Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of Faith and Culture. It's Friday. It's good news Friday. Always loving those. And David and Tim have been gathering some good news stories for us over the last few weeks and months. I'm Rick Green here with David and Tim. And you can find out more about us at our websites, wallbuilders.com and wallbuilders.show. Wallbuilders.com for all that Christmas shopping you need to be doing. I know it's getting close, man. It's last minute. If you haven't gotten the wall builders catalog, all kinds of cool new stuff in there as well from shirts. And I just saw in the email, guys, y'all have an amazing 250th mug, the perfect Christmas present for patriotic people. So anyway, check all that out at wallbuilders.com. And then for the radio program, if you missed any of our shows this week or last week, or even a few weeks before, you can go to wallbuilders.show and catch up on those. Without any further ado, guys, let's jump into some good news. David, what's tee? What are you teeing up for us first? 

David Barton [00:00:52] Well, I was thinking about today's program and I don't know, I gotta blame you guys for some stuff. I think you're influencing me to do some backsliding here and it's not very good. I mean, we're ten days from Christmas, fifteen days whatever. And there's been no Christmas music yet. 

Rick Green [00:01:10] I was just telling the students at Patriot Academy last night at our Christmas party, we are way behind according to the David Barton calendar. We should have had this place decorated and playing Christmas music in July. And then I realized we ha I thought the exact same thing, David. I was thinking, you know what? David hasn't played any Christmas music this year. 

David Barton [00:01:28] The only time the only time I've done it is making fun of you guys when we have a Christmas story in July or something. But I mean we're deep into this thing. I don't know. I'm gonna have to repent or something. There's some backsliding going on I'll blame it on you guys. 

Rick Green [00:01:41] Yeah, Ba Humbug. You're like the Grinch this year, I guess. I don't know, since you didn't bring all the Christmas music. 

David Barton [00:01:47] Well, I I'll make up for it starting January first. 

Rick Green [00:01:50] Yeah, compared to previous years as well, you know, it's all relative, right? Yeah. Yeah. We'll get producer Justin to start playing some this neck this week then. 

David Barton [00:01:58] So my first story deals with Christmas and it deals with Christmas in Washington, D.C. It deals with Christmas at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The Kennedy Center for the last several years, many years, has become a very exceptionally woke center for performing arts. It has really become the hotbed of absolute secular progressivism, and there's been nothing there of worth. And that's why from the beginning, Trump, when he got in, said we've had it. We're gonna make this a child-friendly place instead of doing all the drag show kind of stuff. And can you imagine a Kennedy Center, such a performing arts center being used so violent, quite frankly, in such an offensive manner for most taxpayers. Maybe there's you know, 2%, 5%, 8% of Americans who might approve of what was going on, but not most of us, there were taxpayers. And so Trump said he put himself on the board. He said he's gonna personally run Kennedy Center if he has to. But the change is this headline, Kennedy Center to host Christmas concert featuring live nativity scene and Bible readings. That's something you haven't seen in Kennedy Center in years and years and years and years. And the Kennedy Center is hosting a Christmas concert featuring performances of a prominent Christian musicians, along with readings from the Bible and a live nativity scene called Noel, Jesus is born. It'll be held at the Kennedy Center Opera House at 7:30 p.m. On December the seventeenth. With musical performances by Charles Billingsley and his Yule Tide Orchestra as well as Matthew West. And on he goes, and Billingsley, by the way, I don't know how many commendations he has. He's headlined to more than 3,200 concerts. He's actually the teaching pastor at Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg. So great musician, and he's the teaching pastor there where Jerry Fell Falwell used to pastor kind of the home church for Liberty University. But having that quality of person and character and individual and musician, and having a live nativity scene and inviting all the kids to come, this is a real turnaround and it's really good news. 

Tim Barton [00:04:05] Well that's happening . Next week. And we are not planning on being in DC by the grace of God. We are largely done traveling, although I think next week we're probably gonna be out at the Turning Point, the AmeriFest event. However, generally speaking, we're mostly done traveling for the year, but it would be Kai's, it'd be kind of cool to go up to the Kennedy Center in DC to be part of that that Christmas concert. And actually, Dad, I looked on the Kennedy Center website and they're doing multiple different Christmas things, not all overly religious, but there were some. However, this is a great example of some of that tone shift and change. And a welcome change. I was gonna say a welcome transition, and that that might have been like a little a little too close to home. 

Rick Green [00:04:48] It's a detransition. 

