Many of us just celebrated Independence Day, that most American of holidays, with fireworks, parades, picnics, and backyard cookouts.

Although patriotism is apparently declining in the U.S., even the haters likely enjoyed their hot dogs and day off from work. (See this thoughtful piece about why there’s still much to celebrate despite the downturn in patriotism.)

There's also the limited-edition "President Donald J. Trump Signature Edition" Bible, which will run you a cool $1,000.

As we take down our stars-and-stripes decor, it seems a good time to review how patriotism and Christianity should not be conflated — and how when that happens, it harms the cause of Christ.

Here are a few examples of that confusion.

Recasting worship service as 'Freedom Sunday'

In my general neck of the woods, we have a big church that goes all out for July Fourth, so much that celebrating America takes over the entire worship service the week before.

Dr. Robert Jeffress and First Baptist Dallas are no doubt very patriotic, and "Freedom Sunday" looks like a heck of a show, but this isn't what church is about.

I believe this church — and others that do a “Freedom Sunday” — usually preach Christ, but why take the focus off Him for even one Sunday? It’s glorifying America; is it glorifying God?

Let’s say I’m visiting Canada and I’ve found what I believe to be a solid church that I can attend while visiting. But the Sunday I’m there is right before Canada Day, and instead of worship focused on God, Canadian Mounties ride their horses through the building as the choir sings “O Canada” and sprays everyone with red and white paper maple leaves. It’s glorifying Canada; is it glorifying God?

(Hint: The answer is no, both times.)

Promoting 'Christian nationalism'

Since every secular media outlet now labels all Christians in America Christian nationalists, we need to understand what real Christian nationalists are after.

Misunderstanding the Great Commission, they seek to impose a Christian government, from the top down — in effect “Christianizing” America. Here’s a brief clip from Christian nationalist Joel Webbon's podcast, in which he and his co-hosts discuss how great it would be for the government to forcibly redistribute property from bad churches to “good” churches.

Note their glee at the thought of Big Brother sending soldiers into the street to raid churches.

And lest you be tempted to think any part of that is a good idea, consider that a proudly self-identifying Christian nationalist recently told me I’m going straight to hell because I appreciate John MacArthur’s teaching. So apparently his church would also be forcibly raided, along with most others, since (thankfully) there are not a lot of churches on board with this nonsense.

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Critiquing the whole movement is beyond our scope today; it’s enough for now to point out the obvious upside-down thinking that leads these men to think Christianity in any way benefits from forcing it on a population. This is the opposite of how we are to approach our neighbors, and this wrongheaded movement is now actively driving people away from Christianity. It’s utterly antithetical to the faith.

Say it with me, louder for the ones in back: This is not what followers of Jesus are here to do.

Wrapping the Bible in Stars and Stripes

Other bad ideas are less Stalin-esque but equally damaging to the faith, and here’s an especially egregious example. Meet the "God Bless the USA Bible."

For just $99.99, you can have your very own "Patriot Edition" of the King James Version Bible, its cover "custom embossed" with the statement: "We are one people united by a common destiny and a shared purpose to love one another and the United States of America," followed by "God Bless the USA" and an image of a billowing American flag.

This is a Bible, but it’s not for everyone, is it? It’s for Americans who love the U.S.

Hey, I’m an American who loves the U.S., but this Bible is a bad idea. Why would we ever tamper with the word of God this way?

And speaking of tampering, according to the product description, this Bible also includes:

a handwritten chorus to “God Bless the USA” by Lee Greenwood;
the U.S. Constitution;
the Bill of Rights;
the Declaration of Independence; and
the Pledge of Allegiance.

With the exception of Greenwood’s contribution, these are all important, worthy documents.

But they don’t belong in the Bible. Putting them there implies that they are somehow equivalent with the word of God. That’s not just wrong; it’s heretical.

But wait — there's more!

Other editions on offer include the "Presidential Edition," the "First Lady Edition," and the "Vice Presidential Edition," each embossed with the respective office's seal.

I think these folks are a great improvement over the last administration, but are any of them actually Bible-believing Christians? What are they doing on the cover of a Bible?

There's also the limited edition "President Donald J. Trump Signature Edition," which will run you a cool $1,000.

Someone is making bank.

Did it just get a little “den of thieves-ish” in here? Might be time for some table-flippin’ again.

Interpreting scripture as being about America

I’ve no intention of buying one of those Bibles to find out, but I suspect they might feature the kind of biblical-patriotic imagery that litters our social media feeds in the days leading up to July 4.

For example, a picture of an American flag overlaid with the passage from 2 Chronicles 7:14: "Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land."

The Christian nationalist guys like this verse, I’m sure, but "my people" here refers to Israel. This is not a promise for America or any other nation.

So it is with another popular meme, which puts Psalm 33:12 over Old Glory: "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage."

Nope, Israel again. The psalmist was talking about Israel.

The Christian nationalists think they can create a theocracy where this would apply, but they can’t because that is not what God has ordained for us. We can only win people to Jesus, loving them one at a time.

Then there's the image of a stern bald eagle (posing in front of the Stars and Stripes) glowering at us to do our duty as citizens and ponder the accompanying verse from Galatians 5:1: "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery."

Do not submit to sin. The slavery referred to here is to sin. Hardly the message the eagle with an attitude is giving off, though. And our freedom in Christ has literally nothing to do with our freedom as American citizens.

Ditto for another meme that splashes Galatians 5:13-14 across an American flag: "For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'"

Ditto. You were called to be free — from sin. See above. I love this particular passage so much, and I hate to see it “USA-ized.”

Almost 10 years ago, writer Michelle Lesley wrote about this conflation of American imagery with Bible verses, and I can’t sum it up any better:

It is good to thank God for the blessing of liberty. It is right to be patriotic and celebrate our nation’s founding. It is evangelistic to use Independence Day as a springboard for explaining to people how they can find real freedom in Christ. And with that freedom — our freedom in Christ and our freedom as American citizens — comes great responsibility. Namely, the responsibility not to throw all of those things into the Cuisinart at once and turn them into an Americhristian smoothie with red, white, and blue sprinkles.

Yes, let’s skip that smoothie. While we should be thankful for our blessings as American citizens — which, let's face it, are always under threat — we should be even more thankful for true freedom, which is forever and found only in Christ.

And let’s not diminish Him or His word by conflating the two.

Wake-up call: This is what happens when Christians are afraid to offend

A new Pew study suggests the steep decline in Christianity is finally “leveling off,” as if that’s a cause for celebration. It’s not. The damage is done. Entire generations have grown up with no real catechesis, no spiritual formation, and no sense of the sacred.

But make no mistake: This isn’t happening because the church refused to modernize. It’s happening because it did.

If the apostles walked into half these churches today, they wouldn’t smile or applaud. They’d flip tables.

For decades, the great institutions of Western Christianity traded clarity for relevance and truth for tone. Sermons stopped warning and started pandering. The word “sin” was quietly retired, considered too sharp for modern ears. In its place came talk of “journeys,” “growth,” and whatever else kept the collection plate full. The church, once feared by tyrants and hated by the powerful, rebranded itself as a wellness center with great art.

The cross became a prop. The sacraments became optional. The faith became a product: Clean, inoffensive, entirely forgettable.

It wasn’t outreach — it was surrender.

