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Breaking Barriers: Pastors' Speech and Planned Parenthood Defunding
The battle for religious liberty takes a significant step forward as the IRS finally acknowledges pastors' right to political expression from the pulpit. While the ruling still contains some problematic limitations, this represents a major victory for First Amendment advocates who have long maintained that clergy don't surrender their constitutional rights when speaking to their congregations.
Meanwhile, a revolution in higher education accreditation is underway as six states—Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas—join forces to create an alternative system focused on academic excellence rather than ideological conformity. This new accreditation model will evaluate universities based on measurable outcomes, student achievement, and preparation for citizenship rather than diversity quotas or political litmus tests. Governor Ron DeSantis emphasized the initiative's focus on "pursuing truth" and efficiency—a stark contrast to existing accreditation bodies that often prioritize DEI initiatives despite Supreme Court rulings against such practices.
Competition in education continues to flourish with the growth of one-year programs offering biblical worldview foundations and practical skills development. These alternatives to traditional college—including programs from Patriot Academy, Turning Point USA, and Summit—are increasingly attractive as employers recognize that many university degrees no longer guarantee competence or character. These intensive programs focus on mentorship, biblical discipleship, and hands-on experience that better prepare young people for their callings than many degree programs costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Pro-life advocates have cause for celebration as the recently passed "Big Beautiful Bill" includes provisions defunding Planned Parenthood for a decade. With the organization previously receiving approximately $800 million in taxpayer money while performing over 400,000 abortions annually, this represents a significant blow to the abortion industry and a major victory for unborn life. The administration has also restored honor to military naming conventions by redesignating a naval vessel after Medal of Honor recipient Oscar Peterson rather than political activist Harvey Milk—recognizing that military ships should commemorate military heroes.
What's your perspective on these developments? Do you believe pastors should have full First Amendment rights when speaking about politics? How important is accreditation reform in higher education? We'd love to hear your thoughts!
Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. It's the WallBuilder show on a Friday. Thanks for joining us for some good news today. David Barton and Tim Barton have stacks of good news to share with us I'm Rick Green I'm just gonna be like ping-pong playing, you know back and forth between these two guys as fast as possible To see how much good news we can share with you before you go into a great weekend David Tim looking forward to some good new today. I actually got I'm gonna start us actually forget I'm going to throw the ping pong out there at you guys throw the pink pong ball out there to you guys How about this, IRS actually saying what all three of us have said for years, pastors should have the right to say whatever they want about politics. Their free speech is no different than anybody else. That's not exactly what IRS said. That's what we've said. But they have said you can endorse candidates as long as you're doing it for your congregation. I don't think it should have any requirements. But anyway, this is a really good step in the right direction guys
Tim Barton [00:00:56] It is, it's funny to the caveat they put on it, where they acknowledge that pastors have the same freedom of speech that any other individual has. And if they're talking to their congregation, they can do that. But the irony that, well, you can't endorse it for like people that don't go to your church. Well, how many pastors are trying to endorse candidates and in groups of people that are not their church? And by the way, even the way that we're defining. Don't go to their church right now with so many services being online and all you know broadcasts on social media and lives and whatever else it it seems even that is a tenuous position to take it's kind of a vague ruling but overall it is really good news um you know guys we were talking before we went on air dad as you mentioned we're not sure this is going to a whole lot for most pastors. Because most pastors have kind of already chosen the lane they want to run in. I mean, especially since COVID. COVID, I think woke a lot of people up and a lot of pastors realized they need to start speaking out on some of the craziness happening in culture, especially when we've seen some of the gender issues and the men and girls sports and going into girls' bathrooms. And we've see the crazies happen. If pastors haven't spoken up on that yet, I don't think this their rest position is going to change ultimately, what the pastors do again, I think they've kind of chosen their lane that they're going to run in and that's the lane they're running in. But it's at least a great acknowledgement that again, what Rick, as you pointed out, what we've been saying for decades is pastors have the same first amendment rights as everybody else and you don't sacrifice those when just because you go behind the pulpit when you go to your church.
