Walker Wildmon: Ministry of Preborn helps rescue babies from abortion
>> Walker Wildmon: In many ways, abortion was on the ballot this past election and there's reason for concern. There are many counties, cities and states who have radicalized abortion and thousands of tiny babies will continue to lose their lives every day. Which is why the Ministry of PreBorn is on the front lines for at risk babies and mothers with unplanned pregnancies. Preborn sponsors clinics positioned in the highest abortion areas in the country. By providing them with resources that they need to rescue babies, PreBorn continues to expand their life affirming care. Their end of year goal is to equip 10 more clinics with ultrasound machines. These life saving machines cost $15,000 each, more than most clinics can afford. When a woman meets her baby on ultrasound, she is twice as likely to choose life. And when she comes to a preborn clinic, she will also be embraced with God's love. $28 sponsors one ultrasound and now through a match, your gift is doubled. How many babies can you save? Please donate just dial #250 and say the keyword baby. That's #250 and say the keyword baby. Or you can go to preborn.com afr that's preborn.com afr all gifts are tax deductible and PreBorn has a four star charity rating. We inform Religious freedom is about people of faith being able to live out their faith, live out their convictions no matter where they are.
>> Rick Green: We equip sacred honor is the courage to speak truth to live out your free speech.
>> Walker Wildmon: We also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character and character hope. This is at the core on American Family Radio. Welcome, to the core here on American Family Radio. Glad to have you with us. I'm, Walker Wildmon. I'm your host for the program today and the show is hosted each week by Rick Green and myself. We're your host each week and it's good to be with you on this edition of the program. We would greatly appreciate it if you subscribed to the podcast. Wherever you listen to podcasts, whether it's your Apple device, Android or otherwise, you can simply go to your podcast library, including Spotify by the way, and click the subscribe button and, the podcast will be queued up in your library each and every day and it's free. No gimmicks, no tricks. Just click the subscribe button and our content will be queued up in your library each and every day.
Proverbs chapter 28 says the wicked flee when no one is pursuing
Turning our attention to the scripture, Proverbs chapter 28 is where we are this week. The wicked flee when no one is pursuing, but the righteous are bold as a lion. The wicked flee when no one is pursuing, but the righteous are bold as a lion. And what this is highlighting in verse one of Proverbs chapter 28 is that the wicked carry with them, whether they realize it or not. The wicked carry with them shame, the unrighteous carry with them shame. And the righteous do not carry that. They do not carry that shame. They do not carry that embarrassment, because they are righteous. And so that's why it says, the wicked flee when no one is pursuing, but the righteous are bold as a lion. That's, ah, Proverbs, chapter 28, verse, verse 1. The wicked flee when no one is pursuing, but the righteous are bold as a lion. All right, let's turn our attention to the news, of the week. And if you need a reason to stay tuned for the next segment, it's because Dr. George Barna is going to be with us. Dr. Barna is head of the Cultural Research center over at Arizona Christian University. He'll be with us here in just about 10 or 12 minutes, so stick around for that.
