Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and Culture is The WallBuilders Show. And it's Friday, so we're going to jump into some good news. I'm Rick Green here with David and Tim Barton. You can learn more about us at our website wallbuilders.com that's wallbuilders.com. Lots of great information and tools there available for you and then WallBuilders.show if you need to catch up on the radio programs and by the way it's the end of the year so make sure you're doing your last minute final giving for the year wallbuilders.com Be sure to make that contribution there. It will help us in 2025. To train more pastors, legislators, young people all these folks that are out there in the culture so wallbuilders.com. If you want to help rebuild the walls and David Tim man there's so much good news out there I tell you I'm excited about 2025 because I feel like we really are at this point now. We got permission from the King, we the people. They said, Go build the walls. So it's time. And all those folks that make those last minute contributions here at the end of the year, that's kind of like the king sending the funds to. Right. The Kings got to send the funds with Nehemiah to be able to go rebuild the walls. 

David Barton [00:01:09] Lots of good things happening, for sure. And I think part of that, my first good news story is actually kind of related to that in that it deals with what happens when you have solid Christian behavior, Biblical Behavior I'm not going to say Christian Behavior here. I'm with, say, biblical behavior. You know, we talked before. I'm not a fan of the word Christian because it can mean anything to anybody now and you can define it any way you want. And everything is a Christian. So biblically, biblical behavior and this goes back to something that for the last several years, the American Bible Society's been doing. By the way, the American Bible Society was started by the Founding Fathers back in 1816. A number of founding fathers leading voices among the founders helped start that Bible society. The first Bible Society in America was started by signer, the Declaration. And and eight years later, when they started the American Bible Society, they had 121 Bible societies in America. So these guys are focused on really making sure people were biblically thinking. And so what happens now? In recent years, the American Bible Society does a study, a very in-depth study every year on how many people are really reading the Bible. Does it affect their behavior and the people who are kind of nominal Bible readers and the people who got to say they have faith but they really don't get the Bible. And so they've come out with a variety of segments. Their study this year comes out all year long, a segment of time, and they've released their ninth and their final part of the study. And this talks about if you're a scripture, engaged person in scripture, engaged person, that's kind of the highest end of it. These are people who get in the scriptures, they stay in the scriptures. They spend time like every day. What does it do to their behavior? And what they found was that Scripture engaged Americans, those who are really serious about their faith. They give more to charity and more to help others than any other group. And it went through and talked about what that looked like. It said, for example, 94% of the Scripture Engage reported giving financial aid to charity in the past year, and their median amount of giving was $2,000. By contrast, those known as the movable middle and those who are on the that's a level down from the Scripture are engaged. 75% of them gave to charity and their median donation was only $288. And then when you get into those that are Bible disengaged, those are the ones who who aren't into the Bible. They they gave an immediate amount of zero. So it's like if you're scripture engaged, you're more conscious of other people, you're more your heart is softer, you're more charitable, you give and share and want to help others. And I think that's a really good way of helping rebuild the country because we don't want the government trying to be the welfare agency for everyone to do all the social programs. It really does need to be people engaging with people, not institutions engaged with people. And so just looking at this, it was really it was really positive to see that that faith actually made a difference and the way that people gave, which is good for the country, good for the nation, but especially good for those people. And I've got a little story to add on to it that's not necessarily directly related in the sense of it doesn't have to do with contributions per se. This goes back to something that happened a number of years ago. This goes back to something that was if I can get you on this, it's yeah, 2008 and 2008 Duke University. Let me just. 

Tim Barton [00:04:26] Pause and say it's crazy that we're saying and number of years ago was 2008. I just yeah, that's weird in my mind to somebody be like, was so long ago, right? 28 That does not seem like that long ago. I know it was but. 

David Barton [00:04:41] Yeah, 16 years. I mean the more you go up in years the shorter years get. So I'll just tell you, that's, that's kind of the way it is. If you're 16, that's your whole life, you know, it's your age 16. That's not even half your life. For me, that's the little part of my life. So it's kind of kind of different when it goes that way, for sure. 

Tim Barton [00:05:01] Well, I am older than 32, so it is a little more than half of my life. However, I know what you're saying. Absolutely. It passes so fast anyway, not to sidetrack us with the fact that 2008 was 16 years ago. 

Rick Green [00:05:16] Yeah. 

