Do you need a reminder that the American left continues to barrel down its deeply delusional path? This random sampling of reactions to Monday's IRS ruling should do the trick:

“Trump’s IRS hands churches more tax-free political power. What’s next? Watch Handmaid’s Tale!”

“Religion and state and military have now merged. It is the end.”

“The supreme court has been compromised. We are in free fall.”

“The takeover of Christian fascism is now complete.”

“This is full on Christo-Fascism. There is no pretense anymore. Capitalism and Christianity have joined forces once more to do unimaginable harm to EVERYBODY. This is fascism, add Western Chauvinism and you have got the trifecta of EVIL that WILL DESTROY HUMANITY IF WE CANNOT DEFEAT THEM!”

“Full-blown Christian theocracy!”

So what finally turned us into Gilead? A new ruling allowing churches to endorse political candidates without losing their tax-exempt status.

But the church itself would do well to avoid endorsing any humans, for a myriad of reasons.

Technically, prior to Monday’s ruling, churches could not make endorsements due to the Johnson Amendment, which took effect in 1954 and barred tax-exempt nonprofit organizations from political speech.

I say technically, because left-leaning churches have never let that stop them, as journalist Megan Basham noted in response to a tweet decrying the new rule.

Quite a few on the left are also making evidence-free accusations that “right-wing” churches have been endorsing candidates for years. That’s definitely the pot calling the kettle black, since even Pew Research showed where the politicizing of church is happening. And this is all without fear of the IRS cracking down, apparently.

That’s why this rule, practically speaking, isn’t really changing much.

While conservative-leaning churches did speak out in 2024 about the evils being advanced by the Democrat ticket, in general, they are not nearly as likely to be involved in electioneering as liberal churches. So Megan Basham is likely on point in diagnosing leftist outrage as all about the newly leveled playing field.

What church is supposed to be

Having spent plenty of decades attending Bible-following Christian churches that were likely pretty Republican, I can personally attest that I’ve never heard a sermon that endorsed a candidate or even endorsed a particular political viewpoint.

I have heard sermons that addressed issues in the context of the biblical passage being preached, as they should.

If your pastor is teaching from Psalm 139, for example, and gets to verses 13-16, he better point out that this passage helps us understand how to think about abortion. (Here’s the passage if you’re not familiar.)

So here’s what should stay the same. Solid Christian churches should teach the Bible. Sunday sermons should work their way through scripture, helping us understand what it tells us about God, what it tells us about how to think about life, what it tells us about ourselves.

If, as in the example above, the scripture in question addresses a political issue, the pastor should absolutely be free to say so.

If, using the same example, there’s actually a current ballot issue for or against abortion, the pastor should absolutely be free to encourage his flock to vote with God’s Word — and the new rule should remove any fear of doing that last part.

I cannot conceive, however, of any instances where the focus of a sermon should move away from God’s Word and into which individuals to endorse.

Even in situations where a church member might be the one running for office, this kind of discussion from the pulpit would take the focus off the One we are there to worship.

I hope no pastors will do that.

There already is nothing preventing groups of church members from discussing who to vote for in a non-worship service setting, of course. Let’s keep doing that.

But the church itself would do well to avoid endorsing any humans, for a myriad of reasons — including the fact that tying the church’s name to a politician is far more likely to end up sullying the church’s name (and God’s) than the politician’s name.

Tom Williams/Getty Images

It’s all about the money, or not

A lot of the left-wing angst over this issue seems to revolve around this idea, expressed by the American Humanist Association (unsurprisingly).

Theoretically a billionaire is limited in how much he/she can donate to a politician, but not to a church. So yeah, someone could give a boatload of money to a church.

But they could have done that before this rule change! And I think it’s highly likely that wealthy leftists have supported the kind of churches where people have been rallied to vote for Democrats. I recall photos of Tyler Perry doing a get-out-the-vote event for Barack Obama in a lovely church with stained glass windows.

So what the left is really afraid of is that conservative billionaires will somehow “buy” influence at conservative churches. Give them enough money, and the pastor will have to endorse Trump (or JD Vance, or whoever).

And there may be a few churches where that would work. It might appeal to the small, pathetic, and power-hungry Christian nationalists (the only “Christians” actually advocating some Gilead-like ideas).

Their goal is to take over America anyway. But they don’t have enough power or influence to draw big money, with their revolting takes on women, Jews, and a host of other issues.

As for most conservative-oriented Christian churches — why would our elusive right-wing billionaire spend money getting them to vote for someone they’ll probably already vote for? And that applies on the left, too, despite the political emphases in left-leaning churches. If a group of people is already in your pocket, you don’t need to buy them.

So I don’t think the humanists have a case for this being any more of a problem than it always was. But that doesn’t mean there’s no room for caution here.