Walker: Democrats want health insurance for illegal immigrants out of government shutdown
Well, the latest news in Washington is the government shutdown of which nobody that I know is very upset about. The Democrats are upset about it, supposedly. the media, is not very upset about it, ironically. And of course, Republicans have, proposed that, hey, we just keep funding the government at the same levels, that you guys approved of last time we had this debate. And, they said no, Democrats said no. And there's multiple things that the Democrats are trying to get out of this. And we actually talked to, gentleman, Trevor, whose last name escapes me. We talked. Yeah, we talked to Trevor Lawson. you said Carlsen. Carlsen. Sorry about that. Trevor Carlsen on Monday from the foundation for Government Accountability. We talked to him on Monday and he kind of gave us this outline of what the Democrats are looking for, what they're negotiating for. One of the items that they, the Democrats are just determined to get out of this negotiation is health insurance for illegal immigrants. And it's no, that's no lie. It's no exaggeration. One of the core tenants, one of the core bullet points that Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries put forth to the White House when they met with President Trump is health insurance for illegal immigrants. Because this is what Biden did. Biden funded the health insurance for illegal immigrants, and it is expiring. Actually, it's expiring at the end of this year. And so they're trying to re up that. And that's their main, their main thing. This is the main thing that they want. They also want to rescind some of the, provisions of the one big beautiful bill. So they want to undermine President Trump's key legislative victory, amongst other things. And so it's just quite, quite phenomenal. Quite, not phenomenal. Quite amazing to me to see what the Democrats are for. I mean, when you summarize what the Democrats are willing to fight about and fight for, almost all the time it has to do, at least half the time it has to do with, with defending criminals or defending illegal immigrants. I mean, when was the last time you had Democratic, Democrat lawmakers, Democrat politicians show up in Chicago, a city which they run, by the way, and, and get mad at the people of Chicago that keep killing each other? When was the last time Chuck Schumer and congressional and Senate Democrats held a press conference in Chicago because they're mad that people in Chicago keep killing each other through gang violence and otherwise? No, you're not going to see that because they don't care. Now what you will see is you will see Democrat politicians show up at ICE facilities in New Jersey and other places and they are rioting and protesting in favor of criminal illegal immigrants. What, what you want see is you want see Democrat politicians show up at abortion clinics and have press conferences and talk about how disappointed they are that Planned Parenthood keeps killing thousands of babies and how that's an injustice. Well, you, what you will not see Democrats do is speak out and host events and host rallies, talking about how Washington D.C. spends way too much money, which has led to inflation and middle and lower income families can't afford the essentials because Democrats in Washington spend too much money. And so the picture I'm, painting here is that when you, when you, when you get to the essence of what the Democrats are for and what they're against, the only two things that I know for sure that they are in favor of based on their public statements and their public positions, Democrats are in favor of zero consequences for, for violent criminals in American cities. They are, they are, they are the largest proponent of no penalty, no consequence, no jail time for violent criminals in America's cities. And we know this not just because of what they say, but what they do. Well, what do they do, Walker? Well, they pass so called bail reform which allows criminals to get back on the streets within hours of committing a crime, even a violent crime. And then we, we Move over. Okay, that's the, one of the main, one of the main clients, one of the main audiences that the Democrats are appealing to is violent criminals. America's cities, that's one crowd. And then the other crowd over here are the illegal immigrants. I've never seen so many politicians, Democrats show up at ICE facilities petitioning on behalf of illegal immigrants. It's amazing. I think they've had more rallies outside of immigration facilities than they have in their own precincts, in their own congressional districts. It's quite amazing. And so if you're, if you're a voter in America and you're looking at how this is playing out, I just don't understand how Democrats keep getting elected at any scale. Now you go to San Francisco, you go to Chicago. Okay, I get it, right? 80% of the populace votes Democrat. Their heavy propaganda, you know, they're now, now, now the Republicans, by the way, they've been peeling away at the Democrat vote, by the way, in America's inner cities, they've been peeling away multiple percentage points away from the Democrats, even in their own backyard. But I'm just interested to see how this is going to shake out in the midterms and even going into this general election in November in a couple states. If voters pay attention here, they're going to quickly realize that Democrats have their priorities completely out of order and they're not lobbying on behalf of their, their, their voting base, their constituents, American citizens. And when you, when you add up the actual percentage of, of these individuals that can vote that are within this, this, once again, we got violent criminals, many of them felons, by the way, that can't vote. And then we've got illegal immigrants. These are voting block, these are blocks of society that can't even vote. Most of them, probably 70 to 80% of them can't even vote. And so this is just bizarre to me that Democrats, if you're gonna, you know, pick which, which audience you're gonna, you know, be in favor of and which audience you're gonna petition for, these aren't even voters. So politically it doesn't make sense, doesn't add up on paper. And so this is what the Democrats are doing. Let's play a clip real quick of this is going to be the vice president talking about how the Democrats would like free healthcare for illegal immigrants. Clip 5.
