Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. Thanks for joining us on the WallBuilder show this Monday. We got George Barna coming up a little later, had him last week. We've got another great topic with him this week as well. I'm Rick Green here with David and Tim Barton. We appreciate you listening and also want to encourage you to take a couple of action steps today. There's a lot you can be doing. You know, we're doing this rebuilding Liberty effort for the 250th and we are now inside of the one year before the 250th and that means have as of today. What is it about 3505 days? I didn't do my math today, but anyway, we're less than 365, we know that for sure. So there's so many things you can be doing. Make sure you go to wallbuilders.show, and today the easiest thing to do is share today's program. Just take the link and send it to as many friends and family as you can. And then another easy thing to is to go to wallbuliders.com and get up to date on some of the things we've got coming up throughout the year, some of conferences and things. You can send your pastors to one of our pastors briefings. Oh, by the way, there's also the Liberty pastor events that you can send your pastor to, and you can learn more about those at Libertypastors.org. We got several coming up one in, let's see, Virginia and then in Michigan and a couple other locations. And I'm sure we'll do another one at the Patriot Academy campus. Had a great one a few weeks ago. Yeah. If you, you know, in fact, if you haven't told your pastor about the opportunity to come be a legislator for a few days at the Patriot academy campus, be sure and do that if I come with them, bring the whole family, do one of the Patriot Experiences at the campus where you get to be a legislator for a few days and then you can do a handgun defense class if you want. It's just a great opportunity and people of all ages can come. So we've got some more of those coming up in the fall. And then of course, if you're one of our constitution coaches or a military veteran, you can come to the Coach Congress and the Military Veteran Congress in mid-July. Learn more about that at PatriotAcademy.com and we've just got a handful of seats left. We're nearly full for the Student Congress, the National Leadership Congress the last week of July. Tim Barton and I will be teaching it. We might get David down there. He usually comes, but anyway, we have a lot of great speakers that come in for that one. It's a great time. So check all of that out at PatriotAcademy.com. Don't forget again to go to wallbuilders.show and share the program. All right, David and Tim, we got George Barna joining us a little later in the program once again, talking about actually what can be perceived as a negative topic, the fact that we have a fragmented American spiritual landscape, but then talking about how to bring that back together. 

Tim Barton [00:02:26] Well, Rick, I think not only can we interpret this with Biblical worldview, obviously with our good friend, George Barna. Uh, he does such a good job identifying, where we see the challenges of the nation. But when you talk about, the, the negative and the fractured landscape, it's probably worth acknowledging too, that we're seeing that more than just a biblical front when we're, I, I feel like we'd be amiss not to acknowledge that we are tracking all of this Epstein file drama, like everybody else. We might even do a segment or show on it this week, just highlighting, because as, as you see the division between Dan Bongino and Kash Patel, and then Pam Bondi, you saw Trump over the weekend, putting out his support saying that he's with Pam Bondi all the way, not to get in the weeds on this, cause I know the point of today's program is really going back to Biblical worldview, which not that both are not important things. That we, we identify, prosecute and imprison pedophiles. Absolutely and actually that would even be supported by a biblical worldview. So those two things can, can be, kind of conjoined in some of this. But if we don't restore this biblical worldview, then we do lose some of the moral foundation that allows, the, the overarching higher truth that matter to come forward in that we. We care far more about justice than we do potentially, at least for our knowledge, what we know, we care far more about justice than some, government program where they potentially, you know, multiple nations working together on this intel operation and, you know, getting clients and whatever else. And all the nonsense we're hearing all of that to say that there's more than there, there's more fractured in America than just the biblical perspective, biblical worldview. There's a lot of fracturing now over this Epstein stuff. I mean, guys over the weekend, we all were in different places, but I heard many times, multiple conversations I had over the week with people and actually a lot of, a lot younger gen, millennials or gen Z that were very frustrated with what's happened. And so again, seeing some of this additional fracturing, not just biblical worldview, Christian fracturing. But even, inside of where there has been some unification, especially for young people, that this... The prosecution of the pedophiles connected to Epstein was something that seemed to go past party lines. And this certainly is the biggest fumble from the Trump administration to this point. Anyway, you said fractured and I, it made me instantly think of the Epstein stuff. Again, not the point of what we're talking about, but still a very relevant thing. And we, again, we'll probably talk about that more this week as more information comes out. 

