This Easter, remember the cost of discipleship



For many people across the U.S., Easter Sunday means pastel-colored clothes, jelly beans, Cadbury eggs, or marshmallow Peeps. But Easter is far more than a cultural tradition or seasonal celebration. It is a declaration that should actually shape the way we live and has the power to transform lives: He is risen!

That truth, echoed by believers all around the world every Easter Sunday, is the foundation of a faith that calls us not to a life of comfort, but to a life of commitment.

To follow Christ is not only to receive the hope of eternal life, but to carry that hope into the world around us.

Too often, we treat Christianity as a system designed to make life easier, provide emotional reassurance, or help us get something from God. Scripture makes it clear, and believers throughout history have experienced, that true Christianity costs us something. It calls for surrender, obedience, and a willingness to follow Christ even when the path is difficult.

It’s natural to gravitate toward a version of Christianity that prioritizes comfort over sacrificial living. But in truth, persecution and hardships are not only possible but an expected outcome for a life of wholehearted devotion to following Christ.

Jesus Christ, our example, willingly left the comfort of heaven's glory to enter a broken world and dwell among us. He lived among the very people He created, walking dusty roads, experiencing hunger and fatigue, facing rejection and temptation, enduring suffering — all ultimately to make the Father known.

Throughout His ministry, He healed the sick, fed the hungry, and performed miracles — yet He never wanted people to follow Him merely for those “simple” benefits.

During Jesus’ ministry on earth, massive crowds followed Him simply for the possibility of free bread. They wanted miracles and meals. But He wanted them to look past all of that and see that the true gift was Himself. “I am the bread of life,” He told them. “Believe in me!”

Only a few individuals would see past their own desires and take the step to say, “I believe, and I will follow you no matter what.” As a result, they would be forever changed and go on to change the world.

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This is the truth of the Christian life: Following Christ requires us to embrace discomfort, sacrifice, and even suffering. The Bible does not hide this reality, but Easter reframes that suffering in light of something greater.

The cross is not the end of the story.

On that first Easter morning, everything changed. Jesus’ resurrection was not only a victory over death, but a promise that suffering does not have the final word. Sin, brokenness, and the grave were defeated. Because of this, even while withstanding hardship, believers can live with an unshakable hope rooted in the promise of eternity.

As we read in 2 Corinthians 4:17-18, “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.”

And this hope is not meant to be kept to ourselves.

Years ago, a friend of mine who was overseas asked a shop owner, “Excuse me, sir, do you know Jesus Christ?” The man turned around and said, “We’ve got Pepsi, we’ve got Coke, but we don’t have Jesus Christ.” He had never heard the name of Jesus, so he thought Jesus Christ was a new soft drink.

As someone who grew up in different cultures, I’ve seen firsthand the harsh truth that many people around the world still haven’t heard the gospel.

Here in Texas where I live now — in the heart of the Bible Belt — it can seem like there is a church on every corner. On the other hand, I have gone more than 300 miles in some countries without passing a single church. As ambassadors for Christ, we still have so much work to do.

After all, even in places like Texas, we have neighbors, co-workers, and friends who may recognize the name of Jesus but do not really understand what His death and resurrection are all about.

For many, Easter remains a holiday without meaning, a tradition without truth.

This is where the calling of every believer becomes both a responsibility and a privilege.

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To follow Christ is not only to receive the hope of eternal life, but to carry that hope into the world around us. It is to reflect His love and choose to live so that others are drawn to the reality of who He is.

That calling may be uncomfortable, to require us to step outside our routines, and even to risk rejection, but it is also one of the greatest privileges we are given: to bring light into a suffering world.

Easter is a time to remember Christ’s sacrifice and His victory over sin, Satan, and death. He poured out His life so that we might partake of Him and be made like Him. That process requires obedience, faithfulness, and self-denial.

But for all who trust Him and choose to live for Him as an act of worship, He will fill them with His presence. He will refresh, replenish, and empower us to bring His healing presence into the world around us.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearReligion and made available via RealClearWire.

