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‘This Dangerous Book’: Hobby Lobby Founder, Wife Share Story Behind Bible Museum

November 28, 2017
Staff

WRITER

Hobby Lobby president Steve Green and his wife, Jackie Green, shared their passion for the Bible as a sacred text and a crucial part of history on today’s show, discussing their new book, “This Dangerous Book: How the Bible Has Shaped Our World and Why It Still Matters Today.”

The Green family is backing the privately funded Museum of the Bible, which recently opened in Washington, D.C. just a couple of blocks from the National Mall. Entry to the museum and its Bible Garden is free.

Glenn shared a quote from one of his kids, who asked why a museum about the Bible was in Washington, D.C., where it doesn’t seem likely that many people would want to see it.

“I said, ‘I think that’s the point,’” Glenn said.

“It was the right place for us to be,” Steve Green added.

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: You know, most families don't impact people over multiple generations as much as this family has impacted our world in one and two generations.

Steve and Jackie green join us. They're the founding family of the museum of the Bible in Washington, DC. And the author of this dangerous book. How the Bible shaped our world. And why it still matters today.

Steve and Jackie, welcome.

STEVE: Thank you, Glenn. It's good to be here.

GLENN: So I was just in Hobby Lobby over the weekend. And we were talking as a family. And one of my older children was there. And we were talking about the museum of the Bible. And they -- and she said, how did this all begin, Dad? How did this -- how did this happen?

And I said, well, I know Hobby Lobby started with, you know, frames in a garage. And the family just kind of grew up in it.

But Steve and Jackie, how did the Bible part of it start?

STEVE: Well, for me, it started in my home. My parents grew up in a Christian home. My grandfather was a minister himself. My dad's dad. And, you know, my parents took us to church and taught us to love God's word. And follow his ways in our lives. And in our family. And so we -- we just -- that was part of our life. And my wife was the same. She grew up in a Christian home as well. And the Bible just being a part of our life from when we were born.

GLENN: So, Jackie, you guys have a remarkable family. And you have seen what money usually does to a family. I just read a book.

I can't remember the name of it. But it was about Jay Paul Getty and his family. And how the money just destroyed them.

What is it that keeps your family on the track?

JACKIE: Well, I think that, first of all, I would just say, you know, God helps us to realize and remember that everything we have, we've given to him. And he gave to us. And we just give it back to him.

And so our blessings come from above. And there's great joy in realizing that, you know, we don't really have all the ownership. That it really belongs to God.

So being a family of faith, thankfully, we -- we have a family that everyone has embraced their own faith. And embraces the teachings of the Bible for themselves. And I think that's paramount in where we are today.

GLENN: Do you think you could have done -- do you guys think you could have accomplished, just as a family, I don't even mean business, just as a family, do you guys think you could have accomplished what you accomplished if you lived in New York City?

JACKIE: I don't know. I mean, I think God can do anything anywhere. But it would be -- we would have different challenges, of course. We live in a great part of the country, in the Bible Belt. And, you know, it's a great place to raise a family and to, you know, work hard and run a business.

GLENN: So we are -- you know, we were talking as we were walking through Hobby Lobby. And we were talking about the museum of the Bible. And my daughter said, why wouldn't they build it where people would want to go see it? I mean, it's in Washington, DC. Nobody wants the Bible.

And I said, I think that's the point.

What's the reaction that you guys have seen?

STEVE: Well, when we first started looking, we were actually looking in your town in Dallas. And then one opened up -- said, what if God does one in Dallas?

And when I looked up at the top two -- ten metros, the other two that stood out to me was New York City and Washington DC. And we did a survey. The survey showed, it would be best attended in DC, which really makes sense. Because that's the hub of museums in our country. Where museum goers go.

So we just feel like that God knew best. That ever that this facility we acquired was a great location. Just two blocks from one of the most attended museums in our country. And that it was the right place for us to be.

Some kind of chide us thinking that our intent is to impact politics. And, of course, I'm sitting here thinking, who isn't in this town to impact politics? And what would be wrong if that was our motive?

GLENN: Yeah.

STEVE: But it was really because this is where the best attended it -- a lot of visitors here are international, who will have an international impact. And we just think that our -- our legislators ought to know the foundation of our nation and its biblical roots. And, hopefully, they would come in and it would impact them as well.

GLENN: Are you surprised at the number of people in Washington that -- that -- they really have no clue as to our real heritage?

STEVE: Yeah. You know, I -- I think that that is a sad commentary not just here, but in our nation, is the lack of understanding of biblical influence that -- the Bible had on our Founders. And how that it shaped our nation, our freedoms, our economy, our government.

It just had a huge impact.

And I think we probably know it less today than ever, partly because we don't teach the Bible in our schools like we once did. And so there's a great need to educate America on the Bible's impact on our world.

