Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. Thanks for joining us today on the WallBuilders Show, taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton, lots to get to today. Of course, day after primary elections and in Texas, Arkansas, and North Carolina. And then of course, lots of news out of the middle East as well. So we'll try to get all of it guys. First and foremost, of course update on, on Iran could continue to take out a lot of their military infrastructure, apparently a lot of the, I don't know if you call them political leadership or clerical leadership that was going to choose the next leader. That's a big deal. 

David Barton [00:00:49] Rick, you don't have to repeat yourself. You said political and clerical. 

Rick Green [00:00:49] For them. 

David Barton [00:00:50] It's, it's Iran. They do have a theocracy. Don't repeat yourself. 

Rick Green [00:00:54] And that seems like a rejection of the whole package, right? Like it's basically saying it would be like saying in America, there's no Democrats left or there's, no Republicans. Like they're going to wipe out that whole Islamic regime so that they don't end up with that theocracy that you just mentioned. 

David Barton [00:01:10] Well, it's interesting. I think what Trump is doing is; we're allowing you, you people, to choose a complete reset if you want to. You can go back to pre-1979 when Iran was a democratic country by and large, when they were part of the Western allies. And so what we're going to do is you have an institution that has been framed against you to never let you have power. We're going give you a chance to see if you want to keep that institution or if you want to do something different. I think that's the big choice they have. 

Tim Barton [00:01:40] Well, guys, one of the things too that's worth pointing out. I had a conversation with Bill Federer, actually he's in the podcast, the American Story podcast released today. And he was explaining part of why this is significant is because part of the Islamic belief system, certainly they believe in the Caliphate, but part of what they believe is what ushers in the end times for them.... In Christians, there's end times theology. The eschatology of the end times, there's a lot of thoughts what that looks like in Christian circles. Well, Muslims have beliefs about end times as well, but for Muslims, their end time belief is that when the next world war breaks out, that there is this 12th Imam who's like 1200 years old, been living in a cave, he's going to come out and he is going to, in essence, be the voice of sanity in the world. And we actually might like refer to that as like the antichrist kind of thoughts where, it's going to come and there's going to be one world order. And this is part of their end game very intentionally. And because there are extremists who believe that in order for the end times to come and ultimately then a lot of their belief and prophecies to be fulfilled there needs to be a world war. Why that matters is is this is the predominant belief in Iran. And so, when, when people talk about Iran getting a nuclear weapon, there are some people in America who might go, wait a second, we, we don't care what Iran does, let Iran be Iran. And it shouldn't be a problem if, you know, Iran has a nuclear weapon because China does and Russia does et cetera, etc. Why this is so different, and I think it's probably something that somebody in President Trump's administration understood well enough to go, hey, what we were dealing with is not just that they were trying to build a nuclear weapon, but they have brought great clarity for the last 40 or 50 years in explaining their view of America as we're the great Satan, Israel's the little Satan. Why? Because we are the two strongest leading voices that are leading in an opposite direction of Islam. And because of that, we are, the problem, we need to go, et cetera, et cetera, etc. Why all of that matters in context is because it makes complete sense on so many levels that what President Trump did by preventing them from getting a nuclear weapon, and then the idea that we're going to preemptively strike before they launch all these ballistic missiles at America and Israel. It's very reasonable when part of their worldview and ideology is we want World War III. Cause that's what's going to bring out this 12th Imam who's been hiding away in a cave and finally this like messiah figure is going, for them it's like a Christ figure. It's like for us as Christians, we believe Jesus will return. They believe that this 12th Imam is going to return and again, we would call that like an anti-Christ figure, but for them, it's something that is a savior for them and it comes only through World War III. All of this matters in a worldview context, we're not just having conversations about geopolitics, it's not just important to understand maybe some of the history of Iran, but specifically the worldview of the Shiite aggressive Muslims in Iran and why they are intentionally trying to cause trouble and drama. Why has Iran been funding the number one funder of terrorists around the world? Why are they funding all these bad groups attacking Christians and nations around the world because they actually want World War III, that they're going for this. Which also then is interesting that they've been siding with China and Russia and North Korea and some of these other nations, right? They want to destabilize the West; they want to bring in a war that will usher in the 12th Imam to come and be their Messiah Savior figure etc. So, guys, I think in the midst of the conversation, all of this matters too. And I know I'm, I'm probably, if Bill Federer was listening right now, he'd be like, Tim, you're mostly correct. Let me clarify. Fortunately, he was with me on the American story podcast. And so people can jump over to YouTube or Spotify, wherever else, and listen to him explain this in greater detail. But this does matter for our conversation that a lot of times in the American perspective, we're analyzing behavior, maybe from a political, a geopolitical, an economic perspective, not recognizing that for some groups, and specifically the Shiite Muslims, they have a very, very different motivation for a lot of what they do. 

