Rick Green: 0:12
This is the intersection of faith and the culture. Welcome to WallBuilders. I'm Rick Green, America's Constitution Coach, here with David Barton, America's premier historian, and Tim Barton, national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. And, of course, you. You're a big part of this program. If you weren't listening, what's the point in us being here? Right, and thank you for sharing the program. By the way, a lot of you out there sharing on social media. That's a big, very important way of getting the truth out there. As you know, there's a concentrated effort to silence truth in this country. There's a concentrated effort by some to label half the country as enemies of the state. Hard to believe. Hard to believe that we have a president of the United States willing to do that to half of the nation. But that's where we are folks. It's not a time to despair. It's a time to shift our focus and say you know what? These are serious times and there are solutions to these serious times and if we will implement the solutions, if we will work the system, the system works. We've been given a wonderful system of freedom. God's blessed us to be in this nation. He's blessed us to have a constitution, like we do, to have a system of freedom, like we do, and we can despair when we see it being abused or manipulated or people cheating or whatever excuse we want to use. Or we can dig in and say not on my watch, we're going to stop that nonsense, we're going to restore this thing and we're going to pass it intact to our children and grandchildren. And I know you're one of those kind of people, or you wouldn't be listening right now to WallBuilders. You picked a great day to listen because it's Good News Friday today. Alright, David Tim, let's, dive into that good news. David Barton's got our first piece of good news from. I tried this a few weeks ago. It's going to be an Arkansas, it's going to be a court case and no, no, no, it's going to be the legislature. And Sarah Huckabee did something amazing. I'm just guessing, and that's a pretty good guess, because she's had, like I don't know, two or three big victories the last couple of weeks. Did I even get close?

David Barton: 1:52
This is why Kara sent you to Gambler's Anonymous. You lost the house. You lost everything you own. You have never won a bet in your life and you keep betting. You see, the problem is.

Rick Green: 2:04
I bet with my heart and not my head. And if I wasn't betting with my heart, if I wasn't betting with my home state of Arkansas, where I'm originally from. I can't believe, I just admitted that on the air. But anyway, yep, I lose. It's not even in a Southern state, is it?

Tim Barton: 2:20
Rick, now, as you said, I bet it's somewhere in your good news stack. You would have been correct, because I will go on and say, probably somewhere in our good news. We definitely have the Sarah Huggaby Sanders saying that China can't own that land where they're doing their crop seed technology. That's going to be somewhere in there. So whether or not it's the one he shows first, I'm going to give you at least partial credit, because you know that what's coming at some point in our good news stack?

Rick Green: 2:47
That's good. I like the way you spin, brother. That's what I meant to say. Yes, at some point today or next week or the week after, at some point, we're going to have good news from Arkansas. Okay, all right, David, where are we?