Internal sabotage

In Germany, Bishop Gregor Maria Hanke recently stepped down. Not in disgrace but in exhaustion, drained by a church more obsessed with synodal committees and gender equity audits than with souls. In England, Rowan Williams, the former archbishop of Canterbury, now sounds like a man trying to apologize for ever having believed anything at all. His God is not the Lion of Judah, but a poetic abstraction — something you might ponder over tea with the New Atheists, whom he now openly sympathizes with in the New York Times. Under his influence, Anglicanism traded its spine for softness, turned cathedrals into museums, and watched belief crumble under the weight of constant theological retreat.

One is Catholic, the other Protestant. Different branches, same disease: a church more eager to appease the culture than to challenge it.

Let’s call this what it is: Internal sabotage — and it’s everywhere.

The crisis facing Christianity isn’t secularism but cowardice. Many argue that the culture has conquered the church. But I argue instead that the church surrendered. A church that’s afraid to offend cannot save, command allegiance, inspire sacrifice, or offer truth.

It fades, not with a bang, but with a bow — one retreat at a time. First on marriage, then on sin, then on the very uniqueness of Christ. By the time it gets to the resurrection, no one’s listening, and even the preacher isn’t sure he believes it.

Exhibit A

You see this collapse most clearly in the rise of cafeteria Catholicism, the unofficial religion of the spiritually lukewarm, the pick-and-choose faithful. They love the incense and the music, the ashes and the Advent calendars, but deny the church’s authority and rewrite morality to match whatever’s trending on TikTok. They cross themselves at Mass, then applaud abortion at the ballot box. They genuflect before the altar only to kneel again at the altar of “inclusion.”

Jesus, to them, was a nice guy. So was Buddha. And really, who are we to judge?

It’s not faith. Not really. It’s branding. And like all branding, it demands nothing and means even less. These are people who want the comfort of religion without the burden of obedience. A God who affirms, not one who commands. A God who blesses their choices, not reshapes them. A God who whispers sweet nothings instead of thundering truth.

But a gospel that never tests is a gospel that never transforms. And a church that never says “no” is a church no one takes seriously.

For years, church leadership has whispered that hell is probably empty, celibacy is optional, and the Eucharist is just a metaphor if that’s easier for you to stomach.

So it’s no surprise that millions now treat Christianity like a salad bar: A little resurrection, hold the repentance.

No power in conformity

The early Christians weren’t tortured and killed because they tried to fit in — but because they refused to conform to the spirit of the age. They stood for something absolute. Something final. They proclaimed Christ as King in a world that demanded silence, and they paid for it in blood.

That’s what gave them power. That’s what made Rome afraid.

They weren’t trying to be liked. They were trying to be faithful. They didn’t soften their message to gain followers. Instead, they hardened their resolve, and the church exploded across the world because of it. Not in spite of the offense, but because of it. The gospel was a scandal then, and it should still be one now.

Today’s church, by contrast, tiptoes through culture like it’s walking on broken glass. It holds interfaith dialogues with those who openly despise it and lobbies for carbon taxes while souls starve. We have Catholic bishops who march in Pride parades but are nowhere to be found at pro-life vigils. We have Protestant pastors hosting drag nights in church basements while their congregations hemorrhage members. The shepherds worry more about upsetting activists than defending the word of God. They preach about climate change, white privilege, and plastic straws.

But they stay silent on sin, judgment, and repentance. It’s time for both Catholics and Protestants to snap out of it. This isn’t a debate over doctrine. It’s a culture that wants the church destroyed, and too many inside it are holding the door open.

A purified church

If the apostles walked into half these churches today, they wouldn’t smile or applaud. They’d flip tables.

God doesn’t need marketers. He needs martyrs. Not spiritual consultants but disciples. The future of Christianity will not be built by bishops apologizing to the New York Times or pastors retweeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. It will be built by those who kneel in silence and believe in public, even when the world calls them fools.

Maybe that’s the real message here: The church isn’t dying but being purified.

Let the saboteurs resign. Let the cowards step down. Let the cafeteria close. What’s left will be smaller, yes — but stronger. Not performative. Not progressive. But holy. Finally, again, holy.

One of my favorite punk bands just banned Trump supporters ... in the name of Jesus?!

Growing up, my music collection was always a combination of two main genres: Christian worship and pop punk rock. Putting on shuffle, I would go from songs by Chris Tomlin, Hillsong, Shane and Shane, to songs from bands like Mayday Parade, Blink-182, and Simple Plan.

One day, I discovered that one of the bands I liked had a foot in both worlds. The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus is a secular punk band, but their lead singer, Ronnie Winter, is a Christian. I developed a soft spot for them.

The song's chorus warns that fear leads to anger, which leads to hate — and implores the listener not to 'buy in' to this cycle. Except when it comes to Trump voters, apparently.

In their more than 20-year career, RJSA have tended to stay away from politics. Recently, however, that changed — and Winter came out with a stance more polarizing than anything I've seen from any punk band — even avowedly "leftist" ones.

In short: If you voted for Donald Trump, you are not welcome at his shows.

Lifetime ban

Winter communicated the new policy in a lengthy Instagram post. After a preamble about how "woke people" were right about "everything they said was going to happen," Winter laid down the law:

Hi, I’m Ronnie Winter. I sing for the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, and I actually follow what Jesus says. If you’re a Christian and you’re watching this and you voted for Donald Trump, shame on you. You are not allowed to come to my shows. I don’t want you there. Don’t come to my shows. If you voted for Donald Trump, do not come to my shows — ever, not just these four years.

Don’t come to my shows because you’re going to hear a lot of woke propaganda, and you’re going to hear the actual words of Jesus. You’re going to see a lot of acceptance from all areas of life and races, and you’re just going to see a lot of harmony. That’s not what you’re about. Don’t come. Refunds are available. Forever, don’t come. Goodbye.

In retrospect, I should've seen it coming. As was the case with many performing artists, Donald Trump seemed to hit a nerve. I first remember them going political on a song from their 2020 release "The Emergency EP."

“Don’t Buy Into It” condemns a number of conservative "sins," including transphobia, immigration restriction, and telling people what they can do with what "God has given them."

"Everyone hates everyone," goes another verse. "That's not true, because we love you, and we're not buying into it." The song's chorus warns that fear leads to anger, which leads to hate — and implores the listener not to "buy in" to this cycle.

Except when it comes to Trump voters, apparently.

Mosh pit politics

Now, punk bands identifying with the left is nothing new, of course. For example, pop-punk group Green Day has always worn their politics on their sleeves, from their anti-G.W. Bush anthem "American Idiot" to lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong leading fans in a chant calling Trump a "fat bastard" at a recent concert.

Then there's Rage Against the Machine, the quintessential "antiestablishment" punk band, with nearly every one of their songs criticizing the domestic and foreign policies of current and previous presidential administrations.

The difference is these bands implicitly welcome all fans to come and listen, as far as I know. Fans know what they’re getting into when they attend one of these shows. Those who lean conservative can either not attend or decide not to let the politics bother them. That’s how it's supposed to be.

But Ronnie Winter has decided to go a different route. And that’s his route to choose.

That’s right, I’m not going to attack Winter for deciding he doesn’t want to associate himself with conservatives or Trump supporters. Winter is fully within his right as an artist to say, “Hey, you, I don’t want you here.” And fans of the band who may also be conservative can either decide to never support the band again or live with it.

Gospel fine print?

What I find issue with is Winter’s apparent belief that this is somehow following the teachings of Jesus Christ. That "the actual words of Jesus" he mentions are somehow not meant for the ears of those who support Trump.

