unPHILtered: The Way I See It

PROLOGUE

THE WAY I SEE IT

When I look back at the last forty or so years of my life, it’s remarkable how much it has changed. About thirty years ago, I was fishing the Ouachita River near my home in Luna, Louisiana, earning thirty cents a pound on buffalo and seventy cents a pound on catfish. I was pulling in about $225 a week, which is how Miss Kay and I paid the bills and fed our four boys. Of course, the bulk of what we put on the table came from whatever game we shot in the woods and the fruits and vegetables that grew on our land.

Nowadays, because of the success of Duck Dynasty, they’re telling my family that we won’t ever have to work again. There’s no doubt about it—the Almighty has blessed us immensely. Thirty years ago, all of my college buddies called me an idiot. They told me I was squandering my college education by fishing the river and building duck calls. But I told them I knew it would work, and now they’re calling me a genius!

I’m here to tell you that the American dream is still out there. My family and I are living examples of it. My company, Duck Commander, was a grassroots operation that started with nothing but the hopes and dreams of an entrepreneur. I built the company from scratch and didn’t receive one penny from the U.S. government in turning it into a multimillion-dollar operation. I had a dream, and I stayed the course. I placed my trust in the Almighty and asked Him to bless my work. Then one day, I looked up, and it had worked out exactly like I’d prayed it would. I’ve been blessed, without question.

I’m living proof that here in America, you can start with nothing more than an idea and entrepreneurial spirit. If you provide the drive, dream, and vision, with God’s help, you can accomplish anything.

But as you’ll read in the pages that follow, I’m very concerned about the direction of our country. It looks nothing like the republic our founding fathers built more than two hundred years ago—or even like it did only a few decades ago. A large part of what was once the American culture is crumbling around us.

In this book, we’ll tackle many of the most important and controversial issues facing America today—including abortion, gun control, government, politics, and race. As you might have guessed, I have some very strong opinions about the issues we face and will voice them in this book. But even more important to me than my opinions about America are my convictions about my faith. And I’m the first to admit that we Christians don’t always express our political and social opinions in the kindest of spirits—I’ve been guilty of that myself in the past. In fact, some Christians give Christianity a bad name by the way they conduct themselves in the social arena. This is a real shame.

My utmost goal in life is to portray Christ as best as I can and share the Good News that He offers to each and every one of us. You might disagree with what I say or what side I’m taking on certain issues, but they’re my opinions, and I try to share them in a kind way. And just as I believe I’m entitled to have opinions and speak out strongly about them, I believe that you have the right to have your opinions too, and I love you no matter where you stand on these issues. Let’s show each other some respect and kindness as we express our opinions and beliefs.

And here’s where the undergirding spirit of this whole book comes into play: love God; love your neighbor. As I tackle some of the most controversial issues that face America, I believe the ultimate solution for all of them is found in these two powerful basics: love God; love your neighbor. If we all lived out those principles, I wouldn’t need to write this book.

Please know that I never make any judgments about who’s going to heaven and hell. That’s the Almighty’s job. My job is to love Him, love you, share the Good News, and then move on down the road.

I’m only an average man, and I’m confident there are people out there who are a lot smarter and more qualified than me. But in this book, I get to tell you what I believe and offer suggestions on how to turn our country around.

When I go out preaching and talking to groups across America, my main goal is to share my simple trust and faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I want us to love God and love one another. That’s it.

You might ask yourself, You mean to tell me that’s as profound as it’s going to get? Yep, that’s all I’m trying to tell you, folks. It’s not going to get any more complicated than that. Look, I don’t have the brainpower, the know-how, or the inclination to go to Washington, DC, and try to fix our country. My purpose in life and in writing this book is only to point people to Jesus and to help turn our country’s people around by reminding us all to love God and love one another.

For the life of me, I don’t see the downside of human beings not being so mean to one another, not stealing from one another, and not murdering one another. We need to learn to forgive and love one another.

If, as a nation, we put the teachings of Jesus into practice, we’d be in a whole different place. Wouldn’t we be better off being humble men and women? That’s what Jesus told us to do. Wouldn’t we be better off mourning with those who mourn, sharing their grief, and loving them dearly as neighbors, no matter their color? Wouldn’t we be better off being meek, gentle, and kind—not given to violence? It would pretty much put an end to road rage, impatience, fighting, feuding, killing, and raping. Wouldn’t we be better off trying to make peace instead of seemingly always being at war? Wouldn’t we be better off as a society if we were merciful to the ones who are unfortunate? Wouldn’t we be better off if there were a hunger and thirst inside all of us to do what’s right? Wouldn’t we be better off being pure in heart?

We all need to step back and take a look at our country. What do you see? Whether you’re a believer or an unbeliever, a grandparent or a college student, a man or a woman, what do you see on our streets and in our schools? Be honest. Don’t tell me you’re not concerned by what’s going on. Look around and listen. You might be asking yourself, How in the world did people even come up with all of these harebrained ideas and ways to run a country? I’m not saying I can fix it. What I’m saying is God can fix it when we live out those two simple principles: love God and love one another. When we remove God from the conversation—the only standard there is for morality, truth, law, and governing—what do we expect? When we remove the fear of God from any man or any movement, honesty, integrity, virtue, and morality leave with Him. They fly away and are gone.