Tim Barton [00:04:49] That's what it was. Yeah. The de-transitioning from the initial transition. Yeah, however that goes. But man, that is really great to see and one of the really impressive concert halls for there to be a moment that that God is honored and Jesus is celebrated. That's great. 

Rick Green [00:05:07] You know what, David, you framed it correctly in in that i it's such a big shift, such a big change. The contrast of what it was before, what it is now, in the same way, I don't know if y'all saw the video of the Christmas, the Christmas video from the Autopen Joe Biden administration last year that was just a freak show. They compared that to this year's, you know, video that's just so classy and the whole, you know, just beautiful Christmas trees and the White House and its Melania show and just what a difference, man. The contrast is stark.  

Tim Barton [00:05:42] Yes. Speaking of de-transitioning, that's the White House video. The Biden video, you're like, I'm pretty sure somebody transitioned in that one. And then you watch this one, you're like, oh no, we detransition. We're back to honorable, more timely, traditional, and ultimately more godly things. It really is refreshing.. 

Rick Green [00:06:01] Refreshing. Yeah. It was classy and family friendly. That's an important part of it as well. Tim, how about you, man? First piece of good news for today. 

Tim Barton [00:06:11] Well, this one's staying in D C this happened last week. That a federal appeals court lifted a block on President Trump's deployment of National Guard troops in Washington on Thursday, which of course, after there was the horrific targeting and shooting of the two individuals, and the 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom died after again, this just vile targeting of these two guardsmen that were up there. There was a judge who said, Yeah, y'all shouldn't really be here anyway. And you know, guys, obviously on Good News Friday, we are wanting to highlight and celebrate all of the good things that are happening around the nation. But I do want to point out there's gonna be some celebration, but the fact that the news media is still villainizing in so many ways the guardsmen that are going and ICE, right? That literally ICE is targeting people that have been violent criminals that have been offenders, or that like some of the people they are targeting that they had removal orders for decades, literally like decades. Now, some of them five years, 10 years, but there was one that was like in 2004, there was a removal order, and this person's been here illegally for more than 20 years. And at this point, the media is talking about how vile ICE is because they they're actually trying to enforce laws to protect American citizens. Well, of course, that's what Trump has deployed the National Guard in multiple locations for. And there was a judge that came out and said, Oh, yeah, you can't do that. Now, again, the good news is last week there was a federal appeals court that lifted the block of the deployment of the National Guard in DC. And part of what Abigail Jackson, who is the White House deputy press secretary said, she says is we've always maintained the president exercises lawful authority to deploy the National Guard to DC as we look forward to ultimate vindication on the issue. Now, the fact that she points out the president exercised lawful authority to deploy the National Guard in DC, guys. I know for states in general that you can't deploy the National Guard if the governor or in some cases, maybe a mayor, if they don't ask for us, and usually it's the governor, if they don't ask for assistance, and actually back up, it can't be the state legislature too. The state legislature is not in session, and the governor can do it. So there has to be a state invitation to some extent. Where there were exceptions is where in in some cities the local law enforcement was more or less told to stand down, and some of the federal buildings were being targeted and they were not getting local law enforcement help. And so, Trump sent in the National Guard to protect federal buildings and ICE facilities, not necessarily patrolling the whole city, whereas in DC, it’s a little bit more of protecting and preserving kind of the nation's capital and some of the surrounding area. But all that to say, what's interesting about this whole challenge in the first place is Washington, DC is a federal territory. So, there is no governor to ask. There's no state legislature that would need to give him permission. This still falls under the purview. And guys, I'm saying this very adamantly, but I'm also gonna open it up if you have any thoughts or correction on this. But it seems like this is obvious to me that the president has authority to deploy the National Guard in DC if needed. Now, not that there's not a mayor in DC, because there is, but you don't need the mayor's authority if this is a federal territory and you are the chief of the executive branch. That doesn't seem like something that should have been challenged in the first place. What do you guys think?