Resist the temptation

Some conservative churches have flown a little too close to the political fire, conflating faith with patriotism. I think those churches might be a bit more at risk of taking their focus off the Lord and succumbing to this new temptation to delve into the political.

But as mentioned, church exists for us to worship God and learn how to follow Him. Anything that takes away from that does not glorify Him. Churches — and perhaps especially pastors — should resist the urge to share opinions that are not relevant to whatever they’re teaching.

Make no mistake — philosophically, this is a free-speech victory. But just because we can — does not mean we should. And pastors/churches should not be endorsing candidates from the pulpit or in an official church capacity.

Our proceeding with restraint in this area might also provide a counter to the left’s call, now, to remove tax-exempt status from churches entirely. I would hate to see this status revoked; I don’t think churches should be taxed at all.

Let’s get real

For the most part, we’ve usually known who our pastor might be voting for, because a church is a family of people who live life together and talk about important things. But if he had endorsed someone from the pulpit or in some official capacity, that would have been bringing things into church that distract from worship of a holy God. And that would be a shame. And a sin.

Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. – Hebrews 12:28-29

Watch: Pistol-whipping carjacker picks wrong car — and has instant regrets when pastor gives him shock of his life

New video shows a teen attempting an armed carjacking in crime-ridden Baltimore, but the intended victim — a prominent pastor — fought back and turned the tables on the crook.

Rev. Kenneth Moales Jr. — pastor of Cathedral of the Holy Spirit in Bridgeport, Connecticut — was in Baltimore for a funeral in late June.

'I knew my life was at stake.'

Moales parked his car outside a seafood restaurant in the city's Upper Fells Point neighborhood just before 9 p.m. June 29, WBAL-TV reported.

A teen wearing a ski mask approached Moales' vehicle while the pastor was still inside it, the station said, adding that the teenager allegedly asked the pastor for help regarding his dead cell phone.

The teen — armed with a gun — ordered the pastor to exit his vehicle, WBAL said.

"When I looked at him, I knew like something about this wasn't right. I was looking to kind of drive away, and he immediately pulls up his ski mask," Moales told WBFF-TV. "Puts it up over his face, whips out the Glock, points it at the car, like, 'Get out the car.'"

Moales added to WJZ-TV, "He's placed materialism over my life, and unfortunate[ly] for him, he picked the wrong car."

The pastor made a split-second decision to fight back against the young carjacker.

"I immediately got into a fight. So I just punched him in the face. I reach out for the gun," Moales recalled to WBFF.

Surveillance video shows Moales tackling the teen and slamming him on the wet pavement for approximately 20 seconds.

Moales also told WBFF, "I really believe I was fighting for my life and, more importantly, trying to get home to my wife and children."

Citing charging documents, WBAL reported that the carjacker pistol-whipped the pastor in the head.

During the melee, Moales recounted to WJZ that he was able to wrestle the gun away from the teenager.

What's more, the pastor offered the teen an opportunity to get away.

Moales recalled to WBFF, "I realize how young he is, and that's when I tell him, 'Hey, I'm a pastor. Relax, calm down. I'm a pastor. I'm not going to press charges. You know, I'm going to let you go, but you’ve got to get out of here.'"

However, the carjacker didn't accept the offer — and proceeded to steal the pastor's vehicle.

"I told him, 'I'm a father, a husband, and a pastor, and you can just go now, and I won't press charges,'" Moales recounted to WVIT-TV. "But even after all of that — after I had let him go and given him a chance to not face charges — he still drove off in my car."

He added to WBFF, "You would think once I let him know I was a pastor that there would be, in one way or another, some level of remorse, and there was neither, none at all. He [couldn't] care less. And that’s what’s left me hurt — I’m not going to say broken — [but] hurt, concerned, and knowing what my new mission is."

The pastor suffered non-life-threatening injuries, according to a statement from his congregation.

WJZ reported that within hours of the carjacking, officers with the Baltimore Police Department located the pastor's vehicle with three suspects inside — ages 15, 16, and 19.

All three teenagers were arrested and charged with auto theft, WBAL said.

The two minors were not identified because they are underage, but WBAL identified the 19-year-old suspect as Mehkai Tindal, according to charging documents. It isn't clear which of the three attacked Moales.

The harrowing experience provided the pastor with an eye-opening perspective — and a new mission.

Moales told WVIT, "I have forgiven the young man — but this violent crime just shows me that I need to work even harder to help young people right here in Bridgeport, because a lot of these kids are hopeless and this problem is not unique to Baltimore."

The pastor added to WBFF, "If we don't commit to educating this generation in a significant way, what happened to me is just a beginning. If they'll, if they'll pistol-whip a pastor, you about know what they'll do to my members."

Moales noted to WBAL, "My prayer today is, 'God, thank you for covering me. Thank you for my life.'"

