Let’s Focus On The Good News In Our Country Today – Many of us are still reeling from the result of January 6th, but remember that God is still in control. Duty is ours, results are God’s! So today we are bringing the good news in our Country to you, tune in now!

Air Date: 01/08/2021

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 the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective, here with David Barton, America’s premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders, and also Tim Barton, national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. My name is Rick Green, I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach.

And of course, we’re all still reeling from the chaos of January 6th, the day that, frankly, very bad for our Constitution and for our country. We continue, of course, your WallBuilders Live to condemn any form of rioting, violence, and that sort of thing, crazy things, though, that are coming out about what happened. And it’s going to be interesting to see what is uncovered about how that turned into the mess that it did. Of course, disappointed in the congressional process for the electors. There was some debate and some discussion and objections. But the unconstitutional electors from some of these states were approved. And, of course, President Trump has said that he will, in fact, have a peaceful transfer. So that is done, folks. We’re looking at four years have a Biden Harris administration, or at least some time have a Biden/Harris administration, and then at some point, I’m sure it will be a Harris/Someone administration.

And so now is the time to start thinking about the next place to engage as citizens and work towards a restoration of our constitutional republic. We got some tough days ahead, folks. But as we said yesterday, duty is ours, results are God’s, we are going to stay in this, obviously, and there are a lot of good things that have happened as well. Let’s not be so focused on the defeats or the bad things that we miss all the good. There was a lot of good that happened in the 2020 election all across the country at the state level and in state legislatures, and frankly, great new members of Congress as well.

And so as is our tradition here WallBuilders Live, we spend our Fridays talking about good news, we call it Good News Fridays. And sometimes it’s stories from weeks or even months before that we haven’t had a chance to get to. So looking forward to some good news, need a little pick me up today. So thank you, David, Tim, for doing that. Here we go, David, first piece of good news.

David:

Okay, Rick, first one deals with the federal appeals court out, I think it’s the 11th Court of Appeal that has Florida out in that direction. What we’ve seen in recent years from both the coasts, left and right, or California through Seattle, and then from Miami, over up into Massachusetts, has been this attack on what they call Conversion Therapy. And Conversion Therapy is something that’s really disliked by the LGBTQIA+ community. It is what they consider an attack on their lifestyle.

And so what happens is, and in these cases, you’ve had cities like Boca Raton, and Miami Dade County, others, Passbands say, if you’re a counselor, you cannot engage in what they call Conversion Therapy. That is, if a young person comes to you and says, hey, I was raised in a church, I’ve been a religious person, and I’m struggling with these homosexual inclinations, or something in that direction, and I really want to stay with the church and not with these inclinations, you’re not allowed to counsel, that young person say, well, here’s how you can deal with LGBTQIA+ desires, here’s how you can overcome them. And so they put a ban on particularly Christian counselors doing anything to counsel young people to follow biblical teachings. And the reason they did that they called it Conversion Therapy.

Now, that’s an interesting term, not quite sure what Conversion Therapy means. But because they called it therapy, they said we can regulate it, government can regulate behavior. It can’t regulate speech, but it can regulate behavior. And so since this is a therapy, that’s a behavior, and we’re banning this behavior in our jurisdictions.

And so lawsuits were filed, Mat Staver over in Florida with Liberty Counsel, who’s so good on so many areas, took this lawsuit and said, no, this is not behavior, this is free speech. There’s nothing going on here in the way of treatment other than verbal counseling. And so as this case proceeded up the chain through the court, it finally got to the 11th Circuit and 2:1 decision, the court said look, what’s going on here is you have clearly nothing but speech and they investigated and found that everything that they’re calling Conversion Therapy is nothing but counseling and they’re upholding the clients or the kids that are coming to be counseled, they’re upholding their desire to live a lifestyle in conformity to biblical teaching, and there’s no therapy so called involved. It is simply counseling and giving encouragement on how to be able to handle those desires.

