From Prayer Walks to Policy Shifts: Transformation in Action

What happens when prayer meets policy? This episode reveals the powerful convergence of spiritual conviction and political action creating tangible change across America.

The conversation opens with news of Trump's executive order transforming federal grant funding. For decades, taxpayer dollars have supported initiatives most Americans wouldn't voluntarily fund - from drag shows in Ecuador to critical race theory training programs. This shift requires all federal grants demonstrate clear benefits to American lives and interests, representing a meaningful return to constitutional principles and responsible stewardship of public resources.

In Florida, we witness an extraordinary story of persistence and redemption. For 23 years, an abortion facility operated in Fort Lauderdale until Love Life, led by Ezra and Shannon Dean, organized prayer walks that grew to include 110 churches. Their spiritual commitment, combined with Florida's heartbeat legislation, not only led to the facility's closure but culminated in Love Life purchasing the building to provide life-affirming alternatives. This beautiful transformation embodies the biblical partnership between prayer and action.

Perhaps most surprising is Washington DC's dramatic crime reduction following federal intervention. After initial resistance, Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser publicly praised the results: carjackings down 87%, violent crime down 32%, robberies down 47%, and homicides down 60%. This rare moment of bipartisan acknowledgment demonstrates how effective policies can transcend political divisions when they produce undeniable improvements in citizens' daily lives.

The episode concludes with thoughtful exploration of constitutional questions regarding federal authority in local law enforcement matters, highlighting the complex balance between federal power and states' rights in addressing national challenges.

Join us at wallbuildersshow.com to access all our programming and consider supporting our leadership training initiatives for pastors, legislators, and young people by contributing at wallbuilders.com.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Good News Friday
• 1:09 Trump Cuts Wasteful Federal Funding
• 6:47 Florida Abortion Clinic Transformed
• 12:29 DC Crime Drops After Federal Intervention
• 22:16 Constitutional Questions on Federal Authority
• 26:23 Mayor Bowser's Unexpected Cooperation

Transcript

Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. Thanks for joining the WallBuilder's show on a good news Friday. I'm Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. Always looking forward to these Friday programs, but you can get all of our radio programming at wallbuilders.show. As wallbuilder.show, super easy to listen to the show there and also super easy to share it with your friends and family, which we highly recommend. That's part of how you can be a force multiplier in spreading good news. A specifically good news today since it's good news Friday. But any of our programming is gonna encourage people. It's going to help them stay up to date on what's going on in the world. Also, it's going give them a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective on those things that are happening. So check all that out at wallbuilders.show. And then our main website is wallbuilder.com. That's the place you can make a one-time or monthly contribution to help spread the good news. Help us get on more radio programs and do our leadership training for pastors and legislators and young people, all the different things that we're doing when you donate their wallbuilders.com, it invests in making a big difference in the culture, but let's jump into some good news. David Barton is going to start us with the first piece of good news today. 

David Barton [00:01:09] Okay, this one, this is gonna surprise you because we haven't done this in weeks, but I have some good news issues or good news stories that are coming from the Trump administration. 

Rick Green [00:01:19] No, no, that's not possible. Are you sure? 