>> JD Vance: Let's step back for a second because I think it's important for the American people to realize that the far left faction of Senate Democrats shut down the government because we wouldn't give them hundreds of billions of dollars for health care benefits for illegal aliens. It's actually not even all Senate Democrats. I was really gratified to see that a few of the moderate Senate Democrats voted with Senate Republicans last night to keep the government open. This is basically Chuck Schumer. Chuck Schumer. He's worried he's going to get a primary challenge from aoc and so he's shutting down the people's government to give in to sort of the left wing coalition and their party. And it's craziness and people are going to suffer because of it. I mean, people who benefit from low income food programs are going to suffer because of this. If you're flying today, I hope of course you arrive safely and on time, but you may not arrive on time because the TSA and the air traffic controllers are not getting paid today. Our military is not getting paid today, starting today. And obviously the longer this drags on, the worse that it is for the American people.
The Democrat's negotiating position is that they want health insurance for illegal immigrants
>> Walker Wildmon: Well, there you have it. That's the Vice President talking about, the Democrats negotiating position is that they want health insurance for illegal immigrants. And a journalist was on the steps of the Capitol. And I don't have this clip, but I'll summarize it for you. Maxine Waters was pressed, Congresswoman Maxine Waters was pressed about, hey, you know, what are you guys fighting for here? Like, what's this whole deal about the government shutdown and you guys don't want to pass a spending bill? Like, what's the essence that you're, in favor of? What are you trying to get out of this? And the journalist said, does this have to do with health insurance for illegal immigrants? And Maxine Waters, number one, she wouldn't answer the question, but the closest thing she got to answering the question was saying, well, this is about health insurance for everybody. This is about health care, which are two distinctly different things, by the way. Health insurance and health care are distinctly different things. and they conflate the two. But Maxine Waters said this is about health insurance for everybody. We want health insurance for everybody. Whoa, whoa, whoa. okay, so we go from Obamacare to providing health insurance coverage for lower to middle income families to now you want it for everybody. Okay? And this just shows you the Democrats have no solid position. They have no solid stance. They'll go wherever the wind blows. And if it's, if it's cool one day to say, you know what, the government ought to provide health insurance for everybody. You know, all 300 plus million people in Our country. Yeah, let's just do it. That sounds like a great idea. they'll do it. And Maxine Waters is a prime example. She said, you know what? This is really about health insurance for everybody. This is about health insurance for everybody. Well, folks, ask Cuba, ask, Venezuela and China and you can even go up to Canada and ask them as well. Hey, how does this government run health insurance work? How does this government run health care work? Is it working good for you guys? I'll guarantee you what the answer is going to be if they're honest is no, it's a disaster. And it's such a disaster that they're even rationing care and they're telling elderly people that, no, we're not going to cover that procedure because, ah, based on our stats, you've only got about three years left to live and you're not worth it. That's what they tell them in Canada. So no, we don't need more government health insurance and we definitely don't need it for quote, everybody, like the Democrats are positioning. We'll be back in a few. Thank you for partnering with listener supported American Family Radio during October 7th through 9th. We talk about politics to our friends to shed light on what's going on in America and that there is an absolute right. And I, thank you guys. I support you guys. Just keep doing what you're doing. And we love you.
>> Walker Wildmon: Twice a year we open the phone lines and the blessings flow by the grace of God, AFR will continue to share God's love, truth and the gospel. I respect, brother Don Wildmon M. I remember when he started AFR is always there pouring out of themselves to know what's really going on in the world as it relates to the Christian worldview. And they really do preach the gospel. It has been just wonderful and this is just something that I have to support. Thank you for partnering with American Family Radio and beloved. Listening to AFR October 7th through 9th during Sheraton. AFR brought me closer to crunch. At.
>> Jeff Chamblee: The Core podcast are available@afr.net now back to at the Core on American Family Radio.