David Barton [00:02:35] Yeah, it's an interesting thing because I think you're right. I think people kind of stake out where they want to be. And if you don't have the backbone to talk about gender, you sure don't want to have the back bone to endorse a candidate, specifically by name with a party or whatever else, even if it's a nonpartisan election. What I think will be interesting on, I'll just tell you right now, IRS is wrong in saying it can only be if you're a congregation. If I'm a pastor and I want to go up from Texas to Nebraska, and endorse someone for State Senate in Nebraska. I got the right to do that as an individual. I can do that all day long. Just cause I'm a pastor, I don't lose my right as an individually. So I can endorse anything I want to outside the church, cause that's just me doing it. If I stand and say, hey, I'm announcing that my church is backing the Senate candidate. Now that's a problem. That's not it. But to say that a pastor can only do it in his church, that's crazy. But nonetheless, we've always pointed out nonprofits are things like Planned Parenthood and things like unions, and they endorse, and that's never been a problem, so why can't a church endorse? Well, and Dad, I-
Tim Barton [00:03:37] even, I would ask based on what you said when you identified if a pastor were to say, hey, our church is endorsing this candidate, that would be a problem. Well, would it be a problems based on, what the IRS interpretation has been? Or would it be, a problem based on original intent of the Constitution? Because certainly, If you go back, as you have taught on and talked about many times, we all have, if you go to like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, there were churches endorsing, there were Churches coming out against Jefferson or Adams. I mean, the Church was absolutely involved in that process, the endorsement process. So when you're saying if a pastor were to say, our Church endorses this person, that might be a problem. I think you're referring only to the IRS might see that as a problem, Not necessarily based on Constitution original intent, and I'm framing this now as a question, what do you think, is that what you meant?
David Barton [00:04:32] Well, that's a great clarification. Uh, what I really meant is I don't think a church would let a pastor get away with doing that now, even to Jack Kibbs church, I think he would have, uh, have a, uh probably an insurrection of sorts on his hand. Uh, he, he might get away with it.
Tim Barton [00:04:47] I was going to say, now hang on a second, right? I mean, if you had Gavin Newsom and then you had some incredibly outspoken devout Christian, I think Jack Hibbs would probably say, church, this is who we're endorsing. And I think based on the reality that Jack has been teaching the word of God and biblical application and culture for so long, there might be a few people that get upset and get offended, but when he probably walks down the biblical position of why somebody like a Gavin Newsom would be wrong when it comes to gender and sports and life and marriage and family, and why this other candidate, if they have the right position on all these issues and on economics and the free market, et cetera, and I don't, and you obviously are joking, caught yourself. I don t know that Jack Hibbs will be in trouble for doing that, but there's not many churches where they've had a pastor that has walked them through biblical application enough, that has enough biblical foundation, biblical worldview, not many pastors could get away with that. I think Jack Hibbs might, same thing with like a pastor like Alan Jackson up in Murfeesboro, Tennessee. You know, we can go down the list, right? Our friend Tim Brooks, there's a handful of pastors we come up with, but those would be the exceptions, not the rules, generally speaking.
David Barton [00:06:03] Yeah, I think the point is that I think you'll find more fight from the church than you do from the IRS. I don't think the IRS can be the one to get you in trouble. I think it's gonna be internal. It's gonna be Christians fighting Christians and that's probably where the push is gonna come from. So, but it is, you know, it's a great acknowledgement of what we've known. It is a great acknowledgment of the fact the IRS hasn't done anything for 50 years on this essentially. I mean there was one time they did it one time and that lasted a day. So essentially this has been a kind of a straw boss for a long time that there's nothing really there. And it's great that now the emperor has no clothes officially.
Rick Green [00:06:39] Now I was gonna say paper tiger. What is a strawboss?
David Barton [00:06:43] Scarecrow. It's a scarecrow in the middle of town.
Tim Barton [00:06:46] Okay. I had no idea either.
David Barton [00:06:49] Okay. You remember that? Well, if you go back to 1939 and watch the Wizard of Oz all stuffed with hay, it's straw, straw boss.
