Rick Green: 0:12
Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture as WallBuilders, where we're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. My name is Rick Green. I'm a former Texas legislator and America's Constitution coach. It's my honor to serve here with David and Tim Barton. Of course, you know David as America's premier historian and I think probably more information in that little head of his yes, that little head, but that brain that is in that head. I mean it's unbelievable. I love getting to work with this guy and just constantly learn something new about the Founding Fathers, about history, about World War II, for goodness sakes. I mean just an incredible, incredible presentation I got to watch him give just last week in my new hometown of Fredericksburg, texas, and he just blew it away. It was absolutely amazing and debunked so much of the junk that is being taught in schools all over America now that America was somehow the bad guy in World War II and Iwo Jima and all this crazy stuff. Anyway, David Barton, America's premier historian and absolutely a privilege to get to learn from him every day, and Tim Barton as well. I'm telling you he's the mini me and, frankly, just takes it up a notch even from David, especially in live presentations. I highly recommend you have Tim in to speak for you. Check him out at our website. He's, of course, our president and he's a national speaker and pastor, and what a privilege to be with these guys. Anyway, check it out at WallBuilders.com and WallBuildersLive.com. You can learn more about all three of us and you can listen to some of the programs from the last few weeks and months. So it's a great way to get engaged and a great way to share with your friends and family too. This is a force multiplier situation where you not only should listen, you should become a force multiplier by sharing the programs with everybody that you know. David, tim, it's good news Friday. Looking forward to it, let's dive into our first piece of good news, David.

David Barton: 1:56
Okay, Rick, what I've got first is some good news, but it also goes with some programs we've had in the last several years that deal with this topic, and so it's good news, with maybe some kind of caveats and thoughts and questions to go with it, and you guys can jump in on this. But we've seen a lot in the last several weeks three to four weeks over what are being called revivals at these Christian colleges and campuses. We saw, I mean, the stuff that happened back at Asbury the day after it happened. It wasn't 24 hours old and I was in Washington DC and one of the guys who's really close, he said look at this. And he showed me the text he had and he said this has been going since last night. This is nearly 24 hours. And then it went days and days and two weeks and et cetera, and so it really took off. And then we saw Samford and we saw all these other Christian schools that start jumping in as well, and these kids are, I mean, really wanting to see God. We're seeing people literally come to Jesus, not a come to Jesus moment per se, but I mean literally coming to Jesus and knowing the Savior. We've seen what I think, what I like best about what I've seen with all these revivals is the emphasis on God's word. You know, these kids are standing at Masbury and say, hey, let's see what God says about this. This is the word, and these are the kids. These are not instructors and the adults, these are the kids that are getting into God's word, and so this is some of the healthiest stuff that I've seen in really a long time.

Tim Barton: 3:25
Well, and, as you mentioned, we've seen this now spreading across college campuses all over the US. I know Asbury. I think it was this week that they determined they had to get back to their normal class schedule. And so they said, just the sake of the collegiate experience or classes, whatever else, I don't know what all the reasoning they gave. They said we got to get back to the schedule, which on some level makes sense. But what is so cool is that move of God has not been limited to that Asbury campus and even obviously, we know God's not done with what he's doing there. Nonetheless, to your point, this is something that, although there's a lot of critics, there's a lot of armchair quarterbacks, there's a lot of people trying to analyze and evaluate is this theologically good or biblical? And there's a lot of naysayers which, on a separate note but very much a parallel, even for Jesus' ministry, there's a lot of people, I'm sure, evaluating, criticizing, let's say, can anything good come out of Nazareth, et cetera. So, whether this was completely done, perfectly or had all kinds of issues, people are going to criticize it either way. But what is very clear is that God is doing something and God is doing something in the next generation of these young people, these leaders, and it's happening all over the nation. And then, to add to your point, we've seen some emotional kind of movement at times where people really focus on the feeling aspect, whereas there's definitely some finger pointers and some of what we're seeing now where people are actually saying let's get back to seeing what the Bible says and being more biblical, which is a great thing to be the outcome of this move of God in multiple campuses.

