Rick Green

Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and the culture. It's Wallbuilders. We're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. Got a lot of great shows coming up this week for you, so make sure you tune in every day this week. Some great interviews next couple of days and today. And then, of course, this week we'll end up with Thursday and Friday. Thursday we've got Foundations of Freedom Thursday, so send your questions in, radio@wallbuilders.com that's radio@wallbuilders.com. And then Friday we'll be catching up on all the good news that we can in that short period of time that we'll have with you, but David and Tim will be running as many good news stories by us as they can in that short period of time. Okay, so listen. Today we're going to have Chad Connolly with us and we're going to be talking about election 2024. There is so much on the line right now, folks, we've got to be strategic. We've got to be really thinking about where we're going to put our energy and our time and our money and all of these things. I'm excited to get Chad on the program today. We're actually going to talk about what you can be doing, and certainly if you're a pastor or you're plugged in at your church and you can get your church involved. That's going to be critical, absolutely critical, for turning the country around. Of course, as we learned last week, everybody's a Christian nationalist. Now, if you just believe that your freedom came from God, not government, you must be a Christian nationalist. At least that's what they're trying to tell everybody. An absurd statement, of course, because the Founding Fathers themselves believe that it's in our founding document, the Declaration of Independence. We are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights. Notice it doesn't say Commissioner, doesn't say President, doesn't say Supreme Court Justice. We're endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights that are among these are life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. If you want those things life, liberty and pursuit of happiness you better know that it's got to be built on truth and you got to recognize that God's in the equation. 

By the way, I'm Rick Green, America's Constitution Coach, normally here with David and Tim Barton. David is America's Premier Historian and our founder at WallBuilders. Tim's a national speaker and Pastor and President of WallBuilders, but today we're going to be spending the rest of our program with Chad Connelly, so let's take a quick break. When we come back, had Conley, our special guest, stay with us. You're listening to WallBuilders. 

David Barton

This is David Barton, with another moment from America's history. As another election approaches, many citizens now take the process so much for granted that they're apathetic about voting. After all, since America has held elections continuously since 1619, why should this election be viewed with any particular interest? They argue that, since America has survived even wars and calamities, what difference does one election or even one vote make? Perhaps they should listen to the words of the great Daniel Webster, who declared, I apprehend no danger to our country from a foreign foe, for there is no nation-owned earth powerful enough to accomplish our overthrow. Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from the inattention of our people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and neglect. Therefore, in the upcoming elections, don't take your freedoms for granted. Make sure that you vote. For more information on God's hand in American history, contact WallBuilders at 1-800-8-REBUILD. 

Rick Green

Welcome back. Thanks for staying with us. Great to have Chad Connelly back with us from Faith Wins. Chad man, I know you are running like crazy election year 24, so thanks for taking some time and coming on the program today. 

Chad Connelly

Rick, I am honored to be with you anywhere, brother, and thank you for all you're doing. And yes, this is a running hard year, but they all are, because look what's happening to the country. Rick, we better be giving our last best. 

Rick Green

Amen, amen. You talk about lives, fortune and sacred honor. Now's the time to do it. Yeah, it's the sacrifice of golf or whatever thing we got to set aside. I tell everybody, man, you got to find something in your life to set aside, give up for a little while and invest that time into helping to save the country, and more and more people are doing it. But we want to do it well, it's kind of that, making sure that we're doing this as under God, not a man, but we're doing it our best that we can, as Colossians talks about. And so as we go into 2024, I mean, you're one of the best strategists on the planet and you've got a good handle on you know kind of the national trends right now and which states are going to be most important in this presidential election, which Senate races, that kind of stuff. So you know, David and Tim, and I thought it'd just be great to get you on with an update here we are, already about to go into the third mother of the year. I can't believe it, but it seems like the primaries are essentially over. It seems like this is just a weird election year in some ways. What's your take on where we are and what people ought to be thinking about, where to invest their time and money and energy right now? 