GLENN: So how do you -- how do you do that with -- I mean, even Christopher Hitchens, you know, who was a huge atheist, he said, if you want to understand western culture, you must understand the Bible. You won't understand Shakespeare if you haven't read the Bible.

You know, it is the cornerstone. And he said that it should be taught as -- as literary in a literary class.

But you're not going to get that now. How do we make this shift?

STEVE: Well, and he's not the only -- even Richard Dawkins in his book, The God Delusion, says something very similar. He said to be culturally literate, you need to know it. And he lists over 100 examples of phrases just in our everyday language that comes from the Bible. Good Samaritan, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, and so forth.

GLENN: Yeah.

STEVE: So even they recognize to be educated in our world, you need to know this book, because it's had such an impact. And that's one of the reasons why we've taken the position in the museum of not espousing our faith. We're just teaching the facts of the book because we are interested in having a curriculum to educate students in our schools about the Bible, in a nonsectarian way, not espousing faith, just teaching the facts of this book.

Because we agree with Christopher Hitchens, that it ought to be a part of our educational system.

GLENN: You -- the name of the book that you guys have just put out is this dangerous book.

And I look at what's happening in the Middle East. People won't recognize that the group of people that are probably rivalling the first century, that are under attack now, more than anybody else, are Christians. And it is for that dangerous book.

They seem to -- I know you guys travel all over the world. The people I have met in the Middle East, have a very different view of their responsibility as a Christian, to that book and to those words and to their faith, than I think most Americans do.

STEVE: Yeah. In our nation, it is just easy. And I think that as a society starts down a path of persecuting Christians, it really separates those that are serious about their faith and those that are just pretending. And it's easy to pretend, to have a faith and attend church from time to time. But there are parts of our world where it's a life and death situation if a person wants to follow the principles of this book.

And part of why we called it this dangerous book. We talk about those that have given their life, because of their life for this book. And it's no different today. I understand there's probably more people that are suffering for their faith today than ever before. Because it's a challenging world. And there are people that love this book. And there are people that hate it. And it shows up in our news from time to time.

STU: Jackie, you talk a lot in the book about something I think Christians have a difficult time with, as I think everybody does, which is tithing and giving -- giving your money away. And it's not just about being charitable. It's also about leading with the charity. Giving that money away first. Giving the money to God first. Can you talk about that a little bit?

JACKIE: Well, yeah, sure. I think as a family, that we -- as I mentioned earlier, we do feel like our blessings come from God. And when you can -- when you realize that, when you know that in your heart, it makes it a lot easier to understand it. We also -- you know, we're taught in the Bible to give to the -- to take care of the widow, the orphan, and to help those in need. And feed the hungry. And, you know, clothing.

And that sort of thing. And I think that when you embrace the principles taught in the Bible, it becomes much easier to do that. Recognizing everything we do comes from God. And we share some of that. We share some of our personal experiences with the Bible, in our book. And we look at the impact of the Bible and its influence in our world, in our culture, every day. All around us.

And then, you know, we feel like it's important for people to understand and be encouraged to read the Bible and learn more about it. Because it's the best-selling book of all time. Consistently, year after year.

STU: More than Harry Potter. That's confirmed.

GLENN: Listen to this. This is in the book. I love this. Let's see. Da Vinci Code. C.S. Lewis. Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe. Estimated about 80 million each.

Don Quixote, 150 million. Catcher in the Rye, 65 million. Black Beauty, 50 million. Harry Potter, 100 million, along with The Little Princess, 100 million. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 150 million copies. The Bible is estimated to be 5 billion copies. Five billion.

STU: It seems like it deserves a museum. It really does.

JACKIE: We think.

STEVE: Well, and some have said, why now? And, of course, more times, you get the question, why hasn't this been done before? I think we have the best material of any museum here in DC because this book has impacted our world unlike anything else.

So its story needs to be told, and that's why we wanted to tell it, in a state-of-the-art, first class museum.

GLENN: And I appreciate the book that you guys have just put out too, because it talks about your personal life. I'm fascinated by how grounded your family is. And you talk about -- you know, you talk about the adoption in your family and -- and just a lot of stuff that I can really relate to. And I appreciate you sharing the personal side as well. Thank you so much. God bless, guys.

STEVE: Well, and one of those is just that we feel like it was providential. And our Founders in this nation felt the same thing, time and time again. They just felt like God was in the middle of it. And we feel that with this museum and our adoption, and those are some of the stories that we share.

GLENN: Thank you, guys. God bless you. Have a good holiday.

The double standard behind the White House outrage

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

Presidents have altered the White House for decades, yet only Donald Trump is treated as a vandal for privately funding the East Wing’s restoration.

Every time a president so much as changes the color of the White House drapes, the press clutches its pearls. Unless the name on the stationery is Barack Obama’s, even routine restoration becomes a national outrage.

