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The WallBuilders Show is a daily journey to examine today's issues from a Biblical, Historical and Constitutional perspective. Featured guests include elected officials, experts, activists, authors, and commentators.
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A Quiet Turn Toward Faith And Law Finds Momentum In Courts, Campuses, And Big Tech
Headlines can make it feel like everything’s slipping, but look closer and you’ll spot the quiet course corrections reshaping daily life. We walk through a set of concrete wins—each from a different corner of culture—that point to a broader turn toward sanity, safety, and conscience. In Texas, a unanimous ruling clarifies that judges are not forced to violate religious convictions, a small-town question that now sets a statewide standard. In Silicon Valley, smart shareholder engagement nudges Apple to expand Communication Safety to all minors and hide adult-only apps from teen accounts, proving that stewardship beats outrage when you want lasting change.
We also dig into the stakes of state elections, where rhetoric meets consequence. A Virginia race flips twelve points after an extreme message surfaces, reminding us that voters still draw lines—and that constitutional questions on life, parental consent, and marriage won’t be decided by apathy. Beyond politics, we unpack a surprising trend in the Catholic Church: younger priests lean more conservative and more pro‑life, signaling a generational shift toward biblical clarity. That same current is surfacing on campus, where thousands gather at secular universities for worship and many make first‑time commitments to faith.
Symbols and policies are moving together. Ten Commandments displays are returning under new state laws, even as legal challenges play out. City leaders in deep‑blue areas are signaling renewed attention to law and order. And a high‑profile Medal of Freedom moment centers faith, courage, and the idea—echoing the Founders—that religion and morality are essential supports for a free society. If you’ve wondered whether principled action still matters, these stories say yes. Your voice helps push the next domino.
Rick Green [00:00:07] Thanks for joining us today at the intersection of faith and culture is the WallBuilders show and it's Friday so, we got a lot of good news to get to so we're gonna jump right in. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. Guys, I'm excited to hear the good news You gathered for us David kick us off man. What's your first story today?
David Barton [00:00:21] Well, let me sit the background on this. There's so many things in the country that are kind of fading out over time in a good sense. I mean, kind of fads and kind of movements that have been not good movements in many ways. And so they're kind of just fading out and there's so may things you can point to. I mean we're seeing the stats now that even with the transgender movement over the last two years, about half as many people supported as did just two years ago. What we saw with COVID and all the fear over medicine within two years. That's gone. Now we're seeing vaccine stuff change. And there's just so much that there was a high intense pressure to do it. And it's really kind of backed off and slowed down. It's not the same intensity and fervor there was. And so back in that time when that was a big deal going on, all over the nation, we saw homosexuals go to people they knew were Christian judges and say, I want to get married. I'm going to get a marriage certificate, whatever. And the Christians say, hey, I can't in good conscience do that. And so we saw so many Christians losing their jobs. There's one of the case with Kim Davis out of Kentucky that's pending in front of the Supreme Court right now, and it's like over 10 years, been like 11 years. And so a lot of this stuff goes back a ways. And it's interesting that now we're seeing kind of a backtrack of what that had been. And in Texas, we had some judges in Texas. We had one, Diane Hensley down in East Texas, and we had one over in, I think it was Granbury, that say, hey, I just can't do homosexual marriages. It violates my religious conviction. I'm just not gonna do it. You can get somebody else to do it. " No, you're gonna do and if you don't, we're gonna sue." And it wasn't that they were necessarily wanting the marriage, they were wanting people to participate in what they were doing and they were suing if they didn't get it. So what happened was here in our little town of Jacksboro, Texas, Jack County, little bitty county, there's only 8,000 people in the whole county. Our judge said, hey, I don't want to be put in the situation because the justice of the peace and the county judge, they do weddings. I don't want to put in that situation. And so he went to the Supreme Court in Texas, which is over the code of judicial ethics here and says, is this a deal in Texas that I have to violate my religious convictions and do a marriage I don't want to do? And the court came back, I think it was unanimous. I think all the judges signed on and said, absolutely not. And the judicial candidate of Texas, we now have it established that you don't have to violate your rights of religious conscience. So, that was not in the judicial canon of Texas back several years ago when this was going on. It now is. And so that's a real quiet thing. But it's another another kind of indication of backing off from the cultural aberrations and the cultural pressure and returning more to norms. We've already looked at this with religious liberties and, you know, being able to put (the)10 Commandments back in schools and and prayer and other things coming back in. And it looks like it's that way, even with moral issues as well, there's more of a turn back in the right direction. So, this little bit in news that came out of a little bit of county, it now has application for the entire state of Texas. This is the new judicial canon interpretation for every single judge in Texas- that we're going to protect your religious liberties and your rights of conscience. And that's really good.
