Pick up the "latest" kids’ book these days, and chances are you’ll be met with one or all of the following: a feeble storyline, flat illustrations, and little to no moral value.

Not so, however, when you choose a children’s book by Dr. Matthew Mehan.

'I want the American family to have something beautiful and lasting. I want their witty-wise love of God, country, and family to be helped along, so to speak, by this book.'

In addition to his career as associate dean and associate professor of government at Hillsdale in D.C., Dr. Mehan has built a remarkable reputation as a children’s author. Each of his books is years in the making, and it shows. The finished products are lasting works of art that resonate deeply with readers.

With this in mind, it came as no surprise when Dr. Mehan was awarded one of just five 2025 Innovation Prizes from the Heritage Foundation this summer. The awards are designed to support “innovative projects … that prepare the American public to celebrate our nation’s Semiquincentennial by elevating our founding principles, educating our citizens, and inspiring patriotism.”

Dr. Mehan is putting his prize — as well as a recently awarded NEH grant — toward a collection of fables, tentatively titled "The American Family’s Book of Fables." The book is for all ages, not just kids, and will work through the Declaration of Independence phrase by phrase, supporting and expounding the founding document with an assortment of fables, dialogues, and poems touching on American history, culture, and wildlife.

This week, Dr. Mehan was kind enough to sit down with me to discuss his forthcoming book as well as the history of children’s literature in America.

Faye Root: Could you start by telling me a bit about your background and what inspired you to write children's and family literature?

Matthew Mehan: I've always been interested in creative writing since I was a child. I wrote poetry and short stories, doodled and drew. After college, I published some poems and short stories in a few places.

But I also studied a lot of the great writers, and I noticed they were always practicing the rhetorical arts so that they could be good communicators — be of service. Guys like Cicero, Seneca, Thomas More, Chaucer, Madison, Adams. I started practicing different kinds of writing every night after work, and I started writing these poems about different sorts of imaginary beasts — fables in imitation of Socrates from Plato's "Phaedo." At the very end of his life, Socrates was turning Aesop's Fables into poetic verse.

And that became the seed of my first kids’ book, "Mr. Mehan’s Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals." I went back for a master's in English and a Ph.D. in literature. I realized I probably needed to find a genre that doesn't expect this kind of literary public service. Children’s literature seemed like a really great place to do this. And then I started having kids as well, and I didn't like what we were doing in the kid lit space.

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Leigh Brown

FR: Couldn’t agree more. My congratulations on your Heritage Foundation Innovation Prize. Your book will be a collection of fables — could you tell me about it?

MM: The book is a direct attempt to celebrate the Semiquincentennial and to teach and reteach the Western tradition and the American principles and people. It's folk stories and traditions: “Here's what it means to be an American. Here's what you should love about America. Here — get to know America.”

It’s divided into 13 parts and works sentence by sentence through the entire Declaration of Independence. Inside each of the 13 sections are three subsections: one for littles, one for middles, and one for bigs. Each of these are tied to an explanation of what that related portion of the Declaration means. The third engine of each of the 13 sections takes you to a different ecological region of the country.

So it's not just the principles of the Semiquincentennial and the Declaration. It's also the people and the stories and the wildlife, the beautiful countryside, and all the animals and creatures God gave us.

The whole book follows one particular funny fellow, Hugh Manatee, who starts in the Everglades, and he transports his heavy bulk by all various manners of technological, very American developments around the entire country.

I wanted a book that a family can engage with no matter their level. And it's designed to be a big heirloom book for the American family to last a long time — 250 years until the 500th anniversary.

FR: Could you talk a bit more about the importance of fables in American history and how the founding generation viewed and used them?

MM: The answer is, they used them just constantly. The fable tradition goes as far back as Solomon, who uses it in the Old Testament. It’s part of our Judeo-Christian, Greco-Roman Western tradition. In fact, kind of a theme of the book is bringing back Roman Republicanism. The beast-fable tradition is very much a part of that self-governing Republican spirit. The founders knew this.

And then you have the fables of the medieval Bestiary, the early moderns, and all the way up to the last major attempt: L'Estrange, whose works were in the library of all the founding fathers. A lot of them also had Caxton. We're talking 1490s and 1700s. So they’re definitely due for an American upgrade.

A page from "Mr. Mehan's Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals." mythicalmammals.com

FR: Your book "Mr. Mehan’s Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals" is an abecedarian. Could you explain what an abecedarian is?

MM: An abecedarian is basically just a fancy word for an ABC book where the structure is not complicated. There’s an A-word, and then some kind of poem or story, a B-word, and then a poem or story, etc.

I did it as a kind of nod to Chaucer, whose first published work of all time was an abecedarian. It was a good, simple structure. I could do the letter blocks for the little people, and each one of the letter blocks had funny alliterative tricks. These and the illustrations were very fun for littles. But then there was higher matter happening, both in some of the poems and the glossary for the adults. So there was sort of deeper matter for adults to seize on to.

For this new book, I've broken it out. I’m being more American, more candid, so it’s clear: This part’s for littles, that part’s for middles, that other part’s for bigs.

FR: In your article “Restoring America's Founding Imagination,” you mention that “children's imaginations were not coddled in our founders’ time.” Could you speak more about that?

MM: Think, for instance, of "Grimms’ Fairy Tales." In these fables, a stepmother might cut off the hands of a child and put stone hands in place, right? "Fancy Nancy" books can't handle that level of violence. But children had to deal with really rough things then. Rough times called them out of their doldrums to attention.

Now, I'm not going to go quite full Brothers Grimm-level gruesome with this book. But there are things, especially in the "Bigs” sections, that go wrong, that are serious. Explorers get burned at the stake. Someone takes an arrow in the sternum. People get shot and killed at Bunker Hill. If you read the school books of the founding period, they're just not messing around. People die because they're foolish, and yes, even kids can die.

Illustration from "The Handsome Little Cygnet." John Folley

You’ve got to be gentle, careful, thoughtful. I try to be measured. But there's got to be ways of introducing these themes to help children be adults. I think a lot of what happens in modern kid lit — why it's not deep, why it's not serious, or rich, or lasting — is because it's so saccharine. It’s not written to call children up to something more.

