July 7, 2025 • 45 mins
This hour, we look at some of the stories making headlines before having a conversation with Will Estrada, of the Home School Legal Defense Association. Will gives us a report on some of the victories and challenges homeschoolers are facing this year. Then, Dr. George Barna will discuss his latest survey of worldviews. He will share significant variation among adults with a biblical worldview across the 50 states. Don’t miss a minute of great conversation.
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Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:00):
Hi friend, thank you so much for downloading this podcast
and I truly hope you hear something that encourages edifies, equips, enlightens,
and gently but consistently pushes you out there into the
marketplace of ideas. But before you start to listen and
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you about this month's truth tool. And it is a
perfect fit for both the marketplace and getting out there.
It's Ray Comfort's book. Why? Jesus? If you listen to
(00:22):
the broadcast with any regularity, you know we love Ray.
He is bold, unashamed of the gospel. And yet in
such a winsome way, he delivers a truth narrative to
the man in the street, so to speak. He's written
the book Why Jesus? To Teach You How to Walk Through,
by examples and through real conversations he's had on how
to share the gospel in exactly the same way. Listen,
(00:43):
we're called to go and tell. It's not an opt
in opt out clause. That's where we're supposed to go.
And in truth, how can we keep this good news
to ourselves? So I want you to have Why Jesus
as this month's truth tool. So you'll get some fire
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News of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We're listener supported radio.
My truth tools are a way of saying thank you.
When you give a gift to the program to keep
(01:03):
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(01:45):
the Market with Janet Parshall. Now please enjoy the broadcast.
S2 (01:50):
Here are some of the news headlines we're watching.
S3 (01:52):
The conference was over. The president won a pledge.
S4 (01:55):
Americans worshiping government over God.
S1 (01:57):
Extremely rare safety move by a.
S5 (02:00):
17 years the Palestinians and Israelis negotiated.
S3 (02:04):
Is not here.
S1 (02:18):
Hi friends. Welcome to In the Market with Janet Parshall
and a very happy Monday to you. Hope you had
a glorious 4th of July and that your July is
off to a great start. We are off to a
great start with our brand new truth tool with Jesus
by Ray comfort. You know who Ray is? We have
him on this program on a regular broadcast. He is
so unashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ who really
takes this book. And he teaches us why Jesus is
(02:40):
the only way. He helps us get over some of
the pushback we hear from the culture, and he really
teaches us how to have the courage to tell people
that Jesus is the only way the great mediator between
God and man, the way, the truth and the life.
And nobody comes to the father but by him. And
in typical Ray comfort fashion, it's a beautiful book, so
I really want you to have a copy. It's our
(03:01):
way of saying thank you when you support this broadcast because, hey,
we are listener supported radio. I'm on the air. You're
hearing my voice because people pray and give, and I
truly believe it is in that order. So if you'd
like a copy of Why Jesus, just call 87758877 Janet 58. Say,
I'd like a copy of Why Jesus. We'll send it
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(03:21):
fit myself through this microphone to give you a hug
around the neck. I am a hugger, but the next
best thing is I'm going to send you a book
and say thank you, and I hope it'll help you
grow up in him. You can also give online in
the market with Janet Parshall in the market with Janet Parshall,
Ray Comfort's book, Why Jesus? This month's truth. Stool boy,
I don't know about you, but I can't read these
stories about the flash flood in Texas without starting to cry.
(03:45):
How many Christians, how many heroes, how many people lost
their lives? The death count is continuing to climb. Here
is an CBN news story. But I have to update
the count. You're going to hear them refer to 82 people.
We are now over 90 that have lost their lives
and there are still missing people. So this story unfortunately,
(04:06):
is so very far from over. Have a listen.
S6 (04:08):
The search continues for dozens who are still missing in Texas,
including ten girls and a counselor from a Christian summer
camp after deadly flash floods along the Guadalupe River in
Texas Hill Country. Some victims were in campgrounds near the
banks of the river when it rose 26ft in just
45 minutes. Lorena Guillen owns a local restaurant nearby.
S7 (04:32):
Hearing people screaming, kids screaming, asking for help. Uh, cars
were floating away with the lights on. You could see
the lights and you can hear honking. And it was
like not 1 or 2, but there were dozens of
vehicles just floating away.
S6 (04:51):
28 year old Christian Fell says he stood on the
electric meter box outside his home for nearly three hours
to stay alive. This time lapse video shows the speed
at which another Texas river, the Llano, rose Friday night.
The flash floods were the result of almost a foot
of rain. The National Weather Service issued a flash flood
(05:13):
warning at 1:14 a.m., but most near the river were asleep.
The quickly rising Guadalupe brought down trees and buildings tearing
through camp mystic, where 750 girls were spending the holiday weekend.
S8 (05:28):
It was an absolute force of nature that I've never
witnessed before.
S6 (05:32):
Amanda Sue Jones, her husband and four kids evacuated moments
before the worst of the flooding hit.
S8 (05:38):
By the time we crossed the bridge to when everything
is getting swept away was, I mean, probably ten minutes.
S6 (05:45):
At camp mystic, where more than two dozen campers and
counselors were swept away in the night, 27 are feared dead.
Among those, Janie Hunt, the nine year old cousin of
Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt. His wife wrote on
social media if your heart is broken, I assure you
God is near. 18 year old camp counselor Chloe Childress
(06:08):
is being remembered for her work with senior citizens. Camp
mystics owner Dick Eastland died heroically trying to rescue campers,
his grandson wrote. If he wasn't going to die of
natural causes, this was the only other way. Saving the
girls that he so loved and cared for.
S9 (06:28):
He was, you know, a man that made everyone feel
safe and seen. He was just an extremely selfless person
and he showed that until the very end.
S6 (06:37):
Also dead is Jane Ragsdale, director of heart of the
Hills Camp, and 27 year old Julian Ryan, who died
after placing his two young sons on a floating mattress.
The National Weather Service has extended the flood watch over
much of south central Texas as several inches of rain
are expected in the region today. A team from CBN's
(07:00):
Operation Blessing is on the ground, serving meals to local
families and first responders.
S10 (07:06):
You've got destroyed trailers. You've got the house behind me
that's been completely destroyed. And then trees are down everywhere.
S6 (07:13):
President Trump has signed a major disaster declaration for Kerr
County and will visit the area later this week. Dale
Hurd CBN news.
S1 (07:24):
Almost indescribable pain. I'm particularly moved by the story of
Dick Eastland, who was the man behind the camp and
did just nothing short of heroic action, rescuing as many
girls as he could before he finally lost his life
as well. So this is a real painful time for
these people in Texas. We need to be praying for
(07:44):
these families that they would sense God's presence, and that
even though we can never answer the question why And
never get the answer until we're in his presence. We
can remember these families. By the way. You can go online.
You can see how unbelievably fast these rivers rose and
then flooded. I heard one father say I wasn't worried
about my daughters. They were very good swimmers. And I thought,
(08:05):
this is a force majeure. As they say in the law,
this is a force of nature. And when you see
how fast and how quickly those currents go, at that point,
being a good swimmer has really very little to do
with it. So pray for the brokenhearted. I'm thrilled by
the way that Operation Blessing does have a team on
the ground, but I'm also pleased that with all of
the things that the president has to do, and tonight
he will be meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister
(08:26):
of Israel is in town. These are very important strategic meetings.
They're going to be talking about the hostages. They're going
to talk about the ceasefire, and they're going to talk
about whether or not they can expand the Abraham Accords.
There are so many things he could do. But the
president will be visiting Texas later this week and has
pledged some major disaster relief as well. So pray for
these people. This is a really unbelievable time. And we
(08:49):
just remember that God is near to the brokenhearted, and
there are so many broken hearted people and that particular
part of the world right now. So pray for these families,
would you? Thank you for joining me this hour. We've
got lots to discuss. It's going to be all news
this hour. When we come back, we're going to talk
about homeschooling, and we're going to encourage you with some
victories that are out there. I know it's the summer.
And you might be thinking, oh, in fact, I saw
(09:10):
my first ad over the weekend. I bet you did too,
for school supplies. And I thought, come on, we just
finished the 4th of July. They'll be pushing the school
supplies just yet, but hey, people are starting to do
a lot of thinking about what they're going to do
with their children come the fall, and homeschool just might
be a very viable option. So Will Estrada was going
to join us, and he's going to give us an update.
And later in the hour, God bless Doctor George Barnett
(09:31):
and the work he does at the Cultural Research Center.
He's got a thing or two to say about our
worldview as Christians. And it's a wake up call. Stay
with us. We got much more coming your way right
after this. Are you intimidated when sharing your faith? Many
(09:58):
believers struggle with fear when it comes to evangelism, and
that's why I've chosen Why Jesus by Ray comfort as
this month's truth tool. Learn through Ray's real life conversations
that will show you how to overcome fear and trust
in God's faithfulness. As for your copy of Why Jesus,
when you give a gift of any amount in the market,
call 877 Janet 58. That's 877 Janet 58 or go
(10:18):
to in the market with Janet parshall.org. You know, one
of the things about the 4th of July. Well, you
and I are having our picnics and setting off fireworks
is the National Education Association always has their convention over
the 4th of July. And, boy, I don't know about you.
I watched it so you don't have to. Oh my word.
(10:39):
You look at this union and you're thinking. I'm sorry.