Rick Green [00:03:34] And good trends, good trends. All right, Tim, where are you taking us?
Tim Barton [00:03:37] Well, this one is our friends from American Family Association, the Wildmon's, which guys we all know we're friends with, uh, we do work with, throughout the year, periodically, different things we do together. And we actually, I first got this information as a text from Tim Wildmon, who is the president of American family Association. His two sons, Walker and Wesley are the vice presidents following after them. He was just letting us know some incredible news. Well, now I'm finding different news articles highlighting this. So this is a news article, actually American Family Association released it. The title is "AFA Secures Major Development and Apple Communication Safety for Children". One of the things that AFA has done very brilliantly, they've encouraged other people to do as well, is they decided to use their investment portfolio to promote pro-family proposals with some of the biggest traded companies in America. So, with Schwab and Apple and John Deere and Intel, Verizon, et cetera, they would intentionally maintain stock in some of these companies that have oftentimes gone woke or embrace woke policies, or things that were not good policies for family, that were antithetical to Christian values, et cetera. And the reason they maintain this is because they wanted to be able to show up at these shareholder meetings and to ask questions, to maybe push back, to challenge, et cetera. One of the things they did is showing up at Apple's meeting and finding information out that was really quite shocking to them, Apple's policies, here's what the article highlights, this is also what Tim Wildman told us about personally, but he said, they found that Apple's policies, were that for children, 13 years and younger on their devices, it was a default setting to prevent any kind of inappropriate pornographic, specifically nude pornographic images. But for teens age 14 to 17, the safety features were disabled by default. Meaning that children 13 and under were protected from harmful content. Whether it be again, and like the iMessage app, the different platforms, et cetera, but children 14 to 17, I know children is relative, but they're still considered minors. So, 14 to seventeen year olds are not protected from such content. The article says, this is Tim, when he found out he was baffled, why would the company not have universal safety protections for all children? So, when they went to the meeting, they specifically, and this is them talking to Apple, they said there should be, and this is at the shareholder meeting. The standard should be zero minors have access to nude images or videos via iMessage without their parents' knowledge. There's no rational argument for minors accessing nude images or videos on their Apple device, if there is, please make the case. And of course, the Apple execs did not make the case arguing for maintaining nudity on children's or minors phones. So, the amazing thing, this was back in 2024, when this was kind of happening and they said, the amazing thing is Apple has just given, kind of two updates on policy changes, both of them incredible. The first one is that initially kids could see, uh, in the app store, adult apps, right? Whatever X rated, inappropriate sex, nude apps, whatever it was, they could see those apps, but they couldn't download them and whether it, again, whether it was a game, it was something related, nudes, et cetera, we don't need to get into those details, but, they could see it. They couldn't, download the adult rated apps. Well now, if they are a minor, they can no longer even see those apps. So, it's not that they can see and not download now, they can't even view those apps as something they might could think about downloading in the future. Well, that's the first change is those are no longer visible on minor's devices. The second change is Apple will no longer allow children ages 14 to 17 to view pornographic images in their iMessage app. Instead, Apple will reapply or will apply the same communication safety standards across the board for minors to use. Now, guys, this, first of all, is a great strategy. So for anybody listening. We have at times been convicted that we don't want to have stocks. We don't wanna have investments with certain organizations if they've been woke and certainly certain things, whether it was ESG, different kinds of positions that we, don't, we don't want to support that. We don't want that in our portfolio. AFA had a really brilliant thought to some of this extent saying, Hey, we want to get rid of all that because we want to be able to have a voice in some of these major companies because a lot of what they do... Impacts an incredible percentage of the nation and even the world and so they stayed involved. Guys Incredible news that Apple is literally changing, two policy changes impacting kids with regard to not being able to see inappropriate apps even though they can't download them already they can even see them anymore and now it's not just restrictions on 13 and younger now if you're a minor you're not able to share these pornographic nude images etc on these iMessages so, overall really really good news and kudos to our friends at AFA. Kudos to the Wildmans guys, great job on on fighting for families fighting for the nation and an incredible result!
