Nicki Minaj stuns Hollywood by praising Trump



While most rappers and Hollywood celebrities have spoken out against President Donald Trump, one of them is bravely standing for his actions. And who it is is shocking, to say the least.

“I would like to thank President Trump for prioritizing this issue and for his leadership on the global stage in calling for urgent action to defend Christians in Nigeria, to combat extremism, and to bring a stop to violence against those who simply want to exercise their natural right to freedom of religion or belief,” rapper Nicki Minaj said.

Minaj also called the violence against Nigerian Christians not only a “growing problem in Nigeria,” but in “many other countries across the world” that “demands urgent action.”


“I want to be clear: Protecting Christians in Nigeria is not about taking sides or dividing people. It is about uniting humanity. Nigeria is a beautiful nation with deep faith traditions. … When one’s church, mosque, or place of worship is destroyed, everyone’s heart should break just a little bit,” she continued.

“And the foundation of the United Nations, with its core mandate to ensure peace and security, should shake,” she added.

“Has Nicki Minaj always been a Trump supporter?” BlazeTV host Pat Gray asks on “Pat Gray Unleashed.”

“God bless her,” executive producer Keith Malinak adds.

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Packed churches, skyrocketing conversions: Is New York undergoing a Catholic renaissance?



The years-long trend of American de-Christianization recently came to an end, with the Christian share of the U.S. population stabilizing at roughly six in ten Americans, according to Pew Research Center data. Of the 62% of adults who now identify as Christians, 40% are Protestants, 19% are Catholics, and 3% belong to other Christian denominations.

There are signs in multiple jurisdictions pointing to something greater than a mere stabilization under way — at least where the Catholic Church is concerned.

The New York Post recently found that multiple New York City Catholic parishes have not only seen a spike in conversions but their churches routinely fill to the brim. That's likely good news for the Archdiocese of New York, which was found in a recent Catholic World Report analysis to have been among the 10 least fruitful dioceses in 2023 in terms of baptism, conversion, seminarian, and wedding rates.

'We've got a real booming thing happening here.'

Fr. Jonah Teller, the Dominican parochial vicar at Saint Joseph's in Greenwich Village, told the Post that the number of catechumens enrolled in his parish's Order of Christian Initiation of Adults for the purposes of conversion has tripled since 2024, with around 130 people signing up.

Over on the Upper East Side, St. Vincent Ferrer has seen its numbers double since last year, jumping to 90 catechumens. The Basilica of St. Patrick's Old Cathedral has reportedly also seen its numbers double, ballooning to around 100 people. The Diocese of Brooklyn doubled its 2023 numbers last year when it welcomed 538 adults into the faith and expects the numbers to remain high again this year.

Attendance in New York City reportedly skyrocketed in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, who was apparently attending mass with his Catholic wife, Erika, and their children.

RELATED: Charity, miracles, and high tech — here's how these monks built a massive Gothic monastery

Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images

"We're out of space and exploring adding more masses," Fr. Daniel Ray, a Catholic Legionary priest in Manhattan, told the Post. "We've got a real booming thing happening here, and it's not because of some marketing campaign."

While a number of catechumens cited Kirk's assassination as part of what drove them to the Catholic Church, others cited a a desire for a life- and family-strengthening relationship with God; a desire to partake in the joy observed in certain devout Catholics; a desire for community; a desire for "guardrails"; and a desire for anchorage and meaning in a chaotic world where politics has become a substitute for faith.

"My generation is watching things fall apart," Kiegan Lenihan, a catechumen in the OCIA at St. Joseph's told the Post. "When things all seem to be going wrong in greater society, maybe organized religion isn’t that bad."

Lenihan, a 28-year-old software engineer, spent a portion of his youth reading the works of atheist intellectuals such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. After experiencing an anxiety-induced crisis at school, he apparently sought out something of greater substance, devouring the works of Marcus Aurelius. He found that his life still lacked greater meaning despite achieving material success.

'The Catholic Church is a place of sanity.'

"I realized on paper, I had everything I wanted, but I had no fulfillment in my soul," said Lenihan, who remedied the problem by turning to Christ.

Liz Flynn, a 35-year-old Brooklyn carpenter who is in OCIA at Old St. Patrick's, previously sought relief for her anxiety and depression in self-help books and dabbled in "pseudo spiritualism."

After finding a book about God's unconditional love for his children in a gift shop during a road-trip stop at Cracker Barrel, she began praying the rosary and developed an appreciation for Catholicism.

"I'm happier and calmer than I've ever been," Flynn told the Post. "Prayer has made an enormous impact on my life."

New York City is hardly the only diocese enjoying an explosion in conversions.

The National Catholic Register reported in April that numerous dioceses across the country were seeing substantial increases in conversions. For instance:

  • the Diocese of Cleveland was on track to have 812 converts at Easter 2025 — 50% more than in 2024 and about 75% more than in 2023;
  • the Diocese of San Angelo, Texas, expected 56% more converts in 2025 (607) than in 2024 (388);
  • the Diocese of Marquette, Michigan, was expected to see a year-over-year doubling of conversions;
  • the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, was expected to see a 59% year-over-year increase;
  • the Diocese of Grand Island, Nebraska, was set for a 45% increase;
  • the Diocese of Steubenville, Ohio, was expecting a 39% increase in converts; and
  • the Archdiocese of Los Angeles noted a 44% increase in adult converts.

Besides the Holy Spirit, the conversions were attributed to the National Eucharistic Revival, immigration, and evangelization.

Pueblo Bishop Stephen Berg told the Register that people are flocking to the church because it stands as a bulwark against the madness of the age.

"I think the perception of the Catholic Church is changing," said Bishop Berg. "In a world of insanity, I think that people are noticing that the Catholic Church is a place of sanity."

"For 2,000 years, you know, through a lot of turbulent times — and the Church has been through turbulent times — we still stand as the consistent teacher of the faith of Christ," continued Berg. "The people are intrigued by that."

As of March, 20% of Americans described themselves as Catholics, putting the number of Catholic adults at around 53 million nationwide.

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Abrahamic myth: How Islam rebranded the God of the Bible



One of the great canards of the post-9/11 world — promoted by theists and nontheists, conservatives and leftists, Democrats and Republicans alike — is that there are three Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

But is that really true? If the three faiths worship the same God and preach His word, then there should be clear and compelling evidence of interconnection and aligned essential doctrines.