David Barton: 2:58
going Alright. Well, we are going to the south, at least the northern part of the south, to go to Virginia, which is right there, that Mason Dixon line, division stuff. So when you go to Virginia you remember three years ago we saw all the nonsense coming out of Fairfax County, a Loudoun County, the schools, all the nonsense. It was going there arresting father and and parents, tried to get information and been taken out by the cops. So there's something really significant here. And if I can just kind of set the tone For what happened with Loudoun County, I think it's good to remember what Jesus said about young people, about children, and he said suffered little children to come unto me. So we're supposed to be encouraging kids to come to Christ, to come to God, to know God, and and certainly some of these schools are hostile to that and he says allow them to come to me. And they say no, you can't do that, you got to find some other time to do it. And so at the middle of education, which is a prime time to do it, you're saying don't do that. And then Jesus also said listen, if you cause one of these young ones to stumble, if you offend one of these and cause them to stumble. It'd be better for you to put a millstone around your neck and be thrown in the sea. Then what's going to happen to you as a result of what you've done to these young people? And there's been so many School districts that have like, I don't care what Jesus said. I don't know what Jesus said and it makes no difference to me. And they have they. They have caused these young people to stumble in a lot of ways, certainly from where God wants them to be. So I am really excited that in Loudoun County there was a church that stepped up and said you know what? It's time for parents to have a choice. In Loudoun County we're going to start a Christian school, and so they've started a Christian school and they have really, really committed themselves to doing the right thing here. It's they brought in great staff. The guy used to be the head basketball coach of Regent University is now head of the Christian school and they are really that to twofold. We want the kids to have Bible teachings and that includes on gender and on race. So it's no CRT, it's none of the LGBTQIA plus. It's we want them to have basic Bible teachings, including on things that are going on the culture. And the other thing that was significant is we want this school To communicate with the parents. We want it used to be the schools we specifically taught in my lifetime. We taught teachers that you are in local parenthesis, which is a Latin phrase for in place of parents. You're not the parents. You represent the parents and you're supposed to take to the kids what the parents won't talk to the kids. So in local parenthesis is no longer a philosophy of education. This Christian school is back to that. We want to communicate with the parents. We want to help come along side them and support them and help raise these kids, and so it really is a good thing. Now I hope more churches do this. This was a thing in the 70s and 80s. A lot of churches started Christian schools. They got out of it in the 90s and the 2000 and the 2010s, but it's time to come back. I mean, it's time for Christian people to start training young people with what Jesus said. And I recall in the case in 1844, Daniel Webster, when you argue the case Vidal versus Gerard's executors on the third day of argument in the Supreme Court, he literally looked at the judges and pointed them by the way the case dealt with the school in Philadelphia that was started by an atheist back in the 1839, 1840 time. But when he died he left his money in Philadelphia, said I want you to build a school, I want it named after me and I don't want a minister to set foot on that campus. I want religion there. And so the argument was well, you're trying to keep the Bible off, you're trying to keep ministers off, you're trying to keep people from becoming Christians, and so on. That third day of argument, Daniel Webster stood in front of the Supreme Court and just looked at the judges and just Essentially pointed and I'm said hey, did you guys think you're smarter than Jesus Christ? Because, he said, suffered the little children come unto me. We got a school over here in Philadelphia that's not letting the little children come unto him. Are you justice is going to allow that to happen? Are you going to allow children not to come to Christ that they want to? And so that argument that he made in 1844 is still a great argument today for Christian education. By the way, as a result of that case in 1844 the US Supreme Court gave it 8-0 unanimous decision that if you're a state funded school, you're going to teach the Bible. We're not going to prevent kids from coming to Christ. We're going to suffer the little ones to come unto him, as Jesus said. So I'm just really excited about the fact that maybe this is starting something where that the church is going to get involved in Christian Education again and start raising and training children and not turning them over to secular education which is taking their minds and their hearts and their souls, the spirits, away from them.

Rick Green: 7:41
Yeah, really good news out of Virginia and, guys, you know, Virginia is a state that you know a lot of people give it up on a couple years ago and was just super blue and now it's really turning. And they're in Loudoun County. Of all places, man, that's where we've had all those big fights over crazy stuff at that school board and, and if I think, David, this is the school that Pastor Gary there, right, this is that that Calvary Chapel, that it's a big church has really grew during COVID. They're really do you know? In fact, I think they've had you in to speak, I know they've had Kirk Cameron and others. They're bringing in People that are speaking to the culture and they're influencing there being salt and light and now, as you said, providing a school that's going to be able to be even more salt and light. So great news out of Virginia. Tim, what part of the country are we going to with you, man?

Tim Barton: 8:27
Well, we're going to the Red Sea, which mostly now I think of like Moses, not not of Egypt, I'm trying to not. Not the Red River, not not, not the Red River, no, not not all my.

David Barton: 8:38
Texas. Hey, ever since you can step across the Red River is probably not a seat. It probably wouldn't qualify as Red Sea yeah.

