Athletes Shining The Light Of God – New Pro-Life Laws And More – In the midst of woke culture, athletes are standing and shining the light of God. Statistics show we are among the top 45 most popular podcasts in the U.S., praise God! Tune in for more good news today!

Air Date: 04/01/2022

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

 

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. It’s WallBuilders Live, taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective.

I’m Rick Green, former Texas legislator and America’s constitution coach, here with David Barton, he is America’s premier historian and he’s our founder at WallBuilders, and Tim Barton is a national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. You can learn more about all three of us and our websites wallbuilders.com, if you’d like to book us to come in and speak or wallbuilderslive.com to listen to more of the programming, especially if you miss some of the previous weeks. Notice today’s Good News Friday, you’re going to get hooked on the good news, and you’re going to want more of it. So I promise you, there’s more at the website, wallbuilderslive.com.

That’s also the place to make your contribution. Yeah, I’m asking you to donate. Why? Because it takes lives, fortunes and sacred honor to save the country, to restore the constitutional republic. When you donate to WallBuilders Live, it allows us to train more pastors, train more legislators, train more young people, it allows us to take this program and reach more people out there all across the nation to get them in the fight as well, get them studying to be good biblical citizens and then also being a force multipliers in their community. So help us grow that reach and get that truth into as many hands as possible. You can do that by donating today at wallbuilderslive.com.

Alright, David and Tim, let’s dive into that good news. David has our first piece of good news today. Where are we headed, David?

David:

Basketball, man, that’s always good news. And…

Rick:

Basketball, this is a sport? Basketball…

David:

Says the guy who uses a piece of wood chase a ball around the grassy field. Yeah, exactly.

Rick:

You don’t have any baseball good news, do we really have to start with basketball? Okay, I’m sorry. I know everybody likes basketball around here. Go ahead. Alright, basketball it is.

David:

We want to start with a real sport. So we’re going to start with the real sport first. And that’s basketball.

Rick:

You have to run in that sport. Who wants to run so much?

David:

Exactly my point. That’s why it’s a sport. It actually requires physical effort. So you got anything to that, Rick, you’re going to come back to the thing?

Rick:

No, it’s true. You stand there most of the game in baseball. I admit it. It’s why I liked it.

David:

There are some guys shaped in baseball that would never be able to take a basketball court. They’re just appointed. You know, Babe Ruth is a great example. Try putting Babe Ruth on a basketball court, man, that was a guy who looked like he spent too much time at the pub, nonetheless.

Tim:

I mean, apart from the fact that Shaquille O’Neal was pretty round toward the end of his career, now granted, being seven foot and a monster, anyway, there’s some guys in the basketball realm not the most specimens. But the banter has been laid. It is clearly established. And obviously, right during March Madness season, we’re coming up to NBA Playoffs. It’s a fun time in the basketball world right now.

But what’s also super fun in the final four right now, you have Villanova, you have Kansas, you have Duke, and you have North Carolina. And then Villanova, Kansas, and Duke, you have three very well established veteran coaches who’ve been around for a long time. And then you have a rookie head coach, so to speak, although a pretty well credentialed basketball individual himself.

David:

Yeah. Hubert Davis is the coach for North Carolina. And I just had not realized how strong of a Christian he was. I was reading an interview on him, and man, his testimony, his story going back now. He’s a great NBA player. I think he’s either the second or third in the NBA and three point shooting percentage. I think he played for the Knicks for years and years. So I knew him from that standpoint.

And then when the season started this year, I was looking at North Carolina bench expecting to see Roy Williams, and didn’t realize that he had retired and didn’t even recognize the guy that’s sitting on the bench was Hubert Davis. So Hubert Davis had been an assistant coach under Roy Williams. And now Hubert, Tim, as you said, is the rookie head coach of all the final four.