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Patriotic heresy: 4 examples of tangling faith with the flag

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.

GraphicaArtis/Getty Images

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.

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.

Godung/Getty Images

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.

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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What's so great about 'separation of church and state'?

Freedom of expression, universal suffrage, and separation of church and state. Our country prides itself on these foundational principles.

In fact, for many Americans, the document enshrining these principles has become an object of almost religious veneration. The Constitution is no mere legal agreement, but a sacred covenant between people and power, a reminder that no king or cleric can rule over us without our consent.

The church historically has always possessed and asserted its temporal powers. It rebuked kings. It crowned emperors. It waged wars, both literal and spiritual.

But what if I told you that some of these foundational principles themselves are the root cause of the current tyranny you’re facing?

Fathers know best?

Let’s take the separation of church and state, for example. The founding fathers, influenced by the Enlightenment, were pioneers of the democratic republic system, meaning they harbored a strong distaste for the theocratic monarchies that populated the European nations for much of the medieval and early modern eras. They saw the union of throne and altar as a source of corruption and oppression.

Many, though not all, leaned toward a rationalist or deist conception of God, meaning they conceived of God as one who designed the universe but refrained from interfering in human affairs. They admired natural law, not revealed law. They were wary of ecclesial authority, especially when it mingled with politics.

So they did something radical: They stripped the church of temporal power. Their primary aim, we’re sometimes told, was the promotion of religious freedom. But that’s simply not the case. The primary objective was to remove the church’s power in government affairs.

Interim Archives/Boston Globe/Getty Images

Domesticating God

For this reason, they saw fit to design a country that domesticated God, keeping Him confined to the church building. The rest of society and the government, in turn, were to be packaged within a professional secularist framework. “God” was not to meddle with the affairs of men. Hence, the separation of church and state.

Except, that’s not what really happened. A separation never really occurred. It was more of a replacement.

Religious vacuum

Sure, the church lost its temporal powers. But something else filled the religious vacuum. Something else always fills the religious vacuum. Remove one orthodoxy, and another takes its place. And that alternative orthodoxy was secular liberalism.

Instead of priests, we have an endless array of “highly qualified” experts and bureaucrats telling us what the truth is (and inversely what the heresies are). Instead of a bishop crowning a king, we have TV stations announcing the results of our newly elected leaders. Instead of trusting God, we trust “science.”

And then we wonder why we’ve gone so astray. We ask ourselves why we’ve lost all sense of tradition and God. Why does it feel like morality is made up on the spot? Why do our traditionally Christian institutions seem powerless to resist the tides of culture?

It’s because, from the beginning, we accepted the premise that God should not interfere with the affairs of men.

Head and body

I’m aware I speak harshly. But I’m also speaking truly. I grew up believing in the concept of separation of church and state. But the older I get, and the more I peel back the layers of history, the more I realize it was the wrong move. The founding fathers were simply wrong.

Ask yourself what a church is. Is it just a house of worship? No, it’s more than that, right? It’s the body of Christ, after all. So if Christ is head of the church, how is His body serving Him? What action is the body taking? What powers does the body possess? Jesus Christ isn’t just a brain floating in a vat. As head of the church, He has a fully operational and functional body that bends the world to His whim.

The church historically has always possessed and asserted its temporal powers. It rebuked kings. It crowned emperors. It waged wars, both literal and spiritual. It wrestled with the powers of the world, and often won. It has always had real power. It’s only today in our modern society that we believe it belongs nestled away in a hall full of pews.

Secular vision

And yet we are so immersed in secularism that we can barely recognize it as one ideology among others. It is simply "reality," a reality that distorts our understanding of the past. As Andrew Willard Jones writes in "Before Church and State: A Study of Social Order in the Sacramental Kingdom of St. Louis IX,"

Our own vision is secular. Even when we acknowledge the importance of religion, we do so from within the assumption of the secular: that reality itself is ultimately free of the religious. Religions come and go; they are relative. The secular is permanent; it is absolute and universal. To us, the secular is the field on which the game of history—including religious history—is played. Within this secular vision, religion as a sociological category is often considered inessential to the concept of society itself. In this view, religious societies are, in a sense, accidentally religious: their religion can fade away. Secular societies, for their part, do not seem to have a religion proper to themselves at all, even if some individuals within them are religious.

Imagine you were in the middle of a nasty divorce. Ask yourself, could the church overrule the court? In Revelation 2:14, Jesus reprimands the church of Pergamum for tolerating sexual immorality. What is no-fault divorce except for legalized adultery? Yet today, our churches passively accept it and are unable to demand any kind of legal standing in court. Do we think we’re any different than the church of Pergamum?

Likewise, the state has redefined marriage to include same-sex unions. Where is the separation there? Where was it when the state invaded the church’s sacramental territory?

