Lives, Fortunes, And The Culture Shift

The founders weren’t a tidy, unanimous blob of “great men,” and the more you learn about them, the more gripping the real story gets. We kick off Good News Friday with something we’ve been itching to share: our new book, “Lives, Fortune, Sacred Honors,” a fast-moving set of modern biographies on all 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence. Along the way, we talk through the kinds of details most Americans never hear, from personal rivalries and street-level violence to the brutal costs some families paid for liberty. If you’ve ever searched for Declaration of Independence signers, Founding Fathers biographies, or the meaning behind “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor,” this is the deep dive that still moves at a readable pace.

From there, we zoom into the headlines shaping faith and culture right now. We react to new polling that shows support for the LGBTQ lifestyle and gender transition dropping, and we unpack why moral trends matter far beyond one issue. We connect the dots between religion, morality, public policy, and the long-term health of a nation, including how media moments and detransitioner stories changed what many people were willing to question out loud.

We also hit two big policy stories: the ATF rolling back Biden-era gun rules and what that means for Second Amendment rights and self-defense, plus new data showing churches speaking more clearly about abortion and pro-life convictions. We close with a Pentagon update that trims hundreds of “recognized” religion codes while emphasizing religious liberty and chaplains, and we ask what it looks like to stay focused on mission without turning faith into bureaucratic nonsense. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Links to Good News Stories:

https://www.theblaze.com/news/support-for-the-lgbtq-lifestyle-is-in-free-fall-poll

https://www.newsmax.com/us/trump-atf-joe-biden/2026/06/05/id/1258653/

https://notthebee.com/article/poll-support-for-same-sex-marriage-is-dropping-and-republican-support-has-cratered

https://www.lifenews.com/2026/06/03/new-poll-finds-churches-are-speaking-out-against-abortion/

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pentagon-drops-180-faiths-militarys-recognized-religions-list

Transcript

Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. It's the WallBuilders Show on a Friday, which means it's Good News Friday. My favorite day of the week to hear David and Tim Barton, because they bring all this good news that's been happening a bunch, a lot of which I haven't heard of, so once in a while, y'all, you guys cover a story that I actually saw on at least social media, but anyways, I think everybody else, well, I know everybody else that listens gets the same benefit because they stop me and tell me I love Good News Friday, man. Y'all have so.. Y'all help me go into the weekend with some optimism. So, it's Good News Friday, Rick Green here with David and Tim Barton. And we got a lot of good news to share. And normally I start with David, but Tim signaling me. So, I'm guessing that you have something that that's more important. 

David Barton [00:00:47] No, that, that was just virtue signaling. That's all that was, that was it. 

Tim Barton [00:00:49] Well, Rick acknowledging me was like the DEI hire position, so I'm grateful. But no. 

Rick Green [00:00:56] Wait a minute. Is the new book out? It's ready? 

Tim Barton [00:00:59] So I just got our new book. It is it is shipped. This is the early, the release version for press kits that we're sending out to people to let them know. But our new book, Lives, Fortunes, Sacred Honor. The biographies of all 56 Signers of the Declaration. It is in the mail on the way to WallBuilders. God willing, we are going to go live with this on our website on June 23rd. It's also going to be on Amazon. Amazon's actually, starting this next week, is going to do pre-orders. So, you can get on and pre-order on Amazon, and then as soon as they get it, it'll ship directly to you. But yes, our new book on the 56 Signers of the Declaration is out. And, Dad, years and years and years ago, the early, I guess it was really 19th century, there was three biographers that all did biographies on the Signers of the Declaration. And there are some really great stories. But all of those were written 100 plus 150, 180 years ago, and it feels like this was written that long ago, in the sense of part of the way they told the story is not the that's modern vernacular you would tell the story. And then, there were some things that they just automatically knew to be true that they didn't feel like was necessary to include, but in modern generations, we've forgotten much of the things that were known back in the early 1800s. And therefore, we have reintroduced those concepts. So, Dad, in my thought this is like an updated version of some of those early biographies that even used to be public school textbooks. That most kids in America during that time frame from the early 1800s to the mid-1900s grew up learning about the Signers of the Declaration, the Founding Fathers. Today they don't, so we've just kind of gone back and revisited an early idea. 