My brother and I are going to Greece in 2026
Welcome back to the program. Well, as you heard there, my brother and I are going to be going to Greece journeying the footsteps of Paul in March of 2026 which, yes, is just right around the corner. And my parents will be going to Israel the week before that. So you can go over to wildmangroup.com to check out those dates and itineraries, etc. And I'll be seeing some of you in Boston here in about three weeks, two and a half weeks. We'll be in Boston for two weeks. Actually less than two weeks. We'll be in Boston for our first ever trip, in Boston looking at America's spiritual heritage.
Walker: Dr. George Barna releases latest America's Worldview Inventory report
Speaking of America's spirit heritage, I wanted to have Dr. George Barna back on to talk about one of his latest reports that just came out in September. And the headline or the title of this report, being released is Millions of American Christians Deny their Sinfulness. This is the eighth report out of a series of America's Worldview Inventory. Dr. George Barna is with us now. Dr. Barna, welcome back to the program.
>> George Barna: Hi Walker. Good to be back with you. Thanks.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yes, absolutely. And for those who don't know, many of you know Dr. George Barna, but he is director of research, at the Cultural Research center at Arizona Christian University and is producing these, these volumes of reports, on in essence what is a snapshot of the church in America and where people stand on different issues, et cetera. Dr. Barna, before we jump into, into the kind of the weeds of this report, give us kind of a high level overview of some of the things that you guys are trying to get to the bottom of when you run these type reports.
>> George Barna: Well, Walker, we started a number of years ago trying to track the worldview of Americans because everybody has a worldview. Not many people can articulate directly what it is. So we do the research to try to identify what do you really believe and what does it look like when you convert that into action? Worldview is critically important because every decision, every person makes, it flows through their worldview. So if you got a bad worldview, you're going to have a bad lifestyle, you're going to have bad beliefs. It's a problem. So we've been checking out people's worldview for years. We're trying to figure out how can we get more Americans to have a biblical worldview because that enables you to think like Jesus so that you can live like Jesus. You do what you believe. So what you believe is vitally important because it determines who you become. And so we've been looking at that. And every year we update our research trying to figure out what do people believe. This year we decided to dive into four particular issues that we see as major obstacles to Americans, including most churchgoing Americans, developing and living in accordance with scriptural admonition, scriptural guidance. And so we've looked at their ideas about God, their ideas about truth. And in this particular section of the research, we're looking at their ideas and behavior related to sin. And then in a couple of weeks we'll be releasing the fourth section, which has to do with what they believe about salvation. Because we found if people don't get it together in all four of these areas, that they're not going to be able to think like Jesus so they can live like him.
>> Walker Wildmon: Dr. Barna. and we'll link to this report, over at Arizona Christian. ArizonaChristian. Edu is where the report is hosted at their cultural research center. So we'll link to this on the show Notes.
Walker: Only one out of every seven Americans has a consistently biblical view of sin
But, when I began reading this, your team goes pretty in depth on the people who are being surveyed, their view of sin, and whether their view of sin aligns, ah, with a biblical view of sin, which is the truth. Truth, the true understanding of sin. And, what it basically. And I'll let you go a little deeper, but what was shocking to me was that, yeah, there's a majority of people that actually believe in this thing called sin. But when you get into, defining sin and being specific about sin, that's when even Christians start wanting to, basically pull a yeah, but. Or maybe. Or they kind of get a little squirmish when you start getting specific on what is sin. Right?
>> George Barna: It's absolutely true, Walker. I mean, what we found is that there's a difference in people's minds and hearts between the concept of sin, which they believe is real, and it does exist and sometimes it happens, and the personal reality of sin, where, we go from more than 8 out of 10Americans saying, oh, yeah, sin is real. Sin is happening all the time, as opposed to only about half saying, well, yeah, everybody sins, or even a little bit fewer, yes, I sin. And so there's this notion that we identified in this research that I think is critical toward putting that understanding together. And that's that 7 out of 10Americans believe that the human heart is basically good. Now, that's in direct opposition to what the Scriptures teach, which tell us that the human heart is corrupt, it's wicked, it's deceived, it's easily manipulated. And so we've got to get people back to a biblical understanding of what sin is, how it works, and how they relate to that personally. We put together four of these measures. Whether or not you believe sin is real, whether or not you believe every person sins, whether or not you believe you sin, and whether or not you believe the human heart is basically good, Essentially good. And what we found is only about one out of every seven Americans has a consistently biblical view, view about sin just based on those four measures. If we added in other measures, of course the number would drop lower. But, I mean, that gives us a pretty good grip on the understanding that in America, people say, yeah, sin is real, but it's not an integral part of my life personally. That's for theologians and the sinners out there to worry about, but it's really not my issue.