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Targets Anti-Christian Bias

The EEOC is suing a private security company after they allegedly forced an employee to resign over his Christian beliefs.

Mocking Jesus and the Virgin Mary? Scandal strikes again for Maine Democrat Senate candidate who may have had a Nazi tattoo



Graham Platner, a middle-aged oyster farmer and Marine veteran, is running as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate in Maine, hoping to beat Democratic Gov. Janet Mills in the June 9 primary and to ultimately unseat the Republican incumbent, Sen. Susan Collins, in the general election.

Platner — who says he's "running against the billionaire class that owns [Susan Collins] and all of Washington" — has not only survived but thrived in the face of numerous scandals of his own making.

Now it appears that critics have found yet another damning social media post from the candidate.

'The left will love him more.'

An apparent screenshot of a 2012 Reddit post now making the rounds on X shows the following commentary from user P-Hustle, Platner's old handle:

I've spent 8 years in the infantry, Marine Corps and Army, and I've been about as crudely atheist as one can be the entire time (zombie jesus jokes and Mary sucking at covering up being a skank, as examples). Promotion came like normal, and most of my fellow grunts had a similarly cynical attitude towards religion. Sure, there have been a few bible thumpers I've run into, but it was certainly never systemic.

The comment appears to be in response to the case of Jeremy Hall, an atheist who accused the military of becoming a Christian organization.

Blaze News reached out to Platner's campaign for confirmation and comment but did not receive a response by deadline.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee said in response to Platner's alleged mockery of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary, "Just when you think Graham Platner can't get any worse."

The Maine Republican Party said in response to the post attributed to Platner, "This SHOULD be disqualifying but Maine's leftist base has given Platner a pass on literally everything."

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Last year, numerous other inflammatory Reddit posts came to light, including posts in which Platner apparently identified as a communist, branded rural white Americans as racists, suggested service members worried about being raped should buy "Kevlar underwear," and smeared all police officers as "bastards."

Within days of Platner apologizing for his past posts and blaming them on a state of "disillusionment" following his return from Afghanistan, the Democratic candidate was outed for having an apparent "totenkopf" tattoo on his chest — a skull image popularized by Adolf Hitler's Schutzstaffel elite guard and adopted as the symbol of the SS-Totenkopfverbande, the branch that guarded the concentration camps.

Although Platner appears to have had the tattoo covered up, members of his campaign still jumped ship. Leftist lawmakers such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich (N.M.) continued, however, to support Platner's campaign.

Nazi tattoo and rape jokes notwithstanding, he even picked up a few endorsements. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), for instance, endorsed Platner late last month, noting in a video statement, "Graham Platner has the grit to go against the grain and to fight for what is right."

"Nazi tattoo; blaming rape victims; voters are dumb and racist; fake oyster biz financed by an Epstein associate; says black people don't tip; former mercenary; etc etc etc," wrote the Maine GOP. "Now this. But the left will love him more."

Justin Davis, director of public affairs for the National Rifle Association, tweeted, "Maine by the numbers: 22% of voting Mainers are Catholic. Roughly 50% are Republican[.] Roughly 50% are Democrats[.] 100% of them will not take kindly to @grahamformaine calling the blessed Mother Mary a 'skank.'"

Prior to the resurfacing of his alleged anti-Christian remarks, polling indicated that Platner was poised to clean up in the Democratic primary.

An Emerson College poll conducted last week found that Platner led Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) by 27 percentage points, 55% to 28%. A recent poll conducted by Impact Research put the left-leaning populist even further ahead, leading Mills 66% to 28%.

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Liberals Won’t Confront Fraud Because They Still Believe Government Is The Solution

Nicholas Kristof has pulled out the hoariest of boomer liberal tropes, asking what the money spent on war could buy if redirected to welfare.