Tim Barton: 8:47
Well, guys, this one is Described the Red Sea in this article, is it? It's in the goodness stack, it's. It's still good news. A lot of Changes this came out. The title of the article says us Navy shoots down three missiles from Yemen, potentially headed toward Israel, and and this was something that we saw over the last couple weeks the US was intervening on some level. We really we're not getting a lot of details in the US as to how much the US was doing, of course, still when President Biden went over to Israel and did a photo op with some of the special operators and Showed the picture with their faces, their tattoos. Ultimately, these guys now will will never be able to be the same level of assets they were before, because now they're on a watch list for these terrorists. If you see these tattoos, you see men, the, with all the facial recognition technology there is now, which, in fairness, this wasn't probably President Biden's fault. He probably doesn't know how to use social media at all, so to ever the social media team and staff, or, nonetheless, we at least got some glimpse of an idea that we had some kind of American forces over in Israel, which, of course, the Biden administration, kjp did not talk about there being boots on the ground in Israel from the US forces, but We've seen now more and more what's been going on, of course, when the US did the target strike from where missiles are being fired on the US base in Syria, so we bombed the location in Syria trying to stop that. More has come out now. It's all about to say is, as I look at this article, there's certainly more to the story now than just with this article highlights. But the fact that this article does highlight that the US was able to shoot down missiles that were headed toward Israel, it does show that, you know, maybe on some level President Biden recognizes that giving that money to Iran and had some negative, detrimental impact on what happened with Gaza and Really kind of their terrorist attacks on Israel with the war that's now been declared, with obviously Israel Doing some targeted strikes, doing marching in as they're looking at Gaza and the underground tunnel, all the issues that there's so much more going on. But it is still worth noting and good news that when Israel was being targeted, the US was there to to try to protect our ally on some level. And this makes a difference in my mind for several reasons, certainly, as people of faith, I think it's important that we recognize the biblical position of Israel and that we want to be friends of Israel as as much as we can doesn't mean we don't recognize that they might be wrong on some issues and it doesn't mean we can't call them out if we think they're wrong on issues. But we want to be friends of Israel as much and as to the most extent we can. But then also, when you look at the, the, the geopolitical sphere, and recognize that Israel is is our best ally Over maybe our only ally to some extent, over in the Middle East with all that's been going on, we want to maintain that friendship, that alliance. Now that there's certainly the only ones that have a some, some level, some version of we would call it what we hear in the news. It called democracy, right, that that they have some democratic process, that they do protect Multiple religions within their borders. When you look at some of the nations around them that practice Sharia, they certainly don't have the same value system, they don't have the same freedoms and protections for other groups and individuals. But the reason I'm saying this now is because I'm not going to read all the details from this article or highlight those details, because a Lot has changed now, but it's still it was worth saying in the good news stack, recognizing that America did do a good thing and helping Shoot down some of the missiles that were headed for Israel. Until that is a piece of good news.

Rick Green: 12:42
Alright, guys, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. We've got more good news for you folks. Stay with us here on WallBuilders.

Tim Barton: 12:54
Hey guys, we want to let you know about a new resource we have at WallBuilders, called the American story. For so many years, people have asked us to do a history book to help tell more of the story that's just not known or not told today. And, we would say, very providentially, in the midst of all of the new attacks coming out against America, whether it be from things like the 1619 project that say America is evil and everything in America was built off slavery, which is certainly not true or things like even the Black Lives Matter movement, the organization itself, not not the statement Black Lives Matter, but the organization that says we're against everything that America was built on and this is part of the Marxist ideology. There's so many things attacking America. Well, is America worth defending? Well, what is a true story of America? We actually have written and told that story, starting with Christopher Columbus, going roughly through Abraham Lincoln. We tell the story of America not as a story of a perfect nation or a perfect people, but the story of how God used these imperfect people and did great things through this nation. It's a story you want to check out. WallBuilders, calm the American story. You.

Rick Green: 13:57
Welcome back to Walbenders. It's Good News Friday. We're diving into some of those good news stories. So far we've got two, so we're about half where we normally are. Guys, y'all have to go super fast. Two minute good news stories from each of you for the next, you know, 12, 14 minutes. We'll see how many we can get. Now I'm kidding. Whatever you got, go for it.

David Barton: 14:13
I'm going to go to Mississippi and there was a post on X from Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves and he put up a picture and the picture he said hey, this photo is not from a concert or a party, this is from a revival event that happened a few nights ago right here in Mississippi. The governor says God is working here and he has truly blessed us. Now that being the post from the governor is really significant, putting up a picture. Revival is really significant and it's really significant that the revival appears to be very successful Over just a few nights. There were some 17,000 people that attended and there were about 1,400 people who came to Christ in that revival, which is really good. It's hard to have religion and morality in a nation if you don't have some people who get committed to religion, at some point become Christians, get into the Bible etc. So that was really good. And just before that he had just been in Baxley, georgia, and in Baxley Georgia they had about 10,000 people and about 1,600 of them made decisions for Christ. So we're seeing more and more of these reports. Over the last several weeks We've had three or four of these. There was Corpus Christi and there was over at Auburn University and here in Mississippi, and it's cool that this one is with the governor touting it, the governor promoting it. Just even five, six years ago that would have been unthinkable that the government would be promoting religion. That would have been a lawsuit. Things have changed in that period of time and hopefully they're still changing with all these new people coming to Christ, and that ought to be a challenge to every one of us. We all need to share Jesus Christ with other people. They can't become Christians if they don't hear about it and they won't hear if we don't talk. So it's just a good reminder for all of us. We need more revivals going everywhere, including in our own neighborhoods, with our neighbors around us.

