Tag Archive for: faith

‘This Week On The Hill’: Tony Perkins Talks Faith with Speaker Mike Johnson

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On Saturday morning, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins helmed the “maiden voyage” of Salem Radio Network’s newest program “This Week On The Hill,” featuring U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) as the show’s inaugural guest. The two Louisiana conservatives discussed, among other things, the role that Christian faith plays in American politics — from guiding legislation to holding the Republican Party together to ending abortion.

Referring to their decades-long friendship, Perkins said to Johnson, “You and I go back to when you were in law school, and faith plays a major role in our lives and in your life in particular. … And there’s some that say, ‘That has no place in [Congress].’” Johnson replied, “Well, those who say that don’t understand our history, the foundation of our country.” He continued, “We were built upon our Judeo-Christian heritage and our foundation is that, it’s chiseled into the marble right above the speaker’s rostrum, right there in the House chamber: ‘In God We Trust.’ That’s what makes us different. That’s what made us exceptional from the beginning.” Johnson added:

“If you look back in history and you study the writings of the founders and the previous leaders in the Congress, how they spoke, what they said, they were very open about this idea that God is our creator. He’s the one that gives us our rights, not government. These things used to be known as self-evident truths. Not so much anymore.”

The Speaker also noted that the first American presidents, including George Washington and John Adams, warned that the American republic is “an experiment on the world stage. We don’t know how long it’ll last. But … of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports, and we seem to have forgotten some of that.”

Perkins asked what role Christian faith plays in the policy decisions of today. Johnson responded, “We have to recognize right now we’re not really in a battle right now between Republicans and Democrats anymore. It’s deeper than that. This is between two competing visions for who we are as a country, who we are as Americans.” He continued:

“And if you’re a person of faith, you’re a Christian, that is a worldview, and that informs how you think about issues and you believe in absolute truths and in a sense of morality that is supposed to guide these decisions. If you don’t jettison that when you walk in the building, it’s supposed to be a part of the fabric of what you decide. … It is our philosophy. It is our worldview, and it informs what we do.”

Johnson also spoke of being elected Speaker back in October and recent challenges to his speakership from within the Republican Party. “This was not a job that I aspired to,” he said. “To be speaker of the House in this modern era is a unique challenge.” Referring to a move by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to vacate the speakership, Johnson said, “Marjorie and I agree on philosophy, not on strategy. And she’s upset about the appropriations process, the spending bills. And guess what? So am I.” He explained, “We’re not going to get 100% of what we want. Because remember, whatever we pass, we’ve got to send over to the Senate that’s run by Chuck Schumer. And it’s got to be signed into law by Joe Biden. They’re not going to give us anything that we want.”

In discussing narrowly avoiding a government shutdown by compromising on appropriations bills, Johnson stated, “We shouldn’t be opposed [to] or scared of a government shutdown. But you have to have a plan to get a better policy outcome or to get something on the other side. You don’t shut it down just for the sake of that.” He explained that a government shutdown would eventually be blamed on House Republicans, many of whom may not be reelected as a result. Since Democrat votes would be needed to reopen the government, Johnson clarified, Republicans would have to make major concessions on policy to secure those votes and reopen the government. “It probably guarantees that we lose our House majority in the election in November, and I can’t reopen the government,” the Speaker said. “We would have wound up much worse off than the appropriations bills at the end of that, and we would have been blamed for everything.”

Turning to the issue of abortion, Johnson posited that Democrats are using the hot-button issue to distract voters from their policy failures. “They’re absolutely desperate in this election cycle,” the Speaker said. “And they believe abortion is the only thing they can run on. They know that because their policies have been so disastrous for everybody. They’re not being honest.” Johnson explained that in shielding their own extreme positions on abortion, Democrats are attempting to paint pro-life Republicans as restrictive extremists.

He also discussed the role that Christians and conservatives must play in building a “culture of life.” Johnson declared, “If you’re going to have political consensus on a controversial issue, you’ve got to have cultural consensus first.” He explained further:

“The challenge for us right now — for the church or people of faith or the Republican Party — is to help build that culture of life and so that we make people understand the stakes here, that’s why it’s so important and why this makes us who we are as Americans. It’s about human dignity. It’s about recognizing that all of us are not just born equal, we are created equal. That’s what our nation’s birth certificate says in the declaration.”

“This Week On The Hill” airs Saturday mornings at 7 a.m. EST on the Salem Radio Network. The show is also available on the Salem News Channel, Salem Podcast Network, and Townhall.com.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘Faith in Jesus Christ Alone’: How Americans Agreed Christianity Is Core to Conservatism

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In the years leading up to the birth of the nation we know as America, political discourse was exercised in pubs, in the pages of newspapers, in the town square, and on the steps outside courthouses. The patriots who forged America would define and refine together what liberty means and what responsibilities are carried with it, how men are governed and by what authority, and what a nation is and what it means to be an American.

Today, that same patriotic spirit that burns in the hearts of conservatives articulates itself largely on social media. On Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and even on less mainstream sites like Gab or former President Donald Trump’s Truth Social, conservatives carry on the work of their forefathers and clarify ideologies, debate traditions, and ask what it means to be an American conservative. Just as early American patriots made their voices heard in the streets of Boston, Philadelphia, and Annapolis, so American conservatives made their voices heard on Twitter last week, resoundingly declaring that Christianity is core to conservatism.

Lizzie Marbach, a former Trump 2020 campaign staffer and current Ohio pro-life advocate, tweeted last week, “There’s no hope for any of us outside of having faith in Jesus Christ alone.” The tweet itself garnered a moderate amount of notice and many social media users agreed with Marbach, who was essentially repeating longstanding (and, honestly, pretty basic) Christian doctrine. And then along came Max Miller. The Republican congressman from Ohio and former Trump staffer reposted his fellow former Trump staffer’s tweet with his own derisive commentary, saying, “This is one of the most bigoted tweets I have ever seen. Delete it, Lizzie. Religious freedom in the United States applies to every religion. You have gone too far.”

First of all, it is important to note that Marbach is not a sitting legislator, nor even a government employee. Her tweet did not advocate, endorse, or even remotely suggest the suppression or persecution of any religious group or set of religious beliefs. This makes Miller’s comments all the more infuriatingly ironic: while claiming to support “religious freedom,” a sitting U.S. congressman told an American citizen to delete her profession of one of the most fundamental doctrines of her faith — a faith shared, by the way, by an estimated 70% of Americans.

Miller, who describes himself on Twitter as a “proud Jew,” was instantly ridiculed, shamed, and flatly contradicted by conservatives. Political commentator and podcast host Matt Walsh asked, “Do your constituents know that you consider basic Christian teaching to be ‘bigoted’? They do now I guess. Good luck in the next election!” Journalist Jack Posobiec, senior editor at Human Events, posted a meme reading, “[T]he best time to delete this tweet was immediately after sending it, the second best time is now.” Media personality and former GOP congressional candidate Lauren Witzke quipped, “Mask off moment.” Countless others commented simple variations of “Christ is King.”

Miller went further than merely airing his ignorance, though; he complained to Marbach’s employer, Ohio Right to Life, where his wife is a board member, and she was fired from her position as communications director. Ohio Right to Life stressed that Marbach wasn’t fired due to “any single event,” but even the ol’ post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy might be a bit of a stretch in application to this particular scenario.

In 2020, President Trump famously said, “It’s called ‘we do a little trolling.’” Well, trolling works. After the torrent of purely-digital backlash from Americans, Miller was forced to apologize. He said, “I posted something earlier that conveyed a message I did not intend. I will not try to hide my mistake or run from it. I sincerely apologize to Lizzie and to everyone who read my post.” Now, whether the apology was sincere or simply a PR necessity in the wake of denigrating the beliefs of over two thirds of Americans is not yet clear, though it’s worth noting that Miller did not delete his tweet calling expression of Christian thought “bigoted” and ordering an American Christian to “delete” her tweet, nor has he apologized for his role in having Marbach fired.

In fact, Marbach herself showed Miller just how “bigoted” and threatening Christians are by publicly forgiving him. She tweeted, “Max, I accept your apology 100%. However the truth is that it is not me from whom you need forgiveness, but God himself. I genuinely pray you seek him and find salvation!” She also posted the text of Matthew 18:21-35, in which Christ tells the parable of the unforgiving servant and instructs His disciples to forgive others not just seven times but “seventy-seven times.”