Chad Connelly

Yeah, you know it is a weird year. David and Cheryl I was talking about this. We both spoke in Nevada a few weeks back and I think that's why we created this conversation is I told him that, compared to when I was chairman and now watching five cycles in South Carolina, our first in the South primary spot in the presidential preference year has always been a big deal. And I told David I thought we had probably less than 10% of the presidential meetings in the early states as we've had in the past. Also told him that, for the first time in my recollection, the debates didn't matter. And look, I think Trump played this like a fiddle. He didn't have to debate. He didn't need to debate. Basically, all these attacks on him, the law fair, as it's called out there has boosted his standing with a lot of people who think, wow, they're, they're piling on. This is ridiculous. This is a political hit job. But I think the results of that may be kind of challenging for our side. Rick, I think that now you're going to see the Biden people say, oh boy, president Trump didn't debate his primary politics, we don't have to debate him. And of course, there's nobody on the Dem side that wants to see Joe Biden stand up in the same arena with Donald Trump. I do think the primary is over. I think it's been over for a while. You know Nikki Haley's a friend. I've known her a long time. I think she's got a very bright future in politics, but I think that I would be one of those who are scratching my head, wondering kind of what a strategy is. She's going to get rolled in South Carolina pretty hard. There's no question that Donald Trump has created a following, Rick, that we've not seen. I'm not sure we've ever seen it in politics and if you're ever one of his events, I challenge people to watch the things the media won't show. Watch his interaction with the EMS squad and the fire department people and the police officers, the law enforcement. If he comes to a convention center, the wait staff and the people watching the dishes and setting the tables. He interacts with everybody. He doesn't leave anybody out and I think that's endeared him to the working class. That used to be maybe the working class Democrat is now a working class Republican. It is a very strange cycle. I think it is because of President Trump and the affinity he created with a lot of people on our side. I think that, from a conservative standpoint, you got to love the bench we have. I mean, it's amazing they got no bench. The left has no bench. 

Rick Green

None. 

Chad Connelly

They're full of people who hate America, who are fine with the border being wide open, which is anti biblical. They're fine with boys becoming girls and playing in volleyball games and swimming against women. We're so feminine. 

We take women, believe all women, and when these big boys are breaking girls' noses in sports competitions and so we live in a strange world and I guess I believe with all my heart God's on the throne. But I tell you what I think is going on. I spoke to some donors in Orlando a few weeks ago and the guy that spoke before me was so negative it was just, oh my gosh, that's awful, you know, it just made you feel, yeah, and I walked up there and I just said, but God which is a Cheryl Barton quote but God. And I said here's what I think I see God's people awakening out there like never before. I see pastors who've never been involved saying what do I got to do? I've got pastors who used to think it was you know, hey, I can't do this legally and it's wrong and I'm going to hurt people, realizing there's nothing partisan, there's nothing political about teaching your people about the issues, about voting the issues and being the Matthew five, salt and light that Jesus called us to be. 

I think there's something going on. And look, I don't pretend to know what God's doing. I don't ever want anybody to think that, but I believe there's an awakening going on and God's people are coming to the realization. I can't sit on the sidelines anymore. 

Rick Green

Amen, amen, brother, I feel the same energy and excitement and wake up happening out there and the number one question I always get is okay, what can I do? How can I get involved? And specifically the church right, and of course, what Faith Wins is doing in terms of energizing the church and helping pastors to really understand this from a biblical perspective. But then practically how to how to plug in and what you can and can't do and how to do this constitutionally. You guys are phenomenal at this and so, as you kind of approach 2024, what would you say to pastors out there that that might be thinking for the first time how, you know what this is a bond offer moment. I do need to get off the bench and get into this thing. 

Rick Green

Yeah, you know, the first thing I'm told them is hold a voter registration drive. You know, go to our website, faithwins.org. We got all the instructions. I know you guys do to hold a voter registration drive. I like to do them around July 4. And again in September I make sure that my people didn't just register but then turn out the vote. I get a hold of some voter guides. We have links on our site for all 50 states voter guides that are put out there to teach people how to vote. But more than that, Rick, I think they've got to make sure people go vote. If people register this year like 82% chance. If they register two or more years ago, it's like a 54% chance they go vote. So the hook to get people who are sitting in the church, who don't think their vote matters, is to do a voter registration drive that reminds them. The other thing we're doing in a lot of places in probably the top six or seven states, is we're recruiting poll watchers. 

It was organic that came out of the 2021 Virginia race. Once Christian saw that? Oh, my goodness, I can make a difference. We started showing up. I wrote a little three by five card man and I gave it out to some pastors in Virginia during the 2021 gubernatorial race and it just said we're here to pray for you, we're here to pray with you. What can we do to help? And in Virginia they've got 45 days early voting. So we put on, I put on the card. We'd love to see, because it's public information, everybody, your list of everybody who voted since last Friday night at midnight. 

And, Rick, that is how Sunday school classes found voter fraud in Virginia in 2021. The new attorney general, Jason Yarez, has now arrested three of the county election officials in Virginia. You got indicted, got arrested. You know we caught people over 100 who were dead. We found obituaries. One day they called me and said Chad, I've got to look for two things People over 100, about that, people over 100 can't vote. You understand, Rick, but that's a flag, right, that's a flag. And then, if there are more than six in a household. So one day they called and said we've got a house and there are 17 registered. What do you think about that? I said I think it's a really big house. Why don't we all run out there? It was a field. It was no structure, it was a field. 