Rick Green: 15:58
Well, and like we've said many times here on the program we have now over the last year, so we have now more religious liberty than at any time in our lifetimes. So what a great time to share the gospel, what a great time for people to be able to speak out and for us to encourage public servants, just like this governor, when they say that, when Speaker Mike Johnson talks about his biblical worldview, all these examples that are happening now, man, we should be very, very, very thankful. Alright, Tim, what's next, buddy?

Tim Barton: 16:26
Alright guys. Well, this is going to Tennessee in Kentucky, and the title of the article says Federal Appeals Court Upholds Kentucky Tennessee Law Banning Transgender Procedures for Children. Now this article came out at the very end of September and it's now, you know, a month past this. But what's quite remarkable is we saw several states with some of the surgical procedures that were being done on minors and, for those paying attention, there have been many groups of organizations that have been highlighting some of these individuals that had surgeries when they were 13, for example, and they became 16 or when they turned 16, they realized that was a terrible mistake and they utterly regret what they did. But because it was a surgical procedure, whether it was a mastectomy or whatever the case might be, some of the surgical procedures that are done are not reversible, so permanently damaging the body of a confused teenager. When that teenager then grows up a little bit and realizes that that's not really what they wanted to do and there's nothing they can do to reverse that situation, it's a major problem. And so Tennessee and Kentucky said hey, we want to stop these surgical procedures on minors. And of course, as you might imagine, there was a lawsuit where the ACLU were the ones backing a challenger parents of transgender identifying children, lambda Legal, another organization supported the plaintiffs as the National Center for Lesbian Rights, morgan Lewis and Bokeh's LLP, aiken all kinds of people right. But the ruling came down from the Sixth Circuit. It was a 2-1 decision where they said Kentucky and Tennessee are allowed to bar medical workers for administering children with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and various surgical procedures for changing their sex characteristics. So this is a major win in one of the biggest cultural battles, certainly of this era. Thank you so much. We can talk about the significance of the Dove decision that recognized the overturned Roe versus Wade, that recognized there is no constitutional protection inalienable right, or I guess, yeah. So they argued the inalienable right to abortion. That's not something in the Constitution. So that was a major victory. But I think something that we are seeing on at least the same level as abortion is the destruction of the human body on this altar of the transgender movement, specifically of minors. Right, it's one thing if an adult chose to do this because we might look and go. That's wrong, it's sinful, that it's evil, it's wicked from a Christian perspective. Right, it doesn't make sense from other perspectives to look at something that used to be recognized as a mental disorder, and now you have doctors encouraging people to pursue what used to be known as a mental disorder and have surgical procedures that will forever alter their body. That ought to be malpractice in many response or many regards, but the bottom line is and you're talking in Tennessee these laws were upheld by this Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. So that is really good news for talking about protecting children and minors who are confused of their own body, their own sexual development, whatever it is, and say they're confused. I think it's also fair to say that probably they're being misled, not just by culture but in some cases, probably by their schools, probably by their parents, that there's probably some major issues going on that surround this. So really great news coming out of Tennessee and Kentucky.

Rick Green: 19:58
Yeah, Tim, I think that's a really important point to make. Is that that confusion? Someone's causing that confusion, right? People are interjecting things into their lives to create a lot of that. So, yeah, really really good point, David. Next piece of good news man.

