Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. It's the WallBuilders Show and it's Friday, my favorite day of the week here on the WallBuilders program. It's all good program, but I love getting this good news from David and Tim Barton. I'm Rick Green. You can find out more about all three of us at wallbuilders.com and lots of great stuff there. You know, I don't talk about it enough on the program anymore. I used to talk about more, but there's so many good materials at wallbuilders.com. So at least go peruse the website, start looking at some of the dates coming up, the pastor's briefings, the different things you can get involved in, get you a constitution class, get you, get you good hat, shirt, some swag you can wear to advertise the constitution and rebuilding this year. A lot of good stuff there. Go check it out. Wallbuilders.com and make that one time or monthly contribution while you're there at the website. And if you're new to the program, WallBuilders, the radio program is available over at wallbuilders.show. So you can, you know, go in there and catch up on programs. Maybe you're hearing us for the first time and, and you like this optimistic, realistic, but optimistic. We always do the good, the bad, and the ugly. We talk about it all. But on Fridays, we're going to share a lot of like that. You can find more of it at our website, wallbuilders.show, for the radio program. Okay, guys, let's jump in. David, first piece of good news today. 

David Barton [00:01:12] Well, weeks ago and looking at some of the things that the Trump administration was doing, I was amazed at that time. We talked about it on Good News Friday, how much they were defunding so many elite colleges and universities because they were teaching woke stuff. And I did not realize the hundreds of millions and even the billions of dollars that were going to Ivy League schools, how much that the federal government was putting into these guys. I mean, they've already got exorbitant costs to get in and you know tuition everything else that you pay for. It is through the roof. And then the federal government was putting billions into these things. And they're doing the DEI and the gender and all the weird stuff instead of teaching the sciences and things we used to teach. And so Trump was looking at the crazy stuff coming out of these universities. They were antisemitic. They were all, all this, you know, 81 different genders is what that website of professor says, and that's just crazy stuff. And he said, we're not going to fund crazy stuff, I mean, education is one thing. And so they took billions away and I was amazed. It shocked me how quickly elite universities like Harvard and particularly Columbia started backtracking and say, okay, okay. We'll drop all that crazy anti-Semitic stuff. Well, they didn't call it crazy, but they're willing to drop it. And I was really amazed. I did not think that was going to happen. And so now following up with that, here we are weeks later and so Columbia University, the headline says they've agreed to pay $200 million to the federal government to restore the federal funding the two hundred million is in fines for what they did that was teaching crazy stuff that that really contravenes the law and they're gonna get are there they're seeking to get the funding back now as of now they don't have that funding back but they're trying to get a federal fund federal grants back and so in looking at what they do that they got two hundred million to resolve allegations a discriminated against Jewish students And there were so many things that went on and particularly when Gaza got attacked, there was about a hundred pro-Palestinian students that took over buildings there at the university, took over part of the library. There were kids in there trying to study and get work done, and they were chanting, they were defacing stuff, they were damaging property. It was all this pro-Hamas anti-Israel, anti-Semitic stuff. And so what happened with that is the Trump administration pointed out that's completely unacceptable. And so what the university has done is quite amazing to me, they have gone back and they have taken those hundred people and they have either suspended them from school or they've rescinded their degrees or I mean, they've imposed some pretty harsh penalties. They've established guidelines and standards that we're not going to put up with this kind of behavior going forward in the future. And it's just, it's interesting to see that they've now adopted some common sense things. Simply to get that funding and well regardless of how you got there you finally got the common sense and enforcing common sense on a university campus can be nothing but good and so it is it's just great news to see that Trump was willing to go after their money source and I just did not think that as well we talked about I think harvard was harvard to have 53 billion dollars endowments and we didn't think they would change and they did and all these woke universities started changing because of what Trump was doing was saying the federal government is not going to find the radicalness that you guys are teaching there this is not education this is indoctrination and it's just great to see that including at Columbia 

Rick Green [00:04:43] It was a little bit like, like the bully that nobody, everybody was afraid to fight and you know, when somebody finally stood up to them and punched them one good time in the nose, they backed off and it just felt, it felt like the, you know, the Ivy leagues especially, but even just second, you know just higher ed in general politicians are so afraid to touch that it's almost like the third rail of social security. Nobody wants to be against education and Trump didn't flinch man. And he went after him big time. He literally punched the bully. I'm just shocked like I mean like you said David It just wasn't one of those good news things that we expected to happen and these are the biggest of the big institutions and so you have really really good news there Tim. What's your first piece of good news today? 