And you can do that in a very fun, wacky, hilarious, enjoyable way. I try to do that. But I'm trying to mix in that there’s a moral here. It's a different mentality than most of children's books today, but it's much more in keeping with our founding generation and the kind of moral seriousness combined with levity that sustains a witty-wise Republican citizenry. And I think the American audience is really starving for this kind of very moral, witty-wise book.

FR: You emphasize the importance of wit and wisdom in your work. Specifically, why does wit matter, and what role did it play in shaping America’s early identity?

MM: In a certain sense, wit is a virtue. To be witty is to have a certain kind of pleasant humor that can manipulate language, situations — turn them on their head, get people to see something different. And that makes people laugh because mental surprises are actually the source of laughter. Aristotle’s "Nicomachean Ethics" talks about wittiness this way — as playfulness.

Wit also means being "quick" in that sense of being adroit. Adroitness is actually a constituent part of the virtue of prudence — that sort of ability to take a problem and think about it in an adroit or adept way and quickly. That's actually required for prudence.

In fact, the word “wit” in Latin means genius — to grasp something and see: “That's what we should do.” It’s that sort of clever ability to take care of your business, to be able to say, “No, I can handle this. I can think this through. I can puzzle it out. I can come up with a solution. I can invent a new idea.” Think American invention, flight, jazz, computers.

Wit is a creative energy of the imagination and the mind that helps one to rise in this world. Obviously, that has to be wed to principle, to piety, and to the higher things that cannot be compromised, the unchanging things. That marriage of wit and wisdom was something that our founding fathers knew must be done and must be done in each of us.

FR: Finally, could you talk about the illustrations in your upcoming book?

MM: Yes, my dear friend John Folley is a realist impressionist — a classically trained artist. His work mirrors both the realist classical style with some new techniques in Impressionism — particularly playing with light and the heft and weight that light creates.

John Folley at work. Mythicalmammals.com

He makes beautiful oil paintings, which he did for "Mehan’s Mammals." But he also uses a lot of the same principles in watercolor.

For this book, he’s going to do a combination of all of the types of art we've done before. We’ll have 13 major oils that introduce the animals and themes and the ecological areas of the country for each of the 13 parts. And probably one other oil: an American image of wit and wisdom and how Americans ought to pursue it.

And then we’ll have all kinds of pen and ink, computer color, watercolor, a lot of different little images basically populating the rest of the book. It’s going to be a very beautiful, hardback heirloom book. I want the American family to have something beautiful and lasting. I want their witty-wise love of God, country, and family to be helped along, so to speak, by this book.

—

"The American Family’s Book of Fables" is planned for release in May 2026 and will be available everywhere books are sold. Dr. Mehan will follow publication with a national book tour, culminating with the July 4 Semiquincentennial celebrations. For more information, keep an eye on his website.

Also be sure to check out two of Dr. Mehan’s other beloved children’s books: "Mr. Mehan's Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals" and "The Handsome Little Cygnet."

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

'Lord of the Rings' demonizes orcs, says college prof

A university professor is attacking classic literature through the guise of academia.

Specifically targeted are the beloved works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and even William Shakespeare.

'Diverse populations and Africans lived there.'

Onyeka Nubia is a British historian employed as the assistant professor for the faculty of arts at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom.

Hobbitual racism

In a history module called "Decolonising Tolkien et al," Nubia teaches that "people of colour" are demonized in the "Lord of the Rings" books and targets certain races of creatures and humans for his analysis.

According to the Telegraph, Nubia noted groups called the Easterlings, Southrons, and men from Harad as being particularly deprecated. According to Lord of the Rings Fandom pages, the Harad and Southrons had black skin, while the Easterlings were "sallow or olive."

Fans of the series know that none of these races are noted as being undesirable based solely on the color of their skin, but Nubia claims that these races are depicted as "the natural enemy of the white man."

He makes similar claims about orcs, despite the fact that they are literal monsters bred for war. As well, Nubia reportedly declares that the stories showcase "anti-African antipathy," even though several of the story's most significant evildoers are light-skinned males, like Grima, Saruman, and Gollum.

Ian McKellen (L) as Gandalf with Elijah Wood as Frodo in "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring." Photo by New Line/WireImage/Getty Images

Narnia business

The professor reportedly does not stop at Tolkien, though, and goes after classics like "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe."

The fantasy book is reportedly described as providing unbecoming portrayals of oriental stereotypes when describing the Calormenes. These characters are described as "cruel" people with "long beards" and "orange-coloured turbans."

A fan page describes them as "tan-skinned" men who are "mostly bearded," wearing "flowing robes, turbans, and wooden shoes."

Nubia also provided articles that said medieval England had "diverse populations and Africans lived there," but "ethnic chauvinism" was apparent in the literature in the region.

Bad Bard

This was also allegedly present in Shakespeare's work. Nubia's syllabus reportedly said the author promoted a vision of a "fictional, mono-ethnic English past."

Calling Shakespeare's plays problematic, Nubia claims they are "missing direct references to Africans living in England" which creates the "illusion" of racial homogeneity in the country.

RELATED: Father-Son Movie Bucket List

Director Peter Jackson attending "The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers" world premiere, December 5, 2002. Photo by Evan Agostini/Getty Images

As noted by Geeks and Gamers, prominent voices who cover the medium spoke out against the alleged teachings.

"If you see orcs as black people YOU are the racist," wrote Nerdrotic, an X account with over 260,000 followers.

The Critical Drinker, who has over 2.3 million YouTube subscribers, wrote on X similarly, "If you look at Orcs and see people of colour, that's a 'You' problem."

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Science fiction must return to the three Rs: Rockets, robots, and ray guns

Once upon a time, science fiction was a brand-new, chrome-shiny phenomenon rocketing across the sky of the American pulp fiction scene.

As the borderlines of the Industrial Age were just beginning to blur against those of the incoming Information Age, early sci-fi envisioned societies, worlds, and even whole universes filled with possibilities. Action and adventure, intrigue and mystery, horror, romance, humor … you could get it all within the pages of the latest edition of your favorite science fiction magazine.