Aside from Miller’s appalling behavior and lackluster attempt at an apology, this episode demonstrates the commitment of conservatives to Christian ideals. Those who do not identify as Christian — atheists and agnostics, even some of Miller’s fellow Jews, were among his detractors — but as conservatives recognize the inherent truth that, without Christianity, there is nothing to conserve. The entirety of the conservative movement is founded upon distinctly Christian principles, traditions, and culture: liberty, order, virtue, duty, sacrifice, and all those noble ideals Americans have fought, bled, and died for over the past 250 years. These ideals were practiced, preached, preserved, clarified, and dogmatized by Christianity.

While nations and empires have risen and fallen, while the Roman republic decayed into tyranny, while kingdoms and races warred across medieval Europe, while European powers pioneered new lands, while the dream called America was realized, while bloody revolutions felled and founded new cultures and governments, while world wars raged, and even now into the present age, Christianity has stood strong, lovingly maintaining the doctrines laid out 2,000 years ago by a Carpenter from Nazareth, Who was also told, “Delete it,” in the parlance of the day, and lost far more than just His job.

Just as American patriots once agreed on what liberty is while sitting around their drinks in pubs, just as they once proclaimed what they knew to be true in the pages of their newspapers and gazettes, just as they once shouted their common beliefs in the streets, so too have today’s American patriots, speaking in today’s town square, agreed that conservatives must not condemn or denigrate Christianity but embrace it.

Hopefully, today’s patriots will continue following in the footsteps of their forefathers and will not be content with pub-table conversations, printed words, and marching in the streets, but will speak at the ballot box too and elect representatives who respect and even share their beliefs, the beliefs that this nation was built upon.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Gallup Polls Show Increase in Unbelief and Uncertainty, and It’s Not Surprising

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Since 2001, Gallup News has polled Americans on their belief in five prominent “religious entities” — God, angels, heaven, hell, and the devil. After their fifth poll, which took place in May of this year, Americans seem to be straying further from belief in religious entities, and thus, closer to uncertainty or even complete unbelief.

According to the poll, “74% believe in God, 69% angels, 67% heaven, 59% hell, [and] 58% the devil.” When comparing these results with the initial survey conducted in 2001, Gallup concluded that “belief in God and heaven is down the most (16 points each), while belief in hell has fallen 12 points, and the devil and angels are down 10 points each.” In addition to this information, a 2023 study done by George Barna at the Cultural Research Center of Arizona Christian University found that only 4% of Americans hold a biblical worldview, which has only recently dropped from the previous 6%.

Clearly, we are living in a time of depravity. Not in the sense of how humans are depraved on account of the fall in Genesis 3, but in the sense that Americans are deprived of truth while constantly being fed lies. Whether viewing these statistics from a biblical or secular worldview, the results shouldn’t be surprising.

From a biblical worldview, Christians see the enemy at work in the LGBT agenda, abortion industry, war on (biological) women, indoctrination of children, and many other aspects of society. In a short amount of time, these narratives crept their way to the surface of politics, education, and everyday life. Corrupt ideology is rampant among us, and it is difficult to escape from its gaping jaws without Scripture’s guidance.

But even from a secular worldview, the leftist agenda has been so loud that even those who were once neutral are now being swayed to adopt a distaste for religion. Again, not so surprising. Imagine straddling the fence of societal opinions when an army of “my truthers” come shouting their beliefs directly at you. The mere amplitude of their cries is enough to shove the indifferent onto the side of “inclusivity” and “acceptance,” even if solely out of fear of being hated or rejected.

“My body, my choice,” they scream.

“Gender and sexuality are subjective,” they proclaim.

“If you aren’t for us, then you’re against us and worthy of being canceled,” they threaten.

The list goes on for how these people tantalize those who disagree with them. They use the same tactics on the ones they see as vulnerable prey, just waiting to seize them with the bonds of worldly manipulation coordinated by Satan and his demons. To exasperate the matter, a sense of purposelessness plagues the unbeliever and often tempts the one who does believe. The 2023 Gallup poll only affirms this notion.

Regardless of what worldview one holds, it remains true that no human being enjoys feeling like they have no purpose. And yet, this is a common conundrum. If one does not find their purpose in Christ, Ecclesiastes makes it clear that all is vanity. For the one without God, purpose is impossible to find. So, when we see these statistics that say more Americans are committing to unbelief, or are trapped in uncertainty on what to believe, it is reasonable to attribute much of it to this desire of having purpose.

A biblical worldview comes with an agreed-upon objective of purpose found in Christ. Of course, the secular worldview has no objective truth, but rather a stream of various definitions of what purpose entails. David Closson, director of Family Research Council’s Center for Biblical Worldview, put it this way: “A fragmented worldview leads to confusion.” And this confusion is only becoming more prominent. As a result, we can expect the numbers of those who believe in spiritual entities to continue dropping as the heritage of biblical worldview becomes increasingly forgotten.

When discussing how Christians can respond to this reality, Closson noted two major obligations: to remember we live in a post-Christian world and to not take basic Christian doctrine for granted. “Even a lot of Christians probably don’t do well on these polls,” he said. “Why is that? Because people are not reading their Bibles and pastors are not giving theologically [rich] sermons.”

As Closson phrased it, Christians need to “re-double efforts in New Testament discipleship 101,” which he concluded is to preach the word, study the Bible, engage in Christian fellowship, and strive to strengthen our faith in and out of the church walls. Ultimately, if Christians don’t do what we know we are called to do according to Scripture, no one else will.

It is unlikely this poll will be the last of its kind conducted by Gallup. And it is likely the numbers will continue to fall. But rather than allowing it to serve as a hindrance to the Christian calling, may it fuel our hearts to good works, bold faith, and godly witness.

Christ’s church is being built as we speak — don’t you dare pull back now.

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Tucker Carlson Out at Fox News Days After Asking Americans to Wage Spiritual Warfare, Pray for Our Country

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Fox News Channel announced it cut ties with the top-rated host in cable news, Tucker Carlson, on Monday, just days after he gave a widely praised speech imploring leaders to pray that God will preserve America from the progressive movement’s “evil” agenda.

Promoting transgender surgeries for minors and describing abortion as a good thing are “manifestations of some larger force” exerting its nefarious influence over us, he said over the weekend. Fox’s announcement, which removed Carlson’s reliably populist-conservative voice from the increasingly moderate network’s schedule, caused the corporation’s stock to tank by more than half-a-billion dollars.

“FOX News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor,” said a press release from Fox News Channel. Neither the network nor Carlson disclosed the reason for the abrupt contract cancellation. The host did not get to give his audience a farewell broadcast. “Mr. Carlson’s last program was Friday April 21st,” said the release. Carlson’s Friday episode discussed the Nashville shooter’s still-unreleased manifesto, the longstanding Obama-Biden plan to establish permanent Democratic power by moving low-income people into suburbia, America’s uncontrolled border with Mexico, and the mysterious meaning of the “plus” in “LGBTQIA+.” Carlson closed the show by eating pizza with local hero Tyler Morrell, a delivery man who tripped a criminal suspect eluding police.

“Tucker Carlson Tonight” ended its six-and-a-half-year run as the highest-rated show in all cable news with an average of 3.39 million viewers. Even in his departure, Carlson outperformed his competitors, as his exit from Fox News drew far more headlines than CNN’s decision to fire low-rated 17-year host Don Lemon the same day.

Carlson’s eponymous primetime show has featured exclusive footage of the January 6 Capitol riot, reports from a Chinese whistleblower that COVID-19 originated inside China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, and proof that prisons released hundreds of violent criminals thanks to the First Step Act. He also invited guests who did not agree with his conservative views to discuss the transgender movement’s grooming of children, oppose current or potential wars, and expose Deep State censorship.

Carlson and frequent guest Jason Whitlock increasingly analyzed political problems through a spiritual lens. Earlier this month, Carlson said, “Transgenderism is this country’s fastest growing religion.” Transgender ideologues “believe that they themselves are God with the power to control nature” by changing their gender by taking careful thought.

Tucker Carlson’s analysis turned especially prophetic shortly after his last show Friday night, when he gave the keynote address at the Heritage Foundation’s 50th anniversary gala. The political debate had shifted radically since 1991, when he got his first job as the copy editor of Heritage’s quarterly publication, Policy Review, for $14,000 a year. At that time, think tanks engaged in fact-based debates over mutually shared goals: for instance, whether Keynesian or Austrian economics created maximum prosperity. “I don’t think we’re watching a debate over how to get to the best outcome,” he said.