David Barton [00:02:51] And I tell you guys, this was a real epiphany for me in many ways, because Tim, all those early biographies you're talking about, I read all those. We went out and found original copies of those to have in the library, and we've had those in the libraries for 30 years, you know, 35 years, how many times have I read them? And when we got into writing the bios on these 56 guys, I was absolutely floored with how little I knew about them individually, even though I thought I knew something about them. Maybe I know more than some people. But I still knew so little. And I was shocked at how, in many ways, these guys didn't even like each other at times. Some of them didn't, but they were all agreed on the core principles, the core values. They had different plans on how to get there, and it made them even more individual. I've always known they were individuals, but I've looked at them like a group, the Founding Fathers, the Signers of the Declaration. And, you know, to see like James Wilson, signer of the Declaration. He gets assaulted by his neighbors and friends for like three days. His house turns into what they call Fort Wilson because he had to board himself up inside the house from his assault, from neighbors who disagreed with him. And I don't know, I somehow thought in my mind, you know, they're kind of unanimous on the principles and they were on the principle, but they were just so different. And I never realized that one of the Signers and Declaration was actually shot dead by an American general who disliked him intensely. I mean, that was... That was not part of what I knew, so this is a really cool book.

Tim Barton [00:04:21] Now Dad, in fairness, that Founding Father, who signed the Declaration, and got shot by an American general, he did challenge the duel. So he kind of. 

Rick Green [00:04:29] Called for the duel, that's right. 

Tim Barton [00:04:30] He kind of brought that on himself. 

Rick Green [00:04:33] Yeah, Tim and I both have done enough firearms training. We would tell people they both mashed the trigger so they both mashed the trigger and shot down and so the Signer got shot in the leg actually and he mashed the trigger so much, I don't even think he hit the other guy. And yeah, but he ended up dying from it. Crazy! 

Tim Barton [00:04:51] Well, and I feel like Rick too, in fairness, you know, back then when you had a, a pistol that probably didn't have rifling and they really were that, like maybe, you know it's maybe he mashed the trigger. Maybe he actually was aiming really, really well and they're guns were just.... 

Rick Green [00:05:04] And the bounce of the ball coming out of the end was just not, was not good. Yeah, their story's crazy, I remember going to, I can't remember where that place is in Florida, it's one of the old towns there, but it's where those three Signers of the Declaration from South Carolina were being held. 

David Barton [00:05:19] St. Augustine, I'll bet it was St. Augustine. 

Rick Green [00:05:21] That's it. Yes. Yes, they were being held hostage and there's a sign there and I saw the sign and it said that. I said I gotta go study about this and come to find out Button Gwinnett was had gone to rescue them and the whole you know mission didn't work or something. I don't know. And the governor or whoever it was called him a scoundrel or something or he called the other guy's guy... I can't remember the details, but it was that's like man a duel with a Signer of the Declaration and he dies, I think it was like a year or two after the after the signing. 

Tim Barton [00:05:46] Well, and these are all kinds of the stories that we include in these bios to actually, Dad, to your point, show the individuality of every one of these 56 Signers. Where instead of thinking of them in a lump, even the ones, for example, the ones from Virginia, some of the prominent Founding Fathers, we know their names, they were very independent, and we really don't know very much of their stories. And when I say we don't, Dad, you and I were learning things about the Founding Fathers doing research for this, getting greater details on their stories. And if we were learning things, I guarantee you, the majority of Americans did not know these things. And what we did is wrote this in the traditional way we try to tell stories, very much biographical fun, but they're all only two or three or four or five pages. So, you don't get a long story, but you do get a high-level overview of some of the really cool accomplishments, some of things from their faith, their family, their journey, or their sacrifice. When they pledge their lives, fortunes, and sacred honors, we actually go through. Who are the ones who lost their lives or their wives died? Some of their kids died in the Revolution. Who are ones who've lost their fortunes or spent their fortune for the cause of liberty? Some of them that ended up being destitute, largely because they spent their fortune. Some of the them... They survived and lived comfortably, but they went from like Elon Musk status down to a average American status. And they had spent it all for the cause of liberty. And the cool thing about all of them is in the midst of all of the sacrifice that they had to endure, the persecution, the hardship, none of them backed down. None of them recanted. All of them are willing to pay the price for their descendants and for future generations. So, these are really cool guys to go back and relearn the stories and June 23rd, it will go live on the WallBuilders website. And again, it'll be on amazon.com starting next week that you can go in and pre-order and sign up to get it through Amazon if you want to do it that way. But guys, my first piece of good news, I am super pumped about this. We have our new book that is, I currently have one in my hand, but they're in the mail coming to WallBuilders and they will go alive here very shortly. I am very excited about this 