Stop me when we get to the best interests of
the student. Stop me when we're really interested in making
sure that every child graduates appropriately with a solid knowledge
of reading, writing arithmetic learns how to think critically and
has been given the tools necessary to flourish as an
adult once they step out of the school system. No,
(10:59):
it's a lot of politics. In fact, one person even
got up and said it's all about politics at the convention,
which raises the question of why so many people stop, think,
and pray about whether or not homeschooling just might be
the appropriate option for them and their family. And more
and more families are making that choice. But it's not
for cowards. It takes a lot of work. It takes
a lot of prep, it takes a lot of sacrifice,
and it takes a lot of chutzpah. If I can
(11:21):
borrow from my Jewish friends, because homeschooling tends to be
under attack a lot of the times, and I'm so
grateful and have been for years for the Home School
Legal Defense Fund. They do a marvelous job of fighting
for homeschoolers, of telling you about legislation coming down the
road apiece victories, defeats, challenges so that you and the
words of Scripture know how to look well to the
(11:41):
ways of your household. One of the people that does
it better than anybody I know is Will Estrada. He
is senior counsel for the Home School Legal Defense Fund,
and he works to make homeschooling possible for thousands of
member families and hundreds of thousands of homeschooling students by
advocating in state legislatures for homeschool freedom, working to ensure
that homeschool graduates are treated with equality, and that the
(12:03):
laws protecting the rights to homeschool families are followed by
government officials. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a full
time job, as you will soon discover. Will the warmest
of welcomes. I am thrilled you're here. Thank you so much.
And I'm going to turn first to new Jersey. So
you send out an announcement that said that there was
a bill filed in the new Jersey Senate just on
June 5th, and I'm reading your exact words because it
(12:24):
sends a chill down my spine, calling for every homeschooled
child and parent to meet annually with a school official
for a, quote, general health and wellness check. Now I
get the giggles when I say that because my first
thought is, hey, what could possibly go wrong? Talk to
me about this.
S11 (12:40):
Well, Janet, first it's a privilege to be on. Thank
you for having me on this, bill. There's actually two
of them. It's Assembly Bill 5796 and then the Senate companion,
Senate Bill 4589. They are misguided attempts to protect children
in the wake of several high profile abuse and neglect
instances in new Jersey. Now, what the supporters of these
(13:02):
bills will not tell you is that all of these
incidents in new Jersey have been failure of the child
protective system. They knew about the kids, they dropped the
ball there. They're massive, bloated bureaucracies and kids suffered as
a result. So instead of doing the hard but life
saving work to reform child protective agencies in new Jersey,
(13:24):
new Jersey legislators are saying, well, let's scapegoat the homeschoolers
and let's put them under the microscope for more regulations.
These bills would make the local public school be responsible for,
as you said, having a health and wellness check every
year with homeschooled kids, let alone, you know, these are
(13:45):
these are public schools that should be focusing on educating
the kids in the public school. They're not experts in
seeing what's going on with children. That's child protective services.
So it's perplexing that instead of reforming child protective services,
they're trying to give the public schools another job to do,
in this case, supervising homeschoolers for health and wellness.
S1 (14:05):
Wow, you did an excellent job of breaking that down.
And there's so much here. So let me parse some
of it out. First of all, homeschoolers, it would seem
to me, are a group of people who have decided
that they celebrate and they want to protect their autonomy.
If you have to check in with the public school
once a year, you're acquiescing yet again under the umbrella
of a government school. So on principle, I would take
umbrage with that. But second of all, this idea of
(14:28):
a wellness check, as you pointed out brilliantly, will these
are people who are trained in education. If you want
to do general health and wellness checks, you do have
a child Protective Services department in your government that should
be able to do that. That's not the role of
the school. It's child protective services. So when the drafters
of this legislation put this all together, why didn't they
(14:50):
if they felt that this was a justifiable reason and
we could make some arguments for and against that, why
don't they put the authority to do that under Child
Protective Services rather than in the public school?
S11 (15:01):
Janet, I think it's a tacit admission that they know
that Child Protective Services is not up to the task.
These high profile cases, and they're the tip of the iceberg.
I mean, you look at so many states and tragically,
the state child welfare agencies are are failing to protect kids.
And in some instances, they're ripping apart innocent families. There's
(15:23):
there's racial animus that has been documented as well. So
these child protective agencies, I think, these legislators realize are
not up to the task of protecting kids. And so
instead of reforming them, which is, I think, a central
goal of our legislators to make sure that arms of
the state government are actually working and doing what they're
(15:45):
supposed to do instead of reforming them. They're saying, well,
we're going to have the public schools have another job
to do. And look, I'm I'm not anti public school.
My dad spent 37 years as a special ed teacher
in the state of New York and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,
but the modern public school system is struggling. And I
think that's putting it very charitably. Why are we giving
them another job to do? And, like you said, making
(16:07):
them supervise homeschoolers. When the evidence of the past four
decades has shown that homeschooling is thriving and is actually
a bright spot when it comes to the education of
children in our country.
S1 (16:18):
Absolutely. Why I am such a fan, by the way
of the work that you do, will. The other problem
I have, too, is the vacuous nature of words like
general health and wellness. Check. You know, I want to
be a good Berean when we talk about that. Always
on this program. So what constitutes health and wellness if
your child. I mean, it's your child going to have
a private interview away from the parent where the school
is going to ask your child just to make sure
(16:39):
that they have general health and wellness on whether or
not they struggle with whether or not they're a boy
or a girl and what pronouns they want to use,
yada yada yada. You see where this is going? So
in other words, you're going to dilute with your philosophy
exactly what may be one of the reasons why we
chose to homeschool in the first place.
S11 (16:55):
It's a great question, Janet. The bill actually says, and
this is this is right from the text of Senate
Bill 4589 in new Jersey. And, of course, the companion bill,
which is Assembly Bill 5796. It says, and I quote,
the designated person shall be a school counselor, school nurse
or school social worker. These people are not experts in this,
(17:16):
and they might be pushing something against what the parents
think is best for the children.
S1 (17:20):
Wow. Wake up call. So we've got listeners in new Jersey.
When we come back, we'll tell our friends what they
need to do if they're homeschooling and they don't want
this legislation to go any further. And then we're going
to talk some more. Will Estrada is with us. By
the way. I've got a link to the homeschool legal defense,
and I want you to know that they've also got
a map where they're tracking legislation all across the country.
(17:40):
I put a link to that directly so you can
check it out for yourself. More with Will Estrada, senior
counsel for the Home School Legal Defense Fund, right after this.
We have the privilege of talking with Will Estrada, who's
(18:01):
senior counsel for the Home School Legal Defense Fund. He's
been doing that work for quite some time, and he
does it so well, and he does it with real passion.
It's fire in his bones. So I have a link
to the Home School Legal Defense Fund. Sometimes you use
the word association instead of fund at the end. If
you're driving, don't worry about it. I've got it secured
for you on the information page. And then I want
(18:22):
to reference again this Hslda map that really takes a
look at legislation that they are tracking. In fact, let
me talk about a couple of those things. If you
can will tell me what's going on in the state
of Wyoming because you say they've had a tough legislative season,
but there's a victory there.
S11 (18:38):
Absolutely. So Wyoming really illustrates that. On one hand, we've
got battles in states like Illinois and New Jersey and
Virginia and Connecticut. But on the other hand, we've got
victories in states all across the nation. And probably Wyoming
best illustrates that victory. Wyoming has long had a fairly
(18:58):
good homeschool law, but there was a requirement, long standing
going back to the 1980s, that homeschoolers still had to
give an annual notice of intent, along with a list
of their curriculum, to the school district every year. And
we saw often how school districts would really use that
to harass families. And so late last year, the homeschool community,
(19:18):
our friends over at Homeschool Wyoming in Wyoming and myself
got together and we said, you know what? The time is, right?
Let's get rid of this antiquated annual notice and check
in that homeschoolers have. We don't need to check in
with the government in order to exercise our fundamental, God
given right to educate our children. We found some friendly
legislators actually homeschool parents and homeschool graduates themselves and wrote
(19:43):
a bill, a very simple bill to eliminate the annual
notification requirement. The bill sailed through. It was signed into
law by the governor in Wyoming, is now the 12th state,
with no requirement that homeschoolers have an annual check in
with the government filing paperwork before they exercise their fundamental
right to educate their children at home.
S1 (20:04):
Amen. What an important victory. Well, I would be remiss
if I didn't go back to new Jersey because I
asked before the break and forgive me for having forgotten
this for a moment. Tell our friends listening in new
Jersey what they need to do if they're concerned about
this proposed legislation.
S11 (20:17):
Absolutely. So there are several bills that are the ones
we talked about about the health and wellness check. But
there's another one which is Assembly Bill 5825. All of
these are on our web page. And this bill actually
requires homeschoolers to check in file with the government every year.
And their curriculum has to be aligned to the public
school curriculum, which is absolutely bonkers. Not a single state
(20:40):
in the nation makes this requirement, so essentially homeschoolers would
have to use the public school curriculum. So if you
are in new Jersey, call your legislator, your assembly person
and your senator, and politely but firmly tell them to
reject any attempts to put new regulations on homeschoolers in
new Jersey. The good news, Janet, is it appears that
(21:01):
the legislature is not going to take up any of
these bills until after the election. There are high profile
elections coming up in new Jersey, and so we are
cautiously optimistic that these bills will die without ever coming
up for a hearing.
S1 (21:15):
That's good news to hear. So you've been encouraged, friends,
and you've been given your marching orders. If you're listening
in new Jersey, take me to Tennessee. What's happening there?