David Barton: 20:11
This is a follow-up to a piece of good news we had a few weeks ago. We talked about how the fact that in Dallas in Dallas is the ninth largest city in the nation and when you look at large cities, overwhelmingly they tend to be very, very, very blue. But Dallas the mayor of Dallas, eric Johnson, has switched and become a Republican, and that's what we covered a few weeks ago. But there's more to the story now and to back up, Johnson first served as a state representative here in Texas. He's a Democrat who represented Dallas and he was in the legislature for nine years. He was elected Dallas mayor in 2019, and then just really I guess it was six weeks ago thereabouts he announced he was leaving the Democratic Party. He did an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal and here's the reasons he said he was leaving the Democrat Party. He said too often tax dollars are spinole policies that exacerbate homelessness, coddle criminals and make it harder for ordinary people to make a living. And he talked about defunding the police and the crumbling infrastructure and the high taxes and the rising crime and the homelessness. And he talked about how the Democrat mayors they like to do a lot of virtue signaling but they spend so much money on useless, wasteful programs. So he came out as Republican. Here's step two he didn't just become a Republican, he's become a Republican leader. He's now founded nationally what's called the Republican Mayors Association, and so the Republican Mayors Association he's getting Republican mayors across the nation to get together. He said that what we want to do, he says, is my hope that we can create a network of like-minded mayors who can learn from each other, share best practices and lead our cities to a brighter future. So now we're really kind of saying mentoring. We can help mentor mayors, we can help mentor each other. We've all learned things that work in the city. We need that kind of laboratory experimentation. It doesn't need to be one size fits all, which is what the Dems do. We need to talk about ideas and solutions, and I love the fact that he is taking leadership now. So it's not just a political change he did, and he didn't have to make the change, because Dallas is basically a Democrat city, so he could have stayed a Democrat and been safe. He became a Republican on his convictions, and so I love this quote. He says that I want to be the best Republican mayor in the country. So good for Eric Johnson, good for the boldness and good for being able to put those ideas out and take leadership and hopefully lead other people to good solutions, and that would change so many urban areas in America if that were to become true.

Rick Green: 22:50
Yeah, that's a little bit of good news from our home state of Texas here. And we got time. Tim, let's do one more. What do you got? What would you close us out with today?

Tim Barton: 23:00
Alright. Well, guys, this one's from Illinois and the title of this article says Residents Get City to Fly Pro-Life Flag after it flew Pride Flag this summer. The city is Galesburg, Illinois, and there were pro-life residents there who went to the city and said, hey, we want to fly this pro-life flag because this summer you flew the Pride Flag and, as you might imagine, there was some protesting by the city. The city wasn't sure they wanted to do it and the city council ended up voting five to two to fly the flag after some discussion and protest. And so I would say the good news is we've talked about, I think already, man, maybe a month ago, two months ago now, I forget these Good News Friday sometimes run together when we covered those good news, but I think it was the city of Boston, where they had a city flagpole where different people had to fly flags and they were restricting if you were apparently a Christian or conservative, if you didn't match their ideology, they didn't want you flying a flag on their flagpole, and we saw, in that case, a court step in and say you can't discriminate against someone, Tim that was the Supreme Court 90 decision.

David Barton: 24:11
It wasn't just a court. That was the one that Matt Staver won 90. And they had 217 or 219 flags they flew and they would not do Camp Constitution, which was a Christian flag.

Tim Barton: 24:22
And that's right. And I remember it seemed like it was more than just a Christian flag. It was a conservative flag but Camp Constitution, christians looking at the Constitution, so kind of both of those things going together. I'm glad you remember those details. I only vaguely remember. But yes, it was a Supreme Court decision and so maybe that had some influence, because this happened in the beginning of October. So maybe somebody in Illinois, somebody on the city council, was like, hey guys, just heads up, supreme Court already ruled on this. But the fact that even people were voting against flying a pro-life flag Like how dare you be in favor of life in this town, which you know, maybe for Illinois I don't know how close they are to Chicago Maybe that's the reason they're not in favor of life because of you know, maybe that's not the appropriate joker's direction to go. However, no, really good news is in Galesburg Illinois they have determined and allowed a pro-life flag to fly and not discriminate against these pro-life individuals. Even though some of the board wanted to five-true decision, they ended up winning and getting to fly the pro-life flag. So good news coming out of Galesburg Illinois.

Rick Green: 25:29
Well, there is never enough time to get all the good news in, so the good news is we will have more good news at our website, walfolderslivecom. You can go back and listen to previous weeks, and then, of course, next Friday we'll be piling it on again and try to get in as many stories as we possibly can. The best thing you can do, though, is create some good news, actually be a part of the solution, as we talked about at the top of the program. Do that by signing up today as a constitution coach, by sharing the program with friends and family that makes you a force multiplier, by donating at walfolderslivecom, but do something. Don't just sit back and look at the American culture crumbling and say I can't do anything about it. You absolutely can. You can rebuild the wall right there, close to your home, right there in your community. You can be part of rebuilding, just like Nehemiah did. It can happen, and it should happen. We have everything at our fingertips to do this, and we have the numbers. There's enough people in America that share our values. It's still believed in biblical worldview, it's still believed in the constitution. It's still want to fight for freedom, if we'll just get them off the sidelines onto the field and engaged in the process and you can lead the way in your community. Thanks so much for listening. You've been listening to WallBuilders.