God's sacred lineage

Abraham was God's first patriarch, his descendants were God's chosen people, and the Lord God guided them — at great cost and peril — to the promised land.

Why is there the need to graft on to this historically and logically robust faith history the tale of Muhammad, which is supported only by legend and perhaps shards of archeological data?

The Jews, meanwhile, were the people through whom God sent His son, Jesus Christ, the messiah. Jesus was a holy, just, virtuous, believing Jew, and what He taught springs directly from the Old Testament. His ministry was ultimately a futile effort to convince His ethnic brothers to follow Him as their redeemer.

Jesus was betrayed by His own people and crucified by the Romans. His death, in substitutive atonement for the sins of humanity, was followed by His resurrection, and the risen Christ tasked His apostles to spread His word beyond the Jews to the gentiles, thus laying the foundation for Christianity, a descriptive moniker that came into common use around the end of the first century A.D.

Biblical genealogy and history are intricate and logical. Like all genealogy and history of the ancient world, they have gaps (which do not diminish their spiritual authority), and a great deal of both spring from oral tradition, which was eventually codified.

The fact that biblical genealogy and history are written in such painstaking detail in both the Old and New Testaments give them each spiritual and chronological heft, as does the fact that scholars have recovered thousands of manuscript copies and fragments totaling hundreds of thousands of pages.

Legend, not lineage

This brings us to the issue of whether Islam is really an Abrahamic faith.

Abraham was father of Ishmael, by his slave Hagar, who was banished from Abraham's household by Abraham’s wife, Sarah, even though she facilitated their union. God promised Hagar that Ishmael would be a great man and the father of many nations. Ishmael’s life and sons are detailed in Genesis 25 and then again in 1 Chronicles 1. Then he and his sons are never spoken of again.

The book of Genesis, written by Moses, likely dates to around 1200 B.C., even though its final form was not completed until centuries later. This means that the story of Abram, who becomes Abraham, is even older than that because it would have been told to Moses as oral history. So Abraham may have lived as long ago as 2000 B.C.

Yet Muhammad, the prophet of Islam who is supposedly descended from Ishmael, was not born until 570 A.D., which creates a time gap of more than 2,500 years. And for this span of more than two millennia, there are no documents that directly connect Muhammad to Abraham or Ishmael. There is only Islamic oral tradition or legend (known as Hadith), nearly all of which were produced a century or more after Muhammad’s death in 632 A.D.

Conversely, there is no doubt about the connection of the Old and New Testaments. They tell a continuous, coherent, logical, prophetically rich, and frequently archaeologically confirmed story of the journey of the Israelites to the promised land and the life and death of Jesus.

Why, then, is there the need to graft on to this historically and logically robust faith history the tale of Muhammad, which is supported only by legend and perhaps shards of archeological data?

Biblical appropriation

Even though there is no written genealogy from Ishmael to Muhammad, there is significant biblical appropriation in the Quran. In fact, plagiarism might be a better word.

For example, Allah created the heavens and the earth in six days (Surah 7:54; for the Quranic novitiates, the Quran is organized by the length of each Surah [chapter], from the longest, called the Opener to the shortest 114th, Mankind). Abraham’s name first appears in Surah 2. In total, Abraham’s name appears 69 times in the Quran; Jesus appears 25 times, Mary 34 times, and Moses 136 times. In 3:67, the Quran states that “Abraham was not a Jew, nor was he a Christian, but he was a Muslim hanif (montheist), and he was not one of the idolators.”

RELATED: Why progressives want to destroy Christianity — but spare Islam

ozgurdonmaz/iStock/Getty Images Plus

While Muhammad was quite open to biblical appropriation of names, he was not so keen on Christian doctrine: Muslims deny the Trinity (“do not say Three”; 4:171) and the crucifixion (“they did not kill him nor crucify him”; 4:157). The denial of the crucifixion leads to an implicit denial of the resurrection; if Jesus was not crucified, then He could not have been resurrected, but He was called to heaven by Allah himself (4:158).

The Quran calls Jesus "messiah" and righteous, but simultaneously denies that He is the son of God (“The Messiah, the son of Mary, was no more than a messenger, messengers passed away before him”; 5:75). In fact, in these things, the Muslims have much more in common with Jews than either group has with Christians.

Ironically, this trio of denials of core Christian beliefs puts Muslims in league with Martin Luther King Jr., who denied the virgin birth, which Muslims accept, but they reject Allah's paternity of Jesus (see 3:45-47, 9:30, 6:100, and 112:3 for examples).

Muhammad writes that man does not have free will (2:6 and 2:7, among many others); Allah decides and animates all things (3:47 and 40:68). Allah will decide what both believers and nonbelievers do (16:93) and what will happen to them (24:40). Even nonbelievers who wish to believe will not be allowed to do so unless permitted by Allah (10:100).

Muslims are commanded to defeat nonbelievers in jihad (8:39 and 9:5); those who fight and die go to paradise, as do those who fight and live (4:74). Nonbelievers are to be treated as second-class citizens and pay tribute unless they convert, or they may be killed (9:29). Jews and Christians are regarded, respectively, as those who have earned Allah’s anger and those who have gone astray (1:6).

In the Bible, acts of sexual immorality are identified as an abomination to the Lord, right from the beginning of the Old Testament. Deuteronomy 22:5 says, “The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth to a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are an abomination unto the Lord thy God"; and Leviticus 18:6-20 describes the Lord’s abhorrence for the sin of incest. Paul’s epistles showcase his scorn for sexual anarchy.

By contrast, Muslim men may marry Jewish or Christian women after the women convert, but sex with a believing slave girl is preferable in the meantime (2:221). Muslim men are also told that they may marry multiple women (i.e., polygamy), and they have no obligation to treat them equally (4:3). The “houris,” or wide-eyed, voluptuous women of paradise, await all believers (Surahs 44, 55, 56, and 78; the much-ballyhooed 72 virgins are not Quranic, they are from a Hadith of Muhammad).

The overall impression of the God of the Bible is that He is a holy and just God, whose moral boundaries and demands set exceedingly high standards of conduct, and Jews of the Old Testament repeatedly fail to hit their marks. Their failures allowed God to show Himself as merciful and loving because He relents in His anger and forgives His people, effectively giving them the chance to start again.