S11 (21:23):
Well, Tennessee is another one of those examples of good
victories for homeschoolers. Tennessee became now the fourth state. Texas,
West Virginia, and Georgia all have other laws to pass
what's called a Learning Pod Protection Act, and these are
all fairly new laws. The the term even learning pod
is something that really came out with the the Covid
(21:46):
19 pandemic. As parents said, you know what? We're homeschooling
our kids, but we still want to have the kids
interacting together. And often, whether it's a co-op or a
tutorial program or a learning pod or a micro school,
we'll have kind of overzealous officials in zoning departments come
in and say, well, you can't do that here. You're
(22:07):
a school. We always say, no, these are families. Maybe
once a week they get together for a couple hours
to educate their children together, doing science, history, whatever. And
so we passed a Learning Pod Protection Act again, sailed
through the legislature, was signed into law by the governor
in Tennessee. And now it adds an additional level of
(22:27):
protection to homeschool groups, co-ops, learning pods, micro schools, tutorial
programs to make sure that parents are able to have
the resources they need to be able to educate their
children without having to worry about zoning officials coming and saying,
you can't even do this.
S1 (22:44):
Wow. Just pulling over to the side of the road
for a minute. Do you think that Covid had a
positive effect on homeschooling?
S11 (22:51):
You know, it's it's such a good question. I mean,
I always have to start by saying Covid was was
very harmful to many people, whether on the health issues
or the loss of life. Um, but also the kids
and many of the public schools who had significant learning loss.
But it did two very interesting things. The first one
(23:11):
is on kind of the parental rights side. Parents across
the nation, when they were doing zoom school in their
living rooms said, your teacher said what? And they sort
of the curtain was pulled back and they saw what
was going on in public education. And they've become vocal
opponents of it, Pushing for parental rights legislation. Even the
(23:32):
Mahmood case in Montgomery County that we saw recently came
out of that. But the second thing was parents said,
you know what? I was really doing the schooling for
a few months in my living room. This isn't impossible.
And they really saw the freedom and the beauty and
the personalized education that homeschooling gave, and they've never looked back.
(23:53):
We have seen homeschooling double from about two and a
half to 3% of the school age population to now
5 to 6% of the school age population since Covid 19.
And those people aren't returning to public schools, they are
continuing to homeschool. We've seen that in our membership growth
at home school, legal defense, and we've seen that in reports,
studies and data from U.S. Department of Education to the
(24:16):
private sector showing the growth of homeschooling.
S1 (24:18):
I am so glad I asked that question, because I
want parents to be encouraged, particularly if they're on the
fence and they don't know whether they can do it.
By the way, I'm telling you the ultimate resource if
you want to consider homeschooling is really the Home School
legal defense fund. I strongly encourage you to check it out.
I got a link in my website. Don't be afraid.
They've got all kinds of resources, all kinds of ways
to tell you how to get started on this. And
(24:40):
as we'll just explain beautifully, Covid was kind of a
test run. If you thought you maybe couldn't do it,
maybe you look back and you go, maybe I can.
Maybe that's exactly what the Lord's calling you to do. Well,
thank you and your entire team. Thank you for all
the work you do at home. We appreciate you so much.
Back after this. Friends. Let me give a big shout
(25:10):
out to our partial partners. Thank you. Friends, partial partners
are becoming the backbone of this ministry. They're generous. Monthly
gifts allow us to provide relevant, compelling programming every day.
When you become a partial partner, you'll receive private emails
directly from me. A weekly audio message only. You will
hear a special behind the scenes updates as well. Become
a partial partner today by calling 877 Janet 58 or
(25:30):
go to in the market with Janet Parshall. I am
of this very strong belief that Doctor George Barnett is
a national treasure, and he is doing the church such
a profound favor. He's issuing these wake up calls on
why it is imperative that we develop strong biblical worldviews.
(25:51):
And so this man, whose name is synonymous with research,
really has been doing some stellar work as he founded
the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University. He's been
doing these surveys on American worldview for quite some time.
And I, I find them absolutely riveting. I think they're
such a wake up call. And while there is still time,
we can raise, as my daughter heard when she went
(26:13):
to Liberty University Champions for Christ. And that really is
what we want to do with our kids. But they
can't do that if they don't have a bedrock, solid
biblical worldview. And folks, we lost our anchor somewhere along
the way. We are drifting all over the place, as
his research shows. Here's the formal invitation or the formal introduction, rather.
Doctor George Barnett is the director of research and co-founder
(26:33):
of the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University. He's
also an ACU professor. Wouldn't you love to sit in
his class focusing on worldview assessment and development and cultural transformation?
He was the founder and leader of The Barna Group,
a research company that has set the standard for understanding
trends in American culture. That's an understatement, by the way.
In addition, he serves as senior research fellow at the
(26:55):
center for Biblical Worldview at the Family Research Council. He's
also taught at the undergrad and grad level and has
pastored two churches, and in his spare time, he's written
more than 50 books, including numerous award winners and New
York Times best sellers along the way. George, the warmest
of welcomes, I cannot tell you. I don't know, maybe
it makes me kind of a nerd, but I just
love your research because, number one, it helps equip me.
(27:17):
What do I need to talk about? Where are there
gaps in the people who are listening in their worldview,
in terms of their biblical knowledge? Could they stand against
the howling winds of the culture because they know what
they believe and why they believe it? Hat tip to
Doctor Paul Little and his famous book. You put out
research that says there is a wake up call here.
You've got to understand that there are some variances. And
(27:37):
in the seventh edition, in the Worldview Inventory for 2025,
you look specifically at the variances in worldview on a
state by state basis. I find that fascinating from multiplicity
of reasons. I can see how that would pretend for
politics and economic issues and makeup of cities, and where
different governors would stand on various particular political issues. So
(28:00):
I think the residual impact of your research on this
is absolutely fascinating. But tell me what you found.
S12 (28:06):
Well, and by the way, if this is you nerding out,
you nerd out girl, I'm all for it. This is great. Yeah.
Welcome to the club. It's great to have you. Yeah.
I mean, basically what we were trying to do was understand.
Is this just a problem that's isolated in a few
parts of the country? Or is the fact that the
national incidence of biblical worldview is just 4%? Is that
(28:31):
really a nationwide problem? And so naturally, there's a range
that we found across the states. And, you know, when
we look at them, I mean, the range is from
less than one quarter of 1% of the population of
an entire state having a biblical worldview up, up to
a high of less than 13%. So even in the
(28:53):
best case state, what we find is that seven out
of eight people in that state do not have a
biblical worldview. So, you know, what that's important for to
me is that when I travel around the country and
speak and teach and so forth, I hear from people
all the time, well, I know what you're saying, George, but,
you know, that's not my church. That's not my state.
(29:14):
That's not my community. And so this is one thing
that we were able to do because we have the
data to do it, to look at states and find.
Is that true? Is is it like, you know, all
the fault of California and New York and Oregon, or
is it just something that we find across the country?
And so, yes, there are differences across state boundaries, but
(29:37):
the differences are not that great. This really is a
national problem. And one of the implications of that to
me is it says to pastors, come on, folks, we
can do better than this. We have to do better
than this. Because there's no state we can look at
where we can say, yep, they're on board. They've figured
(29:58):
it out. They've they've knocked it out of the park.
There's no state in the country that's even close.
S1 (30:04):
Wow. Unbelievable. And when you look that the top is 12.6%,
I mean, wow, we haven't even gotten to, let alone
the 50 yard line. We're not even at a quarter
percent of that state. That's absolutely stunning. Okay, so name names.
I think people are going to find the state variances
to be fascinating here.
S12 (30:21):
Yeah. So I mean, if we were to look at
the top ten states, you've got Alabama and Mississippi up
at the top there at about 12.5%. You've got South
Carolina a little bit less than 10% of their residents
have a biblical worldview. Arkansas is at 9%. Montana is
at 8%. Virginia and Idaho about 7%. About 6.5% for
(30:46):
Oklahoma and Tennessee. And rounding out the top ten, you
got North Carolina just barely above 6%. And then if
we go to the other end of the continuum, this
is where it's just amazing to me. I mean, you've got, uh,
lowest of the low. And by the way, we could
only do this with 45 states because the other five
states are so small. We didn't have enough people in
(31:08):
the national sample to to actually do a statistically valid assessment.
But when we look at the 45 states where we
had enough residents from each state to say, okay, we
can trust the data by far in last place Rhode Island.
Less than one quarter of 1% of the adults in
Rhode Island have a biblical worldview not too far behind.
(31:32):
You've got Maine at 1%, Nebraska at 1.5%. You've got Massachusetts,
new Jersey, and Connecticut each a little bit less than 2%.
You've got New Mexico, right around 2%. You've got New Hampshire, 2.5%, Louisiana, 2.8%,
New York 3.2%. That's the bottom ten of the 45 states. So,
(31:57):
you know, the others are in between. But these these
are the bookends.
S1 (32:01):
Well, when you look at Louisiana and New York not
being that far apart, how do you explain that anomaly?
And the other part is a follow up to that
question is when you looked at the states that had
high note, I'm in quotation marks here because high is
extremely relative in this conversation, you still have what is
known euphemistically as the Bible Belt, which raises a panoply
of fascinating questions. So why are we seeing clusters where
(32:25):
you would have more of a worldview in certain parts
of the country than you would in other parts? What
is how does that variance come to be?
S12 (32:32):
Yeah. You know, Janet, there's all kinds of reasons for
these things. So you mentioned Louisiana. Let's take a look
at that. When you look at Louisiana, such a large
proportion of its population is in the New Orleans area.
Now when you study New Orleans, it's it's very different
than some of the other parts of the state. Louisiana
has some very deeply Christian areas. But New Orleans, taking
(32:55):
up such a large share of its population has a
dramatic let's drag the state down effect. You know, I've
taught a number of times, a lot of times, usually
at least once a year in Louisiana, when I talk
to the pastors, I often hear from them how discouraged
they are because it's such a an intense spiritual battle
(33:16):
that they're facing there with voodoo and all the other
stuff that they're up against, the witchcraft and whatnot. It
really is part of the front lines of the battle.
So that's that's where Louisiana is coming from. You look
at this differentiation across regions. That was a really interesting
thing to me because you find the South is number one.