David Barton: 5:15
You know, and Tim, you mentioned earlier with the Aspen. By the way, another thing throughout is we're seeing this week that this is also breaking out in a lot of Christian high schools, and so Christian high schools kids are starting to say, hey, let's get in the God's word, let's seek God, let's, and again, kids are coming to Christ. It's a really good time. And we've talked about, we've had programs before and what does the revival look like? Because we've had plenty of them in history and there's always a side of revival where people want to kind of stomp it out and say, okay, we're done with that, that's okay. We had that for a while and that was my concern at Asbury and who knows what was going on. But you know, when the prophets stepped in and said, okay, we've done this for enough, now let's go back to classes, no, no, no, what makes you think classes are going to have a greater spiritual impact than what those kids are doing and what's happening with those kids? And so, kind of my tag going with this, there's two thoughts I've got that I think would be really helpful. One is this new movie out, jesus Revolution. That's a movie that everybody ought to see. Who's thinking about this revival now, because when Jesus Revolution came out and this was 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, I lived through that. Those literally remind people and in the movie you see that there's a lot of critics and a lot of people say no, no, no, this is not what we do at church, this is not what church is all about. And that happened then but it's happening now too. So here it is in 72. And I'll point out that that spiritual movement in 72, the hippie movement, had been going for a long time but this was starting to get hippies saved and brought to Jesus and a lot of those hippies that got saved and came to Jesus became significant pastors. At the end of the movie one of those pastors speaks and he's he's one of the most notable pastors in the nation right now. But as that was going on, I thought, okay, that's right, it's exactly what those people did. There was a lot of resistance but at the same time, by the time you get to 72, 250,000 of those kids gathered in Dallas for Explo72, billy Graham, keynote speaker, I mean this literally transformed the country and there was a lot of people saying no, no, no, we're not going to do this. And the other thing we talked about with the revivals is there's always a tendency to say, wait a minute, and Jesus talks about this new wine skin and the old wine skin. That's not the way we've done this before. This is not what we're used to. This is not what happens at church. Let's not do this, we're uncomfortable with this. Hey, that's part of revivals. What Whitfield was doing with outside meetings and different manifestations that people thought were crazy at the time. I mean, this is the stuff to turn it around. So that's that's the other thought I have and the one I'd throw out past. That is look, you got all these kids coming to Jesus and that's good. But a real problem with Christianity is coming to Jesus is stopping there. There needs to be biblical teaching and discipleship. Jesus told us to make disciples, not converts, and it's really good that these kids' hearts are getting turned to Jesus. But there needs to be people that take them under wing and just mentor them and say, hey, let's, let's memorize Bible verses together. Hey, let's, let's see what God says about this. And you're not trying to build them in your image. You're trying to build them in God's image, which means you need to get in God's word and learn God's word with them. So I just see some good stuff here that could be really really long lasting, good for the children If the rest of us will pick up with this. Maybe you haven't been to Asbury or Samford or all these other colleges and schools where it's happening. You can still be part of it. You find some of those kids like you're going to see in the movie if you go see Jesus Revolution, chuck Smith, what Chuck Smith did to help mentor Lonnie Ferrisby and others. It's just significant stuff. So that's a good movie to see. I love what's happening, but don't try to squash this and put it out just because you're not comfortable with it and find someone that you can take and decide upon mentor. I think this has got great, great, great potential for America.

Rick Green: 9:05
Alright, tim, what's your first piece of good news today?

Tim Barton: 9:08
Alright, guys, well my piece of good news follows very closely with what we just talked about. The title of the article says Christian filmmaker John Irwin makes history becomes first director to receive four A plus cinema scores. Now, as we just mentioned, the Jesus Revolution, that film, dad, I know you and Mom had a date night. Y'all went and saw it. This is something I'm actually very excited about going, hopefully next week, to be able to go see it. Everybody that I know that has seen it has just spoken so highly of it. Well, maybe they're not super surprising that John Irwin, the filmmaker behind this, got an A plus cinema score for this. And just so everybody knows some of the other films he's done and really he and his brother Andrew have done together. But they did Woodlawn, they did, I can only imagine, and they did American Underdog, and all three of those received A plus cinema scores. Only three directors in filmmaking history have earned three A plus scores. Now, dan Rick, if we were going to guess who maybe are the three directors who have received these A plus scores, do you have a venture of a guess of maybe who one of them might be?

Rick Green: 10:26
So I immediately think of more recent people like Ridley Scott or Christopher Nolan, those kind of people. But you know, I'm a Star Wars, I'm a child of the 80s. So did George Lucas make? It Is even in the list. And then Spielberg, of course. I mean, what about you know all the Harrison Ford movies? I don't know who do we end up with.