David Barton [00:01:21] It's been months since we've said anything about the Trump, wait a minute, maybe not. So, but this one happens to be in one of my favorite wheelhouses. It has long bothered me that the practice of the federal government under so many presidents has been to fund things that completely cannot survive the free market. Nobody in the free market wants it. And when it's introduced, nobody in the, in the population, not with nobody, but the overwhelming majority of the population won't support it, which is why it fails. If it was a private business, it would go under because people aren't interested in what it offers. And that's been the kind of stuff the federal government has been funding with grants for a long time, you know way back 30 years ago. Remember how, Coburn, Senator Coburn from Oklahoma, would go onto the floor of the Senate and say, what are we doing with this grant? And this, why are we funding the studies for, for trans crickets and for gay birds or, you know, whatever. And it's like, if that were in the real world, you're not going to get people contributing to that. They don't care. It doesn't make a difference. You're not gonna get me to give my money to it. And most people say the same thing. And so the federal government takes our money and does stuff that we would not individually do as a group. In other words, it's not the free market. If it's a free market, it will stand up people will support, they'll get behind it. They will, they will contribute to it. If they think it's important to let them support it. So what Trump has done is he's kind of drawn a line on that and he's issued an executive order is okay. We're not going to do any more grants that fund this kind of stuff unless it has some significant means of improving American lives, advancing American interests. And if it doesn't do that, we're not gonna do it. And so he gave examples. There have been grants that are funding drag shows in Ecuador, and why are we funding anything in Ecuador? Much less, why are funding in drag shows in Ecuador? And why does Ecuador get American money to fund drag shows if they think that's important let them fund that themselves. Let the people of Ecuador fund it. Why are the people in America funding drag show? Because we're down in low digits of American support for something like that anyway. So that was one of the things he pointed to. Training doctoral candidates in critical race theory. That has become so unpopular that even the big industries and big banks are moving away from CRT. That's been rejected by even a lot of the liberals. And so why are we funding that for doctoral education programs and transgender sexual education programs? Again, this is something that the Trump administration has pretty much shown was an 80-20 issue, but look how much money we were putting into the 20 on that issue, not the 80. We're taking the money from the 80 to give to the 20. And so there's just so many things like that. Looking at universities, you know, funding activities that are anti-semitic, they're DEI, anti-meritocracy. We don't care how smart you are. We care what you look like. And that's why we're going to fund you because of what you look like, not the content or the knowledge that you have. So he, he just announced we're gonna undergo more rigorous evaluation and all of these grants. And we're going to verify that each grant dollar benefits Americans instead of lining the pockets. Of those that cause damage to America. So there are just a lot of things and he also singled out, look, all these grants are going to educators that are promoting Marxism. Why would we promote Marxism? We love our country. We love the freedom we have in our country, why would we promote something that tries to destroy and overthrow our country? Class warfare, anti-American ideologies, the classroom. So he just went through a long list of stuff and said, no longer does that get any any federal funding. Now that's great. I would even go further than that and say, yeah, why does anything like that good or bad get federal funding? Because that's just not the responsibility of the federal government. Go to the constitution. That's our guiding document. States are allowed to do something like that, but that's not the purview of the feds. That is not what goes for the fed's that can go to the States. If the state wants to do that in their state, that's up to them and their citizens, but is not a federal responsibility in any way, shape, fashion or form. So all of that stuff should go away at the federal level, just from a constitutional standpoint. And if Massachusetts wants to fund DEI and CRT stuff, that's up to them and their voters, that's them. But that's not the federal government doing it. So that's the other thing. I wouldn't go back and say, I'm really glad to see Trump doing this. And that's going to mean that a whole lot of grants are going to go away. They're just not gonna exist. So certainly we're going to cut the number of grants that are coming out of the federal Government just by cutting off that ridiculous activity. But I'd love to see it get to the point where, constitutionally, that's not what we're doing with the people's money. People don't pay taxes for us to give it to these kind of things. If it's not at the constitution, it belongs to the states. So good news from the Trump administration, moving us in a really good direction, really challenging a lot of what has become traditional with presidencies for the last several decades, a step back toward the constitutions, a step in the right direction. 

Rick Green [00:06:25] Well, I always like moving towards the Constitution. I love getting rid of the crazy waste. You know, Rand Paul's kind of taking up that mantle from Tom Coburn on pointing out some of those crazy, crazy things. So it helps to bring awareness to those things. Even at the state level, we ought to encourage people to scour the budget and make sure that they're doing the same thing at the State or local level as well. Tim, your first piece of good news today. 

Tim Barton [00:06:47] All right guys, well this one is from Florida and it's different than I initially would have imagined, although definitely the kind of stories that we like to celebrate. It's about an abortion clinic that has shut down, which of course is something we celebrate, that innocent lives are being saved, but the details behind it is a interesting story. It says for 23 years, the Astra Women's Center in Fort Lauderdale was committed to killing unborn babies. It goes on to talk about the costs associated with clinical abortions. And women would come in, they would have the abortion. There was an organization called Love Life and they led an effort and a movement to say, let's go out in these public places where there's these abortion facilities and let's pray on the sidewalks, let's praying in the parking lot. And they led a movement every Saturday morning. They would get Christians together. They would go on prayer walks and on these prayer walks they would go to adjacent parking lots by the abortion facility. They'd go on the sidewalk and they would just walk by and they'd pray that God would end abortion. It grew to about 50 churches and then it continued to grow to about 110 churches were participating in these prayer walks. 

