Good News Friday Kickoff

SPEAKER_02 0:07

Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. It's the Wall Builder Show on a Friday, which means it's Good News Friday, my favorite day of the week to hear David and Tim Barton because they bring all this good news. It's been happening a bunch, a lot of which I haven't heard of. So once in a while, y'all, you guys cover a story that I actually saw on at least social media. But anyway, I think everybody else, well, I know everybody else uh that that listens gets the same benefit because they stop me and tell me. I love Good News Friday, man. Y'all have so y'all y'all help me go into the weekend with some optimism. So it's Good News Friday. Rick Green here with David and Tim Barton, and we got a lot of good news to share. And normally I start with David, but Tim's signaling me. So I'm guessing that uh you have something that that's more important.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

No, that that was just virtue signaling, is all that was.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

That was a well, Rick acknowledging me was like the DEI higher position. So I'm grateful. Um but no wait a minute.

New Book On The 56 Signers

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Is the new book out? Still ready? So I just got our our new book. It is it is shipped. Um, this is the early the release version for uh press kits that we're sending out to people to let them know. Um, but our new book, Lives Fortune, Sacred Honors, the biographies of all 56 signers of the declaration, it is in the mail on the way to Wall Builders, uh, God willing. We are gonna go live with this on our website on June 23rd. It's also gonna be on Amazon. Amazon's actually uh starting this next week, is gonna do pre-orders, so you can get on and pre-order on Amazon. Uh, and then as soon as they get it, it'll ship directly to you. But yes, our new book on the 56 Signers of the Declaration is out and dad uh years and years and years ago. The early I guess it was really 19th century. There were three biographers that all did biographies on the signers of the declaration, and there are some really great stories, but all of those were written a hundred plus, hundred and fifty, hundred and eighty years ago, and it feels like this was written that long ago, in the sense of part of the way they told the story is not the way that modern vernacular you would tell the story. And then there were some things that they just automatically knew to be true that they didn't feel like were necessary to include. But in modern generations, we've forgotten much of the things that were known back in the early 1800s, and therefore we have reintroduced those concepts. Uh, so dad, in my thought, this is like an updated version of some of those early biographies that that even used to be public school textbooks, uh, that most kids in America during that time frame from the early 1800s to the mid-1900s grew up learning about the the signers of the declaration, the founding fathers today they don't. So we've just kind of gone back and revisited an early idea.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

And I tell you guys, uh, this was a real epiphany for me in many ways because Tim, all those early biographies you're talking about, I read all those. We we went out and find found original copies of those to have in the library, and we've had those in the library for 30 years, you know, 35 years. How many times did I read them? And and when we got into writing the bios on these 56 guys, I was absolutely floored with how little I knew about them individually, even though I thought I knew something about them. And maybe I know more than some people, but I I still knew so little. And I was shocked at at how in many ways these guys didn't even like each other at times, some of them didn't, but they were all agreed on the the the core principles, the core values. They had different plans on how to get there, and it made them even more individual. I've I I've always known they were individuals, but I've looked at them like a group, the founding fathers, the signers of the declaration. And, you know, to see like James Wilson, signer of the declaration, he gets assaulted by his neighbors and friends for like three days. His house turns into what they call Fort Wilson because he had to board himself up inside the house from his assault from from neighbors who disagreed with him. And I I would I don't know, I I somehow set thought in my mind, you know, they're kind of unanimous on the principles, and they were on the principles, but they were just so different. And I never realized that one of the signers of the declaration was actually shot dead by an American general who disliked him intensely. I mean, at that that was that was not part of what I knew.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

So this is a really cool book. Now, Dad, in fairness, that founding father who signed the declaration got shot by an American general, he did challenge the duel. So he kind of called. Called for the duel. That's right. He kind of brought that on himself. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:33

But I mean Tim and Tim and Tim and I both have done uh enough firearms training, we would tell people they both mashed the trigger. So so they both mashed the trigger and shot down, and so the the signer got shot in the leg, actually, and uh and he mashed the trigger so much I don't even think he hit the other guy. And uh yeah, but he ended up dying uh from it. Crazy.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Well, and and I feel like Rick, too, in fairness, you know, back then when you had a a pistol that probably didn't have rifling, and they really were that like maybe, you know, it's maybe he mashed the trigger, maybe he actually was aiming really, really well, and their guns were and the bounce of the ball coming out at the end was just not was not good.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