I have to wonder, where in the Bible does Jesus offer an exemption from his command to love one another in the case of political disagreements? Did we forget to read the fine print for 1 John 3:16 ("offer not valid for certain voters")?

Time and time again, the Bible showed Jesus loving the marginalized. And whether Ronnie Winter is willing to admit it or not, conservatives these days can find themselves pretty marginalized — whether they're banned from social media platforms, dropped by a bank or payment processor, or just harassed for wearing a MAGA hat in public.

Jesus loved the marginalized and didn’t isolate or exclude those society deemed controversial. Winter is all for this ... except when it comes to conservatives.

A new command

Romans 5:8 puts it clearly, “But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” And in the exact words of Jesus, John 13:34-35 says, “I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

I’m currently going through my own struggles with Christianity and my faith, but I still find within me the urge to defend it. And while I agree with Winter that using Christianity to cause hate and division is wrong, I disagree with how he chooses to respond.

You can’t fight fire with fire. I cannot sit idly by and watch a person claiming to follow Christ while simultaneously putting this much effort into division and hate. It goes without saying that if any other band said to any other faction of society that they are not welcome at their shows, it would be met with criticism, if not outrage.

No stranger to the struggle

So my question for Ronnie Winter is: Do you actually believe this is the right course to take? Do you really believe that Trump voters aren't worthy of attending your shows — and presumably benefiting from the example of Christian faith you claim they embody?

I’m not here to question if Winters' faith is genuine or not. That's God’s job. I’m also not here to delve into Winter’s deeper theological views. There are people way more qualified to do that than I. I’m just a struggling Christian who still understands the core of Christianity and that this type of divisiveness should never be a part of the equation.

I’m also not going to judge. I’m no stranger to the struggle to follow the perfect example of Jesus Christ — especially over the last six years. For we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

But I can offer this charitable advice, both to Winter and anyone who takes satisfaction from the lines he's drawn: Don’t buy into it.

'There's nowhere to go': Will Elon Musk stop the AI Antichrist — or become it?

Peter Thiel is going viral all over again in a new video interview with the New York Times' Ross Douthat.

The Catholic conservative columnist threw Thiel huge theological questions about transhumanism, AI, and the Antichrist — all topics Thiel has weighed in on with increasing intensity. But in the course of the conversation, Thiel dropped a shocking story about a recent discussion he had with Elon Musk about the viability of Mars as an escape from Earth and its very human predicaments.

'Elon came to believe that if you went to Mars, the socialist US government, the woke AI would follow you to Mars.'

Among numerous conversations last year, Thiel revealed, "I had the seasteading version with Elon where I said: If Trump doesn’t win, I want to just leave the country. And then Elon said: There’s nowhere to go. There’s nowhere to go."

"It was about two hours after we had dinner and I was home that I thought of: Wow, Elon, you don’t believe in going to Mars any more. 2024 is the year where Elon stopped believing in Mars — not as a silly science tech project but as a political project. Mars was supposed to be a political project; it was building an alternative. And in 2024 Elon came to believe that if you went to Mars, the socialist U.S. government, the woke AI would follow you to Mars."

Follow the leader

The stunning revelation came about during an earlier meeting between Musk and DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis brokered by Thiel. As Thiel paraphrased the exchange between the two, Demis told Musk he was "working on the most important project in the world," namely "building a superhuman AI," to which Musk replied it was he who was working on the most important project in the world, "turning us into interplanetary species." As Thiel recounted, "Then Demis said: Well, you know my AI will be able to follow you to Mars. And then Elon went quiet."

Assuming Thiel has conveyed pretty much the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the episode, the ramifications extend in many directions, including toward Musk's repeated meltdowns (or crashouts, as the Zoomers say) about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and the potential implosion of the American political economy due to runaway debt and deficit spending.

But the main point, of course, pertains to Mars itself, which represents in the visions of many more people than just Elon Musk the idea of the ultimate, last-ditch, fail-safe escape from the "pale blue dot" of planet Earth.

Alex Karp. Kevin Diestsch/Getty Images

A backup civilization

As someone who has covered the Mars dream off and on for almost 10 years, beginning around 2016 with an op-ed on how Mars colonization would not succeed without Christian underpinnings, I raised both eyebrows at Thiel's anecdote because of the way it indicated a growing spiritual sense in both tech titans of the risk of an inescapable final showdown on Earth in our lifetimes.

Musk gave an important speech at the World Governments Summit a few years ago in which he argued reasonably that one global government is bad because it invites world collapse. Allowing multiple civilizations to exist politically and share space on Earth was good because history proves that even, or especially, the biggest and best civilizations eventually collapse. If you don't want human civilization as a whole to suffer the same fate, you probably want to hedge your bets and have backups.

Unfortunately, by way of example, he suggested that the fall of Rome was mitigated by the rise of the Islamic empires. In reality, the Ottoman Turks — and all too many Crusaders — destroyed the Roman Empire, which prevailed in the East after Rome's fall for many centuries. The logic of bet-hedging with multiple civilizations isn't much helped by the example of civilization-destroying wars.

Mars attacks ... or not

That problem stuck out to me once again because of how central to Musk's logic for colonizing Mars was the idea that tomorrow's Martians could come back and save Earth if things went in too wrong a direction. Now, Musk seems to be stuck with the risk that Mars can’t escape Earth's problems because Martians can't escape Earthlings' AI, negating their planetary potential as a hedged bet against bad Earth outcomes.

Musk’s apparent concerns seem to indicate a lack of confidence that the right kind of AI — such as his own xAI? — can beat the wrong kind. That would seem to indicate logically that AI itself is the problem, because even or especially the best AI must tend severely toward total dominance over the whole world, putting all our civilizational eggs in a newly extreme way into just one civilizational basket.

No control without Christ

To me, at least, the challenge strengthens my thesis from almost 10 years ago that taking Christianity out of the discussion results in a dead end. Christ's admonition that His kingdom is "not of this world" is significant because human Christians with spiritual authority over AIs will shape them in ways that discourage their consolidation and dominance over all places humans ever go — making it possible for Mars not to be controlled by an AI that controls Earth, in the same way that it would be made possible for, say, America not to be controlled by Chinese AI, or vice versa.

Absent a human spiritual authority granted by a God whose kingdom is not of this world, it just seems very difficult for human beings to find a way to stop AI from becoming not just a temporal power but itself also a spiritual authority — making it the lord of the world, to borrow the title of a famous novel about the triumph of the Antichrist.

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Putting the AI in Antichrist

This dynamic is probably behind Thiel's uneasy remarks to Douthat when pressed about the problem of the Antichrist and the likelihood of his earthly appearance sooner rather than later. Douthat pointedly expressed concern that despite Thiel's insistence that he was working to discourage the rise of the Antichrist, a potential Antichrist might well look at Thiel's technological feats and embrace them as the best and quickest path to the most complete world domination.

Various wits online have noted that because the Antichrist is expected to be welcomed rapturously by the world, the controversial Thiel must therefore not be the Antichrist.

Our better natures

But the deeper question remains as to what could possibly lead someone to be rapturously welcomed as the lord of the world if not the only thing that seems capable of ruling the entire world plus Mars — that is, AI.

I think Thiel's remarks in the interview make it pretty clear that his goals with Palantir and related efforts have to do with reducing the risk that the wrong kind of person takes over the world with one AI. That kind of person, following the above logic, would not be a controversial and divisive person but someone who could be rapturously received as a figure who frees the world from having to do what Jesus teaches in order to become as gods.

