Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. It's a WallBuilders show. We're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. I hope that you are checking out our websites as well, not just listening to the program. You can do wallbuilders.com. That's our main site. Lots of great information there. Lots of great tools for you to share with friends and family. Become a force multiplier and get some of those things and invite folks over to watch and listen and read and study those things. There's something about community and doing it together that's really, really special. We know that after several thousand classes taking place across the country for biblical citizenship or constitutional leave or foundations of Freedom. So get some folks together, start studying, and you'll have some good news stories to share of your own, which is what we're going to do today. It's good news Friday and try to do this almost every Friday. Bring you lots of good news. David Barton, America's premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders, and Tim Barton, national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. They gather these good news stories throughout the weeks. And then we just man, we cram as many of them in on a Friday as we possibly can. I'm Rick Green, America's Constitution coach. Thanks for joining us today. By the way I mentioned wallbuilders.com our main site but also WallBuilders.show that's where you can just go straight to the radio program shows and you can go to some of the ones you might have missed over the last few weeks in the archives there and really easy to share the program with your friends and family. It's man, it's a fake news world. So people are looking for truth. You've got truth right here. From the WallBuilders.Show. Share with as many people as you possibly can. I'm going to start our first piece of good news, Tim Barton. What's our first piece of good news today, sir? 

Tim Barton [00:01:36] Well, this one is coming from Mississippi State University, and it's one of many universities that now has been able to have some kind of revival worship service on campus. And I again, we have seen this now at multiple universities where God is on the move, where kids are coming to Jesus, where people are sharing testimonies and so on. This one, it was October 1st, was organized by Unite Us. And it's a movement of college students united to lift up the name of Jesus was birth following a 5000 strong worship service at Auburn University. And this was September of last year, which during that time there were 200 students that were baptized. And so in this one, Mississippi State University, they actually have some Instagram videos from the nearly 6000 students worship together, confessed to stand that had been holding them back and experience freedom that can only be found in him. As the quote from this article, they continued, We are celebrating with every single student who took a step toward Jesus tonight and believe they concluded, Thank you Jesus for how you are moving in this generation. And so, guys, this is really encouraging. In the midst of the craziness, as we travel around the nation, we have commented many times that we think there is a revival taking place for lots of reasons, but we see God is on the move. We see people's eyes being open and hearts being stirred. And as we're saying that a lot of people, I think, might see us as educational or political or whatever it might be. But when we say God's on the move and we're seeing God touch people's lives far beyond politics, far beyond academia, far beyond the education, political stuff that people might often associate with WallBuilders. And this is just so encouraging that that yet again, as we've talked about, we don't think God's done with America. God is on the move. And of course, God's church, it will prevail that you know nothing. I when Jesus said that you are the rock and on this rock I build my church and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. The fact the gates of hell cannot prevail against the church. What God is doing this this community embodies just incredible. And so to see one more example of that at a college university where so many of these universities largely have been known for the parties they throw or, you know, their sports programs, whatever, this is just great news. 6000 students came together, Mississippi State University, for a time of evangelism, worship, prayer and water baptism, the beginning of October. So really good news. 

Rick Green [00:04:13] And that's kind of a I mean, isn't that a great sign of revival with the youth? Right. It starts with the youth. And you see, if you see that see it happening there, spills over. You know, it's it's a it's a really good indicator because like you're saying, that's not the place that's typically the party place. Right? These this this is a private Christian university. We're right where this is happening. These are these public universities that you don't expect is that. 

Tim Barton [00:04:34] There's no doubt. And it's as you read scripture, one of the things that is kind of interesting in some of the prophets, the mind of the major prophets, as you go through the Old Testament, there's definitely passages where God talked about He would pour out his spirit and it talks about the rising generation that young men and, and whether it's that they see dreams and visions or hearts return to the father. There's a lot of things that says in scripture about this. But what's clear is that God's spirit is poured out on young people. And we are seeing some of that right now. So really just so cool. To see it in the midst of us talking about elections and the craziness of all it's going on. And there's plenty of things we could be talking about with election and politics today. The most significant thing is to acknowledge that God is still on the move and that lives are being changed. And we're just seeing this as Mississippi being one more example of where it's happening. 