Tim Barton [00:05:24] This one is coming a story from Oxford university hospital. Uh, it is one of the most unique pro-life stories I think I've ever shared on the program and involves a lady named Lucy Isaac. She was at the time 12 weeks pregnant when the doctors discovered she had ovarian cancer and they began a complicated life-saving experience is what this article says, which culminated. Ultimately in the story is the birth of her baby Rafferty Isaac Born January and his mom survived now what the article points out is when Raffertie was born in January It wasn't the first time he was born but the second and it goes to tell the story because when they discovered the cancer in Lucy's body the pregnancy was too far along for them to do what's called a keyhole surgery. And so in order for them to try to remove the cancer and save the mom's life, they actually had to do a five hour procedure where they removed her womb from her body, open up her abdomen, remove the womb. There's a 15 team doctor. And I don't wanna be too graphic in this, but the science behind it's amazing. And I'm saying that acknowledging I'm not gonna give all the details. That's in the article I wouldn't want that someone to perceive this as being too graphic but I will encourage you you can go find this article I'm gonna get more details but you go to lifenews.com and find this articles amazing. And so there's their fifteen team members that are part of this operation. As the doctors go in, try to find the cancer, remove the cancer from the body at stage two, it's spread, in, in multiple, organs and parts of her body, but the amazing thing with the pregnancy is that during this operation, two team members, they held Lucy's womb in their hands with this unborn child that they're holding the entire procedure, they're monitoring the baby's heart rate, the temperature is being monitored. They're keeping the womb wrapped in warm sterile saline packs to mimic being inside the body to keep it at the right temperature. They were replaced with a fresh pack every 20 minutes to maintain the right temperatures. I mean, just, guys, it is absolutely incredible. They do the procedure, they reinsert the womb. She's able to carry on a normal pregnancy, relatively speaking. I mean obviously there was cancer, this is normal, but she continues on, has the baby. In January and this is what she said she said I had no symptoms before the diagnosis. This is Lucy talking I had no symptoms before the diagnosis I feel incredibly lucky that I was not only diagnosed in time but also able to undergo the procedure without jeopardizing my pregnancy. My husband Adam and I were made aware of the risks, but we had faith in the doctor and the team I'm immensely grateful to everyone involved in saving me and my baby. There's a few other details but guys I am amazed and marveled by what these doctors were able to do, but I also thought this is a fascinating story because one of the arguments that people use in favor of abortion is, well, what if it's to save the mother's life? Right? You have to abort the baby to save mother's' life. And the counter that I would always offer is when you talk to an OB-GYN, when you these doctors. What they acknowledge is that they never go in thinking we need to kill something to save something they go in thinking number one we got to save the mother number two we're trying to save the baby and if the baby is lost in the attempt to save the mother that's that's something that at times can happen but they don't go in thanking they need to killed a baby and like even this procedure is would be an indication of that if the baby could have been lost along the way they were made aware this could be incredibly challenging complications or could be issues but we're gonna work to save the mother's life. And again, what stands out to me is this is a great example of the defense of the pro-life side, where people say, but you might need abortion for the life of the mother. No, this is great story to point to that with what technology is able to do, abortion is not a viable thought to defend the idea of saving the life of the mother. And this is miracle along the way, that little baby Rafferty. Born in January was able to come into this life in a very normal way in the end. Although man, what an adventure. And I can only imagine how the parents are gonna tell this story one day. But amazing that Lucy, Adam, and now baby Rafferty are all, the article doesn't finish out with, you know, updates on Lucy's health and cancer removed, is it, whatever. So we might just make a note, keep her in prayer when you think about it. That God continues to heal, remove all that cancer, whatever else, but guys, amazing, amazing what these doctors and technology were able to pull off and certainly God's hand over this whole thing. Really cool story. 