The truth is that the separation of church and state has never been real. It is an illusion. The state always imposes and enforces a theology, whether it’s Christian or not. Which means that the state is the church. And the church is the state. I would go so far as to say that the church cannot be even classified as the church unless it is the state.

If we want a re-emergence of Christendom, it means the church needs to once again wield state power. There’s no getting around it.

How we help 'gay' men and women 'Leave Pride Behind'

You may have noticed that corporate America’s enthusiasm for Pride Month has waned.

But business leaders aren't the only ones pulling back from public celebration of “Pride.” Many ordinary people are retreating from full-on support for the demands of the LGBT lobby.

Our Leaving Pride Behind campaign amplifies the powerful testimonies of men and women who have walked away from homosexual behavior and identity.

Most importantly, many people who once identified themselves as gay, lesbian, or transgender have abandoned that identity. In some cases, they have completely reinterpreted their own past behaviors, thoughts, feelings, and political commitments. These brave men and women have left Pride behind.

Over the rainbow

If you’ve sensed that Pride-themed advertising has declined since 2023, you’re not wrong. A new survey finds that 43% of Fortune 1,000 companies are dialing back their external support for Pride Month in 2025. Social media feeds, once filled with rainbow branding, are strikingly subdued this year. No embarrassing displays by nonbinary “influencers” trying to sell beer. No doubt, the business community is responding to the views of the broader public.

A recent survey revealed that nearly 60% of Americans now prefer corporations to stay neutral on political and social issues.

At the same time, many Americans are questioning the goals and tactics of LGBT activism. People are starting to realize the cost of this ideology, particularly when it conflicts with faith, family, and biological reality. People are repelled by the sight of parents losing custody of their children for failing to “affirm” the child’s “gender identity.” Ordinary folk are cheering when J.K. Rowling takes down trans activists online.

'Obergefell' remorse

And people also intuit that redefining marriage in the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges case opened the door to transgenderism in the schools, drag queen story hours, and much more. As a result, the public is rethinking its commitments to policies such as genderless marriage. Gallup polling shows public support for same-sex marriage has dipped from 71% in 2022 to 68% in 2025. Among Republicans, the drop is even more dramatic — from 55% to just 41% over the past three years.

Even more interesting and significant is the group of people that we at the Ruth Institute refer to as those who have “left Pride behind.” Some in the public refer to this group of people as “ex-gays.” We hesitate to use this terminology, because most of them do not refer to themselves in this way. They might refer to themselves as “once gay.” They might call themselves “overcomers” or “people who have journeyed away from an LGBT identity.”

Many of them do not accept the term “gay” as an identity label in the first place. At most, they regard the term “gay” or “same-sex attracted” as a description of an attribute, which may or may not be permanent. For many people, “gay” is emphatically not an identity. So they certainly do not want to call themselves “ex-gay.”

Stories of transformation

That is why we at the Ruth Institute refer to them as people who have left Pride behind. Our Leaving Pride Behind campaign amplifies the powerful testimonies of men and women who have walked away from homosexual behavior and identity. These interviews include stories of transformation, healing, and faith. They challenge the destructive ideology that sexual orientation or gender identity is permanent and must be celebrated through political activism.

These brave men and women have left Pride behind, not just metaphorically, but literally. They’ve humbled themselves enough to say, “I was on the wrong path. I am willing to take responsibility for myself, my choices, and the totality of my life.” They risk the ridicule and censure of people they thought were their friends.

Amazingly, many of the people who have left Pride behind have also left other baggage. They have had bad things done to them. They’ve left blame behind. They’ve done things for which they are deeply sorry and ashamed. They’ve left toxic shame behind. They’ve done the best they could in deeply trying and confusing situations. They’ve left excuse-making behind.

In short, they have peace in their lives.

Evading the evidence

The LGBT political establishment thinks these people don’t exist. According to the “official voice” of the LGBT community, no one can change sexual orientation. People who say they have changed are either kidding themselves and will surely revert to their natural gay selves any minute, or they weren’t really gay in the first place.

That is a cop-out, evading the evidence rather than confronting it. This attitude is also deeply disrespectful. If corporate America can leave Pride behind, so can once-gay individuals. Personally, I have the utmost respect for those who have chosen to leave Pride behind.

I invite you to visit the Ruth Institute's YouTube channel. Get acquainted with the stories of those who have left Pride behind. Are they all lying or kidding themselves? Decide for yourself. I’m convinced that these are brave and honest individuals who have earned my respect.

Yes, Ken Burns, the Founding Fathers believed in God — and His 'divine Providence'

Ken Burns has built his career as America's memory keeper. For decades, he's positioned himself as the guardian against historical revisionism, the man who rescues truth from the dustbin of academic fashion. His camera doesn't just record past events — it sanctifies them.

For nearly five decades, Burns has reminded Americans that memory matters and that history shapes how a nation sees itself.