David Barton [00:06:22] You know, and obviously people's theology affects the way they do everything. That affects their government, affects their education, it affects their behavior. There's no way around that. And if you have no theology, that affects you too. So your world, your belief is what's there. And it's interesting that when you look at Iran, they have a kind of process of secession. I mean, their Ayatollah is now gone, been there 37 years. And these surgical strikes have taken out most of the leadership. It took out definitely it right up front, they took out the military leadership. The first day, there were seven of the cabinet members gone, the military cabinet members, and so all those guys are disappearing. But it's interesting and I, I mean, this kind of sounds strange, but Iran has a constitution and the constitution stipulates how their governments to operate. It's not a constitution, anything like should, when you hear constitution you know, we kind of default to Western constitutions. They have one and just to go over some of what they've got here. If the Ayatollah is killed, then they have a leadership council. And that leadership council is three people and those three people come in and they, under the constitution, they assume temporary leadership. And then what they do with that is they have an 88-member panel and it's this kind of what we would call a legislature and they're elected for eight-year terms. And those elected eight-year terms, they will be the one to choose the new president. Now, interesting, the 88 that are elected are all clerics. You have to be a Muslim cleric, you have to a Muslim theologian, and you have be not a Sunni, but you have to be Shia, and so a Shia Muslim, and so what, I mean, this is complete theocracy. You have the only people that can vote to choose your leader are theologians, if you will. They're Shia clerics, and so they will choose the next Ayatollah, the next leader of Iran. And so what happens is when you take out the 88 members that are elected, we take out all the leaders; hey people, you have your choice. You can do anything you want to know. You can move in the direction you want. Now, if you guys choose to go back to oppression and whatever, that's fine. And if they do, you know, nobody wants them to do that. Trump doesn't want them to that. But the thing is now because you have a complete leadership change, because you really have cut off the head of the snake, they don't have the people there that can go in and continue their nuclear program. Because even after Trump took out that nuclear program with all those precision strikes that we marveled about back in that quick war, they have since then started accumulating all the assets again to rebuild their nuclear programs. And Tim, as you pointed out, it's a theological belief. They have to bring in the Twelfth Imam. And to do that, they have to have a global war and he'll come out and finish that war and bring peace and everybody be a Muslim and everybody else be killed. So their theological belief dictates that they have that they need that nuclear weapon to be able to bring what they see as the reign of peace. But then they don't have anybody that represents the people. They have people that represent only the theology they've got. And again, this is where the Judeo-Christian biblical belief brings freedom and individuality and so many other things. Where this is exactly opposite. It brings oppression, it brings death. It brings death to nations all over the place. So that's why I really say Trump has given them an opportunity. They can hit the reset button if they want to. And there have been certainly a lot of people in the streets since this has started. There's a lot people out now. On the other side, it's made a lot of the Shias really angry. That's why they've attacked consulates across the Middle East, attacked the United States consulates across the Middle East. And Pakistan and elsewhere. And if you haven't seen the Marines have done a really good job at defending these embassies, which they're assigned to do that, that's their duty posts. And so, we have been able to withstand all these attacks but all these radical Shias are going after US consulates because, you know, again, theology drives what they do. And so, for people who think all religions are equal or there's no difference between Muslims and Christians and Jews. No, that means you really don't understand history and you really don't, understand the beliefs of those groups. And its strike striking to me that the Democrats who keep crying separation church and state to keep Christian and Jewish principles out, that doesn't bother them to have Muslims running stuff. I, you know, it's like that's where you would really want separation church and stay was with Muslims. If they're going to, if they're gonna use nuclear forces and weapons and everything else, why don't you have Separation of Church and State there and Democrats are just so crazy on this, the very things they claim they want, they do exactly the opposite of it. And so, they join up with Muslim forces that have this theocracy kind of mentality and they want the whole world to be run by theocracy. So that's, that's why I think what's going on in Iran right now is significant. Trump has said it's going to be at least another week of surgical strikes before they get done, what they want taking out all these. Because even now they're still firing off missiles, like there's no shortage of missiles. I mean, Iran had so many missiles stockpiled and so much set aside and they're still attacking other nations, attacking surrounding nations, attacking military bases, attacking assets across the world. So, it's, it's a really great opportunity for a kind of peace we haven't had since 1979, and this has been the leading perpetrator of that problem across the world. We even talked yesterday how that these are the guys funding Hamas and Hezbollah and all these other places we see these attacks, it's really all coming out of Iran. So, if there can be a reset in Iran, we're gonna see a different world at least for a while. 