That puts the spotlight on the transhumanism question, which Douthat also pressed with Thiel, who insisted throughout the interview that the "Judeo-Christian" approach to such matters is to forge forward trying not to settle for mere bodily transformation but transformation of soul as well.

Thiel emphasized in making this point that the word "nature" does not appear in the Old Testament. And it does seem that the long-term Western effort has pretty much failed to get past the destructive difficulty of rival interpretations of the Bible by pivoting to the so-called "Book of Nature" to scientifically converge on one universally legitimate interpretation of God's creation.

But an open question remains. Which is more plausible: (1) the worship of nature, which Thiel represents as personified by Greta Thunberg, leads to a rapturous embrace of a Greta-ish Antichrist's rule over all AI and the whole world; or (2) the worship of technology, which we might personify by someone who believes, as Musk says, that "physics sees through all lies," leads to a rapturous embrace of a Musk-like Antichrist's rule over all AI and the whole world?

Not by works alone

Musk and Thiel both seem to find themselves drawn into the AI game at the highest levels out of a feeling that they have little choice but to try to create some alternatives to worse AIs with more power to tempt people to consolidate all humanity under one bot to rule them all.

From an outside perspective, it seems sort of crazy to think that Christ's church — an institution not of this world — offers people an escape from AI bondage that even the hardest-working and best-intentioned secular geniuses on Earth can't provide.

But as the stakes keep rising and our most distinctive tech minds shudder in the face of AI's civilizational challenge, it seems less and less crazy by the day.

The Scopes Monkey Trial at 100: Who really won?

If anyone remembers the Scopes Monkey Trial today, it’s most likely because of its fictionalized retelling in the classic 1960 movie “Inherit the Wind.”

Itself an adaptation of a popular play, “Inherit the Wind” stars Spencer Tracy as the Clarence Darrow stand-in, an idealistic lawyer defending a man accused of teaching the theory of evolution to schoolchildren — a crime according to (recently passed) Tennessee state law.

It was not evolutionists’ irreligiosity Bryan opposed but rather their overreach: Who were they to argue with how the people of Tennessee had decided to educate their children?

The movie depicts the trial as a battle between noble, free-speech-minded liberals and cruel and ignorant fundamentalists. It portrays prosecutor Matthew Harrison Brady (a proxy for William Jennings Bryan) as pompous and attention-hungry, while downplaying Darrow’s own love of the spotlight as well as his hostility toward both the South and religion.

Liberal folklore

A week away from the trial’s 100th anniversary (it took place July 10-21, 1925), this is more or less the version that survives in the cultural memory. In 1967, Joseph Wood Krutch, who covered the trial for the Nation, opined that Scopes had become “more of a part of the folklore of liberalism than of history.” To this day, it’s regarded as both a victory in the battle between progress and superstition and a sobering reminder that that battle still rages on. One recent headline is exemplary: “100 years after the Scopes trial, science is still under attack.”

Like the play on which it is based, “Inherit the Wind” uses the Scopes trial as an allegory for McCarthyism. (Director Stanley Kramer was subsequently praised for employing the blacklisted Nedrick Young as co-screenwriter.) As a result, the movie adopts a tone of high-minded seriousness quite at odds with the carnival-like atmosphere of the actual trial.

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The ACLU gets its man

The entire affair had the contrived air of a publicity stunt from the outset. The Butler Act — a statute prohibiting Tennessee’s public schools from presenting “any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals” — had little if any immediate practical impact when the state legislature passed it in March 1925.

It was only when the American Civil Liberties Union decided to challenge the Butler Act on free speech grounds that the teaching of evolution became a cause célèbre. The ACLU placed ads in Tennessee papers for a teacher willing to serve as their defendant; these ads caught the attention of community leaders in Dayton, a declining mining town 40 miles north of Chattanooga, who saw an opportunity to bring in some much needed tourist revenue. They convinced local football coach and science teacher John T. Scopes to step forward.

Scopes barely qualified as a defendant; he’d only taught biology on occasion as a substitute, using a textbook that happened to mention evolution, and after the trial admitted he couldn’t remember if the subject had ever come up in class. Still, it was enough to accuse him of violating the Butler Act, a misdemeanor offense.

Tourist trap

The implied showdown between science and religion quickly eclipsed any First Amendment concerns, and Dayton got the tourism boom it had hoped for. More than 200 journalists and hundreds of spectators descended upon the town to watch the trial — and perhaps to patronize the blocks of newly erected stands selling stuffed monkeys and other keepsakes.

Bryan, Woodrow Wilson’s former secretary of state and three-time failed Democratic presidential nominee, was invited to join the prosecution and given the chance to rail against the evils of evolution, while celebrity lawyer Clarence Darrow embraced the defense team’s offer to attack fundamentalism on the public stage.

What emerged was largely a comical farce, its outcome weighted in favor of the prosecution and both sides more interested in swaying public opinion than in securing a relatively inconsequential legal victory. (While Scopes lost, incurring a fine of $100, his conviction was overturned on a technicality; the Butler Act remained on the books in obscurity until it was finally repealed in 1967.)

Monkeyshines

As historian Edward J. Larson describes, the trial was a laid-back affair. The judge dispensed with the usual courtroom dress code as a concession to the boiling Tennessee summer, occasionally even moving the proceedings outside. The town itself took on an atmosphere of absurd spectacle emblematic of the excesses of the roaring twenties, with at least two actual chimpanzees (technically apes rather than monkeys) paraded through the streets.

After a dramatic and sweltering eight-day battle, both the prosecution and the defense emerged convinced they’d successfully embarrassed the other. Neither suspected that they’d set in motion a series of lengthy legal battles over the role of religion in public life and set the stage for the fundamentalist-modernist crisis that came to split American Protestantism in half. The Scopes trial would change America forever but not necessarily in the ways those involved expected.

Bryan as Bible thumper?

“Inherit the Wind” openly maligns Bryan as an ignorant fool stirring up a mob of uneducated, hateful yokels, a selfish man more enthralled by the sound of his voice than devoted to the truth. Anybody who knows of his importance as the leading figure of the Progressive Era would understand why this is disingenuous. As for the citizens of Dayton, by all accounts they enjoyed the hullaballoo and were perfectly gracious to participants on both sides.

The movie culminates with a depiction of Darrow’s infamous two-hour grilling of Bryan on the witness stand. Called to testify as a Bible expert, the fictionalized Bryan stumbles repeatedly over his opponent’s complicated questions of Old Testament interpretation.

While this did have the effect of damaging Bryan’s reputation and perhaps even hastening the ailing man’s death (in the movie, Bryan expires in the courtroom immediately after the verdict; the actual Bryan died peacefully is his sleep five days later), “Inherit the Wind” drastically simplifies Bryan’s actual beliefs.

No 'mere mammal'

Bryan fit into an older political paradigm where socialism and fundamentalist Christianity could coexist on a platform of eschatological optimism. He wasn’t a shallow anti-intellectual pushing against new ideas but a defiant moralist who doubted that science alone could provide a moral framework for society.

Bryan was a liberal Democrat, a feminist, labor organizer, silver standard proponent, anti-imperialist, anti-KKK, anti-alcohol, and anti-war advocate. Although he believed progress was God’s will, he was hardly a theocrat and believed wholeheartedly in the mandate of the masses.

