Stories Of Courage – President Trump Defends National Monuments And More – Join us today for good news Friday! Hear about stories of courage from our President and from our fellow Americans. Tune in now!

Air Date: 09/18/2020

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, where we’re looking at things from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. And it’s that day of the week that you look forward to all week. It used to be that you look forward to Friday, because it was the last work day or whatever and you know, thank God, it’s Friday and all that good stuff. But nowadays, you look forward to Friday, because on WallBuilders Live, it’s Good News Friday, and you’re always going to be looking forward to the good news that we share here on WallBuilders Live.

We love taking the hot topics of the day, and taking that biblical, historical and constitutional perspective and looking at what the right position is on the issues and also looking for where the victories are in the culture. I know there’s chaos in the culture right now. I know 2020 has been just nuts. But there’s a lot of positive things that are happening as well. And so we spend our Friday program looking at those victories.

We take that look with David Barton, he’s America’s premier historian, and our founder of WallBuilders, also with Tim Burton, national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. And my name is Rick Green, I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach. Check us out at wallbuilderslive.com to learn more, and also to get more of these good news stories, those Good News Friday programs are in the archive section, along with the Thursday programs. That’s our Foundations of Freedom Thursday program where you can send in questions.

So you can even send them in now even though it’s Friday, send those into [email protected] and we’ll get to as many as we can on our Thursday program. And then listen to those Monday through Wednesday programs where we have a lot of great interviews. Check it all out at wallbuilderslive.com.

Alright, David, Tim, always looking forward to the good news that we get on Fridays. So let’s start giving some folks good news. David Barton with the first piece of good news.

David:

I want to start with just the word, courage. I have to say, from a personal standpoint, I’ve really lamented how the over the last few weeks and months, there’s been a real lack of courage for a lot of folks not standing up against government or letting their voice be heard. We’ve talked about polls that we’ve seen in recent weeks where that 77% of conservatives feel like that they shouldn’t say anything because that attracts attention and they get attacked or whatever. So we’re doing all the self-censoring kind of stuff.

And we’ve seen in the church for years that well, we don’t want to offend anybody, so we don’t want to talk about those issues. And my gosh, we just really need some leadership and leadership involves courage. And so I really have wanted to see some and now I have seen some and I’m loving it. Not only 3,000 pastors in California who stood up and told governor Newsom what they were going to do and what he could do, but you’re having several these of guys that are now looking at jail time and they’re not backing down. Some of them have massive fines have been levied against them, and they’re not backing down.

So I’m loving what I’m seeing there. But I saw an article that came across the desk, I thought was really cool. And it says “Tony Dungy Criticizes Pro-Abortion Pastors”. Now Tony Dungy, the Super Bowl winning football coach, just a great guy. He’s a commentator on NBC on Sunday Night Football, really good guy, but so oftentimes when you’re in the national spotlight like he’s been for several years, you kind of hold your opinions to yourself. But he didn’t do that.

He responded to a Democrat politician who was also a minister, and this Democrat politician/minister called abortion, “health care” and he tweeted that God is cool with it, meaning abortion. So Dungy replied back with his own series of tweets, I’m reading from the article, “That declared his biblical prolife position and then he responded to critics.” And I love the fact that he’s not being quiet when the critics come after him. He responded to critics with a specific Bible verse that tout God’s respect for human life. And he said, “When you say a minister, does that mean they represent a church? I’d like to know what book the candidate uses as their foundation for truth and guiding principles. It couldn’t be the Bible.” Dungy tweeted, “I love it.”

So Tony is actually calling out pastors who are being pro-abortion and not being silent and for national commentator on sports to get into something that is this kind of abortion, prolife stuff, I mean, that’s a good bit of courage.

And one other point out is courage is an interview that happened not long ago with Vice President, Mike Pence. He was on with David Brody, David’s good friend, great guy, great journalist. He’s with CBN News. And he asked Mike Pence about Chief Justice Roberts. And I have not heard a President or Vice President and forever criticize anything on the Supreme Court, but Mike did. Mike said that Justice Roberts, as he said, a disappoint.

As matter of fact, he said, look, he said, “We have great respect for the institution of the Supreme Court of the United States, but Chief Justice John Roberts has been a disappointment to conservatives. Now, for any kind of national sitting President and Vice President to make that kind of comment about an individual Justice, last time I recall that happening was when Eisenhower criticized Chief Justice Earl Warren going back 50, 60, 70 years. I mean, maybe it’s happened since then, I don’t recall that.