And so when those kind of things started coming to light. You know, of course the politicos want to take credit. We didn't see any politicos around, but here was the magic of it. I think it was a God thing that these were Sunday school class people who decided I've had enough. I've heard about this, I'm going to find out, but I'm going to go do my part to get involved. Whether I catch something or if I don't catch something, I need to go immerse myself in this process, get informed and go get involved. And I'm telling you, nobody saw the Sunday school class that's coming. 

The media didn't, the campaigns didn't. I actually had one of the campaign experts who told a donor we have faith wins didn't help out with the young campaign. And I told the donor well, is that God just a total genius or what? Of course we didn't. We didn't tell him to vote for him, we weren't on the campaign, we were a 501 C3 that was only telling people to vote biblical values. Now, did a guy who's pro life and pro gun and pro Second Amendment, pro Israel and pro traditional marriage? Would they benefit from biblical marriage? Absolutely, but we never told them to vote for. 

And so, getting involved, it's like anything else success beget success. And when one pastor reaches another pastor and says, hey, here's how we do this, it's the same with congregants. They say, hey, it's not a big deal. Most of those churches, if there's a pastor listening right now, find somebody in your church who is angry, upset, wants to do something about it. Maybe they're throwing stuff at the TV at night going, I'm so mad. Tell them to go to their pastor and say I'll run a voter registration drive. They can go link to faithwins.org. We've got all the laws, the state laws. It's probably a one pager from your state election office. Most times it's a very bus date. It's put up a card table, get a chair, get some registration forms Some states you can mail them in. 

Some states you can take them in. Some states you got to make sure the person takes them in. I've got some churches who buy envelopes and stamps and they'll have them pre-addressed and mail into the election offices in those states because they can't take them in. So they'll make sure if Rick Green goes and registers, then when Rick Green registers they'll take his registration, give him an envelope, let him seal it and put it in the mail right there. 

That's the kind of thing we're seeing is when, every day, American tax paying, God fearing and flag waving every day people start looking at the invasion over the border or the debacle in the Middle East because we have feckless leadership, or the inflation that affects everybody, or these things, to where cities saying, oh no, no, we were just kidding, we're really not a sanctuary city because we didn't know you'd send people here and you know. And they start seeing the hypocrisy of the left, normal, everyday people go, wait a minute. And I got to tell you one more thing. This hits me, I think this latest regurgitation by the left, the word vomit, that is Christian nationalism, they're terrified of Christians getting involved. They want to talk you out of it, they want to scare you. You know, boy, lord forbid, that people in America would actually think it's a good thing to take care of Americans first. Boy, that's amazing. Or read our history, or find out that God had an important role in our country. Lord forbid, let's don't do that because, boy, that's a terrible thing and I'll sit some. 

We get a lot of media in the South Carolina because of the primary Saturday and I was talking to a certain media person for one of the communists. I mean one of the networks and I did the interview. You know, these are just Bolsheviks, right. And so I sent a couple pastors and the pastor called me last night. They came to this church and Sunday morning and did his whole sermon and he said, boy, they just kept trying to put words in my mouth and I said, Bo, I hate it. I know you did great. I'm just gonna air here a couple days right before the primary. But he said one after another, their statements, their assumptions, they were just wrong trying to put words in my mouth. And I said we gotta teach people to expect that kind of dishonesty. And I believe something good is going on. Rick, I don't know what God's doing, but maybe it takes going through all this nonsense to make people say wait a minute, we need our country back. 

Rick Green

Amen, amen. Oh, so many things you said chat, I mean just leading off with, with Sunday school classes, finding voter fraud, I mean that that right, there should be a headline To say listen, man, this is, this is. The church needs to be involved. There's no one that is incapable of making a difference and having a part to play in this. I mean that's what that's really says to me. And then those examples where it really did make a, make a huge difference. Give us a landscape. You know, going into this, and I don't want, I want to be real careful how I set this up, because for anyone that is in a, is not in a state that we're about to talk about, that does not mean you're not gonna make a difference, you don't need to be involved. All the races Senate Congress, state Legislature, down to City Council All of that matters and you need to be very involved. But nationally speaking, we know the presidential race really does end up coming down to just a handful of states. What's? your thought right now in terms of where that really goes with. Has it changed much from 2020 or will it be those same? You know key states that it came down to last time. 