Different gods

It is true that the Quran also refers to Allah in this manner repeatedly. But that is just part and parcel of the appropriation.

The Old Testament’s story of God’s love for, and strife with, His chosen people over their conduct repeats many times because God’s communication through His prophets ultimately proves ineffective at bringing about the lasting behavioral and devotional change that He demands. The God of the Bible never gives up, however, because He loves His children and seeks their betterment only for their own good, a framing of morality that they simply cannot endure because it requires patience, reverence, and discipline.

In the New Testament, God decides to confront His people face-to-face, live among them as a man, and teach them by looking them in the eye. So He sends His son, Jesus Christ, who is eternal and has borne witness to the entire chronology of creation, to live a perfect and sinless life, teach the lessons of the Old Testament, and entreat His people — the first-century Jews — to follow Him in pursuit of salvation and eternal life.

Despite all the travails, challenges, and even violence of the Bible, it is an uplifting story of love, trust, hope, and faith that ends in glory.

The same cannot be said of the Quran, in which an omnipotent god views his people as automatons commanded to do his will. Some verses abrogate others, and there really is no story told but just an endless series of dos and don’ts that end either in hell or paradise with wide-eyed houris.

Ask the people of Minnesota and Michigan and France and the United Kingdom how that’s working out.

Given the lack of a documentary interconnection, the doctrinal discrepancies between the two faiths as expressed in their central holy books raise this critical question: How is it spiritually conceivable that the two books represent the work of the same God?

Would the God who never gives up on His people and venerates marriage and family be the same God who commands men to marry unbelieving women only after they convert and have relations with slave girls while they wait? Would the God who empowers humans with free will and petitions them to follow Him to heaven by living lives of righteousness and virtue be the same God who commands the deaths of nonbelievers, specifically Christians and Jews (4:89), simply because of their unbelief? Would the God who sacrifices His own son on a Roman cross be the same God who appropriates the names, events, and stories of the Bible and relabels them to make them His own in a new book?

The Quran, like a bad Hollywood production, simply takes the biblical plots and characters and changes the name of God from "I AM" to Allah. Adam, Aaron, David, Elijah, Isaac, Job, Jonah, Joseph, Lot, Noah, Solomon, Zechariah, the Psalms, Gabriel, Michael, Noah’s ark, and even the Ark of the Covenant (2:248) all make cameo appearances.

Most importantly, would the God who wants peace and fights wars only against those who seek to eradicate His chosen people (such as the Amorites, Philistines, Canaanites, Hittites, Jebusites, and Perizzites) so that His people can live freely under His law be the same God who commands jihad and the imposition of sharia law, both of which seek to coerce conversion or kill those who will not convert?

Ask the people of Minnesota and Michigan and France and the United Kingdom how that’s working out.

Fruit reveals truth

To say that the God of the Bible is spiritually and doctrinally the same as Allah of the Quran beggars logic, ignores history, and requires that you willfully disregard the written word in each book.

The canard that Islam is an Abrahamic faith is a way of facilitating a connection between evil and goodness for political purposes in order to provide the evil with the fig leaf of acceptance by affiliation rather than by word and deed.

The God of the Bible, and those who follow His word, produced the freest, safest, cleanest, most generous, and most prosperous nations in human history. Islam, on the other hand, has produced — as the late Samuel P. Huntington wrote in his tour de force "Clash of Civilizations" — a cadre of nations that are never simultaneously at peace with all their neighbors and within their own borders.

That was true when he wrote it in 1996, and it is still true today.

Maybe the holy war now being waged between Islam and what remains of a weak-kneed and addle-brained Christendom is why Jesus says in both Matthew and Revelation that He comes with a sword to separate those who deny from those who follow Him.

When you consider whether it is at all likely that Islam is Abrahamic, remember what the redeemer says in Matthew 7:16-20: "Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them."

That is all you need to know to stop saying — and believing — that Islam is an Abrahamic faith.

Stevie Nicks just said the quiet part out loud about abortion — and it's horrifying



Almost every civilization has, at one point or another, practiced child sacrifice. In our rebellion against God and rejection of Jesus Christ, modern America is no exception.

While we may not burn our children like the Canaanites, cut out their hearts like the Aztecs, or drown them like the Gauls, we most certainly sacrifice our children in acts of worship to benefit ourselves.

We cannot afford to overlook the severity of this sin or its stench before the one true and living God.

Take the example of Stevie Nicks, the singer-songwriter best known for her years with Fleetwood Mac. Nicks boasted about the benefits of her past abortion in a recent video posted on social media and described as a “must watch” by the Center for Reproductive Rights.

In recalling her past abortion, Nicks was not filled with regret or shame, but with a sober admission that murdering her own pre-born baby was worthwhile for allowing her to continue her music career.

“Fleetwood Mac is three years in, and it’s big, and we’re going into our third album,” Nicks recounted.

“It would have destroyed Fleetwood Mac,” she said of her baby.

“I would have, like, tried my best to get through, you know, being in the studio every single day expecting a child,” Nicks continued.

“It would have been a nightmare scenario for me to live through.”

RELATED: Fleetwood Mac’s real breakup story: Death before motherhood

— (@)

Rather than making Nicks seem sympathetic in her decision to have an abortion, the video posted by the Center for Reproductive Rights made her look callous. The organization plainly acknowledged that “access to abortion made her life, her art, and her voice possible.”

Nicks admitted to murdering her baby in exchange for career success: She took the life of her own child for the specific reason of pursuing stardom in the music world.

In other words, she committed child sacrifice.

In the same way that past civilizations sacrificed their children to enable abundant harvests, victory over their enemies, or improved rainfalls, Americans sacrifice our children to enable success in our careers, more financial freedom, or fewer inconvenient responsibilities.

But unlike other civilizations, we do not murder our children in the name of any specific false god or demonic entity. Instead we serve ourselves as our own gods — murdering our babies as an act of devotion in the cult of our own autonomy.

We cannot afford to overlook the severity of this sin or its stench before the one true and living God.

Rather than speaking clearly on abortion as child sacrifice, many pro-life organizations over the past few decades have not only downplayed the distinctly spiritual nature of the abortion holocaust, but have insisted that many of its perpetrators are themselves victims.

In speaking about abortion — even writing laws against abortion — many pro-life leaders emphasize the small minority of cases in which women are compelled with threat of life and limb into having abortions.