The science fiction I read today — and I do read a ton of it — is mostly bleak and drab and too often just really sad.

Rockets, robots, ray guns

The magazine titles themselves – Amazing Stories, Fantastic Mysteries, Astounding Stories, If: Worlds of Science Fiction — were a good clue. And if ever there was a time to judge a book by its cover, you could feast your eyes on plenty of rockets, ray-gun-wielding cheesecake girls, and delightfully clunky robots (pronounced ROW-BUTTS, for you science fiction radio neophytes out there).

Fantastical machines driven by atomics and imagination whirred and ground within the frameworks of massive Earth-built spaceships — said ships filled with men bent on surviving each harrowing encounter with alien monsters so as to be there for the next one. Often as not, there’d be one woman aboard, as well, to be the love interest for the main character (she was usually the captain’s daughter, too, and thus forbidden fruit).

But hey, maybe early military sci-fi wasn’t your thing. That was okay, because you could flip through a few pages, pass an ad telling you why your doctor probably recommended Camel cigarettes above all others, and step into some post-atomic-war scenario where the mutants are on our hero’s tail. Or perhaps you’d seek out the story where a band of intrepid big-game hunters time-travel back to go on a dinosaur safari.

This was the golden age of science fiction, and depending on who you ask, it lasted until maybe the 1980s, when it began to be subsumed in popular media by new forms such as the techno thriller (con grazie, Michael Crichton) and when most of the remaining energy from this multimedia juggernaut filtered upward into giant television and movie vehicles — most notably "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and "Star Wars."

Stardate: 1966

Now, if you’ve read this far, you’re clearly just fine with a gross amount of oversimplification. That’s good — I like you. So let’s keep it going as we round the third corner into my actual point.

Somewhere along the line, things in science fiction started getting sociopolitical. And at first, that wasn’t so bad. "Star Trek: The Original Series" (the 60s-era "Trek" upon which later installments of the franchise was based) tackled issues like racism, sexism, and the futility of war. By the time its successor show came around, writers and producers were tackling sticky issues of the day like racism, sexism, the futility of war, and (kind of) the then-nascent sociopolitical honey trap of transsexualism.

Meet the future

Centuries changed.

In the wake of Y2K’s sputtering burp of a soliloquy on mankind’s technological Tower of Babel not coming down after all — and, of course, a couple of real towers coming down in horrifying and history-altering fashion — Americans moved into a new age without really realizing it. It was (and still is) an age of realized technology, where internet reached far more functional speeds, supercomputers began fitting in our pockets, electric cars became a real thing, rockets started going into space for fun again, and social media introduced a whole new way for humanity to wage war against itself.

In short, we finally had almost everything the golden age of science fiction dared us to dream about.

Planet Pronoun

And then, along came wokeness.

Far be it from me to lay before you here a comprehensive history of what that has meant for society so far. I am unqualified to do so, and my guess is you’re aware of most of it. But perhaps one of the lesser-known zones of infection for the aptly named woke mind virus is almost the entire world of science fiction.

Woke got "Star Wars." Woke got "Star Trek." Woke got other movies and television series. And hey, remember all those words ago when we were talking about science fiction magazines? Many of them are still around … and woke got them too. If you check out Asimov’s, or Clarkesworld, or Escape Pod, or any of the dozens of sci-fi magazines still extant out in the pulp literary world, I’m going to give you about an 85%-90% chance of primarily encountering tales tied directly to identity politics. It has very nearly completely captured the industry.

RELATED: All good sci-fi is religious

CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images

And let me be clear: It’s not my intention to suggest that the pronoun folk shouldn’t have a seat at the sci-fi table — if anything, many of the things they have to say in their stories probably belong in that genre more than just about any other.

But I also think that — particularly on the conservative end of the sociopolitical spectrum and increasingly on the liberal end — we have to face the fact that "intersectional" thinking at large and wokeism in particular are breeding grounds for many of the darker things humanity is capable of creating. The science fiction I read today — and I do read a ton of it — is mostly bleak and drab and too often just really sad. This is not to say there aren’t some phenomenal woke writers — I encounter them frequently. But you can be a great writer and still depress your reader to no end. Just ask John Steinbeck.

Author Josh Jennings and his book, 'Space Tractor." Getty Images/Josh Jennings

'Tractor' beam

A few years ago I found — at random — a science fiction masterpiece called "The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast." It’s a professional recapturing of the golden age of science fiction, and it’s been delighting me ever since by taking me back to when science fiction wasn’t just well written; it was well intentioned, in most cases. As a reader and listener, I can feel it feeding the fertile ground of my imagination, while also often inspiring me to have hope for the future of humanity … and spurring me to do my part in creating that future.

As a writer, I am inspired to make sure that we Americans can experience a new golden age of science fiction. To that end, I’ve made a modest contribution in the form of my new book: "Space Tractor and Other Science Fiction Short Stories." It came out October 16, on my birthday. If you’re like me and you miss that bygone era — but you’d also like something with modern flavor to it — well … I would humbly submit that my book might be just what you’re looking for.

From space battles to alien abductions, from blasted post-apocalyptic wastelands to colonized asteroids with farmers running drugs (as in the title story), from alien villagers’ concept of the afterlife coming true to planets that can fit inside your pocket … this book truly has something for everyone.

Except maybe the pronoun people — although I hope you can find something you like, too.

Read an excerpt of "Space Tractor" here.

Why I ditched my phone for a camcorder

Like you, I take my phone everywhere. I check my email, I scroll X, I call my wife and ask her if there's anything she needs me to pick up on my way home.

And I take photos and videos. Of everything. The lake, the gulls, the mountains, the houses, the flowers, the woods, my son, my daughter, my wife, my life. Every video in my phone is less than 30 seconds, and most aren’t more than 10.

Who would have thought that the iPhone would essentially eliminate what we used to call 'home movies'?

A little clip of a deer behind the house. A shot of a kid cracking a wiffle ball or running the bases. My phone is full of these short little bursts.