Tim Barton [00:05:16] On at what? Where were you going? 

David Barton [00:05:19] Well, this is a story I remember, but since it was 16 years ago, there may be a ton of people who don't have a clue about this story, but it was a real kind of reproach for Duke University at the time. Their lacrosse team. There was an exotic dancer who came out and claimed that she had been raped by three of the members on the lacrosse team. And so Duke University stepped in and said, hey, that's a bad deal. They canceled the rest of the season. They dismissed those guys off the team. They they, you know, took all the ax. Well, this this exotic dancer has ended up in prison. She's there for second degree murder for killing her boyfriend. But she has come to the Lord. She's come to Christ, come to Lord. She's gotten in the Bible. She's turned her life around. And this is one of the good things that can happen in prison is these faith based programs where they go into the people and try to help them to. Turn their lives in the right direction. 

Tim Barton [00:06:10] And dad just were quick to point out that was actually 2006 when that all went down. And so it was even further back than 16, I. Back. But yeah, not to take away from the fact that I saw this, too, quite remarkable when she pointed out she was trying to get the approval of people and not of God. And I was reading some of her statement just like, what in the world? So incredible to see the thing that obviously as believers we celebrate what God can do, how God can take something broken and make it beautiful and God redeems and he restores and all this incredible stuff. As we are just days away from Christmas, where we celebrate the most incredible gift God gave his son and and all those things that come along with that, that are associated that that entails and what that means for us as believers, as people of faith. But certainly even seeing what God has done for this lady who was part of this awful scandal, but to see how her life has been turned around, at least to some extent from what we've read, not knowing all the details. Anyway, that was 2006 when all that started unfolding. 

David Barton [00:07:20] And so 2006, she makes us claim then they shut the shut the team down, etc.. Well, she's in prison and she's come to the Lord. And she acknowledged just recently that she lied about all that that sexual assault back of that point in time. She tarnished the reputation of those three guys. She prayed they would forgive her. I just love the fact that she's trying to make things right. She did something wrong. And rather than just keep in a silent leaving, those guys with the tarnished reputation, she's now come out and tried to clear their reputation. And this is something that goes with faith, is a genuine desire to help people to make restitution where you can to do the right thing. And so that's just two quick news stories. One, that if you got genuine faith, it does affect your heart and that affects your money and where you put your money in the way you help others. And it also helps you to go back and look at mistakes you made and try to rectify and correct mistakes that you may have made in the past. Having a strong relationship, biblical relationship with the Lord is a good thing for the entire country. 

Rick Green [00:08:20] I was thinking about what you said earlier. You know, he's just being biblical. Just. Yeah, just being biblical just made a difference. Yeah. When you are, it is. It has such a good effect on not just you, but everybody around you. And I cannot remember which founder was. But you mentioned the American Bible's design. I think it was one of the guys that founded that. But there's this great quote I heard you give in a in a presentation about the Bible that it's something to the effect of Bibles are great, preservatives are. It's about how you can't live in quiet consciousness if Bibles are permeating the culture, like where they abound and I can't read which one it was that said. 

David Barton [00:08:55] I think that was James McHenry. Our Bibles abound. That evil does right? And he was Maryland Bible Society and that was the Bible right side of the competition. 

Rick Green [00:09:04] Yeah, but but think about it for her, she couldn't have that that quiet consciousness where her conscience wasn't seared right or wasn't convicted. What she was in the Bible. Once she got to the Bible, it was like it it it convicted. And so she couldn't just stay quiet about it. She had to come forth and tell the truth. And it made it that way culturally for, you know, no matter where you are in life, if the Bible permeates the culture, if it if it abounds, then then the culture and society benefits because people can't just, you know, willy nilly just do whatever feels good, live in sin, and never have that conviction that convictions all around us. It's it's it's in our entertainment. It's in our, you know, our leaders talk about it. There's just that constant reminder of what's right and what's wrong. So what a great reminder of how important it is for the Bible to permeate our culture and be salt and light. Love that story, man. Good, good. Redemption story. Our Tim, what's your first piece of good news today? 

