America's power grid is collapsing. Big Tech has a Hail Mary to keep the lights on, but is it too late?



In today's technology-driven world, the relentless march of innovation comes with a hefty price tag: massively increased energy needs. Emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, data centers, server farms, and cryptocurrency are consuming staggering amounts of power, which is leading Big Tech companies to increasingly desperate measures to secure the energy they need. As industry leaders scramble to keep up with the growing demand, a glaring question emerges: How will the United States meet the unprecedented energy needs of its tech giants?

The energy consumption of emerging technologies is already staggering and shows no signs of slowing down. The recently released Mid-Year Electricity Update from the International Energy Agency predicts global energy demands will grow at a nearly unprecedented rate. The report directly references the advancements in AI as a contributing factor to this expected surge.

Until recently, many industry leaders, even in the tech space, advocated for increases in renewable energy to fight climate change. However, many are acknowledging the limitations of current renewable energy sources, particularly wind and solar.

In recent years, the demand for energy from Big Tech companies has skyrocketed, necessitating a re-evaluation of energy production in the United States. For example, Microsoft used 23.6 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2023, an astonishing threefold increase from its 2018 energy consumption. Amazon's electricity use reached nearly 57 terawatt-hours in 2022, matching the energy consumption of the entire country of Greece. Even more striking, estimates suggest that the AI industry alone could consume 85 to 134 terawatt-hours of energy annually by 2027 — a figure that might ultimately prove to be conservative.

The energy needs of AI and Big Tech

The energy demands of large language models like ChatGPT illustrate just how increasingly energy-intensive these technologies can be. Training ChatGPT-3 required 1.3 gigawatt-hours, while the training of ChatGPT-4 spiked to 50 gigawatt-hours — a 40-fold increase. Moreover, this energy expenditure is only the upfront cost. Using these AI tools also requires significant energy. Tasks, like simple text generation, consume multiple times the energy required for a standard Google search. Beyond that, generative AI tools — used to create images and videos — are even more taxing.

As these energy requirements continue to escalate, it becomes evident that the existing energy infrastructure in the United States is ill-equipped to support the insatiable needs of Big Tech. A significant push for increased energy production is vital if the country hopes to keep pace with the demands of emerging technologies.

Acknowledging energy shortcomings

Recognizing this urgent need for energy, industry leaders are becoming increasingly outspoken. Recent discussions among tech leaders, including OpenAI’s Sam Altman and executives from Anthropic, Nvidia, Microsoft, and Google, have underscored this urgent need for more energy. In September, these leaders met with White House officials to discuss the industry’s future requirements, revealing that individual data centers may soon require a staggering 5 gigawatts of energy to operate effectively.

In a recent podcast interview, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook/Meta, warned that tech companies are “going to run into energy constraints.” Similarly, OpenAI’s Altman emphasized the necessity for breakthroughs in energy production during a discussion at the World Economic Forum's Davos conference in January. Altman has at least two investments in nuclear ventures — Oklo, focusing on traditional nuclear fission, and Helion, which aims to harness nuclear fusion.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink provided a sobering perspective when he revealed that one executive indicated to him that data centers may require an astounding 30 gigawatts of energy by 2030. Fink stressed that we cannot rely on the intermittent nature of wind and solar power to power these data companies, highlighting the urgent need for a reliable energy source. Fink told the audience that “the world is going to be short power. And to power these data companies, you cannot have this intermittent power like wind and solar.”

Until recently, many industry leaders, even in the tech space, advocated for increases in renewable energy to fight climate change. However, many are acknowledging the limitations of current renewable energy sources, particularly wind and solar. These forms of energy are often touted as the solution to our power needs, but they come with inherent flaws. As intermittent power sources, wind and solar cannot provide the consistent baseload power necessary to sustain the relentless energy demands of data centers and AI technologies.

A nuclear renaissance born of desperation?

As Big Tech firms grapple with their energy needs, a dawning realization is emerging: The solution may lie in a renewed focus on nuclear power. The desperate search for energy has led Big Tech companies to strike controversial deals with energy suppliers. Earlier this year, Amazon signed a deal with Talen Energy to secure large amounts of power. This agreement was met with public criticism from people worried the deal would result in increased electricity prices for average ratepayers.

Perhaps as a response to this deal, Microsoft took a more unconventional approach. In September, Microsoft secured a controversial agreement to reopen the infamous 3-Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania. This decision has drawn scrutiny, given the plant's legacy as one of the most notorious nuclear power incidents in history. The deal will provide Microsoft with 835 megawatts of electricity per year for 20 years, enough to power approximately 700,000 homes.

In addition to corporate initiatives, the White House is also considering plans to resurrect more nuclear reactors, including Holtec's Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan.