Today, the progressive political movement promotes laws allowing surgeons to “sexually mutilate children … I don’t think anyone could defend that as a positive outcome, but the weight of the government and a lot of corporate interests are behind that,” he said.

Similarly, in the Clinton era, Democrats portrayed abortion as a necessary evil. “But if you’re telling me abortion is a positive good, what are you saying? Well, you’re arguing for child sacrifice, obviously,” he said. “That’s like an Aztec principle.”

“None of this makes sense in conventional political terms,” he said. When political leaders embrace “destruction for its own sake … what you’re watching is not a political movement; it’s evil.”

“Those ideas won’t produce outcomes that any rational person would want under any circumstances. Those are manifestations of some larger force acting upon us,” Carlson said.

Carlson noted his spiritual insight is hampered by his background in the liberal Episcopal Church USA. “I’m an Episcopalian, so don’t take any theological advice from me, because I don’t have any. I grew up in the shallowest faith tradition ever invented,” Carlson said. “It’s not even a Christian religion at this point, I say with shame.” Yet his views derive equally from the Christian tradition and classical Athenian notions of the good, the true, and the beautiful. “Good is characterized by order, calmness, tranquility, peace … lack of conflict, cleanliness.” Evil “is characterized by their opposites: violence, hate, disorder, division, disorganization, and filth.”

“If you are all in on the things that produce the latter basket of outcomes, what you’re really advocating for is evil,” Carlson said. “I’m not calling for a religious war, far from it. I’m merely calling for an acknowledgement of what we’re watching.”

Carlson described the spiritual power that emanates from following God’s commandments. “The truth is contagious,” and “the second you decide to tell the truth about something, you are filled with this power from somewhere else,” he said. “The more you tell the truth, the stronger you become.” Entertaining lies, and “Drug and alcohol use are the same way: They make you weak and afraid.”

Carlson then hailed those who would not engage in the pageantry of sharing their pronouns for faith-based reasons. “I’m not doing that. It’s a betrayal of what I think is true. It’s a betrayal of my conscience, of my faith, of my sense of myself, of my dignity as a human being, of my autonomy.”

“I am not a slave. I am a free citizen, and I’m not doing that,” Carlson said, likening their steadfast obedience to the Apostle “Paul on trial.”

In a heartfelt moment, Carlson shared how he “was overcome a little bit with emotion” during a prayer offered by Fr. Paul Scalia, the son of late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, which convicted him of an oversight in his patriotic duties. “I don’t pray enough for the country, and I should,” Carlson said. “We all should be.”

He closed his speech by exhorting his audience to set aside a substantial block of time to pray for the United States. “Maybe we should all take like 10 minutes a day to say a prayer about” America’s future. “I’m saying that to you not as some kind of an evangelist. I’m literally saying that to you as an Episcopalian. … and even I have concluded it might be worth taking just 10 minutes out of your busy schedule to say a prayer for the future, and I hope you will,” he concluded.

Before the news of Carlson’s departure from Fox broke, Christians hailed the spiritual content of Carlson’s Heritage speech. “He is so spot on! God bless him for his clarity and his courage,” said Christian talk show host Janet Parshall. “He understood we are in a war between good and evil — and dared to say so,” noted evangelical Christian author and talk show host Eric Metaxas.

During a question-and-answer session immediately after the speech, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts told Carlson, “If things go South at Fox News, there’s always a job for you at Heritage.”

It is not known whether Carlson’s call to spiritual warfare preceded or followed his departure from the network, or whether it influenced the Monday morning announcement. FNC renamed Carlson’s show “Fox News Tonight,” which will be filled by a rotating series of guest hosts until the network names a permanent anchor — a decision that drew international condemnation.

“Tucker Carlson is irreplaceable. This will hurt Fox News,” predicted UK politician and Brexit leader Nigel Farage.

The stock market soon confirmed his words. Within hours of the announcement, Fox Corp. stock tumbled by 5.4%, trimming approximately $1 billion from the company’s value, before leveling out to 2.9%, for a $507 million loss. The plunge reportedly reduced 92-year-old executive chairman Rupert Murdoch’s net worth by $182 million.

But it cheered the hearts of Carlson’s more implacable foes, including numerous Democratic elected officials who had called for the network, or the government, to suppress Carlson. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said “our democracy depends on” Murdoch deciding to “stop Tucker Carlson from going on” his network. Over the weekend his colleague, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), called for harsher “federal regulation in terms of what’s allowed on air and what isn’t,” accusing “Tucker Carlson and some of these other folks on Fox” of unspecified “incitement of violence.”

Fox News’s rift with Tucker Carlson came four days after the network announced it had also parted ways with Dan Bongino — the latest in a number of lurches the network has made to the left since the ascension of Rupert Murdoch’s son, Lachlan Murdoch, and especially after former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (who once voted for the anti-conscience Employment Non-Discrimination Act) joined Fox News’s board of directors in 2019. The network has since platformed such social liberals as former Democratic campaign strategist Donna Brazile, UK presenter Piers Morgan, and former men’s Olympic decathlon gold medalist Bruce Jenner, who now identifies as female and changed his name to Caitlin Jenner.

The drift evidenced itself in Fox’s news coverage, as well. As part of Fox News’s celebration of Pride Month last June, “America’s Newsroom” anchor Dana Perino introduced a story on celebrating parents who began presenting their five-year-old daughter in public as a boy. The Whittington family showed “extraordinary courage” in transitioning their preschooler based on their “conservative faith,” said reporter Bryan Llenas, adding, “People are afraid of what they do not understand.” Fox News has also parroted pro-abortion rhetoric in its news coverage of late-term abortion.

“For a while Fox News has been moving to become establishment media, and Tucker Carlson’s removal is a big milestone in that effort,” said rival Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy.

Senators and members of Congress weighed in on the latest programming shake-up. “Could a new network emerge featuring (among others) @TuckerCarlson & @dbongino?” asked Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) on his personal Twitter account. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) praised both men as “true trailblazers amid a period where American corporate media controls speech.”

Carlson has yet to speak publicly on the matter or announce his next steps. Glenn Beck, himself a former Fox News host, offered to pay Carlson “a bucketful of money” to take a job at The Blaze. “You won’t miss a beat, and together, the two of us will tear it up,” he promised.

Carlson recently shared his increasingly critical view of the mainstream news media, which he said intentionally denied Americans access to the information necessary to become effective citizens.

“The media are part of the control apparatus,” Carlson told the “Full Send” podcast. “Their job is not to inform you. They are working for the small group of people who actually run the world. They’re their servants and their Pretorian Guard, and we should treat them with maximum contempt, because they have earned it.”

Carlson’s supporters hope he will return to another platform soon — and that Americans will take up his charge to pray for our country in the meantime. “We need to turn to God as a nation, in every way that we can, with everything in us,” Metaxas added. “It is genuinely our only hope.”

Jonathan Cahn, the author of “The Return of the Gods,” did not immediately return this reporter’s request for comment.

AUTHOR:

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Confront Evil, Protect the Vulnerable

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There were signs of spring everywhere — in the bright morning sun, the pink flowers lining trees beside the parking lot, the signs for Easter services. As a small gray car rounded the bend, security cameras caught little children pumping their legs on swing sets in the background — the last carefree moment any of them will remember about this day. As they have in too many cities, Nashville’s moms and dads went about their days, not realizing they’d said goodbye for the last time.

For the seven families whose lives changed forever Monday morning, there is no making sense of the heartbreak. But for one set of parents, it’s a unique kind of pain — knowing their daughter is the one responsible. Norma Hale, whose Facebook page is full of proud mom moments, woke up Tuesday with the knowledge that her 28-year-old child’s last words to a friend were “I don’t want to live.” Moments later, Audrey Hale shot through the double glass doors she’d walked through hundreds of times as a Covenant school student, ready to kill.

Miles away, a stunned Averianna Patton sat holding her phone, rereading the text that something bad was about to happen. “Audrey!” she had frantically written back. “You have so much more life to live. I pray God keeps and covers you.”

But it was too late. Hale was walking the hallways of her old Christian school, gunning down anyone in her path. A beloved custodian. The revered head of the school. A favorite substitute teacher. The senior pastor’s only daughter. A nine-year-old boy and girl. In a split second, the buzz of classrooms gave way to sirens and school alarms.

Outside, officers grabbed rifles — listening to reports that some kids were unaccounted for. “Let’s go!” Officers Rex Engelbert is heard yelling to his men, who all take off running toward the gunfire. Unlike Uvalde, where police were paralyzed by indecision, Nashville’s team charged into the school and up the stairs, seeing Hale spraying bullets on the police cars below. Twenty-five seconds later, Officers Engelbert and Michael Callazo fired the shots that took her down — an act of pure and selfless heroism.