So when he got hired this year at the start of the year, he really gave us testimony in the press conference. And I want to read part of this, what he said. He was not shy about talking about Christ. But he said, “My faith and foundation is firmly in my relationship with Jesus. It just is. And my mother was a Christian, and she begged me to go to church growing up, and I didn’t want to go. I wasn’t interested in it. My mom used to always say that Jesus had a plan for me, plans for hope and a future, plans not to harm you, but to prosper you.” In other words, Jeremiah 29:11. “At the time growing up, I didn’t understand and I didn’t listen to it.”

And he then then talked about that his mom passed away when he was 16. And he really developed a hatred toward God and he just turned anti-religion and he didn’t want anything to do with religion. And so that’s when he was 16. And then, when he’s 18, he ends up in college and he’s quite a player and so he plays at the University of North Carolina. He played there with Coach Dean Smith. And I remember Dean Smith from back in the day, man, what a great coach. I didn’t realize this about Dean.

This is Hubert Davis speaking. He said, “One of the things that Tar Heels coach Dean Smith used to do was make all the freshmen go to church. And as I went to church, and because Coach Smith and assistant coach Guthridge encouraged me to go to church, I started to understand what my mom was talking about. I started to understand the sacrifice that Jesus made for me and how much he loves me. And two days before my junior year of college, I became a Christian.”

Now, I was really not only impressed with his faith. I was impressed the Dean Smith made all the freshmen go to church. And as a result of that Hubert Davis becomes a Christian. And now he’s very outspoken about his faith and the kids that he has on, and I say, kids, but the young men he has on the team there, he’s very open about his faith with them just as Coach Smith was with him when he was young. So I thought that was a great story. It’s a great way to look at the final four. And there are some classic, great quality coaches there. And I think Huber Davis is likely to be around for a good while based on his character and based on what he’s already been able to do this year.

Rick:

Yeah, I think people, sometimes if they don’t play sports, they don’t realize how many life lessons, life skills, and really how much it affects you for the rest of your life. And a coach has so much influence. I mean, you’re looking up to them, they’re breathing into you, sowing into you all the time. So when you’re a person of faith like that, and you actually let that influence those kids, it can last forever, just like the example that you gave.

I just think what a blessing. I’m thankful for coaches out there that have that foundation. I mean, I think back to coaches I had that the spiritual influence they had on my life still sticks with me today.

Tim:

Well, and guys, dad even point out some of the main character lessons, and all of us have been around sports. I think all of us I’ve coached. All of us were athletes. We all participated in sports. And certainly as a coach, and definitely as players, there were so many character lessons that we learned that as you’re learning the character lesson, it wasn’t even always communicated by our coaches, and sometimes even as we were coaches, and we’re communicating these character lessons, and we’re talking about hard work, and we’re talking about teamwork and leadership. These are things that we’re not always saying, hey, guys, the Bible tells us this, therefore, you should do this.

However, almost every one of these character lessons that were being instructed and people being challenged with to grow and develop to be a better teammate, to be a better leader, to work hard to persevere, all of these are certainly biblical lessons. And I think it’s interesting that some of the most renowned coaches are people of faith. And it could be why they’re some of the best and why they’re some of the most renowned because they’re so good at promoting these character lessons along the way, things that you certainly learn in Christianity.

Rick:

Yeah, Tim, and I want to encourage coaches to use that influence, use that option, not just coaches, I mean, every time you have a chance to speak into the lives of those young people that God puts in your path, please do. So it’s one of the great ways to pass the torch of freedom to the next generation. So we’re going to get to our next question.

But hey, folks, you may hear a little bit of banging around, a little bit of noise in the background, we are expanding and growing constantly. God’s really blessing what’s happening, the reach and the number of people, that also means more staff, that also means expansion and improvements at WallBuilders. So you might hear a little bit of that outside the studio there today.

Actually, if Tim and David disappear on the program today, they’re probably swinging a hammer somewhere in the building. But hopefully, I’m keeping from doing that in the middle of the show. David, what’s our next piece of good news before we go to break?

Tim:

Well, I’d like to give one, I mean, my dad got the last one.