>> Walker Wildmon: M. Yeah, this, just a couple pages in, you guys provide a quick kind of table, and you're comparing to your point these four categories. And I just go straight over to the column that describes. There's three columns. One is, born again Christians that don't necessarily tie themselves to a denomination per se. they're theologically identified born again Christians, but they're not necessarily Catholic, they're not necessarily Protestant. There's that column. Then you got a column of those who identify as Protestant, and then lastly a column of those who identify as Catholic. And when you look at these three columns, on the question, basically, are you a sinner or do you agree that you are a sinner? With that question, only 66% of Protestants agree with the statement that they are a sinner. That is shocking to me. But when you look Right above that, 97% agree that sin does exist, that sin is real. But when you ask them, are you a sinner? Then, 30% drop off and they go, well, 30% say, well, I'm not. I agree sin exists, but I'm not a sinner. That was shocking to me.
>> George Barna: It's a fascinating thing, Walker, when you talk to thousands and thousands of Americans like we do and try to get inside their mind and their heart, and you find out that so many people have this mentality of, you know what? I call myself a Christian. I believe Jesus lived. I believe he's a savior. and, you know, I go to church often, so I kind of know what Christianity is about. And on this issue of sin, yep, it's real, it's significant, but it's not my problem. It's problem of the world out there. That's why the world's a mess. I don't contribute to that Mass. That's not me. And so really the problem isn't something that I have to worry about. Other people are going to have to work this out. And Walker, in a couple of weeks, when we put out our next series of reports about salvation One of the things that we're going to point out is that only 2% of Americans today believe that when they die, they're going to hell. Now that's in spite of the fact that more than two out of three Americans will say, no, I haven't confessed my sins and accepted Christ as my Savior. But they believe that because God created them, he must love them and he's going to take care of them. I mean, at church all the time they say, well, he's your father. Well, a father wouldn't consign me to hell. Well, you know what? There's a different sheriff in town here, and it's God that makes the rules. You gotta read his rule book, the Bible, to figure out his plan for your life. And it's a great and wonderful plan. But part of that is recognizing and admitting and being truly repentant for the fact that we all sin, we all were made in the likeness of God, but we kind of blew that relationship by sinning. And yet most Americans who go to church don't understand that. And when they think about repentance, they don't think it has to do with turning their life around. If anything, it's that, you know, three out of 10 who say, well, I said the magic prayer. I'm in the pearly gates now. As opposed to recognizing, repentance isn't about manipulating God by saying the magic words. It's about your heart being broken because your sin broke his heart. But American, American Christians don't get that. And part of it we find in other facets of the research is because churches don't preach and teach about sin. There was a study done by pew research about six years ago. They took 50,000 sermons across the country, did content analysis on them, meaning they looked at what are they talking about, what phrases are these using, what concepts are they teaching. And they found that only 3% of the sermons in America actually mentioned sin. Sin isn't popular. Sin doesn't bring in people. Sin doesn't raise the collection plate totals and therefore we're not teaching about it. Shame on us.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah. And that, that's been a core frustration and, and theological dispute amongst some, not all, but some of the very well known, either mega churches as they're called, or the so called televangelist, whatever that means. But one of the contentions that has been, percolating amongst believers Christians is the fact that some of these, very well known people with millions of followers talk about sin and repentance. They talk about how Great Christianity is which. It is great. How great God is which. It's true that God is good, but they don't ever address the hard truths that we're sinners, we have to repent, and our heart has to be transformed and molded in the image of Christ. That is a core fundamental tenet of the Christian faith. Without it, Christianity is not the same, and it's not Christianity at all. Not true Christianity. and Also another thing, Dr. Barna, that we hear often, anybody who's been around, people, even non believers, they'll say things like, well, we're all children of God. We're all God's children. And anybody who knows the Bible, they start scratching their head and they go, well, is that really true? And when you look in the Bible, it's not true. We're not all God's children. We're all created in God's image. we're all image bearers of God, so we all have dignity. We're all worthy of respect. but we're not only those who have been grafted into the household of faith and who have salvation, those are the children of God that will experience eternal life. And so it kind of gets, Even Christians sometimes get sloppy with our theology and our language. But to your point, it has grave consequences when we're sending this signal to the world that, oh, yeah, we're all going to heaven, when in reality, you look at the Bible and that's not true. We're not all going to heaven, only those who believe.