And so the court actually went back to a decision from the Supreme Court two years ago. They said, look, the government cannot coerce a particular strain of speech. The government can’t take a position that says this is what we support and you can’t say anything contrary to that. And they said, that’s what’s happened here. You’ve had Boca Raton, you’ve had Miami Dade County, you’ve had these other jurisdictions in Florida saying, here’s the official government position of this city government on speech, and we’re not going to let Christian counselors and our jurisdiction say anything other than what we want them to say about this issue.

And so the court came back very strongly and said, no, that goes away. You can’t have a single government positional speech and not have anything else said. And because this does not involve behavior and involves solely something being said, we’re striking down. So that’s a really good position and that’s going to help other cases across the country. A few years ago, this was something that was really popular in city governments who was to really target Christian counselors on what they called Conversion Therapy. And this this case is really good about knocking it down.

Rick:

And even back, you know, I remember when that happened, and we were all just like, I can’t imagine we outlaw what a counselor can actually say to someone that’s asking for help. I mean, that just seemed like such an overreach of government. So it is definitely good news on that front when we’re facing so much other censorship and so many other things that seemed to run against the Constitution instead of defending those freedoms.

Alright, quick break, we’ll be right back. Tim Barton’s got the next piece of good news. Stay with us, folks, you’re listening to 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. Good News Friday today, and as we said earlier, we could all use some good news right now. We’ve had some kind of stacking up on us over the last few weeks. So Tim, what’s your first piece of good news?

Tim:

Yeah, it’s certainly worth noting, in the midst of the craziness we’ve had going on in America over this last week, really over the last couple of months, we’ve been very preoccupied with trying to cover the day to day stuff. But there has been so many good things happening, not only in America, but even around the world. This one comes from Poland. And just at their New Year’s, there was a story that came out about a church bell that had gone missing back in the Nazi days.

And one of the things that happened back in World War II era is the Nazis would go to churches, and they would take down their bells, and they would use the bells, they would melt the bells down or they would make weapons or ammunition. They would use it for that kind of manufacturing. And it’s estimated, there’s a report that came out that the Nazis took down and melted some 80,000 church bells.

David:

How many?

Tim:

80,000 is what the report was. So that’s a massive number. Well, this church from Poland and I’m going to give you my pronunciation of the town name…

David:

You used to be polish?

Tim:

I do not. So for the Polish listeners we have, I apologize. But Slawiecice had a 465 year old church bell, and they began looking for it.

David:

Wait a minute. 465 years old on a it… We don’t even have anything in the country that we can identify that old.

Tim:

Yeah, it was a 16th century church bell. Right? So this goes back a long time and it was in Catholic Church, and they begin looking for the bell. And apparently, in Poland, there were more than 1300 bells taken out of Poland alone. But apparently, there were some bells that were not melted down, and so the church began looking and asking the question. Is maybe are historic church bell among them? It’s been 77 years that this church bell has been gone, but they’ve found that church bell in Germany. British military authorities at the end of the war apparently told Germany they could keep the stuff that was still there and so now the bell belongs to Germany.

Poland reached out and said, hey, that’s our bail. Here’s the pictures. Here’s the proof. And so Germany has now technically, it’s officially a long term loan. But they have given the church bell back to the church in Poland. And the pastor said that they were going to start off the new year by ringing the bell and then because they’re in Germany, they shut the nation down because of COVID and so they didn’t get to have the New Year service to ring the bell. But the pastor said, we’ve been waiting 77 years, waiting another month for this lockdown to end is not a problem. We’re just so excited to have the church bell back, but certainly, looking back at something that was taken in World War II under the Nazi regime and finding it 77 years later, that’s really cool for that church to get their bell back.

Rick:

We need bell music at this point before we can go to the next door.

David:

I know some Christmas themes that deal with ringing bells. Do you want some Christmas music, Rick?