Yeah, their story's crazy. I remember going to um I can't remember where that place is in Florida. It's one of the old towns there, but it's where those three signers that of the declaration from South Carolina were being held. St St. Augustine. I'll bet it was St. Augustine. That's it. Yes, yes. They were being held hot, and there's a sign there, and I saw the sign and it said that. I was like, I gotta go study about this and come to find out if Budon Gwinnett was had gone to rescue them and the whole you know mission didn't work or something. I don't know. And the governor or whoever it was called him a scoundrel or something, or he called the other guy a scoundrel. I can't remember the details, but it was like, man, a duel with a signer of the declaration, and he dies. I think it was like a year or two after the after the signing.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Well, and and these are all kinds of the stories that we include in these bios to to actually that to your point show the individuality of of every one of these 56 signers, where instead of thinking of them in in a lump, even the ones, for example, the ones from Virginia, some of the prominent founding fathers, we know their names, they were very independent, and we really don't know very much of their stories. And and when I say we don't, that you and I were learning things about the founding fathers, doing research for this, getting greater details on their stories. And if we were learning things, I guarantee you, the majority of Americans did not know these things. And what we did is wrote this in in the traditional way we try to tell stories, very much biographical fun, but they're all only two or three or four or five pages. So you you don't get a long story, but you do get a high-level overview of some of the really cool accomplishments, uh, some of the things from their faith, their family, their journey, or their sacrifice. When when they pledge their lives, fortunes, and sacred honors, we actually go through who are the ones who lost their lives and and or their their wives died, some of their kids died in the revolution. Who are the ones who lost their fortunes or spent their fortune for the cause of liberty? Some of them that ended up being destitute, largely because they spent their fortune. Some of them they survived and lived comfortably, but they went from like Elon Musk's status down to an average American status, and they had spent it all for the cause of liberty. And the cool thing about all of them is in the midst of all of the sacrifice that they had to endure, the persecution, the hardship, none of them backed down, none of them recanted, all of them are willing to pay the price for their descendants and for future generations. So these are really cool guys to go back and relearn the stories. And on June 23rd, it will go live on the Wall Builders website. And again, it'll be on Amazon.com starting next week that you can go and pre-order uh and sign up to get it through Amazon if you want to do it that way. But guys, my first piece of good news, I am super pumped about this. We have our new book that is uh I currently have one in my hand, but they're in the mail coming to Wall Builders, and they will go live here very shortly. I am very excited about this.

SPEAKER_02 8:04

Lives, fortune, sacred honor, and yes, well worth cutting in front of your dad and having the first piece of good news there. Now, I think the timing's amazing. I think the fact that it's coming out, you know, right before July 4th, the 250th, and the you know, everybody can learn about them as they as they celebrate and hear about some of these guys on July 4th and their celebrations. And I would love to say David and Tim probably planned this timing perfectly, but I know David and Tim well enough to know they're like Trey and me, my son, and Tim is just like Trey. He probably wanted this done and ready and available like six months ago, and then David's like me and like, you know, 400 things going at once, and David's way more busy than I am, and it probably took right up until the last minute. And I would bet the team back at the wall builder's office has been hammering both you guys while you've been on the road so much for the last six months to get this done. So my guess is it's the Lord willing part that got this thing done just in time for the 250th, and you would have preferred it to be out sooner, but God knew better. It needed to come out like a, you know, 10 days before. So people would order as their birthday celebration. You know, the nation's birthday. You should give a birthday present to people in your family, your pastor, other people, and that birthday present should be live fortune sacred honor. Tim.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Am I right about the timing or no? Tim, I I think Rick's got a mole in our office somewhere. Either that or he he he's bugged it. We need to we need to do a sweep at the office for electronic bugs.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

I say this as the guy that everybody's still waiting on the Rebuilding Liberty workbook from a year ago was supposed to be done. So, yes, I I get it. I I don't want to be too much like Bill Clinton, but I feel your pain. Okay, so let's move on to some other

Polls Show Moral Opinions Shifting

SPEAKER_02 9:36

good news. David, what's your first piece of good news today?

