear from some of our partners. We back to look at some of the numbers, look at religion, look at revival in America. Is it coming? Welcome back to the program. I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett. On this Thursday edition, we are talking with our constitutional expert, constitutional attorney, David New, and we started off asking the question, are you ready for a revival? Are you ready for worldwide revival? We see things happening in our country, especially with young people, but we’re seeing things happening in countries all over the globe. And even last week we talked leading up to the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted church. We were talking a week ago on Thursday with attorney Shari r Gill about what’s going on in Nigeria and some of that, and Lord willing, we’ll talk.

I’ll give some more updates about that maybe in the next segment or two. But we do praise the Lord for some things that have happened just in the days since that program aired. But what is happening in the church? What is happening as far as religions go, not just in America but all across the globe? And so I want to talk to our special guest today, attorney David New and David, you obviously study American history and the Constitution, but you also are looking at social and cultural and religious phenomenon, I guess you could say. What is the state of religion in the world right now? What do the numbers indicate as far as Christianity versus other major religions in the world in 2025?

David New:

It is a fascinating subject to be sure. Without question, the numbers I’m going to give you ladies and gentlemen, are provided and gathered and compiled by a group called The Center for the Study of Global Christianity, the Center for the Study of Global Christianity. They issued their 2025 report. You can get it for free on the internet. There’s lots of interesting information in this report for your church bulletin and articles. It gives the growth of world religion starting in 1900 and goes up by decade. It also gives the number for atheists and agnostics and non-religious people, people who are neither atheists nor agnostic, nor religious, just not interested in religion. There’s a lot of information that you can get from this report. It’s called the Center for the Study of Global Christianity. First and foremost, world population. Right now, there are about 8 billion people on the planet.

Christians in the world make up about 2.6 billion. Out of that number Muslims in the world make up 2 billion. Hindus is 1.1 billion. Buddhists 538 million Sikhs, 31 million Jews, 15 million. Now here you can see Bible prophecy at work. Look at all these billions of people, 8 billion people on this planet, and the world focuses on just 15 million Jews in the world. They are the target because they are in the crosshairs of the devil. That’s why 15 million people get so much attention because they’ve got a powerful dark spirit moving against them. Thankfully, America backs, Israel agnostics in the world run about 761 million people. Atheists make up about 145 and a half million people. The non-religious people who are not members of any church or Muslim or anything but aren’t atheists, aren’t agnostic. They make up about 906 and a half million people. Now let’s go on and talk about where their religious affiliations of these Christians are.

The Catholics make up 1.2 billion people. Protestants, about 629 million independents, 409 million Orthodox, 291 million evangelicals. That’s us, about 420 million and Pentecost and charismatics, about 663 million people. See, these are very interesting numbers. Now, some of the most interesting thing, we’ve seen atheism grow in the United States quite a bit, but on a worldwide basis, their number has actually gone down. In 2020 there were about 147 million atheists in the world. In 2025, there are estimated to be 145.5 million. The agnostics, however, have grown in five years from 751 million to 761 million. So here we have a very, very good sample of world. People are what their religions are and how they identify themselves.

Isaac Crockett:

Information is power as they say, and it opens our minds and it gives us opportunities to observe things. It is interesting that according to the Center for the study of global Christianity, both Islam and Christianity are both growing at a rate larger than the population growth, but they is one religion growing more than the other. Do you know from your statistics or from world statistics

David New:

Growing more than Christianity? By far, and it’s one of the great ironies of ironies because the Muslim religion is so much associated with violence and hatred, and yet it’s growing, which you would think intuitively, why would people want to be a Muslim? If you’re a woman, why would you want to be a Muslim In the Muslim religion, if you notice in the mosque, there are no women mixed in. When the men are praying to Allah and there’s a reason they all are on their knees, they’re all bowing down, they’re all facing the exact same direction, but they believe that if they see a woman walk by while they’re saying their prayer in the mosque, that their prayer will not go to heaven. And of course, women are treated pretty much like second class citizens, and that’s being nice because in some of these Muslim countries, women were permitted to even drive a car.

Saudi Arabia was like that. I think they’ve changed on that, but this is the way these people have been treated. So they are the most anti women view, and of course the Taliban and Afghanistan have undone all the things that the United States did for the ladies when we were there, and they’ve closed down their schools and all kinds of horrible things. So it’s amazing. The other thing that’s amazing is how much support in the United States, the Muslim religion gets, the very people that are praising the Muslim religion, if they were to go to a Muslim country that would be executed, especially the gays and the lesbians, which is something that’s terrible and is not right, but if they went to a Muslim country here, they can praise them and say, oh, how nice it is. Let’s stand behind Gaza and all this type of thing, and we hate the Jews and all this kind of thing. You go over into these Muslim countries and they’ll kill you if you have that sexual orientation. So it’s a fascinating, the world when it comes to Muslims has many, many contradictions.