Rick Green [00:05:26] Love it. Love it. David That's also a you know, we obviously have election good news to share today as well. That good news attempt to shared will result in election good news down the road because as people come to Christ, as they come to a biblical worldview and they apply that biblical worldview, the community benefits and we get better policy in the long run, should they actually be made disciples and taught to obey everything he commanded? How about that next piece? Good news, David. 

David Barton [00:05:50] Well, it deals with the battleground states. And by the way, do you guys do you think you can name the seven battleground states? Yes, go for. 

Rick Green [00:05:59] I bet David could name every airport in. 

David Barton [00:06:06] Yeah. Been there, done that. Still doing that for sure. 

Tim Barton [00:06:12] So you have Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina. And I left one out. 

David Barton [00:06:22] Wisconsin. 

Rick Green [00:06:22] Wisconsin. 

Tim Barton [00:06:23] Wisconsin. There you go. That's it. Okay. Now, if really I was in trouble, I'll just go back to the homeschool song I learned with all 50 states and I would have covered them. 

David Barton [00:06:34] But yeah, they're not all battleground states. Alabama is not a battleground state. You know, there's I mean. 

Tim Barton [00:06:41] It depends on who you talk to, right? I mean, you you ever as just everybody listening vote in all your states even if it's not going to go to battleground states. Right. That you have a different battle it's just years might be a little easier for some of these other states. 

David Barton [00:06:51] That's right. It was a great point. 

Rick Green [00:06:52] Their battleground could be the legislature. And. That's right. Right. Are their particular legislative district or their city council. 

David Barton [00:06:58] Yeah, it may not be a top of the ticket battleground. It may be a bottom down the ticket battleground state legislature, school board wherever. And it interesting some states voters school boards to select a South Carolina for example is going to school boards along with all the other state races. So it's different from state to state. Texas doesn't do that. We have our school board elections else other times. But you're right, guys, top to bottom, There's there's battles along the way. What I find interesting is looking at what happened four years ago with the disputes in the election. There have been a lot of clarifying laws passed by state legislatures trying to clean up what they saw as problems in that election. And so I'm just to take you through those seven states and then kind of tell you where things are. It's interesting that with those seven battleground states, which people think that will decide what happens with the top of the ticket election, there's been a lot of new laws passed. So with Wisconsin, Wisconsin was one the closest. I mean, that was a tiny it was the whole state was less than 20,000 vote difference, less than 1%. And so what they've done is they have changed the election laws to shorten voting Windows and to make sure that nobody votes illegally. Along with that, they they made a change by passing a referendum that bans private funding and non-governmental equipment from Wisconsin elections. So that says you can't do things like Zuckerberg. So which was a big thing down in the blue cities. You can't have that kind of outside interference coming in, private funding, because Zuckerberg went to local governments and blue areas of the state and it was run through the governments. So it wasn't that he came in and spent money himself, which he could to to do his own stuff. He ran it to the governments. And then it's also that you can't use billionaire donors to hire people to collect ballots. So ballot harvesting and you can't have funding to do that. You can't do it to purchase equipment. They had what were called mobile voting vans that would drive around to neighborhoods to pick up ballots. And they went to blue neighborhoods and still going to all neighborhoods. So all of that has been banned in Wisconsin. So that will make it harder to have the kind of results that were there four years ago. I don't have any problem. Voters from both sides want to come vote. But when you give an advantage to one side over the other, that's that's just not right. You should have an equal playing field. The same referees called the same ways and all shots. And so if you're going to have mobile voting vans, right, if they're going to every neighborhood do that, that's great. But when you just send in one neighborhood or if you're just going to give money into blue areas of the state, not red state, that's a problem. And Wisconsin cleaned a lot of that. And Pennsylvania, another battleground state, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the state could require voters to write the correct date on their mail ballot in order for the vote to be counted. Now, what they did your four years ago was no doesn't have to be dated, doesn't have to be timed. It obviously, the liberal groups oppose this, but the Supreme Court held it up and said, nope, they're flawed ballots if you don't have the right date on this. So that's a big deal. That would have removed thousands of ballots from from the last cycle. 