That’s something different about our era. My parents didn’t take hundreds of five-second clips of my brother, sister, and me. They took long, 10-minute videos with a camcorder. Remember those?

Focus on the family

They’d record these long videos at birthday parties, in the car on family trips, or at my uncle’s cabin. A whole inning of Little League, the soft lull of conversation between Mom and Dad in the background. My mom would ask us questions, interviewing us kids like little adults for what felt like eternity, the zoom moving in and out as we reluctantly answered her questions.

Those old family videos feel so much slower and so much less frantic. I don’t know what it is exactly, but in the short ones on our iPhones, it feels like life is happening in a disjointed fashion. Or like people are performing. Or like everything is sped up 20%. I suppose it’s because we don’t get a sense for the scene or the place. We have no context. All we have is an eight-second clip and a question, years later, about where that was.

On the old videos, mom and dad would narrate in a kind of family documentarian way, as if curating historical footage for future reference. “So it’s August 17, 1996, and we are visiting Grandma at the cabin. It’s about 85 degrees, and this is the last trip of the summer. How’s everybody doing? What did you think, kids? Are you having fun?” Stuff like that.

Mom and dad would walk around the house with the camera, coming upon a kid in the bedroom reading or playing, film the kid from a distance, zooming in on fingers or eyes, the camera shaking.

They’d find my grandparents at the table and joke about a few things. My dad would zoom in on my mom getting dinner ready in the kitchen, the soft hum of the tape heard on the mic. My mom would frame a long shot of my dad, outside, smoking his pipe, reading.

Video vérité

Those long shots on the camcorders were slices of life as it really was. Watching the videos, you feel the time and place and even the real — or more real — behaviors of the people on the screen. Walking slowly with Mom or Dad around the house stirs memories of bedrooms, bathrooms, hallways, and living rooms in ways the short little iPhone clips can’t.

Realizing this, I bought an old camcorder. I found a Sony Handycam DCR-SR62 on eBay for 50 bucks and a battery on Amazon for 12.

It's old-school but not too old-school. The most annoying thing about the old camcorders was the hassle of bringing analog footage into the digital age. If you want to transfer tape onto computer, it takes a long time. If you have a two-hour video, it takes two hours to get it on the computer.

What's nice about the Sony Handycam model I bought is that there are no tapes or disks. All video is stored on an internal hard drive, which can then be transferred to your computer just as easily as you transfer photos from any digital camera. Essentially, you get the best of both worlds: digital transfer speed and long-form family video.

James Laynse/Getty Images

Real to reels

In theory, we should be able to record 10-minute slice-of-life videos on our iPhones. But we don’t. The format of the technology pushes us in a different direction. Consuming reels on Instagram nudges our tastes toward short-form portrait and away from long-form landscape.

The technology we use shapes the way we live. That’s obvious, of course, but it’s a realization that seems to be continually rediscovered, or revealed, in ways that we never could have anticipated. Who would have thought that the iPhone would essentially eliminate what we used to call "home movies"?

I took my Sony Handycam to the beach at the end of the summer. I filmed my kids eating string cheese and sharing a can of sparkling water. I zoomed in on sailboats in the distance, walked up and down the beach recording the kids running in front of me, and interviewed them just like my mom interviewed us.

“So it’s September 30, 2025, and we are at beach. How’s the food? Can you believe we are swimming in September? Did you guys jump in the water? What do we think, was it cold? What was your favorite thing we did this summer?”

What if your country loved you back?

My first year in college, I was super into music. I played guitar and joined a campus band and went to see other bands every chance I got.

But I was too young to go to bars, so I often had to sneak into shows or find other ways to watch and learn from other guitarists. I desperately needed a fake ID.

In Portland, we have the recent phenomenon of people not having license plates on their cars. Shouldn’t everyone have license plates on their cars?

When I returned home that summer, I went to great lengths to get an official Oregon state ID with a birth year on it that would make me 21. Not a cheap fake one. A real ID. I possibly committed a felony in the process.

So for the next two years, I saw a lot of bands and musicians. In my mind, access to live music was definitely worth the risk.

Judgment day

When I think back to this episode in my life, I’m shocked I had the nerve to pull this off. I not only misrepresented myself on official documents, but I straight-up lied to my local DMV!

Sure, it was the 1980s. So it was much harder to check. But still ...

I also imagine what would have happened if I’d been caught and ended up in front of a judge. How would I have defended myself?

I would probably have just told the truth: I was in a band. I needed to see other bands. Music was my great love. I wasn’t doing it for the alcohol.

And how would the judge have reacted?

He would have looked at me, a nice kid, in college, not an actual criminal.

He would have been older, my parents’ age, most likely male, most likely white, like me.

He would have probably had kids my age. Maybe a kid who was into music.

And he would have thought about his own life and the time he snuck in somewhere, maybe to an R-rated movie or a local burlesque show.

And if I were respectful and showed remorse, I probably would not have been dealt with too severely. Probation, community service. No real harm. No real foul.

Back to the future

But then I think: What would happen in that same situation now? What if my college student self lied to the DMV in 2025? And got caught?

For starters, the judge could be of either sex. And might be of any race.

If the judge weren’t white, there would be the danger the judge would look at me and think: “white privilege.” Or the judge would have other feelings of resentment, since our media and societal messaging relentlessly emphasize all the unfair advantages white people have.

And being male and aggressively pursuing a dream like “becoming a good guitarist” might annoy a female judge. Men aggressively pursuing things was part of the reason women have been held back throughout history.

Also, such a crime would seem much more serious. Our current society demands constant proof and verification of our identities at all times.

No, in 2025, you would be dealing with state authorities that, at best, didn’t like you and, at worst, considered you a threat.

There would be no “boys will be boys” leniency. This was the GOVERNMENT you were dealing with. Which is not your friend. And is not your family. THE GOVERNMENT doesn’t love you.

Love is love

It sounds weird to say that a government “loves” or “doesn’t love” its citizens.

And yet, when I was 16 and filling out my first 1040 tax form for my after-school gas-station job, I remember the feeling I had for the people I was giving my tax money to. That feeling was a kind of love.