Jefferson's 'Nature’s God' wasn’t a placeholder. It was a real presence. He sliced up the Gospels but still bowed to the idea of eternal moral law.

Which makes his recent performance on Joe Rogan's podcast all the more stunning in its brazen historical malpractice.

At the 1-hour, 17-minute mark, Burns delivered his verdict on the Founding Fathers with the confidence of a man who's never been wrong about anything.

They were deists, he declared. Believers in a distant, disinterested God, a cosmic clockmaker who wound up the universe and wandered off to tend other galaxies. Cold, clinical, and entirely absent from human affairs.

It's a tidy narrative. One small problem: It's so very wrong.

The irony cuts so deep it draws blood. The man who made his reputation fighting historical revisionism has become its most prominent practitioner. Burns, the supposed guardian of American memory, has developed a curious case of selective amnesia, and Americans are supposed to pretend not to notice.

The deist delusion

Now, some might ask: Who cares? What difference does it make whether Washington believed in an active God or a divine absentee landlord? The answer is everything, and the fact that it's Burns making this claim makes it infinitely worse.

This isn't some graduate student getting his dissertation wrong. This is America's most trusted historical documentarian, the man whose work shapes how millions understand their past. When Burns speaks, the nation listens.

When he gets it wrong, the mistake seeps like an oil spill across the national story, quietly coating textbooks, classrooms, and documentaries for decades.

Burns is often treated as an apolitical narrator of history, but there’s a soft ideological current running through much of his work: reverence for progressive causes, selective moral framing, and a tendency to recast American complexity through a modern liberal lens.

Burns isn't stupid. One assumes he knows exactly what he's saying. If he doesn't — if his remarks on Rogan's podcast represent genuine ignorance rather than deliberate distortion — then we have serious questions about the depth of his actual knowledge. How does someone spend decades documenting American history while missing something this fundamental?

The truth is that Americans have been lied to about the Founders' faith for so long that Burns' deist mythology sounds plausible. The secular academy has been rewriting these men for decades, stripping away their religious convictions, sanding down their theological edges, making them safe for modern consumption. Burns isn't breaking new ground. He's perpetuating a familiar falsehood.

Taking a knee

Let's start with George Washington, the supposed deist in chief. Burns would have us believe the general bowed not to God, but to a kind of cosmic CEO who delegated all earthly duties to middle management. But at least one contemporary account attests that Washington knelt in the snow at Valley Forge — not once, but repeatedly.

He called for the national day of "prayer and thanksgiving" that eventually became the November federal holiday we know today. He invoked divine Providence so frequently you’d think he was writing sermons, not military orders.

His Farewell Address reads more like a theological tract than a retirement speech, warning that “religion and morality are indispensable supports” of political prosperity. Does that sound like a man who thought God had checked out?

John Adams, another Founder often branded a deist, wrote bluntly that “our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.”

Adams saw the American Revolution as the outgrowth of divine intervention. As he wrote to Thomas Jefferson in 1813, “The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were ... the general principles of Christianity.”

And what of Jefferson? By far the most heterodox, even he never denied divine order. His “Nature’s God” wasn’t a placeholder. It was a real presence. He sliced up the Gospels but still bowed to the idea of eternal moral law. Whatever his quarrels with organized religion, he did not believe in a silent universe.

Some of these men were, philosophically at least, frustrated Catholics. They couldn’t fully accept Protestantism, but they had no access to the Church’s intellectual infrastructure. The natural law reasoning that permeates their political thought — Jefferson’s “self-evident truths,” Madison’s checks and balances born of man’s fallen nature — comes straight from Aquinas, filtered through Locke, Montesquieu, and centuries of Christian jurisprudence.

The Founders weren’t Enlightenment nihilists. They weren’t secular technocrats. And they certainly weren’t deists. They were men steeped in a moral framework older than the American experiment itself.

Burns, for all his sepia-toned genius, has a blind spot you could drive a colonial wagon through. His documentaries glow with progressive reverence — plenty of civil rights and moral reckoning, but the Almighty gets the silent treatment. God may have guided the Founders, but in Ken’s cut, he barely makes the final edit.

The sacred and the sanitized

I mentioned irony at the start, but it deserves more than a passing nod. That's because the septuagenarian's own cinematic legacy contradicts the very theology he now peddles on podcasts.

His brilliant nine-part series "The Civil War" captured the moral agony of a nation tearing itself apart, and it did so in unmistakably religious terms. Here Burns treats Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address — haunted, prophetic, bathed in biblical cadence — with reverence, not revisionism.

The series understood something essential: Americans have always been a biblical people. They see their history not just in terms of dates and treaties, but in terms of sin, sacrifice, and redemption. Sacred story, divine purpose — this was the language of American reckoning.