Tim Barton [00:06:57] I wasn't around in 1939, you're gonna have to tell me how that was, that's new for me.
David Barton [00:07:00] I wasn't neither, but I got this VCR and just all stuff that I used for years. And now I'm in the stream and it's I'm okay.
Rick Green [00:07:09] Well, a couple of quick thoughts, I thought the whole thing about you can only do this with your congregation. It kind of reminded me about some of the lower court decisions in the previous couple decades on the second amendment. Like, you can have it here, and you can it there, and, you get a right to defend your family, this first law of nature, but only here and not over there. That's kind of what that sounds like to me, you got this free speech or opportunity to speak and give your opinion, but here and only not over here. And then last thing I say is I mean, I think churches, I mean the court has said money is speech. That's essentially what came down on the union thing and some of those other things. So I mean I think you're right David. It's the church itself that would probably not do that. But frankly I think they should be able to and I think it's really just you know no different than having a voter registration drive or anything like that. It's just participating in civics and if they choose to support a particular candidates. You know, they definitely, in my opinion, should be able to, and I think constitutionally should be able to. But I think you're right. That would be a rare, rare example where it happens. OK, well, I didn't mean to take up half the program with our first piece of good news today, guys. But go ahead, David, what's your first piece of good new today, separate from that one?
David Barton [00:08:18] One of the things we've known about education for a long time is the institution itself is broken. And because of that, the content and the process, everything else is broken, and we get inferior results out of that. And we've know that we've needed competition for a longtime. That's why we supported school choice in any way, shape, fashion, or form essentially. If it's something that brings competition, that's a principle that will work eventually. And competition always helps things. And so we're now seeing I saw this article and there's now competition at a level that I did not think I would see for a good while yet, and it's competition at the university level. And part of that goes to the fact that you have these accreditation boards and virtually every accreditation board out there is far left. If you're with the American Bar Association, you're not going to get accredited as a law school unless you're actively pursuing DEI. Who cares what the Supreme Court said in 2023? That you can't do that twice. They said that the Harbor, they said that to North Carolina, University of North Carolina. Who cares they said, that ABA and medical associations and all sorts of other stuff, they're so woke in so many areas. And then I saw this article, that six states have now joined their state university systems together to form an accreditation agency that will accredit universities that are non-woke. And so in other words, follow the law, stick with the law. And they are more into measuring academic results. And DeSantis is kind of the spokesman on this and he's done so many good things and he has been so bold in so many areas. But the six states that have now gone together on this, you have Florida and Georgia and North Carolina and South Carolina and Tennessee and Texas. Those six states have come together and they're going to put a much greater emphasis in accreditation on student outcomes. And academic quality, and they're not after biases and percentages and how many are from this race or that race. And so here's what DeSantis said. He said, we care about student achievement. We care about measurable outcomes. We care efficiency. We care pursuing truth. We care preparing our students to be citizens of our republic. And that kind of lays out what this accreditation is going to look at. And so they're doing that now with the Department of Education. If they can be accredited with that, then it's going to be a great piece of competition for so many other universities because so much money flows to accredited schools, students flow to accredite schools, they don't want to go to a school where the diploma doesn't mean something, they're not accredited. So having an accreditation board that will honor those kind of traditional educational values and principles, I think that's a really good thing.
Rick Green [00:11:08] Yeah and you know there seem to be a lot more competition just education wise like you were saying just school choice at the elementary level now at the college level you have so many online programs where students have an opportunity to get a degree without even you know having to move and spend the hundreds of thousands of dollars there. You're getting it's getting really popular to have these you know one year some people call it gap year but we call it you know what's next and so whether they go to Leaders Academy and Hot Springs, turning point's now got a. One-year program, of course, Patriot Academy, we've got a one- year program, I mean, these are also competition to the typical college model, where you can get college credit or not at these programs, but more importantly, figure out what you want to do. Too many people, they go to college to figure out want they want to, instead of figuring out what they want do, realize that that degree will work for them along that path. But what you're talking about is competition in the system itself, I'm mean, literally the accreditation process and all that, and that's huge. Good stuff.