Rick:

We will take Christmas music after. We definitely need some good cheer. So we need some Christmas Bell music as we go. Well, actually, let’s get another piece of good news and then our producer will find some good Bell Christmas music so that we can go to break with Christmas Bell music. But if you’ve got another piece of good news until he has that, go for it.

David:

Yeah, I’m going to give you another piece of good news that also comes from Poland. And just to throw an American perspective on things, I can’t imagine Americans would have an American perspective. But we have seen over the recent years how social media giants have just shut down conservative speech anytime they disagree with it. And so rather than being a platform on social media where that you can have free speech and that you can have disagreements are put out alternative sides, the companies as we know, have taken a very clear position against free speech.

So something I just hadn’t paid attention to was, you know, the companies doing this are global companies, and they’re not just doing this in America, they’re doing it across the world. And so if you take a conservative nation like Poland, and we’ve had several programs in Poland over the years as we’ve been there a number of times, how super conservative that nation is in so many ways, and they’re trying to be like a constitutional America. And I’ve made the comment, it’s like going back to the 1950 days in America in terms of the good side of the 1950s.

And so our experience there has been that it’s a super polite country. It’s like they spent extra time, citizens do picking up trash when they see it. They want their country really clean and the country is like it’s not into welfare. They’re wanting to work rather than be given stuff. And it’s a super neat nation in that sense. And so they’re conservative and they’re Christian.

And we’ve talked that the two biggest statues they have in Poland are Pope John Paul II and Ronald Reagan, amazingly, so they’re just a conservative nation. And social media has really tried to censor their free speech, their religious speech, and their Christian speech, and their positions based on that and political conservative space. And so Poland’s responded and saying, look, all across Europe, the social media tech giants are shutting down conservative speech here in Europe. And you have these European nations that are liberal threatening to sue the high tech companies if they shut down what they call hate speech, which is the liberal side; if you censor liberal stuff, we’ll go after you.

So Poland has now passed this law that alright, we’re going to find big tech giants $2.2 million a day when they shut down conservative speech. We’re going to create this process where that if you feel like your conservative speech has been shut down, you can file a complaint with the company, and if they don’t respond within 24 hours, then you can go to a judge, you can present this to a judge, and if the judge rules that your conservative speech was shut down, then we can fine the big tech companies $2.2 million a day. That’s a massive fine. I don’t know how they collect it, but I know that’s a great position to take that we want the social media tech giants to be a platform and not censor speech. Right now, they’re censoring conservative speech. Great move by Poland. So adding on to what Tim said about Poland finding this bell, good news from Poland. Here’s another good news story from Poland.

Rick:

Well, I love that idea. I mean, you talk about guaranteed free speech. I doubt we’ll see as many crackdowns from social media in Poland as we’re certainly seen here in the US. Alright, let’s hear some bells and let’s take a break.

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Hey, guys, we want to let you know about a new resource we have at WallBuilders called “The American Story”. For so many years, people have asked us to do a history book to help tell more of the story that’s just not known or not told today. And we would say very providentially, in the midst of all of the new attacks coming out against America, whether it be from things like the 1619 project that say America is evil and everything in America was built off slavery, which is certainly not true or things like even the Black Lives Matter movement, the organization itself, not out of statement, Black Lives Matter, but the organization that says we’re against everything that America was built on, and this is part of the Marxist ideology. There’s so many things attacking America.

Well, is America worth defending? What is the true story of America? We actually have written and told that story. Starting with Christopher Columbus, going roughly through Abraham Lincoln, we tell the story of America, not as the story of a perfect nation or a perfect people, but the story of how God used these imperfect people and did great things through this nation. It’s a story you want to check out wallbuilder.com, “The American Story”.

Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us on this Good News Friday. And man, I just want to thank you guys, David, Tim, going into the weekend after what we’ve been through this week. I’m so glad you all do Good News Friday every week and compile these stories. So keep hitting me with some good news. What’s next, David?

Tim:

Well, actually, Tim is going to jump in.

Rick:

Okay, Tim, go for it.