But this is the time where you need people speaking out, you need people saying what’s right and wrong and taking a position on that, because we’ve been so morally ambivalent, morally squishy for decades. We need some voices in leadership. And I’m just thrilled to say folks like Vice President Pence and head coach Tony Dungy and others doing such a good job of taking a good biblical position on these cultural issues.

Rick:

Yeah, speaking truth on those things makes the rest of us feel like we can speak up, right? When you have folks at that level speaking up and having boldness and taking on some of the tough issues of the day then your little comment you want to make on Facebook doesn’t seem so difficult to make, so we need more leaders willing to do exactly that, speaking truth, vitally important in a free society like ours.

Quick break, guys, we’ll be right back with more good news. Stay with us, you’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

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This is Tim Burton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. The year after the American war for independence ended, we begin addressing the issue of Muslim terrorists in North Africa who were attacking American ships and killing enslaving American seamen. Congress dispatched John Adams and Thomas Jefferson to negotiate peace. And when they asked the Muslim Ambassador the reason for the unprovoked attacks, he told them that it was written in their Quran, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them whenever they could be found.

16 years of negotiations failed and in 1801, America sent its military to crush the terrorists. When that war ended in 1805, the first American edition of the Quran was published, urging Americans to read the Quran to see for themselves that his teachings were incompatible with the safety and peace of non-Muslims.

To see the first American Quran and to get more information about America’s first war in Islamic terror, go to wallbuilders.com

Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live, it’s Good News Friday today. You can get more good news at our website, wallbuilderslive.com. But our next piece of good news today is coming from Tim Barton. Tim.

Tim:

Alright guys, let’s back this up a couple months, but it certainly is worth covering, really great news when it happened. President Trump and by the way, speaking of courage, President Trump is someone who has not been lacking in the courage department. There could be arguments about him lacking in wisdom departments on some of his tweets, but courage is not lacking.

And he came out with an executive order back in June, and the executive order was to protect American monuments, memorials, and statues. And then he said he was going to combat criminal violence, and he was going to give long prison terms for all these lawless acts against our country. What was so interesting to me is at a time when you were continuing to see growth of riots, and of unrest. And one of the things it was very common in the destruction of property was the destruction of many monuments.

And guys, I’m thinking for the last month and a half, I don’t remember seeing many examples and cities of rioters, or in some cases, right the “peaceful protesters”. I don’t remember seeing statues or monuments or memorials targeted over the last month and a half, really since this maybe last two months since the executive order came out.

And before that, it was every night on the news. We were seeing about some military general, some World War Two or some civil war or some Founding Fathers statue memorial monument was being desecrated, torn down.

Rick:

Oh, faith leader like Junipero Serra. Yeah.

Tim:

Absolutely. So it’s interesting that since President Trump’s order saying that we’re going to start prosecuting, we’re not going to put up with this and he specifically cites things that were funded by federal dollars. He says, if this is something that the federal government helped fund, then we’re going to defend it and right, we’re not leaving this up to the governors or maybe the mayors of Portland or Seattle where some of these things have been going on. It’s just interesting since he said that we’re not going to put up with this, I really don’t recall examples, maybe there’s been one or two, but certainly not many of statues, memorials or monuments being torn down. Can you guys think of any over the last couple months?

David:

I can think of several riots in recent months where that I have seen the federal law enforcement guys show up when there were federal statues threatened and those federal statues have been protected, they haven’t come down. Now, I’ve seen some of the State statues come down, like, for example, the State capitol in Denver, they tore down the military soldier statue there at the State capitol grounds. So I’ve seen some come down on State grounds. But the stuff that was happening on the federal grounds like what happened on the National Mall way back months ago, I’m not seeing that happen anymore and federal law enforcement and again, President Trump has made it really clear that those States are going to lose funding if they do that, now, I have seen a change.

Tim:

It maybe one or two if it helped clarify for some of these States, some of these governors in some of the cities were mostly more talking about some of these bigger cities, they’re very liberal cities, where you could argue that some of these democrat mayors are okay on some level with some of the chaos because they think maybe politically motivated, this looks bad for Trump or we can make people hate Trump. Not to over speculate into some of this, but certainly, I think there’s some reasonable doubt that maybe they have the interest of their city in mind as they allow these destructive riots and this looting to continue. Certainly, that does not seem to be a good thing going on. So maybe there is some level of political motivation and I’m putting so much of a caveat there. I think most of our listeners are going yeah, this is all politically motivated, I’m mostly with you.

It’s just interesting that you’re not seeing this spread beyond some of these major liberal cities.  And it does make me wonder if this is where sometimes just having the courage of a leader when a leader steps up and says, hey, we’re not doing this anymore, we’re going to put a stop to this. All of a sudden people like, oh, yeah, hey, we’re going to put a stop to this, we don’t want to do that anymore either.