When ‘be nice’ becomes the whole ethic, we’re in trouble



The appeal to pity is the modern left’s favorite fallacy.

In logic, it is called argumentum ad misericordiam. Instead of showing that a policy is just or true, the speaker points to suffering and insists compassion requires agreement. It works because it weaponizes one of the strongest moral instincts in the American people: mercy.

Deep empathy does not sneer at suffering. It refuses to treat feeling as the foundation of ethics.

The person making the appeal to pity is not merely expressing concern. He is using your compassion to secure special treatment, expanded power, or ideological conformity. And because America remains culturally shaped by Christianity — a faith that commands love of neighbor — the tactic often succeeds.

Allie Beth Stuckey and Joe Rigney have warned about what they call the weaponization of empathy. Empathy, properly understood, is the act of feeling the pain of another. It differs from sympathy, which acknowledges suffering without necessarily taking it on. Empathy attempts to enter another person’s emotional state.

But empathy rests on feeling, and feelings fluctuate. They can be misinformed. They can be manipulated. They can even be built on fiction.

Yet in the modern West, empathy has increasingly become a substitute for ethics. Moral reasoning gets reduced to a simple script: Identify the oppressed, feel their pain, then reorder society accordingly. The equation becomes: Empathy plus an oppression narrative equals moral righteousness.

This framework now gets handed to American students as a moral catechism. Under Marxist-inflected professors, they learn to “problematize” and “deconstruct” Western institutions, to “decolonize” structures of power — all in the name of empathy. The moral energy driving the project does not come from reasoned argument about justice or human nature. It comes from cultivated emotional identification with those cast as victims of “systemic oppression.”

Question this framework, and you run into another trick: the motte-and-bailey.

The motte-and-bailey fallacy works like this: Someone advances a controversial claim (the bailey). When challenged, he retreats to a safer, more defensible position (the motte). When the pressure eases, he returns to the controversial claim.

You see it constantly. A progressive activist claims America’s land ownership is illegitimate because it rests on historic injustice. Challenge that sweeping conclusion — raise questions about legal continuity, generational distance, competing claims of sovereignty — and the response shifts: “Why do you not care about the suffering of indigenous peoples?”

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Andrei Apoev / Getty Images

That maneuver does not answer the question. It changes the subject. It turns a dispute about political legitimacy into a moral indictment: You lack empathy.

Under this logic, questioning policy becomes questioning compassion. Questioning compassion becomes moral failure.

Elon Musk recently offered a useful distinction: superficial empathy versus deep empathy. Whatever one thinks of Musk, the distinction clarifies the problem.

Superficial empathy reacts to appearances. Someone suffers, so someone else must be guilty. Someone lacks wealth, so the wealthy must have acquired it unjustly. Someone feels distress, so society must immediately reorganize itself to relieve that distress.

Superficial empathy has no patience for causes. It wants to relieve visible pain fast, typically by redistributing power. It externalizes blame and treats suffering as primarily the product of oppressive structures. Push back and you become the villain — a heartless person unmoved by human pain.

Deep empathy asks a harder question: What is truly good for a human being?

It recognizes that not all suffering comes from injustice. It acknowledges suffering can arise from folly, moral disorder, and the limits of living in a fallen world. It understands immediate relief is not always ultimate good. Tears do not decide what is right.

Deep empathy does not sneer at suffering. It refuses to treat feeling as the foundation of ethics.

Ethics cannot rest on the shifting landscape of emotion. It must rest on something objective and enduring. For Christians, that foundation is the law of God — the revealed moral order that defines justice, righteousness, and human flourishing. Love of neighbor is not a free-floating sentiment. God’s commands give it shape.

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Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images

The Marxist professor tells students that love of neighbor means feeling empathy for economic deprivation. Biblical love makes heavier demands. It cares for the body, yes, but also for the soul. It refuses to affirm what destroys a person morally or spiritually, even if such affirmation might reduce discomfort in the short term.