I didn’t mind paying my taxes. I understood the concept. We all give money to the government. And it builds roads and bridges. It employs school teachers, firemen, the police. It tries to take care of the citizens.

In those days, the state taxes in Oregon were so low, it was almost a joke. When I mailed my tax form, I imagined it arriving at some modest building, surrounded by mountains and trees.

I pictured our “state employees” as a small cadre of park ranger types and a handful of nice ladies who worked in the office. That’s how sparsely populated our state was.

If the state of Oregon sent you a letter, it was probably a notice telling you when deer hunting season began.

My taxes also paid for the Coast Guard, which bravely rescued fishermen from sinking boats. And the local sheriff, who, if he busted your high school keg party, didn’t come down on you too hard, because he used to throw keg parties too.

In other words, I didn’t mind paying my taxes because I felt loved by these people. I felt loved by my federal government too. Didn’t it build the national parks and send people to the moon? And make cars safer? And issue cool postage stamps honoring Elvis and the Beatles?

From what I could see, the main concern of all these people was keeping me safe. And making everyone’s life a little better.

In this way, my country loved me. Maybe not in a particular way. But in a general way. Weren’t we one nation, under God, indivisible, and all that?

Weren’t we all in this together?

Alex_Bond/Bettman/Getty Images

The unloved generation

So what do young people think now? Do they believe their country loves them? I kind of doubt it. But I don’t know. I’m not 16 anymore.

One way a country can show love for its people is by being consistent, like enforcing the law the same for everyone, so that everybody feels valued.

In Portland, we have the recent phenomenon of people not having license plates on their cars. Shouldn’t everyone have license plates on their cars?

This is just one small thing. But I see it every day. Cars, driving around, without front or back license plates. Shouldn’t the police stop them and give them a ticket for “lack of license plates”?

But the police don’t do that. City officials have reduced their numbers and limited their authority. This has caused crime to increase. So the police don’t have time to stop people for lack of license plates.

So now, if you get in an accident with someone without license plates, the car can just drive away, and there’s nothing you can do. This makes people feel helpless. And distrustful. And unprotected. And unloved.

Turning Japanese

I visited Tokyo recently. The Japanese are very strange, with their complicated language and unique culture.

But one thing I felt very strongly. Their country loved them. You could feel it in the air.

They had corruption and politics and all the usual human problems. But overall, there was obvious love. You saw it everywhere.

The government gave old people jobs to make them feel useful. It built incredible subways and infrastructure to make workers’ lives easier.

People were quick to come to each other’s aid. They respected each other’s property. They didn’t litter. They didn’t steal. They treated each other with great kindness and consideration.

Their country loved them. And because of that, they felt inspired to love each other.

It’s an odd point to make, I know. But just imagine if your country loved you. Wouldn’t that be nice? Wouldn’t that be the best feeling in the world?

Snoop Dogg's new trick: Pushing cartoons that teach kids about gay parents

Rapper Snoop Dogg has seemingly reversed course after criticizing modern animated movies for their gay messaging.

The hip-hop legend, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, recently criticized the "Toy Story" spin-off movie "Lightyear" after his grandson expressed confusion over a lesbian plotline.

'This is a program that we've been doing for years where we involve kids, and these are things that kids have questions about.'

"Well, my grandson, in the middle of the movie, is like, 'Papa Snoop, how did she have a baby with a woman? She's a woman,'" he recalled.

He said he remembered thinking, "Oh s**t, I didn't come in for this s**t. I just came to watch the goddamn movie.'"

After making the comments on the "It's Giving" podcast in August, Snoop has since decided to launch a song through his cartoon network to reach out to gay parents and their children.

Nuthin' but a 'G' thang

The YouTube channel Doggyland - Kids Songs & Nursery Rhymes, which has 1.26 million subscribers, posted a song on October 13 titled "Love Is Love."

Cartoon dogs sing lyrics like, "Our parents are different / No two are the same / But the one thing that's for certain / Is the love won't change," while same-sex (animal) couples are shown on screen. Snoop Dogg also performs a verse in the song.

Comments on the video are turned off. The comments were also turned off for a subsequent podcast on Snoop's main channel, SnoopDoggTV (10.9 million subscribers), announcing a partnership with gay activist group GLAAD.

GLAAD tidings

Snoop spoke with singer Jeremy Beloate, a member of the rap mogul's record label Death Row Records, whom he discovered on the singing show "The Voice."

The two began the broadcast with a joint statement, saying, "It's Spirit Day. Go purple now. October 16. Stop the bullying to support LGBTQ youth. Let's go, y'all."

This was the last mention of "LGBTQ" kids, and the word "gay" is not even said during the podcast. Beloate spoke on being bullied for being a singer when he was a child and said he became friends with a gay couple in New York he babysat for. Beloate said the couple kept coming up with excuses to support his budding career, and he really appreciated that despite never being exposed to a gay couple before.

Love-bombing

Although the podcast was tame content-wise, Snoop found time to insert lengthy talking points like, "It's a beautiful thing that kids can have parents of all walks and be able to be shown love, to be taught what love is, because hate is taught and so is love."

He continued, "And I think that being able to have parents of all walks of life, whether it's two fathers, two mothers, whatever it is, love is the key. And I think these kids are being loved by these great parents that are, you know, showing them an example of what family is."

The rapper also spoke on his "Love Is Love" song, saying that music is a beautiful "bridge to bringing understanding."

"This is a program that we've been doing for years where we involve kids, and these are things that kids have questions about. So now hopefully we can help answer these questions and, you know, help them to live a happy life and understand that love is love," he explained.

Armed and inclusive

In a statement to Variety, Snoop tried to connect his typical gangster motif to the idea of gay activism.

"At the end of the day, it's all about love — that's what we're teachin' the kids with 'Love Is Love.' Partnering with GLAAD for Spirit Day just felt right, because spreading love and respect for everybody is what real gangstas do," the rapper claimed.

"We're showin' the next generation that kindness is cool, inclusion is powerful, and love always wins," he added.

Snoop had asked in August why movies had to show gay relationships to children, saying, "It threw me for a loop."