David Barton [00:09:05] And let me kind of pile on here for just a minute because Tim, what you just mentioned, there's a high percentage of Americans who own stocks some way, whether it's 401Ks, whether it through investments in their company or anything else. And most people don't even know the stocks they own because they let a manager handle it for them and they just see the results coming in every month. It'd be a good thing to really find out where you have stocks, where your investments are, because you can exert leverage. We've seen Matt Staver and others do this across the years ,whether, it was working on Christmas kind of stuff, companies that wouldn't say Christmas or whether it's trans stuff three or four years ago. I hadn't even thought about Apple and those add, that's a great story. But, that goes back to the fact that everyone would, well not everyone is, but a high percentage of American's do hold some kind of stock, because of investment portfolios through companies or retirement plans or whatever. Look at that and see what's there and and be willing to to vote in the stockholder stuff. They usually send you a form and most advisors just send it back, say you can vote for us, we give you our votes. Don't necessarily do that until you know what companies you got. It'd be a good thing to look and exert that influence.
Rick Green [00:10:11] Yeah, I just love the fact, not only the strategy of the Wildmon's to do this, but just the courage to go do these things like you all are saying, and don't forget these companies most of the time are not going to just automatically come to their senses and do the right thing. They need these nudges, they can need these pushes. So, it's the old thing about, you know, for evil to triumph, good men do nothing. So if good men, do something, we can defeat that evil. All right, David, you want to get one more in before we go to break?
David Barton [00:10:35] Yeah, this one deals with what's coming up Tuesday, election in Virginia and also election in New Jersey and also elections in Maine on ballot initiatives, other states as well. Texas has got a lot. So, this one deal with the race in Virginia, particularly for, you've got governor, you've gotta lieutenant governor, you've go the attorney general and the city attorney general, Jason Mayores, is running against Jay Jones. Jay Jones is the guy that had this text that was released, he did earlier, but it came out a couple weeks ago, and it had this thing of wanting to see a Republican assassinated and dance on the grave of the kids, et cetera. For a while, the polling did not change, but now the polling shows that he has had a 12-point swing. He was up by six points, Jay Jones, who made the comment. He's now down by six. Now, that doesn't mean anything if people don't go vote, but at this point, at least the indications are that there's a shift going in Virginia, and that would be good because we've talked about if we don't get some good leadership up top, they're gonna pass a couple of constitutional amendments that's gonna eliminate traditional marriage, take it off the books there. It's going to open abortion wide, open for you lose all parental consent over minor's abortions, et cetera. The election is Tuesday. If you're in Virginia, make sure you vote on Tuesday. If you are in New Jersey or anybody else, any of the states that got an election, make sure that you vote. But it looks like things are starting shift in Virginia. We'll see what it looks like on Tuesday night.
Rick Green [00:12:04] I guess we're gonna take a quick break. We'll be right back. We got a lot more good news folks stay with us You're listening to the WallBuilders Show.
Rick Green [00:13:17] Welcome back to The Wallbuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us on this Good News Friday. David took it to the break, so that means Tim's up.