No one knows how many others might have died without these men sprinting into the face of evil. “The first call to 911 about shots being fired in the building came in at 10:13 a.m.,” Nashville Police Chief John Drake said. They saved lives. “Let us praise our first responders,” Mayor John Cooper urged. “Fourteen minutes,” Cooper said, referring to the time it took police to get to the scene and stop the shooter. “Fourteen minutes, under fire, running to gunfire.”

In the chaos that followed, children raced down the sidewalks in their school uniforms, holding hands with teachers. From every direction, panicked adults started to arrive, wondering if their child was one of the dead.

Inside, police tried to get a grasp on the casualties. Hale had “a significant amount” of ammunition, they discovered. And a manifesto. “There’s some belief that there was some resentment for having to go to that school,” Drake explained, as outlets started to pick up on the explosive news that Audrey identified as Aiden.

Immediately, the Left turned loose its attack dogs, savaging Drake and the media for “misgendering” the shooter that everyone had rightly described as a woman. Within hours, both USA Today and The New York Times apologized for calling Audrey a “female,” ultimately editing stories and headlines to appease the unappeasable mob who have fostered hostility for those who refuse to yield to their dangerous and destructive charade.

Hours later, the blame game began in earnest. None of this would have happened, activists said, if society were more accepting of the trans ideology, if Audrey’s parents had just been more open to her male identity, if states had just stopped banning drag shows and kids’ gender transitions.

One NBC reporter even went so far as to lay responsibility at the feet of conservatives for fighting to protect children from the transgender ideology that so obviously haunted Hale. “The GOP have decided that guns are more important than kids,” actor Josh Gad argued. “They have decided it is okay to let kids die.” If she was a victim of anything, others claimed, it was “intolerant … brainwashing” and “religious indoctrination.” Then came the ridicule. “Is it possible they weren’t praying enough?” talk show host David Pakman mocked the school. “If prayers alone worked there wouldn’t have been a mass shooting at a school where they pray…” one gun control activist scoffed.

Make no mistake. A storm is brewing in this country that screams, “Christianity is the problem!” The calls will come — if they haven’t already — for the faithful to step back from cultural engagement, to acquiesce on biblical truth where the battle is raging the fiercest: for our children. It’s the same argument the Left has been using on the parents of confused kids — give in or they’ll hurt themselves. To the church it will be: back off or they’ll hurt others.

The inclination will be to move away from biblical truth, the very source of hope and freedom that confused and troubled souls like Audrey need. But that’s not the way forward in a nation broken and bleeding. As much as the other side would like to manage the chaos by indulging these delusions and passing meaningless legislation, the problem isn’t the state of our laws; it’s the condition of the heart.

These tragedies, whether they’re in Nashville or Newtown, are the bitter fruit of a deception that’s destroying us. It’s time to address these lies with urgency, acknowledging that we are a broken people in need of the God that we keep pushing away. It is our moment to do what the brave officers in Nashville did: confront and engage the crisis. These aren’t men who sat on the sidelines, letting the shooter take aim at more children. They rushed straight into the face of danger and protected the weak. As Christians, we’re called to do the same: confront evil and protect the vulnerable so they may know Jesus.

That’s not easy in a society as hostile to truth as ours. But we do not honor the memories of Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, Williams Kinney, Mike Hill, Cynthia Peak, and Katherine Koonce by abandoning the faith they died living. A spiritual battle is raging for this generation, and we will not win it with silence. We’ve been called, as Ezekiel was called, to speak the word of God in dark days — no matter the cost. “Be not afraid of them, nor be afraid of their words … [Y]ou shall speak my words to them, whether they hear or refuse to hear, for they are a rebellious house” (2:6a,7).

For now, we are a nation swimming in grief. But consider the timing of this tragedy, so near Easter. In this season of empty tombs, we cling to the only hope capable of holding the hurting together. “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet he shall live” (John 11:25). To those families suffering under the weight of unspeakable loss, we rejoice with them that Jesus’s death was not the end of His story — and it will not be the end of theirs either.

AUTHOR

Tony Perkins

Tony Perkins is president of Family Research Council and executive editor of The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

A Child’s-Eye View of Communism’s Absurdities

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Candid childhood memories of life behind the Iron Curtain

It is a truism to say that children have a grasp of reality different from adults; a clearer and more honest grasp that in most cases they lose with maturity. Rare is the man or woman who retains that innocent capacity to see through grown-up hypocrisy and pretence, presented to us so vividly in Hans Andersen’s memorable fairy-tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes.

In this humorous memoir of growing up in a city (unidentified) of 40,000 in the southern Urals of the Soviet Union in the 1970s-1980s, Fr Alexander Krylov, of Russian-German origin, manages to retain the undeceived eyes of childhood as he relates the absurdities and contradictions of life under Communism.

God and family

So many memoirs of living under the Soviet regime are, understandably, riven with bitterness and anger; the suffering has been too great to forget. The young Krylov, an only child, was protected from this by the love and faith of his family: his Catholic mother and grandmother and his Orthodox father.

The latter died when he was aged seven; showing unusual understanding for his age, Krylov realised that he was now “the one man in the family.” A certain independence of outlook seems to have characterised him from the start — probably because, despite the constant atheist propaganda impressed on him at school and in the wider society, “God’s presence in everyday life was… self-evident for our family.”

Much of this was owing to his grandmother’s influence for, as the family breadwinner, his mother had to work long hours outside the home. This grandmother, who had grown up in a German-speaking colony in Russia, resembled a traditional Russian “babushka” in her fortitude, her generosity and her strong faith that years of living in Leonid Brezhnev’s decrepit Soviet society could not erase.

In this world, all its citizens were officially atheist yet, as Krylov relates, everyone in his neighbourhood “knew” who the believers were and what religion they followed. His grandmother “saw an ally in every human being who was seeking God — Jews, Orthodox and Muslims” because — especially in death — “common prayer was much more important than any disagreement.”

There were no churches in his city and he only saw the inside of an Orthodox church (in western Ukraine) before starting school, aged six. Overwhelmed by its icons, candles and awe-inspiring atmosphere, Krylov told his mother, “Let’s stay here forever.” Undeterred, his grandmother erected a homemade altar in their small apartment, with its holy pictures, holy water, hymns and secret celebrations of the great Christian feasts. A candle would be lit in the window at Christmas; it was “somehow implicitly clear that God does not abandon human beings as long as a light is burning in at least one window on Christmas Eve and at least one person is waiting for the Christ-child.”

Economic woes

The author takes a gentle swipe at western society, obsessed with dietary fashions, when he explains, in a chapter titled “Healthy Diet”, why Soviet citizens had no choice but a healthy diet. Trying to survive in a corrupt and inefficient command economy, almost all families had an allotment with fruit trees and vegetables, to compensate for what they could not buy in the shops: everything possible was pickled, canned, stored or preserved. For some reason chickens were plentiful:

“Thanks to the poor work of the chemical industry, they were raised with no additives and usually looked as though they had walked by themselves from the chicken factory to the grocery store.”

I laughed aloud as I read this and other reminiscences, narrated in the candid way of a man who has not lost the artless gaze of a child. (After a distinguished academic career in Moscow, Fr Krylov decided to become a priest aged 42, on Easter Monday 2011 and was ordained in 2016.)

Another anecdote describes how he briefly worked in a grocery store where the shelves were often lacking common items buyers craved. Organising the shop’s store room, he noticed many such items, piled them on a trolley and wheeled it through into the shop, to the delighted surprise of the customers. The teenage boy could not understand why the manageress looked so discomfited and why his employment was suddenly curtailed.

Inner life

Just as the late Russian poet, Irina Ratushinskaya, who spent four years in the Gulag for writing “subversive” poetry, commented she was told so often as a child “there is no God”, that she began to believe in Him, Krylov reflects: “The prohibition against owning a Bible in the Soviet Union could only confirm its importance.”

In a telling incident in his teens, he describes a classroom meeting where these young Soviet citizens planned “to put socialist democracy into action.” This meant denouncing a fellow student who would not obey the rules. Krylov, who had befriended him, defended him in front of his classmates. They then turned on him, aware that he too was somehow “different.” The author comments, “Although I was always present, I lived my own life”. This hidden, inner life, which they sensed though it was never made explicit, presented an existential threat to his fellow student ideologues.