David Barton [00:09:47] Well, it goes back to an act passed in the nineteen sixties, because prior to the nineteen sixties, the president was the boss over Washington, DC, which is why Thomas Jefferson, the first president to have a full term in the White House, was the president of the Washington, DC school board. So, if you can imagine being president of the United States, at the same time your president of the local school board, that's because it's a federal city. That's why it's not allowed to become a state. It can't become the 51st state unless there's a constitutional amendment because it's under federal control. Now in the 60s, they said, okay, we're gonna let you have local elections, you can have a mayor, but we still get final authority. Congress can override any measure passed in Washington, DC by the mayor, by the city council. So, it all comes back to federal control of that city and federal control of that city, and this is one of the things that that's getting really kind of irritating to me at a very high level, is you have federal judges all over the United States telling the president what he can and can't do as the president of the United States. And that's definitely not the role of the judiciary, is to run the federal government. And when you get a local federal judge telling the president of the United States what he's gonna do in the nation, that is just unacceptable. So, the whole thing, I think, is completely out of shape. For anybody that knows history or has read the Constitution, and that doesn't mean, you know, that you spent you're studying it. You just read the Constitution. It's pretty clear the president’s in charge of the federal city, and that's not what we're seeing happen, except Tim, as you point out, the good news is. The judge has now given that power back to Trump which should never have been taken in the first place. 

Tim Barton [00:11:23] Well and especially too to consider the fact that Trump had declared a crime emergency in DC. And then remember, we talked for weeks. Every good news Friday for weeks, it was like, hey guys, guess what? There's been no murders in DC. And DC was one of the extremely like dangerous high murder rate places in America. And lo and behold, when you start enforcing laws, when you start having a law enforcement presence and law enforcement being relative because he was National Guard, but a legal security presence, it made a difference. And after the targeting of the two guardsmen on November 26th, it was actually hours after that November 26th shooting that U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, he ordered 500 more troops to the district. And this is part of also what led to the challenge, where there was a judge who said, oh, yeah, you can't do that. In fact, get all the troops out of here. The good news is like Pete Hegseth came back and said, this will only stiffen our resolve to make sure that we make DC safe and beautiful. And he was saying after those two guardsmen were targeted, that this is not going to make them stand down. This is strengthening their resolve. So I think that there's good news to me on multiple fronts. First of all, that there was a federal appeals court that removed the lower court judge's decision saying you have to remove the troops and recognizing the president has lawful right to do this. That's the first piece of good news. But also, then when you see the resolve of people like Secretary of War Pete Hegseth saying, we’re not backing down. Right, just because somebody has illegally entered the country or you know, some of the dynamics about some of these targeted or these individuals who are targeting and murdering and doing so much of this criminal activity, he said, We're not gonna be intimidated by some of these bad people that are a nation. We're gonna keep up holding the law and keeping Americans safe. Again, that this is like a bonus piece of good news. That to me is really encouraging. 

Rick Green [00:13:17] Yeah, Tim, just to put an exclamation point on what you said, it is like DC is an easy case. You got these other places around the country where you definitely have certain situations where the president can go in. We've had, you know, 20 different instances of this with a dozen different presidents doing invoking the insurrection acts all the way back to George Washington even doing that. But in this case, we're not even dealing with that as much as we're dealing with its federal authority. And David, you're so right, man. I think it was 72 or 73. It was the Home Rule Act, and it set up the DC government like it is now, but it definitely left some triggers in that legislation where the president could step in or Congress could step in. And of course, they've kind of been kicked around and changed over time. A hundred years before that, it was the Incorporation Act of 1871, which a lot of people out there think incorporated the United States. It didn't. It was literally having to do with how to set up D.C. And but it is the most importantly, all the way a hundred years before that, is the Constitution itself, right? The Constitution gives this territory to Congress. They are responsible for it. And so, the fact that they've delegated that to a city government, they did not prevent themselves from being able to step back in or prevent the federal government from being able to step back in or the president from being able to step back in. So, I think he's got a stronger case there to be doing this than anywhere, but I do think he has a pretty good case, even without a governor or legislature, based on the insurrection acts that have been passed over the years, the guarantee clause of Article 4, Section Four. There's a lot of new, not a lot of different pieces that he can drop on here. And they've been they've, you know, we I think we've all been surprised at how solid the administration has been in terms of backing up their executive orders with the history and the constitution and just not they're not flying by the seat of their pants when they do these things. They really go in well prepared. That's why they tend to win most of these challenges once they get it up to at least an appellate court, if not the Supreme Court. We definitely had a lot of rogue district judges out there that will rule against them just for pure politics, but they've been usually winning as they get on up to the to the Supreme Court. So anyway, good's good stuff, guys. This is you know, I totally agree. Good news and Tim, you made the point that really matters most. The results. Man, I mean, even the mayor was talking about how great it was to go so many days without a murder in Washington, DC. I think a lot of cities across the US are would benefit greatly from this kind of intervention, even though we're not normally for federal invention intervention. Okay, we've got to take a quick break. We'll be right back. We've got more good news, folks. We'll be right back. You're listening to the WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:16:48] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. It's Good News Friday. Jumping back over to David's side of the table. What do we got, bro? 