But in the vast majority of cases, women who have abortions are active participants or even willful initiators, not passive victims compelled into abortions they do not want.

Stevie Nicks is a perfect example. By her own admission, nobody forced her into having an abortion. Nicks willfully chose her music career over the life of her child, and several decades later, she would clearly make the same decision once more.

The notion that all women are categorical second victims of abortion downplays the moral agency women have as image-bearers of God and obscures the justice due to pre-born babies as true victims of abortion.

By defending the legal ability of women to willfully murder their own children, pro-life organizations sorrowfully allow the abortion holocaust to continue, even in conservative states that misleadingly claim to ban abortion.

RELATED: Why defunding Planned Parenthood is a distraction from the real fight

— (@)

Just like men, women are ultimately responsible for their own actions. Just like men, women will one day stand in judgment before God and provide an account for those actions.

Stevie Nicks may publicly boast about her abortion today, but when she stands before a perfectly holy God, she will no longer boast in her decision. And unless she turns from her sins and trusts in Jesus Christ for salvation, she will bear the penalty of her decision for all of eternity.

When pro-life organizations insist that women can only be victims of abortion — and oppose laws that would criminalize abortion for all parties willfully involved — they fail to deter women from committing sin that destroys both their babies and their very own eternal souls.

That is why we must simply make murdering anyone illegal for everyone.

The exact same laws that protect born people from murder must protect pre-born people as well, or else we are denying the truth that pre-born babies are image-bearers of God worthy of equal protection under our laws.

The existing laws against murder deter the vast majority of murders from happening in the first place. If we extend those same laws to apply from fertilization — without loopholes allowing women to enjoy special murder privileges over their pre-born babies — we will deter the vast majority of abortions as well.

God judges nations that commit child sacrifice. America is well on its way to joining the Canaanites, the Aztecs, and the Gauls in the history of nations that murder their own children and are brought to their knees by the God who cannot endure such rebellion forever.

If we want our nation to continue, we must protect all image-bearers of God from murder, criminalizing the unjustified taking of human life for everyone willfully involved.

Rather than rebelling against God, our nation must turn in repentance and faith toward Jesus Christ — abandoning the works of death and once more bowing the knee to the only one who offers everlasting life.

America's best and worst states for religious freedom — and what it means for our future



Now is a good time for religion in America.

President Trump has established the White House Religious Liberty Commission, led by a diverse group of religious leaders and scholars, including Mary Margaret Bush, Napa Legal’s own former executive director. The commission is identifying some of the nation’s most pressing religious liberty issues and developing plans for action.

Lawmakers should take advantage of the moment to enact durable protections that will outlast any administration.

The U.S. Supreme Court, too, has protected religious liberty in several crucial cases. In Carson v. Makin (2022), the court held that it is unconstitutional to exclude religious schools from generally available government funding programs.In Kennedy v. Bremerton, it found that coach Joseph Kennedy’s postgame prayers did not violate the First Amendment. This year brought additional victories in Mahmoud v. Taylor, where the court upheld parents’ rights to opt their children out of LGBT content in elementary school classes, and Catholic Charities v. Wisconsin, where a unanimous court prevented state officials from favoring some religions over others.

These encouraging developments might tempt Americans to believe that the battle for nationwide religious freedom has already been won.

Yet even with such powerful forces defending religious liberty at the federal level, state laws affecting religious organizations remain critical for ensuring that everyday Americans do not suffer persecution for their firmly held religious beliefs.

Consider what just happened in Washington state.

In 2025, Catholic priests there faced an impossible choice between obeying their faith and complying with state law. A new Washington state statute required clergy to report instances of abuse or neglect they heard during confession, despite the Church’s centuries-old sacramental seal. The law singled out priests while giving others, like lawyers, a pass, and it carried the threat of jail time and fines.

Thankfully, a federal court blocked the law before it could take effect, ruling in Etienne v. Ferguson that the state could not force clergy to violate the sacred seal of confession.

But that case never should have been necessary. Washington’s law reflected the same pattern Napa Legal’s research has uncovered repeatedly: When state laws are weak or hostile to faith-based organizations, those organizations are left vulnerable even when the federal government and Supreme Court appear friendly to religion.

This month, the Napa Legal Institute released the third edition of the Faith and Freedom Index, an analysis of state laws across the country that either help or hinder religious organizations. Whether national politics seem to favor or oppose religious liberty, state laws remain central to its long-term health.

The states with the top overall scores were:

  • Alabama
  • Kansas
  • Indiana
  • Texas
  • Mississippi

The five lowest scores went to:

  • Michigan
  • Washington
  • Massachusetts
  • West Virginia
  • Maryland

What distinguishes the states at the top of the list from those at the bottom? Several types of laws come into play. For example, the index’s highest performing states have built frameworks that proactively safeguard religious organizations. Their laws provide broad protections for religious exercise and create environments where ministries can thrive.

By contrast, it’s no coincidence that Washington state ranks near the bottom. The same state that passed one of the most intrusive laws in recent memory also reflects on the Index a legal system that makes it far too easy for governments to intrude on matters of faith.

That is why it is important to strike while the iron is hot. When the federal government is friendly to religious liberty, that is precisely the time to act. Political conditions can change quickly, but good laws endure. Lawmakers should take advantage of the moment to enact durable protections that will outlast any administration.

RELATED: Why Trump's religious liberty agenda terrifies the left

SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

There are many reasons why state laws remain decisive. First, state statutes can still contradict clear federal precedent. After the Supreme Court struck downWisconsin’s discriminatory law in Catholic Charities v. Wisconsin, a similar law remained in effect in New York. Religious organizations there had to continue the litigation even after the Supreme Court had essentially decided the issue.

It is also not enough for states to rely solely on constitutional protections or a Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

These safeguards are vital but not sufficient. When a religious organization’s hiring or service conflicts with state “nondiscrimination” laws, it should not have to spend years in court to prove its right to operate according to its beliefs. States can and should pass clear exemptions that prevent such conflicts from ever arising.

Finally, state tax and regulatory codes can have a major impact on whether faith-based organizations thrive. Many religious nonprofits are treated like for-profit corporations, subject to tax regimes and administrative filings, fees, and audits that make it hard for them to operate. States should look closely at such laws and remove unnecessary burdens that divert precious time and resources away from ministry and service.