David Barton [00:05:14] And talking about fractured stuff, actually, Barna's survey was fairly interesting because he went not just worldview, but worldview state by state to see which state had the best worldview and which had the least. And as it turns out, America really is fractured. 

Tim Barton [00:05:30] Well, I think the things that we desire in our reality are often two different things, as, as you know, all of us being married guys and have kids, what we want and what we get are often different things and that's certainly what George Barna points out as he goes through this data and interestingly enough, some of the states that we would have guessed would be higher weren't, not all of them were as high as we thought and some of the states we might've guessed were lower were actually a little higher than we thought. And so definitely you're seeing a shift and really it's, it's there's such a bad worldview all over the place. There's a lot of competing for, for the bottom to some extent. Nobody really has that high percentage of a biblical worldview of people in their state, but it is interesting looking at his list and seeing where those states fall, cause it's certainly not the way that we would have intuitively thought. 

Rick Green [00:06:24] All right guys, well, George, we'll be with us to talk about the survey. We'll be right back. George Barna, our special guest today on the WallBuilder show. 

Rick Green [00:08:34] Welcome back to the WallBuilder show. Thanks for staying with us. George Barna back with us, just had him on a week or so ago and I had another study that we wanted to talk about sort of this, you know, just this split across the country, in terms of people's spiritual perspectives, we're getting more and more fragmented George, it sounds like, and that makes it hard to come together and,  be a union, right? So how does this affect us as a nation? But first of all, just how different, it, your research is showing that the spiritual landscape is out there. 

George Barna [00:09:01] Well, there's a huge range in terms of the proportion of people who have a biblical worldview. So we looked at 45 of the 50 states and ranked them according to the incidence of biblical worldview. And what we found is that there is this wide range, and there are a lot of things that you would expect in terms which states are coming out on top, which states on the bottom, which regions, and so forth. But there were some surprises as well, so... I mean, to me, what this does is it reminds me, you know what, you can't always assume that what you think is the case is the place. You know, and y'all are in Texas, and Texas was one of those big surprises. Everybody tends to think of Texas as being a conservative state, but, and a highly spiritual state. But we discover something quite different when we rank Texas. I mean I think it came out- 

Rick Green [00:09:56] Wait George, we have to end the interview now if there's anything negative about Texas. We're not allowed to speak that on the air. 

George Barna [00:10:03] I's so glad you guys are against censorship. Well done good and faithful servant. 

George Barna [00:10:03] Okay, okay, tell us what happens with Texas. 

Rick Green [00:10:19] Wait, we have sinners here too? Come on, you're kidding. 

George Barna [00:10:22] I'm sorry to say that. 

Rick Green [00:10:24] I thought this was the Garden of Eden. 

George Barna [00:10:26] Yeah, well, you haven't done a tour of the state lately, but yeah, I mean, we don't have to go there. But I mean what we were finding is that one of the things that characterizes America is tremendous mobility. 

Rick Green [00:10:39] I was kidding, man. Tell me about Texas. I need to know how to fix my state. Oh, okay. 

George Barna [00:10:44] I'm trying to ease into it. 

Rick Green [00:10:45] Oh, you're making it less painful. I get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're going to do contrast. Look how bad America is now. Texas is not quite as bad, but it's. 

George Barna [00:10:53] Yeah, I'm called a lot of things, but velvet hammer is one of them, so I just put the velvet over the hammer. Just make sure you... 

Rick Green [00:10:58] Just make sure you compare us to California. We'll feel better. Okay 

George Barna [00:11:02] Well, actually, you won't, and I can describe that. 

Rick Green [00:11:04] Oh no, it is going to be painful. Okay, I'm ready. I'm read to take my medicine. 