Superficial empathy says: Remove suffering at all costs. Deep empathy says: Pursue the true good of the person, even when that path requires discomfort, responsibility, or repentance.

The irony is that the left’s empathy-driven politics often produce policies that entrench dependency, dissolve personal responsibility, and weaken the institutions — family, church, community — that sustain long-term human flourishing. It feels compassionate in the moment. It proves destructive in the end.

America does not need less compassion. It needs a deeper understanding of it.

The question is not whether we feel. The question is whether our feelings answer to truth.

Empathy can be a virtue. But it can become a dangerous master.

When compassion detaches from objective moral order, it becomes an easy tool for anyone seeking power. When appeals to pity replace rational debate about justice, a free people grows vulnerable to emotional coercion.

If we want to preserve liberty and genuine love of neighbor, we must recover a moral framework deeper than sentiment — one rooted in enduring truth.

The Tucker-Huckabee clash missed the real crisis



The aftermath of the viral Tucker Carlson-Mike Huckabee interview has, for me, included the privilege of private conversations with both men, as well as an on-air discussion with Huckabee on my show.

I want to give both men every benefit of the doubt, because I have genuine affection for each of them and respect the lifetime of contributions both have made to the cause. But whether their nearly two-and-a-half-hour clash clarified anything or merely deepened the confusion likely depends on the eye of the beholder.

God initiates covenants. We break them. Then we depend on God’s mercy to bail us out.

Still, let me offer a spiritual clarification as Christians think through the issues now in front of us. My fear is that in arguing over modern Israel, we will become so determined to win secondary battles that we lose sight of the primary truths that govern all of us.

The stakes are not small. If believers drift too far off course, the consequences are damning in the most literal sense.

So we should begin here: You cannot determine whether the current state of Israel is a reconstitution of covenant Israel merely by examining the nation’s behavior. If you have read the Old Testament and tried to compile a list of Israel’s greatest hits in covenant faithfulness, you will not end up with anything resembling a list of bangers like most of Led Zeppelin’s catalog.

From the beginning, the pattern ran the other way. Moses went up Mount Sinai to receive the first words God ever wrote by hand and came down to find the chosen people in the middle of a pagan orgy. After that came the familiar cycle: disobedience, judgment, repentance, deliverance, and then disobedience again — with slavery and captivity poured in for good measure.

Carlson and Huckabee can argue Israel’s borders all they want, but it should surprise no one that the nation never fully possessed the borders outlined in Genesis 15. As with so many things, human beings are terrible at obedience. We always have been.

That is the lesson. God initiates covenants. We break them. Then we depend on God’s mercy to bail us out.

The Jews did not attain a level of holiness that compelled God to bring forth the Messiah. Quite the opposite. Israel had hit bottom, spiritually and temporally. So God initiated yet again, through Christ Jesus, reminding humanity once more that we are utterly lost without Him.

That remains true whether you believe the modern state of Israel is a prophetic extension of Old Testament Israel or not. We must not lose that point, and its implications are not remote, theoretical, or merely historical.

Many Americans, after all, love to read our own national story in providential terms. Fine. Then how are we doing with the whole “endowed by their Creator” business in the Declaration of Independence?

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Photo by Tajh Payne/US Navy via Getty Images

Do we know what a gender is? No.

Do we know what a border is? No.

Do we know what a baby is? No.

Do we know what a marriage is? No.

Do we know what a family is? No.

Do we know what a law is? No.

Do we even know our own heritage, customs, and traditions? No.

Sure, people will stand and sing “God Bless America” at the next sporting event, maybe even with tears in their eyes. Then many of them will settle back into their seats and applaud while the world burns around them, so long as someone keeps scratching their bellies.

That is idolatry.

For by grace you have been saved through the free gift of faith — and not by your own doing, lest anyone should boast.

So once again, it is revival or bust. That is why I keep saying it and why I keep praying it. There is no other road to the only promised land that finally matters.