David Barton: 10:44
Okay, if you're asking me who are great directors in history, I would say Spielberg. You got to put Steven Spielberg in there. You know all the movies.

Tim Barton: 10:52
Let me just stop you because that was one of the first names I thought of. He has only had two movies that got A plus rankings or eight plus scores, and they actually weren't even the ones that I necessarily thought they might have been. It was ET and Schindler's list for the two he had that had eight plus rankings. Now, Rick, I knew you would pick Spielberg as well, so I kind of guess that's where you were going to go. Any other guesses?

David Barton: 11:18
I'm trying to think of really good films where the same guy's been behind four really good films or three really good films. So yeah, three, because this is the Irwins.

Tim Barton: 11:30
The Irwins are the first one to ever get four of these and specifically they say it's John Irwin but John works with his brother Andrew on these, so I kind of put them together. So the other two Number one is Alex Kendrick, who is the Christian filmmaker from Georgia, and he received A plus for Overcomer, for War Room and for Courageous. The second individual to receive three A plus ratings was Rob Reiner, who did the Princess Bride, harry Mitzali and a few good men. And Rob Reiner is not the name I instantly thought of, but when I saw the movies I thought, ok, I can see that. But then the third are now the Irwin brothers. But guys, here's what's crazy and amazing to me. Two of the top three of all time are individuals making Christian films, and certainly the Kendrick brothers. Their films are like explicitly obviously Christian. When you look at the Irwinds, they're telling a powerful story that doesn't necessarily have the same direct implications of a spiritual idea that Alex Kendrick or the Kendrick brothers would maybe put into their films, which not to diminish either one. I love both of them and what they are trying to do, but this is so fascinating and so awesome to me that when the Jesus revolution film was coming out, people thought, right, this is, it's going to be okay, it's not going to be that great or special. And it came out and it is just crushing things at the box office that most people didn't see coming. It's this A plus rating which now gives the Irwind brothers the top of any producers to have A plus or any filmmaker have these A plus ratings. It is just really impressive and I'll point out.

David Barton: 13:16
This is not an award that's given by the board of directors at First Baptist Church or King Street Presbyterian. This is a secular organization that goes back for decades and decades, and the way they do this is when movie goers leave the theater, they rate these movies. You just saw a movie. What'd you think about the movie you just saw? And that means that people are as you said, tim. Not only is the box office crushing it, but that means the reviews of people walking out of the theater. They're super high reviews and I gotta say I'm glad Prince is bright. I've made the list in there somewhere. So Prince is bright, but my goodness, rob Reiner and Spielberg and now Kendrick and Irwoods have surpassed that. That tells you something about where people are in America.

Tim Barton: 14:03
And it does tell you something, too, about where the hunger is. It's one of the things that when the Kendrick brothers started making some of their films years ago, it was so powerful. I remember Flywheel, I think, was their first one, but then they came up facing the Giants and I remember that you had NCAA division one coaches, like major coaches from some significant universities taking their players, their whole team, to go see facing the Giants and I love facing the Giants. But looking back, you definitely can see, okay, it's not as high of a level of a film as some of the others the Kendrick brothers have done since then. But the Kendrick brothers really did something that resonated with the American people and it was a niche that was missing and we've talked about this a lot where every time Hollywood does a well-produced, family-friendly, faith-positive film, it does incredible at the box office, and this is yet another example. But really, kudos to the Irwin brothers for getting this award and this achievement. This really is some good news.

Rick Green: 15:04
Our fellows. Hang on, we gotta take a quick break. We'll be right back. Folks, you're listening to Good News Friday on WallBuilderss ["Good News Friday"]. Have you noticed the vacuum of leadership in America? We're looking around for leaders of principle to step up, and too often no one is there. God is raising up a generation of young leaders with a passion for impacting the world around them. They're crying out for the mentorship and leadership training they need. Patriot Academy was created to meet that need. Patriot Academy graduates now serve in state capitals around America, in the halls of Congress, in business, in the film industry, in the pulpit, in every area of the culture. They're leading effectively and impacting the world around them. Patriot Academy is now expanding across the nation, and now's your chance to experience this life-changing week that trains champions to change the world. Visit wwwpatriotacademycom for dates and locations. Our core program is still for young leaders 16 to 25 years old, but we also now have a citizen track for adults. So visit the website today to learn more. Help us fill the void of leadership in America. Join us in training champions to change the world at wwwpatriotacademycom.