He arguably had a more sincere faith in democracy than anyone today, believing that change must come through the power of the vote. If the policies he advocated — such as prohibition — happened to save souls along the way, all the better, but he believed they must be achieved through secular majoritarian processes.

His central critique of evolution, though obviously rooted in Christian revelation, drew most heavily from rational moral arguments. Bryan was particularly concerned that reducing man to a “mere mammal” would fatally devalue individual human lives. Given the Nazis’ embrace of eugenics and genocide less than two decades later, it’s hard to conclude that Bryan was wrong.

Deifying Darrow

Conversely, “Inherit the Wind” treats the evolutionists as well-meaning, if flawed, idealists. But the real-life Darrow was a prickly, controversy-courting atheist and free-will denier who wasn’t above using cruel tactics to advance his agenda — a far cry from the dignified and tolerant figure the movie presents.

The movie also exaggerates the role journalist and gadfly H.L. Mencken (portrayed by Gene Kelly as E.K. Hornbeck) had in the proceedings, which has burnished his reputation as a free speech pioneer. While Mencken’s syndicated column for the Baltimore Sun made him a national figure, his influence on conventional wisdom was limited. As historian Madison Trammel writes, news “coverage of fundamentalists was fairly evenly split between positive, negative, and neutral articles.”

“Inherit the Wind” further lionizes Mencken by ignoring the less savory aspects of his self-styled crusade against ignorance and hypocrisy. As his late biographer Terry Teachout notes, Mencken’s tendency to dismiss entire classes of people (such as the ignorant masses he dubbed the "booboisie") at times could take on an ugly eugenic tone.

"The educated negro of today is a failure," wrote Mencken in an exchange with prominent socialist Robert Rives La Monte, published in 1910. "Not because he meets insuperable difficulties in life, but because he is a negro. He is, in brief, a low-caste man."

Mencken the misanthrope

Mencken’s interest in the trial derived in large part from his contempt for the prosecution’s side. Worried the local bumpkins wouldn’t provide him with enough material, Mencken attempted to trick them into attending the service of a made-up faith healer. Despite printing and handing out 1,000 handbills for his proto-"Daily Show" stunt, he was unable to find any locals gullible enough to take the bait.

Like Darrow, whom Mencken convinced to take the case, Mencken took glee in making Bryan look like a fool. He couldn’t even resist crowing about the latter’s sudden death, publicly joking that “God aimed at Darrow, missed, and hit Bryan instead.” In private, he was less eloquent, noting simply that “we killed the son-of-a-bitch.”

Continuing impact

After a century of this mythology, what remains of Bryan’s public image is a caricature — a fat, egotistical, ignorant, religious nut-job, driven by what Mencken called “simple ambition.” Darrow and Mencken, on the other hand, retain their images as progressive heroes.

In this sense, it’s clear that the trial’s putative losers have been victorious in the long-term. Their underlying assumption that Christian faith poses a threat to education has influenced debates about school prayer, homeschooling, and the right of the state to intervene against religious parents for their children’s safety.

Alex_Bond/Bettman/Getty Images

At the same time, the attempts of majority-Christian communities to enforce their own local norms have been recast as fanatical campaigns to impose religion on public life, with the removal of age-inappropriate materials from public school libraries likened to book-burning .

One can even spot the influence of Scopes on the COVID-era demonization of “anti-vaxxers,” whose main offense is their obstinate refusal to defer to their supposed superiors, the technocratic elite deriving authority from “the science.”

'Free speech' as power grab

Bryan rejected this claim to authority. It was not evolutionists’ irreligiosity he opposed but rather their overreach: Who were they to argue with how the people of Tennessee had decided to educate their children? Why did they assume that their particular beliefs held greater weight than those of their opponents?

“Christians are compelled to build their own colleges in which to teach Christianity,” Bryan said in a statement weeks before the trial commenced. “Why not require atheists and agnostics to build their own colleges in which to teach atheism and agnosticism?”

For Bryan, the invocation of free speech concealed the kind of secular, governmental power grab we still see playing out today: “The duty of a parent to protect his children is more sacred than the right of teachers to teach what parents do not want taught.”

English Catholic journalist G.K. Chesterton echoed this view, arguing that the removal of Christianity from education had merely swapped trust in God for trust in the pluralistic education system and any teacher who administered it: “And if his own private opinions happen to be of the rather crude sort that are commonly contemporary with and connected with the new sciences or pseudo-sciences, he can teach any of them under cover of those sciences. That is what the people of Dayton, Tennessee, were really in revolt against.”

Who is in charge?

One can see how prescient Chesterton was about such fashionable educational trend-chasing in everything from the trans-kids controversies to the “book burning” scandals. Who is truly in charge? Parents or teachers? Majoritarian populists or experts? Who should be in charge?

While objections like Chesterton’s seem to have faded from memory, to view the Scopes Monkey Trial as Christianity’s last, desperate attempt to claw back institutional power from ascendant science is to overstate the case. Gallup reports that 37% of Americans still believe in young-earth creationism, while a further 34% believe in some form of theistic evolution or divine intervention. Both sides of the debate remain as inflamed as ever, if not more virulently distrustful of the other's intentions.

The fundamentalists may or may not be correct about the age of the Earth or the origin of species, but their instincts about the authoritarianism lurking beneath our modern, post-religious order are worthy of our attention.

Considering that the same technocratic oligarchy that claimed Scopes as a victory drove the world into two World Wars, multiple economic crises, and a pandemic-cum-social engineering experiment, the spiritual heirs of William Jennings Bryan may yet get another day in court.

Renewing the promise of America: A Catholic tribute this Fourth of July

As fireworks light up our skies and patriotic songs echo from sea to shining sea, Americans across the nation prepare to celebrate the birth of the greatest experiment in human freedom: the United States of America.

The Fourth of July is more than a commemoration of independence. It is a call to remember the sacrifices, the dreams, and the values that made our republic possible — and Catholics’ role in our great national story.

There is no better time than now for all Christians and men and women of good spirit to renew the great virtues that made our country the beacon that shines around the world.

Now, as Catholics recover from four years of a presidential administration actively weaponized against them, we must remember that we still have a seat at the table.

The first Thanksgiving — on what would become U.S. soil — was not a turkey dinner in Plymouth but a Mass. On September 8, 1565, in what is now St. Augustine, Florida, Father Francisco López de Mendoza Grajales celebrated the holy Eucharist, giving thanks to God for a safe voyage from Spain and the new beginning in this land.

It was a deeply Catholic expression of gratitude — a reminder that before America was a nation, it was already a place where the faith was planted.

That same spirit of courage and conviction continued through the Revolution. Among the signers of the Declaration of Independence stood one Catholic: Charles Carroll of Carrollton, a man of extraordinary education and faith. At a time when anti-Catholic prejudice was rampant in the colonies, Carroll's signature was a bold testimony that Catholics were willing to risk everything — fortune, honor, and life itself — for liberty.

No group more embodied the pioneer spirit and resilience of the early republic than the Catholic sisters who took to the frontiers — not with muskets, but with habits, discipline, and love.

In 1727, the Ursuline Sisters opened the first Catholic hospital in New Orleans, 24 years before Benjamin Franklin founded the first one in the original colonies. Later, the Sisters of Charity would build dozens of hospitals across the expanding nation, including the Baltimore Infirmary in 1827. These heroic women served all: rich and poor, black and white, Christian and non-Christian.