Rick Green [00:12:04] Hey, Rick, let me add on to the fact too, that when you're talking about competition, like what you're doing at Patriot Academy, Leaders Academy, what Turning Point's doing, even I think Summit now has a year-long program. What is significant about this too is, as you mentioned, what we discover working with college students in the summer, and just even as we travel around, working with young people now for years and really decades, is as you mention, most young people, they go to college to try to figure out what they wanna do. Not to go be equipped for what they think God has called them to do. And the programs like we're talking about, Patriot Academy or any of the others. What's so great about what students get when they come to these year long programs, it's not that they are coming to get a degree that then they can go try to promote themselves to a company. No, they're actually coming and they're learning incredibly valuable skill sets and life lessons that actually far better equip students. For the next phase of the journey God has them on as opposed to many times what a piece of paper does, what a diploma does because for really anybody listening out there that's from the business world, there are very few diplomas or specifically degrees that have very much value anymore because the colleges have have really made so much of the college system a scam in many ways. They're just making money and just like we've seen with the public school system where we're graduating. Nearly one out of every five high school students that cannot read or write, well, similar in colleges. They're given diplomas to people that have paid them money, but not necessarily to people that have completed the academic work with the proficiency and prowess they should have to really be credentialed with that degree. And a lot of bosses are recognizing that degrees don't have that much value anymore. And they care far more about the development of the person, about the individual capacity, the skills, the character of the person, than they do about degrees. And that's why for a lot of jobs, they're not interested in degrees very much anymore. And again, there's caveats. There's definitely some areas, some fields, you need a degree, but the vast majority of Americans, when they're getting jobs, it's not based on the degree program. And so being able to come to something like a Patriot Academy year-long program or any of the as we mentioned. It does far more to develop those young people to prepare them to be more successful in the next stage of life than potentially going and spending a year in college where they're not getting the same level of mentorship and training and biblical discipleship and development. They're not hands on practical skills as opposed to these year long programs. So guys, I think not only is there a level of competition, I think the more that parents and young people wake up, the more they go, You know what, I'd rather... Would rather learn something of value. I would rather increase my own abilities than go pay a bunch of money for something that ultimately I can look back and go I didn't really learn very much. I just paid a lot of money and I got some credits and it's not necessarily even gonna help me with what God is calling me or even gifted me to do. So I would highly encourage those one-year programs for any anybody listening whether you're a Those one-year programs add far more value, I think, than most people realize.
David Barton [00:15:18] And I've got a piece of sarcastic trivia for you. Going back to the founding fathers and thinking about all the founding father's, maybe half of them were attorneys. And think of all the great Supreme Court justices that came out of that group. How many of the founding Father attorneys had law school degrees?
Rick Green [00:15:36] I bet very few, right?
David Barton [00:15:38] Zero
[00:15:39] Hey just go for it? Didn't they just go for an apprentice with somebody?
David Barton [00:15:41] Zero! And by the way, think of all the great military leaders we had and how many of them graduated from military academy? Zero it is exactly the thing now.
Tim Barton [00:15:51] Wait a second it depends on what military leaders we're talking about. Because, right, West Point did become a thing, and there were places that military leaders went, but are we talking about, like, the Revolution era leaders or World War II era leaders?