Walker Wildmon: Dr. George Barna wrote a great report on sin
what are some other things that stood out to you, Dr. Barna, as we, got about two or three minutes left, what's, one or two more things that stood out to you as you guys wrapped up this report?
>> George Barna: Well, one is that when we dove deeper into. How do you define sin? What does it mean to you when you hear that? We discovered that, not only do people have trouble admitting or refuse to admit that they are a sinner, but then when we started talking about different definitions of it, we found that people were more willing to say that, well, sin is an act of, an act of disobedience against God than they were to say it's an act of rebellion against God. And that, to me, was very insightful because it means, you know what, when you get very real about the implications of your sin, it's not just personal. You know, you're, you're not going to spend eternity with God if you continue to wallow in your sins. And, and you're never truly repentant of them. But also it speaks to the fact that, we don't really care about what our sin does to God because we don't have that depth of relationship with him where it matters to us that when we sin, the Bible tells us it breaks his heart. And so this, this whole idea of, you know, God is my good buddy and, you know, we're just flowing through life together, everything's okay. No, it's not okay. You gotta get right with God. You know, we found that, that tens of millions of Americans reject the idea that sin is a life changer. We asked them if they believe that because, I mean, scripturally, that's so much of what the Bible talks about, is the impact of your sin on you, on the world, on other people, on your relationship with God, on your eternal outcome. I mean, sin is all over our lives in terms of its implications. But Americans don't like to look at that. Americans like comfort. We like security. And so we tend to gravitate to churches and relationships and biblical teaching or teaching allegedly from the Bible that makes us feel comfortable and secure as opposed to being truthful to us, being in our face and saying, you know what, you gotta get right with God.
>> Walker Wildmon: Excellent point. there. Dr. George Barna. Hey, Dr. Barna. we got 15 seconds left. Tell our folks where they can read more about your work.
>> George Barna: they can go to georgebarna.com or they can go to Arizona, Arizona Christian Edu. That's the school's website. And there you can get the Cultural Research center tab. Pull that down. It's got all of our reports. Georgebarna.com has them all as well.
>> Walker Wildmon: Excellent. All right, Dr. Barna, thanks so much for coming on the program.
>> George Barna: Thank you, Walker, good to see you again.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yes, absolutely.
Every pastor needs to be looking at this, says George Barna
All right, there you have it. That's Dr. George Barna, from the Cultural Research center over at Arizona Christian University. Fascinating study. We'll talk a little bit more about it when we come back. but every pastor needs to be looking at this. We need to talk more about our sin and more about how we need Jesus. We'll be back. This is at the Core on American Family Radio with your host, Walker Wildmon.