No matter who sits in the White House or on the Supreme Court, state laws remain a foundation of religious liberty. The Faith and Freedom Index remains an important tool to protect and foster the work of religious organizations and religious liberty in general.

Voters should consider how laws in their states burden religion when they cast their votes. Policymakers should pay close attention to laws that may seem tedious but can make or break the needed work of religious organizations. And our government leaders should work to enact laws that foster religious liberty, so that religion can serve its proper role in contributing to the common good.

Bishop raises hell after woke priest allows homosexual ABC broadcaster to receive Eucharist beside his 'husband'



Bishop Joseph Strickland, the cleric removed from his office in Tyler, Texas, in 2023 by the late Pope Francis, urged his colleagues gathered on Wednesday for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' plenary assembly to address the matter of a woke priest's apparent willingness to run afoul of the church's custom and to turn a hallowed Catholic ceremony into a non-straight spectacle.

Gio Benitez, a homosexual ABC News correspondent who is "married" to a man, apparently decided after Pope Francis' passing last year to make his way back to the Catholic Church. Benitez, who was allegedly baptized in secret at the age of 15, was confirmed at St. Paul the Apostle's Church in New York City on Nov. 8.

'Here we are talking about doctrine.'

"My Confirmation Mass was a very small gathering of family and friends who have quietly been with me on this journey," Benitez wrote on Instagram. "I found the Ark of the Covenant in my heart, stored there by the one who created me… exactly as I am."

The ABC News correspondent also received holy communion from the church's woke pastor, Rev. Eric Andrews, at the highly publicized mass where LGBT activist Fr. James Martin was a concelebrant and where Benitez's "husband" served as his sponsor.

Blaze News reached out to Rev. Andrews for comment, but did not receive a response.

While the Catholic Church holds that homosexual acts are "acts of grave depravity," "intrinsically disordered," "contrary to the natural law," and "can under no circumstances" be approved, the Catechism states that homosexual persons must nevertheless "be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity."

RELATED: New head of US Catholic Bishops said he would deny communion to pro-abortion politicians

Bishop Joseph Strickland. Photo by Craig F. Walker/Boston Globe via Getty Images

The church has also made clear that Catholics with same-sex attraction who are chaste can "participate fully in the spiritual and sacramental life of the Catholic faith community."

However, those who regularly engage in sexual activity or are partners in a committed homosexual relationship that includes regular sexual relations are not to receive holy communion or serve in public ministries.

"Receiving the sacrament is the ultimate expression of our Catholic faith, an intensely personal matter between communicant and priest," wrote the late and posthumously exonerated Cardinal George Pell. "It's not a question of refusing homosexuals or someone who is homosexually oriented. The rule is basically the same for everyone."

"If a person is actually engaged in — by public admission, at any given time — a practice contrary to Church teaching in a serious matter, then that person is not entitled to receive Holy Communion," continued Pell. "This would apply, for example, to a married person openly living in adultery. Similarly, persons who openly declare themselves active homosexuals take a position which makes it impossible for them to receive Holy Communion."

During a USCCB discussion of doctrine on Wednesday, Bishop Strickland raised the matter of Benitez's highly publicized reception of holy communion while flanked by his "husband."

"I don't know how many of us have seen on the social media priests and others gathered, celebrating the confirmation of a man living with a man openly," said Strickland. "It just needs to be addressed. Father James Martin once again involved. Great pictures of all of them smiling."

Bishop Strickland and Martin have traded barbs over the years, largely around Martin's subversive LGBT activism and apparent efforts to liberalize the Catholic Church's stance on such matters.

Martin — who shared an article titled "Gio Benitez, Openly Gay ABC Anchor, Joins the Catholic Church" on social media this week with the caption "Happy to be a part of your journey!" — has made no secret of his activism. For instance, he took issue with the Supreme Court's June 2025 decision to let parents opt their children out of lessons featuring LGBT propaganda and insinuated that homosexual persons aren't really bound by church teaching.

"Here we are talking about doctrine," continued Strickland. "I just thought I need to raise that issue. I know it's not part of any agenda, but this body gathered, we need to address it."

The panel, focused on updated ethical and religious directives for Catholic health care services, did not take up Strickland's concern.

The Catholic Herald noted that Strickland's tenure as bishop of Tyler was "marked by a reputation for directness, a strong emphasis on Eucharistic devotion, and a willingness to challenge trends in the wider Church that he believed risked undermining the clarity of Catholic teaching."

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Christian soccer player slammed as ‘transphobic’ for defending women’s sports



When Christian soccer player Elizabeth Eddy wrote that only women should play in the National Women’s Soccer League, her teammates called her transphobic and racist — but all she did was explain that men and women are different.

The professional soccer player for Angel City FC had her op-ed published in the New York Post, where she wrote, “I’m concerned that without clarity about who the league is for, it will lose its identity and its momentum.”

Eddy proposed specific testing methods to verify players’ eligibility, asking the NWSL to adopt a clear standard, using the example that perhaps all players should be born with ovaries as a requirement.

Another option she pointed out was SRY gene tests, which are used in boxing to determine eligibility to compete among women.


The player also cited stats from the NIH, which show measurable differences between men and women when it comes to muscle mass, bone density, and cardiovascular capacity, which directly affect competitive outcomes.

“It’s so stupid that we even have to say this,” BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey comments on “Relatable.”

“The production of testosterone is what makes the difference, not only in puberty but also in utero. So their bone density, their muscle mass, their aerobic and anaerobic capacity. Even if they go on cross-sex hormones, it is insurmountable. A woman just cannot overcome that,” Stuckey says.

“And so, she is speaking the scientific truth about this in an op-ed. Like, she didn’t even bring up any ideological argument. She brought up a scientific argument. She is a Christian. Christians are very clear on this,” she continues.

Despite her scientific argument, her teammates still went public to make sure everyone knew they vehemently disagreed.

“I really want to start off by saying that that article does not speak for this team in this locker room. I’ve had a lot of convos with my teammates in the past few days, and they are hurt, and they are harmed by the article. And also, they are disgusted by some of the things that were said in the article,” one teammate said during a press conference.

“It’s really important for me to say that. And we don’t agree with the things written for a plethora of reasons, but mostly the undertones come across as transphobic and racist as well,” she continued, pointing out that the article calls for genetic testing and has a photo of an African player featured by the headline.