David Barton [00:07:56] Wow. That's hard to get a hundred and ten churches on anything, much less prayer walls on abortion

Tim Barton [00:08:02] Absolutely. 

David Barton [00:08:03] That's great. 

Tim Barton [00:08:04] The article has some details, but there's many more things to add to your point along those lines. I have more questions than this article has given me answers at this point, but jumping to the end of it, the good news is, in the article it says, whether because of our efforts or the enactment of Florida's heartbeat bill and other factors, maybe Call the above. The facility has closed up shop as an abortion chamber. So Florida was one of the states, it said no more abortion. These people said, man, we've been praying for this thing to close for a long time during these prayer walks. They're celebrating now that it finally is closed. But what makes it even more fascinating, kind of more of a celebratory moment in my mind is Love Life, the organization that led these prayer walks, that led this movements, they have acquired the building, they cleaned it up and they're now using it to provide alternatives to abortion. So that the facility that was formerly killing unborn children, that facility, that building is now owned by this nonprofit, by this organization that is working to save the lives of unborn children. So overall, it's just a really fun story of seeing Christians get involved, Christians get engaged. And for some of them, you know, I got to think some of the weren't involved on the realm and arena, probably? Some of them were just there praying on from a spiritual side, but dad, one of the things that we've talked about a lot, you've told the story many times, the name WallBuilders comes from the Bible story of Nehemiah. Well, Nehmiah was more of the activist leading the grassroots movement to rebuild, but then there was also Ezra involved, and Ezra was the one who was reading the Bible out daily, guiding people on biblical truth, and you have to have the spiritual component. With the activist component. And certainly it seems like that's part of what this story is, which is, again, to me, quite fascinating. A lot of these people are going, man, all we did was get out and pray and walk. You know, we didn't know if anything was going to happen from our side, being more of the action oriented side. And not that we would not. Say anything belittling, no, everybody go pray and then act on top of the prayer. Get involved politically, right? Choose leaders that are going to pass these laws against abortion, et cetera. Let's do all of the above, but it is really cool to see it kind of come full circle for these people that now the building that you secure children is a building they're using to help provide alternatives to abortion. That's really cool. 

David Barton [00:10:36] And you know going to what that parallel was that you mentioned between Ezra and Nehemiah the the spiritual minded people that were you know kind of prayer oriented and the kind of political people this kind of goes back to the story we opened with and we were looking at Trump and they've just stopped funding all the silly stuff you know he's just he's going through and insisting one of the things that has really fascinated me is since they passed that bill that is defunding Planned Parenthood for at least a year. Planned Parenthood nationally has been shutting down clinics across the nation, and I hadn't even thought about the fact that essentially the reason Planned Parenthoood has been open is because it's been funded by the federal government. When you take the federal money out of it, it doesn't have enough money to be able to sustain itself, which says a whole lot. And it looks like that more and more corporations are pulling away from that kind of funding they used to be a big funder of Planned Parenthood. And so maybe all this is going together, all the prayer and all the political stuff has come together at the same time and seeing the kind of stuff you see in there in Florida. 

Tim Barton [00:11:38] Well, that is, as you were talking, I, I went a little deeper reading the rest of the article, interestingly enough, the Love Life leaders, husband and wife. Uh, guess what the husband's name is. Ezra. Oh, yeah, there you go. The husband's literally an Ezra prayer walk, let's get out and do this. Let's be the spiritual leaders. You know, not, not saying that, you know, anything beyond it's just cool. His name is Ezra, but when you have the Ezra's and Nehemiah's working together that from the Bible, Ezra leading and challenging, charging the spiritual opponent, Nehemaiah saying, now let's go act, let us do something with this. When they're working together, great things happen. And it's, it's fun that a love life leader, Ezrah and Shannon Dean, And they're the ones. That have been leading this move. So congratulations, great job, Ezra and Shannon Dean. 