SPEAKER_01 9:38

The headline for this, this comes from the Blaze. It says headline, it says support for the LGBTQ plus lifestyle is in free fall. And so it's a poll on that. This is really good news to me because when your morals start moving back in a biblical direction, a whole lot of other stuff follows, including liberties and freedoms and role of government, everything else. So, morals, as George Washington has told us, religion, morality is the foundation of politics. And when you start moving back in a more traditional moral direction, a more uh Judeo-Christian biblical moral direction, other things will follow. And so just hitting some some of the things on this, um it for example, the percentage of U.S. adults who regard homosexual relations as morally acceptable fell to 62% this year, and that's the lowest it's been in a decade. So that's a decade uh old low, which means that the we've hit the crest of the hill. We're now coming down the other side. Uh, when asked about whether changing one's gender is morally acceptable, um back in just five years ago, 46% said yes, it's morally acceptable to change your gender. Now it's down to 38%. Uh only five percent of Republicans say that changing a gender is morally acceptable, which tells you that with 38% of Americans thinking it's okay, that means about 188% of the Democrats think it's okay, if only five percent of the Republicans think it's okay. And so just go. I I I'm watching them count votes in California and I I've seen them count votes. So I I know how Democrats work this, bro. I I've got it. Yeah, it's 188% of Democrats. It's yeah, exactly. So looking at there's a there's so many things. Um uh it's it's just it's a big, big change, and uh it right now we're at the point only thirty-five percent of of Republicans think that homosexuality is moral. And just four years ago it was at fifty-six percent. So there is a huge change, particularly in that LGBTQI plus category, which means it's becoming much more biblical uh traditional, which is a good sign for the nation, a good sign for what will happen in government and education and everything else.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

You know, it's it seems like that's an area that we could point to and say, you know, we our side did pretty good at battling this. We caught up, you know, we were we were caught flat-footed for a long time. I think, honestly, shocked that people would say, you know, men can have babies and all the insanity that they did. And so we for a while we were struggling with how to respond. And then of course Matt Walsh came out with his movie Well uh What is a Woman? That really helped change the dialogue and get people thinking. And then you had all these detransitioners that were coming out and telling uh of the horrors of what they had had been put through and what it had done to their life. And I think our side did a pretty good job of of helping them and and getting the voice out there and starting to articulate that. So I love seeing those numbers change like that. That's just a great indicator. I remember, David, when we first started the radio program, you would do a lot of polling and and data, and we've done that over the years to help measure are we are we what are we doing in the culture and are we doing well at articulating these things and and basically you know articulating biblical values to get people to to come alongside us? And and you just described, I think, a massive victory in what was, man, even just three, four years ago, looked like it was going totally the wrong way. So that's really, really

Bring A WallBuilders Speaker

SPEAKER_02 12:58

good news. Quick break, guys. We got more good news coming uh to you when we come back. You're listening to the Wall Builder Show.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Hey, this is Tim Barton with Wall Builders. And as you've had the opportunity to listen to Wall Builders Live, you've probably heard the wealth of information about our nation, about our spiritual heritage, about the religious liberties, about all the things that makes America exceptional. And you might be thinking, as incredible as this information is, I wish there was a way that I could get one of the wall builders guys to come to my area and share with my group, whether it be a church, whether it be a Christian school or public school or some political event or activity. If you're interested in having a wall builder speaker come to your area, you can get on our website at www.wallbuilders.com and there's a tab for scheduling. And if you'll click on that tab, you'll notice there's a list of information from speakers' bios to events that are already going on, and there's a section where you can request an event to bring this information about who we are, where we came from, our religious liberties and freedoms. Go to the wall builders website and bring a speaker to your area.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

Welcome back to the Wall Builder Show. More good news for you, tossing it back over to Tim.

ATF Rollbacks And Gun Myths

SPEAKER_00 14:14

Well, guys, this one is dealing uh with something that the Trump uh administration has done. It says Trump ATF targets Biden gun rules in major rollback. So I I don't know all of the details of what the Biden administration did, uh, actually, thankfully, on sub-level, uh, but I do know that the ATF under Biden was trying to crack in in their mind and their words, crack down on some various uh gun transfer restrictions, uh some of what they called, right, like the gun show loopholes where people could sell guns and not be licensed and et cetera, et cetera. And of course, different states have different regulations in Texas. Uh we have the ability, if you own a firearm, you can sell that to somebody else. And those of us who are prudent say, Hey, do you have your license to carry? Because we don't want to sell a firearm to someone who uh might be a bad person or do bad bad things with it. So there's a lot of wisdom and prudence involved when somebody sells a handgun, generally speaking, and that's just for individuals outside of gun shows. But guys, the reason as I was reading this article, I I I thought of you, dad, more specifically you than Rick, but Rick, I'm gonna toss you in this as well. Um, I remember seeing really I'm saying really old, and this is not a slam on you being really old. I remember I think we both just got thrown under the bus, David.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Uh hey, yeah, Rick. Uh I don't know. We maybe we need to form a union here. We we we need some kind of representation.