Tim Barton [00:13:22] Well, guys, this one is dealing with something happening inside the Catholic church, the article says survey of Catholic priests shows they're becoming more conservative. Now, as we have seen, even over the last week, two weeks, uh, over in the UK, uh and the Anglican church, lots of drama, a woman now in charge. What is this happening? The split in the Anglican church. There's a lot of things happening, church related that are impacting is certainly uh, faith in America, churches in America, but certainly even around the world. One of the interesting changes, and we would argue in a positive direction, is that the growing number and, and the growing group of Catholic priests are becoming more conservative. And actually guys, I've already reached out to our friend, Father Frank Pravone on this saying, we need to talk about this. We need to get you on the show. It's very interesting because part of what they identify in this article is that there's a growing tilt toward conservatism, specifically in the younger generation. And this article highlights that among priests ordained since 2010, 51% identified as very or somewhat conservative, and only 10% called themselves liberal. So, the majority of priests since 2010 identify as conservative and especially for this younger group that are coming in, the reason this is interesting that is in contrast If you go back to those ordained before 1975, 61% identified as liberal, and it was less than 15% that identified as conservative. So, when we've looked at things in the Catholic church, and even though we're not Catholic, we have a lot of friends that are Catholic. We do a lot work in different areas, especially the pro-life movement with Catholic churches and Catholic groups. And we have scratched our heads many times going, why are some of these priests saying things that are clearly antithetical to what the Bible teaches? And what we're seeing now is there is a shift inside of the Catholic Church, specifically among the young priests that are coming in, that are holding much more biblical positions. And by that, I mean much more pro-life positions, which this article even highlights, is these young priests coming in have a much stronger support for pro- life priorities in what they do. And this is not to say the Catholic church ever went pro-abortion. That's not where they went, but there definitely were some priests, there definitely were, some leaders that were not holding strong pro-life positions, even though, and I'm saying this because I know I can already hear Father Frank saying, "well, that's not what the church really believed that was just, those were crazy priests saying that". I get it, but, it's really encouraging to see that there is a rising generation of leaders inside the Catholic church that are upholding much stronger, clear, biblical positions specifically on the issue of life and that is really encouraging.
Rick Green [00:16:19] Yeah, and that's despite, you know, not having a Pope hope that has been as conservative as we certainly would have hoped we would have ended up with for sure. David, all right, where are you going next?
David Barton [00:16:29] Well, this goes to President Trump. Remember back when he did what he calls the surge in Washington, D.C. To get crime down and knock crime down. And they've done that to other cities as well. And so he's had a list of cities he's getting prepared to do what he calls this surge. They're going to surge in the city and they're going to crush violent crime and push it down and get illegal immigration under control, et cetera. And he's, getting ready to go into San Francisco and San Francisco, real problems like other big cities. And he gets this call from some friends and say, hey, wait a minute, don't do that. The mayor has decided to get on top of this. The mayor is really getting aggressive, going after violent crime, going after enforcing the law and give her a chance. Trump calls the mayor of San Francisco, they talk. She says, hey, I'm really after crime stuff. And he says, okay, I I'm not gonna do the search. I think it's wonderful that you actually have mayors now starting to enforce laws. You know, they may have taken a little bit of Trump threaten that I'm gonna get in there and get the crime stopped. But the good news is that even in San Francisco, the mayor has said, hey, let us get violent crime. And why weren't you doing that for the last two or three or four or five years or whatever? But whatever it is, the good new is that even in a city like San Francisco they're now focusing on upholding laws, punishing law breakers, getting illegal immigration under control, et cetera. And that's a really big deal when you look at a city like San Fransisco which may be about as blue as you can possibly get. Coming back on the side of law and order and justice. Good news.
Rick Green [00:18:01] We're going fast today guys. We're good. This may be our record for the most number of good news Let's see how fast we can go. Tim, what do you got man?