Tim Barton [00:09:58] Well, this one is coming out of Congress. Actually, just earlier in December, there was a well, the title of the article, first of all, says House overwhelmingly passes crucial Communism Teaching Act. And yes, all of this. Right? You're like, wait a second, we're teaching communism actually quite the opposite. Right? But Rep Salazar from Florida, she's the one that introduced the bill. And in their kind of opening presentation on this bill, she said Communism is one of the most destructive political ideologies the world has ever seen. And she goes on about what communism has done. And in the bill it seeks to help educate students that communism has led to the deaths of over 100 million victims worldwide and that of 1,500,000,000 people still suffer under communism. So it literally is going through for students. And this is a requirement for students in in public schools in America to learn about the dangers of communism, which I haven't even gotten to the rest of this article highlighting some of the really incredible things from it. And I'm already thinking this is going to be really interesting when you have teachers who have graduated from universities in the last 5 or 10 years who have a favorable view of socialism, right, of Marxism, of communism. And now they're being told, no, you can't do that. It strikes me as it probably will not be all that dissimilar from when some of the states were passing the anti critical race theory bills and teachers. Right. Well, we'll just call it something else because we're going to keep teaching this nonsense. There's going to be a battle over this. And I'm saying it to acknowledge that we know there's going to be a battle over how this is going to be presented, what's going to be presented. But this is incredible that coming out of the House, by the way, this vote out of the House was 327 to 62. It's probably worth going and looking and seeing who those people were. Right. Right. That were like, no, we we don't want our kids to know communism is bad. And the bill does highlight a few people that were against it. They were against it for what they said were like these tertiary points, which ultimately are really silly, the arguments they're making. But let me go back. So even ahead of the vote, Rep Danny Burgess of Florida, he warned that many youth have been tired to see communism as something desirable, noting that a recent report indicated and this is from the report, half of Gen Z students were unaware that the Chinese Communist Party is responsible for more deaths than Nazi Germany. Now, for everybody listening, let that sink in for a minute. The current Chinese Communist Party is responsible for more deaths, according to this report, is responsible for more deaths than the Nazis from Germany back in the World War two era. That is a crazy thing to process, but this is the reality of what communism does and recognizing to. This report also identified that Gen Z students, more than a quarter of them, view communism favorably and 20% think it is a better system than capitalism. Now, they didn't arrive at that conclusion by themselves. Somebody's been telling them that and teaching them that, and it could be part of what they're learning. On Tik Tok, this Communist app that is definitely promoting propaganda. What's great though, is, is this curriculum that will be in public schools, it will be developed. And this is the name of the organization, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. What's so interesting to me about this, this was an entity created by a unanimous vote of Congress back in 1993 under President Bill Clinton. So back in the 90s, this organization that the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, its foundation was created with the unanimous consent of Congress. So there'd be somebody there telling the story about how dangerous and awful and evil communism is. We clearly have not been teaching that the last several decades in our public schools at large or even in universities, in academia as a whole. So this is, to me, really encouraging that we now have a Congress that 327 to 60 to support, making sure our kids know the dangers of communism as opposed to so much of what they're learning now to be pro socialist, pro Marxist, pro-communist. As many professors and many, many educators are encouraging them. So this is this is really great news to me coming out of Congress. 

David Barton [00:14:22] I want to take what you just did, Tim, and I want to put up a scenario and I want to just kind of create a modern scenario, perhaps. Let's let's pretend that Hitler lost the war and let's pretend that people in America today know how much how many tens of millions of deaths were caused by Hitler. Let's assume everybody knows how barbaric and just how bad he was. But somehow he survived and we left him in power and he still run and run in Germany today. And we know how bad it is. What do you think the chances are we could get people to say, you know, Hitler has this app called Tick Tock, and I think we really need to be using this app. I mean, if we knew it was coming. Hitler You think people would support and, you know, we really need to import more, more parts, car parts because they're cheaper coming from Germany. And Hitler used that, not that Jewish slave labor to generate cheap carbon. We did. We did. We bought more car parts. I mean, imagine if we if if we knew that about the Chinese and tried to, you know, that scenario. People just don't understand how bad China is. 