SPEAKER_02 15:44

Gray hairs versus the youngsters. Let's go.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

So I'm just curious if if either one of y'all ever like Sears catalog ordered a rifle through Of course.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

Of course, Christmas time, man. You went through the Sears and Robux catalogs, you went through Montgomery Wards catalogs at Christmas time to pick out which guns you wanted. And Tim, the first the first rifle that I owned on my own was given to me at a church because I won the Bible memorization contest at my church youth group. So, yeah, absolutely. Just go to the the neighborhood, go to the neighborhood 5 and 10 store, Mod's store they used to be called, Mod's 5 and 10. Get a gun there off the rack, right off the rack, and walk with it. Well, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 16:36

But I don't, I did not. That was just kind of phasing out, kind of but right between us, I think, DB. Um, because no, I never got to order one from a magazine. Maybe that's just my my family and where we lived.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

But Rick, on the addition to this, so you didn't order it through the catalog, but do you remember going to school or seeing around town, everybody having a rifle in the back of their truck, a shotgun in the back of their truck? On the rack. You got it. Yes, that I do. And I mean, right, windows would be rolled down. Absolutely. People not even in the trucks, and there are rifles and shotguns loaded in the truck with windows open.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Oh, I I remember going to football practice at school. Everybody had their pickup, and we had the gun racks in the back of the pickup and the windows. You left the doors uh unlocked all day. You left the windows down, nobody took them, and then I would take the gun to say I would come home. I literally would stop and shoot possums that were crossing the road on the way home. I'd pull my gun out, and I mean that was just part of what you did, and that's what a high schooler does. No, yeah, I absolutely remember that.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

Well, so all of this, let me let me put a little loop on this. The reason I'm bringing this up is because when people are analyzing things today and the argument that, hey, guns are the problem, and and people getting guns, that's why we have violent crime, et cetera, at a time when guns were far more available and prevalent, we didn't have the same crime problems. And so this idea that guns are what the problem is is a very faulty notion, just first and foremost. Uh, the founding fathers talked about that the religion of morality had to be the foundation, that's where it came from. But the reason I bring this up is because the good news is the Trump administration has recognized, hey guys, uh guns aren't the underlying cause of all of these problems that we're dealing with. Uh, and so taking away or restricting uh people being able to navigate decisions with their own firearms or like giving it, you know, dad, if for example, if if uh you were going to uh give me some of your guns, and the Biden administration's like, now wait a second, you got to go through a gun dealer and you got to do all these, you know, loophole things. It's we would look and go, that's just utterly ridiculous for lots of reasons. Again, what I have is good news in this article is the Trump administration is rolling back some of these Biden ATF decisions, which is good news. And and again, big picture for people that are looking going, but wait a second, won't that mean there could be more crimes? The reality of the crimes we are dealing with, it's because of the brokenness of homes, it's because the brokenness of families, it's because of sin in human hearts, it's not because of a specific gun law that we do or don't have violent crime. And and you can go down the list of some of the really great people that have analyzed this. John Lott uh and his very famous book, uh, More Guns, Less Crime, it analyzes that it's actually the opposite of what we think. And generally speaking, the bad guys doing bad things did not get most of their guns legally to begin with. So a lot of our preconceived notions are just incorrect. But the good news is the Trump administration is rolling back some of these restrictions, which goes back to the recognition of what we know is the Second Amendment, that the right of people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, the right of self-preservation and self-defense, and an alienable right is being restored to some extent under the Trump administration, and overall that's good news.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

Hey, I'll I'll add to that, Tim. Uh just you saying the way you did reminded me of what Jesus said in Matthew 7 that all crime, all violence comes out of the heart. It's not what's in the hand. Cain and Abel, I mean, it it's not what's necessarily in the hand, it's what's in the heart. And if what's in the heart is wrong, you're gonna find something in the hand. And it doesn't have to be a gun with a 15 15 bullet magazine. It could be a rock, it could be a club, it could be anything you have, it could be a fence post. And that's that's why the Biden administration is so wrong. They're dealing with the symptoms on the outside rather than the cause on the inside, and that's where Jesus got it right thousands of years ago at Matthew 7.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

Yeah, Tim, that's that's good news coming from a bureaucracy, literally. Like, how often do we get to talk about an agency at the federal level and that there's good news coming out of there? Well, over the last year and a half, a lot because of the directives that that President Trump has done and the people that he's appointed uh to oversee that and actually implement it. You remember in the first term he had so many people that were running these agencies that were actually undermining him this time, much, much, much better, better team. All right, DB, back to you, man. What's your next piece of

Churches Speaking On Abortion Again

SPEAKER_02 21:13

good news?