Tim:

And I’m saying that the third person because instead of saying me that way, I don’t know why I said Tim, but yes, I’m going to go. And this one comes from Indiana, it’s the Indiana Right to Life. They got a victory this year. And it’s kind of interesting, because it goes back to 2016. In 2016, Indiana had a law that was signed by then Governor Mike Pence, and the law was Dignity for the Unborn Act. And the law required that anybody that’s going to provide an abortion also has to offer the person who is seeking the abortion, the opportunity to view a fetal ultrasound at least 18 hours before the abortion. And so Governor Mike Pence signed that into law.

And in 2016, when that was in effect, abortions went down in Indiana. In 2017, there was an appeal on a federal judge blocked that. And then in 2017, abortions had a 13% increase in Indiana. So there was a spike in abortion. Well, the group that was opposing the ultrasound law was Planned Parenthood. And Planned Parenthood was fighting and appealing. Aand Planned Parenthood just dropped the lawsuit.

And so in, actually, just last week, this law went back into effect, the beginning of January, the law went back into effect in Indiana, and it’s expected to save many, many more lives along the way, as mothers now have the opportunity to see that this, in fact, is a child, that is a human being. So contrary to what some of these, “medical professionals” are telling them that it’s just a fetus, it’s just a piece of tissue, it’s not really a human, they’re going to see in this fetal ultrasound that no that is, in fact, a unborn human. And so this is where you see, again, so many lives being saved because of this.

It’s interesting to me that Planned Parenthood just now decided they’re going to drop the suit, which certainly indicates they know they’re not going to win this. But anytime you get a victory against Planned Parenthood, that is a victory worth celebrating. And it’s just interesting that this is a law that was signed by then Governor Mike Pence. And so just really interesting kind of some of the background now knowing where Mike Pence has been in the last four years. But it is really good news that that many more and more unborn babies will be saved in Indiana and mothers will have the opportunity to realize that instead of being maybe a science denier, like some of these medical professionals are saying it’s just a fetus, it’s just tissue, they’re actually going to see real science, these moms and see that that is an unborn child. So this is really good news.

David:

This interesting that Planned Parenthood backed down, I don’t think I can recall another time when Planned Parenthood hasn’t at least kept it in the court. Because to keep it in court, it’s kind of like an injunction. It keeps that previous decision there and that’s an interesting thing they back down. I mean, I kind of wonder if maybe it’s monetary, maybe all the shutdown of Planned Parenthood funding from so many communities and states has had an effect on their ability to have, I don’t know what the reason is, but that’s really interesting. I don’t recall that.

Tim:

Well, and President Trump did help block federal funding to Planned Parenthood. And so that certainly could be one aspect and one factor that there could be monetary issues. And you’re right, this has been essentially an injunction going on for nearly four years, because it was 2017 we’re now in 2020, so really, it’s more like three and a half years. But this has been a long time, and for them to drop the suit, that is a really big deal. So this is good news again for the unborn, for moms in Indiana. And so this is one of many pieces of good news we have in our stack about victories in the prolife area.

Rick:

Alright, guys, quick break. We’ve got time for one more segment of good news. Stay with us folks, you’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

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This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. Too often today history education excludes great black heroes from the American founding such as Lemuel Haynes. Haynes, abandoned as a baby, pioneered churches across upper New England. He became the first black American to pastor a white congregation to receive an honorary master’s degree and to be ordained by a mainstream Christian denomination, the Congregationalists.

He was a soldier during the American Revolution and in his churches on George Washington’s Birthday, he regularly preached sermons, honoring George Washington. Even late in his life, he expressed his willingness to go back to battle if necessary to protect America, which he called a “Sacred Ark.” American history is filled with numerous examples of black heroes who are largely ignored by mainstream education today. For more information about Pastor Lemuel Haynes and other colonial patriots, go to wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us for our Good News Friday. Alright, guys, we got time for a couple more. David, what’s our next piece of good news?