For the past several decades, political momentum has driven a push for wind and solar to replace conventional energy sources in the United States and around the globe. But with the soaring energy demands of emerging technologies and Big Tech, we may be approaching a tipping point where wind and solar are rejected in favor of more reliable energy sources including nuclear power. As the tech industry’s appetite for energy continues to grow, nuclear may re-emerge as a viable option to power the future.

Blaze News investigates: American de-Christianization: Why it's happening and what it will mean for the republic



America appears to be fast undergoing a process of de-Christianization. This phenomenon will have profound social, spiritual, political, and legal implications for the country.

Scholars and others who have investigated various aspects of American disenchantment and religious disaffiliation have provided Blaze News with penetrating insights into what is taking place; what is driving or at the very least exacerbating this trend; and what consequences lie in wait for an un-Christian America.

Barring some miraculous revival or a generational reversal, it appears that radical transformation may leave it unrecognizable and worse for wear.

Background

Some scenario modeling has indicated that the number of Americans of all ages who are Christian may shrink significantly over the next few decades — from what is presently less than 65% to as little as one-third of the population by 2070, assuming that many of the mainline and evangelical churches will continue losing followers to the ranks of the religiously unaffiliated.

The Public Religion Research Institute published the results of a survey of over 5,600 American adults earlier this year, indicating:

Around one-quarter of Americans (26%) identify as religiously unaffiliated in 2023, a 5 percentage point increase from 21% in 2013. Nearly one in five Americans (18%) left a religious tradition to become religiously unaffiliated, over one-third of whom were previously Catholic (35%) and mainline/non-evangelical Protestant (35%).

The Pew Research Center indicated last year that roughly 28% of American adults fall into the unaffiliated camp populated by agnostics, atheists, and nothings in particular — a cohort referred to as "nones."

Around the same time, Gallup found that only 45% of respondents would say religion is, in their own lives, very important. When Gallup asked Americans this question in 1965, 70% said religion was very important.

Church attendance and church membership among Americans also appear to have dropped precipitously in recent decades.

Between 1940 and 2000, the percentage of respondents who told Gallup they belonged to a formal house of worship bounced around 70%, then took a nosedive following the advent of the new millennium: 45% of respondents told Gallup last year that they belonged to a church.

Not just another bust

The U.S. has seen many a boom and bust in Christian religiosity.

Despite many betting against its return — including Thomas Jefferson, who figured traditional Christianity for worm f­­ood — the faith has repeatedly found its way out of the grave and into a new era of packed churches.

There is, however, something anomalous and possibly cataclysmic about this current bust that has even longtime critics contemplating what civilizational blessings will be lost along with Christianity as the dominant religion and what, ultimately, will become of civilization should the fate foretold come to fruition.

Shortly after British atheist Richard Dawkins admitted that "it would be truly dreadful" to replace Christianity with any other religion and for his country to lose its "beautiful parish churches," Derek Thompson, a self-identified agnostic at the Atlantic, said of the PRRI survey results, "I wonder if, in forgoing organized religion, an isolated country has discarded an old and proven source of ritual at a time when we most need it."

Thompson added, "It took decades for Americans to lose religion. It might take decades to understand the entirety of what we lost."

While America is already losing beautiful parish churches, it is not altogether clear what else this isolated country stands to lose should the disaffiliation highlighted in recent polling data continue and Christianity shrink as a cultural, political, and spiritual force within its borders.

Heretical Christianity's sacrifice regime

Dr. Joshua Mitchell is a professor of political theory at Georgetown University, where he also served as chairman of the government department. Mitchell is the author of several books, including, "American Awakening: Identity Politics and Other Afflictions of Our Time."

When asked by Blaze News whether Christianity is actually in decline or whether something else is afoot, Mitchell indicated that what may appear in the polls is better understood as a kind of heresy.

"The churches gave up on that difficult combination of God’s judgment and God's love," said Mitchell. "Americans no longer wanted to talk about sin."

Mitchell told Blaze News that over the past two centuries, "we became very uncomfortable with the idea that human beings are sinners, and we moved to just one-half of the Christian claim, which is that God is love. Americans and everybody else, however, still need a way to figure out what I call the moral economy of stain and transgression, but the churches no longer provided it."

"St. Paul says this: The Christian claim is a scandal — Christ was an incarnate God who came to take away the sins of the world. Both are staggering claims," said Mitchell. "So here is the problem: Human beings have this sin that only God can save them from. The development of what’s called 'liberal Christianity' was an attempt to be Christian and not be embarrassed by the scandal of the cross and the scandal of sin."

'Identity politics, like the earlier incomplete religions, can only be vanquished if Christians reclaim their scandal.'