Rick Green [00:12:29] Well, I think I have to take our break right now because David's gonna have to go dig through his pile to find something as poetic as that. So quick break. We'll be right back with more good news when we come back on The WallBuilder Show. Welcome back to The Wallbuilders Show. All right, David, I don't know if you were able to find something that had that kind of poetry to it, but what you got next, man? 

[00:13:53] No, I found an elephant's tooth. And by the way... Does that idiom even mean anything to people anymore? 

Rick Green [00:13:59] An elephant's tooth? No. No. I'm clueless. 

David Barton [00:14:03] That's an old school idiom. It's as rare as finding an elephant's teeth. Have you ever seen an elephant tooth in your life? Probably not. 

Tim Barton [00:14:11] I've seen tusks. 

David Barton [00:14:11] That's how rare it is. You've seen a tusk. You've never seen an elephants tooth. And that was an old-school idiom that it never happens. You'll never see it. It's kind of like watching the sun come up in the west and go down in the east. It'll never happen. And that's kind of an elephant's tooth moment. 

Tim Barton [00:14:26] What else did George Washington say? 

Rick Green [00:14:28] I was going to say finding an elephant's tooth is as rare as hearing somebody say that's as rare finding an elephants tooth. 

David Barton [00:14:33] Yeah that that's that's it well George and John taught me a lot you know back back when we were just kind of hanging together they. 

Rick Green [00:14:40] Is that in his rules of civility is that where you got that is that one of his. 

David Barton [00:14:43] No no no that that was a book he never got published that was one of those that so this one this story deals with Washington DC and as you recall now almost a month ago Trump said for 30 days. I'm gonna take over DC. This crime stuff is crazy what's interesting is the reaction of Mayor Bowser because when it first happened she didn't like it, didn't what was going on and felt like he was kind of cutting into her turf. But the results weren't very good. I mean the rates and stuff weren't good. And she's just recently had a press conference and she was asked about the- 

Rick Green [00:15:24] I thought you meant the results weren't good from Trump taking over you meant her results were good 

David Barton [00:15:28] Her results weren't good. Yeah. Yeah, thank you for clarifying that because her results were never good. Even though that the crime rate was down from a year ago It's still much higher than other big cities of similar size And so Trump got in and we had a good news Friday I think last week talking about some of the stats and what had happened and so I'm just gonna read you some of this stuff that she said She told reporters during the update that the enforcement surge that he has done She and her officials greatly appreciate what he's done and the added presence of law enforcement noting that in just 20 days carjackings have fallen by 87 percent from the same period last year. She said we know that when carjacking go down, when the use of guns go down when homicide or robbery go down neighborhoods feel safer and are safer. So this surge has been important for us for that reason and this is this is Mayor Bowser's saying this. She said that the district will continue to need more police officers, more prosecutors, more judges, and more effective prevention programs. And so she went through and covered some of the staffs. We talked about the fact there'd been 1,000 arrests in the first 10 or 11 days, but she adds that various forms of crime have fallen over these last 25, 30 days, including violent crime, 32% down on violent crime. Robberies are down 47%. Homicides are down 60% so all of this and what gets me is can you name the last time any major Democrat leader praised Trump for anything and I can't think of a time since his election at all or even in the last term where they did that and to her credit she's knowledge in this this stuff. 