Tim Barton [00:15:23] No, And this is one of the challenges to the disconnect that is there. I mean, guys like for us, we have technology that that we have pretty strong suspicions that some of the components we use in our computers, in our phones, whatever it is, came to some extent from slave labor, which is also why I heard Joe Rogan make this argument maybe, maybe a month ago. I don't know exactly when, but that it's crazy that we are still buying these components for our phones from China and not making them in America. And it's because there's obviously a profit incentive that that slave labor apparently is a lot cheaper than having to hire Americans to do this. But there's a moral and ethic that goes with it. And because there's such a disconnect for the American people, not recognizing that, I mean, kind of to your point, right, that we don't recognize how much damage and how much death the Chinese Communist Party has brought to millions of people and that they're still 1.5 billion people living under communist regimes today. We're so disconnected from truth and reality, and we're we're living in so much comfort and and because we're comfortable, it allows us in kind of as as as a whole in America to to be more willfully ignorant of some of the evil that's happening. But again, this is why it's so good news to me coming out of Congress is that we're going to start teaching kids the evils of communism. And as this rep from Florida pointed out, maybe even connecting the fact that that what the Chinese Communist Party has done has brought more deaths than what happened in Nazi Germany, as as Rep Burgess pointed out. So I am hopeful that there can be some positive things coming forward and hopefully that the rising generations will recognize the dangers of socialism, communism and Marxism and not be as openly swayed as they have been in their ignorance over the last several decades. 

Rick Green [00:17:26] Well, this fits why we always say here, WallBuilders, we got to teach the good, the bad and the ugly. So you don't leave any of that out because we learn from all of it. We want to know the bad and the ugly. So don't don't repeat it. So I'm glad they got the message on this. And that's that's now going to be taught. Going to take a quick break as we got more good news when we return. You're listening to the WallBuilders Show

Rick Green [00:18:52] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show Got time for at least a couple of more pieces of good news today. Let's see, Tim, you had the communism report. So, David, communism report. Well, the good the good news that we're going to teach how bad communism is, I guess, is that is a report of communism and any good true report, our communism would be ugly. Okay. David, what's your next these. 

David Barton [00:19:11] I have really left you guys alone this year. I have not done that many Christmas stories. Justin hadn't had an opportunity to play many Christmas carols interrupting you guys. So I have not done much with Christmas. 

Rick Green [00:19:23] You know what, David? I think this is the least amount of Christmas music we have ever played. 

David Barton [00:19:28] True! 

Rick Green [00:19:28] Ever in our history. 

David Barton [00:19:30] Yes, I'll make up for in March and April and July and September. All right. I'll find ways to to get Christmas back into this thing. Guys, it's it's coming. But I am impressed of the fact that we now have a first in the history of the United States, the US Capitol. They started building that back in 1791 through 93. And to this day, there has never been a nativity scene on the steps of the US Capitol until just this Christmas. And as a result of a federal lawsuit, they ruled and grabbed this. This is a really big deal. They ruled that the steps of the Capitol so the eastern steps that they'll look over to the Library of Congress, that's where all the pictures are made, the east steps. They rule that that the east steps of the Capitol, which is inside a secure area, that that is a public forum, that you have the right to express free speech from there. Now, think about that going back to J6. And, you know, that was not a public forum back then. And they didn't let anything close to the Capitol to be a public forum. And, you know, there were you know, Pelosi was saying that the Capitol Office building on top of the federal court said, no, no, no. The steps of the Capitol are a public forum. And Reverend Mahoney, who is is is what the Christian Defense Coalition asked for, the right to display a nativity scene at Christmas. 

Rick Green [00:20:51] And when you say when you say they said and you said federal court. So this was somewhat of a challenge as to where whether or not a nativity scene could be out there. That's part of the ruling, was that it's a public forum,. 

David Barton [00:21:01] Is a public forum. And as a result, Reverend Mahoney. Question The Christian Defense Coalition had an nativity scene out on the steps for the first time in the history of the United States. And by the way, if you have any doubts about whether you can have an activity seen at your city courthouse square, let me tell you, if you can have one of the steps of the US Capitol, you can have one on the steps of a court house or somewhere else if they're going to allow the US Capitol. And that's what the federal courts held, was that you could have that nativity scene there at the US Capitol. And I think that is a really, really, really great piece of news, not only for Christmas but also for public forums and public bodies where you can have that religious expression, not have to worry about it. 