Inevitably, Lenin’s image was everywhere. Joining the Communist youth group, the Young Pioneers, one wore a red neckerchief and star. “Depicted on this star were the head of Lenin and three tongues of fire. I shared with no one my impression that this star depicted the head of Lenin burning in hell.” This was the response of a child whose private faith, never mentioned in class, helped to protect him against the atheism he was forced to listen to in public.

Finally, aged 15, overhearing the jocular remark of a friend’s father that vodka was “opium for the people”, Krylov comments: “Suddenly my eyes were opened: [I realised that] Communism had simply become a new religion.”

If the Emperor in this case was not exactly naked, nonetheless the short, discrete chapters of this kindly memoir remind readers that his clothes were uncomfortable, unsuitable, ill-fitting and threadbare.

This review has been republished with the author’s permission from The Conservative Woman.

AUTHOR

Francis Phillips

More by Francis Phillips

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Going Beyond The Culture Wars

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How Western culture has been moulded by faith.

Faith Challenges Culture: A Reflection of the Dynamics of Modernity
Paul O’Callaghan | Lexington Books | 2021, 142 pp

In this terrific book, Dubliner Fr Paul O’Callaghan, a lecturer in the school of theology in the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, presents a succinct and insightful analysis of a daunting topic: the interaction of faith and culture.

He sets himself the task of examining how Western culture has been moulded by faith (by which he means faith in the strict sense of revealed religion, and not religion in general) and in particular how this is true of four realities key to contemporary culture: rationality, freedom, equality and (surprisingly) conquest.

As we might imagine, the faith-culture relationship will of necessity be a complex one. They are two very different realities: faith stems from a divine initiative, indeed an “interruption” into human history, while culture is the fruit of human endeavour. And nevertheless as the author points out, the West has developed without either element erasing the other; rather they “seek each other out”, each respecting the contribution of the other (for the most part):

“Christian revelation and grace are not meant to ride roughshod over reality, over the world as we know it, over the lives and dreams and projects of its inhabitants, over the traditions and civilizations consolidated over the centuries…”

And yet we know that Modernity (the period dating from around the 16th or 17th century) has been predicated on an elevation of man accompanied by a diminished view of God and a disregard for the West’s Christian roots — an unfortunate over-correction of the mediaeval world’s bias for the divine over the human.

The effects of the secularising tendency of modernity are apparent in the impoverishing effect on those four key areas of rationality, freedom, equality and conquest, distorting them in the direction of rationalism, licence, reductive egalitarianism and rapine respectively.

The interaction of faith and culture

O’Callaghan discusses briefly a number of core tenets of Western civilisation which have their roots in the Bible, such as the notion of intrinsic human dignity, the centrality of human freedom, and the sanctity of marriage.

He cites the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ most interesting distinction between the Judeo-Christian concept of “righteousness and guilt” and the pagan “honour and shame” culture. The former places man’s intrinsic worth on something interior and not immediately apparent, something at the realm of freedom and conscience, and ultimately a person’s interior relationship with God.

The latter on the other hand looks to the external actions alone, for which a person earns honour or shame from others. Such a culture easily (perhaps excessively) exalts its heroes and unequivocally and even brutally condemns its enemies (think “cancel culture”). Lacking the classic Judeo-Christian distinction between sin and sinner, it equates the sinner with their apparent sins, and so is merciless in shaming (and “cancelling”) offenders.

Many core elements of Western culture come from an “intelligent and practical assimilation of Christian Revelation” which is complex and ongoing. There has never been, nor can there ever be, a “purely Christian culture” (despite the nostalgia of some for a Medieval Golden Age of Christendom): sin is a constant in human existence, and has always been present in human culture. Modernity itself, despite all its secularising tendencies, is a “highly positive phenomenon”. As Pope Benedict has reminded Christians, Modernity’s own intrinsic merits as well as its “material fidelity to Christianity” must be acknowledged.

While the theme of the modern world’s fundamental indebtedness to Christianity has recently been revisited and popularised in Tom Holland’s highly successful Dominion, this is not Holland’s discovery: it has been covered in the past by the likes of Dostoevsky, Guardini, T.S. Eliot, and even Jürgen Habermas (for whom the West’s sense of personal conscience, human rights, equality and democracy is built directly on “the Jewish ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love… All the rest is postmodern chatter.”)

Unfortunately of course, the Christian roots of Western values are increasingly being ignored and forgotten, and it would be, in the words of the Dutch reformed pastor Wim Rietkerk, modern man’s biggest mistake if he thought “that he could keep enjoying the fruits without the roots, without walking humbly with his God. … There is no future for a Western civilisation cut off from its roots.”

The four key tenets

O’Callaghan then focusses his attention on those four concepts so central to the West’s very identity: rationality, freedom, equality, and conquest. The last, “conquest” is an unusual concept, and the author explains it as follows:

We assume that what we obtain, what is at our disposal, we have a right to, as if it were our very own and belonging to no-one else. Whether we are talking about children, or property, or space travel, or instant telematic communication to the other side of the world … we see the world around us as a terrain of conquest, of achievement, of success.

He examines how these four notions as we understand them in the West, are essentially the fruit of Christian revelation.

The first, rationality, was already much prized — as logos — by the Greeks. For them rationality could not be understood without reference to the divine. Nevertheless the Christian conception of reason is even more elevated and optimistic than that of the Greeks, for whom reason was marred by very significant limitations.

Human reason for Christians receives a greater trustworthiness on account of the trustworthiness of its author: God. Nevertheless the secularising tendency of Modernity has lost the vastness of the power of reason as glimpsed by the Greeks, and boldly affirmed by Christianity. It began by reducing reason to a merely “computational and mathematical” power, and even now tends towards a radical scepticism which jettisons all confidence in reason.

O’Callaghan goes on to discuss how much the Western notion of freedom owes to Christianity. For Christianity freedom is essentially the filial freedom of those who are called to become God’s children: it is the “freedom of the glory of the children of God” in the words of St Paul. This is the ultimate goal for freedom to aspire to, a true “freedom for”.

However, this Christian-inspired concept of freedom came gradually to be eclipsed by a reductive “freedom from” — which reduces freedom to the mere capacity to choose one thing over another, without any intrinsic direction or dynamism. This reductive freedom is developed by the likes of Ockham, Bacon, Luther and more recently Foucault. Nevertheless, there has been a recovery of the richer conception of freedom, in particular by the Personalist movement for whom freedom is inseparable from man’s fundamental relatedness to others, and to God.

The notion of the fundamental equality of human beings so central to Western values is equally something stemming from Christian revelation. Man’s social and relational nature is presented throughout the Bible as constitutive of his very being. Against this is a non-Christian understanding of relationality as a sign of weakness, insofar as it implies dependence on others; a lack of the autonomy so valued by Modernity (and to a degree even by the Greeks).

The equal dignity under God of all men receives an unequivocal affirmation throughout the Bible. And yet the manifest inequalities between men are not a scandal for Christianity in the way they are for modern culture (for which all “inequality” must be ultimately stamped out), because the presence of neediness is a divine call to the others to live out the charity which must be at the heart of all social relations.

There follows a most illuminating consideration of the fourth tenet: the idea of conquest (by which we see “the world around us as a terrain of conquest”). What O’Callaghan shows here is that the now dominant “anthropology of the self-made man who designs and constructs himself down to the last detail” has lost sight of the Christian notion of gratitude.

The radical individualism that has developed in the West rejects as “childish”, indebtedness to others. Dignity requires that the self must be “self-made” and autonomous. This produces a great incapacity to receive from others, and with that a systematic ingratitude.

However for the Christian, absolutely everything is a gift from God, and man is a receiver of gifts before anything else. This then allows us in our turn to give and receive from others — there is no shame, nor subjugation in receiving understood in Christian terms.

Modernity, on the other hand, is marked by a systematic rejection of gift and so is marked by a striking ingratitude. What is needed is a return to the sense of gratitude gestured at by Heidegger when he said that “denken ist danken” (“to think is to thank”); that even “thought itself is a grateful receptiveness to the giveness of being”.

And so the ungrateful West is faced with the important task of rediscovering true gratitude, also gratitude towards God. The secular world’s “eclipse of worship” (to coin a phrase from Charles Taylor in his work A Secular Age) means that “humans have stopped recognising God as the source of all good and intelligibility. They have stopped thanking God, they no longer recognise the world they live in as a gift, they no longer live ‘eucharistic’ lives.” And such ingratitude is a serious state of affairs: “the most abominable of sins” for Ignatius of Loyola. The author concludes that:

“This has led many of those influenced by modern culture to a generalised loss of faith and to a pathology of individualism and ingratitude, as they attempt to live out their lives in isolation from their fellows, unprepared to recognise the world they live in and the privileges they enjoy as so many gifts they should be profoundly grateful for.”