It’s so interesting as first time you’re talking about courage., this is something rather than President Trump has done such a good job on so many areas, which I know today, I don’t have in my stack right here, in what I have pulled out to talk about today, I don’t have some of the things related to America helping broker peace deals with the Middle East and Israel. But you just see so many examples of the courage of President Trump stepping out to do things that so many other presidents had maybe talked a big game didn’t really follow through, but this to me was one really good piece of good news, where Trump was saying we’re going to protect federal statues and monuments.

And guys, I mean, for the last several months, five, six months, whatever it is now that some of these things have been under attack, we have gotten so many questions about some of these individuals or statues and stories. And actually, we’ve had a lot of hits on our website with people coming to find out more about the stories of some of the people who statue are being torn down, because frankly, most Americans don’t know the story of most statues.

One of the things that just in the last couple weeks, we have now an inventory at WallBuilders, we have a new history book called “The American Story”, where we actually go through and we’ve been working on writing this for a couple of years. And I would say at this point, it was actually providential that it was completed and just came out in the beginning of September.

Because a lot of the stories we tell, starting with Christopher Columbus going all the way up roughly to Abraham Lincoln, a lot of the stories in the heroes that we highlight in this history storybook are the very people whose statues and monuments have been torn down. And what you realize when you study history, and certainly we highlighted in this book is that even though many people in our nation’s history had some major flaws or weak moments or sinful moments or fleshly moments, however, you want to word that, even though none of them were perfect, what we recognize is, there were definitely moments when we would say a perfect God used an imperfect person and did something great through them.

And the reason we celebrate some of these heroes is not because of their own goodness, rather, how God used them to do something great to bless others, to bless the nation. And with that being said, many of them were very honorable people. So anyway, plug for the new book, “The American Story”, it’s on the WallBuilders website, but really glad to see President Trump defending these federal statutes to not let more of them be torn down and destroyed.

Rick:

As we got a break, I got to say, you’re right. I mean, the timing, God’s timing is perfect on this. We needed a defense of the American story at exactly this time, because in many ways America has been on trial for the last few months with so much of the Leftist propaganda and so the timing of the book is absolutely perfect. I encourage people to get that.

And I got to say about what you just said. I mean, I had not even thought of that Tim, that is like all of these statues were coming down night after night and day after day, and we’re all thinking, when is this going to stop? When is this going to stop? When Trump acts, he gets that done, it stopped and nobody’s talking about. I haven’t even talked about it. I haven’t even realized, wait a minute, it stopped, what he did work. So I’m so glad you pointed that out.

And you also mentioned the Middle East. I mean, I heard somebody say the other day and I don’t know if it’s true, because I don’t follow this as much as I should. But that basically, fully half of the Mideast peace deals directly with Israel have happened on Trump’s watch. In other words, it doesn’t happen very often and he’s managed to do it with what, three countries now, I mean, it’s unbelievable what he’s accomplished. And we always said, hey, he’s a great negotiator, but he showed strength like Reagan did and then he brought in the master negotiating with it and man, I mean, we are all the better off for it and certainly, Israel is and the Middle East in general. So just really, really good news, man, you guys are packing it in today.

We got more good news we’re going to try to get to before we finish, so stay with us. Quick break, we’ll be right back on WallBuilders Live.

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Have you ever wanted to learn more about the United States Constitution but just felt like, man, the classes are boring or it’s just that old language from 200 years ago or I don’t know where to start? People want to know but it gets frustrating because they don’t know where to look for truth about the Constitution either.

Well, we’ve got a special program for you available now called Constitution Alive with David Barton and Rick Green. And it’s actually a teaching done on the Constitution at Independence Hall in the very room where the Constitution was framed. We take you both to Philadelphia, the cradle of liberty and Independence Hall and to the WallBuilders library, where David Barton brings the history to life to teach the original intent of our Founding Fathers.

We call it the Quickstart Guide to the Constitution, because in just a few hours through these videos, you will learn the citizens guide to America’s Constitution, you’ll learn what you need to do to help save our constitutional republic. It’s fun, it’s entertaining and it’s going to inspire you to do your part to preserve freedom for future generations. It’s called Constitution Alive with David Barton and Rick Green. You can find out more information on our website now and wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us on Good News Friday. David Barton’s got our next piece of good news. David.

David:

I was talking about courage earlier, Tim repeated it right then. I’m going back to California for a little more example of courage. And in California, I mentioned those 3,000 pastors said we’re not going to back down to governor Newsom. Well, some of them have gone beyond saying we’re not going to bow down. You now have 72 pastors in California running for public office in California, so they have signed up to run for office.