Tim Barton [00:18:08] Well, it really feels fast because instead of my dad doing three and four in a row, he's doing them one at a time back and forth. So it's just, it figure out different, but I don't. You know, I'm just saying, you know, instead of being like, hey guys, I've got one, but I'm gonna read four articles and make it one. It's actually, okay, not to digress. We're getting through a lot of good news. There is lots of good stuff happening. The next, in the stack that I have. The headline says, "Trump awards Charlie Kirk Posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom, Martyr for Truth and for Freedom" is what it says. Now the article goes through and highlight some of what president Trump said. Guys, we watched it. We saw what president. Trump said, we heard what EriKa said. We had a lot of friends that were there. Very, very powerful moment. One of the coolest things though, was this was the very first time ever that on a Presidential Medal of Freedom, on the back of it, it was engraved with a cross. So this is a very, very unique Presidential Medal of Freedom again, sybolizing the Christian faith of Charlie Kirk and really identifying the motivation of why he did what he did that led to him even getting the Medal of Freedom. But some of the things that President Trump said, just to remind and highlight some of this, he said "today, we're here to honor and remember a fearless warrior for liberty, a beloved leader who galvanized the next generation, like nobody I've ever seen before, and an American patriot of the deepest conviction, the finest quality and the highest caliber, the late great Charlie Kirk". Trump went on to say that he had raced back halfway around the globe to be there to honor Charlie Kirk on his birthday. And he acknowledged this was right after he had signed a peace deal with Israel. As he went on, he characterized Kirk as a "martyr who was assassinated in the prime of his life for boldly speaking the truth, for living his faith and relentlessly fighting for a better, stronger America. He would say, you know, if you don't have religion, you're not going to have a strong country. It's true. He was so wise beyond his years. Charlie never missed an opportunity to remind us of the Judeo-Christian principles of our nation's founding or to share his deep Christian faith." He said, "in his final moments, Charlie testified to the greatness of America and to the glory of our Savior with whom he now rests in heaven." Now, several things I do want to point out about this. It's interesting when President Trump, we've heard him more recently talk about, he didn't think he's going to get into heaven. And he said, of course I'm being cute. But he said that we know that Charlie is, is resting in heaven right now. But, but before that, one of the lines that I read, he acknowledged, Charlie said, if you don't have religion, you're not going to have a strong country. And Trump said it's true. He was so wise beyond his years. That is the exact sentiment that George Washington says in his Farewell address when he says religion and morality are the indispensable supports of America's political prosperity. When John Adams says that "our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people, it's wholy and adequate to the government of any other", the founding fathers not only agreed and believed, they articulated that if you don't have a faith foundation, if you don't religion as a foundation, not religion in the sense of what people think today in a negative context, no, they were talking specifically Christianity and the Bible. If you don't have religion and morality, that's Christianity and the Bible, if you don't have that as a foundation, America won't work. And obviously Charlie taught, fought, thought and believed that. But the fact that President Trump acknowledged that it's true and that Charlie was wise beyond his years for articulating and defending that, that is really encouraging to me. So, a lot of things we could talk about. It was really cool to see, uh, Charlie posthumously awarded the Medal of Freedom. It was great to see Erika there, uh to give a speech to receive that on his behalf, but also super cool that there's a cross on the back of this the first Medal of Freedom, ever, to have a actual cross, a Christian cross on back of it. A lot of cool things about it but I would say it's also really good news when President Trump acknowledged that it is correct that our nation needs religion and without religion our nation won't survive because that's what the founding fathers said.
Rick Green [00:22:28] I just don't see how you guys could vote for this man that, that has such a, you know, terrible background and has done all these bad things and, and still call yourselves, Christians. I'm just laughing at the fact that so many people said that to us and that now, you know, we're seeing things like this, which some may say are small, but we always talk about the God consciousness and the symbolism and how important it is. And just add that to, you know, a host of other things that we've never even been able to cover because there's been so much good news on the religious front coming out of, out of this White House. All right, David, depending on how fast you go, Tim might get another chance. I don't know if that will encourage you to drag it out just to, you know, have this fun competition going or talk even fast. I don't know. It's up to you, man.