Tim Barton [00:21:44] And I think it's worth pointing out, too, that this is this is part of the victory that comes from the Koch Kennedy decision, the Lemon test from 1971, the Lemon v Kurtzman decision that produced the Lemon test when the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 and the Koch Kennedy decision said that we're done with the Lemon Test, right? We're kind of overturning that. We're removing that standard and precedent, everything that had been struck down using the, quote unquote, lemon test from that 1970s court, all of those decisions, in essence, were overturned. Well, one of those decisions, actually more than one, but one of those explicitly dealt with the nativity scenes. And again, there was more than one that dealt with the nativity scenes. But every time the nativity scenes were struck down, they cited the Lemon test as the reason you couldn't have these religious expressions in public. Well, Lemon's now been overturned, so these things have been restored. And there are so many things like this that are now available to be done openly and constitutionally, again, recognized, to be constitutionally protected. And I would argue they were always constitutional. They just weren't recognized and protected as constitutional. But now they are once again recognized and constitutionally protected it For people that will find out more about this, you can go to restoringFaithin merica.org or rfia.org. And whether it's going back and saying, hey, we have kids in public school and we would love to see them be able to have Bible studies or or have have prayer before their sporting events, whatever it is, there are now ways that those things can be done and you can find out more restoring faith in America. But certainly things like having your nativity scenes  up and I know we're only a couple of days from Christmas and it might be hard to find nativity scenes right now, but if there are places that nativity scenes we can encourage you, man, put them The nativity scenes help people remember the reason for the season and maybe just save up some money and be ready for next year by a really nice nativity  set and put it out whether it be in front of the courthouse or the public library, whatever it is, save some money, maybe work with the local church. A couple of churches, get together, have a little fundraiser, and let's help restore some of this faith element in America that's been eroding the last many decades. 

David Barton [00:23:55] You know, until I want to add to that personally, because going back to the first story that the biblical folks want to help contribute, one of the things we can point to is that the governor's mansion in Texas has a nativity scene at the governor's mansion that goes back to Rick Perry as because private citizens bought that nativity scene and gave it to the governor and now is part of the governor's mansion. And the same way the county courthouse near us Christians gave a really nice life size nativity scene, too, to the county, and they've been using that last 15 years. We've just seen that county after county. So make that a project, you know, probably because of the result that Limitées Tim. Most counties don't have nativity scenes they can put up, may not have the money or think they have the money to buy one. So let people sponsored go and say, hey, here's our contribution for next year for Christmas. You now got to a nativity scene you can put up. So that be a great undertaking for a lot of people across the country for this coming year. Go ahead and do it now. Give it to them. Maybe they can leave it up to New Year or January 6th. Kind of the the the Spanish version of Christmas Day. Leave it up to then and then, you know, have it have it ready for next year. Man 2025 is going to be so fun, guys doing the Nativity scenes, the Ten Commandments, the all of these opportunities, as Tim was saying, because of the Coach Kennedy case, for us to be able to go do all these things, hey, next week, Christmas and Bill Federer is going to be with us next week. We're going to get some history. The really interesting history on Christmas and the Christmas Tree and Saint Nick and all these cool things that, as we know, bills, bills like you, David walking encyclopedia just up and that stuff just comes out. It's so cool We're going have a good time. So we'll learn more about the nativity scene.

Tim Barton [00:25:35] And guys, I got to admit, I actually have a couple of interviews coming up where people are asking, hey, can you tell us the history of Christmas at Lake Saint Nick? And honestly, what I do is I'm like, hey, Bill, will you send me your notes on this stuff? I literally have a file from Bill Federer, who is just a brilliant historian. And so I'm excited. Every year we try to have him actually several times a year, but certainly around Christmas time. He's just one of the best. Telling the story in the history behind Saint Nick Christmas traditions. A lot of people think, you know, this was based on a pagan holiday. It really wasn't. But if you don't know the true story, you don't understand where Christmas origins actually are. And Bill is one of the best to help tell that story. 

David Barton [00:26:14] Well, a lot of fun with that next week. Everybody, have a fantastic weekend. If you want more good news, be sure. Visit our website WallBuilders.show for recent Friday programs with more of that good news from David and Tim and then also get Foundations of Freedom Thursdays while you're in there WallBuilders.show and then the interviews we do Monday through Wednesday and then also visit wallbuilders.com make that end of year contribution come alongside us. Let's go roaring into 2025 with fuel in the tank to take back ground You can be a part of that wallbuilders.com. Thanks so much for listening to the WallBuilders show.