"I'm like, 'What part of the movie was this?' These are kids. We have to show that at this age? They're going to ask questions! I don't have the answer."

Snoop apparently has since come up with the answers.

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Satan has a mix tape — and Taylor Swift is on the playlist

Taylor Swift is back with a new record, and with her return come the old accusations.

For years, people have suggested that she hides strange symbols in her songs and videos. Even other pop stars have said the same thing — and they’re not wrong. From the serpent motif that slithered through her "Reputation" era to the witchy forest rituals of "Willow" and the tarot-like imagery of "Midnights," Swift has long played with the language of mysticism.

What faith once offered in family and devotion, the industry now mimics through sexualization and self-display.

It’s seductive, deliberate, and deeply disturbing.

Rock once wore its rebellion openly. Ozzy Osbourne feasted on bats. Led Zeppelin flirted with the occult. Alice Cooper strutted across stages like the devil in drag. But pop is subtler, sweeter — and far more dangerous. Rock shouted “Hell!” for the shock of it. Pop smiles, takes your hand, and leads you there.

Billie Eilish, the Beetlejuice of pop, floats through a fog of depression, her music drowning in melancholy: songs about mutilation, numbness, and detachment from reality. Lil Nas X, a raving homosexual who seems to revel in depravity, enjoys grinding on Satan. Doja Cat smears herself in blood and calls it expression.

None of this is random. The industry has learned that darkness sells because emptiness is a vacuum that needs to be filled. Rhythm reaches where reason can’t, and belief can be rewritten one beat at a time.

Unfortunately, no audience is more vulnerable than young girls.

They listen on repeat, absorbing lyrics like liturgy. Pop has always known how to reach them. In the 1960s, the Beatles sang of love as liberation. By the 1980s, Madonna turned it into a marketing campaign. Britney Spears wore innocence like a costume, then tore it off — literally and figuratively — knives in hand. There is something unmistakably demonic in her descent, a possession of the spirit that fame so often brings.

The same story repeats itself across the pop pantheon.

Once the cherubic choirboy of global pop, Justin Bieber now fluctuates between repentance and relapse, his body scarred by tattoos and abuse. There’s also Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, Katy Perry, and Ariana Grande, each one a pathetic version of their former selves.

The pop idol is no longer a musician but a model for imitation. The results are visible: depression, anxiety, disordered eating, and a generation that sings about love but cannot define it or identify it. Young people are raised on a rotation of heartbreak and hedonism, told to celebrate the very things that destroy them.

Pop today preaches a gospel of transaction. Every desire is for sale. Love is no longer a covenant but a contract. Sex is not intimacy but advertisement. Artists sing about bodies the way brokers talk about stocks — measured in clicks, hype, and fleeting returns.

The message is clear: Everything is currency, even the body.

Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

What began as entertainment has evolved into indoctrination. The language of romance has been replaced by the “logic” of the marketplace. Pleasure is product, people are platforms, and purity is just another brand to discard once it stops selling. The line between pop music and OnlyFans is straighter than most want to admit. Both peddle illusion — connection without commitment, desire without depth.

What faith once offered in family and devotion, the industry now mimics through sexualization and self-display. The result is a culture fluent in indulgence, obsessed with pleasure but ignorant of purity. What once pointed upward now drags us down. The language of heaven has been rewritten in the dialect of hell.

Even the visuals echo it. Neon crosses. Angel wings stitched from latex. Horns hidden beneath halos. The symbolism, evident to anyone with functioning vision, is always dismissed as “art.” But art without virtue stops telling the truth and starts selling the lie. And history reminds us that deception has always been the devil’s favorite instrument.

Pop’s greatest trick is pretending it’s harmless. Rock scared parents into vigilance. Pop lulls them into complacency. It sounds innocent enough, but beneath the cute choruses lies the same poison. When every song preaches self-worship, when every lyric mocks modesty, when every beat celebrates bondage, the playlist becomes a pilgrimage into perdition.

The industry calls it entertainment. But look closer and you’ll see a darker design: music that numbs, not nourishes, and beats that bind, not liberate.

It’s no accident that the idols of this age are called “idols.”

Tens of millions stream them, worship them, and defend them with evangelical ecstasy. They shape the moral mood of the young more than any preacher ever could. And yet while they sell songs about love and light, the world they create grows darker by the day. Broken homes. Hookup culture. Teenage pregnancies. Gender confusion. Isolation and self-harm. Faith mocked. Fatherhood maligned. Motherhood treated as an outdated inconvenience.

The irony is that Swift and several other artists were raised in the church. They know the cadence of a hymn, the thrill of a crowd, the longing for transcendence. They just redirected it. The altar became a stage, and the worship didn’t stop but changed direction.

But here's the truth: Mocking religion is a poor substitute for meaning. You can dance in devil horns for only so long before realizing there’s nothing on the other side of derision and disdain. No culture that mocks the sacred can remain strong.

The industry calls it entertainment. But look closer and you’ll see a darker design: music that numbs, not nourishes, and beats that bind, not liberate. The melodies are catchy because the message must be smuggled in softly. That’s the genius — and the evil — of pop music.

And so we arrive where we began. Taylor Swift has released another record. Millions have listened. But few have stopped to wonder what’s being worshipped.

Satan no longer hides in the dark. He performs under a spotlight.

Trump's heaven question shocks critics — but they missed the real story

President Donald Trump is no stranger to dropping jaws and turning heads with his rhetoric, bombastic commentary, and sometimes shocking statements.

While these reactions are typically sparked by the comical names he concocts for his opponents, his hot political takes, and other bold moves, the commander in chief has recently made headlines for some of his more theological proclamations and curiosities.

'I'm not sure I can make it, but he's going to make it. He's there. He's looking down on us right now.'

Trump was aboard Air Force One when he told reporters last Sunday that he’s unsure if he’ll make it to heaven. He prefaced his words by noting he was being “a little cute,” but proceeded to drop some thoughts about the afterlife.

“I don’t think there’s anything going to get me in heaven,” he said. “I think I’m not maybe heaven-bound. ... I’m not sure I’m going to be able to make heaven.”