Disney’s ‘Gay Days’ are canceled. Don’t pop the champagne just yet.



After 35 years, the future of Disney’s “Gay Days” looks grim. The group that organizes the event announced that shifting hotel agreements and the loss of key sponsors forced it to cancel the celebration in 2026. Organizers still urge gay fans to visit the parks on the usual dates and wear themed attire, but the coordinated celebration appears headed for a quiet end.

Whatever happens next, one point matters: Evangelical Christians tried to cancel Gay Days with on-again, off-again boycotts for decades. What finally wounded the LGBTQ leviathan was not conservative activism, but cultural apathy.

Apathy does not mean Americans suddenly disapproved of Disney’s agenda. It means normal people stopped granting it the honor of a fight.

I remember the first wave of evangelical pushback as Disney began signaling support for homosexual lifestyles in the 1990s. Conservatives already watched pop culture coarsen through music, movies, and video games, yet they still treated Disney as a family-friendly institution aimed at children. That is why it shocked them to see the company behind “Snow White” and “Cinderella” host celebrations of homosexuality and extend benefits to same-sex partners long before the Supreme Court imposed gay marriage on the country.

Evangelical denominations answered with a strangely inconsistent boycott. One year, the Southern Baptist Convention urged members to avoid Disney; the next year, churches showed up for Night of Joy, Disney’s Christian music festival.

When Gay Days began in 1991, gay marriage remained deeply unpopular. “Will & Grace” had not worked its magic on the popular imagination, and politicians such as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton still felt compelled to posture as defenders of traditional marriage as late as 2008. If any moment favored a decisive cultural rebuke, that was it. Christians offered sloppy, intermittent resistance, while Disney only leaned harder.

From park to propaganda

Disney’s support for homosexuality moved from park celebrations and employee benefits into its entertainment. Progressive messaging crept into television shows and movies until the woke revolution turned it into a flood. “The Little Mermaid” became black, gay couples kissed in “Star Wars,” and diverse girlbosses dominated Marvel. As acceptance of gay marriage shifted from taboo to required corporate orthodoxy, Disney replaced entertainment with propaganda.

The company then collided with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) after Florida moved to restrict the mutilation of children and limit the amount of LGBTQ messaging pumped into public schools. Legislation that the press laughably branded “don’t say gay” sent leftists into a panic. Executives called emergency meetings. Rumors flew that Disney would pull up stakes and flee the Sunshine State.

BlazeTV host Christopher Rufo helped surface video of a corporate meeting where Disney executive Latoya Raveneau announced her “not-at-all-secret gay agenda” to inject LGBTQ themes into kids’ shows. Disney embraced the agenda early, worked to make it dominant — especially among children — and refused to slow down once the woke revolution reached full speed.

Why Gay Days collapsed

So why did Gay Days suddenly fall apart now? Apathy.

Apathy does not mean Americans suddenly disapproved of Disney’s agenda. It means normal people stopped granting it the honor of a fight.

Many families quit watching new releases, not as part of a coordinated boycott, but because the product became preachy, weird, and dull. Others kept their subscriptions but tuned out the messaging and rolled their eyes. Either way, the ritualized drama lost its electricity.

Corporate sponsors follow attention, and attention followed the next outrage. A movement built on being shocking cannot survive once it becomes background noise. When every kids’ show feels like a lecture, even sympathetic viewers start craving something else.

Gay Days did not collapse because Christians perfected a strategy. It collapsed because the culture stopped caring enough to show up, even to cheer. Apathy is not victory, but it can starve a cause faster than protest.

Progressivism needs an enemy

Popular political movements need cultural momentum, and progressive movements feed on transgression. Leftists want to feel like they are fighting the stuffy pastor in “Footloose.” They want to feel cool, rebellious, and righteous. Without dialectical tension, progressivism loses velocity.

When activists fought the religious right, they enjoyed the perfect enemy: just enough moralizing to spark rebellion, but little chance of sustained, effective opposition.