Rick:

Oh, it was his. That’s right. You and I just got to going on the basketball baseball thing. That’s right. Tim does have his own stack of good news, and he’s not swinging a hammer at the moment. So, Tim, next piece of good news.

Tim:

So apparently, there is also another sport apart of the two we identified. This one, there was a Super Bowl earlier this year…

Rick:

No, say it isn’t so, that you’re going to call football a sport, you’re not?

Tim:

I am definitely going to call football a sport. And…

Rick:

I’ll rank higher than baseball. Does that help?

Rick:

I’m losing this battle.

Tim:

All of us can identify as people who were okay not playing sports into much of our life because we didn’t like being hit by bigger people in pads who wanted to crush us. So that was fine. We were gone and we were happy about that. With that being said, the Super Bowl MVP was a wide receiver Cooper Kupp and such a cool story. There were some different highlights on them along the way. A lot of fun social media stuff leading up to that even highlighted his Christian faith.

And the reason I bring him up is because there were several interviews after he won the MVP of the Super Bowl, and even some stories that have come out, interviews beyond that where he is also an outspoken Christian, we talked about the coach North Carolina, Hubert Davis, being an outspoken Christian, Cooper Kupp as another outspoken Christian. And so you’re seeing some of these prominent individuals that have come out kind of explaining some of their faith.

But one of the cool things Cooper Kupp was in an interview leading up to the Super Bowl, so not after the Super Bowl, not during, but leading up to one of the things he talked about as a wide receiver as a person, he says, “I just got to play free knowing that I got to play from victory, not for victory.” He said “I got to play in a place where I was validated not from anything that happened on the field, but because of my worth in God and my Father.” He was saying, I’m playing from a place of victory because I know that I already have victory in Christ. So I’m not fighting to achieve victory for myself. I already am victorious, and is because of God.

But he goes on, I mean, just really cool stuff where he gives God credits. When he won the MVP, he says, I don’t know, I don’t feel deserving of this. God is just so good. I’m so thankful for my coaches, my family, the people that get to be around. And in pretty much every interview, he highlighted his faith. He had posted it on social media. After the Super Bowl, it was a montage of photos, of his video that was playing these photos. But the caption was, “Do it to get a crown that will last forever.”

And clearly speaking about eternal things, one of the things I think is fun, is we’ve talked about before in the midst of a culture that’s going in crazy directions. And we will get into, I’m sure in the future, some of what we have seen from Disney, even this week with the leaders of Disney acknowledging that they’re going in a very different direction where they want to encourage half of the stars and half of what they do to be in a LGBTQIA+ or minorities, 50% of what they do is going to be from that position going forward.

And so there’s a lot of people that are have been identifying some of the stuff, that there’s been a lot of chaos in the world. Obviously, under the current administration, there’s been a lot of issues with inflation and border security issues. And there’s a war right now with Russia and Ukraine, and so much is happening. And in the midst of all this happening, it’s still really neat to see that there are some incredible athletes who are shining the light of Jesus in their life, they’re encouraging others to find faith.

God is doing something in this nation. And these are just two of a really dozens, if not hundreds of prominent individuals we can highlight with this message of faith in Christianity and what they’re doing. But Cooper Kupp is another individual who was the NFL MVP wide receiver for the Rams, so impressive of a young man, 28 years old. All that to say that there’s a lot of fun heroes out there that sometimes get overlooked, sometimes not everybody knows about in an era of wokeness, where so many athletes are taking the wrong side on issues. There are some individuals who are still goal in life is to shine the light of Jesus and to bring people to the kingdom through the gospel message. So it’s really cool to see that happening.

Rick:

Alright, I feel like this is like our sports special program. This is a Good News Friday sports special. That’s what we’re going to do. Unless when we come back from the break, David goes into like some court decision or some elected official, I’m just kind of planting seeds here. We’ll see what happens. We’re not placing bets. No, we’re not placing bets. We’ll be back. Stay with us, you’re listening to WallBuilders Live. It’s Good News Friday.