Rick Green [00:08:05] Lives, Fortunes, Sacred Honor. And yes, well worth cutting in front of your dad and having the first piece of good news there. Now I think the timing's amazing. I think in fact that it's coming out, you know, right before July 4th, the 250th and the, you know, everybody can learn about them as they, as they celebrate and hear about some of these guys on July 4th and their celebrations, and I would love to say David and Tim probably planned this timing perfectly, but I know David and Tim well enough to know they're like Trey and me, my son. And Tim is just like Trey, he probably wanted this done and ready and available like six months ago, and then David's like me and like, you know, 400 things going at once and David's way more busy than I am, and it probably took right up until the last minute and I would bet the team back at the WallBuilders office has been hammering both of you guys while you've been on the road so much for the last six months to get this done. So my guess is it's the Lord willing part that got this thing done just in time for the 250th. And you would have preferred it to be out sooner, but God knew better It needed to come out like, you know, 10 days before, so people would order as their birthday celebration. You know the nation's birthday. You should give a birthday present to people in your family, your pastor, other people and that birthday present should be Lives, Fortunes, Sacred Honor 

David Barton [00:09:11] Tim, I think Rick's got a mole in our office somewhere, either that or he's bugged it. We need to do a sweep of the office for electronic bugs. 

Rick Green [00:09:22] I say this as the guy that everybody's still waiting on the Rebuilding Liberty workbook from a year ago. What's supposed to be done. So yes, I I get it. I don't want to be too much like Bill Clinton, but I feel your pain Okay, so let's move on to some other good news David. What your first piece of good news today? 

David Barton [00:09:38] The headline for this comes from the Blaze that says headline it says “Support for the LGBTQ plus Lifestyle is in Freefall”. And so it's a poll on that. This is really good news to me because when your morals start moving back in a biblical direction a whole lot of other stuff follows including liberties and freedoms and role of government everything else. So morals, as George Washington has told us, religion morality is the foundation of politics. And when you start moving back in a more traditional moral direction, a more Judeo-Christian, biblical, moral direction other things will follow. And so just hitting some of the things on this, for example, the percentage of US adults who regard homosexual relations as morally acceptable fell to 62% this year, and that's the lowest it's been in a decade. So that's a decade old law, which means that we've hit the crest of the hill. We're now coming down the other side. When asked about whether changing one's gender is morally acceptable back in just five years ago, 46 percent said, yes, it's morally acceptable to change your gender. Now it's down to 38 percent. Only five percent of Republicans say that changing the gender is morally acceptable. Which tells you that with 38% of Americans thinking it's okay, that means about 188% of the Democrats think it's OK, if only 5% of the Republicans think it is OK. And so just going down. 

Rick Green [00:11:03] Did you say a hundred and eighty eight percent?  Or is that.... 

David Barton [00:11:06] Yeah, I'm watching them count votes in California, and I've seen them count those. So I know how Democrats work this, bro. I've got it. Yeah, it's 188% of Democrats. Yeah, exactly. So looking at, there's so many things. It's just, it's a big, big change, and right now we're at the point only 35% of Republicans think that homosexuality is moral, and just four years ago it was at 56%. So there is a huge change, particularly in that LGBTQIA plus category, which means is becoming much more biblical, traditional. Which is a good sign for the nation, a good sign for what will happen in government and education and everything else. 