(33:39):
But even across all the states in the South, the
incidence of biblical worldview is only 6.3%. Now, you know,
I suspect I didn't go back to my 1990s data
to check, but I suspect it was probably at least
double that back in the day. Back in the early 90s,
(33:59):
late 80s, when I started researching all this. Now it's
down to 6.3%. Why are the why is the South dropping?
Part of the reason is something that we see highlighted
in Texas, and that has to do with household mobility.
There are a lot of different reasons, but household mobility
is a big thing. But the other thing that's fascinating
(34:20):
to me about the regions is you would naturally expect
the Central or Midwestern states to be second to the South.
That's traditionally been the case. They tend to be most
conservative in their lifestyles and whatnot after the South. And
yet they came in third, coming in second. In biblical worldview,
incidence was the western region. So, you know, how can
(34:46):
that be again? Yeah, I mean, it's just mind boggling.
But it's because of places like Colorado that have a
number of of different Christian strongholds within them. And some
of the other states that you'll find in the in
the western states, not the Pacific states, per se. You know,
(35:06):
those being California, Oregon, Washington, those are not going to
set any records. But we can talk more about California
in particular because it's a really interesting study. But anyway,
the other thing regionally that that I think is very
important to look at is the northeast. And I say
that because this is where the nation started, we started
(35:30):
here as a Christian nation. We started here as a
group of people who were willing to die, to go
to a place where they could worship God freely. And
so when you came over here, you found that so
many of the leaders of the nation weren't political leaders.
They were the religious leaders. They were pastors. And then eventually,
maybe they took on a political office because they knew
(35:51):
that you have to integrate your faith into your politics
or it's it's just not right. And yet, when we
look at the northeast, the incidence of biblical worldview in
those states is only 3%. And if you break that
out into the nine census divisions, one of the divisions
in the northeast would be New England. And of course,
(36:14):
that's the heart of where our country started. That's the
heart of where Christianity took root here. And now. It
is the lowest division in the country. Less than 2%
of the residents in New England have a biblical worldview.
S1 (36:26):
Wow, wow. Stunning. And there is so much more to
this report. And more importantly, remember this is the seventh
part of the Worldview Inventory for 2025. There are six
previous reports. Every single one of them is fascinating. Pastor,
I don't know how you do your job without reading this.
Mom and dad, you need to understand what our kids believe.
You need to do some personal inventory and what you believe,
(36:48):
and whether or not you know why you believe it.
So I've got a link, by the way, to the
Cultural Research Center so that you can look up these reports.
Absolutely fascinating. More with Doctor George Barna right after this.
Always a pleasure to spend time with. Doctor George Barna,
director of research and co-founder of the Cultural Research Center
(37:11):
at Arizona Christian University. And again, I've got a link
now to inventory report number seven of his 2025 American
Worldview Inventory. This one identifies how U.S. states rank when
it comes to incidents of biblical worldview, and it's abysmal
in some respects. I want to look at a couple
of states, in particular Georgia, if I can, but not
until I get you to explain why you used the term.
(37:33):
And I love it. Integrated disciples talk to me about
what that means in terms of this survey.
S12 (37:40):
Well, that's the term that we give to people who
have a biblical worldview, and we call them that very simply.
Excuse me a moment.
S1 (37:56):
Bless his heart. You know what he did? He wanted
to muffle a cough because he didn't want to cough
in your ear. And in so doing, we got disconnected.
So I'm going to let my team come back and
I'm going to let them get him online because there's
so much. In the meantime, let me tell you about
a couple of the things that I think are interesting.
And I'm going to ask him about this when we
get back. Why is Nebraska only 0.3% different from Massachusetts? Now,
(38:19):
I'll grant you, Nebraska has great football, but why in
the world would they be so close to Massachusetts in
terms of its diminished numbers of people who would have
a biblical worldview? I'm going to ask George that question.
And number two, I do want to look at California,
because this is a state at war with itself, at conflict,
and is seeing a mass exodus. So I think it's
going to be very interesting to see what he has
(38:40):
to say about California. The other thing I was thinking,
too is, you know, in the book of Jude, often
called the foyer to the Book of Revelation, we are
told to contend for the faith. How in the world
does somebody contend for the faith when they don't have
a biblical worldview? That's pretty interesting to me, so I'm
not quite sure how that works. The other thing too,
is how can you go and tell if you don't
(39:02):
know what it is you believe? What are you going
to go and talk about when you get there? So
that's why, again, I think this research done by the
Cultural Research Center vis a vis Doctor George Brown is
so unbelievably important. You were so kind, George. You wanted
to muffle a cough so you didn't cough in the
ears of our listeners. And in so doing, you disconnected.
And I pointed out how kind and gracious that was.
(39:22):
So thank you for that. So picking up where we
you know, what I have right here, my favorite part
of all my equipment is my mute button. I do
it all the time. So I hear you loud and clear, brother.
Believe me. So talk to me about an integrated disciple.
This is the term you said you use for people
who have a biblical worldview.
S12 (39:39):
Yeah, and we call them an integrated disciple, because we
know from the research that we're doing on discipleship, you
cannot become a disciple of Jesus unless you think like
him first. Why? Because you do what you believe. So
first you need to believe like Jesus. And then once
you believe like him because you do what you believe,
now you can start to act like him. You can
(39:59):
live like him. And so what does that mean? What
you're doing is you are integrating that belief system into
your lifestyle. And that's how people know that you're a
follower of Christ. Doesn't matter what you say. They're going
to watch what you do. And so it's critically important
that you convert Jesus's beliefs into Jesus's lifestyle through your
(40:21):
own lifestyle. And that's when people are going to look
at you and say, huh, something different about that guy.
Something different about that lady. I want to figure out
what it is. And this guy, we got to help
them understand it's Jesus. But that's why we call them that.
Because you integrate that worldview which determines all the decisions
that you make in life into your lifestyle.
S1 (40:40):
Wow. Your answer, George, is exactly why we keep having
these conversations. Friends, this is so much more than just
numbers on an Excel spreadsheet. This really and truly has
everything to do with being an integrated disciple. The whole
truth of the whole gospel for the whole world, beginning
with you and applying who Jesus is to who you
are in your own life as well. So two quick
states I want to observe. I was pointing out while
(41:02):
we were getting you back online, I'm stunned by the
anomaly that is Nebraska, 0.3% different from Massachusetts. I can
understand the northeast, but Nebraska and I pointed out they
have pretty good football. But why is this number so
perilously close to Massachusetts coming out of Nebraska?
S12 (41:18):
Yeah, I'll be honest with you. There are some times
when you do research and you can't figure it out.
So I don't know what the explanation for that one is.
I kept going back to that number to make sure
that that we didn't confuse the data, but it appears
to be correct data. So yeah, sorry, I'll have to
look at that one in the future.
S1 (41:39):
Well, for now it goes on the anomaly shelf, I
get it. But you did want to talk about California.
So what's going on there? Because I pointed out it's
a state really at war with itself. And there is
an exodus of the population. So I'm wondering what that
does to the numbers.
S12 (41:52):
Oh, man, there's so many threads that are intermingled here.
So we talk about California. You mentioned the exodus where
a lot of them going they're going to Texas, they're
going to Tennessee, they're going to Idaho. How they're going
to Florida. Those are the four primary states they're leaving for.
So what do we see in Texas? We see the
worldview of Texas dropping down, making Texas tied for 27th.
(42:18):
Not at all what you would expect. What's going on?
Meanwhile in California. Well, well, what we've got is a
lot of people with a biblical worldview staying there, which
actually shows that therefore, California has more people with a
biblical worldview than any other state in the country. Not
(42:38):
what you would expect about 1.5 million. Now, you know,
it's a state of about 40 million people, a little
bit less than that. So it's still a drop in
the bucket. You know, the percentage is still small. You know, 4.6%.
It's right around the national average. But nevertheless, what does
that say to me as a guy who lives, you know,
(42:58):
half time in California? Well, this is great. God's not
done with us. He always uses a remnant. And so,
as long as we don't grow weary in doing good here,
and we recognize that we're the soldiers he wants on
the front lines of the battle here, we can't shut up.
We can't hide away. We can't, you know, shrink back
(43:20):
from the battle. We've got to recognize, yo, the Lord's
given us a lot of fellow soldiers here. We are
not alone. That's one of the important things to me
here is because I will tell you, living in California,
there's a lot of times when you speak up for Christ,
you feel like you are a total aberration. You are isolated.
You're alone. We're not.
S1 (43:42):
What an encouragement. Okay, so 60s, this is the elevator speech.
Tell us why it is important to have a biblical worldview.
S12 (43:49):
Listen, if you want to. If you want to be
a disciple of Jesus, you've got no choice. You have
to think like him so that you can live like him.
If you don't live like him, you're not a disciple
of Jesus. You're a disciple of the world. You got
to make your choice. What do you want to follow
the Lord or the world? You want to follow him?
Start to think like him so that you can live
like him. And that's that's all we're trying to do
(44:10):
is help you figure out where are you on that continuum?
Become like Jesus.
S1 (44:15):
Wow. Amen and amen. 14 exclamation points. And you thought
this was just going to be a bunch of numbers
on paper, friends. Oh, no. It's a whole lot more.
I want these reports, these inventory reports, to serve as
a stirring in your heart and a wake up call.
Do you not want to be like him? Do you
not want to be that living epistle, that ambassador that
we've been called to be? Well, when you get numbers
like this, you understand. Oh, look at those fields. Pretty white. Yeah,
(44:38):
a lot of work to be done. But first you
and I have to have that absolutely bedrock, concrete, biblical worldview.