David Barton [00:23:10] Well, there's a group called Unite and they work on college campuses getting students brought to Christ. And they're holding these really large rallies all across the nation over the last several years. In Oklahoma University, there were 9,000 kids gathered to worship Jesus, and about 15% of them became Christians that night. You had, at Texas A&M, there were 10,000 students gathered there. You had an event at University of Arkansas, 10,000 students. And about 2,000 of these kids are becoming Christians at these events and these are all over secular campuses. So, within that framework of things are starting to change somewhat on campuses, doesn't mean the curriculums change or the teachers or instructors have changed, but there's something happening with students. It's interesting that Arkansas, the University of Arkansas, where they just had these 10,000 kids, the university of Arkansas is now hanging 10 Commandments posters all over the campus. Now that state law in Arkansas got passed in but it's really interesting to see now we've got these secular universities starting to put 10 commandments up all across campus and classrooms and buildings, et cetera. So it's part of helping return to that God consciousness, that rule of law and order that has been so biblically based for so long. And those 10 commandments that appear on government buildings throughout America, it's easier to find the 10 commandments in a government building than a church building. We're starting to get that back into the culture and that's a really healthy thing. Kudos to the University of Arkansas for complying with the law that that Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed, that we worked on. Tim and I both testified on that law. Jim Dotson was the great legislator who kind of chaired that through. But good news out of Arkansas.
Tim Barton [00:24:51] Well, and dad, let's also point out, because some people would see, if they look this up, well, there's a legal challenge to this. And a lot of times people want to say, if there's a legal challenges, then it's not Constitutional. And of course we know that's not correct. You can bring a lawsuit for just about any reason on multiple fronts. And this is not to say there's not litigious lawsuits to get thrown out, certainly. But when the argument comes up that you're not allowed to have this because of separation of church and state or whatever it might be. That this is something now that's going to the Fifth Circuit because Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, all of them have 10 Commandments laws that have been passed. All of them are distributing and posting 10 Commandments in schools all over their states, which is absolutely incredible. And so this hasn't been finalized by the court acknowledging that there is a longstanding history and tradition of the 10 Commandments. But, at some point we will come out with good news saying, look, there were legal challenges. It didn't stop. This has now been recognized by, whether it's the Fifth Circuit or ultimately even the US Supreme Court later saying, guys, you're allowed to display the document that's been the foundation of Western civilization, it's been the foundation of law in the Western Hemisphere, the foundation of law and the legal code in America, the Ten Commandments. It's okay for kids to see, we don't need to get too much in those details, but there will be more good news coming on some of these Ten Commandment challenges. But Dad, like you said, for now, really good news. Ten Commandments are up all over Arkansas.
Rick Green [00:26:18] You know, Tim, I was gonna say it didn't sound like a fast David Barton on that last one, but yet there was still time for you to do a quick final good news, but you had to throw in with dad and there you go. And then you now we're out of time and we got to go. So maybe next Friday we'll start with Tim. I don't know. That'd be fun. We'll shake it up. Anyway, everybody have a great weekend. David, Tim, thank you for all the good news. It's been fantastic. Thank you for listening, everybody, to the WallBuilders Show.
Links to Good News Articles:
Trump awards Charlie Kirk posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom: 'Martyr for truth and for freedom'
Survey of Catholic Priests Shows They’re Becoming More Conservative
AFA secures major development in Apple Communication Safety for children
Attorney General Jason Miyares Now Leads Jay Jones by 6%
https://www.lifenews.com/2025/10/16/attorney-general-jason-miyares-now-leads-jay-jones-by-6/
Trump Halts Plans to Surge Federal Agents Into San Francisco
U. Arkansas begins hanging Ten Commandments across campus to comply with state law