Even legends of the Wild West intersect with this Catholic witness. The infamous Doc Holliday, once a gunfighter, died not in some saloon but in a Catholic hospital in the Rockies, attended by sisters and reconciled with God through the Catholic Church.

Sadly, forces have recently been at work to exclude Catholics from expressing our deeply held beliefs in the society we helped to build.

Under President Biden, the FBI authorized federal agents to spy on Catholics in their houses of worship and shamelessly persecuted pro-life advocates for speaking out peacefully about the dignity of human life. Meanwhile, the Biden FBI sat idly by while extremists carried out more than 500 attacks on Catholic churches across the nation, including upon St. Patrick Catholic Church in Wichita, Kansas, where statues were destroyed and glass shattered, preventing worshippers from attending Mass.

Under the Trump administration, however, a new Justice Department task force will fight anti-Christian bias. Moreover, recent Supreme Court victories — some secured by Catholic plaintiffs or attorneys — reaffirm not only that Catholics are entitled to the same religious freedom guaranteed to all other faiths, but also that Catholics are key players in defending the First Amendment freedoms that make our nation great.

Modern Catholic heroes like Grace Morrison, for example, prove that religious freedom is still worth fighting for and we must continue to restore religious toleration to the American lexicon. Grace bravely stood up against the Montgomery County School Board in Maryland, which revoked parental notification and opt-outs for age-inappropriate and over-sexualized LGBTQ course materials for children as young as 3. Joining other religious plaintiffs of diverse faiths, Grace fought for her right to opt her 12-year-old daughter out of the materials promoting radical ideologies antithetical to her family’s beliefs.

Just last week, the Supreme Court affirmed her First Amendment rights.

Thanks to courageous individuals and victories like these, Catholics, who came to America to build, can take up once again their shared dream of creating a society of ordered liberty and moral greatness. That legacy endures in stone and memory in the U.S. Capitol, where statues of Mother Joseph of the Sacred Heart, St. Junípero Serra, St. Damien of Molokai, Fr. Eusebio Kino, and Fr. Jacques Marquette quietly testify to the Catholic heart of the American story.

There is no better time than now for all Christians and men and women of good spirit to renew the great virtues that made our country the beacon that shines around the world.

This is not a time to merely celebrate the past, but to shape the future, to conquer the new cultural frontiers that Pope Leo, the first American pope, is calling us to take on with renewed energy, courage, faith, and hope, reclaiming the nobility of our founding vision — and ensure that this “one nation under God” shines with even greater brilliance for generations to come.

Our churches are sitting ducks. Here's how to fight back.

This week, millions of Americans will celebrate the blood-bought freedoms our forefathers secured for us with fireworks, family, and cookouts.

That declaration, signed by 56 men, was not just a recounting of grievances or an important political declaration. It was a document of war. These men were ready to defend their God-given freedoms with steel and shot. Among the signers of the Declaration of Independence was John Witherspoon, a Presbyterian minister. While he was the only pastor who signed the document, the war for independence that followed was supported by clergy in nearly every colony. They brought the spiritual munitions necessary to justify their congregants' and country’s fight against the British crown.

Many churches celebrate the religious liberty enumerated in the First Amendment, but few champion the Second.

This right of self-governance and self-defense was not a novel theological concept. It was baked into Protestant political thought. And it was out of this Protestant heritage that America was born.

However, this type of preaching and instruction seems muted in our day. As Americans’ Second Amendment rights remain besieged in various states and jurisdictions, many pulpits remain silent about the threats their congregants face.

Even more pressing for many churches, though, is the threat posed by those who wish to do the church harm, often while armed.

Why every church needs a security team

Every church needs a security team.

In an ideal world, the only weapons needed on a Sunday morning would be the sword of the Spirit and the shield of faith. Our children could run freely through the sanctuary without a single parent wondering if a madman might walk in. Evil would be rare and dealt with swiftly by just rulers who have been appointed to punish the evildoer. In such a world, peace would be the norm, not the exception.

In a merely less-than-ideal world, where threats exist, we would at least hope the civil magistrate would protect churches as sacred gathering spaces. The state would prioritize security for these vital institutions that shape the moral and social health of the nation. And we’d expect the state to make it easier — not harder — for congregations to defend themselves.

But that’s not the world we live in either.

We live in a world where churches are being actively targeted by would-be killers and where politicians pass laws that make congregants sitting ducks. We live in a world where police departments are understaffed, underpaid, and overtasked. And we live in a world where insurance companies and government bureaucracies penalize churches for taking common-sense steps to protect their people.

Recently, a man attempted to carry out a mass shooting at CrossPointe Community Church in Wayne, Michigan. Thankfully, it was thwarted before tragedy struck. A deacon of the church heroically struck the assailant with his pickup truck, slowing the attacker’s approach. Then, a trained member of the church security team engaged the shooter and fatally shot him before he could enter the sanctuary. But the mere fact that it got that close, yet again, should shake pastors and church leaders out of their slumber.

This is not a one-off case. It is the reality that many churches face in a civilization unraveling.

WoodyUpstate/Getty Images Plus

And yet when churches take steps to prepare — by forming volunteer security teams, for example — they are often punished by insurers. Many insurance companies raise a church’s premiums by up to 20% if the church has an organized security presence, unless those volunteers undergo professional training that can cost several thousand dollars per person. For small or midsize congregations, this burden is often too high.

Hiring off-duty police officers, meanwhile, can cost $60 to $75 an hour. That may be manageable for a megachurch with a multimillion-dollar budget. But for the average congregation trying to keep the lights on and fund ministry, $30,000 annually for armed security simply isn’t feasible.

It’s not just private institutions or police departments creating barriers. The state is becoming a direct obstacle.

In 2024, Colorado passed Senate Bill 24‑131, which declared churches and other religious buildings to be “sensitive spaces.” Under this law, concealed carry would have been forbidden on church property unless the church explicitly issues a written exemption for each individual. This was ultimately rescinded by the state. But in places like Boulder County, where leftist officials refused to grant the necessary permissions, the exemption requirement remains in place.

In practice, that means churches that want their congregants to carry cannot do so by law.

Colorado is not unique. Similar legislation exists in California, New York, Illinois, and other blue states. The trend is clear: Disarm peaceful citizens and disempower local churches from protecting their congregations.

This means churches are stuck in a legal and financial bind. On one hand, they are increasingly likely to be targeted by insane individuals seeking death or driven by ideological hatred. On the other hand, they are punished for taking even modest steps toward preparedness.

So what is the church to do?

First, we must stop pretending that spiritual and physical safety are mutually exclusive.

Some well-meaning pastors resist forming security teams or speaking of the importance of self-defense because they believe it’s a distraction from the gospel. But loving your neighbor includes defending your neighbor. Good shepherds guard the flock not only from false teachers but from wolves of every kind.

In fact, it seems that we are in a day when advertising that the church has a security team would be an attraction, not a deterrent, to would-be churchgoers.

Scripture does not pit spiritual vigilance against physical readiness. Nehemiah, when rebuilding Jerusalem’s walls, stationed men with swords in one hand and tools in the other. Jesus Himself instructed His disciples to buy a sword (Luke 22:36), not so they could go on the offensive, but so they would be prepared.

pamela_d_mcadams/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Second, churches must form well-organized volunteer teams. These don’t need to be tactical operators. They need to be faithful, dependable men vetted, trained, and alert. Veterans, off-duty officers, and responsible gun owners are often already sitting in the pews. Pastors or deacons should identify these men, invest in their development, and establish protocols for emergencies.