And people like Doctor George Barnett are spurring us on
to do just that. That's why I said he's a
national treasure and a gift to the church. I got
a link to all the stuff we talked about. It's
on my info page, so check it out. Thank you George, so,
so much. We'll see you next time on In the
Market with Janet Parshall.
Hi friend, thank you so much for downloading this podcast
and I truly hope you hear something that encourages edifies, equips, enlightens,
and gently but consistently pushes you out there into the
marketplace of ideas. But before you start to listen and
before you go to the marketplace, let me just tell
you about this month's truth tool. And it is a
perfect fit for both the marketplace and getting out there.
It's Ray Comfort's book. Why? Jesus? If you listen to
(00:22):
the broadcast with any regularity, you know we love Ray.
He is bold, unashamed of the gospel. And yet in
such a winsome way, he delivers a truth narrative to
the man in the street, so to speak. He's written
the book Why Jesus? To Teach You How to Walk Through,
by examples and through real conversations he's had on how
to share the gospel in exactly the same way. Listen,
(00:43):
we're called to go and tell. It's not an opt
in opt out clause. That's where we're supposed to go.
And in truth, how can we keep this good news
to ourselves? So I want you to have Why Jesus
as this month's truth tool. So you'll get some fire
in your bones about going out and sharing the good
News of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We're listener supported radio.
My truth tools are a way of saying thank you.
When you give a gift to the program to keep
(01:03):
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(01:25):
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(01:45):
the Market with Janet Parshall. Now please enjoy the broadcast.
S2 (01:50):
Here are some of the news headlines we're watching.
S3 (01:52):
The conference was over. The president won a pledge.
S4 (01:55):
Americans worshiping government over God.
S1 (01:57):
Extremely rare safety move by a.
S5 (02:00):
17 years the Palestinians and Israelis negotiated.
S3 (02:04):
Is not here.
S1 (02:18):
Hi friends. Welcome to In the Market with Janet Parshall
and a very happy Monday to you. Hope you had
a glorious 4th of July and that your July is
off to a great start. We are off to a
great start with our brand new truth tool with Jesus
by Ray comfort. You know who Ray is? We have
him on this program on a regular broadcast. He is
so unashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ who really
takes this book. And he teaches us why Jesus is
(02:40):
the only way. He helps us get over some of
the pushback we hear from the culture, and he really
teaches us how to have the courage to tell people
that Jesus is the only way the great mediator between
God and man, the way, the truth and the life.
And nobody comes to the father but by him. And
in typical Ray comfort fashion, it's a beautiful book, so
I really want you to have a copy. It's our
(03:01):
way of saying thank you when you support this broadcast because, hey,
we are listener supported radio. I'm on the air. You're
hearing my voice because people pray and give, and I
truly believe it is in that order. So if you'd
like a copy of Why Jesus, just call 87758877 Janet 58. Say,
I'd like a copy of Why Jesus. We'll send it
to you. My way of saying thank you. I can't
(03:21):
fit myself through this microphone to give you a hug
around the neck. I am a hugger, but the next
best thing is I'm going to send you a book
and say thank you, and I hope it'll help you
grow up in him. You can also give online in
the market with Janet Parshall in the market with Janet Parshall,
Ray Comfort's book, Why Jesus? This month's truth. Stool boy,
I don't know about you, but I can't read these
stories about the flash flood in Texas without starting to cry.
(03:45):
How many Christians, how many heroes, how many people lost
their lives? The death count is continuing to climb. Here
is an CBN news story. But I have to update
the count. You're going to hear them refer to 82 people.
We are now over 90 that have lost their lives
and there are still missing people. So this story unfortunately,
(04:06):
is so very far from over. Have a listen.
S6 (04:08):
The search continues for dozens who are still missing in Texas,
including ten girls and a counselor from a Christian summer
camp after deadly flash floods along the Guadalupe River in
Texas Hill Country. Some victims were in campgrounds near the
banks of the river when it rose 26ft in just
45 minutes. Lorena Guillen owns a local restaurant nearby.
S7 (04:32):
Hearing people screaming, kids screaming, asking for help. Uh, cars
were floating away with the lights on. You could see
the lights and you can hear honking. And it was
like not 1 or 2, but there were dozens of
vehicles just floating away.
S6 (04:51):
28 year old Christian Fell says he stood on the
electric meter box outside his home for nearly three hours
to stay alive. This time lapse video shows the speed
at which another Texas river, the Llano, rose Friday night.
The flash floods were the result of almost a foot
of rain. The National Weather Service issued a flash flood
(05:13):
warning at 1:14 a.m., but most near the river were asleep.
The quickly rising Guadalupe brought down trees and buildings tearing
through camp mystic, where 750 girls were spending the holiday weekend.
S8 (05:28):
It was an absolute force of nature that I've never
witnessed before.
S6 (05:32):
Amanda Sue Jones, her husband and four kids evacuated moments
before the worst of the flooding hit.
S8 (05:38):
By the time we crossed the bridge to when everything
is getting swept away was, I mean, probably ten minutes.
S6 (05:45):
At camp mystic, where more than two dozen campers and
counselors were swept away in the night, 27 are feared dead.
Among those, Janie Hunt, the nine year old cousin of
Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt. His wife wrote on
social media if your heart is broken, I assure you
God is near. 18 year old camp counselor Chloe Childress
(06:08):
is being remembered for her work with senior citizens. Camp
mystics owner Dick Eastland died heroically trying to rescue campers,
his grandson wrote. If he wasn't going to die of
natural causes, this was the only other way. Saving the
girls that he so loved and cared for.
S9 (06:28):
He was, you know, a man that made everyone feel
safe and seen. He was just an extremely selfless person
and he showed that until the very end.
S6 (06:37):
Also dead is Jane Ragsdale, director of heart of the
Hills Camp, and 27 year old Julian Ryan, who died
after placing his two young sons on a floating mattress.
The National Weather Service has extended the flood watch over
much of south central Texas as several inches of rain
are expected in the region today. A team from CBN's
(07:00):
Operation Blessing is on the ground, serving meals to local
families and first responders.
S10 (07:06):
You've got destroyed trailers. You've got the house behind me
that's been completely destroyed. And then trees are down everywhere.
S6 (07:13):
President Trump has signed a major disaster declaration for Kerr
County and will visit the area later this week. Dale
Hurd CBN news.
S1 (07:24):
Almost indescribable pain. I'm particularly moved by the story of
Dick Eastland, who was the man behind the camp and
did just nothing short of heroic action, rescuing as many
girls as he could before he finally lost his life
as well. So this is a real painful time for
these people in Texas. We need to be praying for
(07:44):
these families that they would sense God's presence, and that
even though we can never answer the question why And
never get the answer until we're in his presence. We
can remember these families. By the way. You can go online.
You can see how unbelievably fast these rivers rose and
then flooded. I heard one father say I wasn't worried
about my daughters. They were very good swimmers. And I thought,
(08:05):
this is a force majeure. As they say in the law,
this is a force of nature. And when you see
how fast and how quickly those currents go, at that point,
being a good swimmer has really very little to do
with it. So pray for the brokenhearted. I'm thrilled by
the way that Operation Blessing does have a team on
the ground, but I'm also pleased that with all of
the things that the president has to do, and tonight
he will be meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister
(08:26):
of Israel is in town. These are very important strategic meetings.
They're going to be talking about the hostages. They're going
to talk about the ceasefire, and they're going to talk
about whether or not they can expand the Abraham Accords.
There are so many things he could do. But the
president will be visiting Texas later this week and has
pledged some major disaster relief as well. So pray for
these people. This is a really unbelievable time. And we
(08:49):
just remember that God is near to the brokenhearted, and
there are so many broken hearted people and that particular
part of the world right now. So pray for these families,
would you? Thank you for joining me this hour. We've
got lots to discuss. It's going to be all news
this hour. When we come back, we're going to talk
about homeschooling, and we're going to encourage you with some
victories that are out there. I know it's the summer.
And you might be thinking, oh, in fact, I saw
(09:10):
my first ad over the weekend. I bet you did too,
for school supplies. And I thought, come on, we just
finished the 4th of July. They'll be pushing the school
supplies just yet, but hey, people are starting to do
a lot of thinking about what they're going to do
with their children come the fall, and homeschool just might
be a very viable option. So Will Estrada was going
to join us, and he's going to give us an update.
And later in the hour, God bless Doctor George Barnett
(09:31):
and the work he does at the Cultural Research Center.
He's got a thing or two to say about our
worldview as Christians. And it's a wake up call. Stay
with us. We got much more coming your way right
after this. Are you intimidated when sharing your faith? Many
(09:58):
believers struggle with fear when it comes to evangelism, and
that's why I've chosen Why Jesus by Ray comfort as
this month's truth tool. Learn through Ray's real life conversations
that will show you how to overcome fear and trust
in God's faithfulness. As for your copy of Why Jesus,
when you give a gift of any amount in the market,
call 877 Janet 58. That's 877 Janet 58 or go
(10:18):
to in the market with Janet parshall.org. You know, one
of the things about the 4th of July. Well, you
and I are having our picnics and setting off fireworks
is the National Education Association always has their convention over
the 4th of July. And, boy, I don't know about you.
I watched it so you don't have to. Oh my word.
(10:39):
You look at this union and you're thinking. I'm sorry.