"When the churches disregard sin, you don’t get rid of the idea of sin and guilt and unpayable debt. You relocate them," added Mitchell.

Part of the appeal of various 20th-century social movements, such as those associated with civil rights, the LGBT agenda, and feminism, was their promise of a way to think about "purity and stain that was no longer an option in the churches."

"White people — I detest the term — came to be stained because of the history of slavery in America. Black Americans and, after them, women (victims of patriarchy and misogyny), gays and lesbians (victims of hetero-normativity) all have taken on the mantle of innocent victimhood. Conservative blacks, I should add, have long fought back against being called victims, but today in America, the only way you get a hearing is if you can wear the crown of innocent victimhood," said Mitchell.

"So when the Pew Charitable Trusts notes that American church attendance is going down, I say, 'You don't know where to look,'" said Mitchell. "If we call religion 'institutionalized Christianity,' well, then of course the numbers are going down. But if we call religion 'the search for a way to think through purity and stain, innocent victimhood, and historical sin in order to find atonement,' then in America today we're having a religious revival."

Mitchell characterized the phenomenon under way as a "great awakening in America without God and without forgiveness."

"We're the most religious people we've ever been because every single day, people are getting up and figuring out whether they're innocent victims or whether they're transgressors," continued Mitchell.

This popular system of ascribing guilt and assuming innocence — identity politics — is effectively a form of "heretical Christianity" that has become America's "established church," suggested Mitchell.

Adopting a term he indicated was previously used by Alexis de Tocqueville, Mitchell suggested that when Christianity first began to falter, the consequence was not secularization but rather the rise of a series of "incomplete religions." The leading examples are the French Revolution, Marxism, the post-colonial theory that dominates the pro-Hamas student protesters today, and, of course, identity politics, which we see everywhere.

We didn't move from Christianity to a secular world. We moved from one incomplete version of Christianity — complete with a designated innocent victim and a moral economy that says who's purified and who’s damned — to the next. Identity politics is the latest iteration of an incomplete religion.

"We're living in a time of heretical Christianity," said Mitchell. "My argument is that Christians have been fighting heresies from the very beginning, and they battled and won [against] the heresies by asserting the claim that's the scandal to reason, namely: Christ was crucified for our sins. Identity politics, like the earlier incomplete religions, can only be vanquished if Christians reclaim their scandal."

Mitchell indicated that if identity politics is left unchecked, then it will overturn the rule of law and has already shown signs of doing so.

"I'll just use this example. You will recall the rioting — the 'summer of peace'? 'Mostly peaceful protests'?" said Mitchell, referencing the BLM riots cheered on by Democrats that inflicted at least $1 billion in damage, claimed the lives of between six and 20 people, and left over 2,000 police officers injured. "Well, much of it was a violation of the law. But within the framework of these incomplete religions, these derivatives of Christianity, your actions are at the higher spiritual level, because you're an innocent victim. That is why if you break the law, it doesn't matter."

"There's a higher spiritual economy that recognizes transgression of a different sort the law can't recognize," continued Mitchell. "So you might be a so-called innocent victim and, you know, burn down a building, but you're justified in this higher spiritual economy because you have special standing in the spiritual economy. This spiritual justification shreds the idea of the rule of law that applies to everyone equally, because in these incomplete religions, everybody isn't equal."

Noting that it has already taken root in America, Mitchell indicated that this identity politics "hierarchy of purity and stain" could ultimately displace equality under the law altogether.

While the current target of this regime appears to be white, heterosexual Christian males, Mitchell indicated that the heretical incomplete religion of identity politics will ultimately move on to the next perceived transgressor until all options are finally exhausted: "This could go on for hundreds of years. This is the beginning of something, not the end."

Along the way, the incomplete religion will likely seek the extermination of its complete origin.

"Heretical religions will always try to destroy the institution from which they came," said Mitchell.

Noting that analysis of this trend is often sociological and concerned with the material side of the equation, Blaze News asked Mitchell whether he suspected one of the drivers here may be a manifest evil.

"I am a social scientist who studies the 19th century. I'm a Tocquevillian scholar. I put great stock in sociological and political analysis up to a point. But my Christianity tells me that there are spiritual forces of darkness here that we cannot fight without divine assistance," said Mitchell. "African Christianity, in a way, has it over the West because in African culture there's a deep awareness that there are demonic forces at work."

"Without Christ, there is no rescue from the demonic forces," continued Mitchell. "We have to proceed, then, in two ways. We have to do what we can politically and socially, but with the full understanding that there are forces at work here that are dark and that nobody will ever understand. And for that reason, prayer is probably equally important to anything we might do."