Rick Green [00:10:30] I have a genuine question. So when little baby Rafferty, Lord willing comes to the Lord, will little baby Rafferty be born again, again, like, how do we, how, how will we say that he's. 

Tim Barton [00:10:42] Had this technology been around when Nicodemus asked the question, right? But how could a man be born again, right. Yeah, great, great thoughts. 

Rick Green [00:10:51] Yeah. Yeah. All right, David, what's next on our good news today? 

David Barton [00:10:56] Well, last, last week, goodness, right. We talked about a lawsuit that was settled after 40 years and in Nevada, they finally have a parental consent law. Now it had been in court for 40 years. And Planned Parenthood finally gave up on it. And so that parental consent, law goes into effect now.  This is kind of the same thing. This goes back to some stuff going on 10 years ago in the courts. And this deals in, New York and New York certainly very blue. Their attorney general up there, Letitia James. No conservative at all. And this deals with years ago, there was a photographer up there, wedding photographer that says, Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute. I'm not going to do gay weddings. That's that violates my faith. I'm going to participate in that. I think biblically I'm supposed to do man and woman. That's what God says marriage is anything outside of that I don't do. And they said, no, no you're going to that. Don't care what your religion is. Don't hear what your beliefs are. State law says you're going do that and you can't quote discriminate unquote, against anyone that, that might have different beliefs with you. So what happened was it goes through back and forth in the court. She loses in the courts. She loses and the court of appeals. A couple of years ago, the Supreme court came down with the case 303 creative where that another, another artist, creative artist had said, hey, you can't, you, can't force me to use my talents to do something I think it's fundamentally wrong. And the Supreme Court said, absolutely right. There's a right of conscience and protecting the first amendment. That's one of the first rights the founding fathers gave us. That was one of rights that caused America to be founded. That's what people came to America, freedom of conscience. We're not going to force you to do that. And so now they've gone back. And, and so under the agreement now reached with, and by the way, it was, I think it was a whole slew of Obama judges that were on the court and ruled against her, and it was an Obama judge at the federal level. The first step that ruled against and back now, and she's, she has won the case and as part of the agreement, she gets to do things that were unthinkable five years ago. She gets to interview the prospective clients as to their beliefs. So those who come in for a wedding, she gets asked them what their beliefs are to see if it aligns with what she's willing to do. She also gets to publicize her beliefs and express her beliefs. And she gets, to put those either online or , in person, either way but it now officially closes that case. So another one, it's gone for way too many years, ends on the side of what should have been right all along, what traditionally had been the constitutional position, what does respect freedom of religion, free exercise of conscience, back in the right, and this isn't a case, or this isn't a state that's been extremely hostile to letting Christians have their own beliefs and express their own faith and live that out, and so this is a really good decision coming out of New York. From an attorney general that was on the wrong side of this from top to bottom. 

Rick Green [00:13:52] Hey, we should say, you know, the wills of justice turn slow, but that's too slow. And it's, and a lot of it's because for a long time, our side didn't press hard enough and, and was afraid to take on a lot these fights. So thankfully we've had some people that have persevered in that area too. Quick break. When we come back, Tim's up next with some more good news. Stay with us. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show. Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. Good news Friday today and Tim is up next. 