Stop me when we get to the best interests of
the student. Stop me when we're really interested in making
sure that every child graduates appropriately with a solid knowledge
of reading, writing arithmetic learns how to think critically and
has been given the tools necessary to flourish as an
adult once they step out of the school system. No,
(10:59):
it's a lot of politics. In fact, one person even
got up and said it's all about politics at the convention,
which raises the question of why so many people stop, think,
and pray about whether or not homeschooling just might be
the appropriate option for them and their family. And more
and more families are making that choice. But it's not
for cowards. It takes a lot of work. It takes
a lot of prep, it takes a lot of sacrifice,
and it takes a lot of chutzpah. If I can
(11:21):
borrow from my Jewish friends, because homeschooling tends to be
under attack a lot of the times, and I'm so
grateful and have been for years for the Home School
Legal Defense Fund. They do a marvelous job of fighting
for homeschoolers, of telling you about legislation coming down the
road apiece victories, defeats, challenges so that you and the
words of Scripture know how to look well to the
(11:41):
ways of your household. One of the people that does
it better than anybody I know is Will Estrada. He
is senior counsel for the Home School Legal Defense Fund,
and he works to make homeschooling possible for thousands of
member families and hundreds of thousands of homeschooling students by
advocating in state legislatures for homeschool freedom, working to ensure
that homeschool graduates are treated with equality, and that the
(12:03):
laws protecting the rights to homeschool families are followed by
government officials. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a full
time job, as you will soon discover. Will the warmest
of welcomes. I am thrilled you're here. Thank you so much.
And I'm going to turn first to new Jersey. So
you send out an announcement that said that there was
a bill filed in the new Jersey Senate just on
June 5th, and I'm reading your exact words because it
(12:24):
sends a chill down my spine, calling for every homeschooled
child and parent to meet annually with a school official
for a, quote, general health and wellness check. Now I
get the giggles when I say that because my first
thought is, hey, what could possibly go wrong? Talk to
me about this.
S11 (12:40):
Well, Janet, first it's a privilege to be on. Thank
you for having me on this, bill. There's actually two
of them. It's Assembly Bill 5796 and then the Senate companion,
Senate Bill 4589. They are misguided attempts to protect children
in the wake of several high profile abuse and neglect
instances in new Jersey. Now, what the supporters of these
(13:02):
bills will not tell you is that all of these
incidents in new Jersey have been failure of the child
protective system. They knew about the kids, they dropped the
ball there. They're massive, bloated bureaucracies and kids suffered as
a result. So instead of doing the hard but life
saving work to reform child protective agencies in new Jersey,
(13:24):
new Jersey legislators are saying, well, let's scapegoat the homeschoolers
and let's put them under the microscope for more regulations.
These bills would make the local public school be responsible for,
as you said, having a health and wellness check every
year with homeschooled kids, let alone, you know, these are
(13:45):
these are public schools that should be focusing on educating
the kids in the public school. They're not experts in
seeing what's going on with children. That's child protective services.
So it's perplexing that instead of reforming child protective services,
they're trying to give the public schools another job to do,
in this case, supervising homeschoolers for health and wellness.
S1 (14:05):
Wow, you did an excellent job of breaking that down.
And there's so much here. So let me parse some
of it out. First of all, homeschoolers, it would seem
to me, are a group of people who have decided
that they celebrate and they want to protect their autonomy.
If you have to check in with the public school
once a year, you're acquiescing yet again under the umbrella
of a government school. So on principle, I would take
umbrage with that. But second of all, this idea of
(14:28):
a wellness check, as you pointed out brilliantly, will these
are people who are trained in education. If you want
to do general health and wellness checks, you do have
a child Protective Services department in your government that should
be able to do that. That's not the role of
the school. It's child protective services. So when the drafters
of this legislation put this all together, why didn't they
(14:50):
if they felt that this was a justifiable reason and
we could make some arguments for and against that, why
don't they put the authority to do that under Child
Protective Services rather than in the public school?
S11 (15:01):
Janet, I think it's a tacit admission that they know
that Child Protective Services is not up to the task.
These high profile cases, and they're the tip of the iceberg.
I mean, you look at so many states and tragically,
the state child welfare agencies are are failing to protect kids.
And in some instances, they're ripping apart innocent families. There's
(15:23):
there's racial animus that has been documented as well. So
these child protective agencies, I think, these legislators realize are
not up to the task of protecting kids. And so
instead of reforming them, which is, I think, a central
goal of our legislators to make sure that arms of
the state government are actually working and doing what they're
(15:45):
supposed to do instead of reforming them. They're saying, well,
we're going to have the public schools have another job
to do. And look, I'm I'm not anti public school.
My dad spent 37 years as a special ed teacher
in the state of New York and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,
but the modern public school system is struggling. And I
think that's putting it very charitably. Why are we giving
them another job to do? And, like you said, making
(16:07):
them supervise homeschoolers. When the evidence of the past four
decades has shown that homeschooling is thriving and is actually
a bright spot when it comes to the education of
children in our country.
S1 (16:18):
Absolutely. Why I am such a fan, by the way
of the work that you do, will. The other problem
I have, too, is the vacuous nature of words like
general health and wellness. Check. You know, I want to
be a good Berean when we talk about that. Always
on this program. So what constitutes health and wellness if
your child. I mean, it's your child going to have
a private interview away from the parent where the school
is going to ask your child just to make sure
(16:39):
that they have general health and wellness on whether or
not they struggle with whether or not they're a boy
or a girl and what pronouns they want to use,
yada yada yada. You see where this is going? So
in other words, you're going to dilute with your philosophy
exactly what may be one of the reasons why we
chose to homeschool in the first place.
S11 (16:55):
It's a great question, Janet. The bill actually says, and
this is this is right from the text of Senate
Bill 4589 in new Jersey. And, of course, the companion bill,
which is Assembly Bill 5796. It says, and I quote,
the designated person shall be a school counselor, school nurse
or school social worker. These people are not experts in this,
(17:16):
and they might be pushing something against what the parents
think is best for the children.
S1 (17:20):
Wow. Wake up call. So we've got listeners in new Jersey.
When we come back, we'll tell our friends what they
need to do if they're homeschooling and they don't want
this legislation to go any further. And then we're going
to talk some more. Will Estrada is with us. By
the way. I've got a link to the homeschool legal defense,
and I want you to know that they've also got
a map where they're tracking legislation all across the country.
(17:40):
I put a link to that directly so you can
check it out for yourself. More with Will Estrada, senior
counsel for the Home School Legal Defense Fund, right after this.
We have the privilege of talking with Will Estrada, who's
(18:01):
senior counsel for the Home School Legal Defense Fund. He's
been doing that work for quite some time, and he
does it so well, and he does it with real passion.
It's fire in his bones. So I have a link
to the Home School Legal Defense Fund. Sometimes you use
the word association instead of fund at the end. If
you're driving, don't worry about it. I've got it secured
for you on the information page. And then I want
(18:22):
to reference again this Hslda map that really takes a
look at legislation that they are tracking. In fact, let
me talk about a couple of those things. If you
can will tell me what's going on in the state
of Wyoming because you say they've had a tough legislative season,
but there's a victory there.
S11 (18:38):
Absolutely. So Wyoming really illustrates that. On one hand, we've
got battles in states like Illinois and New Jersey and
Virginia and Connecticut. But on the other hand, we've got
victories in states all across the nation. And probably Wyoming
best illustrates that victory. Wyoming has long had a fairly
(18:58):
good homeschool law, but there was a requirement, long standing
going back to the 1980s, that homeschoolers still had to
give an annual notice of intent, along with a list
of their curriculum, to the school district every year. And
we saw often how school districts would really use that
to harass families. And so late last year, the homeschool community,
(19:18):
our friends over at Homeschool Wyoming in Wyoming and myself
got together and we said, you know what? The time is, right?
Let's get rid of this antiquated annual notice and check
in that homeschoolers have. We don't need to check in
with the government in order to exercise our fundamental, God
given right to educate our children. We found some friendly
legislators actually homeschool parents and homeschool graduates themselves and wrote
(19:43):
a bill, a very simple bill to eliminate the annual
notification requirement. The bill sailed through. It was signed into
law by the governor in Wyoming, is now the 12th state,
with no requirement that homeschoolers have an annual check in
with the government filing paperwork before they exercise their fundamental
right to educate their children at home.
S1 (20:04):
Amen. What an important victory. Well, I would be remiss
if I didn't go back to new Jersey because I
asked before the break and forgive me for having forgotten
this for a moment. Tell our friends listening in new
Jersey what they need to do if they're concerned about
this proposed legislation.
S11 (20:17):
Absolutely. So there are several bills that are the ones
we talked about about the health and wellness check. But
there's another one which is Assembly Bill 5825. All of
these are on our web page. And this bill actually
requires homeschoolers to check in file with the government every year.
And their curriculum has to be aligned to the public
school curriculum, which is absolutely bonkers. Not a single state
(20:40):
in the nation makes this requirement, so essentially homeschoolers would
have to use the public school curriculum. So if you
are in new Jersey, call your legislator, your assembly person
and your senator, and politely but firmly tell them to
reject any attempts to put new regulations on homeschoolers in
new Jersey. The good news, Janet, is it appears that
(21:01):
the legislature is not going to take up any of
these bills until after the election. There are high profile
elections coming up in new Jersey, and so we are
cautiously optimistic that these bills will die without ever coming
up for a hearing.
S1 (21:15):
That's good news to hear. So you've been encouraged, friends,
and you've been given your marching orders. If you're listening
in new Jersey, take me to Tennessee. What's happening there?
S11 (21:23):
Well, Tennessee is another one of those examples of good
victories for homeschoolers. Tennessee became now the fourth state. Texas,
West Virginia, and Georgia all have other laws to pass
what's called a Learning Pod Protection Act, and these are
all fairly new laws. The the term even learning pod
is something that really came out with the the Covid
(21:46):
19 pandemic. As parents said, you know what? We're homeschooling
our kids, but we still want to have the kids
interacting together. And often, whether it's a co-op or a
tutorial program or a learning pod or a micro school,
we'll have kind of overzealous officials in zoning departments come
in and say, well, you can't do that here. You're
(22:07):
a school. We always say, no, these are families. Maybe
once a week they get together for a couple hours
to educate their children together, doing science, history, whatever. And
so we passed a Learning Pod Protection Act again, sailed
through the legislature, was signed into law by the governor
in Tennessee. And now it adds an additional level of
(22:27):
protection to homeschool groups, co-ops, learning pods, micro schools, tutorial
programs to make sure that parents are able to have
the resources they need to be able to educate their
children without having to worry about zoning officials coming and saying,
you can't even do this.