Tim Barton: 16:21
This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American History. American Patriot Paul Revere wrote to alert Americans of the impending arrival of the British, but he also sought Patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock to warn them that the British were seeking their execution. Adams and Hancock were staying with the Reverend Jonas Clark in Lexington. When they asked Pastor Clark if his church was ready for the approaching British, he replied I've trained them for this very hour. They will fight and if need be, die under the shadow of the House of God. Later that morning 70 men from his church faced several hundred British in the first battle of the war for independence. As Pastor Clark affirmed, the militia that morning were the same who filled the pews of the church meeting house on the Sunday morning before. The American church was regularly at the forefront of the fight for liberty. For more information on this pastor and other colonial patriots, go to WallBuilders.com.

Rick Green: 17:20
Welcome back to WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. We've got to get into some more good news today. We're not ever going to get to all of it, so make sure you check it out at our website, WallBuildersLive.com. Look in the archive section there for some of those past Friday programs. David, let's dive back in. What's the next piece of good news?

David Barton: 17:34
Okay, guys, I've got one. That's really good news, but it's wrapped around some tragic stories. I'll just read the headlines on this. It says Tane Seuss Hospital and Physicians Overcoercing Her into Medical Mutilation via Gender Transitioning. This is a lawsuit filed against doctors and really the hospitals because this girl who had gender kind of questions, they said oh man, if you don't do something, you got these questions. If you don't transition to being a boy, you're going to commit suicide. You'll never be able to live with yourself. This is a permanent thing that you'll never be able to get over. We know all the stuff now that generally most young people who go through this come out of it if just given a little bit of counsel and support. It's a kind of a temporary questioning she's pointing out. Now here I am. I'm much older now. I'm four to five years older and I now realize that I can't go back on this stuff. What they told me I never went through suicide, never went through that thought. I never went through those options. That never happened. I love the fact that this is an attempt at accountability. You guys have been telling us medical lies that weren't true. You had a political agenda and you used medicine to help do your political agenda. This is part of the woke stuff and bad ideas have bad consequences. We've known that. But I love the fact that this may start slowing things down If, for example, she comes out with a sizable judgment here. You just watch the universities and you watch the medical centers and you watch the doctors start shutting their mouth, even if they are woke. I'm not saying the suppression of free speech is what we're after, but shutting their mouth because they're giving their opinions as if it is medical science and it's hurting people. You can't do that. You can't do that, covid. You can't do anything else. You need to follow the science, not follow your philosophy. That's one story. Going right with it. Here's one that says parents file a $15 million lawsuit against an abortion clinic for doing a secret abortion on their daughter. Here you have school officials and others saying hey, you need an abortion, even though there's parental consent. We can get around that, we can take you, you can get an abortion and you really need one. This is going to ruin your life if you don't have this abortion and your parents don't need to know. Well, here are the parents that say wait a minute. The girl saying I was just confused at the time, I didn't want to lose the child. A $15 million lawsuit against an abortion clinic for violating parental consent laws and doing that abortion on a minor. Here's another one On a school district is forced to pay $100,000 after silencing concerned parents At school board meetings. Parents are raising questions, saying wait a minute. This is not a good thing. There was a group at the school board called Mama Bears and they're looking out for their kids. The school board said hey, you guys, you can't speak, we don't want your opinions. They went after the school district and got $100,000. These are all tragic stories, no question about it, but I love the fact that they're starting to go for accountability. You need to be responsible for what you say and what you do, and if it causes harm and causes injury, there are consequences of that. You can't just throw out woke ideas and if they hurt someone, well, that's just the way it is. I'm onto another idea now. So again tragic stories, but very, very, very good that people are starting to say you need to be accountable for all that irresponsible stuff you did, and hopefully this will save tens of thousands of other teens and parents and others from going through the same kind of tragedy that we've seen here.

Rick Green: 21:20
All right Tim. Where are we going with our next piece of good news?