Tim Barton [00:17:14] Well, I think it's interesting too, considering that when he first did it, she was a pretty vocal opponent of what he did. She said it's unsettling, it's unprecedented. And I think we even talked about why it's not unprecedented, why the president, especially for D.C., it's a federal territory that's directly his jurisdiction. But to see her kind of shift sides going from absolutely opposed to President Trump doing this to now coming out and saying, you know what, this is a really good deal. It does make you wonder. Why, why she's saying that in the sense of, if this is this genuine sincerity, is this enough political leaders in DC that have come out and said, we finally feel safe walking to our cars at night after work. Uh, I just wonder if it's how genuine, how sincere or how polling, politically motivated, because it doesn't seem like this is favorable for her except. It does make me, and maybe I'm being too critical and skeptical, guys, and I don't need to do that on a good news Friday, we should take the win and celebrate. But I do wonder if this is a little bit even like a Bill Clinton moment when instead of criticizing the Republican Congress for doing things to cut back in waste and spending, and they're doing things that are boosting the economy instead of criticizing them for doing something that was not his idea. And maybe initially he said, it wasn't going to be good for the economy. He realized, oh, this is going in the right direction. Let me get out in front and take credit for this. And so Bill Clinton now is a president remembered for being a great economic president, even though none of the great economic policies that happened to him were really because of him. It was because of the super majority in Congress under new Gingrich, uh, that we're all Republican doing it. I wonder if this is similar with mayor Bowser. Is she seeing a trend she wants to get in front of? I just- I wonder if there's more motivation to this than just genuine sincerity that, I just wanted to tell President Trump, thank you for what he's doing. I'm just curious. 

David Barton [00:19:09] Well, my initial gut react, because I kind of thought of that, my gut reaction on that is I don't think that she's kind of politically pandering on this. I think there's more to it. And a couple reasons I say that. Number one is she is the safest Democrat in the entire United States. Washington D.C. Votes 93. 

Tim Barton [00:19:26] Well, she's she's a lot safer now that Trump is 

David Barton [00:19:28] Safe and easy. Yeah, that's right. Physically safer, right. But you have this city that votes 93 percent Democrat, 93 to 97 percent Democrat. So Washington, D.C., there is no way that anybody but Democrats are going to get elected here. And she actually is praising him. She's not just saying, well, crime's gone down, but I'm looking forward to the end of the 30 days so I can take it back again. She's actually, she wouldn't talk about the end of 30 days. She's actually talking about continuing cooperation. So there's some things that are going in there that kind of say, wow maybe this is kind of genuine and I hope it is. Now she didn't necessarily agree with what he's doing on trying to do the illegal immigrants to get them out of the city. She wasn't on board with all of that although she wasn't fighting all that. But the crime stuff she was really really solid on and very praising and I was just really kind of surprised about that to see what looked to me to be genuine at a time when she didn't need to make it genuine and she's in the city that certainly is not Republican not Trump and so she she seemed like she kind of went out of her way to really praise him but we'll see you know maybe she's reading tea leaves that even political pollsters haven't seen yet as to what may come but nonetheless it's still good to have a Democrat leader of her caliber in a city like this come with really open praise for Trump and actually Thank him for the cooperation. That's just kind of unprecedented. 

Rick Green [00:20:55] So you're saying this wasn't one of those situations where a politician finally saw the light because they felt the heat. Maybe there was less heat going on in Washington, DC, in terms of crime and, the police having to fight it. And then, she's just being honest about what she saw. I am curious what you guys think before, Tim, you go to your next piece of good news. Do you think this is because it had such a huge result in DC and it's been so overwhelmingly positive. That that's part of it. You know, I know Chicago mayor and all that saying we don't want Trump to help here, but are the citizens and maybe even behind the scenes, some of the city councils that are Democrat in these blue cities, you know, maybe they're actually. 

Rick Green [00:21:34] Calling Trump and saying, please, or, you know, somehow getting back channels to him saying please do for us what you did in Washington DC.

David Barton [00:21:42] Well I know for sure that in the media here, they've got citizens talking about how nice it is to be able to walk in their neighborhoods, that they haven't been able to walk their neighborhoods for a long time and they go out and they don't feel like they they have to be scared and so you're getting that kind of bubbling reaction on the news media and you know maybe somebody will figure out that this is one of those 80-20 issues that Trump is so good on and maybe they'll get behind it at some point with some other blue cities. 