The Founders weren’t saints, and they weren’t simple. They read Greek, spoke Latin, studied Scripture, and debated philosophy with a seriousness that puts modern politicians to shame. But they weren’t spiritual agnostics, either.

They were men of imperfect but active faith, shaped by the Bible, steeped in Christian moral tradition, and convinced that human rights came not from government but from God.

They didn’t build a republic of personal preference. They built one grounded in enduring truths that predated the Constitution, anchored to the idea that law and liberty meant nothing without a higher law above them.

Burns may deal in memory, but his treatment of religion reveals something else entirely. He doesn’t misremember. He reorders. He filters faith through a modern lens until it becomes unrecognizable.

Memory isn’t just about what’s preserved — it’s about what’s permitted. And when the sacred gets cast aside, what’s left isn’t history. It’s propaganda with better lighting.

Cardinal Burke calls for an end to 'persecution from within the Church'

The change in popes earlier this year has enlivened the international debate about the Catholic liturgy and tradition, especially about the traditional Latin mass. With Vatican deadlines approaching later this year, everyone is anxious to see what Pope Leo XIV's legacy will be.

Cardinal Leo Burke recently announced his hope that the new pope would "reconsider" the recent teachings of Pope Francis, which led to "persecution from within the Church" regarding the discontinuation of the Latin mass.

'Unfortunately, the current restrictions put in place by the recently deceased Pope Francis have caused confusion and hurt to the faithful who are seeking to worship the holy Trinity with the ancient liturgy and rituals.'

During a conference with the Latin Mass Society, Cardinal Burke was asked what he hopes the new pope, Leo XIV, will do regarding the late Pope Francis' restrictions on the Latin Mass.

"It is my hope that he will put an end to the persecution of the faithful in the Church who desire to worship God according to the more ancient usage of the Roman right," Burke, over video, told the conference.

Cardinal Burke signaled that he had already expressed his hopes for the future of the Latin Mass to Pope Leo XIV: "I certainly have already had occasion to express that to the Holy Father. ... It is my hope that he will restore the situation as it was after 'Summorum Pontificum' and even to continue to develop what Pope Benedict had so wisely and lovingly legislated for the Church."

"Summorum Pontificum" (2007) was Pope Benedict XVI's affirmation of the traditional celebration of the holy Mass in Latin. It was later restricted by Pope Francis' own motu proprio, "Traditionis Custodes" (2021).

Benedict's letter emphasized that the traditional Latin Mass and Novus Ordo were a "twofold use of one and the same rite," while Francis called for liturgical unity, limiting the extent to which the Latin Mass could be used.

Pope Francis' restrictions on the Latin Mass have been met with a great deal of resistance from the faithful, yet some dioceses have insisted on obedience to this order.

Many Catholics have argued against the legitimacy of "Traditionis Custodes," including liturgical scholar Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, who said in a 2021 speech at a Catholic Identity Conference, "The traditional Mass belongs to the most intimate part of the common good in the Church. Restricting it, pushing it into ghettos, and ultimately planning its demise can have no legitimacy. This law is not a law of the Church because, as St. Thomas Aquinas says, a law against the common good is no valid law."

Charlotte, North Carolina, however, has become a focal point in this controversy because Bishop Michael Martin recently announced that he would expedite the change in his diocese.

On May 23, Bishop Martin announced that the Latin Mass would cease to be offered by the four parishes in his diocese that celebrate it. He said the transition would be completed by the deadline of July 8, 2025.

That deadline, however, is three months ahead of an existing October 2025 deadline for the transition.

But in an unlikely turn of events, Bishop Martin announced on June 3 that he would push back the deadline to the Vatican's original October deadline. He cited pastoral concerns, both from parishioners and priests.

“It made sense to start these changes in July when dozens of our priests will be moving to their new parishes and other assignments,” Bishop Martin told local Catholic News Herald. “That said, I want to listen to the concerns of these parishioners and their priests, and I am willing to give them more time to absorb these changes.”

Photo by Grzegorz Galazka/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images

“I support the letter of His Eminence, Cardinal Burke, and his attempt to bring about Catholic unity under the peaceful provisions established by Pope Benedict XVI for the traditional Latin Mass. Unfortunately, the current restrictions put in place by the recently deceased Pope Francis have caused confusion and hurt to the faithful who are seeking to worship the holy Trinity with the ancient liturgy and rituals,” Dr. Taylor R. Marshall, president of the New Saint Thomas Institute, told Blaze News.

“I recently met with another cardinal in Rome who agrees with Cardinal Burke. We hope that the new pontiff, Pope Leo XIV, restores the generosity of Pope Benedict XVI by allowing the traditional Latin Mass to Catholics,” Dr. Marshall continued.

Bishop Martin also told the local outlet that the diocese would abide by any formal instruction from the Vatican in the interim.