Third, churches should not be ashamed to advocate for their rights. As our forefathers understood, there is no biblical reason to surrender the ability to protect one’s people. Just as churches fight for religious liberty, we should also contend for self-defense and security. This includes contacting lawmakers, organizing with other local churches, and resisting unconstitutional laws through legal means.

Many churches celebrate the religious liberty enumerated in the First Amendment, but few champion the Second.

Finally, we must honor the men who already serve. Every week, there are faithful men who sit near the exits, who watch the doors, who glance sideways when a stranger walks in with a backpack, and who make quiet mental notes while others sing hymns. These men aren’t paranoid. They’re protective. They are answering the call to keep watch while others worship in peace.

It’s time for every church to acknowledge reality and act with courage. Our congregations should be places of peace, but not because we are blind to danger. Rather, they should be places of peace because good men stand ready at the gates.

We may live in a fallen world, but that doesn’t mean we must be foolish in it. God does not bless the naive. Churches have a unique calling to shepherd the souls of mankind in the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But that immaterial calling does not stay immaterial. It manifests itself in the material realm. Good shepherds will not just look after the state of the souls of the congregation but also the health of their bodies.

To ignore the physical threat is to misunderstand the Incarnation itself. Christ did not come to redeem disembodied spirits but whole persons, flesh and blood. His ministry was not merely spiritual but deeply material: feeding the hungry, healing the sick, driving out demons, laying down His physical life for His sheep. Likewise, our churches must reflect His care for the whole person.

We prepare the soul with preaching. We guard the body with vigilance. Both are acts of love.

Man with death wish gives chilling jailhouse confession of murdering and crucifying pastor, planned to kill over a dozen more

A man accused of the brutal murder of a beloved pastor confessed to the grisly killing, according to a chilling jailhouse interview. The suspect claimed he had a death wish and planned to kill over a dozen more pastors around the country.

As Blaze News previously reported, Maricopa County sheriff deputies discovered the dead body of William Schonemann — a 76-year-old beloved pastor — on April 28. Schonemann — affectionately known as "Pastor Bill" — reportedly was found covered in blood at his home in New River.

'I want the death sentence.'

Multiple sources informed KSAZ-TV that Schonemann appeared to have suffered from significant injuries and that his arms were spread out and his hands were pinned to a wall.

Maricopa County Sheriff Jerry Sheridan described Schonemann's death as the most "tragic and bizarre" he's ever seen.

Police arrested 51-year-old Adam Christopher Sheafe in Sedona on April 30 after he allegedly burglarized a home.

Sedona Red Rock News reported that Sheafe was charged with second-degree burglary, unlawful flight from a pursuing law enforcement vehicle, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, leaving the scene of an accident with an injury, criminal damage, theft or control of stolen property, first-degree trespassing, possession of a stolen vehicle, and resisting arrest.

Authorities noted that Sheafe has a lengthy criminal history across several states.

Sheafe allegedly told authorities that he broke into houses to steal needed "supplies."

Then in a shocking jailhouse confession, Sheafe admitted to murdering Schonemann and "crucifying" the beloved man of God.

Sheafe explained the gruesome details in a startling interview with KNXV-TV, during which he also declared that he wants the death penalty.

Sheafe said he drove to Schonemann's house at "like two in the morning, maybe, and parked. And then I just went in there and did it."

In an eyebrow-raising jailhouse interview with KTVK-TV, Sheafe admitted that he planned to go on a priest-killing spree across the country. After Schonemann's death, he traveled to Sedona where he intended to kill two others, KTVK said, but he was arrested for burglary and other charges. Then came his confession.

Sheafe stated that he planned to "execute" 14 pastors across 10 states. Schonemann was the first.

“I was going to start in Phoenix and end in Phoenix and circle the nation," he said. "Starting in Arizona, where I was born. Where it starts is where it ends, like the Garden of Eden."

“From there, it was Las Vegas, Nevada; Portland, Oregon; Seattle, Washington; Billings, Montana; Detroit, Michigan; New York, New York; Charlotte, North Carolina; Mobile, Alabama; Beaumont, Texas; and El Paso, Texas," Sheafe explained. "So four of them were going to get hit in Arizona."

Sheafe continued, "I'm not interested in executing anyone other than the pastors or the shepherds leading the flock astray."

Sheafe was asked if he was "feeling satisfied," to which he responded, "Look, it’s not my heart to go around killing people."

When asked how he would feel if someone attempted to crucify him, Sheafe replied, "Good luck trying."

Sheafe reportedly told the FBI that he wanted the death sentence.

“I told the FBI agent, 'Look, I want the death sentence,'" Sheafe told KNXV. "I'll plead guilty right now, on the spot ... I want the death sentence, and I want the execution date right now."

Sheafe told KTVK, "Well, I want to be executed quickly so we can get this show on the road and show exactly what I’m trying to do. ... All you gotta do is worship Jesus and you go to heaven; your sins are forgiven. That’s not what God said."

Sheafe argued that God will "absolutely" forgive him of his sins.

"He is a forgiving God and loving God," he said.

Sheafe declared, "It’s a commandment to rid Israel of evil."

Sheafe's father told KTVK in a separate story that his son changed after he became "extremely interested" in the Old Testament.

The family of Schonemann — who served in the Navy, including a tour in Vietnam — told KOLD-TV in April, "Our dad had such a positive impact on people everywhere he went. We will miss the loving guidance and patience. The happiness he showed just getting to walk around an airport, getting his steps in."

The family added, "There are never enough words to say it all or to say it as well as a person would like. Simply, he is missed."

Those who knew Pastor Bill said his grisly death is "unfathomable."

"Who would do that? Why would anyone hurt Bill? I don't understand how someone could do something like that. It’s still unfathomable," neighbor Eric Asher told the Arizona Republic in May.

Mike Anders, another neighbor, said their community remains shocked over Schonemann's murder.

"I mean, we locked our doors last night. It’s just something that we are just not used to doing," Anders told KSAZ. "Everybody is just, until we know what’s going on, we don’t know if it was a family member, or, we don’t know what, who could do this to him."

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Liberal lawmaker melts down after priest stands firm, denies him communion over deadly bill

A Catholic priest in England reportedly warned a Liberal Democrat member of parliament in his parish that he would be refused communion should he vote in favor of the United Kingdom's controversial assisted suicide bill.

Despite this warning, Chris Coghlan voted in favor of the bill on June 20 and claimed he did so in accordance with his "conscience."

While Coghlan underscored in a Saturday op-ed that his faith is irrelevant to his parliamentary responsibilities, Father Ian Vane of St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Dorking, England, indicated that the liberal's political decisions were very much relevant to whether he could receive the Eucharist.

'Intentional euthanasia, whatever its forms or motives, is murder.'

After learning that he would be denied communion — evidently not in person, as the Observer indicated the lawmaker didn't even show up to the relevant masses — Coghlan had an ugly meltdown online, calling the priest's actions "outrageous"; accusing Fr. Vane of "completely inappropriate interference in democracy"; filing a complaint with Bishop Richard Moth, the bishop of Arundel and Brighton, who publicly campaigned against the bill; and suggesting lawmakers' faith should be publicly considered when they vote on matters of possible relevance.