“That’s very harmful, and to me it’s inherently racist because to single out this community based on them looking or being different is absolutely a problem,” she added.

Stuckey is disturbed by the teammate’s reaction, saying, “I just cannot. Racist because they dared use a picture of a black woman.”

“This sister in Christ stood up for what is good, right, and true, and protection of women and girls, and she is getting blasted for it in the comments. She’s getting blasted from her own teammates. She’s being called things that are just not true,” Stuckey says.

“They are maligning her character because she spoke to what is biologically a fact,” she adds.

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Did science just accidentally stumble upon what Christians already knew?



A new study titled “Architecture of Near-Death Experience Spaces” has caught the attention of both the empirics and the eternalists, because it’s not often that a study about dying reads like a map to heaven.

The researchers asked participants who had clinically died and been resuscitated not to describe their near-death experiences in words, but to draw them. What emerged were recurring shapes — cones, ellipses, radiant fields — across people from entirely different cultures.

As the apostle Paul wrote, 'Now we see through a glass, darkly.' And science, for once, seems to glimpse the flicker of eternity.

But here's the kicker: These weren’t the random doodles of oxygen-starved brains. They were geometric symphonies, ordered and elegant. It was as if consciousness, freed from the flesh, had glimpsed the very scaffolding of creation itself.

For a Christian, this is profound. Scripture has long told us that creation is not chaos but design. “The heavens declare the glory of God,” wrote the psalmist (Psalm 19:1), and here, perhaps, the dying do, too. When the heart stops and the veil lifts, what appears before the eyes of the departing may not be fantasy but revelation — a structure that feels deliberate, like architecture drawn by divine hands.

Dr. Jeffrey Long has spent decades collecting such glimpses. An oncologist by trade and founder of the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation, Long has catalogued over 5,000 accounts from people who claim to have died and returned. His findings echo the new study’s quiet suggestion: There’s order here.

Across cultures, creeds, and continents, the same themes recur.

Consciousness separates from the body. A light appears — intelligent, loving, unthreatening. A panoramic life review follows, often described as instantaneous yet complete. Time dissolves and peace floods in. And then, inevitably, a choice or command to return.

These aren’t vague platitudes. They are astonishingly consistent. Whether the subject was Christian, atheist, or vaguely spiritual, the pattern is the same.

RELATED: Science's God-denying narrative just got crushed again

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Long’s data also reveals what happens after the return. Many report their faith deepening not from glimpses of pearly gates, but from meeting something that made sense on a cosmic scale. Others who had never believed before find themselves suddenly convinced that life does not end in nothingness. Across thousands of testimonies, moral clarity re-emerges like a melody.

Long told me his work has been called everything from pseudoscience to prophecy. But to him, the evidence points to something beyond the brain. When the same story emerges from a Buddhist in Nepal and a Baptist in Tennessee, argument starts to feel like denial.

When I reached out for comment about the link between near-death experiences and religious faith, Long directed me to his archive of testimonies — hundreds of raw, personal accounts from people who have stood at the edge of eternity and come back changed. They speak of a presence no doctrine can fully capture and a peace that science could never explain.

It’s the same paradox Christ left us with: The kingdom of heaven, near enough to touch, yet utterly beyond our comprehension.

Long shared with me four short lines from his archive, chosen because they capture what even theology struggles to say.

  • “They said the energy of love is a good reason to return,” wrote Galadriel K, who described her experience with a calm certainty that makes disbelief feel naive.
  • “It’s an unconditional love. I know Him. I met Him. … I met Jesus,” said Sharlene S, her words somewhere between testimony and awe.
  • “When I got close enough to the Light, I felt unconditional love and time stopped,” recalled Judy G, as if describing an emotion too large for language.
  • And then there was Charles T, whose final line needs no interpretation: “I knew what the source of that Light was. … It was Jesus.”

There’s something disarmingly simple in those statements — no grand theories, no intellectual gymnastics. Just awe. They testify to a presence that makes earthly distinctions fade. All melt away before the presence that burns through every pretense.

Critics will, of course, roll their eyes. They’ll talk about cerebral starvation, neural fireworks, the brain’s desperate attempt to comfort itself as it shuts down. But these explanations sound increasingly like the dying gasps of materialism. If consciousness were merely chemical, it shouldn’t behave so coherently at the brink of breakdown. It shouldn’t script the same story in so many minds.

There’s a dark humor in watching science stumble, wide-eyed, into what the faithful have always known. The modern world has spent centuries insisting that heaven is a myth, the soul a silly superstition, and death nothing but a switch flipped off.

In an age when every mystery is monetized and every miracle gets fact-checked by faith-phobic bureaucrats, it’s oddly comforting to know there are still places where no human instrument can reach.

Yet now, with the help of MRI machines and EEG scans, researchers are rediscovering the same truths that Sunday-school children sing. Progress, it seems, has come full-circle — proof that even unbelief can only wander so far before bumping into God.

To the Christian reader, these findings are not a challenge but a confirmation. The consistency of these visions, their moral coherence, their geometrical appeal — all resonate with a faith that has always held the visible world to be only the shadow of the invisible.

As the apostle Paul wrote, “Now we see through a glass, darkly” (1 Corinthians 13:12). And science, for once, seems to glimpse the flicker of eternity.

Of course, it would be wrong to make doctrine out of data. Faith is built in pews, not in peer reviews. But it’s just as foolish to ignore what so many have seen. In an age when every mystery is monetized and every miracle gets fact-checked by faith-phobic bureaucrats, it’s oddly comforting to know there are still places — perhaps the oldest place of all — where no human instrument can reach.

In that space between pulse and paradise, geometry gives way to grace. People describe radiant fields. But what they really mean is radiance itself — love, light, life. The shapes may differ, but the direction is always the same: toward something higher, brighter, unending.

Maybe that’s what the dying have been trying to tell us all along: that death is not the end of knowledge but the beginning of understanding. And no matter how mighty our machines or how certain our reason, humanity — from Maine to Manila — keeps sketching its diagrams of eternity: cones, ellipses, celestial plains.

Each line is a breath from beyond, proof that what we call death is only design, still unfolding.

Dear Christian: God didn't call you to be a 'beautiful loser'



Many Christians aim too low. We mistake humility for passivity and meekness with mediocrity, thinking God wants us to suppress all ambition. In doing so, we turn losing into a kind of twisted Christian virtue. We call it humility, but really, it’s just unbelief.

