Welcome And Resources To Share

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to the intersection of Faith and Culture. Thanks for joining us on this Friday. Always looking forward to Fridays because it's good news Friday here at Wall Builders. Great opportunity, uh great opportunity to catch up on some of the good news from across the nation and around the world. David and Tim Barton gathering those stories for us throughout the week. I'm Rick Green. And uh by the way, if you missed yesterday, Foundation's Freedom Thursday, go to our website, wallbuilders.show. There were some great questions yesterday. We got some great history, learned some things yesterday. So check that out at wallbuilders.show and share it with your friends and family. And then, of course, today's program you want to share with those who might have been infected by the black pill virus of a lot of folks right now, trying to depress everybody and make them think America was the bad guys and not the good guys. You need to get some good news into the hands of those people. And so today's a chance for you to share some of that. You can do that from wallbuilders.show. And then wallbuilders.com is our main website. Lots of great information there. And of course, the new book, Lives, Fortune, Sacred Honor. Make sure you get a copy of that for the 250th. But there's a lot of other great information and uh books there as well, including the American story. So don't miss that one at wallbuilders.com. Okay, David, Tim, I know you guys got a lot to get to, so let's jump

Underground Church Growth In Iran

SPEAKER_00 1:15

in. David, first piece of good news today.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Well, I'm going to pretend that I'm Rick Green, so I don't know how I can make my voice do that, but this is a Foundation of Freedom Thursday question. So I'm going to open with a question from Thursday on Friday. And if everybody's not fully confused, I'll get you there. So what happened is there's a question that came in from Sharon Diedrich, and she asked the question because we had Rudy on on a program, Rudy Atala, and he was talking uh about things going in Iran, and she asked a question. So this is really a question that comes from Foundation of Freedom Thursday, but the answer Rudy gave, and we asked Rudy and he wrote the answer back, and the answer was just so good that I thought, you know, this needs to be a good news Friday. So it really kind of deals with, I think people may have heard that in Iran there's a huge underground revival going, uh, Christian church movement. They're growing just really quickly in Iran. There's a lot of mosques that are shot, shutting down there. Now you still got the tyrannical leaders up top. They're killing the citizens and fighting the United States, et cetera, but there's still some stuff going on. And so Rudy Atala, who was in the White House with counterterrorism, et cetera, he's now out. He runs White Mountain Research, has been our friend for years, uh, helped rescue Christians all over the world, persecuted Christians. He answered the question for Sharon. So I'm going to read her question and read his answer. Sharon said, Rudy Atala said there were Chinese pastors who were sent in construction crews to Iran, and now they're converting Persians to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Is there anywhere I can read to learn more about this? Thank you, and thank you all for all of your work. So that was her question. Here's Rudy's answer. Rudy says, now remember, this is a question about Chinese pastors carrying the gospel to Iran. Rudy says the best place to start is the Back to Jerusalem movement, which is the Chinese house church vision to send missionaries through the Muslim world along the Old Silk Road, including Iran. Their website is back to Jerusalem.com and they publish regular reports from the field. The foundational book is Back to Jerusalem, and I can't pronounce all these Chinese names, but by Brother Yun, Peter Zhu Yonggi, and Enoch Wong, along with Paul Hattaway. Hey, you did pretty good pronouncing Paul's name. I got I did get one right, one out of four. That's not bad. So Brother Yun's testimony is called The Heavenly Man, and it gives the backstory of the underground church that birthed this movement. On the construction angle specifically, Chinese believers travel into closed countries as laborers, engineers, and small businessmen on belt and road projects because a Chinese worker draws no suspicion where a Western missionary never gets in. Eugene Bach's book, Back to Jerusalem, and especially China and End Time Prophecy cover this strategy, and their podcast shares firsthand accounts from workers in that region. For the Iranian side of the story, look at the documentary Sheep Among Wolves and the book Too Many to Jail by Mark Bradley. Iran has one of the fastest growing underground churches in the world, and even Iranian officials have admitted it publicly. God is doing something remarkable in that part of the world, and it rarely makes the news, Rudy. So that's a piece of good news based on a question that Sharon asked, and I was really glad to see that that much stuff was going on. I knew something about the Chinese Underground Church movement, where they go in as workers, but that's some good resources, and people can go and grab those books and read that and learn about it. Sounds really, really wholesome and good.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Good news in countries we're not used to hearing good news from. Good news, and we'll we'll be having classes next week on wall builders for pronunciation. And uh we'll see if Tim has any tough ones in his first piece, first piece of

Poll Shows Hunger For Religion

SPEAKER_00 5:04

good news. Tim?