And I’m looking at the list of counties in which they’ve signed up and it really is the counties that have been really some of the most impressive counties.

Rick:

Wait, how many did you say?

David:

  1. 72 pastors…

Rick:

Oh wow, we celebrate with one or two runs. 72, just in California?

David:

72, well, just in California. There’s already several that have run and won, but 72 this cycle have signed up to run in the cycle. So that’s great and that is really, really great.

Rick:

And that’s all kind of offices, right? I mean, that’s legislatures, school board, they’re running for all kinds of things.

David:

You get from Congress down to city council, school board, parks and recreation, you name it, but they’re getting in there and getting there and that’s just really cool stuff, so that’s really fun. And then I’ve got one here that is kind of, it’s a really silver lining tucked into what is really not a good news story.

But we go back to the first stimulus check that came out with the COVID stuff, and how everybody got $1,200 and etc. And so as this has gone, we’ve had round two, round three and now we’ve been stuck on round four for several weeks. And the Senate just passed their version, which is about one-sixth of what the house version was, so neither sides getting their way. As this is going on, pollsters have gone after the American people and say, so what do you think about another stimulus check? And it’s just amazing. 84% of the nation thinks that they should get another stimulus check from the government. So I guess nobody turns down free money except, guys, it’s not free money you’re going to be paying for this.

Tim:

I mean, if you’re going to give me money, why would I say no, guys, right? Like yeah, write me the check. It’s fine.

David:

You’re going to be paying for it next time with a lot more interest.

Tim:

Oh you mean that increases my taxes? Oh no, yeah, I’ll wait on that. That’s fine. I’ll wait.

Ruth:

But they’re also thinking about the, I get to stay home and get paid more to stay home and not work than I was making when I went to work?

David:

Well, fortunately, that provision is kind of run out and so it’s now just 60% of what you were getting, which still makes it not more than you were getting but probably as much as you were getting. So it’s still not a good deal…

Tim:

And depending on the individual, right, because for some, they could be getting a little more. But at least, there have been people saying it doesn’t make sense that we are paying people more money to not have a job than they’re actually making it their job. That does not make a lot of sense.

David:

Now, the next question was okay, stimulus check. Should everybody get a stimulus check across the board or should it be just those people who were laid off and aren’t getting the check that because of COVID they lost their job? Should it just be those people who get a check or everybody? Well, 62% of people said everybody should get one, whether you lost your job or still have your job, you should get one. And 14% said, it should be only those who were laid off or furloughed, because of COVID. Only those who actually lost your job should be getting paid for it.

Now, guess who by far was the biggest demographic supporting that only those who actually lost a job should get paid for their work as opposed to others who said everybody should get paid? Which demographic in the country? And think about the older groups where there’s the boomers to the busters or the others, I mean, these are the ones who’ve been raised with a whole different work ethic generally, from the young generation. So think back, what generation would you predict to be the ones who said most strongly that we only want people who lost their job to get? If you still got a job, you shouldn’t be getting a check. Which demographic supports it?

Rick:

Based on how you ask that and the few hints you dropped in there…

David:

That’s right.

Rick:

I’m going to guess is the boomers or the older crowds or retired, maybe.

David:

No. No. You took the bait. You’re in the trap, man, you shouldn’t have taken the bait. I put the bait out there for you so you’ll been rejected? It’s actually Millennials by far…

Rick:

I could feel the hook in my mouth right now. I could feel it. You set the hook pretty hard.

David:

I set the hook, man. You bet the bait and I set it out there so you would and you did. It’s Millennials much higher than boomers busters any other generation. Millennials are the strongest by far and saying you shouldn’t get a check unless you actually lost your job. That’s amazing.

Rick:

That’s shocking to me. I mean, that is truly shocking.

Tim:

I would love to see that poll and see like what is done online and is that why? Because, right Millennials are online and maybe my grandparents are not online, right? Like I would love to know how this poll was conducted and if it was weighted, because that is very interesting. That is not necessarily the majority of the Millennials I’ve encountered. Although I think there has been some reality checks in the midst of what’s been going on with COVID. So that is pretty interesting to hear.

Rick:

What you’re saying, Tim, is you think CNN might have done this poll, in which case we can’t trust it at all, is that what you’re saying?

David:

Oh, no, CNN wouldn’t make anybody look like they didn’t want money. They wouldn’t bring that out.

Rick:

Well, that’s true. That’s absolutely true. Alright, Tim, you got a good piece of good news to close this out when we come back from the break.