Isaac Crockett:

Well, that is an interesting point. I don’t know how much time we can spend on this, but from what you’re seeing, do you think that the support for Palestine, for Gaza and Hamas and things that’s coming from Western countries, do you think that is more of a reaching out against Jewish people and against Israel than it is really supporting Islam? Or do you think that they’re deceived and they think somehow Islam is more of a peaceful religion than what the teachers of Islam claim? It is Islam.

David New:

Islam. It’s hard to know where it is and what that is. We keep hearing that there is international money being funneled into universities like Columbia that are getting behind these student groups to protest against Israel. We keep hearing that that type of thing is going on, but the rise of antisemitism is just unbelievable. That is so un-American. It’s beyond belief. One of the reasons why Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 in his book called The Book of Prophecies, he wrote a book about prophecy in the Bible. It’s called the Book of Prophecies, and he said one of the reasons that he came to this word was to find the safe haven for the Jewish people because they were suffering immensely in Christian Spain. The other reason is that he was looking for a way to go to the west to try to reach China and Japan and India with the gospel. The land routes East were blocked by the Muslims. So he gets in this boat and he sails West thinking he’s going to find Muslim people from India or China or Japan. He never realized that he found a whole new world.

Isaac Crockett:

Wow, there’s so many things and looking at it from historical context and point of view is so important. When we come back, we want to look at revival from the historical context and from a constitutional context. Does our constitution allow for revival? We’ll be right back. Well, welcome back to the program. If you’re just tuning in on Pastor Isaac Crockett, our fearless leader, the honorable Sam Rohr, president of the American Pastors Network, and the regular host of this program is overseas right now. He’s over on a trip to Israel with his wife and a lot of exciting things going on over there. You can check out our Facebook post if you want to see some pictures of him at places like the Sea of Galilee or a lookout from the Golan Heights and some things like that. But in meantime, I’m here with our good friend and a familiar voice for all of you, our constitutional attorney, David New, and we’ve been talking about religion.

We’ve been talking about revival. We’ve been talking about some of the things that are going on in America and across the world in regards to the growth of Christianity, as well as also looking at Islam, but we’re especially focusing on revival today, and I wanted to give an update and a thank you to all of you for your prayers and for reaching out to your political leadership. Last week on Thursday, we were talking with ACL J, that’s the American Center for Law and Justice with one of their lead counselors, attorney Shari r Gill. He’s the one that heads up their international legal teams, and we were focusing on several different areas that are being persecuted, but we especially focused it on Nigeria and we were praying and asking you to pray that the Trump administration would reinstate Nigeria as a CPC, a country of particular concern.

The very next day Trump did that, and now as you’ve seen on the news, Trump has been making some very bold, very clear statements to the government of Nigeria and other governments as well to protect religious liberties, to protect Christians. So we are very excited about where that may be going. Still continuing to pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ who are persecuted. So if you’re just tuning in, I would encourage you to go back and listen to the beginning of this program and you can find all of our programs on Stand In the Gap on our app. If you go to your app store, the Apple iTunes store or the Android store, you can get the really easy to use Stand in the Gap app. You could listen to this whole program or listen to it again or share it with somebody you could go back to.

For example, on Monday’s program, Jamie Mitchell was interviewing JR McGee about some of the things going on in the world. You can listen to any of them and share them very easily, so I’d encourage you to do that. We’ve been talking about revival worldwide revival. So with all of that, let’s go back now to David New, our constitutional attorney, David, you’ve showed us before and we’ve talked about some of this before, revival as a subject we like to talk about here with looking at it from a biblical worldview. You believe that the United States as a country, we have something unique in our constitution and we are suited for a revival again, in large part because of our charter document, our constitution. It allows for this. Can you explain to us this connection between the constitution and the unique suitability for having a revival in our country?