The question of the gratitude leads on in the Epilogue to a very interesting discussion on the integration of conservatism and progressive liberalism. O’Callaghan shows that both the conservative and liberal tempers are embraced by Christianity: it is conservative insofar as it is conscious of being the receiver of gifts from God, and handed down by others by tradition; the Christian is by definition a conserver of these gifts.

At the same time, the Christian doctrine of Original Sin necessitates the liberal dimension since certain elements from the past will of necessity be tainted by sin and in need of reform and purification; not everything merits conservation. But there is need of a delicate balance of these two opposed tendencies: too much conservatism produces a lazy complacency that is fearful of change, while too excessive liberalism fails to appreciate what has been received from predecessors.

Conclusion

It is hard to overestimate the value of this book. O’Callaghan shows how our contemporary culture simply cannot be understood without a deep grasp of its Christian roots. And furthermore, he shows what damage our culture has already suffered because the key tenets of rationality, freedom, equality and conquest have to the degree to which they have become unmoored from their Christian roots.

At the same time, these affirmations are never simplistic; O’Callaghan takes into account the great complexity of the relationship between faith and culture. And even though it is quite a short book, the author does not oversimplify the issues involved. For that reason, parts of the book will be challenging for someone unfamiliar with the issues involved.

Certainly, this book would make a wonderful basic text for a college course on faith and culture. It would also very beneficial for anyone interested in the deeper issues at play in our current “culture wars”, where much of the discussion is unfortunately as heated as it is uninformed by philosophy and theology.

AUTHOR

Fr Gavan Jennings

Rev. Gavan Jennings studied philosophy at University College Dublin, Ireland and the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome. He is co-editor of the monthly journal Position Papers. He teaches occasional… 

EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Is Harvard hopelessly woke? What Harvard is really like

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Like most things, Harvard is what one makes of it — and this can include experiences rooted in faith and friendship. 

Harvard is often seen as the archetypal American university, offering a model that many others seek to emulate. So, as a new school year and new application season begin, it seems fitting to ask: what is this storied institution really like anyway? Is it home to heroes or heretics? Maker of gods… or the godless? My response is quite simple: neither extreme is accurate. Harvard is not as heavenly as some think; fortunately, it’s not as bad either.

My college decision was practically effortless. Harvard, I was told, offered everything a motivated, book-smart student could want: challenging courses; fabulous research opportunities; world-class professors; and, most importantly, insightful, intrepid, intellectually curious peers.

I envisioned a campus alive with students who genuinely loved learning, who asked big questions and pursued them to their limits, who discussed Dostoyevsky at lunch and astrophysics at dinner, and who would challenge, shape, and inspire me over the course of our college journey.

Needless to say, this vision wasn’t entirely accurate. Arriving on campus last fall, I was surprised to find that many of my peers did not choose Harvard out of a deep, reverent hunger for veritas. Rather, their motives were primarily mercenary: they had enrolled for the degree and the connections. Almost every Harvard student I know really is a smart, accomplished individual; test scores and ambition, however, are not necessarily synonymous with intellectual curiosity.

Lowered standards, heightened biases  

Critics of Harvard tend to focus on academic standards and political bias. In terms of academics, it is telling that Harvard’s two most popular concentrations are economics and government. Read: wealth and power. Students with these two goals are incentivised to take easy courses whenever possible: between grade inflation and the competitive nature of consulting applications, a B from a fabulous but challenging professor just won’t do.

As such, students offset rigorous concentration requirements with “gems,” pleasant, untaxing courses in which A’s are guaranteed and learning is optional. Last fall alone, over 800 students enrolled in a gen-ed course fittingly entitled “Sleep,” though how many attended more than one lecture remains unclear.

Administrators, meanwhile, do little to counter this trend. Notorious gems (“Sleep” excepted) are occasionally identified and restructured, but with tuition-paying customers to please and a reputation to maintain, addressing lowered standards will be essentially impossible.

The real tragedy is not the proliferation of easy A’s but the slow suffocation of liberal arts education. In lieu of a robust core is a smattering of “distributional requirements” easily satisfied by niche, fringe, or downright non-substantive courses. In other words, “Sleep” might be the only science course a Harvard student ever takes.

Thus, it’s possible to graduate from Harvard without challenging one’s prejudices, without genuinely exploring different disciplines, and without ever diverting one’s gaze from the holy trinity of law, finance, and consulting. Alas, the utilitarian ethos prevails; it was never about veritas anyway.

Harvard critics’ true concern, however, is not academic standards but politics — just how radical is the “Kremlin on the Charles”? According to the numbers, very. While 82 percent of Harvard faculty identify as liberal or very liberal, a mere 1 percent identify as conservative, and none identify as very conservative. The student body, luckily, boasts slightly more ideological diversity: conservative or very conservative individuals made up 6 percent of the Class of 2022, and nearly 70 percent were progressive or very progressive.

Can academic freedom, civil discourse, or mere open-mindedness thrive in such an environment? Here are a few illustrative examples that make it tempting to view Harvard as a powerful brainwashing machine:

First, my hallmates and I attended a mandatory, dorm-wide meeting at the start of the academic year to discuss the hookup culture. We were tasked with creating explanatory posters exploring the hookup culture in its various dimensions. One group of students crafted a suitably vague definition of “hookup” for their poster, while another brainstormed adjectives to describe hookups (highlights include “exciting” and “experimental”). Not once were other approaches to sex and dating, let alone inconvenient biological realities (sex not infrequently makes babies), ever mentioned.

Second, this past semester I watched a trembling professor issue a formal apology at the behest of her outraged students and teaching staff. Her crime: reading aloud a passage from Invisible Man — a novel advocating civil rights and equality — that contained a racial epithet. Although this incident had occurred during a discussion section before a small subset of enrollees, critics swiftly and loudly demanded that she ask the entire class for forgiveness. Pressuring a professor to apologise for her language threatens academic freedom. Critics certainly deserve a voice, but not at the expense of their professor’s.

Finally, I saw a formerly well-liked friend ostracised by her residential housemates during her last month at Harvard. This jovial, whip-smart senior was a Latina Democrat; she volunteered regularly at a youth homeless shelter, vocally advocated racial justice, and actively disliked Trump. Just participating in two pro-life rallies, it turns out, was enough to outweigh all of that.

Faith, friendship, and signs of hope

While such everyday occurrences make it tempting to believe that Harvard is a lost cause, there are two important limiting factors that suggest otherwise. First, because Harvard is a very large institution — with twelve graduate and professional schools, fifty concentrations in the undergraduate college, and an extensive array of administrative offices — centralised or consistent strategic communication is next to impossible. Having many supervisors, counterintuitively, leads to little supervision — within this large bureaucratic institution are many conservative niches, ranging from a controversial pseudonymous publication to a philosophical debating society to a growing pro-life presence on campus.

The second limiting factor is Harvard’s inherent elitism. Prestige and influence require class distinctions; in a truly equitable world, Harvard does not exist. Thus, Harvard will continue to champion progressivism — but never enough to endanger its own future. Harvard students of all political stripes perceive this hypocrisy; if anything, they graduate not more liberal but more cynical. So much for the formidable brainwashing machine.

In addition to these two limiting factors, my first year — which was hands-down my happiest in a decade — suggests that Harvard is not a lost cause. I learned to read ancient Greek, solved triple integrals, and wrote an essay on Fredrick Douglass’s conception of the human soul. I kayaked on the Charles, explored Boston’s fabulous art museums, and attended a weeklong seminar in Oxford. I befriended the dining hall workers, learned how to swing dance, and performed Schumann with my chamber ensemble.

Despite the prevalence of secularism and credentialism at Harvard, faith and friendship were central to my joyful first year. In fact, Christianity, particularly Catholicism, is alive at Harvard. Every morning, a dozen students attend daily Mass before eating breakfast together in a nearby dining hall. Weekly talks at the Harvard Catholic Center precede solemn adoration accompanied by a student band. And this past Easter alone, thirty-one members of the Harvard community were fully initiated into the Catholic Church.

Outside of the Catholic and Christian communities, Harvard students are very respectful of religion. Talking openly about my Catholic faith elicits not smirks and grimaces but genuine curiosity and the occasional request to join me at Mass. Although I attended Catholic school all my life, my faith life has never thrived as at Harvard.