David Barton [00:16:53] In our very polarized U.S. Congress that we have, and that's the House and the Senate, where that you cannot get much done at all in either body, what measure can you get all of the Republicans in the House and eighty-six Democrats in the House to agree on? 

Tim Barton [00:17:10] Well, if I didn't know the answer, I would have no idea what you are asking.

Rick Green [00:17:16] All right, Rick, it's on you. Do you know the answer? Man, I was I was looking for some cricket sounds. I wow, no idea. 

Tim Barton [00:17:23] Hey Rick, what is what's bad? Like very, very bad. 

Rick Green [00:17:26] Yeah. Oh, wait, socialism? Seriously? Seriously. And what percentage of the Democrats did you say went with us on that? 

David Barton [00:17:33] Eighty-six Democrats joined all the Republicans in the House to pass a resolution denouncing the quote the horrors of socialism. 

Rick Green [00:17:42] Which means over half the Democrats didn't denounce socialism. But I get your point. It's good news that we got that many of 'em, right? 

David Barton [00:17:49] Well it's amazing they signed on to it because their party certainly is the socialist party of sure, but they've signed on to it. And it's really cool because the resolution, I mean, it it covers a lot of history, goes through all these different socialist regimes and how bad it's been and how many people have lost their life and what it does for economics. But it also what's really cool is it quotes the founding fathers. Two of the founding fathers quotes I love and this and that were in the resolution. Thomas Jefferson said to take from one because his thought that his own hard work and that of his fathers has acquired too much in order to spare to others who whose fathers have not exercised equal hard work and skill is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, which is the guarantee to everyone of a free exercise of his hard work and the fruits acquired by it. So Jefferson, that's as clear as you can say about socialism. To take from somebody who's very successful and give it to somebody who's not simply because you think everything should be equal. It violates the principle of association, the guarantee of hard work, everything. And they've got a similar quote from Madison. So, it's just great. The founding fathers have made a reappearance in Congress, and you have eighty-six of the Democrats who agreed with the Founding Fathers, which pretty wild. And they agree with the founding fathers that socialism is a bad deal. Now, if we could get that taught in schools across America, that'd be the next step. 

Rick Green [00:19:10] I was thinking the same thing, man. 

David Barton [00:19:12] But it's a great start. That that's a good piece of news. I would never have guessed eighty-six Democrats would jump on anything that said socialism Democrats at the national level, at the federal level. Maybe some state guys, but at the federal level, this is shocking. It's great news. 

Rick Green [00:19:29] Yeah. Definitely. Moving in the right direction, like you said, let's start teaching that in the schools for sure. Tim. What's the next man?

Tim Barton [00:19:34] Well, this one, Dad, I think you're gonna have a good add-on. So I'm gonna tell you don't need to look at the rest of your notes right now. Because my headline is US military becoming more religious as nation remains more secular. Now, I'm gonna go through the study, but at the end of this study, you actually had a chance earlier this week to testify at a commission, which was super cool, really good news. And highlighting some of the history of religious faith in the military, which I think is totally worth you sharing some of those thoughts. You don't have to give the whole testimony. We probably don't have enough time left on the show for that, but such cool stuff. Now, let me back up with this article, Dad, before I finish and toss to you. Again, the headline is identifying the U.S. Military is becoming more religious as the nation is becoming more secular. The professor who was behind this, Ryan Burge, is a professor at the John C. Dan Forth Center at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. That was a whole bunch of words, but he led a study about faith in the military in America. And what he found was that 45% of military respondents surveyed from 2022 to 2024 attend church at least weekly. That that's nearly half of the military that is going to church every week. Now, he also looked at US citizens. And this is I'm reading you the findings from twenty-two through twenty-four, but he goes back from 2010 and kind of tracks it forward in the whole study. But in '22 and '24, now again, forty-five percent of military respondents said they attend church at least once a week. What do you think the percentage is for the rest of American civilian population? What percentage attends church every week? 

David Barton [00:21:28] Every week I'm gonna say twenty three percent. I'm just gonna choose a number. One fourth maybe. 

Speaker 4 [00:21:33] I feel like you read this article because Rick don't even bother. Oh, is that it? I got it. Twenty three percent was correct.