Chad Connelly

It's pretty much the same. And listen, you're seeing my song. It's so much more than just presidential race. That is the Senate, it's confirmation of judges, it's the house representatives and approving funding for Israel and securing the border wall, but not for, you know, debacle of spending. So please, please, please. Everybody needs to maximize the Christian vote everywhere. Local races matter, but you're right, this is going to be decided. Georgia, North Carolina, which have both strengthened their election laws, by the way, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, probably Nevada and Arizona. Those are the top ones, those are the ones we're focused on the most. I mean, it used to be that Iowa, Florida, Ohio were swing states but they've become more red because the people who are living there kind of decided these, these policies that are local, they don't work, they're not really functional in the real world. 

Rick Green

They're feeling the pain right there. They're responding to that and saying what something's got to change. 

Chad Connelly

No doubt they're feeling the pain and they're seeing that. You know, man, why are you not a conservative? Why are we both conservatives? Because we're Christians, probably, but also because Christian conservative policies actually work in the real world and these people that just seem to hate America want to do policies that are elite. They're imposing them. Only say that's where our chance lies. You know well, we did Virginia in 21. 

I was amazed that none of the pointy-headed experts were doing the basics in Virginia. In fact, all my political buddies in DC mocked us for putting time and effort into Virginia mocked us and it's too far gone. And what we found out was there were a lot of people sitting in churches who didn't believe they could matter, who didn't think they can make a difference, who thought it was too far gone, and that's who we went after. But we didn't go to the cities to try to compete with a liberal turnout machine. What we did was we picked out 10 house districts state house districts and decided to run up the score. Well, that's what we're doing in Michigan right now. We picked out 13 and there's 13 districts that were very close that if you actually change the turnout of people sitting in churches, you probably change the content of the state legislature, which of course helps up and down the ticket if you're a conservative, so I'm, we're getting that organic. 

I did tell David the other day we're reevaluating, kind of what we're looking at, but we're, we're gonna be in all those states multiple times. I'm gonna take David Barton around. We're gonna talk about God's role in American history. I think David's taught that he did in Nevada was just phenomenal. If people saw David Barton's Story on black history we'd have a lot more unity in the country and said a division. 

I told wonderful stories of true history. It wasn't black history, it was American history. That's been suppressed because it was positive, it was Christian base, it was God oriented, it was American base and they don't want to have that from the left. 

Rick Green

Yeah, yeah, amen, amen. No doubt about it. Actually, and if I I don't know if you can give us a Schedule yet, but when, when you do guys do this tours you hit a lot of cities in a short period of time. When will y'all be going back on the road? And if a pastor is listening right now and wants to get plugged in and host an event for you guys, where's the best place for them to connect with you on that? 

Chad Connelly

Yeah, perfect question. We're gonna we'll have a good schedule and probably the next I'm saying the next three to four weeks you know we're doing our pastor summit here in just a little while, like six weeks from now. Most people really start paying attention, but we want to start doing the groundwork in March and April, so we're gonna have that laid out. If a pastor would like to host, they need to go to faithwins.org and there's a, there's a take action and you click on that. It gives you some options. I want to hold a vote registration, I want to host a tour event. Those are the possibilities. They can email me directly on that website. I'll get it and we'll put it into the hopper. I can tell you we're gonna heavily concentrate Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, with constant Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, but we are going to be in Colorado, we're gonna be in Ohio, we're gonna be in Florida, we're gonna be in, probably gonna go to Maine, rick, you know there's a congressional up there, this very winnable that we're gonna be in New Hampshire and we're gonna go back up there. 

20:35

This past year we did 78 meetings with pastors, with eight different presidential candidates, and we invited them all. Some of them chose not to take advantage, but we put it. I don't know. I think we put a little over 4,000 pastors in front of presidential candidates and let them ask the good, hard questions, and what it helped us do was expand our reach, because that was a draw to get pastors to see these are regular people, but here's a chance to ask somebody who's running for president United States. 

It's a real question about where their heart stands, and pretty much everybody you can name, except on one particular side, showed up and we set multiple requests to both parties, everybody who told me we weren't endorsing. But we told them there'd be no media. It was a private meeting. We hand picked who was there. They're gonna ask hard questions, they're gonna pray over you and we'd love to hear your testimony. So maybe that drives out some. I'm not sure, but I believe now is the time to get Christians involved and if somebody wants to stand up and say we'd love to host you, please, please, go to faithwins.org and let me know that right away. 