George Barna [00:11:09] So what I was saying is that the reason why Texas is not what we might have assumed is because of household mobility, where you've got anywhere 12, 15, 18 percent of all households in the country moving during the course of a typical year. And so what that's done is since the turn of the millennium, 25 years ago, Texas has had more than 9 million people move into it from outside of its borders. And at the same time, you've had about 5 million people move out of it who had been Texas residents. 

Rick Green [00:11:44] So I can blame it on the non-texans. I'm with you. Okay, go ahead. I'll try to get in. Okay, go ahead. I'm with you. This is getting better. 

George Barna [00:11:49] I'm trying to get in out here. This is the best I can do. Thank you. I mean, I wouldn't buy it, but I know you're in a corner, so you got to run with it. 

Rick Green [00:11:56] We Texans are very delusional, so yes, yes, go ahead. 

George Barna [00:11:58] I've been there. I get it. Yeah. So, anyway, what, we found is that, yeah, Texas, I think ranks 30th out of the 45 states in terms of biblical worldview. So not what we were expecting. But it's interesting too, because when you look within the state, what you find is that there are different regions where people without a biblical worldview tend to locate. Austin is one of them. Houston is another one. And so those are two of the major areas where you would find them. 

Rick Green [00:12:30] I definitely don't mind blaming everything on Houston. That's totally within my wheelhouse. That's good. 

George Barna [00:12:37] All right, well, there you have it. But, you know, I mean, we also found, I mean, for instance, when you look at the four regions of the country, you know, who is number one of the four regions in biblical worldview? Well, the South, you'd expect that. But you would expect second to be the Midwest. That wasn't the case. The Western states, Alaska, Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington, they were actually ranked second. And so it's, and then there are a few other states in there, but that was kind of shocking. New England, you know, when we look at the divisions as opposed to the regions, 1.8% of the people in New England have a biblical worldview. National average is 4%. 

Rick Green [00:13:24] The less than half of the national. 

George Barna [00:13:26] Yeah, and what's so discouraging about that, so disappointing, is you realize, but that's where the birth of our country began. And they came here to be this very kind of person, someone with a biblical worldview, someone who would not only want to know the Scriptures, but to live the Scriptures. And then you see today what that's become, and that's very disappointing. But it's also an object lesson to us, as well as looking at this this flip of the West and the Midwest, it's like there's no place, there's no group of people that is safe. You know, we've got to understand, yeah, we're always in flux. We're always changing. Our worldview is our personal operating system in life. And if you get that wrong, most of what you wind up doing in life is going to be wrong. And so we've gotta really pay attention to worldview development, particularly with children, and clearly we're not doing that in New England. In fact, they're fighting biblical worldview tooth and nail. 

Rick Green [00:14:31] Yeah, and that, you know, while we're seeing the legislation pass for Ten Commandments and Bible curriculum and time release and chaplains, and we're starting to see some of that come back, because even non-biblical worldview people are saying, we got to do something different, we need some truth, we some foundations that can get this thing back on track. What you're saying is, in some areas of the country like New England, they're really rejecting that, they are resistant to that. 

George Barna [00:14:57] And what happens is people get into habits, and we have spiritual habits as well. And sometimes those become spiritual handcuffs that we place upon ourselves. Where we get into a rut, we get in to bad routines, we gets lazy, we becomes complacent, we becomes too accepting of inappropriate things. And so I think it's really good every few years to reassess those kind of spiritual habits. I had a pastor years ago when we were living in the Midwest. And he talked about doing a ruthless self-assessment every year. And one of the things that he did for the congregation as a result of that is he would preach what he called the hard sayings of Jesus, because he said, you know what? Our church has been growing, and that scares me. I'm afraid maybe they're not really listening carefully. They're not reading deeply. They don't get what the Christian faith calls us to and how we're supposed to live. It's not easy. It's not comfortable. And, and so if we're growing, maybe I'm not projecting it adequately. And so he do a four week series, which afterwards his measure of success was the church didn't grow. It actually shrunk. And he said, okay, now they're hearing what it takes to be a Christian. Now let's dig in and figure out how to do that. So I think each of us has to have that same kind of mentality where if we are being too comfortable if spiritually we've got habits where we're doing things in terms of our religious practices that we're not even thinking about them anymore. We've just always done it this way. Well, maybe it's a good time to hit ourselves upside the head and question some of those things, and maybe invite some other people who we trust spiritually to be deep enough and biblical enough and Godly enough to take them out to lunch or dinner and say, look, I got you here for one reason I'm paying the bill, beat me up spiritually. Let me know where I'm not making the grade, where I am not cutting it, and help me to figure out how I can get back on track, because I think I'm becoming a little bit complacent with who I am in Christ. 