Rick Green [00:11:54] You know, it seems like that's an area that we could point to and say, you know, we, our side did pretty good at battling this. We caught up, you know, where we were caught flat-footed for a long time. I think honestly shocked that people would say, men can have babies and all the insanity that they did. And so for a while we were struggling with how to respond. And then of course, Matt Walsh came out with his movie. "What is a Woman?" That really helped change the dialog and get people thinking. And then you had all these detransitioners that were coming out and telling of the horrors of what they had been put through and what it had done to their life. And I think our side did a pretty good job of helping them and getting the voice out there and started to articulate that. So I love seeing those numbers change like that. That's just a great indicator. I remember, David, when we first started the radio program, you would do a lot of polling and data, and we've done that over the years to help measure, are we, what are we doing in the culture and are we doin' well at articulating these things and basically, you know, articulating biblical values to get people to come alongside us. And you just described, I think, a... massive victory in what was man even just three four years ago looked like it was going totally the wrong way. So that's really, really good news. Quick break guys. We got more good news coming to you when we come back. You're listening to the WallBuilders Show 

Rick Green [00:14:10] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show, more good news for you, tossing it back over to Tim. 

Tim Barton [00:14:14] Well, guys, this one is dealing with something that the Trump administration has done. It says, “Trump ATF Targets Biden Gun Rules in Major Rollback”. So I don't know all of the details of what the Biden administration did, actually, thankfully, on some level. But I do know that the ATF under Biden was trying to crack, in their mind, in their words, crack down on some various gun transfer restrictions! Some of what they called, right, like the "Gun Show Loophole" where people could sell guns and not be licensed and et cetera, et cetera. And of course, different states have different regulations. In Texas, we have the ability, if you own a firearm, you can sell that to somebody else. And those of us who are prudent say, hey, do you have your license to carry? Because we don't wanna sell a firearm to someone who might be a bad person or do bad things with it. So there's a lot of wisdom and prudence involved. When somebody sells a handgun, generally speaking. And that's just for individuals outside of gun shows. But guys, the reason, as I was reading this article, I thought of you, Dad, more specifically you than Rick. But Rick, I'm going to toss you in this as well. I remember seeing really, I am saying really old, and this is not a slam on you being really old. I remember. 

Rick Green [00:15:35] I think we both just got thrown under the bus, David. 

David Barton [00:15:35] Hey, yeah, Rick. I don't know. Maybe we need to form a union here. We need some kind of representation 

Rick Green [00:15:43] Grey hairs versus the youngsters, let's go! 

Tim Barton [00:15:47] So I'm just curious if either one of y'all ever like Sears catalog ordered a rifle? 

David Barton [00:15:57] Of course! Of course, Christmas time, man, you went through the Sears and Roebuck catalogs. You went through Montgomery Ward's catalogs to Christmas time to pick out which guns you wanted. And Tim, the first rifle that I owned on my own was given to me at a church because I won the Bible memorization contest at my church youth group. So yeah, absolutely. Just go to the neighborhood, go to the neighborhood 5 and 10 store, Mott's store they used to be called, Motts 5 and Ten. Get a gun there, off the rack, right off the rock and walk with it. 

Tim Barton [00:16:26] Well, by the way- 

Rick Green [00:16:26] I'm gonna I found a dividing line between the gray hairs because not only I guess it's probably just ‘cause David has more hair Let alone gray hair than me, but I don't I did not that was just big kind of phasing out kind of right between us, I think DB, because no, I never got to order one from a magazine. Maybe that's just my family and where we lived 

Tim Barton [00:16:47] But Rick, on the addition to this, so you didn't order it through the catalog, but do you remember going to school or seeing around town everybody having a rifle in the back of their truck? In the truck, man. 

Rick Green [00:16:59] In the truck, man. On the rack. You got it. Yes, that I do. 