David New:

The United States has had several great revivals, just amazing and beautiful events in our history, and one of the reasons the United States has this many revivals in its past is because our constitution is a pro religion constitution. It is a pro religion constitution. It is not a secular constitution the way our secular friends claim now in a very loose sense of the word, you can even say that the Constitution is a pro revival constitution, a pro revival constitution. This can clearly be seen in the free exercise clause of the Constitution. The US Constitution has very little say about religion, very little. Our secular friends claim that the framers of the Constitution were not interested in religion, and that’s the reason that is totally false. The reason why the Constitution has very little to say about religion is because the subject of religion was left to the states.

James Madison said that and several other signers of the constitution said it. That’s where religion was to be in the state. It was the state issue and the federal government has to be hands off. Sadly, our secular friends will not accept that explanation, but be that as it may, the free exercise clause is a very powerful clause because it definitely is all about God. Let’s take a look at it. It says, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. The secularists love that part. They have taken that phrase, the establishment clause and just gone to town with it and denied us all kinds of freedoms. It’s the second clause they don’t particularly like or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Now, the word free appears three times in the United States Constitution. This is the second. The third is in the Second Amendment with free state.

Now, it’s interesting how this phrase, the prohibiting the free exercise thereof that makes the Constitution a pro religion constitution. Look what it says. The government must not do anything to prohibit the free, not just religion, the free exercise of religion. Now, the very first time the word free appears in the Constitution is a very bad place. That is in Article one and in section two, look what it says. Third paragraph down, representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding the whole number of free persons.

That’s not nice. And then it goes on to say, including those bound for service to a term of years excluding Indians who aren’t taxed and three fifths of all other persons that refers to slavery. Now notice it’s interesting that the Constitution says free persons. It doesn’t say free white persons. Why? Because at the time of the Constitution, there were free blacks in this country before the Constitution even began in 1787, Massachusetts ended slavery in their state many years before the convention began, and black people in Massachusetts were free. They were given citizenship. Black males were given voting rights. So even in this situation where it says free persons, they can’t say free white persons because there were free black persons. A lot of people don’t know that this is true. If you want to read more about it, ladies and gentlemen, read the horrible Dred Scott decision. Read the two descents. In those dissents, they argue that blacks can be and are citizens of the United States in free states. Read those two decisions. That’s the best discussion I know of anywhere that talks about how slavery interfaces with the US Constitution. Now, what ended slavery?

Why is it this free persons no longer applies because of the 13th Amendment, which ended slavery? Well, what did that? It was the second use of word free in the Constitution in the free exercise clause. Look what it says or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. What ended slavery in the United States religion? That’s what did it in Massachusetts, and that’s what ultimately did it throughout the United States religion. What was it in the Christian religion in particular that was a catalyst for free slaves to free the slaves. It was water baptism, water baptism. If many Americans believed, and in Europe you baptize a slave, he becomes automatically free. From then on. This threat to slavery was so widespread in the American colonies that New York, Maryland, Virginia passed laws, they passed the law. If you baptize your slave, your slave is not free. That’s how widespread baptism as a threat to slavery in this country was at one time.

Now in colonial America, the Spanish held Florida. They held it for a long time after the United States was established and the king of Spain wanted to make British North America as weak as possible. You know how he did it? He passed an edict. He said, any slave in the north who escapes and comes down south of Florida and gets baptized, you are free. So religion had a major, major role and the second use of freedom or free in the First Amendment, undid the first use of free in the US Constitution. This is history you’re not likely to find in the 1619 project.

Isaac Crockett:

Well, that’s for sure, and I hope that you’re paying attention to this tuning in and maybe listening to this. Again, if you want to share this with somebody, these expositions of our constitution showing freedom and spiritual freedom and revival and the way this all works together, what a wonderful explanation we just had from Attorney David New. When we come back, we have a few more things to get into before we finish this program. So we’re going to go hear from some of our partners and we’ll be right back. Please stay tuned. Well welcome back to our program. We have been talking with constitutional attorney, David n, about this connection between worldwide revival and the revivals that happened in America and the ability to do that, the suitability for that with the American Constitution, looking at some trends in religion and all kinds of exciting things.

And if you’re just tuning in for part of the program, I would encourage you to go to our website, stand in the gap media.org and listen to this. Or better yet, download our app, stand in the Gap app, go to our Facebook page and see some of the things we’ve been doing. But I would highly encourage you to go back, listen to this program, listen to other programs from this week tomorrow, Lord willing, we’re going to be having an interview with Bob Lapin, pastor Bob Lapin, who’s done a lot of radio and we’re going to be talking about giving thanks and it’s beyond just Thanksgiving, all sorts of things. But David New, let’s go back to this talk about revival and the Constitution. You’ve been explaining the free exercise clause and where it’s been used rightly and wrongly, that the wrong news about the free persons when we should have had freedom for all people. But the free exercise of religion is something that sometimes gets left out of the conversation from some historians or some left-leaning cultural discussion and philosophers. But going back into interpreting and understanding what our Constitution was all about and what our laws are based on. David, you believe that Justice William Douglas, the United States Supreme Court Justice gave one of the most insightful comments about this free exercise clause. Could you kind of talk about what he said and how that ties in with these foundational freedoms that we have?