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Together, pope and patriarch return to Nicaea on 1,700th anniversary of defining moment in Christendom

Seventeen centuries ago, bishops from around the known world gathered in Nicaea to affirm and codify the core tenets of the Christian faith. Now, as the anniversary of that defining moment in Christendom approaches, leaders on either side of the Great Schism are preparing to return, drawing East and West closer and renewing hope in the promise of Christian unity.

In the year 325, Emperor Constantine I called over 250 bishops — 318, according to tradition — to convene during the pontificate of Pope Sylvester I in the Bithynian city of Nicaea, 55 miles southeast of present-day Istanbul. It was the largest gathering of bishops in the church's history up until that time.

While the council would ultimately address a number of practical and ecclesiastic matters, it prioritized tackling the Arian heresy, which entailed a rebuke and an affirmation of the divinity of Christ — "God from God, light from light, True God from True God, begotten, not made, of the same substance as the Father, by Whom all things were made" — and setting the date on which to commemorate Jesus' resurrection.

This dogmatic council was of critical importance both then to the unified church and now to Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, and other Protestants, perhaps most notably for its production of the Nicene Creed — a statement of faith, mutually held as authoritative, that predates both the Chalcedonian schism and the Great Schism.

Pope Leo XIV and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople are making a joint trip to the place where their predecessors met 17 centuries earlier. While various obstacles some figured to be insurmountable still stand in the way of full reunification, the meeting of the Christian leaders on this particular anniversary and the anniversary itself have sparked renewed interest in Christian unity and the ground that the faithful share in common.

Of popes and plans

Prior to his passing, Pope Francis proposed celebrating the 1,700th anniversary with Orthodox leaders in a Nov. 30 letter to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, who previously indicated a joint trip was expected to happen in late May.

Pope Francis noted in his letter to the patriarch that the Catholic Church's "dialogue with the Orthodox Church has been and continues to be particularly fruitful," yet acknowledged that the "ultimate goal of dialogue, full communion among all Christians, sharing in the one Eucharistic chalice, has not yet been realized with our Orthodox brother and sisters," which "is not surprising, for divisions dating back a millennium, cannot be resolved within a few decades."

'It is good whenever the pope and the patriarch meet.'

Prior to heading back to Toronto from Rome, where he participated in the conclave that elected the new pope, Archbishop Emeritus Thomas Cardinal Collins told Blaze News, "The 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea is most important for all Christians, because it was there that the bishops clarified the basic Christian faith in the divinity of Christ. The Nicene Creed, from this council and the next one, in Constantinople a few years later, is still the basic expression of our faith in the Trinity."

First Council of Nicaea. Found in the collection of Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kiev. Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images

"The division of East and West that occurred much later in 1054 is most unfortunate and has impeded the spread of the gospel," continued Collins. "But the churches of East and West, while having different theological and liturgical styles, recognize one another's apostolic succession and, with a few issues still in dispute, basically agree on doctrine as well. One thing that divides us is historical memories, but increased cooperation has brought some healing there."

'The remembrance of that important event will surely strengthen the bonds that already exist.'

Cardinal Collins noted further that "it is good whenever the pope and the patriarch meet. All Christians, facing so many external dangers, need to work together. The anniversary of Nicaea, which occurred long before the division of East and West, is a perfect opportunity to deepen our knowledge and love for one another, but especially Jesus. The closer we are to Him, the closer we will be to one another."

Pope Francis, then evidently of a similar mind, told Patriarch Bartholomew I that the anniversary would be "another opportunity to bear witness to the growing communion that already exists among all who are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

"This anniversary will concern not only the ancient Sees that took part actively in the Council, but all Christians who continue to profess their faith in the words of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed," wrote Pope Francis. "The remembrance of that important event will surely strengthen the bonds that already exist and encourage all Churches to a renewed witness in today's world."

The interest in a joint trip was evidently mutual.

During a March address in Harbiye, Turkey, Patriarch Bartholomew underscored his desire for a joint celebration of the anniversary, reported the Orthodox Times. He also emphasized the importance of the Council of Nicaea.

"The Council of Nicaea stands as a landmark in the formation of the Church's doctrinal identity and remains the model for addressing doctrinal and canonical challenges on an ecumenical level," said Patriarch Bartholomew.

Photo by Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images

Their plans hit a major snag the following month.

Pope Francis died hours after Easter Sunday — the first time the Catholic and Orthodox Churches had celebrated Easter on the same day in eight years.

"He was due to come to our country, and together we would go to Nicaea, where the First Ecumenical Council was convened, to honor the memory of the Holy Fathers and exchange thoughts and wishes for the future of Christianity," Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew said in the wake of Pope Francis' passing. "All of this, of course, was canceled — or rather postponed."

'We are preparing it.'