Tim:

Absolutely.

Rick:

It better be good. Alright, man, you’re going to close this out. We’ll be right back. Folks, last piece of good news today. So stay with us, you’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

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There’s no better source of wisdom and it is applicable to every issue in our lives. What a great time for us as American citizens to take this time. If you’ve got extra time at home now, if you’re quarantined at home and you’re looking for something to do, what better thing could there be to do than to read through the Bible, maybe for the first time in your life?

I tried to make this a habit several years ago and I had a new tool to start doing that with and it was called the Founders’ Bible. It gave me a chance not only to read through the Bible once a year, but also to learn history while I was doing that. And what I love about the Founders’ Bible is that as I’m reading that Scripture, then all of a sudden, there’ll be an article inserted right there by that Scripture about what the Founding Fathers learned from that specific verse or chapter and how they applied it to launch our new. It’s a really fun way to learn. It’s incredibly empowering and it has answers for today. The Bible is full of all the right answers for today, in fact, it’s the only source that has all the right answers.

So, if you haven’t read through the Founders’ Bible, I challenge you and encourage you get a copy of the Founders’ Bible today, it’s available at wallbuilders.com. And we even have a digital version, so you can do this on your phone or iPad or computer. Check out the Founders’ Bible today, make it a part of your regular reading throughout the year. But right now, is a great opportunity to redo the Founders’ Bible. Check it out today at WallBuilders.com.

Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live. Last piece of good news for the day, but you can get more on our website wallbuilderslive.com. Tim.

Tim:

Alright guys, this is from Georgia. Vernon Jones was a Democrat state representative in Georgia and he had the audacity to come out and support President Trump because he said President Trump has done more for his constituencies, he’s done more for the black community than any of these Democrat leaders. But he was a Democrat and that doesn’t go well with the Democrats.

And if you remember Georgia, that’s where Stacey Abrams was from and Stacey Abrams lost more than 50,000 votes and then she said that she was actually the governor. So there’s actually a lot of crazy thoughts in the Democrat Party in Georgia except for Vernon Jones, apparently, and maybe some others that are walking away from that. So Vernon Jones, when he came out and said he was supporting President Trump because of what President Trump has done for his constituents and for the black community, he was ostracized and he received so much hate and death threats and mail and it was terrible.

And so he decided he’s going to back up, he’s going to step down, he was going to resign. He then said that he was so overwhelmed, because he started receiving overwhelming amount of support; he said, from people in every walk of life, every age, every color, every party. He said, that was emotional and that was motivational. He said, you know what, America, I thought about it and I talked to my family, and I talked to my supporters. Because what you did for me, I’m going to remain on the battlefield, I am going to complete my term, and then I’m going to continue to put my country before my party.

So not only is he not going to resign, he’s also going to run for reelection, because he really thinks this is what the demographic of his constituency, this is what they want, and he thinks he’s representing them well. It’s just as we’ve been talking about courage all day, it’s so interesting to see that Vernon Jones might have the biggest backbone if anybody that we’ve talked about because of all he’s had to go through as a Democrat coming out and endorsing President Trump, and he’s not backing down from it.

Rick:

And I’ll tell you what, people are hungry for that kind of courage. I spoke at a rally in Chicago back in April with him, and I’m telling you, guys, when he got out of the car, and everybody realized who it was, it was like a rockstar just showed up at our rally, everybody went nuts. So I’m telling you, that kind of courage people are hungry to see it. Thank you, Vernon Jones for being that kind of leader. He gave a great speech at the republican convention as well on that first night. But thanks for all the good news, guys, we’ll get more good news next Friday.

Meanwhile, if you just can’t wait until next Friday for more good news, go to wallbuilderslive.com today, check out that archive section where there’s a lot of good news in those previous Friday programs, as well as a lot of great interviews and just a lot of good commentary on constitutional issues. It’s all available to you for free at wallbuilderslive.com. But that is also the place, if you would like to contribute, you can, we’re a listener supported program and we greatly appreciate all of you across the country that donate on a monthly basis or you send it a one-time donation once a year, we really appreciate that. We could not do what we do without you, our listeners coming alongside us. So thanks for doing that. If you’d like to try that today, you can go to wallbuilderslive.com and contribute a one-time or monthly contribution. We greatly appreciate that.

And we mostly appreciate you for just listening today and then sharing. You know, that’s an important part of this. When you hear good stuff on this program, make sure you’re not keeping it to yourself. Use those social media tools, share it with your friends and family, get people educated, equipped and inspired and we will save America’s constitutional republic.

God bless you and thanks for listening. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.