Tim Barton [00:22:07] Well guys, it's also probably worth pointing out since we're talking to America's constitution coach or talking to David Barton. This is probably more foundation freedom Thursday question but it's pertinent because we're talking about it right now. You know, the thing I think is different about DC is it's a federal territories. The president has the authority, the jurisdiction to say we're putting troops in here. If you're looking at another state, the state is the one that at the 10th amendment, they're the ones that have jurisdiction over this. And so President Trump actually doesn't have the constitutional authority to send in troops to other states and other cities. I think you would have to declare some kind of great emergency in crisis. And then there'd be a lot of questions surrounding it, but as, as good as it is, guys, do you think, do see a way where president Trump can do this? Or is this something that really the governor has to do, or maybe some of these mayors, they have to find ways to include additional law enforcement or ask for help from other places, the president doesn't have the authority to send in troops in these other states and cities. Am I reading that right? 

Rick Green [00:23:09] It's a great question, Tim. I think you should send an email to radio at wallbuilders.com radio at wallbuilder.com foundations of freedom. Thursday, next Thursday, we'll answer that question for you. Well, I mean, in all seriousness, it's not an easy question to answer because you can do the whole article for section four, you know, guaranteed to be a Republic. That's one way. And then I think he, but it's iffy, right? There's no case law. There's, no, I, mean, that's going to be. I think he definitely can go in and at least get rid of the illegal aliens, which are a big source of a lot of the crime, right? So that Homeland security, but you're so right to him. This does raise constitutional questions that I don't think there are easy answers to. So, you know, if the state asks, absolutely he can go in or mayor ask him to come help. Uh, but these guys that are saying we don't want you. 

Tim Barton [00:23:53] Oh, this could be, this can be tough. Yeah, and especially too, I mean, Rick, to your point, absolutely has the authority to go get these illegal aliens that are doing very aggressive, violent crimes. But if you look at Memphis, if you at Detroit, if you looked at Chicago, Los Angeles, places that have been incredibly dangerous gang violence for a long time, a lot of that gang violence is not illegal aliens doing this. And so again, so it raises that question. Dad, I know you've been waiting to jump in with thoughts on this too. 

David Barton [00:24:20] Well, part of it is that there's a little more to what Trump is doing in D.C. Than meets the eye in the sense of in 1973, Congress passed an act for D. C., it's called the D. C. Home Rule Act. And under that, he can only control the D C. Police for 48 hours. That's all then Congress has to get involved, and that's why he called a National Guard and others. But Congress is cooperating with the National Guard, and the mayor is cooperated with the national guard. He can only have 48 hours of having the DC police. Now he can do a 30-day period where he gets involved in it and that's why he brought in the National Guard. So the fact that she's got the police still involved and they're working together past that 48 hours, now she's actually participating with him in doing this stuff. And I think that that's another aspect when you look at the D.C. Home Rule Act, I think that's something else that speaks well of what she's doing. 

Tim Barton [00:25:13] Yeah, but I would also point out, I don't think it's the police that are the ones solving a lot of this problem. I think they were overwhelmed in DC. So I think it really has been the additional national guard reinforcement that's made a difference. And he also, I think according to that rule, he can extend, um, that time period two or three times before he has to get the approval of Congress. I have to go back and reread that. It's been a couple of weeks since I've, I've perused that, but, uh, it does nonetheless, it does seem like this is a really good piece of news. When you have a pretty well-known, and to your point, very safe Democrat in a very pro-Democrat area, when even she's coming out and acknowledging Trump was right in this and grateful for his help, that does speak volumes. 

David Barton [00:25:55] And to add to that, the head of the police department in Washington, D.C., has been very vocal about he appreciates the help, he appreciating what Trump is doing, and they've been working and cooperating together. So he's on board with it, and when you get him on board and he represents the constituency he does, there's just a lot of factors going on here that look like it might be bubbling up in the right direction in a surprising way for a lot blue cities and mayors and blue governors. 

Rick Green [00:26:23] All right, folks, we're out of time for today. That's all the good news we got for you. Well, we have a good news, but we're at a time to give it to you. So you'll have to be sure and tune in next Friday for that. And who knows next Thursday, there may be a question read on air where Tim Barton is the one asking the question and answering it. Wouldn't that be interesting? It'll be like one of those weird shows where somebody talks to themselves the whole time. Anyway, have a great weekend. Thanks so much for listening to the WallBuilders Show.