"I was deeply disturbed to receive an email from my local priest four days before the vote on Kim Leadbeater's assisted dying bill saying if I voted in favour I would be 'an obstinate public sinner,'" Coghlan noted in his op-ed. "Worse, I would be complicit in a 'murderous act, which must always be forbidden and excluded.' Such a vote would, he wrote, be 'a clear contravention of the Church’s teaching, which would leave me in the position of not being able to give you holy communion, as to do so would cause scandal in the Church.'"

Coghlan suggested that the priest was in the wrong and had wrongly characterized so-called "assisted dying" as a "murderous act."

While the leftist lawmaker indicated his faith was "profoundly important" to him, he appears to have greatly misunderstood or altogether missed the church's unwavering moral stances on euthanasia and suicide.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church clearly states that "intentional euthanasia, whatever its forms or motives, is murder. It is gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator."

The Catechism also states that "suicide is seriously contrary to justice, hope, and charity" and is "forbidden by the fifth commandment."

Carl Court/Getty Images

Canon 915 in the Code of Canon Law forbids the administration of communion to those who obstinately persevere "in manifest grave sin."

One year prior to becoming pope in 2005, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger signed a memorandum on the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith clarifying that:

Regarding the grave sin of abortion or euthanasia, when a person’s formal cooperation becomes manifest (understood, in the case of a Catholic politician, as his consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws), his Pastor should meet with him, instructing him about the Church’s teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin, and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist.

In other words, Fr. Vane did exactly as expected by the church and echoed the Catholic Church's longstanding moral teaching when warning then admonishing Coghlan.

In advance of the parliamentary vote on the legislation, Bishop Moth, the recipient of Coghlan's complaint, encouraged Catholics in his diocese to "pray earnestly that the dignity of human life is respected from the moment of conception to natural death" and to urge their members of parliament to vote against the bill.

"While the proposed legislation may offer assurances of safeguards, the evidence is clear that, in those countries such as Canada and Belgium (to take just two examples) where legislation approving 'assisted dying' is in place, it takes little time before the criteria for 'assisted dying' expand, often including those living with mental illness and others who do not have a terminal diagnosis," wrote Moth.

Despite being framed as a "stringently limited, carefully monitored system of exceptions" around the time of its legalization in 2016, state-facilitated suicide is now a leading cause of death in Canada, accounting for 4.7% of all Canadian deaths last year.

As Moth indicated, so-called medical assistance in dying in Canada is not just killing moribund people, but individuals who could otherwise live for years or decades, as well as victims whose primary symptom is suicidal ideation.

After parliament voted 314 to 291 in favor of changing British law to legalize assisted suicide earlier this month, Catholic Archbishop John Sherrington, lead bishop for life issues for the Catholic Bishop's Conference, reiterated the church's opposition to the legalization of assisted suicide, noting, "We are shocked and disappointed that MPs have voted in favour of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. This Bill is flawed in principle with several provisions that give us great cause for concern."

Coghlan claimed that after the vote, his priest "publicly announced at mass that he was indeed denying me holy communion as I had breached canon law."

'There is no in-between. Choose.'

The leftist politician continued complaining on X, writing, "It is a matter of grave public interest the extent to which religious MPs came under pressure to represent their religion and not necessarily their constituents in the assisted dying vote."

"This was utterly disrespectful to my family, my constituents including the congregation, and the democratic process. My private religion will continue to have zero direct relevance to my work as an MP representing all my constituents without fear or favour," added Coghlan.

Blaze News reached out to Fr. Vane for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

In addition to stressing that religion should effectively be neutralized in public so that Britain could "be a secular country" — par for the course in a nation where silent prayer can already result in a criminal record — Coghlan suggested that lawmakers' faith should be publicized and taken into account when relevant to parliamentary votes.

Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

"Constituents’ [sic] absolutely should know if an MP is of faith on a conscience vote and is obliged by their faith to vote a certain way and/or is under pressure from religious authorities from their faith to do so. It is potentially a clear conflict of interest with putting their constituents first," wrote Coghlan.

The Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton told the Observer in a statement, "Bishop Richard spoke to Mr. Coghlan earlier this week and has offered to meet him in person to discuss the issues and concerns raised."

While the leftist lawmaker received an outpouring of support online from secularists, he was also met with biting criticism from orthodox Christians.

Dr. Chad Pecknold, associated professor of systematic theology at the Catholic University of America, noted, "Mr. Coghlan, I've taught Christianity and Politics for many years. What you express is not a Catholic but a Liberal view that your faith should be something private. Western civilization was built upon the very public nature of Christianity. Your faith is either Liberal, and you have owned it, or your Faith is Catholic, and you have denied it. There is no in-between. Choose."

"Good work by this priest," wrote Fr. Matthew Schneider, a priest with the Legionaries of Christ and Regnum Christi. "If you are not a devout member of a Church, it should not matter if you receive Communion. If you are a devout member, your faith should penetrate your life enough to vote in accord with common good, & not for murdering the sick & disabled."

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Martyrs don’t bend the knee — even to the state

In 1535, Saint Thomas More went to his death, not in defiance of his king but in ultimate service to both God and England. His final words — “I die the king’s faithful servant, and God’s first” — captured the essence of true religious liberty: the freedom to fulfill the duty to worship God rightly. As the patron saint of religious liberty, More challenges lawmakers and church leaders to renew their commitment to defending that sacred duty.

To More, religious liberty wasn’t just freedom from state interference. It meant the freedom to obey God, even at the cost of his life. His last declaration made clear that duty to God comes before any loyalty to civil authority. Pope Leo XIII put it plainly in “Immortale Dei”: “We are bound absolutely to worship God in that way which He has shown to be His will.”

When laws hinder the duty to worship God rightly, they chip away at the foundation of religious liberty the founders meant to preserve.

More lived this principle, choosing martyrdom over surrender to the world. His death makes clear that real freedom begins with obedience to God — a truth rooted in the moral obligations of human nature. To defend religious liberty is to affirm the duty to give God the worship He deserves, a duty no earthly power — not even a king — can rightly deny.

America’s founders understood this well. They saw religious liberty not as license, but as the right to fulfill one’s duty to God. James Madison wrote, “It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society.”

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America’s founders drafted the Constitution with the understanding that citizens would practice their religious duties — not as optional acts, but as essential to a free and moral society. As John Adams put it, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

That understanding now faces growing threats. When laws hinder the duty to worship God rightly, they chip away at the foundation of religious liberty the founders meant to preserve. Consider the case of Colorado baker Jack Phillips. For refusing to make cakes that violated his faith, Phillips endured more than a decade of legal battles, fines, protests, and business losses. He wasn’t seeking special treatment — he simply wanted to live out his faith. Although the Supreme Court eventually sided with him, the fight drained years of his life and resources. Religious liberty delayed for a decade amounts to religious liberty denied.

True religious freedom, as More and the founders envisioned it, demands strong protections for people and institutions to live out their beliefs in every area of life, not just within a sanctuary or under the narrow shelter of exemptions.

To fulfill the vision of religious liberty embodied by Thomas More and upheld by America’s founders, Americans must renew their commitment to strengthening religious institutions through laws that promote the common good. Elected leaders cannot separate their faith from their public responsibilities. Religious truth shapes just governance.

Having just celebrated Religious Liberty Week, we would do well to recall More’s words: “God’s first.” True religious liberty begins with the duty to worship God as He commands. That duty forms the bedrock of a free and just society.