My prayer is that by reading this book, maybe a few people will come to trust in Jesus, turn from their sins, and grow closer to God. In the grand scheme of things, that’s my biggest hope. That’s my message in a nutshell: America, we have a love problem and we need to fix it. Let’s try to love one another and see what happens. It can only get better.

1

BIBLICAL CORRECTNESS

Fix No. 1: Replace Political Correctness with Biblical Correctness

It will probably come as no surprise that there are a few people out there who wouldn’t exactly describe me as politically correct. My Webster’s Dictionary, which was first developed by one of our founding fathers in the early nineteenth century—Noah Webster—defines being politically correct as agreeing with the idea that people should be careful to not use language or behave in a way that could offend a particular group of people.

Hey, if what comes out of my mouth sometimes offends the people who don’t believe what is written in the Bible, I’m guilty as charged. But understand this: I’m not trying to hurt anyone’s feelings, and I don’t dislike people simply because their opinions are different from mine. I don’t hate anyone. In truth, I love everybody on this green earth. I don’t believe in stereotypes, and I do believe in respecting everyone, regardless of whether they agree with my beliefs or not. All people, whether they’re white, black, yellow, red, or green, are of great worth in God’s eyes, and His desire for us all is that we share in His kingdom. Jesus actually commanded us to love. John 13:34–35 says, A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.

I simply believe that what is written in the Scripture is the ultimate truth and that it’s the blueprint for my life. I’m certainly not the first person to believe it. In the very first edition of The American Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1828, Webster wrote the following in the preface: The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws. All the miseries and evils which men suffer from, vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible.

It doesn’t get much clearer than that, folks. Webster, who has been called the father of American scholarship and education and whose blue-backed speller books educated five generations of our country’s children, spelled it out for us nearly two hundred years ago. Webster believed evil occurred because men and women neglected the Bible and didn’t follow God’s Word. We’re still using Webster’s dictionary today, so I guess he knew what he was doing. I imagine Mr. Webster is rolling in his grave now that words like sexting, twerking, and selfie are officially part of the English language. Hey, only in America, Jack!

Somewhere along the way, political correctness trumped biblical correctness in America, and in my opinion it’s the cause of many of our country’s problems today. Political correctness tries to dictate what is right and wrong, instead of our country having a moral system of righteous laws. Our society is overly sensitive, and we seem to be fixated on building up people’s self-esteem and confidence. Hey, everybody needs constructive criticism once in a while. The way things are going, it’s okay to have an opinion in America, as long as you don’t offend anyone and don’t quote the Bible. Many people today are eager to share the positive bits and pieces of the Bible in order to be politically correct but ignore the parts of the Scripture that might offend others.

In 2 Timothy 4:2–4, Paul the Apostle warned us of the consequences of being ashamed to preach the gospel, saying, Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

I hate to tell you this, folks, but the times that Paul warned us about are here. Everywhere you look across our once-great land, politicians, special-interest groups, and people under the control of the Evil One are erasing any visible signs of Christianity. They’re muzzling the people who speak the truth. If you speak out about sins like adultery, drunkenness, or sexual impurity, you’re labeled as ignorant, insensitive, bigoted, or even hateful. The PC police constantly preach tolerance and acceptance, but they’re intolerant of beliefs that aren’t in line with their own. Certain Americans condemn businesses like Chick-fil-A for speaking out against same-sex marriages, but then we’re told to celebrate companies like Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Starbucks because they embrace them. Is it not a two-way street? Isn’t there supposed to be freedom of speech on both sides of the issue?

The amazing thing to me is that biblical correctness has never changed. It’s written on the pages of the Bible and the words have remained the same through the ages. The sins are listed and are there for everyone to see. Each of us has the ability to read them, study them, and then decide whether we’re going to sin or follow God’s commands.

Conversely, political correctness is constantly changing and evolving. What might have been PC yesterday isn’t PC today, even if it’s only the smallest of things. Now, I’m all for being kind and thoughtful in the way we refer to people, but good grief! We get a bit ridiculous at times. Manholes have been renamed utility holes so as not to offend women, and blackboards are now called chalkboards so as not to offend African Americans. People who can’t hear are no longer deaf; they’re hearing impaired. People who can’t see are no longer blind; they’re visually impaired. People aren’t even short anymore; they’re vertically challenged. So do we call a bald man follically impaired? Political correctness is constantly morphing into a dark maze of nonsense. It keeps getting more and more nonsensical.

Yet, there has been a constant erosion of biblical correctness in our country. Look at the evidence in recent years:

• A large cross that was prominently displayed outside a chapel at an isolated military base in northern Afghanistan was removed in 2011 because it didn’t adhere to U.S. Army regulations. The army chaplain manual now prohibits permanent displays of religious symbols. I didn’t serve in the military, but it would seem to me that the cross might be a source of comfort and relief to the troops who are risking their lives in battles in foreign lands. But, hey, that’s just me.

• In La Jolla, California, the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups are demanding that a twenty-nine-foot-tall cross that stands on government-owned land on Mount Soledad be dismantled. Crosses have been erected on the land since 1913, and the present cross is the centerpiece of a Korean War Memorial. The ACLU contends the cross violates the separation of church and state because it demonstrates preference to a specific