Conservatives could work up outrage on television and even skip a holiday trip, but they rarely sustained a boycott. Republicans generally worship business and profits, so GOP politicians avoided pressure on true pain points such as corporate sponsors and boardrooms. Conservatives served as a political battery, supplying just enough resistance to keep LGBTQ activists energized while imposing few costs. Democrat operatives could not have engineered a better environment.

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Machiavelli’s warning

In “The Prince,” Niccolo Machiavelli advises rulers to leave opponents alone or crush them entirely. A complacent enemy grumbles but avoids risk. A crushed enemy cannot retaliate. The most dangerous enemy suffers a minor bloodying: he gains the motivation to fight and keeps the means to harm. Conservatives gave the LGBTQ movement exactly that minor bloodying — outraged finger-wagging with no consequences.

No one lost a job for pushing a gay agenda in Disney parks, shows, or movies. Corporate sponsors rarely withdrew. Disney kept making money. Republicans played the role of cartoonish but harmless foe, delivering speeches about family values while imposing no penalties.

The movement did not lose because the right defeated it. It lost because it exhausted its cultural energy.

Even a strong boxer collapses after he punches himself out. Gay marriage won so quickly and so thoroughly that activists carried the momentum into harder causes such as the trans movement. Support, attention, and funding shifted to the new battlegrounds, and older, boring causes like Gay Days slid into irrelevance.

The lesson is simple. If the right fights, it must pick battles carefully and commit fully to winning them. Secure decisive victory in one arena instead of scattering resources across dozens of losses. Choose targets because they anchor your enemy’s strength, not because they offer an easy headline. If you fight, you must crush the enemy’s capacity to operate; otherwise, you invigorate his cause while draining your own.

Clumsy half measures feed your foe, and you end up hoping he defeats himself. That is not a plan for a protracted culture war.

How Hillary Clinton turned empathy into a political cudgel



Reading Hillary Clinton’s recent Atlantic essay, “MAGA’s War on Empathy,” I felt an emotion I did not expect: a sliver of sympathy, maybe even empathy, for her.

Clinton ranks among the most ruthless political operators of the last century. She came within inches of the presidency, the prize she wanted most, only to lose to Donald Trump — a man she treated as an absurdity for much of the 2016 campaign.

Perhaps the most problematic element of Clinton’s discussion of empathy is her unserious understanding of Christian teachings.

It would be easy to dismiss her Atlantic broadside as cynical posturing. She loads it with politicized misrepresentation, then uses Minneapolis as her stage for accusing the Trump GOP of cruelty. Still, the piece reveals something more important than spin: It exposes the moral core of today’s Democratic Party.

If Clinton only wanted a talking point, she could have posted it on X or dashed off a short op-ed. She wrote 6,000 words because, to a meaningful extent, she means it. In that respect I differ from Pastor Joe Rigney, one of her targets, whose response was excellent.

Clinton has pushed “empathy” for years. In her “basket of deplorables” speech, she described the need to “empathize” with the half of Trump’s supporters who weren’t racist, sexist, or xenophobic. After her defeat, she urged “radical empathy” in a 2017 Medium essay and argued that empathy belongs at the center of policy and politics — a theme she has repeated ever since.

Yet she misunderstands both the GOP and empathy itself.

Empathy, the left’s blind spot

Survey after survey shows liberals, not conservatives, struggling to extend empathy across political lines. Far more liberals than conservatives describe the other side as evil rather than misinformed or misguided. Liberals also report a greater willingness to cut conservatives out of friendships, business relationships, and civic life based solely on politics.

Conservatives, in practice, empathize with liberals more readily than liberals empathize with conservatives.

Clinton also misunderstands Trump. Private citizens who meet him one-on-one often praise his personal warmth. He calls people when they struggle. He spends extra time with victims and families. When he speaks harshly in public, he usually does so for deliberate political reasons. In political warfare, Trump often uses his feel for his opponents’ psychology to press the exact buttons that work.