President Donald Trump’s decision to privately fund upgrades to the White House — including a new state ballroom — has been met with the usual chorus of gasps and sneers. You’d think he bulldozed Monticello.

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s ‘visionary.’

The irony is that presidents have altered and expanded the White House for more than a century. President Franklin D. Roosevelt added the East and West Wings in the middle of the Great Depression. Newspapers accused him of building a palace while Americans stood in breadlines. History now calls it “vision.”

First lady Nancy Reagan faced the same hysteria. Headlines accused her of spending taxpayer money on new china “while Americans starved.” In truth, she raised private funds after learning that the White House didn’t have enough matching plates for state dinners. She took the ridicule and refused to pass blame.

“I’m a big girl,” she told her staff. “This comes with the job.” That was dignity — something the press no longer recognizes.

A restoration, not a renovation

Trump’s project is different in every way that should matter. It costs taxpayers nothing. Not a cent. The president and a few friends privately fund the work. There’s no private pool or tennis court, no personal perks. The additions won’t even be completed until after he leaves office.

What’s being built is not indulgence — it’s stewardship. A restoration of aging rooms, worn fixtures, and century-old bathrooms that no longer function properly in the people’s house. Trump has paid for cast brass doorknobs engraved with the presidential seal, restored the carpets and moldings, and ensured that the architecture remains faithful to history.

The media’s response was mockery and accusations of vanity. They call it “grotesque excess,” while celebrating billion-dollar “climate art” projects and funneling hundreds of millions into activist causes like the No Kings movement. They lecture America on restraint while living off the largesse of billionaires.

The selective guardians of history

Where was this sudden reverence for history when rioters torched St. John’s Church — the same church where every president since James Madison has worshipped? The press called it an “expression of grief.”

Where was that reverence when mobs toppled statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Grant? Or when first lady Melania Trump replaced the Rose Garden’s lawn with a patio but otherwise followed Jackie Kennedy’s original 1962 plans in the garden’s restoration? They called that “desecration.”

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s “visionary.”

The real desecration

The people shrieking about “historic preservation” care nothing for history. They hate the idea that something lasting and beautiful might be built by hands they despise. They mock craftsmanship because it exposes their own cultural decay.

The White House ballroom is not a scandal — it’s a mirror. And what it reflects is the media’s own pettiness. The ruling class that ridicules restoration is the same class that cheered as America’s monuments fell. Its members sneer at permanence because permanence condemns them.

Julia Beverly / Contributor | Getty Images

Trump’s improvements are an act of faith — in the nation’s symbols, its endurance, and its worth. The outrage over a privately funded renovation says less about him than it does about the journalists who mistake destruction for progress.

The real desecration isn’t happening in the East Wing. It’s happening in the newsrooms that long ago tore up their own foundation — truth — and never bothered to rebuild it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

A new Monroe Doctrine? Trump quietly redraws the Western map

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The president’s moves in Venezuela, Guyana, and Colombia aren’t about drugs. They’re about re-establishing America’s sovereignty across the Western Hemisphere.

For decades, we’ve been told America’s wars are about drugs, democracy, or “defending freedom.” But look closer at what’s unfolding off the coast of Venezuela, and you’ll see something far more strategic taking shape. Donald Trump’s so-called drug war isn’t about fentanyl or cocaine. It’s about control — and a rebirth of American sovereignty.

The aim of Trump’s ‘drug war’ is to keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

The president understands something the foreign policy class forgot long ago: The world doesn’t respect apologies. It respects strength.

While the global elites in Davos tout the Great Reset, Trump is building something entirely different — a new architecture of power based on regional independence, not global dependence. His quiet campaign in the Western Hemisphere may one day be remembered as the second Monroe Doctrine.

Venezuela sits at the center of it all. It holds the world’s largest crude oil reserves — oil perfectly suited for America’s Gulf refineries. For years, China and Russia have treated Venezuela like a pawn on their chessboard, offering predatory loans in exchange for control of those resources. The result has been a corrupt, communist state sitting in our own back yard. For too long, Washington shrugged. Not any more.The naval exercises in the Caribbean, the sanctions, the patrols — they’re not about drug smugglers. They’re about evicting China from our hemisphere.

Trump is using the old “drug war” playbook to wage a new kind of war — an economic and strategic one — without firing a shot at our actual enemies. The goal is simple: Keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

Beyond Venezuela

Just east of Venezuela lies Guyana, a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map a year ago. Then ExxonMobil struck oil, and suddenly Guyana became the newest front in a quiet geopolitical contest. Washington is helping defend those offshore platforms, build radar systems, and secure undersea cables — not for charity, but for strategy. Control energy, data, and shipping lanes, and you control the future.