Rick Green [00:12:17] Yeah, as we're going to break, we'll come back and talk about some of the election results, a great segue from Iran and everything that you guys just said to the election results is prop 10 in the Texas Republican primary, which is essentially just a poll of Republican primary voters. But we've talked about it here on the program quite a bit is to, you know that Texas should not have Sharia law, prevent Sharia law. And it's looking like maybe the highest number I've ever seen on a proposition, 95%. So, you know, who knows if it, it, the impact that it has on the public servants, right? That's the whole idea. It's not the force of law, but can it force law? Can it, can it say to all Republican officials, 95% of Republicans in Texas? I don't know who these 5% are, but 95% percent of Texans say no Sharia law in, in Texas. So when we come back, we'll talk about some of the other elections, but thought that was an interesting way to finish our Iran conversation. Quick break. We'll be right back. You're listening to the WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:13:11] Welcome back. Thanks for staying with us here on the WallBuilders Show. Day after the election and two days after Texas Independence celebration, right? So it's March 4th today, guys. We didn't we didn't read William Barrett Travis's letter Monday. We should have that's, you know, for all of our non-Texas listeners, you just need to know there's only two kinds of people, Texans and those that want to be Texans. So ok, now that they're all upset with us, let's talk elections that were in Texas, guys, and also Arkansas and North Carolina. Any big surprises to you all from last night? 

David Barton [00:14:46] I don't think there were necessarily any big surprises. I mean, there was nothing to really keep you awake necessarily in Arkansas. Everything in Arkansas pretty much went according to what was expected. Sarah Huckabee Sanders had no opposition and that's how well she's doing. There, there were a couple on the Democrat side, but they recognize them as sacrificial lambs. I think in the last election. 81% of the counties in Arkansas voted Republican. So, if you're a Democrat in Arkansas right now, your kind of out there with the dinosaurs that they're excavating in other places. So not a whole lot of excitement in Arkansas last night. 

Tim Barton [00:15:27] Well, and Dad, I would say specifically when it comes to the congressional races or the Senate races, because obviously there's in the state, there's some state house, state Senate, Democrats from little rock or, you know, some other big city, Fayetteville, maybe. But as far, yeah, we were joking about it when we were doing news coverage last night, not only that we were able to call races like governor Sanders race very early, like before they released polls, cause she ran alone, but even Tom Cotton, who a couple of challengers and, you know, God bless them, nothing against him challenging him, but when you have a senator who is so well-liked, like in Arkansas, or who has such good name recognition, you're not going to do well in a primary against him, number one. Number two, if you're the Democrat challenger, Dad, as you point out, you are not going to win in that state. And this is a little different than if you contrast it with Texas, where now we know that Senator Cornyn, the current U.S. Senator from Texas, and Ken Paxton who was the attorney general are going into a runoff. And this is going to be interesting for different reasons. John Cornyn has a long track record of voting overall, overwhelmingly conservative in his voting record, but he's not a guy that you've seen take the lead on any conservative fight in years, if not more than a decade. Whereas Ken Paxton, he's the guy who's been looking to pick fights and he's been a fighter. And so in a lot of ways, he's more representative of what Texans largely care about. But the challenge is, as I heard somebody say jokingly and not incorrect, Ken Paxton has a train load of baggage. And so, then the challenge of Ken Paxten, if, if he won the runoff going up against James Tallarico, who is a very smooth communicator, who is a, identifies as a pastor, I say that not jokingly and lightly. 