S1 (22:44):
Wow. Just pulling over to the side of the road
for a minute. Do you think that Covid had a
positive effect on homeschooling?
S11 (22:51):
You know, it's it's such a good question. I mean,
I always have to start by saying Covid was was
very harmful to many people, whether on the health issues
or the loss of life. Um, but also the kids
and many of the public schools who had significant learning loss.
But it did two very interesting things. The first one
(23:11):
is on kind of the parental rights side. Parents across
the nation, when they were doing zoom school in their
living rooms said, your teacher said what? And they sort
of the curtain was pulled back and they saw what
was going on in public education. And they've become vocal
opponents of it, Pushing for parental rights legislation. Even the
(23:32):
Mahmood case in Montgomery County that we saw recently came
out of that. But the second thing was parents said,
you know what? I was really doing the schooling for
a few months in my living room. This isn't impossible.
And they really saw the freedom and the beauty and
the personalized education that homeschooling gave, and they've never looked back.
(23:53):
We have seen homeschooling double from about two and a
half to 3% of the school age population to now
5 to 6% of the school age population since Covid 19.
And those people aren't returning to public schools, they are
continuing to homeschool. We've seen that in our membership growth
at home school, legal defense, and we've seen that in reports,
studies and data from U.S. Department of Education to the
(24:16):
private sector showing the growth of homeschooling.
S1 (24:18):
I am so glad I asked that question, because I
want parents to be encouraged, particularly if they're on the
fence and they don't know whether they can do it.
By the way, I'm telling you the ultimate resource if
you want to consider homeschooling is really the Home School
legal defense fund. I strongly encourage you to check it out.
I got a link in my website. Don't be afraid.
They've got all kinds of resources, all kinds of ways
to tell you how to get started on this. And
(24:40):
as we'll just explain beautifully, Covid was kind of a
test run. If you thought you maybe couldn't do it,
maybe you look back and you go, maybe I can.
Maybe that's exactly what the Lord's calling you to do. Well,
thank you and your entire team. Thank you for all
the work you do at home. We appreciate you so much.
Back after this. Friends. Let me give a big shout
(25:10):
out to our partial partners. Thank you. Friends, partial partners
are becoming the backbone of this ministry. They're generous. Monthly
gifts allow us to provide relevant, compelling programming every day.
When you become a partial partner, you'll receive private emails
directly from me. A weekly audio message only. You will
hear a special behind the scenes updates as well. Become
a partial partner today by calling 877 Janet 58 or
(25:30):
go to in the market with Janet Parshall. I am
of this very strong belief that Doctor George Barnett is
a national treasure, and he is doing the church such
a profound favor. He's issuing these wake up calls on
why it is imperative that we develop strong biblical worldviews.
(25:51):
And so this man, whose name is synonymous with research,
really has been doing some stellar work as he founded
the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University. He's been
doing these surveys on American worldview for quite some time.
And I, I find them absolutely riveting. I think they're
such a wake up call. And while there is still time,
we can raise, as my daughter heard when she went
(26:13):
to Liberty University Champions for Christ. And that really is
what we want to do with our kids. But they
can't do that if they don't have a bedrock, solid
biblical worldview. And folks, we lost our anchor somewhere along
the way. We are drifting all over the place, as
his research shows. Here's the formal invitation or the formal introduction, rather.
Doctor George Barnett is the director of research and co-founder
(26:33):
of the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University. He's
also an ACU professor. Wouldn't you love to sit in
his class focusing on worldview assessment and development and cultural transformation?
He was the founder and leader of The Barna Group,
a research company that has set the standard for understanding
trends in American culture. That's an understatement, by the way.
In addition, he serves as senior research fellow at the
(26:55):
center for Biblical Worldview at the Family Research Council. He's
also taught at the undergrad and grad level and has
pastored two churches, and in his spare time, he's written
more than 50 books, including numerous award winners and New
York Times best sellers along the way. George, the warmest
of welcomes, I cannot tell you. I don't know, maybe
it makes me kind of a nerd, but I just
love your research because, number one, it helps equip me.
(27:17):
What do I need to talk about? Where are there
gaps in the people who are listening in their worldview,
in terms of their biblical knowledge? Could they stand against
the howling winds of the culture because they know what
they believe and why they believe it? Hat tip to
Doctor Paul Little and his famous book. You put out
research that says there is a wake up call here.
You've got to understand that there are some variances. And
(27:37):
in the seventh edition, in the Worldview Inventory for 2025,
you look specifically at the variances in worldview on a
state by state basis. I find that fascinating from multiplicity
of reasons. I can see how that would pretend for
politics and economic issues and makeup of cities, and where
different governors would stand on various particular political issues. So
(28:00):
I think the residual impact of your research on this
is absolutely fascinating. But tell me what you found.
S12 (28:06):
Well, and by the way, if this is you nerding out,
you nerd out girl, I'm all for it. This is great. Yeah.
Welcome to the club. It's great to have you. Yeah.
I mean, basically what we were trying to do was understand.
Is this just a problem that's isolated in a few
parts of the country? Or is the fact that the
national incidence of biblical worldview is just 4%? Is that
(28:31):
really a nationwide problem? And so naturally, there's a range
that we found across the states. And, you know, when
we look at them, I mean, the range is from
less than one quarter of 1% of the population of
an entire state having a biblical worldview up, up to
a high of less than 13%. So even in the
(28:53):
best case state, what we find is that seven out
of eight people in that state do not have a
biblical worldview. So, you know, what that's important for to
me is that when I travel around the country and
speak and teach and so forth, I hear from people
all the time, well, I know what you're saying, George, but,
you know, that's not my church. That's not my state.
(29:14):
That's not my community. And so this is one thing
that we were able to do because we have the
data to do it, to look at states and find.
Is that true? Is is it like, you know, all
the fault of California and New York and Oregon, or
is it just something that we find across the country?
And so, yes, there are differences across state boundaries, but
(29:37):
the differences are not that great. This really is a
national problem. And one of the implications of that to
me is it says to pastors, come on, folks, we
can do better than this. We have to do better
than this. Because there's no state we can look at
where we can say, yep, they're on board. They've figured
(29:58):
it out. They've they've knocked it out of the park.
There's no state in the country that's even close.
S1 (30:04):
Wow. Unbelievable. And when you look that the top is 12.6%,
I mean, wow, we haven't even gotten to, let alone
the 50 yard line. We're not even at a quarter
percent of that state. That's absolutely stunning. Okay, so name names.
I think people are going to find the state variances
to be fascinating here.
S12 (30:21):
Yeah. So I mean, if we were to look at
the top ten states, you've got Alabama and Mississippi up
at the top there at about 12.5%. You've got South
Carolina a little bit less than 10% of their residents
have a biblical worldview. Arkansas is at 9%. Montana is
at 8%. Virginia and Idaho about 7%. About 6.5% for
(30:46):
Oklahoma and Tennessee. And rounding out the top ten, you
got North Carolina just barely above 6%. And then if
we go to the other end of the continuum, this
is where it's just amazing to me. I mean, you've got, uh,
lowest of the low. And by the way, we could
only do this with 45 states because the other five
states are so small. We didn't have enough people in
(31:08):
the national sample to to actually do a statistically valid assessment.
But when we look at the 45 states where we
had enough residents from each state to say, okay, we
can trust the data by far in last place Rhode Island.
Less than one quarter of 1% of the adults in
Rhode Island have a biblical worldview not too far behind.
(31:32):
You've got Maine at 1%, Nebraska at 1.5%. You've got Massachusetts,
new Jersey, and Connecticut each a little bit less than 2%.
You've got New Mexico, right around 2%. You've got New Hampshire, 2.5%, Louisiana, 2.8%,
New York 3.2%. That's the bottom ten of the 45 states. So,
(31:57):
you know, the others are in between. But these these
are the bookends.
S1 (32:01):
Well, when you look at Louisiana and New York not
being that far apart, how do you explain that anomaly?
And the other part is a follow up to that
question is when you looked at the states that had
high note, I'm in quotation marks here because high is
extremely relative in this conversation, you still have what is
known euphemistically as the Bible Belt, which raises a panoply
of fascinating questions. So why are we seeing clusters where
(32:25):
you would have more of a worldview in certain parts
of the country than you would in other parts? What
is how does that variance come to be?
S12 (32:32):
Yeah. You know, Janet, there's all kinds of reasons for
these things. So you mentioned Louisiana. Let's take a look
at that. When you look at Louisiana, such a large
proportion of its population is in the New Orleans area.
Now when you study New Orleans, it's it's very different
than some of the other parts of the state. Louisiana
has some very deeply Christian areas. But New Orleans, taking
(32:55):
up such a large share of its population has a
dramatic let's drag the state down effect. You know, I've
taught a number of times, a lot of times, usually
at least once a year in Louisiana, when I talk
to the pastors, I often hear from them how discouraged
they are because it's such a an intense spiritual battle
(33:16):
that they're facing there with voodoo and all the other
stuff that they're up against, the witchcraft and whatnot. It
really is part of the front lines of the battle.
So that's that's where Louisiana is coming from. You look
at this differentiation across regions. That was a really interesting
thing to me because you find the South is number one.