Tim Barton [00:15:21] Well, this is a good news article coming out of Oregon. The headline says court rules oregon can't stop mom from adopting because she's a Christian and if you just process what the headline indicates, yeah, that's, that's pretty much what it is, there's a few more details involved. A couple of the highlights from the article, the U.S court of appeals for the ninth circuit ruled that an Oregon mother is free to begin the process of adopting siblings from foster care without violating her religious beliefs about human sexuality while her lawsuit against state officials continues. Now the details behind this in 2023, she applied in Oregon to become certified to adopt children from foster care Oregon's DHS, the agency that oversees child welfare programs denied her application because she would not agree to use inaccurate pronouns or refer to a child or take children to pride parades. So because she wouldn't call boys, girls, or girls, boys, or take them to pride parades, where that could include, right, some of these transgender kind of things, because she would agree to take children and expose them to that, they denied her a certificate to be able to adopt from foster care. Well, the good news, big picture is the Ninth Circuit said that you can go back and reapply. That standard is crazy. But the lawsuit wasn't entirely dropped because ADF is allies defending freedom, they're the ones that have this lawsuit and they want to make sure that this bad policy gets overturned. So the lawsuit is continuing. This is not done yet, but part of what this article points out is because she would not lie to children and tell them that girls cannot be boys and vice versa. Then she was denied by the Oregon department of human services, senior Council and Vice President of Litigation Strategy, John Scruggs from ADF. He said, because caregivers like Jessica cannot promote Oregon's dangerous gender ideology to young kids and take them to events like pride parades, the state considers them to be unfit parents. That is false and incredibly dangerous, needlessly depriving kids of opportunities to find a loving home. The Ninth Circuit was right to remind Oregon that the foster and adoption system is supposed to serve the best interests of children, not the state's ideological crusade. Now, the ultimate lawsuit is not done. Certainly, this is one that we think will be very favorable when it comes out. But the good news is the Ninth Circuit, which we used to call the Nineth Circus, it was the crazy circuit out covering a lot of the West Coast and it had very liberal judges. But when even the Ninet Circuit is acknowledging, that you can't discriminate against a Christian from adopting, just like you can't discriminate against somebody from adopting because they're a Republican or Democrat, right? You can't do that based on political affiliation. You can do it based on race. You do based on gender. Well, you can do because someone has a Christian belief that they're not going to misgender a boy or girl. They're not gonna take them to see... Men doing only God knows what in some of these parades, that should be logic and common sense. And the good news is the Ninth Circuit agreed with that and said to her, go back and refile. They will accept it when you file this time. She was able to refile, it was accepted. She's in the process now. And again, this ultimate lawsuit's not over, ultimately we think it will be good news in the end. And so we might get a second piece of good news out of this story, but right now the good new is that the Ninh Circuit ruled and said, yeah. She can go back and adopt and you can't discriminate against someone for having basic Christian beliefs and convictions. 

Rick Green [00:19:04] So yet another good news story from the courts. And that one, Tim, man, that's kind of good news story, that means that's gonna be good news for years and years to come because that's parents being able to raise those kids in a loving home with a mom and a dad. And we know the left's agenda is to make that as rare as possible, to actually get kids into anything but a regular family with a Mom and a Dad. So good, good, news there for the people of Oregon and for those children for sure. David, next piece of good new. 

David Barton [00:19:34] This actually comes out of great Britain and I have an attachment to great Britain historically. I mean, not only is that the former motherland, but she's really helped us and we've been partners in a lot of ways. We've had common values. We had the Bible basis at the beginning in both nations. Now they had a monarchy and we had a free independent republic differences there, but the value system pretty much the same. So they have a lot nice things to say about the red coats there David I'm just saying I'm just saying There's some things you don't want to get over and there's some things you probably need to get over and that's, that's a little, I'm not going to get over being patriotic and that we won the war, but I'm not going hold a grudge becausethey were on the wrong side of that one. 

Rick Green [00:20:17] It is weird though for people that don't study history at all, right? No, none of this. To think about the fact wait that's who we fought in the beginning and yet they became our very best allies and our best friends for you know two centuries. 

David Barton [00:20:30] And they still are our best allies. I mean, we had all those years that we fought the international slave trade together, you know, right up to the civil war for decades. 

Rick Green [00:20:39] I guess the first 30 years was bad, right? Because we still had the War of 1812, but then after that we became buddies. 

Tim Barton [00:20:44] We didn't need to beat him once, we beat him twice. 