David Barton [00:17:30] Tim, before you go further, since we haven't introduced Tallarico, he's the Democrat nominee and Tallarico is, will be running against Cornyn as a Democrat. So, we were talking Republican for anybody who didn't catch that transition. 

Tim Barton [00:17:43] And so James Tallarico won the Democrat primary to run for the Senator of Texas. And he would have to run against whoever wins the runoff between the current Senator John Cornyn and Ken Paxton. And I know for many people we are getting in the weeds here and you're probably like, why are we talking about this? Why does it matter? Only because of some of the ideology and understanding a little bit of the inside of politics. So John Cornyn is not a fighter, but votes overwhelmingly conservative. Even though he's kind of, it's almost like a bandwagon fan to some extent. Like he's just on along for the ride, really enjoying it. And, and, and John Cornyn had been someone that two decades, three decades ago, he was known as a fighter. He's not known as that anymore. Ken Paxson known as the fighter, but has crazy amounts of baggage, legitimate baggage, but he is a fighter Well, whoever wins that Republican ticket... They would have to go up against a Democrat, James Tallarico, who in reality is a pastor, but he is a woke pastor who is on the side of the DEI, the LGBTQIA, R2D2, whatever movement they are. 

Rick Green [00:18:58] And and very good at twisting scripture, right, like this the guy that went on rogan a lot of people have seen clips of him on was it Colbert or whoever he's all over the place so the democrats love the fact that he gets up and claims to be you know actually fighting for the bible when he's totally doing anti-biblical positions. 

Tim Barton [00:19:15] And he woke shames Christians who actually believe that there's male and female who believe in gender, who don't want to mutilate the bodies of children. I mean, et cetera. But the reason it matters is because if you have a guy like James Tallarico, he's a little bit of an Obama in the sense of like president Obama, but Barack Obama was a very smooth communicator and he, he came across as very likable. James Tallarico is the exact same way. And so, if you have a candidate who appears to be very likable, even though they hold crazy views, for so many of the average voters who don't pay attention. And they see, for example, if, if Ken Paxton won and they see legitimate baggage coming from Ken Paxton against a very smooth guy, well, then they might go, well this guy isn't nearly as crazy or doesn't have as much baggage, et cetera, even though he actually is kind of crazy. I'm saying all of that because it does make a difference when you get into the primaries now that you're having to some level. I think we talked about this some yesterday from Exodus 18:21, where you choose able men that fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness, this and the able part is significant. There's some people that are not competent to hold office or there's some people that aren't capable of being elected. So that able can be a factor. And so now this is, this is something that as you get into primaries or get into runoffs. You want to vote for the best candidate, but part of what makes someone the best candidate is the fact that they can win to further promote those values. And that's part of, to me, some of the interesting things we saw coming from Texas, not just interesting where voters voted, but also what that means going forward, because then for potentially the new attorney general, you have another runoff between Mays Middleton and Chip Roy, both of them overall pretty good guys, both in different personalities, different styles, et cetera. And, and I know we're way in the weeds of politics now, but this is why for everybody, whatever state you're in, you're going to have primaries and possibly you're gonna have runoffs. And we want to be wise in, in how we engage in this system. We want to make sure we vote for the best candidate, but certainly people that fall in those capable men, men of truth, hating covetousness that fear God. We want those kinds of people to be our leaders. 