America has a worldview problem, says George Barn
Welcome back to the program here on American Family Radio. Well, if you heard a little bit of my interview with Dr. George Barn in the last segment, well, you now understand, at least you should, the clear truth that we have a worldview problem in our country, we have a worldview problem in America, and that is displaying itself through worldview Differences that are drastic, drastic views of the world. Drastically different rather views of the world. The result of that is on full display in America 2025 and one, stat. One result of this study out of Arizona Christian University that I didn't even have time to get to, that I want to talk about now, is when self professed unbelievers, so people who were surveyed that said yes, or no, I'm not a believer, I'm not a Christian, so they are self identified non Christians. When that audience of unbelievers was questioned on yes or no, has everyone sinned? Is everyone a sinner? Only 23% agreed with the statement that everyone has sent that every human at some point has sinned. Only 23% agreed with that. And so 80%, nearly 80% of unbelievers in America think that there are people that have never sinned in their life. And so when you hear this gets to the root of much of our public policy, let's don't forget this. This gets to the root of much of our public policy when you have elected officials and politicians and other individuals that don't want to punish the evildoer, meaning they don't even want the government to punish evildoers and wrongdoers. This gets into the soft on crime policies. This gets into the Democrats who think that anybody and everybody should be able to break our laws and come here and stay here and it doesn't matter. This is all driven by a worldview that thinks that people are basically good. People are basically good. Most people haven't even sinned ever. And so it's this, it's this perfect utopia and there's just maybe a few bad actors, but otherwise it's this perfect utopia of quality citizens that all want everybody's best interest taken care of when that is wholly inconsistent with reality. 80% of unbelievers believe that there are people that have never sinned, that have never committed one sin in their life, which essentially means that they don't believe in sin is what you're getting at there. And if I were a pastor, I would be reading Dr. Barna's results from his surveys. Because if we have 30% of self professed Christians that disagree with the statement I am a sinner, that's a major problem. And it is not as if Dr. Barna is questioning churchgoers and self professed believers on tertiary theological questions that many Christians like to disagree about. This is something as simple as are you a sinner? Yes or no. And 30% of self professed Christians disagree with the statement I am a sinner. Very, very shocking. And I know Some people hear Dr. Barna's research and they go, that can't be true. For example, you know, he, he actually alluded to a report they're coming out with. Where, well, there, there's the report they're coming out with, but there was report from a couple years ago that basically said that like 15, maybe 15% of churchgoers are actually born again Christians. Like, they actually have a proper, biblically sound theological view of the world. When you start asking them all these granular questions about the Bible and worldview, a very like less than 20% are actually answering these questions in a manner that is consistent with Scripture. that sounds shocking, but when you look at the state of our culture, it really shouldn't be shocking. It shouldn't be shocking because here we are in this report, we have 30% that don't even agree that they are a center. And so that's. If you can't agree on that, we start talking about other things, we're really going to have some differences.
Despite all predictions of doom and gloom, the economy is doing well
I want to shift, gears and talk about, what's going on in the economy. The, GDP was revised up. Chris Woodward and I talked about this recently. GDP was revised up 3.8% GDP growth in the last quarter. And despite all the economists projecting doom and gloom on the economy with tariffs, et cetera, that actually hasn't come to pass. Now what has come to pass is a weak labor market. Labor market. And that's not necessarily because of President Trump. the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been doing a terrible job estimating the jobless claims over the last 18 months. And they've been revised by a couple million. So we have a couple million less jobs than we thought we did, over the last 18 months. And so, of course, leave it to a government agency to not know how to put together the numbers accurately. And so, but what President Trump is doing, a lot of these policies that he is putting into place are going to take some time to take full effect. And one of those is the reshoring of America's manufacturing base. And President Trump recently announced a tariff on pharmaceutical companies that refuse to do at least half of their manufacturing and production in America. putting, I think, 100% tariff on these, on these pharmaceuticals for companies that don't want to do any manufacturing in America. he said, if you do basically half of your manufacturing in America, then you'll be excluded from this tariff. But another industry that he is that President Trump is looking into and beginning to levy tariffs on is this furniture dumping, this dumping of furniture that is produced and made by countries other than the U.S. and when we have to put stories to these topics because if we just talk like high level economics it gets boring, it gets non personal and people don't really care. But when you put a story behind these topics it really helps people understand what's going on here. And one of the clips I'm going to play here in a minute tells a story of one city of, and there's thousands of these, hundreds of these minimum of cities, small town America that have been economically gutted because America's manufacturing base fled starting in the 90s, fled overseas to China and other places and left these towns with little to no economy. Once they were booming, once they were producing, once manufacturing, was the lifeblood of the local economy. And then starting in the 90s and the Clinton era policies and the Bush era policies, all of that led to this fleeing of America's manufacturing base and it left America's towns economically gutted. It's a very terrible story to tell. That's one of the reasons President Trump continues to get elected. Let's listen to this report. It's about a two minute report on a small town America being gutted from furniture manufacturing leaving the US all the.