Tim Barton [00:17:03] And I mean, right, windows would be rolled down. People not even in the trucks, and there are rifles and shotguns loaded in the truck with windows open. 

David Barton [00:17:13] I remember going to football practice at school. Everybody had to pick up and we had the gun racks in the back of the pickup and the windows. You left the doors unlocked all day. You let the windows down. Nobody took them. And then I would take the gun as I would come home. I literally, I would stop and shoot possums that were crossing the road on the way home. I'd pull my gun out. That was just part of what you did as what a high schooler does. Yeah. I absolutely remember that.

Tim Barton [00:17:39]  Well, so all of this, let me put a little loop on this. The reason I'm bringing this up is because when people are analyzing things today and the argument that, hey, guns are the problem and people getting guns, that's why we have violent crime, et cetera, at a time when guns were far more available in prevalence, we didn't have the same crime problems. And so this idea that guns are what the problem is, is a very faulty notion, just first and foremost. The founding fathers talked about the religion and morality had to be the foundation, that's where it came from. But the reason I bring this up is because the good news is, the Trump administration has recognized, hey guys, guns aren't the underlying cause of all of these problems that we're dealing with. And so taking away or restricting people being able to navigate decisions with their own firearms or like giving it... You know, Dad, for example, if you were going to give me some of your guns, and the Biden administration's like, now, wait a second, you got to go through a gun dealer, and you got do all these, you know, loophole things, we would look and go, that's just utterly ridiculous for lots of reasons. Again, what I have as good news in this article is that Trump administration is rolling back some of these Biden ATF decisions, which is good news. And again, big picture for people that are looking and going, but wait a second, won't that mean there could be more crimes? The reality of the crimes we are dealing with, it's because of the brokenness of homes. It's because the brokenness of families. It's a sin in human hearts. It's not because of a specific gun law that we do or don't have violent crime. And you can go down the width of some of the really great people that have analyzed this, John Lott and his very famous book. More Guns, Less Crime, it analyzes that it's actually the opposite of what we think, and generally speaking, the bad guys doing bad things did not get most of their guns legally to begin with. So, a lot of our preconceived notions are just incorrect, but the good news is the Trump administration is rolling back some of these restrictions, which goes back to the recognition of what we know is the Second Amendment, the right of. People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The right of self-preservation and self-defense and an inalienable right is being restored to some extent under the Trump administration. And overall, that's good news. 

David Barton [00:20:08] Hey, I'll add to that, Tim, just you saying the way you did reminded me of what Jesus said in Matthew 7, that all crime, all violence comes out of the heart. It's not what's in the hand. Cain and Abel, I mean, it's not what's necessarily in the hands, it's what's the heart, and if what's in the heart is wrong, you're gonna find something in the head, and it doesn't have to be a gun with a 15-bullet magazine. It could be a rock, it could be club, it could anything you have, it can be a fence post. And that's why the Biden administration is so wrong. They're dealing with the symptoms on the outside rather than the cause on the inside. And that is where Jesus got it right thousands of years ago at Matthew 7. 

Rick Green [00:20:48] Yeah, Tim, that's good news coming from a bureaucracy, literally. Like, how often do we get to talk about an agency at the federal level and that there's good new coming out of there? Well, over the last year and a half, a lot because of the directives that President Trump has done and the people that he's appointed to oversee that and actually implement it. You remember in the first term; he had so many people that were running these agencies that were actually undermining him. This time, much, much, much better, better team. All right, DB, back to you, man. What's your next piece of good news?  