SPEAKER_02 5:05

Well, no, I don't. Uh I only have to pronounce Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, so the words are not hard. Uh some of the vision and values are a little complicated, but that the article for mine, that the one at the top of my stack, says, Most Americans want a more religious society. There's a Gallup uh poll or Gallup survey found. And the the poll breaks down that 65% of US adults think it would be positive for society if more Americans were religious. Now, it used to be we had well over 65% of Americans that were uh identifying as Christian, and that number is fallen. Uh, not to digress too much, but even if it even if just all the Christians thought it was really good to be a Christian, we should basically achieve that number, not to digress. Uh, what's interesting about the breakdown is, and this is this is data from this year, 65% say it's good for society to be more religious, 22% say it's negative, 6% said it doesn't make a difference, and 7% didn't have an opinion on it. Uh where this this poll gets more fascinating to me is the breakdown in political parties. So among Republicans, what percentage of Republicans think it would be good if Americans were more religious? Guys, what do you think? What percentage of Republicans? 107%.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Okay, I'm gonna play the prices right and say 106.5, and that way anything below that, I win.

SPEAKER_02 6:36

Well, you both are over, you don't know the prices right. You should have been a dollar. Oh, it's gonna be under I gotta be under your right. It's been a while. I didn't watch enough Bob Barker. No. So it's 94% of Republicans think it would be beneficial for America to be more religious. 59% of independents, and what percentage of Democrats do you think? 2.3. Now, wait a second. Think about there's a growing uh Muslim influence there as well. Because what's interesting about this poem Tim, don't help.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Tim, Tim, don't help him. I finally might beat him on one of these. 2.4. 2.4. I go one one one tenth more.

SPEAKER_02 7:18

Well, it's 51% of Democrats. And what's interesting I win! I finally won one. Wait a minute. Let's pause the program and come on down. Yeah. Uh yeah, you can play some little Plinko, uh, Rick. We'll we'll save it for you.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

So But I didn't miss what you just said. That is a much higher number than I expected for sure. But maybe it is what you're saying. Maybe it's Islam and yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

Well, yeah, so it doesn't say what religion or what what is religious and how we define religion. Um, but but here's also what's interesting. Uh so it's 65% of Americans as a total, but if you go back to 2013, Gallup also pulling back then. And in 2013, 75% of Americans said greater religiosity would be positive for society, only 17% said it would be negative. So we've dropped 10%. 2013, 75% of Americans said being more religious is better. Now it's 65% of Americans that that think it's it's good to be more religious in society. So that number's declining. Well, along those lines, in if you back up uh and look uh at what the numbers were for um Republicans and Democrats. So in 2013, when 75% of Americans said we we think we should be more religious, what do you think the Republican number was back in 2013? So right right now, 94% of Republicans think we need more religion in America. What was that number in 2013?

SPEAKER_01 8:52

I I would bet it's lower. I would I would think maybe down in 83, 85, somewhere in there.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Because they've you and you're saying that, David, because uh they have kind of awakened to the need for this. More of them have awakened to the need for this. There was more of a secular kind of French Revolution, freedom people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

Yeah, I think they've seen how ugly the swamp is and how vicious some of those people are. Uh, the retaliatory way that that some officials act. I I would bet it's higher, maybe by 10 points. I I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 9:23