Rick Green [00:21:38] And primaries tend to be the best place to kind of prune a little bit. Right. And we get to be more, more picky in the, in the primary. So, it's just so important for everybody to vote the turnout. David, are you surprised that the turnout I noticed in my home county, it was like 33%, but this is, I'm in a pretty red county. Um, so that seemed high to me, but, but I know we're like an 80% county where I live. And I don't know that I saw the number statewide for Texas, but it just seems like... getting Christians to show up and vote, not just in November, when now you're down to only two candidates in most states that, and sometimes they're not what could have been a better option in the primary, you know, if you show up in the primary, if he showed up in the primary you're kind of getting in the kitchen and preparing all the desserts that everybody else will choose from on the table later, rather than just complaining that you didn't get the, you know gooey, chewy chocolate chip cookies when you showed up at the party. It's really the best way to be involved. 

David Barton [00:22:36] Yeah, I mean, we're using analogies. And so chocolate chip cookies, I got, I go totally. And part of it, even the way I explain it is if you just vote in the general election, the car dealer, you go to a car dealership and say, I want to buy a car. And he says, I've got you two choices here. Which one do you want? And you get those two choices. If you'd shown up in the primaries, you could actually go back in the garage and choose any of the cars back in garage as one of the two he brings forward. And so if you'd just show up and say I want a new car and he says here's the two you've got. That's not many choices, it could be between good and bad, it could between bad and worse, could be good and better. But if you get involved in the primary, you get to help choose what's gonna come out on the floor of the car dealership to be bought later. And that's where it becomes significant. And that where you can really have more impact because generally in the general election about 60%, 60% of folks will vote in that election. In the primary election, you're down around 25 to 30%. So every vote you cast is like casting two or three or has the strength of two or in the general election because so many fewer people vote. And so this is where you can really help. If you keep saying there's no difference between the two parties, all the candidates are alike, that's because you're not voting in the primaries and you're helping choose the candidates that make it to the end. You're just waiting for the car dealer to roll out the two choices you've got. So starting last night we started the primary season and for the next few Tuesdays, every, every Tuesday or so there's going to be some states having primaries, then it kind of lets up for a little bit in the last half of April, but starting in May and June, it gets really busy again with state primaries. And, and some, some weeks that we had three states last night, when we get in May in June, there's gonna be sometimes five and six states a week. And so definitely get involved in primaries If you, if you don't know who the candidates are, start working now. It's so easy with AI now to be able to ask for a voter's guide or who the candidates are given me their names. Once you find their names, you can find out about them. So, it's, it's actually much easier now than it has been in several years. And we were experimenting with some of that today with AI to see what it would bring up and what kind of voter comparisons you can get. So that plus a little legwork on your own. And create your own voter guide and spread it around your community or your church or your neighborhood or your school or anything else. We can, we can really start having significant impact through primaries. So, make sure to plan to be involved in your state and your party and primaries over the next two or three or four months, a primary is going to be coming to your state. And for a lot of states that will then have runoffs, not every state does. In Texas, we're going to have runoffs. So, we'll have another vote coming up. With the top two out of the primaries. So just get involved in the process. It makes the whole nation healthier and you get a lot more choices. 

Rick Green [00:25:29] All right. So, all the folks outside of Texas and Arkansas and North Carolina, you still got primaries coming up in the next few months, get educated on those things. Go to the voter guides, go to your, you know, get involved in the local party. And we're not going to tell you to be a Republican. You can be a republican or a communist totally up to you. No kidding. There's lots of options out there, but obviously you got to pick a machine that can actually win, which goes back to what David and Tim were talking about and being able, capable of winning. So, there's a lot of ways to get involved. Go to wallbuilders.com today, get on our email list, make sure you're doing some Biblical Citizenship classes and getting people together and that'll really help. 

David Barton [00:26:04] Also, remember christianvoterguide.com. Christianvoterguide.com, we have a link for every state for voter's guides in those states. If there's a voter guide available out there, we try to have it on that website so you know exactly who's gonna be there in your state that you can vote for. 

Rick Green [00:26:21] Christianvoterguide.com. Christianvoterguide.com no matter what state you're in. Check that out today. And then and then be a force multiplier. And get other people to go vote. So, we're pushing for you to go vote. But we also want to get you to talk to the people in your in your family, friends at church, maybe even do a voter guide at your church. There's just so many ways to be involved and make a difference. It's a really important year to do that. So, thanks for listening. You've been listening to the WallBuilders Show.