David Barton [00:20:50] Alright, so we've got them there. We've got him as allies in World War One. There's no greater ally in World war two than the British were. So there's a lot there. And one of the things we've talked about is we've limited the fact that the Great Britain is they really need a revival spiritually. They are they've really and I've talked to a lot of the British folks and they point to when the EU said open immigration, you're not allowed to control your own borders anymore. The EU will tell you who you can and can't take you in. And so they had such, I think at one point I was there when one of the terrorist attacks happened on their subway and they did, there were so many Muslims in the country that they did poll and 23% of British citizens said that they were willing to help blow up the country. So when you've got people in your country of such a different belief that they want to help destroy it and great Britain could not control that because they're not over immigration. If you're part of the EU, well, we've seen over there that their to establish church and they are still one of the the places that does have a state established church, although they don't stop competitive religions, evangelicals and others from being there, they still have the Anglican church that is the official church of England. And so the king and queen, they have a chaplain out of the Anglican church and Anglicans church is the officials church there. And it's gotten really bad. And so this, I've got an article here that's very revealing. It's the former chaplain to the late Queen Elizabeth II. He's kind of come out talking about the condition of the Anglican Church over there, and it is definitely a state-established church, and he finally left being chaplain after nearly a decade for Queen Elizabeth when it got to the point that in 2017, the Anglican Church, they marked the feast of the Epiphany, and the feast is one of the three big holidays in kind of the Orthodox Christianity. Whether it's Catholics or whether it is Anglicans or whether it's Orthodox or different versions of Orthodox. And the Epiphany is when they celebrate the fact that that's when Jesus was first revealed to the Gentile world. And sometimes that's on January 6th because that's the wise men showed up with gifts and he's gonna save the world. Sometimes it's at his baptism in the Jordan because that when the Holy Spirit came on him he's going to save his people. And sometimes at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. So there's three different times that Orthodox churches could celebrate that, but they choose one for the Epiphany. But at that point, the Anglican Church, on the feast of the Epiphany, which is Jesus being revealed to the world, they celebrate that. That year at the main cathedral, they recited verses from the Koran that denied the divinity of Christ. So you're celebrating the epiphany of Christ by reading verses, not from the Bible, but from the Koran that's denying the divinity of Jesus. And that's when this Anglican chaplain resigned and said, I can't be part of the Anglicans church anymore. And that means I can be chaplain to the queen. And so he's been trying to convince Anglicans, you guys are headed the wrong direction. The average age of the congregation, Anglican congregation in England is 70 and above. They're not picking up any youth. There's nothing moving in that direction. And so he's, it's, it's really unhealthy, but what's happening is we've talked and just a few weeks ago, recovered some of the stuff in England where that there is really kind of a revival going on to some degree in the law area where there's, they're not cracking down on Christians like they were they gave rights of conscience on LGBTQ stuff and they had been prosecuting that for years because again, the EU courts said that you have to treat sex the same as gender and and so it's crazy and so what now there's a pentecostal church in London that they passed of provisions that you cannot share the gospel with anyone you cannot talk to anyone in public you cannot sure the bible or scriptures or Jesus anyone and the law was called the anti-social behavior crime and policing act so sharing Christianity was considered anti-social behavior now that law has been struck down in Great Britain and so the church can go back to talking to people on the streets and sharing the gospel with them and and no longer did and by the way when the when the police came and they explained their hate crime definitions, sharing Jesus was a hate crime, which is you know sharing the love of a Savior is a hate crime? And so it's just crazy, but it is good to see that in the last month or so, maybe two months, we've seen Great Britain start moving in a reasonable direction again not being as tyrannical as they have been socially and I think that's good for America that our best ally is hopefully moving maybe they'll have a genuine revival over there you know Wilberforce kind of a thing or some of the John Wesley Charles Wesley revivals they had Whitfield revivals. Maybe they'll come back to that which that's their heritage and that's a route just like it's our roots as well 

Rick Green [00:25:57] I'm not sure how I ended up following so many people from Great Britain on X, but somehow in some of the conservative circles and discussions and whatever, I got a bunch of those folks and, and it feels like that, David, it really does. I mean, I'm just seeing so many posts where they've had a lot of people step up and start speaking out and they, they just got so crazy on the lack of free speech and everything that it needed to happen so I think you're right. I think there's a real chance for them to have a revival as well. And wouldn't it be great for those two allies to do that together? I'm just emphasizing that we're allies now since I was derogatory. Even red coats can come to Jesus. All right, folks. Thanks so much for listening. It's been a great good news Friday. Thank you guys for tracking down all that good news for us. Everybody have a great weekend and we'll look forward to some more good programming next week. You've been listening to the WallBuilder Show.