Nor have I ever been blessed with such strong, beautiful friendships. Just one week into freshman year, I had already found a group of kind, intelligent friends. Yes, our everyday conversations are less intellectual than anticipated; yes, our educational goals differ significantly. But far more important is character. My friends at Harvard are truly virtuous and generous people.

What’s more, my experience is hardly singular. Personality is an important factor in Harvard’s admissions process — so while many admitted students are indeed ambitious and career-oriented, they are for the most part essentially decent people. This emphasis on personability combined with its unique housing system, active extracurricular life, and countless study abroad and fellowship opportunities means that Harvard intentionally and successfully fosters friendship.

One year into my Harvard career, I can report that no stereotype of the university is entirely accurate. By no means is Harvard an immaculate place: intellectual curiosity often suffers at the expense of utility, classes and administrators can be overly political, and students with unpopular views are often frightened into silence. Still, I have great hope for Harvard.

While it’s true that students can avoid Homer, Shakespeare, or Tolstoy if they wish, it is equally true that those fascinated by such literary giants will encounter first editions of their texts in the rare books library and brilliant professors eager to elucidate them.

Though Harvard students can graduate without having explored questions about God, morality, and the meaning of life, those brave enough to ask can consult prominent theologians and learned priests, travel to Jerusalem on Harvard’s dime, or simply walk down Bow Street to pray in magnificent St. Paul’s.

In the end, Harvard, like most things, is what one makes of it. It can never be perfect; what it can be is a haven for faith, friendship, and the pursuit of veritas.

This article has been republished with permission from The Public Discourse

AUTHOR

Olivia Glunz

EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

A New Sign of Our Times

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Robert Royal: The rise of populist Giorgia Meloni in Italian politics reflects a Europe-wide reaction against open borders and attacks on traditional culture, including the family. 

If exit polls hold, yesterday Italy elected its first female prime minister, Giorgia Meloni. The usual liberal voices will not be celebrating. Normally, Italian elections are of little interest. Since 1945, there have been seventy Italian governments – almost one a year, which might suggest instability. But Italians often say that the system is too stable. General elections just reshuffle members of the political class, which rarely change very much. Except maybe this time. A populist Italian prime minister (“extreme right,” “neo-fascist” in the mainstream media, of course) will have significant repercussions for Europe and America, and even the Catholic Church.

A prominent Italian theologian, now living in the United States has argued recently that Meloni’s election may “hurt Francis”: “The campaign has been vulgar and trashy, and all of the substantial issues – from the war in Ukraine to climate change – have been ignored.”

This account of “all the substantial issues,” like much political analysis these days, leaves out a lot. Namely, questions that daily concern most Italians – like crime, out-of-control inflation, and illegal immigration – in a country struggling economically and bewildered, as many Western nations are, by radical social changes, making their country unrecognizable to many citizens.

And Ukraine – about which Francis himself has been an uncertain trumpet – has in fact received considerable attention during the campaign. Italians, like other Europeans, don’t like Putin’s aggression, but are also deeply worried about crushing energy costs – multiple times their recent levels, even now, before winter.

The real problem with Meloni’s election for progressive Catholics appears to be that, “A new government in Italy could very easily strengthen opposition to Francis and severely limit the social and political reception of his pontificate’s core message.”

What is that “core message”?

For starters, openness to massive immigration. Even before “Who am I to judge?” Francis chose to make his first trip as pope to the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, which is closer to North Africa than Cuba is to Florida.

Thousands of illegal immigrants enter Italy there, after perilous crossings of the Mediterranean – or die trying. Italy is not an ideal destination, especially given the large differences in culture and religion (mostly Islam) of the new arrivals. Large majorities of Italians – and Europeans generally – feel inundated by what are essentially open borders.

The pope occasionally mentions that countries, of course, need to consider how many immigrants they can accommodate. But his “core message” is that Europe should be taking in far more.

There’s a real debate to be had about this; and it may now actually occur, if a right-oriented government has indeed come to power in Italy.

Secular Europe still accepts the Christian notion of “welcoming the stranger,” a moral principle that carries no little weight. But there’s a difference in both principle and practice when strangers arrive in the millions and place heavy burdens on peoples and cultures – which have their own problems and claims to consideration.

The UK left the European Union in part over immigration. Hungary and Poland have adopted policies (as perhaps Italy will now as well) aimed at preserving national identity, which European elites dub xenophobia and Islamophobia. Even France seems headed in that direction. Some churchmen (Francis among them, it appears) regard calls to limit immigration as mere greed, selfishness, and callousness.

It’s not that simple, however, as we know in America, when our poorest citizens and illegal immigrants compete for jobs and resources.

Europe has just witnessed another stunning political development: liberal Sweden has elected a populist/conservative government, “a new far-right surge” according to The Washington Post, but in reality ordinary Swedes reacting to soaring crime, hundreds of Islamist bombings, and the highest incidence of rape in Europe

But European populism isn’t only about immigration. It also involves the “culture war,” something Francis has studiously tried to tamp down.

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, recently warned that the European Union has “the tools” to deal with Italy if “things go in a difficult direction.” Even heads of Italy’s liberal parties felt obliged to remind the EU “not to enter into Italian affairs,” as one put it.

Von der Leyen mentioned how those “tools” (mostly withholding EU funds) were being used  against Hungary and Poland, not solely because of their immigration policies (Poland has generously absorbed tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees, almost all Christians, for example), but because of their support for traditional families, advocacy for more children and national identity, and – perhaps the sorest points for the EU – efforts to limit abortion and LGBT+ propaganda directed at young children, all tagged as tending towards “fascism.”

Meloni, however, is a poor candidate for the label. A Tolkien enthusiast who sees her work as protecting the Shire – i.e., Italy – she’s said, “I consider power very dangerous. . .an enemy and not a friend.”

She’s been cagey about abortion – willing to tolerate existing Italian law, but wanting to reduce abortion – this in a country where many medical professionals already refuse to be involved in abortion on conscience grounds. Her coalition will clearly favor more traditional social policies, something that triggers the international elites who have come to consider their own extreme positions on abortion, gays, and trans people as moral imperatives.

Pope Francis has spoken about abortion as like “hiring a hitman” and gender theory as a kind of Western cultural imperialism. At the same time, he has been quite indulgent towards pro-abortion politicians, and homosexual and trans groups. He has no stomach for the kind of culture skirmishes needed to make a difference.

As a non-Italian, it would be hard for him to criticize a political coalition that enjoys broad public support. The Italian bishops themselves will now be in a difficult spot between papal preferences and popular sentiment. It will be interesting to see if they can all get past the slurs about “fascism” and help Europe come to grips with a populism that is not without its perils, but has its reasons – a challenging new sign of our times.

You may also enjoy:

Brad Miner’s Meddling and Puritanical Jacobins

Alessandra Bocchi’s Italy Returns to Masses

AUTHOR

Robert Royal

Robert Royal is editor-in-chief of The Catholic Thing and president of the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington, D.C. His most recent books are Columbus and the Crisis of the West and A Deeper Vision: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century.

EDITORS NOTE: This Catholic Thing article is republished with permission. All rights reserved. © 2022 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

Breaking News from Harvard: Faith is Good for You

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The Bible tells us that there is nothing new under the sun (Ecc. 1:9). So often what passes for “news” is really nothing more than a refresher. A case in point is a new study from published this month in the American Journal of Epidemiology about the link between religious upbringing and subsequent health and well-being.

One not-so-surprising finding of the study, which was done by Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, is that, “Compared with no attendance, at least weekly attendance of religious services was associated with greater life satisfaction and positive affect, a number of character strengths, lower probabilities of marijuana use and early sexual initiation, and fewer lifetime sexual partners.” Additionally, among the studies’ participants:

“Compared with never praying or meditating, at least daily practice was associated with greater positive affect, emotional processing, and emotional expression; greater volunteering, greater sense of mission, and more forgiveness; lower likelihoods of drug use, early sexual initiation, STIs, and abnormal Pap test results; and fewer lifetime sexual partners.”

These findings aren’t a surprise to us here at FRC. For years, we’ve seen this in practice, and in data like those published by our friend Pat Fagan at the Marriage and Religion Research Institute. It is a demonstrable fact that when faith is allowed to flourish, good outcomes are in store for society at large.

The study’s author observes,

“These findings are important for both our understanding of health and our understanding of parenting practices. Many children are raised religiously, and our study shows that this can powerfully affect their health behaviors, mental health, and overall happiness and well-being.”