"I believe that his successor will come, and we will go together to Nicaea to send a message of unity, love, brotherhood, and shared path toward the future of Christianity," added the patriarch.

It would not be clear for several days whom the papal conclave would elect as Francis' successor and whether he would have a similar interest in an East-West convention in Nicaea on the anniversary of the council.

The Chicagoan steps up to the plate

Various leaders in the Christian East welcomed the new bishop of Rome following his May 8 election.

Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, among them, expressed hope that Pope Leo XIV will "be a dear brother and collaborator ... for the rapprochement of our churches, for the unity of the whole Christian family, and for the benefit of humankind," reported Vatican News.

Days later, Pope Leo XVI reportedly stated, "The meeting with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew will take place; we are preparing it."

When asked about the significance of the joint trip, the likelihood of East-West reunification, and Orthodox interest in such reunification, Fr. Barnabas Powell, a parish priest in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America speaking on his own behalf, told Blaze News, "There is simply no way one can be faithful to Christ and not long for the unity of all Christians."

RELATED: Not Francis 2.0: Why Pope Leo XIV is a problem for the 'woke' agenda

Photo (left): Abdulhamid Hosbas/Anadolu via Getty Images; Photo (right): Simone Risoluti - Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images

"We Orthodox pray for the unity of the churches in every service. Our Archbishop [Elpidophoros of America] has proven by his prayers and actions that he longs for unity," said Fr. Powell. "But unity isn't merely accepting certain propositional proposals. St. Paul said the Church is the bride of Christ, and this profound witness of the identity of the Church is ontologically connected to the mystery of relationship and love. This means we must work to know one another and not merely know about one another."

"This is hard work in light of the tragic centuries we have been apart. But just because something is difficult doesn't mean we shouldn't try," added Fr. Powell.

The Greek Orthodox priest expressed optimism about the joint trip to Nicaea, noting that as the "first Nicaea showed us that we are to gather together to struggle and dialogue through our challenges, so this is the normal Christian discipline for us today."

'I'm not in the odds-making business, but there is certainly justified hope.'

The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America notes on its website that the "anniversary celebration brings together Orthodox, Catholics, and Protestants to reflect on the enduring significance of Nicaea, fostering conciliarity, dialogue, prayer, and a renewed commitment to the pursuit of Christian unity, echoing the spirit of the first ecumenical council."

Monsignor Roger Landry, national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States, told Blaze News that over the past six decades, popes and the patriarchs of Constantinople have been regularly "meeting, praying, and slowly working for restored communion, as have the churches they lead."

Msgr. Landry suggested that "there's no question" that one of Pope Leo XIV's top priorities, "as we celebrate the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea and move toward the 1000th anniversary of the lamentable split between East and West in 1054, will be to take whatever steps, big or small, that will help the church breathe with both lungs again in communion" — a reference to Pope St. John Paul II's 1995 metaphor of the Western and Eastern churches as two lungs.

Echoing Cardinal Collins and Fr. Powell, Msgr. Landry noted that there remain various obstacles in the way of restoration of full communion — including the date of Easter, the role of the pope, the Filioque controversy, the sacrament of marriage, the respect for the legitimate autonomy of the Eastern churches — but there is nevertheless "a mutual desire for that communion and a mutual humble dependence on God to reveal the path forward."

"I'm not in the odds-making business, but there is certainly justified hope because the issues that divide us are small in comparison to the faith, sacraments, life, and calling that unite us," Msgr. Landry told Blaze News. "We are moving together in the right direction."

In the meantime, he suggested that the ongoing separation "is a scandal that hinders the witness Christians are called to give of God."

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew's joint trip to Nicaea with Pope Leo XIV is hardly the only celebration of the anniversary that has brought East and West together.

Earlier this month in Freehold, New Jersey, hierarchs, clergy, seminarians, and faithful from Eastern and Western traditions — including elements of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA, the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Orthodox Church in America, the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of New Jersey, the Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Passaic, the St. Thomas Syro-Malabar Eparchy, and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn — participated in an ecumenical prayer service "testifying to the unifying power of the Nicene Creed and the enduring vision of the Council Fathers."

Similar celebrations have been held elsewhere across the world.

The Catholic Church's International Theological Commission stated in a recent publication concerning the Council of Nicaea and the 1,700th anniversary:

The celebration of the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea is a pressing invitation to the Church to rediscover the treasure entrusted to her and to draw from it so as to share it with joy, with a new impetus, indeed in a "new stage of evangelisation." To proclaim Jesus our Salvation on the basis of the faith expressed at Nicaea, as professed in the Nicene-Constantinople symbol, is first of all to allow ourselves to be amazed by the immensity of Christ, so that all may be amazed, to rekindle the fire of our love for the Lord Jesus, so that all may burn with love for him. Nothing and no one is more beautiful, more life-giving, more necessary than he is."

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