David Barton [00:21:14] Well, it kind of goes to my first piece of good news where the morals and values of the nation appear to be shifting in a more biblical direction and now this is a piece of good news and the headline says “New Poll Finds Churches are Speaking Out Against Abortion.” and we've been doing work with George Barner for a number of years and for 20 years we haven't been able to get pastors to talk about any moral issue to speak of. I mean it's been silent including on abortion Now polling shows that churches are starting to speak out on moral issues It goes through all the denominations. The Catholics are the most likely to report hearing a clergy member discuss abortion so 49% of those who attend mass monthly, 49% say that they have heard a Catholic priest discuss abortion within the fast past few months and 86% of those who heard said what they heard was exclusively a pro-life message When it comes to evangelical Protestants, 43% of white evangelical Protestant are hearing their pastor talk about abortion and about it being wrong. 90% of those who heard their pastor or felt about abortion heard him say that it was wrong. The two groups that are the least likely to hear any kind of moral message on abortion from the pulpit would be the white, non-evangelicals and black Protestants. So those are the two that have the smallest margin of hearing anything moral about that. But again, this is a church reclaiming its voice, getting back to talking about morality and addressing the culture. Jesus was really good about telling his disciples things that were going on in the culture and pointing them to it, whether it was the news about the tower that fell and killed people or whether what the Herod was doing or anything else. And pastors have neglected to speak on the issues of the day. But this is good news to see that the church is starting to speak out on issues of the day, especially moral issues of the day. 

Rick Green [00:23:09] The bolder the church is, the more likely we actually save this country, no doubt about it. Tim, probably our last piece of good news. Take us into the weekend, man. What you got? 

Tim Barton [00:23:17] Well, this is one that brought some drama this week, but it's overall, it's good news. So the article says, the headline is, “Pentagon Drops 180 Faiths From Military's Recognized Religions List”. Now, if you read the article, what it points out is that in the military, it recognized over 200 different faith codes for service members that they could affiliate with. And now it's been reduced down to, it sits just over 31. Now there was some drama with this because it had a subcategory under these 31 identified faiths and it had Christian category and it listed all of these different faiths. And then Mike Lee, a great Senator from Utah who was a Mormon, posted and was very frustrated because it didn't include the Mormons under the Christian subheading category. And so ultimately what the Pentagon did is just remove the Christian Subheading category. So, he's listing all 31. And I thought really brilliantly responded saying it's not our job to get into doctrinal theological disputes between these different belief systems. What we are trying to do is acknowledge and recognize and defend the religious liberty for all service members that are a part of these. But overall, the good news coming from the Department of War and the Pentagon is that instead of what has happened, unfortunately, over time. With so much spreading and disparity and group orientation, they said, look, we're narrowing this down because we want to focus on why we're really here. We want you to be people of faith, but you are here to defend your country. You can do it in your faith. And so, in the new list, and it's interesting because they have chaplains for all these lists and groups, but they identify agnostics and Buddhists and Hindus, Islam or Muslims, Judaism, Sikh, a wide range of Christian-based groups. And this is from the article like Baptists, Catholics, Lutherans and Methodists. The outlet reported, Hegseth had announced the intention to trim the list of face early this year. On the article goes, but guys, it did strike me as interesting that for all of these groups, they have chaplains. What does a chaplain for the agnostics do? 

David Barton [00:25:25] You sit around and say I really don't care. However, yeah, whatever happens. Well, yeah I would you have to have great ambivalence. I guess to be chaplain 

Tim Barton [00:25:34] Right? If you're an agnostic, you don't know if there's a God or not, so why do you need a chaplain? It makes no sense. But I just, I do want to point out again, it's one of the places where I appreciate that we have leaders that are saying, let's let the Department of War focus on why it's here. Let's focus on what matters. And they're not removing religious liberty. In fact, they're prioritizing it. They've elevated the chaplains. They're making this significant again, but they're directing focus on where it should be. 

David Barton [00:26:01] And Tim, going to that point, it's like they had a DEI list for religions. There were some of those 200 religious categories that nobody in military history has ever claimed that that particular thing. It's like, they had the list 81 genders. What are 81 genders? There's only two. And you're right, they got back to what the military's focused on and that is making it a tough military. But it was, you're, right Tim, that was such a good thing to see them get rid of all those peripheral things that have nothing to do with what the military's about. 

Rick Green [00:26:32] Guys, thanks for all the good news. Folks, if you're listening and you want even more, it's at our website, wallbuilders.show, that's the radio site, and then you can go to wallbuilders.com for all of the other information. Have a great weekend. You've been listening to The WallBuilders Show.