Rick Green

Alright, folks, faithwins.org or maybe you want to send that link to your pastor and let them know. Pastors that are listening right now, get plugged in. You know, this is this a great way to be not just have activity. But you know, like zig used to say, don't, don't confuse activity with accomplishment. So if you're, if you're gonna plug in, make sure it's strategic, and Chad is an absolute master at that. Chad. God bless your brother. I appreciate you so much, man. Keep up the good work. Faithwins.org. Folks, get out there and get plugged in Chad. Let's do it again soon. 

Hey, love you, brother, God bless. 

Chad Connelly

Thanks what you're doing, Rick. Keep charging. Stay with us folks. We'll be right back on The WallBuilders Show 

Tim Barton

Hey guys, it's Tim Barton and I want to tell you about our new book, the American story building the Republic. We start with George Washington as president and we've already become a nation. So really now it's how do we function as a nation? And if we look back in American history, the stability, the prosperity, success we enjoyed as Americans is because of the foundation that our early presidents laid, because the examples they set. How do we live in America under the Constitution? What is the role of federal government? And really, what part did each one of these early presidents play? We go to the first seven presidents and a lot of people probably know the names Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison. Very few people know about Monroe or John Quincy Adams or Andrew Jackson. Now, we might know some of their names, we really don't know their stories. We want you to relearn, rediscover American history and see how it applies to today. Go to wallbuilders.com and get your copy of the American story building the Republic. 

Rick Green

Welcome back next. We're staying with us here on WallBuilders and I really want to encourage you to be a person of action today. I don't know if you well, of course you caught it if you were listening to any of that which had Conley just now. This is a critical election and it's different, as he said, from any that we've had, certainly in our lifetimes, and it's just. It's not just that a lot is at stake, it's that the rules of the game seem to be changing and it's just a very different environment and therefore we've got to be strategic. We got to think about where we're spending that time, money and energy, in other words, our lives, fortune-sacred honor. We got to think about where we're spending our time, what we're spending our money on, who we're giving our donations to, both in terms of Non-profit charitable donations and our political donations and, yes, we should, we should all be doing both of those, without a doubt. But, but also, when you make those donations and you're strategic about it and you and you're giving where you can make a difference, then how do you spend your time in a way that's gonna make a difference? What are we doing at our church, in our community and our in our homes, frankly. Tthere's so much that we need to be teaching ourselves. I think it's important for us to be students of freedom our entire lives. We don't stop learning just because we get out of school. 

And so a lot of the things that Chad was talking about today, about even the political process and how this works, frankly, most Americans are ignorant of. We just don't know and I don't mean that as an insult. As you know, we often say it here on the program ignorance is curable. So we are all ignorant about something. We're all ignorant about lots of things. I'm ignorant about a lot of things, but I can solve that ignorance by learning, by studying, by, going out and finding somebody that knows how to do that particular thing, whatever it might be. 

In this case, it's called being a good citizen, it's called being a Biblical citizen, and in fact, we would encourage you to become a biblical citizen. If you don't think that way yet, to go take our biblical citizenship course, which is literally nothing more than saying what does the Bible say about how to treat my neighbor, in other words, how to be a good citizen? How do I treat my neighbor the way I want to be treated? That's a biblical concept. And then how do I do that in our nation under our Constitution? How do I do that as an American under the US Constitution?

And so in this course we walk through those things, we talk about the history of it, we go through the whole thing, especially this whole thing about Christians aren't supposed to be involved in the culture, aren't supposed to be salt, and like that's literally what a lot of churches are teaching now don't be salt. And like wait a minute, that's the whole idea, right? And so we are very much on the side that says Christians should live out their faith and it should inform and influence Everything they do at work, at home, whether they're, you know, going to vote, or they're involved in government, or they're involved in work, or they're involved in business, or they're involved in education, or entertainment, the arts, you name it. Our faith should inform and influence all of those things and right now our nation needs us to be salt and light to influence those things. So a great way to get involved is faith wins, and we appreciate Chad Connelly being with us Today. Encourage you to check them out, bring David Barton and Tim Barton and Chad Conelly and the rest of the team to your town. Let pastors there hear from them. What a great opportunity to really learn the truth about our history and then how to become engaged. 

And so to two real action items. I guess I'm driving home here at the end of today's program. Number one get involved with faith wins. Check them out today, and then also get your biblical citizenship class started in your home, at your church, somewhere in your community. Start teaching other people by simply putting the video on. You don't have to know any of it. You can be ignorant about these things and learn with your neighbors. That's what it's all about getting together in community, being saturated in God's word and then tending the garden. Thanks so much for listening. You've been listening to WallBuilders.