Tim Barton: 21:22
All right guys well, this one is one coming from Texas and specifically the title of the article says University of Texas Pauses New DEI Policies and DEI. Probably most of you listening already know, but just in case, it's Diversity, equity and Inclusion and this is something that, just like we've seen over the last couple years the growth of the 1619 project Now it's infiltrated into school systems and now Critical Race Theory is infiltrating into school systems. There's a lot of Marxist ideology that's permeating more and more culture and DEI is one of those Marxist ideologies and it's getting into now, obviously, universities, getting into corporate, where they're saying that we need to hire people based on diversity quotas, based on equity quotas, based on inclusion quotas. We have to hire not based on meritocracy, not based on who's the most talented, the most skilled, or even, in universities, we, when we're looking at who we're going to allow to come to the university, we we shouldn't just look at how someone achieves or what their high school record was or how they performed on the ACT or SAT. We should look at what gender they are and what color their skin is and what group they associate with. That is part of the DEI and the good news about this not only the title identifies that the University of Texas pauses this new DEI policy. But to go even further, earlier this month, you and actually I'm saying that I think it actually was in February, so just a few days past that but earlier in February the chief of staff for Governor Greg Abbott his name is Gardner Pate he sent a letter to all Texas state agencies and public universities and he informed them that when a state agency adjusts its employment practices on factors other than merit, it's not following the law. So for the University of Texas or any university to say, well, we're going to hire professors right, not based on their ability, not based on their skill, not based on whatever kind of background, phd degree, whatever else, but when we're hiring someone based on right, their gender, based on the color of their skin, whatever it is, and this DEI kind of measuring stick they're using, well, that's against the law. You should be looking at merit, not these other factors. And where I think is also some really good news about this is the article highlights the pushback came after Texas legislators got involved when they saw some of this going on specifically University of Texas not the only place, but they saw it happening there. And you know, guys, we've seen with the University of Texas before where they had some policies whether it be not allowing any students or faculty to carry a gun on campus, and then that policy was changed for all public universities in Texas that students and faculty are allowed to maintain their secondary right on campus, and that was because state legislators got involved. And as much guys as we have at times criticized Governor Abbott rightfully so for some of the things that have happened, and as much as we've looked at some of the state legislators in Texas and justly criticized some of their lack of action and activity, this is one of the areas where we have seen some good things coming out of state legislators. And, of course, we have a lot of good friends in the Texas state legislature who are doing a great job, who are champions, who are fighting to promote both biblical constitutional principles and values, and that's a great thing. But this is something that really is encouraging. Also, in the midst of this, lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. He also announced that banning discriminatory DEI policies in higher education is among his 30 priorities for the legislative session and, of course, lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick will be the one who is helping lead the Texas Senate and they probably have about half their session left, but the fact that they are prioritizing this is really good news. Hopefully, this is something that will spread throughout all 50 states, but at least here in Texas, this is a piece of good news from Texas that the state of Texas is informing all agencies and all universities, all public universities in the state of Texas, that they are not allowed to use DEI when it comes to their evaluation, their hiring process, and that is good news.

Rick Green: 25:28
And David, you've got the last piece of good news for today. Brother, when are we headed? The?

David Barton: 25:31
last piece of good news, for today actually is kind of a correction to a story that's taken off particularly in the conservative community. Back from the National March of Life in Washington DC, there was a group of Catholic kids that went into the Smithsonian Museum and they were wearing the hats that identified that group so they could find each other. And those hats said things like life always wins and life is a human right. They were a pro-life group from a Catholic school and they were there for the march for life. And there was security folks inside the Smithsonian said oh no, no, you can't have that in here. You can't come in here with a political message like that. And so what has happened? Over the last two to three weeks? We've seen this thing blow up into all sorts of conservative media just pounding on the Smithsonian. How dare they? And I've got to say on their behalf I saw on the day it happened the supervisors went and grabbed those security people and said no, no, no, you can't do this. We have free speech. My goodness, the National Archives is where we have the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and that's what the director pointed out. He said wait a minute, this is where we protect free speech, the document that gave us that. And so the director of the National Archives at that time took the officers aside and went to the group and said hey, you can wear those shirts, you can wear those hats. So of all the different museums in Washington DC and I think there's 16 different Smithsonian's in Washington DC kudos to the director of the National Archives for doing the right thing. And so conservative media has really blown this up and made a big deal out of it. But they did the right thing. I mean instantly. They took that guy aside, the officers aside, and took the kids aside. And so now you know it's been National Media and they're going to give the kids a special private tour of the National Archives, which is super cool, by the way. But just kudos to the National Archives for doing the right thing with these kids and I regret that they've been beat up, but I bet they never have another guard that does this again after what they've gone through now.

Rick Green: 27:28
Our folks. We're out of time for today. Thanks so much for listening to Good News Friday. You've been listening to WallBuilders.