Immigration provides another example. Clinton imagines that people who support deportations “delight” in suffering. Most do not. Many empathize with illegal immigrants — and refuse to let unbounded empathy shut off their brains.

I take a hard line on immigration. I support deporting every person here illegally and sharply reducing legal immigration as well. Yet I can sympathize with someone who has lived here for years, even decades, or someone brought here as a child. They have relationships. Many contribute in real ways. (Overall, illegal immigration produces a highly negative net impact.)

Still, incentives matter. If a sympathetic story becomes a stay of deportation, we lose border control. Good leadership means making difficult, rational choices that benefit the nation, even when those choices impose real costs on individuals.

Clinton praises Minnesota’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement vigilantes as a form of “neighborism,” essentially helping your neighbors regardless of background. She ignores the obvious: Many of the “neighbors” she celebrates include violent felons, child sex abusers, fraudsters, and other criminals.

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The mouth of the foolish

Clinton’s most revealing mistake involves Christianity. She accuses “far-right” Christian leaders who support Trump of discarding dignity, mercy, and compassion. Those virtues matter, but they do not exhaust Christian teaching. Mainline denominations that treat them as the whole faith have collapsed for a reason.

Christian statesmanship requires balancing virtues. Some moments demand compassion; other moments demand a steel spine. That does not contradict empathy rightly understood. It recognizes biblical limits. An empathy that destroys a nation does not reflect scriptural compassion.

Clinton’s Atlantic essay does not defend empathy. It weaponizes it, turning a virtue into a moral bludgeon and makes a nation into its target.

Clinton attacks Trump, JD Vance, and their supporters for criticizing Rev. Mariann Budde, who used a post-inauguration service at Washington National Cathedral to lecture Trump on compassion for immigrants, the LGBTQ community, and other “marginalized” groups. The backlash did not begin with disagreement over policy.

Budde took a moment of honor and turned it into a scolding. She showed no empathy for Trump or the millions who oppose her views for sincere reasons. She practiced selective “empathy,” stripped of prudence and judgment. Trump put it plainly afterward: She brought her church into politics “in a very ungracious way.”

Clinton also targets BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey and her book “Toxic Empathy,” which Clinton calls “an oxymoron.” “I don’t know if the phrase reflects moral blindness or moral bankruptcy, but either way it’s appalling,” she writes.

Clinton again refuses empathy toward her opponents. A serious engagement with Stuckey’s argument would start with the subtitle: “How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion.” Stuckey does not attack compassion in principle; she attacks its political hijacking. Clinton responds with a pious sneer about what she believes Jesus preached “in his short time on Earth.”

Even when Clinton praises Erika Kirk’s radical forgiveness, she shows theological shallowness. Christians must forgive personal wrongs when repentance occurs. The magistrate must pursue justice for the community. Clinton’s kindergarten version of Christian morality has hollowed out the churches that adopted it.

Clinton claims to be shocked that 25% of Republicans and 40% of self-described Christian nationalists agree with the statement that “empathy is a dangerous emotion that undermines our ability to set up a society guided by God’s truth.” She should not feel shocked. Many Americans have watched the left weaponize empathy to advance policies that punish citizens and reward lawlessness.

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Photo by Marcus Ingram/Getty Images

Empathy without judgment becomes cruelty

“MAGA sees a world of vengeance, scorn, and humiliation, and cannot imagine generosity or solidarity,” Clinton argues. She gets it backward. Solidarity with my fellow Americans drives my willingness to fight for their interests on immigration and beyond. Surface-level empathy often conflicts with long-term social health, even when Clinton and her allies sneer at those who say so.

Clinton hopes conservatives “recognize the humanity” of an illegal immigrant family and decide that mass deportation “has gone too far.” I recognize that humanity already. If mere recognition of humanity dictated policy, I could not justify closing the border to anyone except the worst criminals. That path ends in disaster.