So in 2013, 91% of Republicans thought we should be more religious. So actually, the number's not all that different. Now, where it makes a difference is coming up in a second. There's another question that will show you that what we used to think and what we think now, even though the percentage-wise doesn't look that different as far as more religion, uh, when it comes to the application of that religion and culture, that's where it's super different now. But uh, so 2013, how how how many independents? What percentage of independents and then Democrats? This is where it's interesting because this is where there's a huge fall off. So independents currently are 59% back in 2013, 71%. So 12 more percent of independents in 2013 thought religion was good for society. The Democrats now is where it gets interesting. In 2013, what percentage of Democrats thought religion was good for society? What is it now? 51% probably 67, 68. I feel like you just read this article because you nailed it. It was 67%. Uh but but here's to me also where it's interesting, not just that you see a major fall-off among independents and Democrats, people that are becoming increasingly secular and want an increasingly secular society, where it now is interesting is they also asked about um religion in government shaping public policy. And what they found is that Americans increasingly believe government policy shapes the nation's moral values. Nearly seven in ten adults, it was 69%, say government policies have a significant effect on moral values. If you back up to 2006, only 59% of Americans thought that. In 1996, it was 58%. The reason this matters is there are more Americans right now that are recognizing that the government influences the moral values of America, and we are seeing an increase of Republicans saying we need more religion in America. So I think it's really good news that more Americans than ever are recognizing that the government actually does shape the moral values of the nation. Uh, it it makes a difference what direction our nation is going. That's a huge deal. But then also when we are seeing an increase, uh, and I know we would love to see an increase probably from Democrats, independents, and Republicans. But again, an affirmation for me is as society is becoming more secular, and you have in the conservative side people that are are wanting more, advocating for more faith in life in in America, in the public arena, that is really encouraging and really good news to me.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Bodes well for the future, for sure, for sure.

Break And New Book Spotlight

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Let's take a quick break, guys. We'll be right back with more good news. You're listening to the Wall Builder Show.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

Okay, we want to let you know about a new product we have here at Wall Builders called Lives, Fortunes, and Sacred Honor, the Signers of the Declaration. Like most Americans, you might be someone that you recognize some of the names of the Founding Fathers, but do you know their story? We want to help remedy that. My dad and I have written biographies on all 56 signers of the Declaration to help reintroduce people to the men who literally signed their names on the line for the sake of the nation. When they did this, they knew that they were essentially signing their death warrants. They were risking everything for the hope that they might be able to purchase freedom for the rising generation with their lives, their fortunes, and sacred honors. In spite of the hardship that every one of them endured, none of them recanted or backed away. Now, if you don't know their story, you can get to know all 56 of them. Go to wallbuilders.com and look for the book Lives, Fortunes, and Sacred Honors, the signers of the Declaration.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Welcome back to the Wall Builder Show. Good news Friday. We've had one from David, one from Tim, tossing it back over to David.

Texas Judge Wins Conscience Case

SPEAKER_01 13:38

Yeah, this is good news out of Texas. It's gone on for a number of years, the situation. It involves actually a personal friend, Diane Hensley, who's a judge down in Waco, one of the larger middle cities in Texas. And back in 2019, when COVID was going, and not long after they had done the Burgerfeld marriage stuff, she said, Look, as a judge, I'm not going to perform same-sex marriages. So what she did was she said, here's the fee schedule that I have, because judges in Texas, when they do something like that, they can get paid for it. That's something that rural judges can earn money by doing weddings instead of a minister or whatever, if people want that. So there's a fee. And she said, But I I'm not going to do it for same-sex marriages. And here's places you can go that will do it, and they charge the same that I charge, so there's no difference in price there. And so not a single objection was given on what she did, except by the state of Texas. The Judicial Commission said, Oh, you can't do that. And they went after her, they sanctioned her, they came after her, they tried to punish her. She has been defending this thing now for what is this, seven years that this has gone on. I mean, this is this is so old news. This stuff is so different. We've had so many court cases go the other direction where that you can't punish people because of their faith on issues like same-sex marriage. And so as a result, she finally got a settlement on it. Uh, it's not a big settlement. She gets $10,000 in damages, but here's the part that got me. She gets repaid $630,000 in attorney's fees. That is a really stupid, frivolous case, state of Texas. Why did you go after her? First off, Texas doesn't do this anyway. And why the Judicial Commission went after her when the governor and everybody else and the legislature had made it no, you don't do this. This is some runaway bureaucrats, even in a fairly red state like Texas, $630,000 repaying attorney's fees. But the good news is she prevails, she wins. This is now out of her hair. It didn't make any difference to her anyway, because she wasn't going to do what violated her conscience. But good for Diane for standing there and good for her for getting a win seven years later.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

And David, will that be, I mean, first of all, thank you to to Diane for for being willing to fight that and to lead the charge on this. Um, but will that it what kind of a precedent is that? Does that help to uh curb additional pressure on uh judges and and others to to perform that? And and you know, w was this a um uh I I I guess would it would it wouldn't affect other states, but I guess it would uh would affect other judges in Texas.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