Just a few days later, while giving the late Charlie Kirk a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor, Trump again brought up heaven.

“In his final moments, Charlie testified to the greatness of America and to the glory of our Savior, with whom he now rests in heaven,” he said. “And he is going to make heaven. I said I'm not sure I can make it, but he's going to make it. He's there. He's looking down on us right now.”

There have been other similar instances. Trump once pondered whether ending the Ukraine war would help secure his eternal glory. And at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service last month, the president made another headline-grabbing comment. Heralding Kirk’s love for his enemies, Trump painted a disparity between himself and the late Turning Point USA founder.

“[Charlie] did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them,” Trump said. “That's where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent and I don't want the best for them. I'm sorry.”

Responses to these proclamations have been swift and harsh. They have also rightly raised some questions about “earning” eternal salvation and the biblical command to love enemies. While some of those questions are fair, much is being missed in the mix of commentary and conjecture about Trump’s theology.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

First, it’s often tough to discern when Trump is being facetious or comical, making it almost impossible to know his real intent behind these remarks. Beyond that, the critics lambasting Trump should consider a different approach: prayer.

Anyone can be an armchair critic, but if Trump vociferously continues to bring up heaven, eternal salvation, and other related theological topics, there’s a solid chance it’s something he’s been contemplating personally. This seems incredibly likely in the wake of the attempts against his own life and after Kirk — a staunch friend and ally — was killed so publicly.

Some people seem to have missed the glaring reality that now is the time to move ceaseless critique to the side and double down on prayer for Trump to discern, comprehend, and embrace the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

But there’s another element being missed amid the mix of reactions.

Some people claim that Trump needs better faith advisers, deriding the Christians who have coalesced around him. The assumption is that these leaders aren’t sharing biblical truth with the president.

But I know for a fact that Trump has heard the gospel. The late Phil Robertson of “Duck Dynasty” fame once personally told me how he shared Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection directly with Trump leading up to the 2016 election.

“[I discussed] God becoming flesh … dying for the sins of the world, and, in his case, I said, ‘Dying for your sins, Donald, all of them, I figure there’s a lot — what do you think?’” Robertson told me. “He didn’t disagree with me.”

Robertson also drew an image of “an arrow coming down out of heaven … God becoming flesh, a cross, where Jesus took away the sins of the world.”

The point is: Trump has heard the gospel, and rather than trashing him, we should be doubling down in prayer that he comes to a place of full repentance and understanding.

Still, we must consider the deeper theological issues at the center of Trump’s remarks.

In the New Testament, James makes it clear that “faith without works is dead.” Interestingly, Trump has been talking a lot about peace deals and good deeds, pondering whether those acts can get him to heaven. The Bible has much to say about this topic.

“What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?” James 2:14 reads, with verses 15-17 continuing: “If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”

James’ words are important not because works save us, but because the Holy Spirit, which dwells in us when we accept Christ and live a life for him, sparks in us a quest to live out Jesus’ call to love God and love others.

Simply stated: We do good because we’re guided by the Lord and His heart for others.

This message is boiled down beautifully by Christ himself in John 3. In that chapter, Jesus tells Nicodemus, a religious leader, that “you must be born again” to enter heaven. Nicodemus seems confused, pondering how one could re-enter his mother’s womb after birth.

That’s when Jesus explains that the rebirth in question is a spiritual one — a death to self and a life for the Lord. John 3:16, arguably the Bible’s most famous verse, tackles God sending his son to die for mankind so that people can have eternal life.

But what comes next is often overlooked.

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him,” John 3:17 reads, with verse 18 continuing: “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

Ultimately, one must die to self and live for Christ. There’s no action — without this move — that affords anyone eternal life. Trump might be the most powerful person in the world, but he, like all of us, must decide whether he will embrace this reality.

Rather than endlessly lambasting him over his attempts to understand, we should devote ourselves to praying for him while also pondering whether we, too, have fully embraced this truth.

Why Gen Z is rebelling against leftist lies — and turning to Jesus

Picture it: 8,000 college students packed into an arena. Not to watch basketball but baptisms. Hundreds stepped into portable tanks while their friends cheered, with 500 professing faith in Christ that night alone.

This scene unfolded recently at the University of Tennessee, a major state university. It wasn’t an isolated incident. The Unite US revival movement, which began at Auburn University two years ago, has now spread to more than 20 college campuses nationwide.

The problem with building your worldview on sand is that eventually people notice that they’re sinking.

Here’s what’s happening: For decades, secular progressives positioned themselves as countercultural rebels against the oppressive Christian tradition. But they overplayed their hand. They became the establishment.

The result? Young people are now rebelling against them by turning to Jesus Christ in record numbers.

Since Charlie Kirk’s assassination on Sept. 10, churches report attendance increases of 15% and campus ministries are seeing even higher numbers. Bible sales in 2025 have surged past 10 million copies, already over a million more than last year.

The establishment's overreach

The secular left didn’t just ask for “tolerance” of its beliefs — leftists demanded total capitulation. Over the past six decades, they captured universities, media, entertainment, corporations, and government agencies, then wielded these institutions like weapons.

They told young men their masculinity was toxic. They told young women that marriage and motherhood were a trap. They flooded schools with gender ideology and characterized objecting parents as “domestic terrorists.” University DEI offices became enforcement arms for ideological conformity. During COVID, they locked down churches while keeping abortion clinics and strip clubs open. They promised liberation and delivered loneliness, anxiety, and existential despair. Then they called Christianity oppressive.

The problem with building your worldview on sand is that eventually people notice that they’re sinking.

Scripture tells us that God has written His law on every human heart (Romans 2:15). You can suppress that truth, but you cannot erase it. When a generation has been fed nothing but lies dressed as progress, the hunger for truth becomes overwhelming.

Why young men are leading

Research from Pew shows that for decades, each age cohort was less Christian than the one before it. But that trend has stopped with Gen Z. Americans born in the 2000s are just as Christian as those born in the 1990s, the first generation in decades not to show further decline.

Even more striking: Gen Z men now attend weekly religious services more often than Millennials and younger Gen Xers. The gender gap in religious participation has closed, with young men flooding back even as some young women leave.