If MAGA people offer heartfelt hugs to illegal immigrants while placing them on deportation flights, will Democrats stop obstructing enforcement? I doubt it.

A wise Christian leader shows mercy after victory in war. When unchecked immigration tears the nation’s social fabric, wise leaders stand firm for the long-term interests of their people and reject emotional manipulation — a Clinton specialty for decades.

Clinton’s Wellesley commencement address in 1969 shows how deep this runs:

Part of the problem with just empathy with professed goals is that empathy doesn’t do us anything. ... The challenge now is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible possible. ... We’re not interested in social reconstruction; it’s human reconstruction. ... But we also know that to be educated, the goal of it must be human liberation.

In that undergraduate statement, spoken more than 50 years ago, the roots of Clinton’s “empathy” show themselves. Her embrace of what Thomas Sowell called the “unconstrained vision” defines the modern left: politics as alchemy, liberation as entitlement, human nature as clay.

That vision cannot survive contact with limits — so it recasts limits as cruelty and calls dissent “hate.” Clinton’s Atlantic essay does not defend empathy. It weaponizes it, turning a virtue into a moral bludgeon and making a nation into its target.

Editor’s note: A longer version of this article was published originally at the American Mind.

Gospel meets degeneracy? ​Christians clash over Kid Rock’s TPUSA performance



Turning Point USA’s All-American Halftime Show ignited controversy after Kid Rock took the stage — a choice BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey admits initially left her stunned.

“You’ve got Turning Point saying that they’ve got this family-friendly show, but then they have Kid Rock, who is not really a family-friendly guy, singing,” Stuckey explains, pointing out that this has become an “intra-Christian battle.”

When Stuckey initially heard that Kid Rock was playing at the Turning Point halftime show, she admittedly was skeptical.

“I don’t think of him as kid-friendly. ... I know that he has a history of being very raunchy. He’s definitely about the, like, sex, drugs, and rock and roll; drinking; and things like that. So, I was very surprised,” she explains.


At one point in the show, Kid Rock began sharing the gospel.

“There’s a book that’s sitting in your house somewhere that could use some dusting off. There’s a man who died for all our sins hanging from the cross,” he said, singing, “You can give your life to Jesus, and he’ll give you a second chance, till you can’t.”

“OK, I love that. I loved that message. I love the theme of this song. It’s called ‘’Til You Can’t.’ And that line is so true, that Jesus will give you a second chance. He’s got all of this grace to give, until you can’t, and until you take your last breath,” Stuckey comments.

However, Kid Rock also sang songs that celebrated degeneracy.

“So, very confusing, and a lot of people rightly pointed out this seems a little bit hypocritical,” Stuckey says, but one post on X helped her make sense of it.

“There seems to be a lot of confusion & backlash, especially from the Christian community, about Kid Rock’s performance during TPUSA’s All-American Halftime Show. I believe I can clear things up ...,” Jon Root began in a post on X.

“Kid Rock started his set by performing ‘Bawitdaba’, which came out in 1999. It is a vulgar song, referencing topless dancers, drinking, crooked cops, bastards, etc. Hearing that was a shock to a lot of us. Rightfully so. It felt worldly, which I believe was the point ...,” he continued.

“Next, there was an acoustic set with two people playing a Christian hymn. It was meant to be an emotional bridge to what came next. ... Finally, it transitioned to Kid Rock, his stage name, being introduced back to the stage as Robert Ritchie, his birth name. He then played a revised version of ‘Til You Can’t,’ which included lyrics about Jesus Christ,” he explained.

“He also spoke about Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, encouraged people to follow Christ, and to read their Bibles. This was supposed to be an artistic way of portraying a redemption story. I don’t know Kid Rock’s walk with Christ, but he used this moment to point people to Christ, and I rejoice in that (Philippians 1:15-18),” he concluded.

“We should always praise God when the gospel is preached,” Stuckey comments. “That is my take on that.”

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