>> Speaker D: Blood, sweat and tears, and I mean literally blood, sweat and tears went into the furniture that we made here. Cheryl Hancock worked at three of the Thomasville Furniture Industries plants, including the one on West Main Street. Yeah, I was so happy to get a job here at the Finch house. The evolution of furniture manufacturing adorns the walls. This photo shows the Finches making the deal to create TFI in the 1910s. This one shows the Finches proud of TFI ending up on the New York Stock Exchange after expanding to 15 plants. And these are some of the original TFI plants in the early 1900s. And if you take a closer look at that bottom image, it's an early drawing of the plant on West Main. Back when business was booming, TFI Thomasville. Furniture was the best furniture you could buy anywhere, you know. And then they moved out. Rusty Slate has been in the chair city for 66 years and says TFI leaving was a big blow. It left this town just high and dry. You know.
>> Speaker D: They started shutting the plants down in 2001 and shut down the last TFI plant in December of 06, sending manufacturing overseas. Hancock remembers everything about that month. It's sad because everybody lost their jobs. And we were more, you know, once you work here and get to know everybody, we become more than just friends. We become family looking out over the remains of a job. She says she loved Hancock, says she'll hold on to the good memories. They would give us extra breaks in the summertime and they would buy ice cream for all the departments. They didn't have to do things like that.
>> Walker Wildmon: Well, there you have it. That's a local report out of Thomasville, North Carolina, talking about Thomasville Furniture and the, the mass, departure of their furniture manufacturing base out of North Carolina and into foreign countries for the manufacturing side of the furniture industry. And so President Trump is focused on that, levying some tariffs on, furniture dumping into America. And you know, this has begun over the last several years, probably last decade, when President Trump first began campaigning and raising this vital issue of America's manufacturing base being gutted. It really raises the question about this whole narrative underpinning the departure of America's manufacturing base. And here's in essence the talking point that we get, and this is the talking point that we get from Wall street and this is the talking point that we get from the corporate boardrooms is that we can make it so much cheaper elsewhere. That's what we're told, right? Quote, I can't tell you how many times I've heard this quote, we can make it so much cheaper elsewhere. And I'm not questioning that fact at all because I've seen the numbers. It is true in some instances, probably most, these companies can make it cheaper elsewhere. But that is a very, very narrow view of, manufacturing and business. Not every business decision should be driven by, quote, we can make it cheaper elsewhere, end quote. Because think about the long term ramifications here. And it all gets down to this notion that, well, number one, we can make it cheap elsewhere. But number two, the notion that, well, if we make it here, people won't pay, that maybe there's studies out there on this, there should be. If there's nothing. I don't think that's true. I don't think that's true. Now maybe in certain categories of goods and services, the notion that, well, people won't pay that much, right, if we make it in America, it's going to cost X more and the American consumer won't pay that, right? Or we'll get, knocked off by our competitor, who's dumping stuff in from China. Okay, so there's that. And that's why we should have tariffs or levies against imports. But I don't. I'm not buying the notion that, that Americans won't pay more for American made products. And here's why I don't buy into that narrative. We've been paying more for everything because of Bidenflation and the economy's still rolling. People are still buying everything. Everything is more, more, and we're still begrudgingly buying everything. If you put an American flag on a product and people know that if I'm buying these products, I'm supporting jobs in North Carolina, I'm supporting families in North Carolina so we can have a vibrant community and economy instead of propping up some communist country a thousand miles, 3,000 miles away. If Americans know that, I guarantee you they will buy that product 90% of the time. It's all about how you frame it. We'll see you next time. The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