David Barton [00:16:03] Now, revolutionary leaders, when you look at the founding of the nation, the George Washington's and all his generals and Thomas Nelson's, et cetera. Yeah. At West Point comes in the early 1800s, but think about all the success that America had and all the great leaders we had, and there was not a single degree, that went to those who were trained in those particular areas is just because they went to places, they could teach them what to do, and it wasn't about the degree. That's a progressive invention of the 1920s, really where we get into. Into this degree consciousness and you really don't know anything unless you have a degree and that is so counterproductive to to all of history all the bible all of America up till the progressive era
Rick Green [00:16:43] Yeah, you know, what's really interesting is what you just said, David, that what they really went to learn, even at these places like Yale and Harvard and in the others, was a biblical worldview and a biblical foundation, an application of God's Word. And all of these one-year programs, that's essentially what they're doing. They're going back to that as the center of what they are teaching. And then you can get college credit if you want to do college, you can start on that particular career or whatever, but it begins with that biblical foundation. Oh, another topic, we've got to take a break before we get to more good news, but I was going to add to what Tim was saying. About how you know it doesn't have the same value it also has a negative value for a lot of people because you go man, I'm gonna have to un I'm going to have to UNteach is that the right word there I'm Gonna have to teach them and unlearn to unlearn all the bad stuff They got at that university so it has a Negative value to the employers and then David I remember when I first started question all this was 15 20 years ago you pointed out this study that actually called it if I remember the phrase right it was negative learning Because students were going into college tested On their way in tested on their way out and they knew less then when they went in and I was like, okay Wait, we're spending hundred thousand dollars back then now two hundred thousand and learning less. So anyway, great great Just revolution in education that's taking place on so many levels needed to happen Anyway, gotta take a break when we come back Tim finally gets to do his first piece of good news for the day So stay with us. You're listening to the WallBuilders Show
Rick Green [00:19:12] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. We saved 27 seconds for Tim. No, okay, it's longer than that. Just kidding. All right, Tim, your first piece of good news today.
Tim Barton [00:19:21] Well, this is from the big, beautiful bill. And I feel like now at the end of this week, we almost have the caveat, right? If there's good news coming from the white house and Trump, and just remind people, Hey, I know we're all frustrated with the, you know, memo DOJ FBI release that there's no Epstein client list, like I get it. I think it's total garbage, right. There's a lot of thoughts and conspiracies out there. In spite of that, there are other good things happening. One of them in the big beautiful bill was the defunding of Planned Parenthood for 10 years. Now this is not a permanent defunded, but it's 10 years that the federal government is saying, we're not gonna do this. Obviously that can be revisited in 10 years if Planned Plannedhood survives that long. And if you look back at some of the data from PlannedParenthood, and the article I'm looking at is called Big Beautiful Bill, which tripped Plannedplannedhood of federal funding for a decade, and it kind of goes through this, but in 2023 and 2024, Planned Parenthood did more than 400,000 abortions in those years, and they received nearly $800 million from taxpayers, which those are astronomical numbers that they're getting funded from us as Americans, our taxpayer dollars were sent there, and so among the many good things the big, beautiful bill did, and of course, people that had more time to look at it and see the down. It doesn't do nearly enough of what we want done. But the fact that it's taking steps in the right direction and that there's huge victories like this inside of it is really, really great. The fact that Planned Parenthood is no longer going to be federally funded. That's gonna have a huge impact on them. And there's already been Planned Parenthoods that have been closing up their doors. There've been reports out saying that this is gonna shutter them. And of course you can imagine there's gonna be lawsuits where they're saying, you can't take away our funding. It's healthcare rights, blah, blah blah. Yeah, there's going to be a big battle surrounding it. But the fact that we now have a Congress, we have a house, a Senate and a president who has the courage to say, we're not gonna fund these organizations that claim to be healthcare organizations. And the most significant thing they do is kill unborn children. We're done with that. That is incredible good news and a major victory in America.