It could have, but it doesn't look like they went after any others. And and the governor was really strong on those, so the legislature was strong on it. Uh Texas passed the the Freedom Restoration Act, uh the the all of those acts were there, and that's what the courts upheld anyway. And so why this stupid judicial commission decided to target her, despite the state law, despite the state positions, despite everything, despite even the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court was not going in that direction, you know, why they went after it, I have no clue. She's the only one I know of. It could be some others, and there were a couple others over in Granberry and some other places, but they got settled really quick. But this one has gone on for years and years and years. So I have no clue whether it's just an individual in that agency that's rogue or that doesn't like Diane or who knows what it is. But the deal is it's now stopped.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Yeah, and those did believe me, those judicial commissions uh are typically run by uh the the most liberal of the of the you know uh attorney um groups because uh I remember fighting them over even judges being able to to to answer questions when they're running for office and that sort of thing. And they usually come up with some some crazy, crazy rules. So very, very good victory. Okay, Tim, back

Pushing Back On ICC Overreach

SPEAKER_00 17:26

to you, man.

SPEAKER_02 17:26

Well, guys, this one is dealing with something from the International Criminal Court, uh, the ICC, and the title of this headline, or the headline of this article, rather, the title of the article says, Rubio pledges to dismantle international criminal courts' threats to U.S. sovereignty. Now, this was a big deal. Uh, I think two weeks ago is when a lot of these news stories broke that the ICC was uh claiming to have jurisdiction over America. Of course, Trump uh was like, that's ridiculous. No, you don't. But the State Department, what this article is identifying, the State Department is launching a campaign to dismantle a threat posed by the International Criminal Court to U.S. sovereignty. Now, guys, as as I hear some of this stuff, I kind of roll my eyes and I'm like, what's the big deal? What are they gonna do? But what this article points out, and what I logically probably should have thought about, is we do have U.S. servicemen all over the world. And if for whatever reason something happens somewhere around the world, they these servicemen and women, these these US officials, could be called before the ICC. And if you have a bunch of woke judges on there, and oftentimes when I when I'm saying this, I think often of the UN and like their human rights commission. And when you look at the members of the Human Rights Commission on the UN, the United Nations, and you realize that virtually every member nation that's part of the Human Rights Commission are the worst offenders and violators of human rights, and you're like, well, this is just a sham. Right. This was a concern with the ICC, is that this international criminal court was going to be a sham. And so what the U.S. government is doing from the State Department, the Trump administration is considering revoking visas and imposing travel bans on international criminal court personnel, imposing increased sanctions on the ICC and its affiliates. The article goes on highlighting other things. And also, I I I have not thought about the ICC enough to really know these details. So this was semi-news to me. Do you guys know when the ICC was created? And not to put you on the spot, but I didn't really know this, Dad. Do you know this?

SPEAKER_01 19:39

It is more like 30 years ago. It was created as part of the UN. Uh, I don't think it was created that long ago. 30, 35 years, something like that. 2002.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

There you go. So so not even that long ago. Uh, it was supposed to prosecute genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Uh, and so, of course, when you have some of these woke nations at the UN, um, that's gonna say, well, that you know, the U.S. has been one of the top offenders, etc. Uh, well, one of the things, again, the the Trump um administration and the State Department Rubio are pointing out, the United States has never been a member of the ICC, but the court um argues it has the power to prosecute uh people that are not part of the member states um in this. And uh Rubio gave a great little speech where he essentially quoted the Declaration of Independence and he was like, guys, uh we we threw off tyranny a long time ago. We're not about to let some uh unelected bureaucrats from some other nation tell us how we're gonna govern and do our thing. Um anyway, so the good news is we now have a administration and specifically a guy like Marco Rubio, who is a major leader, and this is not to get in this conversation, but somebody who very well could be the next president of the United States. Um obviously a lot of people are gonna JD Vance. Um, but man, Marco Rubio is just super impressive, and he has been an incredible leader on this. And guys, if we didn't have leaders like Donald Trump and Marco Rubio in in some of these situations, if if we were back with Biden or Obama that would just acquiesce and give this power away to these unelected bureaucrats from other nations, it would be a travesty for America. The good news is we have President Trump and Marco Rubio that are leading the opposition, telling the ICC, yeah, you're not gonna do this. We're we're not gonna let you have power and authority over Americans or service members, American personnel, etc. So uh overall really good news.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

All right, David, that brings it back to you.