Rick Green [00:17:06] Well, I love the example you gave makes me feel better about my friend Pastor Rob McCoy always telling me, you know, Rick, you could preach a church down to a manageable size. 

George Barna [00:17:15] It's interesting that you mentioned Pastor Rob, because we were at his 25th anniversary celebration last night, and man, there's nobody better at doing that than he is

Rick Green [00:17:28] So you were there for the installation of Pastor Micah and all that that's great 

George Barna [00:17:32] Yeah, I love them both. They're great. 

Rick Green [00:17:33] Good people, good people. Well, what a, what, a great influence on California too. And the rest of the country. I mean, you know, that opening to our biblical citizenship class, you have so many good comments in that class too, but that opening that Rob gives about the Ecclesia and the job of the church and the culture is so, so good. Oh man. So that, yeah, that is definitely the way to, to turn this thing around for sure, but man, what to wake up call, bro. You've, you've definitely, you got my attention with those numbers for Texas and, and for a lot of those states that we didn't expect. And you know, you and I have talked about this before. The cultural rot is real. This is, this goes deep. This is not going to change overnight. Certainly not an executive order that's going to get rid of it. We've got some good things happening in the country, but it really just provides the opportunity to do the hard work that it takes to actually clean out that cultural rot and turn the thing around. And so I love these indicators that you give us and, and where it is that we need to target. 

George Barna [00:18:24] Let's all remember that, you know, yeah, you got Alabama and Mississippi at the top of the list in terms of incidents. They're about twelve and a half percent, national average four percent. And the last thing you want is for states like that, people in those states to get complacent because what that means is even in our best states, seven out of eight people in those States don't have a biblical worldview. There's, you know, what a great time to be alive, Rick, you know, to minister to people and to really do the stuff that's going to honor God and advance His Kingdom. 

Rick Green [00:18:56] This is this is the opportunity to bring back that biblical worldview and get it back into the culture strong. We have to for the future of our country George Brana. Appreciate you brother. Thanks for coming on, man 

George Barna [00:19:05] It's always good to be with you. 

Rick Green [00:19:07] Stay with us folks, we'll be right back with David and Tim Barton. 

Rick Green [00:20:16] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. All right, guys, I think we should not air this program because we never want to admit when Texas is not number one at something, right? I mean, isn't there a plausible deniability that we should keep? 

David Barton [00:20:29] Well, I'm going to adopt the current worldview and I'm going to tell you that there's no absolute truth on this. And for him to say that, that Texas is 30 out of 45, I disagree with that. And that is not true. I get to make my own truth on this. So it's, you know, it's. But I tell you, when you put the upper West coast higher than Midwestern biblical worldview, that is amazing, but it does make sense when you think through it. But it's just amazing to see what we have on this, in this worldview. And he has some great warnings in there as well. 

Tim Barton [00:21:00] Now, dad, when you say it does make sense that the West Coast is more solid biblical worldview than the Midwest states, I feel like that's a bag we got to unpack a little bit. You said when you think about it, it makes sense. Why does it make sense? Is it because the Midwest has been so complacent? Or by the way, as he pointed out, the New England states were the whole emphasis, the birth of America by and large from the Pilgrims, the Puritans, I mean, right, Roger Williams and William Penn, I mean, go down the list. These were people biblically motivated when you go from the birthplace of the Bible in America, so to speak, to becoming the least religious or, and then, as we mentioned, the Midwest states are, have less of a biblical worldview than the far West. Why in your mind, Dad, is that something that is logical when you analyze or when you review it? What stands out to you about that? 