AMERICAN HISTORY

Hi, friends, this is Tim Barton of WallBuilders. This is a time when most Americans don’t know much about American history or even heroes of the faith. And I know oftentimes we, parents, we’re trying to find good content for our kids to read.

And if you remember back to the Bible, to the book of Hebrews, it has the faith Hall of Fame where they outline the leaders of faith that had gone before them. Well, this is something that as Americans, we really want to go back and outline some of these heroes, not just of American history, but heroes of Christianity in our faith as well.

I want to let you know about some biographical sketches we have available on our website. One is called The Courageous Leaders collection. And this collection includes people like Abigail Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Francis Scott Key, George Washington Carver, Susanna Wesley, even the Wright brothers. And there’s a second collection called Heroes of History. In this collection, you’ll read about people like Benjamin Franklin or Christopher Columbus, Daniel Boone, George Washington, Harriet Tubman; friends, the list goes on and on. This is a great collection for your young person to have and read and it’s a providential view of American and Christian history. This is available at www.wallbuilders.com. That’s www.wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us on this Good News Friday, sports addition special, at least for the first half of the program because I have no idea what these guys are going to share each week. And now we’re back over to David and I just don’t know, is it going to be a sport good news? Is it going to be a Supreme Court case? I don’t know. David, where are we going?

David:

If you want me to make a segue from sports, I’ll say you know they keep a lot of statistics in sports. And the story I’ve got is about statistics. Now it has nothing to do with sports, but it’s statistics. So with what we do at WallBuilders Live, we’re obviously on radio hundreds of stations across the country, but also this is a podcast as well. And I was not really aware of all the rankings that go out there with various things. And so one of our listeners sent us a note and we looked into it and it was really interesting.

And as it turns out, our program is called News Commentary. Now, there’s a ton of that out there. Every newspaper has got their little podcast where they do that and all the media stations have their podcast with news commentary. And so everybody’s got this and there’s tons and tons and tons out there. As it turns out, here in America, WallBuilders Live is one of the top podcasts in the country. We’re up in the top, it looks like we’re ranked 45 right now out of how many thousands there are. So that was cool. I’m not one to really dwell on those kinds of stats. If we’re doing well, great. And if we’re not, we’ll try to improve.

But here’s what really surprised me was that we’re also ranked super high in South Korea, and in Nigeria and in Uganda. Now, I know that when I travel to other nations, people are looking at United States, they often know more about our own history than we do many times. And they look to us for leadership. I had no clue that the kinds of things we’re talking about now is going well in other nations.

Tim:

Well, and let’s also acknowledge that you do have Americans that are missionaries in some of these places, you do have military bases in some of these places. And so sometimes there definitely are Americans over there. With that being said, I’ve never been to Uganda or South Korea and have people stop me in the airport, like, hey, you’re so and so.

David:

Well, you’ve never been there anyway.

Tim:

Which is probably the main reason I’ve never been stopped at the airport by people to recognize me there, you know, I don’t know if that’s really the point right now of where I haven’t travelled. But it is interesting that we do periodically get emails from people from different nations and just identifying where they’ve seen this. Sometimes we’re in different TV programs to, and even people say, hey, I’ve seen you on like victory news. I’ve seen you. I’ve read your article in the Epic Times. Whatever the case may be, it is really fun to see that there are people from around the world, dad, as you mentioned, so many people look to America for a lot of reasons.

And for, literally generations, America has been a beacon. You can go back to John Winthrop, Puritan leader back in 1630, who talked about that America should be a shining city on a hill. And he acknowledged that if we ever saw God, if we ever stopped being godly, then God would make us a curse. It’s one of the things Benjamin Franklin even pointed out that if we reject the principles of the Bible, that we could become a curse and a byword down the future ages. There’s a lot of interesting thoughts there. And certainly, we would say quickly that America is not where it needs to be, that we’re not going the right direction.