Trump Blocks Judges Picking Prosecutors

SPEAKER_01 21:43

Uh we've got a lot of Trump appointees that the Senate is not moving, and I say the Senate specifically, Democrats are not moving, and they've been able to block a lot of these, and some of them include federal prosecutors or U.S. attorneys. And so U. S. attorneys are needed in areas where They they kind of coordinate who goes to federal courts and what happens with the cases, et cetera. And so up in up in the Seattle area, um, one of the appointees of Trump has not been confirmed, and so he's the U.S. attorney that would be up there. Democrats don't want that. They apparently want somebody really woke and liberal out of Washington State, not somebody that Trump chooses. And so that's that that person has just been sitting in limbo. And so what happened was the the federal courts up there appointed uh a temporary U.S. uh attorney. And so they got that temporary U.S. attorney appointed. Um he was sworn in, he was on his way to the courthouse area and got word he had just been fired. This is the fourth time that Trump has fired a temporary attorney, and good for him, the judges have no business choosing the members of the executive branch or who's there. This is such a constitutional violation, so basic separation of powers. And I love the fact that uh uh you know, Trump doesn't even care whether the guy's good or not. That's not the point. It's not the judges that appoint the prosecutors and that appoint the U.S. attorneys, et cetera. That comes from the executive branch. And I love the fact that Trump is just doing the straight out. Any judge that thinks they have the right to appoint officials that the president is supposed to appoint, and they're appointing them because the Democrats and the Senate aren't moving them through, they don't have that right. I love the fact that Trump did this and less than I the guy had just walked in and was getting ready to meet the people around him when he got the word he had been fired. An hour later. I mean, that quick. And I think that's great news.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

All right, Tim, final piece of good news today.

Veterans Fast Track To Trucking Jobs

SPEAKER_00 23:37

Take us home.

SPEAKER_02 23:38

Well, this is one from last week. President Trump was giving a speech, and President Trump, in his speech, said they're gonna crack down on all of the illegal alien truck drivers, and this is Trump's words, who are killing a lot of people, shouldn't be driving. We don't want them. And in the midst of the president saying they're gonna crack down on illegal migrants, and by the way, for people that are not familiar with this, uh, there are so many videos showing these drivers who also, again, so much news stories out there. If you have not seen this, go look for it. Uh, people that cannot read any English, can't read signs, uh, can't speak English, they get pulled over and officers are talking to them and they can't answer questions. Uh, there's now evidence coming out that they had to have for many of them interpreters when they would go to get their driver's license or their CDL, etc. Uh, and and then there are lots of videos of them going the wrong way uh down the highway. There's uh unfortunately horrific videos of them uh crashing and multiple people dying from some of these crashes. And so President Trump has a lot of reason to say this is awful, we have to stop it. But what's really great, his suggested solution, he said, we're gonna replace them with proud American veterans. We're gonna make them and teach them that the veterans, uh, we're gonna say any American who's driven a truck from military will automatically be eligible for a commercial driver's license. And one of the many cool things that the Trump administration is doing, working with the military, working with veterans, trying to help make sure that as so many of these men and women have served the nation, that they're not forgotten about and left behind. And as President Trump pointed out, many of these people have already been trained, and they would be easy to come in and fill these gaps. And so uh, seeing President Trump's suggestion to have military veterans become truck drivers. So for some of them that are wondering, man, what's my next step? Uh, what am I gonna do? Apparently there's gonna be some opportunities for some truck drivers on the road. Uh, and I don't know if if the Army, the, the, the Navy, the Marines, the Air Force, Coast Guard, I don't know who has the best drivers. But apparently, we will get to find out at some point in the future, as President Trump now is working to make a way for military veterans to become truck drivers to replace all of these illegal migrants who, number one, shouldn't be here, and number two, certainly shouldn't have driver's licenses.

Wrap Up And Share The Show

SPEAKER_00 26:14

All right, gentlemen, we'll thank you for the good news today. We'll have more next Friday, and then of course, some great programming for the week as well. So don't miss our programs next week. Be sure and share them with your friends and family. You can do that by going to wallboulders.show and share from there or all the different podcast apps out there available to you as well. We sure appreciate you in the audience listening. Be sure to go to wallboulders.com today, get some of those great resources, make a contribution, uh, be a part of what we're doing, be a force multiplier, and share some of these things with your friends and family. Thanks so much for listening to the Wall Booters Show.