Of course, we know that “faith” in a generic sense doesn’t always guarantee a comfortable outcome, but an abiding faith in Jesus Christ can anchor a person’s soul for whatever he or she may face in life. A study like this won’t necessarily cause people to embrace faith, but it does show that a society in which religious liberty thrives will be a healthier society. And any government that wants to promote the well-being of its people should give ample space for people to have the freedom to believe and to live out those beliefs.

Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.

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As the Family Goes So Goes the Nation

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My Dad used to tell me that a nation (particularly the United States) is only as strong as her families. He began telling me that when I was just a little boy attending kindergarten. Our Cleveland neighborhood where I grew up was at that time an ideal leafy enclave of close knit families and neighbors. It was comprised of a mixture of racial and ethnic backgrounds, where folks got along and crime was a non-issue.

None of us were wealthy monetarily. There were educators, (back then they were called teachers) dentists, postal workers, small business owners, nurses etc. One of my favorite neighbors were the Rebisses. They were an Italian family who lived one house over from ours. It was sometimes rather difficult to decide which I enjoyed more, hanging out with my buddy Mark or enjoying Mrs. Rebisses great Italian cooking whenever I was invited, or the times I invited myself. Ours was a neighborhood of many patriots who often flew their American flags, especially between Memorial Day and Thanksgiving.

One of my most pleasant memories of those wonder years was how many of our neighbors were actually close friends who enjoyed each others company throughout the year. A most cherished memory of the old neighborhood was how many families would connect their Christmas lights in archways over their driveways. It was a spectacular sight to see many of the homes joined through beautiful lights in the spirit of Christmas.

Even our Jewish neighbors would drop by and enjoy our Christmas gatherings. Likewise they would make sure we joined them for Seder dinners. Very moving. Our neighborhood was not physically spectacular. But it was clean, comfortable, safe and stable. My belief at the time was that was how the majority of Americans lived. Turns out I was right. At that time, the bulk of American fathers, both black and white were in the home. Dads and moms both ruled the home with principles with Christian underpinning. We children were taught to respect our elders and other symbols of authority like the police, appreciate our country and were expected to achieve our best in school and in life in general.

Were we perfect? No, but because we were taught to aim high morally, ethically, and spiritually. The spiritual part kicked in later. (smile)

But as time progressed something happened and what seemed good at first has turned out to not so good after all. In fact, many things occurred that brought about a series of horrendous shifts in the ongoing function of out republic. One of the major developments was the civil rights, or what my Dad called the bastardized rights movement across America.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. began his quest for the unalienable rights of all Americans to be to recognized and honored. He firmly believed in the completed family that included both Dad, Mom and the children. I have a sneaking suspicion the Dr. King would also be firmly against the ongoing slaughter of the most innocent amongst us, unborn babies. Unfortunately, the ideals Martin Luther King espoused were gradually refocused away from unalienable rights which came from God, toward civil or bastardized right that are granted by government. It was special interest groups, not sovereign individuals that to this day most benefit most from that arrangement. When you have civil or (as my Dad said) bastardized rights, then include America’s transition from a constitutionally limited republic into a mob rule democracy things are destined for decline. Mob rule democracy places the government granted rights of the mob above the unalienable rights from God.

Dad was concerned that the corrupted civil or bastardized rights movement would help open the door to overthrowing all of the factors that had helped maintain family and national stability. So gradually, activities that were once considered immoral or wrong were gradually granted special rights status under the civil rights genre. Abortion quickly comes to mind for example. Now, groups of Americans are pitted against one another and the rights of individuals. You had Blacks against the police, homosexuals against the teachings of God the church, women against men.

Many of these groups had been brainwashed into thinking they were a collection of victims.

Combine that with several decades of government school indoctrination of American students against all that is good especially concerning the United States of America and what eventually brewed was a Caldron of madness. In more recent times in cities across America, mobs of blacks have been either fighting one another or starting riots in places like Ferguson, Missouri. And Baltimore. On St. Patrick’s Day 2015 in Cleveland after the huge annual parade, a group of black males and females converged and started beating up white citizens and out of town visitors alike. To them it was entertainment. The obvious lack of regard for civility stems from the purposeful breakdown of the black family and disregard for fathers. Also there was a taught hatred of America and possibly God himself.

My fellow Americans, let us pray for the restoration of our One Nation under God and constitutional law. We can either choose life or choose death for America. I would that we choose life.

God Bless America and May America Bless god.

Renegade Christians

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Followers of Christ are coming out from behind church doors to go where the poor and forgotten live.

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Liberals DO NOT believe in Freedom For All

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This past week end, I spent a lot of time outside working on my landscaping.  The long, hard winter of 2014/2015 looks to be over.  And I would just like to say thank you to Global Warming advocates who are still at a loss as to why this planets climate has not lived up to the desert like conditions promised.

I guess global warming equals record cold temperatures and record snow fall.  Well if that is what global warming is, then I will jump on board because I love living in New England and I sure don’t want another Alaska type winter to befall us.  Note the sarcasm.  But I digress.

While working in my yard this past week end, I got to see some of what makes America great.  The freedom of people to be who they want to be.  I saw people walking in shorts and tank tops. Mind you, although it is warm, to me it is far from tank top weather.

I saw folks riding their motorcycles, big ones and small ones.  Some had flags on the back.

Some were the noisy type.  Some were the fast type.  And some were the big, touring grandparent type. I saw folks taking their convertibles out for a week end joy ride probably for the first time this year.  I saw and heard the younger set with all their windows down and music blaring.  Yes, we can hear you a half mile away and you are going to kill your ears by playing music that loud. But at least in most communities, those young people have the freedom to play their music in their car as loud as they want.

And there it is.  The freedom.  I saw people enjoying their freedom.  Nobody telling them they could not walk in a tank top yet.  Nobody passing a law preventing motorcycles from being ridden at this time of year.  No overreaching ordinances telling young people that in order to be legal others cannot hear your music outside of your car at all.

Now this part of the article is for all of my Liberal friends and haters out there.  This is where I point out how hypocritical you are.  Lets take gay rights for example.  Now this is America.  As some would say, ‘Murica.  And this is the land of the free.  Which, you on the left say, means that gays have the right to live as they please.  They have a right to live in peace.  They have a right to love who they please.  They have the right to have a life just like a straight person.  To which many other Americans would agree. But then you turn the tables on everyone else.  You want laws dictating how others act and react around you.  You wish to stifle or take away the freedom and rights of others just to fit your own selfish desires.  You say you want to be free, but you want big government to dictate how we all live and interact with each other.

It would be like telling the person on the fast motorcycle that he is not allowed to go 65 mph on the highway while allowing cars to do that speed.  In other words, you are not asking for freedom.  You are asking for special privileges.  Privileges in which the rest of the population is not able to avail themselves of.  You are asking to separate the people in to classes and groups. Some classes and some groups get more freedom than others.

That kind of thought is straight out of the pages of the novel Animal Farm.  In this novel there is a passage that says, “some animals are more equal than others” which means some animals are not equal at all.

This is the same thought process used to own and keep slaves.  Blacks were not thought of as being equal to whites.  Now gays want to say that straights are not equal to gays.  And thus a straight person has no right to admonish gays in any way.  However, when you ask the question of gays should they be forced to make a T-Shirt for a Muslim that says “gays are infidels and must die” the fast and quick answer is no way.

Well if you have the right to tell a straight person they must make you a t-shirt that says “being gay is fab” then the Muslim has the right to tell the gay person to make him a t-shirt of his choosing. But in order to get around this, gays would say that what the Muslim wants is hate speech.  So you want to create a law that stops hate speech.  Even though, in this country, the Muslim is free to say what he pleases just like you and I.  But you wish to live your life of freedom by taking the rights of others away simply because you don’t like it.

This is not an issue with Muslims.  I need to say it because some of you out there would point out Muslims should not have a right to say what they say.  To which I reply with a query.  Why?  Sure I find a lot of what they say offensive.  But does that give me the right to deny his free speech rights simply because I don’t agree or like his speech? Does this mean that gays should censor straights because they don’t like the fact that some straights don’t agree with homosexuality?  Does it mean that we force the motorcycle to go only 55 instead of 65 because they are not wrapped in a steal cage?

Who decides who gets special rights and who gets their rights denied?  The point is when you deny someone their rights, you are most likely starting down that slippery road process of denying your own rights.  And frankly that makes us all less free.  And less freedom has no place in ‘Murica.