The secular progressive vision has been particularly hostile to biblical masculinity. Men were told that their natural inclinations toward strength, protection, and leadership were “toxic,” that the desire to work hard and keep your feelings private promoted aggression toward women and the vulnerable, that embracing traditional marriage roles reinforced gender power imbalances and made society less safe.

Kirk recognized that men who fear God more than they fear man build the foundations of civilization.

By contrast, the church doesn’t tell young men that they’re inherently evil. Instead, it calls them to be servant leaders after the pattern of Christ, to lay down their lives as He laid down His for the Church (Ephesians 5:25), and to be strong and courageous in the face of evil (Joshua 1:9).

Scripture has always offered a vision of masculinity that is both strong and sacrificial. When a generation of young men have been told they’re “toxic” simply for being masculine, the gospel’s call to biblical manhood becomes irresistibly attractive.

Charlie Kirk understood this. He often told young men: “Get married. Have children. Build a legacy. Pass down your values. Pursue the eternal. Seek true joy.”

Kirk recognized that men who fear God more than they fear man build the foundations of civilization.

His assassination, meant to silence a voice calling people back to faith and family, had the opposite effect. As one pastor noted, “Charlie Kirk started a political movement, but he ended it as a Christian movement.”

His memorial, attended by 100,000 and viewed by millions, became a gospel proclamation. Young people decided they wanted what Kirk had found: purpose, meaning, and hope anchored in Jesus Christ.

Expect a backlash

Amid all this good news, Christians should never underestimate the resistance that will come from the cultural elites.

Expect increased persecution on campuses. Institutions that previously celebrated every sexual deviation will now express concern about “cultlike behavior” when students undergo baptism. University administrators, who previously ignored the Black Lives Matter riots, will now seek to restrict Christian gatherings. Media outlets that praised “mostly peaceful protests” will warn about the dangers of “religious fervor.”

That’s because spiritual warfare is afoot, and the enemy knows what’s at stake. When young people turn to Christ, they don’t just become saved, they also become transformed. They get married, have children, and raise the next generation in biblical truth. Civilizational renewal begins with revival.

True revival or cultural moment?

It’s also crucial not to mistake enthusiasm for revival. True revival brings conviction of sin, genuine repentance, hunger for God Himself, and hearts transformed by the gospel, not just increased church attendance.

Time will tell whether these professions of faith endure. Jesus warned that many hear the word with initial enthusiasm but fall away when trials come (Matthew 13:1-23). We must pray that these young believers sink roots deep into scripture and persevere.

But we should also recognize what God may be doing. When thousands pack arenas across multiple campuses to worship Christ, that’s not normal in modern America. As Paul wrote, “What does it matter? Only that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is proclaimed, and in this I rejoice” (Philippians 1:18).

The apostle Paul. Wirestock/iStock/Getty Images Plus

This isn’t just about individual souls, though. It’s about Western civilization itself. Strong families produce stable societies. If this revival takes root, we’ll see the reversal of family collapse, demographic decline, and cultural decay.

The secular left knows this. Leftists built their project on the destruction of the family, the confusion of gender, and the rejection of biblical authority.

Every young person who turns to Christ, gets married, and raises godly children is a defeat for their vision. Every young man who embraces biblical masculinity is a threat to their power. Every young woman who chooses motherhood over careerism is a rebellion against their ideology.

The gospel offers what secular humanism never could: forgiveness through Christ’s sacrifice, transformation through the Holy Spirit, adoption into God’s family, and a purpose that echoes into eternity.

Most importantly, it offers Jesus Himself: the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). Not a system of self-improvement or a political ideology, but a Savior and friend who loved us enough to die for us and who conquered death and rose again.

What we must do now

At key points, there is always a moment when God’s mercy is clearly apparent. This is one of those moments, and Christians must seize on it and fan the flames.

How? Take the following steps:

Preach the full gospel: Not a therapeutic version that makes Jesus your life coach but the biblical truth that we are sinners under God’s just wrath, that Christ died in our place, that He rose conquering death, and that all who repent and believe in Him will be saved.
Live lives that reflect what we proclaim: Young people are watching. If we want this generation to take Christianity seriously, they need to see Christians who love faithfully, raise children in the Lord, and stand for truth — even when it costs them.
Disciple intentionally: It’s not enough for young people to make a profession at a revival event. They need scripture, mentorship, and biblical thinking for every area of life. This is the Great Commission: Make disciples, not just converts (Matthew 28:19-20).

Finally, if you’re a student reading this, recognize that your campus could be next for real revival. How can you help advance it? Start a regular prayer meeting. Invite your skeptical friends to church. Be bold when professors mock Christianity. Defend biblical truth.

You’ve been trained for this moment. Now step into it.

The victory is already won

The gates of hell will not prevail against Christ’s church (Matthew 16:18). We don’t fight for victory — we fight from victory.

The secular left’s project was always doomed because it was built on lies — and lies cannot ultimately triumph over truth Himself. The same God who sparked the Great Awakening, who raised up Luther to reform His church, who turned the persecutor Saul into the apostle Paul is still at work today.

The question isn’t whether God will prevail. That’s already settled. The question is whether we’ll have the courage to stand with Him while He does.

If He chooses to use the overreach of secular progressives and the hunger of a desperate generation to turn society back to Him, that’s precisely how God works. He uses the wrath of man to praise Him (Psalm 76:10). He takes what enemies meant for evil and works it for good (Genesis 50:20).

So let the secularists tighten their grip on their failing institutions. Every act of overreach, every attempt to silence the gospel only makes Christianity’s countercultural appeal stronger.

They made rebellion against God the establishment position. Now, young people are rebelling by turning back to Him.

The age of comfortable, culturally acceptable Christianity is over. What’s rising in its place is something far more dangerous to the powers of this world: a generation that has counted the cost and chosen Christ anyway. A generation that knows following Jesus might cost them jobs, friends, and status and has decided He’s worth it.

This is how reformation begins. This is how revival spreads. This is how civilizations are rebuilt from the rubble of failed ideologies.