David Barton [00:21:38] I do think that'll end up putting Planned Parenthood out of business, but also putting Planned Plannedhood out of Business is the abortion pill. It's just that now 73% of abortions are the abortion pills. Who needs a clinic anymore? So that'll be the next one to focus on, but I think as an institution, Planned PlannedParenthood is probably done because Tim, you point out, 800 million that they've gotten, they're already shuttering because people are going to the abortion pill. But now... The good news is that's becoming a state issue and more states are starting to address that and starting to address that the abortion pills so we'll see if we can pick up a pro-life movement at that level but certainly great news to see ten years of no planned parenthood i think they will be shuttered at the end of that time for sure and while long before that quite frankly
Tim Barton [00:22:23] Quick thought on what you were saying, Tim, right at the beginning of your good news about the, you know, everybody's upset about the Epstein thing. You know, that press conference, that was the one thing everybody talked about was General Bondi's response to a reporter asking about that. And just speaking of good news, guys, there were so much announced that I had forgotten had happened. You know they were going through the list and just I mean some things like Kristi Noem was talking about the response to the floods and the whole the fact that they are saying. It's state and local control. You know, it's their first responders that are dealing with. FEMA is not coming in here and saying, we're taking over. We're block granting money. We're doing what President Trump thought should be done on that. But we're not taking over, that was good news. Secretary Besson talked about $100 billion in tariff revenue already, that he thinks it's gonna be 300 billion by the end of the year. 2.8 trillion over 10 is way low from what they had estimated. Secretary Hegseth just talking about the success of the strike on Iran and all the other military recruitment. You know, they just went down this list and they were each going around the room talking about all of these positive things and even the even the the energy issue and no inflation and the economy and Secretary Duffy was talking about so many of these cool projects that they're doing I mean, I was just I started going through and watching some of the clips from this thing and and it we just keep forgetting At least I do how many good things are happening So easy to zero in on one or two bad things or things that aren't quite going like we had had hoped that they would go, but just really good stuff. Sorry, David, I didn't leave you with a lot of time for your final piece of good news, but just a lot stuff in there from that press conference.
David Barton [00:23:55] Hey, I'm gonna take you guys back to a generation before you. Rick, you have a chance at this. I don't think Tim does. Tim may know it because of knowledge, but not because he was around that generation. Who is Harvey Milk?
Tim Barton [00:24:08] Oh man,.
Rick Green [00:24:10] I remember he was some kind of lgbtq guy, and I know that we named a ship or a plane or something after
Tim Barton [00:24:15] Yeah, I have flown out of the Harvey Milk Airport more times than I care to remember. It's not a great experience. And so they have plaques all around to tell you all about Harvey Milk. And they don't cover some of the reality that he wasn't really a good guy in a lot of ways, but they highlight his sexuality because that was the most important thing to them.
David Barton [00:24:36] Yeah, and that's exactly it. He was in 1978 elected as an openly gay guy in San Francisco to the city council. He had been in the military and he was discharged less than honorably. Did not get an honorable discharge out of the military. And he was murdered by opponent activists in San Francisco. So back in 2016 Obama's secretary of the Navy said we need to be naming our ships after civil rights activists. Now, why in the world would you name? Not war heroes, civil rights activists. Exactly, thank you very much. This is military. Look, if you want to name your schools after civil rights, it's good for you, but I don't even think that's a good idea. But nonetheless, but not a military ship, come on. And especially a US Navy ship after a gay activist. I mean, that makes no sense at all.
Tim Barton [00:25:24] Well, that's your point. That would be a private school could do that. Or if you have a private yacht, go ahead, do that thing. Not the government, not a federal naval vessel. That's crazy.
David Barton [00:25:36] Well, currently, the current Rick, as you were just going through with Hedges and others in the Department of Defense, they've renamed that and they've re-named it after a Medal of Honor recipient who served on that type of ship in World War II. Uh, Peterson, Oscar Peterson, uh, that was a tanker and by the way, tankers, that was the big deal in World war II. Cause we kept our ships at sea for months, even years, and those tankers had to go with them, keep them refueled. And this is a guy who sacrificed his own life to save the other guys on that ship. And now that that tanker ship they've changed it from Harvey Milk to Peterson actually honoring a war hero in the navy on that kind of ship and that's a really good move.
Rick Green [00:26:12] So much good news, guys. And I forgot to mention one of the guys around the table, ath the press conference was Lee Zeldon and how they are getting rid of all this grip you know the two billion dollars to Stacy Abrams and alll these other Green New deal grift things, getting rid of all those things so man really good news and we could spend qll day just talking about these various pieces of good news but as usual we have run out of time so you have to go to wallbuilders.com to get more pieces of good news. wallbuilders.show for the radio program then wallbuilders.com for everything else. Have a great weekend. Thanks for listening to the WallBuilders Show.