God never called His people to be beautiful losers. He called us to reign with Christ.

To seek glory, honor, and immortality is to seek what God Himself promises to the faithful.

The Bible’s vision of humanity is larger and more dignified than the self-loathing — the false humility that passes for spirituality today. The Christian life was never meant to be small. Redeemed men and women are not required to limp through life. Rather, He made us for glory.

Consider Paul’s words in Romans 2:6-8: "He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life."

For a long time, I’d come to this verse in my Bible reading plan, and it struck me as odd. Paul can’t be saying we are saved by seeking glory and honor, since the whole book of Romans teaches the opposite. We are saved by grace, not works. So what is Paul saying?

Here’s my answer in a nutshell that I’ll develop below:

God originally created man to pursue glory, honor, and immortality through faithful obedience and exercising dominion over creation. Since Adam sinned, he “fell short” of this glory. But Christ, the second Adam, succeeded where Adam failed and restored man to his original purpose. Therefore, redeemed Christians are now free to pursue glory and honor by faith, in the power of the Holy Spirit, exercising godly dominion for the glory of God.

Adam's lost glory

To understand Paul’s statement in Romans 2:6-10, let’s go back to the Garden of Eden. Genesis 2 teaches that there were two trees in the garden: (1) the tree of life and (2) the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam was permitted to eat from the first tree but forbidden to eat from the second.

When Adam sinned, the verdict was exile. “[God] drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life” (Genesis 3:24).

The trees represented two possible destinies: glory or death. Had Adam persevered in obedience, he would have eaten from the tree of life and entered into immortality. Instead, he reached for forbidden knowledge and fell under the curse of death.

Though Adam was created in innocence, he was not yet as glorious as he could have become. God gave him a gloriously ambitious task to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and take dominion” (Genesis 1:28). That’s a global ambition. Adam’s task was to take the wild and untamed world outside of Eden and bring it under subjection to him. In other words, God created Adam with an eschatology — a purpose, telos, or end — that he might rise from innocence to glory through faithful obedience.

To fulfill God’s command, Adam would need to develop various skills he wasn’t created with. He would have needed to learn to plant gardens, name animals, lead a wife, and raise children. Those latent potentialities would have been drawn out of him through experience over time.

In other words, though Adam was morally innocent, he was not yet as glorious as he would have become had he been faithful to God’s commands. He could have attained glory by becoming a more skilled and excellent man in the pursuit of glorious goals. In so doing, Adam would have grown intellectually, physically, spiritually.

Christ succeeded where Adam failed. And the result of Christ’s obedience was glory.

In other words, innocence was the starting line, glory was the finish line.

With this in mind, notice Paul’s famous description of sin as not merely “doing bad things” but falling short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). That’s important. Sin is more than merely breaking the rules; it is the forfeiture of glory. Because of Adam’s sin, he was no longer able to attain the glory God made him for. He “fell short of the glory of God.” And humanity has been falling short ever since.

Christ, the second Adam, attains the glory of God

But the story doesn’t end in failure. Scripture presents Christ as the “last Adam” who succeeded where the first Adam failed. In His human nature, Christ sinlessly retraced Adam’s path.

The author of Hebrews (quoting Psalm 8) draws this out explicitly:

What is man, that you are mindful of him,
or the son of man, that you care for him?
You made him for a little while lower than the angels;
you have crowned him with glory and honor,
putting everything in subjection under his feet. (Hebrews 2:6-8)

Notice Hebrews 2 and Romans 2 both use the same word pair: “glory” and “honor.” The author or Hebrews 2 is citing Psalm 8, which is a commentary on Genesis 1–2. In other words, these texts tie together the creation of man, the image of God, and the dominion mandate.

Hebrews 2 also connects the creation of Adam with the incarnation of Christ, who was likewise crowned with glory and honor. And through His suffering and death, Christ brought “many sons to glory” (Hebrews 2:10).

Thus, Christ succeeded where Adam failed. And the result of Christ’s obedience was glory. Jesus said it Himself: “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" (Luke 24:26).

Therefore, Jesus hit the reset button on the human story. Adam’s sin broke the circuit of glory, but Christ reconnected it. Jesus secured the glory that Adam lost and offers it freely to His people. He restores humanity to its intended place as rulers over creation, crowned with glory and honor, who must once again revisit the dominion mandate given to Adam.

Thus, Christ completed the redemption arc of humanity. The fullest Christian life will not be marked by mediocrity but glory. And our savior will reward his faithful servants who pursue it. Through Christ, obedience is glorious again.

Redeemed humanity restored to the pursuit of glory

This brings us back to Romans 2:6-7. When Paul says that God “will render to each one according to his works,” he isn’t teaching salvation by merit. He’s describing the reward of faith — the fruit of a life transformed by grace. Those who “seek for glory and honor and immortality” are not grasping for self-exaltation; they’re following the path of Christ, the second Adam, who entered glory through obedience.

Christians are to do all things to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31) while also hoping in glory as our inheritance (Romans 5:2). Those united to Him by faith are once again free to pursue what Adam forfeited.

God is ambitious. The creation mandate is ambitious (Genesis 1:28). The great commission is ambitious (Matthew 28:18-20). These ambitions are global in scale and and can only be accomplished by Spirit-filled men and women who dare attempt great things for God. Thus, redeemed Christians are likewise made to pursue great and glorious ambitions.

Christians who, therefore, think small, equating humility with mediocrity, are settling for less than what God made them for. God intends His people to exercise dominion under Christ’s authority — to build, teach, create, and govern. To seek glory, honor, and immortality is to seek what God Himself promises to the faithful.

Glory is not a zero-sum game

Perhaps you may find it surprising to hear that when we obey God, giving God the glory, there is also a glory that overflows back to us. But it does. God’s glory is not a zero-sum game.

Take David’s victory over Goliath, for example. Who gets the glory for that? That’s actually a trick question. David could have stayed home that day, tending his sheep, playing it safe, and keeping his hands clean. If he’d stayed home, he would have remained innocent, but he would not have received glory.

RELATED: How 'loser theology' is poisoning the church

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Innocence isn’t the same as glory. One can remain innocent while doing nothing. Glory requires risk, faith, and obedience. When David stepped onto that battlefield, he was seizing the opportunity to magnify God through courage. That’s why we know his name. King David is on the Mount Rushmore of the Christian faith because he didn’t stay home. We know his name because he courageously rushed into battle.