David:

It deals with the COVID vaccinations and the vaccines, there’s been, I don’t know, at least a dozen companies that they’re now in final stages of testing a vaccine, and some have come out. And it’s interesting that in the testing, so many vaccines a day, not just COVID, but others use what’s called human debris. That is they use materials that are derived from aborted fetuses, or, as we say aborted children. So there’s a lot of vaccines that do that.

And interestingly, the Conference Catholic of Bishops in America has come out said well, we can identify two COVID vaccines that are coming out that we can tell our people this is okay, because these two vaccines, they have no human debris, or that is no fetal tissue, or no aborted baby parts in these vaccines. And there’s a lot of reasons that people don’t want vaccines, and there’s a lot of conscience protections for vaccines. And oftentimes that conscience protection involves, look, we don’t want to participate in any way with abortions, and a lot of vaccines use that.

But good news is that two of the leading vaccines that are out on COVID right now, two of the first ones that are available, and I understand there’s another 10 vaccines in stage three testing, which is the final step before getting approval, but at least two of the vaccines that are currently out right now have no aborted baby tissue in them at all, and that’s really good.

Tim:

That is really good. And one of the other things that really quick in the stack, if we have time for me to slip this in before the program is over, is still along that prolife front. Not only are we seeing that people are now making vaccines that are not including parts from aborted babies, which of course, that’s kind of a level of evil that is just almost unconscionable, and yet that kind of stuff has happened, is happening. So certainly good that there are people now trying to do medical things and do vaccines that are not including parts from aborted babies.

With that being said, there is still more good news on the prolife front. There’s an article that came out identifying 45 new prolife members sworn into the House of Representatives. And so as we talk about victories in the prolife front, part of how you get those victories, is you elect prolife, politicians, you elect them both in the state legislature and in this case in the US Congress. And the fact that there are 45 new prolife members that have been elected to Congress is really positive news. There’s actually a breakdown of even some in the senate who’ve been elected who are now prolife.

And so one of the things that we are consistently seeing is even though there’s a lot of cultural decay, there’s a lot of moral decay, there’s a lot of issues we talked about inside the church, there’s a reason we’re telling people that we need to start in our sphere of influence, talking to our friends, engaging our friends, helping teach and disciple and mentor those around us. If you’re somebody who you’re 30 or 40, or 50, or 60 or 70, you need to have people that you are mentoring and discipling, you need to have people you are pouring into. And it’s interesting, by the way, just kind of on topic, but side note.

If you look at Jesus, Jesus did not wait for people to come to him to disciple. It says that Jesus went and he called the disciples to him, he said, you come follow me and I will show you how to be a fisherman. We need to be looking for people to pour into, to mentor the next generation and as we are doing that, this is part of how we can transform culture, as we work with our family work with the next generation.

But in the midst of the craziness we’re seeing, and even as we’re encouraging us to challenge our pastors to be more biblical, and we want to mentor and disciple people, and we wanted to be defenders of truth and have courage to stand up, in the midst of all of that, one of the areas we are still consistently seeing victories is the area of life, where we are still seeing the next generation who are being more aware of what science actually is, and actually says that those unborn children are in fact, unborn children, those are human beings. And so we’re seeing more good things happen. But part of how we do that is we’re seeing just like this article says, 45 new members of Congress who are prolife, and that is positive for the opportunity for more prolife legislation even to come at the federal level.

Rick:

Alright, folks, out of time for good news today, we will have more next week. Yes, there are great challenges ahead of us in our country. It’s going to be vitally important that we learn to be biblical citizens, and that we engage culturally, that we become salt and light. We cannot sit back and let our nation be destroyed by those who don’t have a biblical worldview. So if you purport to have a biblical worldview, then we are asking you to get engaged. If you don’t know if you have a biblical worldview, then we’re asking you to learn what that means. Take our biblical citizenship class, go to Biblicalcitizens.com today and get signed up and host it at your church or in your living room. Let’s do our part to save our constitutional republic.

Thanks for listening to WallBuilders Live.