SPEAKER_01 21:13

Well, it kind of goes through our first piece of good news where the morals and values of the nation appear to be shifting in a more biblical direction. And now this is a piece of good news, and the headline says a new poll finds churches are speaking out against abortion. And we've been doing work with George Barnard for a number of years, and for 20 years, we haven't been able to get pastors to talk about any moral issue to speak of. Uh I mean it's it's just been silent, including on abortion. And now polling shows that churches are starting to speak out on moral issues. Uh it goes through all the denominations. The Catholics are the most likely to report hearing a clergy member discuss abortion. So uh 49 per those who attend Mass monthly, 49% say that they have heard a Catholic priest discuss abortion within the fast past few months. Months and 86% of those who heard said what they heard was ex exclusively a pro-life message. Um when it comes to evangelical Protestants, 43% of white evangelical Protestants are hearing uh their pastor talk about abortion and about it being wrong. 90% of those who heard their pastor felt about abortion heard him say that it was wrong. Uh the two groups that are are are the least likely to hear any kind of moral message on abortion from the pulpit would be the white non-evangelicals and and black Protestants. So those are the two that have the smallest margin of hearing anything moral about that. But again, this is this is the church reclaiming its voice, getting back to talking about morality and addressing the culture. You know, Jesus was really good about telling his disciples things that were going on in the culture and pointing them to it, whether, you know, it was the news about the tower that fell and killed people or whether what the Herod was doing or anything else. And pastors have neglected to speak on the issues of the day. But this is good news to see that the church is starting to speak out on issues of the day, especially moral issues of the day.

SPEAKER_02 23:09

The bolder the church is, the more likely we actually save this country. No, no doubt about it. Tim, uh, probably our last piece of good news. Take us into the weekend, man.

Pentagon Trims Recognized Faith Codes

SPEAKER_02 23:17

What you got?

SPEAKER_00 23:17

Well, this is one that brought some drama this week, uh, but it's overall, it it's good news. Uh so the article says the headline is Pentagon drops 180 faiths from military's recognized religions list. Now, if you read the article, what it points out is that in the military, it recognized over 200 different faith codes for service members that they could affiliate with. Um, and now it's been reduced down to it sits just over 31. Now there was some drama with this because uh it had a subcategory under these 31 identified faiths, um, and it had a Christian category and it listed all of these different faiths. Uh, and then Mike Lee, uh great senator from Utah who was a Mormon, posted and was very frustrated because it didn't include the Mormons under the Christian subheading category. Uh, and so ultimately what the Pentagon did is just remove the Christian subhead heading category. So he was listing all 31. Uh, and I thought really brilliantly responded saying it's not our job to get into doctrinal theological disputes between these different belief systems. What we are trying to do is acknowledge and recognize and defend the religious liberty for all service members that are a part of these. But overall, the good news coming from the Department of War in the Pentagon is that instead of what has happened, unfortunately, over time, with so much uh spreading and disparity and uh group orientation, they said, Look, we're narrowing this down because we want to focus on why we're really here. We want you to be people of faith, but you are here to defend your country. You can do it in your faith. And so, in the new list, and it's interesting because they have chaplains for all these lists and groups, but they identify agnostics and Buddhists and Hindus, uh, Islam or Muslims, Judaism, Sikh, uh, a wide range of Christian-based groups. And this is from the article, like Baptists, Catholics, Lutherans, and Methodists. The Outlet reported Heggseth had announced the uh intention to trim the list of faiths earlier this year. On the article goes, uh, but guys, it did strike me as interesting that for all of these groups they have chaplains. What does a chaplain for the agnostics do?

SPEAKER_01 25:25

You sit around and say, I really don't care, however, you know, whatever happens. Well, yeah, I I would you have to have great ambivalence to be a chaplain.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

Right. If you're an agnostic, you don't know if there's a God or not. So why do you need a chaplain? It makes no sense. But I just I do want to point out again, it's one of the places where I appreciate that we have leaders that are saying, let's let the Department of War focus on why it's here. Let's focus on what matters. And they're not removing religious liberty. In fact, they're prioritizing it. They've elevated the chaplains, they're making this significant again, but they're they're directing focus on where it should be.

SPEAKER_01 26:01

And Tim, go to that going to that point. It's like they had a DEI list for religions. There were some of those 200 religious categories that nobody in military history has ever claimed that that particular thing. It's like they had to list 81 genders. What what are 81 genders? There's only two. And you're right, they got back to what the military's focused on, and that's making it a tough military. But it was, you're right, Tim. That was such a good thing to see them get rid of all those peripheral things that have nothing to do with what the military is about.

Resources And Weekend Sendoff

SPEAKER_02 26:32

Guys, thanks for all the good news. Folks, if you're listening and you want even more, it's at our website, wallbuilders.show. That's the radio site. And then you can go to wallbuilders.com for all the other information. Have a great weekend. You've been listening to the Wall Builder Show.