Where We The People Are Called To Submit To Tyranny: Romans 13, the Great Seal, and America's Christian Founding
In a solo broadcast, Bradlee Dean argues that scripture never commands believers to submit to tyranny, walking listeners through Romans 13, the hidden motto of the Great Seal, the Magna Carta, and the fiery furnace of Daniel to make his case.
Romans 13 and the Limits of Authority
Bradlee Dean opens the broadcast alone with a direct answer to listeners who quote Romans 13 to argue Christians must submit to any government. He reads the passage in full, then challenges anyone who treats it as unconditional obedience, asking whether a Christian would really submit if a president revived the medieval custom of prima nocta, the king's claimed right to a subject's bride on her wedding night. Dean argues all human authority is limited by its purpose: a father cannot abuse his family, an employer cannot control an employee's private life, and a civil magistrate's authority is confined to punishing evil and protecting good. He stresses that Romans 13 itself defines government as a minister of God for good, with no authority to terrorize people who do right, and that any ruler who oversteps that boundary forfeits divine protection. He is cut off mid-sentence by music as he begins discussing Moses and the Egyptian taskmaster, a thread picked up later in the hour.
A Thesis of No Submission to Tyranny
After the show's theme and a station identification describing Sons of Liberty as grounded in a Christian biblical worldview, Bradlee Dean greets listeners and lays out his thesis for the day: nowhere in the Word of God, the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, or the Constitution are the people told to submit to tyranny. He insists he seeks lawful reformation, not overthrow of the Constitution, only of the men who pervert it. He retells John Hancock signing the Declaration in oversized letters so the British crown would not need spectacles to read his name, quoting Hancock's line that resistance to tyranny is a Christian duty. Dean then turns critical, naming Franklin Graham and claiming Graham urged Donald Trump to delay acting on abortion, while abortion funding rose under Trump past six hundred million dollars, higher than under Barack Obama, a figure Dean does not source. He gives out the call-in number and invites challengers to phone in.
A Caller's Testimonial and Attacks on Pastors
A caller named Carl, from Delano, Minnesota, offers a brief on-air testimonial praising Sons of Liberty's content as truthful guidance through disinformation and plugging Dean's Sunday service. Back from the break, Dean resumes his critique of prominent pastors, naming Mark Driscoll and John Hagee alongside Franklin Graham, calling them Zionists and controlled opposition who teach congregations to hide behind prayer instead of confronting corruption. He broadens the charge to Billy Graham, claiming decades of propping up political corruption, and reads Jeremiah 23:14 on prophets who commit adultery, walk in lies, and strengthen evildoers, applying it to an evangelical advisory board around Donald Trump that he says contains no genuine Christians. Dean then reads Revelation 2:9 and 3:9 on a synagogue of Satan to argue, without citing supporting scholarship, that Zionists are not actually Jewish, and challenges any of the named pastors to call in and answer him directly rather than remain silent.
The Great Seal's Hidden Motto
Dean turns to the Great Seal of the United States, displaying what he says is Thomas Jefferson's edit of a design first proposed by Benjamin Franklin and John Adams: Pharaoh in his chariot pursuing the Israelites through the parted Red Sea while Moses, lit by a pillar of fire, extends his hand over the waters. The motto beneath it, Dean says, was meant to be Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God, and he argues most Americans have never seen this history connecting the nation's founding symbolism to Exodus. He calls it proof the founders understood government's purpose as described in Romans 12:21, to right wrongs rather than demand blind submission. Dean then introduces English jurist William Blackstone, crediting him with commentaries on English common law that he says are built on the Torah's commandments and statutes, quoting Blackstone's line that no human enactment can be considered law unless it conforms to God's unchangeable moral law.
Founders' Quotes, Magna Carta, and a Fading Church
Between advertising breaks, Dean reads a string of quotations: Puritan preacher John Owen and theologian Francis Turretin on grace and effectual calling, Patrick Henry's warning that bad men cannot make good citizens and that forgetting God forges tyrants' chains, and John Hancock's call to resist tyranny as a Christian duty. He recaps a broadcast from the previous day covering the Magna Carta and 1 Samuel 8, where Israel demanded a king like the surrounding nations, reading it as a rejection of God's own kingship. He quotes nineteenth-century House Speaker Robert Winthrop's line that a people not ruled by the Word of God will be ruled by the bayonet. Dean laments that the church, which he calls society's moral compass, has largely abandoned a love for truth, citing Charles Spurgeon's lines about dust-covered Bibles and shepherds replaced by clowns entertaining goats. He closes retelling Frederick Douglass's account of praying twenty years before putting his own feet to his prayers and gaining freedom.
Healing Prayers and the Fiery Furnace
In the final hour, Dean addresses a listener he calls Sears B directly, inviting him to Sunday service so Dean can pray for his healing, citing scripture on Jesus healing the oppressed. He contrasts that promise with a story about a transgender athlete who criticized the United States while competing abroad, then sought the American government's help after running into legal trouble overseas, which Dean uses to argue critics should appreciate the nation they are quick to condemn. He revisits Patrick Henry's Caesar had his Brutus speech and the cry of Treason it provoked, then retells Moses commanding Pharaoh to free the Israelites and Nebuchadnezzar's furnace in Daniel 3, where Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refuse to bow to an idol and emerge unsinged after a fourth figure appears in the flames. Dean frames their defiance as the model for obedience to God over earthly rulers, tells listeners he is only halfway through his material, and signs off until the next afternoon's broadcast.