Moreover, Colombia — a country once defined by cartels — is now positioned as the hinge between two oceans and two continents. It guards the Panama Canal and sits atop rare-earth minerals every modern economy needs. Decades of American presence there weren’t just about cocaine interdiction; they were about maintaining leverage over the arteries of global trade. Trump sees that clearly.

PEDRO MATTEY / Contributor | Getty Images

All of these recent news items — from the military drills in the Caribbean to the trade negotiations — reflect a new vision of American power. Not global policing. Not endless nation-building. It’s about strategic sovereignty.

It’s the same philosophy driving Trump’s approach to NATO, the Middle East, and Asia. We’ll stand with you — but you’ll stand on your own two feet. The days of American taxpayers funding global security while our own borders collapse are over.

Trump’s Monroe Doctrine

Critics will call it “isolationism.” It isn’t. It’s realism. It’s recognizing that America’s strength comes not from fighting other people’s wars but from securing our own energy, our own supply lines, our own hemisphere. The first Monroe Doctrine warned foreign powers to stay out of the Americas. The second one — Trump’s — says we’ll defend them, but we’ll no longer be their bank or their babysitter.

Historians may one day mark this moment as the start of a new era — when America stopped apologizing for its own interests and started rebuilding its sovereignty, one barrel, one chip, and one border at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Antifa isn’t “leaderless” — It’s an organized machine of violence

Jeff J Mitchell / Staff | Getty Images

The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

URGENT: Supreme Court case could redefine religious liberty

Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images

The state is effectively silencing professionals who dare speak truths about gender and sexuality, redefining faith-guided speech as illegal.

This week, free speech is once again on the line before the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake is whether Americans still have the right to talk about faith, morality, and truth in their private practice without the government’s permission.

The case comes out of Colorado, where lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on what they call “conversion therapy.” The law prohibits licensed counselors from trying to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation, including their behaviors or gender expression. The law specifically targets Christian counselors who serve clients attempting to overcome gender dysphoria and not fall prey to the transgender ideology.

The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The law does include one convenient exception. Counselors are free to “assist” a person who wants to transition genders but not someone who wants to affirm their biological sex. In other words, you can help a child move in one direction — one that is in line with the state’s progressive ideology — but not the other.

Think about that for a moment. The state is saying that a counselor can’t even discuss changing behavior with a client. Isn’t that the whole point of counseling?

One‑sided freedom

Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado Springs, has been one of the victims of this blatant attack on the First Amendment. Chiles has dedicated her practice to helping clients dealing with addiction, trauma, sexuality struggles, and gender dysphoria. She’s also a Christian who serves patients seeking guidance rooted in biblical teaching.

Before 2019, she could counsel minors according to her faith. She could talk about biblical morality, identity, and the path to wholeness. When the state outlawed that speech, she stopped. She followed the law — and then she sued.

Her case, Chiles v. Salazar, is now before the Supreme Court. Justices heard oral arguments on Tuesday. The question: Is counseling a form of speech or merely a government‑regulated service?

If the court rules the wrong way, it won’t just silence therapists. It could muzzle pastors, teachers, parents — anyone who believes in truth grounded in something higher than the state.

Censored belief

I believe marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God. I believe that family — mother, father, child — is central to His design for humanity.

I believe that men and women are created in God’s image, with divine purpose and eternal worth. Gender isn’t an accessory; it’s part of who we are.

I believe the command to “be fruitful and multiply” still stands, that the power to create life is sacred, and that it belongs within marriage between a man and a woman.

And I believe that when we abandon these principles — when we treat sex as recreation, when we dissolve families, when we forget our vows — society fractures.

Are those statements controversial now? Maybe. But if this case goes against Chiles, those statements and others could soon be illegal to say aloud in public.

Faith on trial

In Colorado today, a counselor cannot sit down with a 15‑year‑old who’s struggling with gender identity and say, “You were made in God’s image, and He does not make mistakes.” That is now considered hate speech.

That’s the “freedom” the modern left is offering — freedom to affirm, but never to question. Freedom to comply, but never to dissent. The same movement that claims to champion tolerance now demands silence from anyone who disagrees. The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The real test

No matter what happens at the Supreme Court, we cannot stop speaking the truth. These beliefs aren’t political slogans. For me, they are the product of years of wrestling, searching, and learning through pain and grace what actually leads to peace. For us, they are the fundamental principles that lead to a flourishing life. We cannot balk at standing for truth.

Maybe that’s why God allows these moments — moments when believers are pushed to the wall. They force us to ask hard questions: What is true? What is worth standing for? What is worth dying for — and living for?

If we answer those questions honestly, we’ll find not just truth, but freedom.

The state doesn’t grant real freedom — and it certainly isn’t defined by Colorado legislators. Real freedom comes from God. And the day we forget that, the First Amendment will mean nothing at all.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.