David Barton [00:21:52] If I look at what Jesus says in Revelation about a witch who are hot or cold, but because you're lukewarm, I've had it with you. I think when you're in situations where you have to know what you believe or you have to go the other way, there's less middle ground in the upper western states. When you get into the Seattles and the Portlands and the states like that, even though the eastern side of those states tend to be very conservative, you have to know which you believed to be able to exist in their school systems and their government systems. Everything else. I think that makes sense to me why you would have a better worldview there because you have to fight the anti worldview so often. 

Tim Barton [00:22:28] And so maybe then even as Rick pointed out, uh, in the interview with George is, you know, one of the great pastors that one of our friends from California, Rob McCoy, if it wasn't for the conditions in California, then we might not have seen people like a Rob McCoy or a Jack Hibbs, a Jim Garland, so many of our friends who have been incredibly courageous pastors in California. Not that they wouldn't be still great pastors, but what part of what has made them stand out is their courage and boldness. At opposing very sinful, wicked, and evil things, and I guess that that's part of of why we have been able easily to identify so much of their courage and boldness is part of what led to their church growing. And so I guess I can totally see the complacency being one of the negative factors. And even as George mentioned, when you look at that the top states of Mississippi and Alabama, the fact that we're talking really like 12 percent have a biblical worldview, Which is 1 out of 8 approximately. And so the majority of even the, the best, highest scoring states have an abysmally low percentage of people with a biblical worldview, there really is not a reason to, for anybody to feel comfortable, there shouldn't be a reason for complacency. And one of the things guys that we know to be true as well is, you know, when, when you look at the percentage of these states and we're talking, it's, it's 12% biblical worldview virtually, and then down from there, what's happening is our states are competing for who has ultimately has the worst Biblical worldview. Like we're competing at the bottom. Instead of somebody being 75 and 82 and 87, we are so far from the top. And so regardless of where we live, every state has significant work to do, which is again, to highlight the reason that we need churches. We need Christians reading their Bible, engaging their friends in conversation and relationship and dialog and, and the mentorship and discipleship. Things that we certainly have been lacking in culture from churches and often even from the dynamic of those individual relationships. 

David Barton [00:24:29] But you know, George had a really good warning there that you have to pay particular attention to the worldview development of kids because while parents may be able to handle polarization in states like the Upper West or states like Alabama where it's four times higher but still only 12%, the kids do not have that discernment. And so they are sharp, they absorb everything going on around them and they don't have the filter to know what's right and wrong. And so if you don't pay particular specific focused attention to their worldview, they're gonna grow up just adopting the environment, breathing the atmosphere around them. I was reminded of 1 Corinthians 11, 31, where scripture says, if you would judge yourselves, you would not be judged. And if you will examine yourselves and be really harsh on ourselves, if we would all get worldview and say, hey, you know what, I believe this, but that doesn't line up with scripture, I need to change that. If we would do that, we avoid what happens at the final judgment when he says, no, no, you were thinking wrong. I gave you my scriptures. Why didn't you do what my scripture said? I don't want that. I don't want to be rebuked at the end. I want to examine myself. And that's what we need to do and with our kids particularly. But it's pretty revealing to see where all the states are at this point. 

Tim Barton [00:25:40] Well, and dad, to your point, I think it's a really great challenge and thought that we need to normalize biblical perspectives with our kids because what they're getting a culture around them is the normalization of sin, the normalization of wickedness that what the Bible defines as wicked. And we definitely need to formalize, nope, guys, here's how human sexuality works. Here's how relationships work. The things that should be normal as Christians, we have to be intentional to help normalize for our kids. Because that's not the message they're getting from culture. 

Rick Green [00:26:11] Our folks, we're out of time for today. Thanks so much for joining us here on the wall builder show. Again, visit those websites, wallbuilders.show for the radio program, wall builders.com for all of our other programs, offerings, the swag you can get right there at the website and get the t-shirts and the hats and the coffee mugs and everything. But then the information, the powerful programs that you can at wallbuilder.com, check that out. And then if you're interested in attending one of the Patriot Experience Programs, Leadership Congress, the legislative simulation for people of all ages. All of that you can learn at patriotacademy.com. Thanks so much for listening to The WallBuilder Show.