Tim Barton [00:10:06] And Dad, let me point out to you, part of why that matters is because if you can arbitrarily put dates on them and there's a close election and just, for example, somebody happens to find a box of ballots in the trunk of a car. Now, I know you're thinking that would never happen, except it's happened multiple times that a box of ballots were found in the trunk of some of his car and allegedly. Right. They were an election official. They some kind of clerk, somebody who was transporting ballots. They just found them. If you can arbitrarily put dates on them, then you can show from those dates, whatever, like, no, these are still valid or just leave the dates off because then it won't matter how long you hold on to those ballots until you think you might need them if you're going to be fraudulent and cheat. And again, I know some people are thinking that would never happen. I would like to think it would never happen, except we know there are dishonest people who do dishonest. Things. And so this is just one more attempt to try to stop dishonesty from doing dishonest things. This is not to try to to damage people that are trying to do the right thing. I'm filling out my ballot. I put the wrong date. We'll know if you thought it was right, if you thought it was October 27th and you put October and it's really October 28th and you put October 27th, that that is not going to remove your ballot from the process. It's more about stopping the fraudulent ballots that are coming in late after the election. 

David Barton [00:11:28] And that's another law that passed as mail in ballots now have to arrive by Election Day, be counted on Election Day. And what they did last time was they said, well, if they arrive within three days of Election Day, we're going to go ahead and count them. One, states like Texas are We can send mail from one city to another within a day. So given three days, most anywhere in the state, you could drop a ballot after the election and have it arrived within three days. So that is now gone. And they banned Xkr books as well. If you go to Michigan, Michigan, a heavily Democrat controlled state, did not pass anything to tighten tighten the restrictions. What they did was they passed a dozen bills that loosened restrictions that would allow greater voter fraud. So instead of being more zealous with protecting ballots, they have gotten looser with that. So Michigan has gone the other way. Georgia, one of the battleground states, they have a number of new laws. And now the law is voters have less time to request a mail in ballot. They have a voter ID requirement. Now they're restricted to drop box areas. And you can't just have them anywhere and everywhere and just show up any time you put one up and you can't send a ballot to people who did not request ballots. So the the increase in voter I.D. and all the other stuff they've done that has helped tighten up what what could be areas of fraud. And they've also banned mobile voting bans, which again, we talked about in Wisconsin that was being paid for by blue donors going to blue areas and picking up and driving up the vote in those areas. And they also banned Zucker books. So that is out of Georgia and Arizona, A number of law states and Arizona U.S. Supreme Court actually sided with the law there that required proof of citizenship before you vote, because as many people as are coming across the border there and with the feds using driver's license to register to vote, things like that, they're going to require proof of citizenship and they're going to ask, if you don't have the proof of citizenship, they're going to ask to see it. So that's a big deal in Arizona. They also banned Zuckerberg and they also expanded hours for in-person voting before Election Day. And you can't send a ballot to someone who did not request it. So all of those things have tightened up. And in Arizona and North Carolina, they have implemented voter I.D. And so it's a big deal in North Carolina. It's the first time that voter IDs be used at the polls. They've also changed the deadline for mail in ballots and they have to be there on Election Day. You don't have a three day grace period. And they also banned Zuckerberg. So a lot of things to tighten up there. And in North Carolina and Nevada, nothing really of substance or kind of like Michigan. They didn't do anything really to tighten up. And so, you know, we'll see what happens with that. They did not ban Zuckerberg's. So those are seven states. Five of the seven have taken pretty significant steps to make it harder to cheat there. And we always believe it should be easy to vote and hard to cheat. And so that's that's the summary of those seven battleground states now. It could be you know, we're seeing numbers in North Carolina to suggest that's probably not even a battleground state anymore. They're starting to look like Georgia is not a battleground state anymore. So we'll see. Who knows what the battleground states will be? It could be another state that nobody's even watching right now. But this just goes to the point that the legislatures have really taken aggressive action to try to secure the integrity of the vote and give all Americans confidence in the outcome that it was a fair election. And that's what every American needs to know, is that the election laws followed the election laws and there was no favoritism given to either side. It was an honest it was an honest execution of the election. And hopefully that's going to happen this time. 