David New:

Absolutely. By the way, for those who want more information about water baptism and its threat to slavery, it will all be included. My upcoming book, A History, what is It’s in the printers. The Publishers Now a History of Christian Nation, and it’ll be coming out either later this year, early next year, and I go into all of this business of how Christianity ended slavery in the United States, and there were other places too. Now, justice William O. Douglas in 1966 wrote a book called The Bible and the Schools, the Bible and the Schools. He wrote that in 1966. Now, in 1962, justice Douglas voted against school prayer in the angle case, very sad to say, but be that as it may, as David Barton, God bless him, as pointed out, that was a pivotal year for us because that’s when America began to lose his way. And David Barton has proven it by statistics and various other information, a wonderful man of God, a beautiful man, a national treasure.

He has done a lot to bring Christian America to the forefront along with Pastor d James Kennedy. Now, in his book The Bible in the schools of 1966, he made the very best comment that I have ever seen about the free exercise clause. This is one of the reasons why secularists don’t like that clause. Let me read it to you implicitly recognizes the free exercise clause implicitly recognizes that men have a relation to God. This is tacit recognition that our regime is under God and not under the command of non-believers. There will be no place for the free exercise clause in an atheistic society.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you’re looking for a place to prove that the Constitution honors God, the free exercise clause will hit the target every single time. In this book, he clearly identifies that the free exercise clause is an acknowledgement of God and a rejection of atheistic society. This is beautiful. Now, it’s interesting what he said about the Muslims in this book. No, Supreme Court Justice would dare say this today. In fact, almost nobody would ever say this. One of the reasons he gave for voting against school prayer was that he did not want Muslims to pray in the public schools. He said it in the book, if you said that today,

Isaac Crockett:

Not today, you would

David New:

Be, would be, what do they call it when you no longer exist? They would wipe them out. It’s just unbelievable. He actually says that when I first read that at the law library, it was a good thing I had the seat belts on because I would’ve fallen right out of my chair. Nobody would ever dare say that now.

Isaac Crockett:

And so it brings us back to this point of understanding then how our country was based on not just a knowledge of God, but an expectation that we would be one nation under God. And so David, as we look at this, and again, you’re writing this book on our Christian nation, what does that mean for us today? Sometimes we get fearful, oh no, will I get in trouble if I do this? What advice would you have for Christians today who are praying for revival? How should we pray and how should we act? And how should we maybe react to some of the things we see going on, even some of the voting turnouts and things that maybe didn’t go the way we wanted? What should we do now, especially for those who are wanting and praying for revival?

David New:

Just before I go into that,

I want to say this, notice carefully what the free exercise clause. There are several key words. First is the word prohibit that puts the handcuffs on the government not to enforce secularism. You really can’t have a secular say without the government enforcing it. And the free exercise clause is the opposite, the antithesis of a secular state. The next really bad word in the free exercise clause for our secular friends is the use of the word free. They don’t like that. Our secular friends believe that religious speech and non-religious speech should be both covered under the same clause, the free speech clause or the freedom of speech. They do not want a separate clause for religion. Next is the word exercise. This is a real bad word because it not only talks about speech, but it it uses the word exercise, which is a broader way of a person expressing his or her religious faith. It’s broader than just speech. It refers to physical action by the body or in other ways. So here we have in these three words, a very, very powerful meaning of why the free exercise clause acknowledges God, and it doesn’t even have to use the word God, and it doesn’t.

Isaac Crockett:

That’s

David New:

True. Now, we should pray for revival. We need revival. We need to pray that God will use the Charlie Cook assassination as a catalyst, and I believe it can happen to bring revival. A lot more young people today are interested in religion than they ever have been before, because secularism is a dead end. A secularist who doesn’t believe in God that believes you exist merely by accident is the ultimate zero.

Isaac Crockett:

We’ll amen to that, and let’s pray for revival, and I hope that you will stand in the gap for truth and you will pray for revival. Until next time, keep standing in the gap for what God wants you to do. We’ll see you next time.