With that being said, in the context of much of the rest of the world, America still is a land of opportunity for so many people. So there are a lot of people looking to America. There’s a lot of Americans in other nations, a lot of Christians and other nations that are looking for insight and encouragement along the way. So it is fun to see some of these connections from people around the world, and especially when they reach out and let us know where they’re listening from. And it’s not like, Dallas, Texas, or Colorado Springs, Colorado, although those are fine. If you’re listening from there, thank you. We appreciate it. But there certainly are some unique places where we get emails from that people are just letting us know they appreciate what we do.

Rick:

And the principles don’t change, right? The principles are good, no matter where you live. These are principles of liberty we’re talking about.

David:

That’s right. And just looking at the list here, just again, I wasn’t aware of this, but shout out to listeners in Great Britain, in South Korea in New Zealand, and Switzerland, Nigeria, and Uganda and all these countries where they’re apparently we’re on and doing well. So thank you, guys, for listening. Hopefully, we can provide principles that will be applicable in your nation as well. And Tim, as you said, hopefully American can get back to be a shining city on a hill in some really good areas.

Rick:

Alright, Tim, you have you have options here: sports, stats, or something entirely new. Where are we headed?

Tim:

Well, so speaking of in baseball, where you have your closer come out and he can get a save. So speaking of saves, there are some governors who have signed prolife laws saving babies. So…

Rick:

Okay, that was good. Did you get off the top of your head? Or did you plan that during the break? I just want to know.

Tim:

No, I’m just making stuff up right now.

Rick:

Alright, it’s good. It’s good. I like it. I like it. So we’re saving babies, which governors were talking about?

Tim:

Well, and by the way, obviously, not to diminish because I can imagine some people are listening and maybe thinking we’re making light of the fact that we’re saving or that governors have signed bills, signed laws to save life. I’m not trying to diminish that at all clearly in what we’re doing. Actually, in our stack that now is just like five or six inches high of good news, there are dozens, if not maybe hundreds of articles in here that are literally just good news related to the prolife…

David:

And by the way, if I can put a little help on that, our stack that’s five inches high, that’s equivalent to two reams of paper, which you’re talking about 1,000 pages there is essentially what we have in the stack, probably 1,000 pages of stories there.

Tim:

And even over the last couple weeks I have disregarded printing off some stories that would traditionally be in our ‘Good News’ sack because I thought we already have enough good news on some of these topics. So even as I’m mentioning some of these pro-life things that are happening, I literally have not even been printing off all of the articles, or the emails that we get from different legislators or congressmen or governors or some of the things that are happening. Again, because there’s already so much of this there, it really can’t communicate make the point.

But this one, one article says Arizona Governor Doug Ducey signed a bill to ban abortions after 15 weeks, saving hundreds of babies. Actually, this article came out this week, looking at what Doug Ducey has done in Arizona. This is another article that says West Virginia Governor, Jim Justice signs bill banning abortions on babies with Down syndrome. So now we’re talking about selective abortions where that so many crazy things are happening right now, where in Maryland, they are working on a piece of legislation that says 28 days after a baby is born. You have up to 28 days after birth, that you can still kill/slash murder that baby.

Now they don’t have kill and murder and their bill. But that is actually what they’re referring to. They’re looking at the same Legislation in California. So, at a time when people’s morals are just completely going by the wayside, things that in the Bible when it talks about that children being sacrificed to idols, this is the kind of stuff that the Bible would be speaking about of just how evil people were. They were sacrificing children to idols because those were babies who were alive. And we’re talking about now babies have been born for 28 days. There’s crazy stuff happening that some states are going the wrong direction.

However, there are a lot of places where people are fighting to protect and defend the unborn and where positive stuff is happening. And in some of these states, they’ve said that you can have selective abortions, that if you have a baby that might be born with a birth defect, well, then that baby’s life really wouldn’t be valuable. And maybe you should kill that baby. Fortunately, in West Virginia, their governor signed a piece of legislation that says yeah, we’re not going to let you look and have selective abortions because there might be some kind of defect and therefore you don’t see value in that life. There is a lot of good news.