Rick Green [00:15:16] Lots of good news there on the election front. Quick break. We'll be right back. We've got more good news for you here on The WallBuilders Show. Stay with us. We'll be right back. For good news Friday. 

Break [00:15:24]  

Rick Green [00:17:31] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. It's good news Friday. Today we're diving into that good news. Lots to get to. We actually missed good news Friday the last week or so. And so we're trying to catch up on a lot of that good news. And I doubt we're going to get to all of it. But Tim, what's our next piece? 

Tim Barton [00:17:44] Yeah, we're certainly not getting to all of it, but there is a lot we can cover. And also, to be fair, we wanted to play some of these episodes that were covering the election or our recognizing that this is a very important election. If you are listening, you need to make sure that you partake that you vote in this election. Your vote really does matter. It does make a difference. I was told moments ago that I'm not allowed to tell you a piece of good news about elections mattering because my dad won't tell you. But I'm just saying there's there's evidence that your vote makes a difference. But I want to highlight there is a teacher from Virginia that was fired, a French teacher, nonetheless, that was fired for not using a student's, quote unquote, correct pronouns. And this teacher showed the school determined that every teacher asked to use whatever name, whatever pronouns the student identifies with or as. And the teacher said, well, I'll call the student, you know, whichever name they want to be called, but I'm not. My conviction is that I cannot call them something they're not. As a Christian and this is not exactly what he argued the school, but this is where he came from, is as a Christian, we know that that God made us on purpose for a reason, that God gave us that gender assignment. And so I don't want to say something that's dishonest with what God made them. Alliance Defending Freedom had the case. This was all the way back in 2018. It's only just now getting resolved. And he got $575,000 in damages in legal fees as well as they're going to expunge the wrongful dismissal from his record. And even though that might seem like a lot, you know, half $1 million that he's getting for this because he has not had that job now for 6 or 7 years and the tarnished reputation and. Right. All he's at a navigate that that's that's a lot to go through. But the good news is after this happened, the school then said that they will go ahead and comply with guidance, educational guidelines that were put in place by Republican Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, which allows K through 12 teachers in the state to refer to transgender students by their birth name and gender, regardless of their gender identity. So really good news for this teacher coming out of Virginia. One more thing kind of along those lines is Texas A&M is going to deactivate the LGBTQ studies minor and social justice certificate, which makes me scratch my head and go, Wait. They were doing what? Why in the world? In this article they highlight that there are 38 certificates and 14 minors that Texas A&M is doing away with, including the Lesbian, gay, bisexual, Transgender and Gender Studies minor. Now, not to derail much from this article, but it is worth pointing out that as we are looking at higher education, so many kids are getting degrees that then they can do nothing with. They're having a hard time finding jobs or taking on all this debt. It's the reason that so many college students or former college students that were recently there have been so excited about this idea that that Joe Biden was going to do this debt relief program and and then student loan removal. And so they don't have any debt anymore. Well, if you got something of great value, then you probably don't feel like you got cheated in this deal. But when you went to college and you studied the LGBTQ movement agenda and you're getting to agree with kind of those accolades, what are you going to do with that? Where are you going to get a job? And this is what they discovered. And so it's great news that there are universities recognizing this is not a valuable educational asset. We are giving students that they can then go do something with. So that's great news. It's very disappointing to me that Texas A&M generally considered one of the more kind of in some areas, one of the more conservative institutions in the state. So it's shocking to me a little bit. It was there not a lot. You kind of expect that from a lot of higher academia today. But it's great news. They're getting rid of it. So good news out of Virginia for this teacher, getting some restitution and getting the stain off of his record for just having Christian convictions. And then good news for A&M. They're removing some of the nonsense of their academic documentation for students. 