(33:39):
But even across all the states in the South, the
incidence of biblical worldview is only 6.3%. Now, you know,
I suspect I didn't go back to my 1990s data
to check, but I suspect it was probably at least
double that back in the day. Back in the early 90s,
(33:59):
late 80s, when I started researching all this. Now it's
down to 6.3%. Why are the why is the South dropping?
Part of the reason is something that we see highlighted
in Texas, and that has to do with household mobility.
There are a lot of different reasons, but household mobility
is a big thing. But the other thing that's fascinating
(34:20):
to me about the regions is you would naturally expect
the Central or Midwestern states to be second to the South.
That's traditionally been the case. They tend to be most
conservative in their lifestyles and whatnot after the South. And
yet they came in third, coming in second. In biblical worldview,
incidence was the western region. So, you know, how can
(34:46):
that be again? Yeah, I mean, it's just mind boggling.
But it's because of places like Colorado that have a
number of of different Christian strongholds within them. And some
of the other states that you'll find in the in
the western states, not the Pacific states, per se. You know,
(35:06):
those being California, Oregon, Washington, those are not going to
set any records. But we can talk more about California
in particular because it's a really interesting study. But anyway,
the other thing regionally that that I think is very
important to look at is the northeast. And I say
that because this is where the nation started, we started
(35:30):
here as a Christian nation. We started here as a
group of people who were willing to die, to go
to a place where they could worship God freely. And
so when you came over here, you found that so
many of the leaders of the nation weren't political leaders.
They were the religious leaders. They were pastors. And then eventually,
maybe they took on a political office because they knew
(35:51):
that you have to integrate your faith into your politics
or it's it's just not right. And yet, when we
look at the northeast, the incidence of biblical worldview in
those states is only 3%. And if you break that
out into the nine census divisions, one of the divisions
in the northeast would be New England. And of course,
(36:14):
that's the heart of where our country started. That's the
heart of where Christianity took root here. And now. It
is the lowest division in the country. Less than 2%
of the residents in New England have a biblical worldview.
S1 (36:26):
Wow, wow. Stunning. And there is so much more to
this report. And more importantly, remember this is the seventh
part of the Worldview Inventory for 2025. There are six
previous reports. Every single one of them is fascinating. Pastor,
I don't know how you do your job without reading this.
Mom and dad, you need to understand what our kids believe.
You need to do some personal inventory and what you believe,
(36:48):
and whether or not you know why you believe it.
So I've got a link, by the way, to the
Cultural Research Center so that you can look up these reports.
Absolutely fascinating. More with Doctor George Barna right after this.
Always a pleasure to spend time with. Doctor George Barna,
director of research and co-founder of the Cultural Research Center
(37:11):
at Arizona Christian University. And again, I've got a link
now to inventory report number seven of his 2025 American
Worldview Inventory. This one identifies how U.S. states rank when
it comes to incidents of biblical worldview, and it's abysmal
in some respects. I want to look at a couple
of states, in particular Georgia, if I can, but not
until I get you to explain why you used the term.
(37:33):
And I love it. Integrated disciples talk to me about
what that means in terms of this survey.
S12 (37:40):
Well, that's the term that we give to people who
have a biblical worldview, and we call them that very simply.
Excuse me a moment.
S1 (37:56):
Bless his heart. You know what he did? He wanted
to muffle a cough because he didn't want to cough
in your ear. And in so doing, we got disconnected.
So I'm going to let my team come back and
I'm going to let them get him online because there's
so much. In the meantime, let me tell you about
a couple of the things that I think are interesting.
And I'm going to ask him about this when we
get back. Why is Nebraska only 0.3% different from Massachusetts? Now,
(38:19):
I'll grant you, Nebraska has great football, but why in
the world would they be so close to Massachusetts in
terms of its diminished numbers of people who would have
a biblical worldview? I'm going to ask George that question.
And number two, I do want to look at California,
because this is a state at war with itself, at conflict,
and is seeing a mass exodus. So I think it's
going to be very interesting to see what he has
(38:40):
to say about California. The other thing I was thinking,
too is, you know, in the book of Jude, often
called the foyer to the Book of Revelation, we are
told to contend for the faith. How in the world
does somebody contend for the faith when they don't have
a biblical worldview? That's pretty interesting to me, so I'm
not quite sure how that works. The other thing too,
is how can you go and tell if you don't
(39:02):
know what it is you believe? What are you going
to go and talk about when you get there? So
that's why, again, I think this research done by the
Cultural Research Center vis a vis Doctor George Brown is
so unbelievably important. You were so kind, George. You wanted
to muffle a cough so you didn't cough in the
ears of our listeners. And in so doing, you disconnected.
And I pointed out how kind and gracious that was.
(39:22):
So thank you for that. So picking up where we
you know, what I have right here, my favorite part
of all my equipment is my mute button. I do
it all the time. So I hear you loud and clear, brother.
Believe me. So talk to me about an integrated disciple.
This is the term you said you use for people
who have a biblical worldview.
S12 (39:39):
Yeah, and we call them an integrated disciple, because we
know from the research that we're doing on discipleship, you
cannot become a disciple of Jesus unless you think like
him first. Why? Because you do what you believe. So
first you need to believe like Jesus. And then once
you believe like him because you do what you believe,
now you can start to act like him. You can
(39:59):
live like him. And so what does that mean? What
you're doing is you are integrating that belief system into
your lifestyle. And that's how people know that you're a
follower of Christ. Doesn't matter what you say. They're going
to watch what you do. And so it's critically important
that you convert Jesus's beliefs into Jesus's lifestyle through your
(40:21):
own lifestyle. And that's when people are going to look
at you and say, huh, something different about that guy.
Something different about that lady. I want to figure out
what it is. And this guy, we got to help
them understand it's Jesus. But that's why we call them that.
Because you integrate that worldview which determines all the decisions
that you make in life into your lifestyle.
S1 (40:40):
Wow. Your answer, George, is exactly why we keep having
these conversations. Friends, this is so much more than just
numbers on an Excel spreadsheet. This really and truly has
everything to do with being an integrated disciple. The whole
truth of the whole gospel for the whole world, beginning
with you and applying who Jesus is to who you
are in your own life as well. So two quick
states I want to observe. I was pointing out while
(41:02):
we were getting you back online, I'm stunned by the
anomaly that is Nebraska, 0.3% different from Massachusetts. I can
understand the northeast, but Nebraska and I pointed out they
have pretty good football. But why is this number so
perilously close to Massachusetts coming out of Nebraska?
S12 (41:18):
Yeah, I'll be honest with you. There are some times
when you do research and you can't figure it out.
So I don't know what the explanation for that one is.
I kept going back to that number to make sure
that that we didn't confuse the data, but it appears
to be correct data. So yeah, sorry, I'll have to
look at that one in the future.
S1 (41:39):
Well, for now it goes on the anomaly shelf, I
get it. But you did want to talk about California.
So what's going on there? Because I pointed out it's
a state really at war with itself. And there is
an exodus of the population. So I'm wondering what that
does to the numbers.
S12 (41:52):
Oh, man, there's so many threads that are intermingled here.
So we talk about California. You mentioned the exodus where
a lot of them going they're going to Texas, they're
going to Tennessee, they're going to Idaho. How they're going
to Florida. Those are the four primary states they're leaving for.
So what do we see in Texas? We see the
worldview of Texas dropping down, making Texas tied for 27th.
(42:18):
Not at all what you would expect. What's going on?
Meanwhile in California. Well, well, what we've got is a
lot of people with a biblical worldview staying there, which
actually shows that therefore, California has more people with a
biblical worldview than any other state in the country. Not
(42:38):
what you would expect about 1.5 million. Now, you know,
it's a state of about 40 million people, a little
bit less than that. So it's still a drop in
the bucket. You know, the percentage is still small. You know, 4.6%.
It's right around the national average. But nevertheless, what does
that say to me as a guy who lives, you know,
(42:58):
half time in California? Well, this is great. God's not
done with us. He always uses a remnant. And so,
as long as we don't grow weary in doing good here,
and we recognize that we're the soldiers he wants on
the front lines of the battle here, we can't shut up.
We can't hide away. We can't, you know, shrink back
(43:20):
from the battle. We've got to recognize, yo, the Lord's
given us a lot of fellow soldiers here. We are
not alone. That's one of the important things to me
here is because I will tell you, living in California,
there's a lot of times when you speak up for Christ,
you feel like you are a total aberration. You are isolated.
You're alone. We're not.
S1 (43:42):
What an encouragement. Okay, so 60s, this is the elevator speech.
Tell us why it is important to have a biblical worldview.
S12 (43:49):
Listen, if you want to. If you want to be
a disciple of Jesus, you've got no choice. You have
to think like him so that you can live like him.
If you don't live like him, you're not a disciple
of Jesus. You're a disciple of the world. You got
to make your choice. What do you want to follow
the Lord or the world? You want to follow him?
Start to think like him so that you can live
like him. And that's that's all we're trying to do
(44:10):
is help you figure out where are you on that continuum?
Become like Jesus.
S1 (44:15):
Wow. Amen and amen. 14 exclamation points. And you thought
this was just going to be a bunch of numbers
on paper, friends. Oh, no. It's a whole lot more.
I want these reports, these inventory reports, to serve as
a stirring in your heart and a wake up call.
Do you not want to be like him? Do you
not want to be that living epistle, that ambassador that
we've been called to be? Well, when you get numbers
like this, you understand. Oh, look at those fields. Pretty white. Yeah,
(44:38):
a lot of work to be done. But first you
and I have to have that absolutely bedrock, concrete, biblical worldview.
And people like Doctor George Barnett are spurring us on
to do just that. That's why I said he's a
national treasure and a gift to the church. I got
a link to all the stuff we talked about. It's
on my info page, so check it out. Thank you George, so,
so much. We'll see you next time on In the
Market with Janet Parshall.
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