And actually, probably next Friday, just going down literally from the top of the stack to the bottom, I will probably have more good news reports dealing with the prolife issue. So there’s a lot of stuff going on. All that to say, there is good news on the prolife front. In a lot of states, there is still positive things happening. And as we might hear this summer from a ruling from the Supreme Court, it could change the entire game going forward based on what’s determined from this, this prolife or this abortion case coming from Mississippi. So a lot more stuff coming. We can definitely cover more this summer.

But this is at least really good news from Arizona in West Virginia.

Rick:

Yeah, and you know, it seems like every day in my inbox, I get emails about move bills like this that are either working their way through the legislature or they’ve been passed. I mean, it just continues to grow. And as David said, you’ve already got stacks and stacks, but I think those stacks are going to get taller and taller. We got time for one more. I think, David, if you got a quick one we squeeze in for the end of the day.

David:

Yeah, it deals with where the Christian church is in general. And we’ve seen a lot of nominations really go woke. United Methodists have really gone woke, even though there’re church discipline, which is a doctrine, still are very conservative biblically. They are not in a lot of their practices as a denomination. We’ve heard Baptists really yelling over the last two years how woke Southern Baptists are getting. So, they’re wanting to take back their denomination and get back to what the Bible says.

And so I’m intrigued with the fact that Asbury United Methodist Church in Tulsa, which is a huge Methodist mega church has just disassociated from the United Methodist movement because they say we’re going with the Bible, we’re not going to the woke denomination. And there’s not that many mega churches that really have that strength and conviction. But it’s really good to see.

And there was also one Frazier Methodist Church, huge Methodist Church in Alabama, same thing. So there’s really bunch of good churches going the right direction on this.

Tim:

And dad, as you’re saying this, certainly, you do see the main body of a denomination. You just mentioned United Methodist, there are a lot of United Methodist churches that have begin to embrace things that are clearly not biblical positions, where they will have a lesbian Bishop over a church, right, where clearly that’s not the doctrinal position inside the United Methodist Church. But that’s what’s being embraced inside much of the church movement.

But as you mentioned a mega church, but actually, we could identify there are several churches, now it’s not the majority of the denomination or the denomination might be going a different direction. But there are Bible believing pastors, there are Bible believing leaders within some of these churches and some of these denominations that where the nomination is going in unbiblical direction, fortunately, there are some still really strong pastors in some of these churches that say, you know what, if you’re going that way, right, if you’re about to go run and jump off a cliff, I’m not taking my church or my congregation with you, we’re going a different direction. And as you mentioned, that it’s even kind of a bigger deal wanted to mega church identifying this is really the wrong direction socially, culturally and biblically to go. So that is good news.

Rick:

Good news. Indeed. And as I said at the top of the program, if you want more good news, if you got hooked today, if it was your first to listen and you enjoyed that good news so much that you want more, it’s available at our website right now, wallbuilderslive.com. Again, that’s the website, wallbuilderslive.com, the place where you can make that one-time or monthly contribution. You can get archives of the program and listen back over the previous weeks and months.

And then we also just have some great links to some of our other programming and also to articles and other great information. And be sure and check out our regular website, our main website, I should say, it’s not regular at all. It’s outstanding. It’s phenomenal. It’s amazing. Why would I use the word regular? Anyway, wallbuilders.com is the website, wallbuilders.com. There, you can get access to the Mp3, the videos, the books. There’s so much available.

And here’s the good news. It’s not boring. This isn’t history and government like you had in high school or college where you slept through the class. WallBuilders, and this is part of what I admire so much about David Barton as he just set this amazing tone for studying history through the eyes of the people that experienced it. He brought it to life. I hated this stuff when I was in high school in college. But somebody gave me one of those cassette tapes of David Barton years ago, I’m not going to say how many years, but let’s just say multiple decades, gave me one of those cassette tapes, and I fell in love with history because of the way David teaches it. You can get all of that at wallbuilders.com. Get your family excited about studying these things, become students of freedom, become biblical citizens and become the catalyst in your community for restoring biblical values and constitutional principles.

Thanks so much for listening today. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.