Rick Green [00:21:40] I gotta see how I'm gonna I'm gonna say twenty-three point zero one. So, was it was it any more than that or should I say twenty- two point nine? I'm doing the prices right here. I've tried to get just below or just above. 

Tim Barton [00:21:54] No, it was twenty-three. Now I mean granted,. 

David Barton [00:21:55] Was it really twenty-three? 

Tim Barton [00:21:56] Here's the deal. 

David Barton [00:21:57] I love it. 

[00:21:58] Like, I'm reading the synopsis of this article. If we had the breakdown of this data, Rick, we might have a better chance. But. 

Rick Green [00:22:06] I'm gonna go look it up. That's it. I'm going 

Tim Barton [00:22:11] It's 23%. And one of the things he points out in this is that people might look and go, well, yeah, wait a second. You know, age demographic. He said, No. We compared only 18-year-old to 45-year-olds in both samples. He said there's really two things, noteworthy findings here. Number one, military folk have always been more religious, religiously active than other Americans. So, it's interesting. There's always been a higher rate of devout religious military individuals than traditional civilians. And the devotion of military members has gone up while the rest of the population has secularized. So, it used to be, he points out that the percentage was much closer, but most of America, it's declining, in the military, it's increasing. So, we are having more devout faith in the military while most of the nation is becoming more secular, the military is becoming more devout and religious. And Dad, I don't want to take more time because I do want to toss to you because earlier in the week you had a chance to go before the religious liberty commission, commissioned by Trump, right? And he put Dan Patrick, our lieutenant governor of Texas as the head of that commission, and then friends like Kelly Shackelford and I think Franklin Graham was on the commission, Dr. Ben Carson, a lot of noted people on that commission. And you had a chance to go testify about some of the history of faith in the military and how that has been changed, and really faith has been targeted. Over more recent decades and certainly under certain presidents more than others, where they were trying to extinguish and remove faith from the military. And we now have a president who is far more receptive to restoring some of that. And you gotta just go testify on some of the history and tradition. And in the last minute or two, fill us in on what you got to share with the panel. 

David Barton [00:24:00] Yeah, it was really interesting because they're looking at really the way religion is treated in the military or has been treated, and there's so many guys who have been targeted because of their faith, driven out of the military, have lost the benefits they had, their insurance, whatever else. And so, the testimonies about that, and so I said, all right, if we want to know what is not acceptable in the military, let's go back and look at what used to be acceptable. And so, I went from George Washington all the way up through President Obama, showing the religious activities that were common in the military. I mean, church services, the chaplains were really important, getting Bibles, having prayer time, the Patton prayer card where he had the entire Third Army pray the prayer that was written on that prayer card, which turned the battle to bulge. And today we're having guys, but we showed that it particularly changed under Obama. Under Obama, he did virtually everything he could to drive religion out of the military. They wanted to get rid of all chaplains, they wanted to outsource chaplains, make that a hired contractor, not deploy chaplains when guys went downrange. They cut off dog tags that had Bible verses on them, and any kind of private supply of that the sites they had been using for decades, some of them had Bible verses imprinted on the sides. They wouldn't let 'em use those scopes or sites anymore. And it just got really, really hostile. If you're visiting an Air Force base, no longer would you have a Bible available in the Air Force hotel, just like the Gideons put it in so many other hotels. So, we just went through and documented how bad it was. And already we've heard that that President Trump was given some of that specific information and has made it clear he's going to make specific reversals back to pre-Obama days, which is great. 

Tim Barton [00:25:38] And Dad, to reiterate you didn't just show how bad it was, you showed how positive it used to be, how much faith was a normal part of the foundation, not just of America, but even of the military, and how that's been removed. But now again, because not just of your testimony, but largely because of your testimony, some of that information is already making its way to President Trump. And President Trump is already saying we're going to change and fix some of this going forward. 

David Barton [00:26:03] Yeah, the other cool part was we were able to take so many of the original artifacts, artifacts from the revolution, religion of the military, artifacts from the War of eighteen twelve and the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and when those military folks saw those artifacts, it's so cemented in them how it used to be and how different it is today. 

Rick Green [00:26:23] Man, that really is God's timing that that over the last you know 30 years you've been collecting all of those things, and even in the last 15 or 20, more and more of the of the military artifact, especially World War II. And so very cool that God used that in this particular instance. So great news, guys. Thank you all for sharing so much good news with us. Folks have a fantastic weekend. We'll have some great interviews for you next week, and we appreciate you listening to the WallBuilders Show.