In the defeat of Goliath, God gets the glory, but David also shares in it. That’s because God’s glory is not a zero-sum game — it is expansive. The more we glorify God, the more His glory spills over onto those who take courageous action by faith.

When some Christians feel satisfaction for succeeding at a great task, they might feel a little guilty for enjoying it. They might wonder if it’s pride or selfish ambition. That’s certainly possible, but it’s also possible that they’re merely enjoying an echo of glory in their achievement.

Rather than allowing the fear of pride to smother the glory we’re meant to enjoy, it is better to pursue glory while repenting of any pride that we see arising within us. Better to repent of sin while pursuing great things than to bury your talents and avoid the risk.

Greater ambition, greater glory

This matters because glory can be a powerful motivator for faithful Christians to pursue ambitious goals. The greater the ambition, the greater the glory when it is accomplished.

Put another way, glory scales with ambition. The kid who wins a backyard football game may feel a taste of glory, but the man who wins a Super Bowl ring experiences it in full. This same pattern applies to life in God’s kingdom: the greater the goal, the greater the glory. Glory is out on the battlefield, not at home on your couch.

There’s glory in raising faithful children, mastering your craft, building a business that blesses others, and serving others with excellence. Christians should be the most competent, disciplined, and creative people in the world. Why shouldn’t we be? We are indwelled by the Holy Spirit, sent on a divine mission, and commanded to take dominion. That means aiming high — not low.

Aim higher

Since many Christians don’t think this way, they end up aiming too low. They pray, go to church, pay a tithe, read their Bible, and stay out of trouble, thinking that’s the fullness of the Christian life. None of those things are wrong, but they’re not glorious either.

Innocence is where the journey begins, but glory is where we should end up.

So if there’s a promotion offered at work, go for it. If you’ve got a business idea, build it. If you’re presented with a leadership opportunity, take it. Godly Christians should make the best business owners and bosses in the world, should they not?

Pursue excellence in your vocation such that you will be a blessing to others. That’s what practical dominion taking looks like.

God has given you gifts and opportunities. The question is: What will you do with them? Will you aim low out of false humility? Or will you seek glory, by faith?

We were never meant to limp through life as losers or apologize for our successes. God crowned us with glory and honor and set us loose in His world. So don’t smother your ambition under the guise of humility. God doesn’t call us to be beautiful losers. He called us to reign with Christ. So aim higher. Pursue greatness for the glory of God. And when you succeed, give Him the glory and enjoy the reciprocal glory He delights to share with you.

May your pursuit of glory lead you upward, outward, expanding, and fruitful.

This essay was adapted from an article published at Michael Clary's Substack.

This crisis in churches is real. Will Christians fight back?



A new study has uncovered an alarming trend: Fewer regular churchgoers believe the Bible is clear on transgenderism and homosexuality.

The survey — conducted by the Family Research Council and the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University — found that only 47% of regular churchgoers believe that scripture is "clear and decisive" about "whether homosexuality is morally acceptable." That's a significant decline from 63% in 2023.

The moment believers treat biblical truth as negotiable, Christians become yet another cultural echo chamber.

Researchers, meanwhile, found that 26% believe the Bible is "unclear or ambiguous" about homosexuality, while another 16% said they believe scripture doesn't address the issue.

Even worse, only 40% of regular churchgoers said the Bible is "clear and decisive" on "whether transgenderism is morally acceptable," a 12-point drop from 2023. Nearly a quarter (23%) said they believe the Bible is "unclear and ambiguous" on trans ideology, while 24% said they believe the Bible doesn't address it.

These results demonstrate that American churches are experiencing a crisis of biblical truth.

But how?

But these results are surprising for two important reasons, not least of which is that they appear to refute suggestions of a Christian revival in America.

First, while these are two issues central to the progressive project that have largely become cultural orthodoxy, a growing number of young people are rejecting the left's version of the good life. Thus, you'd expect the data to reflect the trend away from progressivism and toward objective truth.

Second, the Bible is by no means unclear or ambiguous on either issue — no matter what "progressive Christians" say.

On homosexuality, the Bible establishes in Genesis that central to the union of man and woman (i.e., marriage) is the ability to reproduce. This prescription is reaffirmed countless times. Jesus even cites Genesis when challenged about the true purpose of marriage (hint: He does not affirm homosexuality). Moreover, as the fledgling church grappled with questions of sexual morality, the apostles affirmed that sexual immorality of any kind — that is, porneia, or any sexual activity beyond the confines of a marriage between one man and one woman — is sinful and contrary to God's design. This, of course, includes homosexuality.

On transgenderism, Genesis is clear: God created man and woman, a complementary pair that reflects the divine union. God chooses our gender for us — not our feelings.

So what do we do?

First, we must name this for what it is: not a cultural or data problem, but a discipleship problem. The Bible hasn't changed, and scripture isn't suddenly vague. The truth is that many pastors and churches have gone quiet on these important issues, which demand moral and biblical clarity.

Silence has a cost, and now the bill is due. When pulpits grow timid, the pews grow confused.

Second, Christians must recover confidence in the Bible's authority. God's word is true and timeless. It doesn't need to be apologized away or reinterpreted to acquiesce to our cultural moment. It speaks as clearly today as it always has. Cultures and politics may change, but God's truth remains the same.

The moment believers treat biblical truth as negotiable, Christians become yet another cultural echo chamber — and lose their saltiness.

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Third, Christian leaders must teach clearly, intentionally, and with conviction what the Bible says about sex, marriage, and human identity. Christians today are drowning in confusion, as this study proves. They desperately need clarity, truth, and courage to stand up for biblical truth and to live it out.

Finally, Christians must take heart and remember that decline isn't defeat. It's never the end of the story. Every generation of God's people has faced moments of crisis and confusion. Revival is found on the other side of those moments. And it happens when ordinary Christians rediscover and reaffirm the power of God's word and refuse to bow to cultural idols.

But that renewal only comes when Christians stop apologizing for what God has already made clear, is making clear, and will continue to make clear.

Now is the moment for Christians to decide what kind of witness they will be. One that bends to the culture? Or one that stands firm on the Rock? The world is desperate for truth. Thankfully, we have access to God of truth, and in the end, He wins.