Rick Green [00:22:13] And these are you know, some people might say, okay, well, it's a little thing here, a little thing there. And these are the victories that we we were hoping for years ago when it just seemed like every university was going off the deep end. I mean, every one of these victories matter. So folks were clawing back ground, not just winning an election. We're taking ground back. This is this is. Really good sign. David, where are you headed next? With some good news. 

David Barton [00:22:33] Headed back to election. Still talking about elections. I think that's on my mind and has been for a while and probably on the mind of most Americans at this point in time as we're coming down to the homestretch on the final lap. One of the things from earlier in the week, we're talking to Chad Connelly and talking to George Barna. And there's just an unbelievably high percentage of people of faith and and active churchgoing Christians who think they're going to sit this one out. And one of the reasons was, well, my vote doesn't make that much difference. I'll just read you part of the article here. It says, A study by the Public Interest Legal Foundation found that since 2022. So that's almost two years. We're not quite to the end of this year, but almost two years. There have been 635 elections that resulted in a tie and 173 more elections that were decided by a single vote. This is across 24 states. So roughly, we're looking at somewhere in the vicinity of about 800 elections that have been decided by a single vote. So who told you your vote didn't matter? I mean, you talked yourself into that. There's 800 people who ran for office that wished you would have voted if you'd been in their election. I mean. 

Rick Green [00:23:52] That's 800 different elections. You're saying 800. 

David Barton [00:23:55] Different elections and 24 different states. It's just amazing. You know, we don't hear much about this. And, you know, we think in terms of 70 million voted for president or whatever. But the presidential election isn't chosen by the nation's chosen state by state. It's chosen in those state races. And so don't don't look at 71 million that voted last election and say, well, my vote didn't matter. No, no, no. Look at that. At the much smaller number that was in your state. And on that same ballot where you had presidential elections, we talked earlier about the fact you're going to have the school board elections, too, and you're going to have city council and you're going to have state representative and state senator, maybe U.S. senator. You're going to have U.S. congressman for sure. And there's 800 votes decided since the last election by a single vote, either tie or a one vote win or loss. That's that's pretty significant. So use that number to talk to your friends. And if they think their vote doesn't matter, share that number with them. That is a significant milestone That should be fairly well known and used to help people understand that your vote can make a difference. Maybe it won't. Not every vote is going to make a difference. It will make a difference between you and God because I think God will bless you if you try to be a steward, even if your guy didn't win. You got to be active in this thing. So that vote does matter, but it might not decide the outcome, but it does in a lot of races. 

Tim Barton [00:25:15] Well, dad too. It's worth pointing out when a lot of people think my vote doesn't matter. And you ask why? And for many people, they go, well, because, you know, we think the elections are rigged, is dishonest. They're going to cheat. Well, if you don't vote, they don't have to cheat. Right. It's one of the things that George Barna pointed out. I was it yesterday when we interviewed him and he acknowledged that if if you're a Christian and you decide to sit this election out, then effectively you are helping Kamala Harris win. So your vote really can make a difference in a lot of this ultimate outcome. 

David Barton [00:25:49] Yeah, I would add to that, Tim, that if you if you if people if voters think that I don't know who to vote for, go to a Christian voter guide Dcop or Christian voter, kayak.com, you will find voters guides. We have a love for the states. We have them up for the a lot of the federal candidates. It will give you the information you need. So don't feel like you need to go on unequipped and just guess at who's the better candidate. Go to ChristianVoterguide.com and you'll be able to find a voter guide there that can help you make those decisions. 

Rick Green [00:26:16] Well, folks, there is more good news at our website right now. Go to WallBuilders.show, but we're out of time for today. But if you look at WallBuilders.show and go back to some of those Fridays, you can find more good news and then go out there, create some good news to share with us here on the WallBuilders Show. You can do that by getting active in your community. Make sure that you're not only voting, but you're letting other people know that you're encouraging them to vote, that you're doing all those things we've been talking about this week in terms of letting your voice be heard, it will have an impact in your community. Thanks so much for listening today to The WallBuilders Show