While recommending an "all-of-the-above strategy" — which includes prayer, reclaiming the "scandal of the cross and the problem of the brokenness of man," and having church leaders get their houses in order — Mitchell told Blaze News that a course correction "is not going to happen until people realize that fault lies within, which is the most astounding historical eruption into time, this Christian-Hebrew thing that says 'fault is within.' That astounding historical insight erupts into time with the Hebrews and the Christians. The West is inconceivable without this eruption. We are losing that insight today, which means we are not becoming more secular; rather, we are relying on an incomplete religion according to which fault is always external, in which your sins are always somebody else's fault."

Losing identity, not belief

Professor Mark Movsesian teaches contract law, law and religion, and federal courts at St. John's University. Extra to serving as director of the Mattone Center for Law and Religion, he is on the board of Cambridge University's Journal of Law and Religion and co-hosts the "Legal Spirits" podcast.

When asked whether recent polling reflects real trends under way as it pertains to the de-Christianization of America and the rise of the "nones," Movsesian noted at the outset that there may be some issues with the surveys (e.g., low response rates; discrepancies between respondent definitions about religion, with some equating their faith to a relationship with Christ).

However, Movsesian indicated that the General Social Survey executed by the University of Chicago, which has a high response rate and is regarded as the "gold standard for sociological research," has clearly indicated a major increase in recent decades of persons indicating they have no religious identity, and these results appear to match up with the polling data from Pew and other polling outfits.

"It does seem to me that religious disaffiliation is a trend," Movsesian told Blaze News. "Now, we have to understand what's meant by that."

"It's not that these people are becoming atheists. The number of atheists — who flat-out say, 'I don’t believe in God,' 'I don’t believe in the supernatural' — that number has been consistently in the single digits, like 5%, 4%, for a long time. So that's not what's going on," said Movsesian.

Instead of necessarily rejecting God, Americans are abandoning religious institutions.

"We have to understand what's meant by religious disaffiliation. It's not a loss of belief. It's a loss of identity with a specific organized faith," said Movsesian, adding that this comes amidst a broader trend of Americans "checking out of these institutions which were once part of American life."

When it comes to nailing down what exactly is to blame, Movsesian indicated there are numerous factors, not the least of which is religious intermarriage.

'Disaffiliation seems to be from people in the middle.'

"If one parent is in one religion and the other parent is in another religion, which is quite common in America, the kid tends not to be in any religion," said Movsesian. "Because the parents say, 'Well, you can decide for yourself what you want to do,' and oftentimes the kid doesn't do that."

The children of "nones," like those born to inter-religious couples, are also unlikely to pick up Christianity or another other traditional religion inside the home.

Other drivers of this trend include divorce, social media, the "clerical sex abuse crisis," and the sexual revolution. In the case of the latter, Movsesian indicated that some people have been turned off by religious institutions' moral teachings, concluding, "'My church is telling me that this is wrong. I don't want to be in this church any more.'"

When Blaze News raised the possibility that this may be just be the latest bust in a long-standing cycle, Movsesian highlighted the example of the colonial period, when the "number of nones would have been very high because there were not a lot of churches. This was a frontier society and you just didn't have a lot of churches to belong to."

"So rates of religious disaffiliation have been high in America before," continued Movsesian. "And of course, you know what happens at the end of the colonial period: the first Great Awakening. So maybe we're due for something like that. I mean, we had two or three Great Awakenings in America. Maybe another one is coming."

Movsesian was not, however, overly optimistic about an inbound awakening.

When it comes to disaffiliation, the professor made clear the religiously lukewarm are the ones sloshing around.

"Disaffiliation seems to be from people in the middle," said Movsesian. "If you ask people, 'How intense is your religious identification? Is it very serious for you?' … That percentage has not changed at all. That percentage — like 37%, 39% of Americans who say 'religion is very important to us' — that has stayed the same."

Those who previously told pollsters that religion was only somewhat important to them now appear to be joining the ranks of the nones.

"So you're seeing a kind of polarization right there: the people who don't care at all and the people who are very into it. That might be a sign that those people who are very into it, if they can make a push, they might be able to get some people back."

"It's not like these people are atheists. It's not like they just don't believe in anything," said Movsesian. "I mean, there may be some way to get to people who have some sense that spirituality is important, the transcendent is important."

Movsesian stressed that what the disaffiliated largely reject is "authority, religious authority — someone who says, 'Okay, this is the way to go. This is the path.'"

While nones reflexively reject authority and tradition, that is no guarantee against de-churched conformity.

"There are some people who will just go down their own path. Henry David Thoreau, right? 'I will find my own path.' But most people aren't Henry David Thoreau," said Movsesian. "Most of us are middling people and so we're going to receive something. We're not going to come up with our own thing. And a lot of what you see among the nones looks sort of similar."

Blaze News asked Movsesian about possible legal consequences of de-Christianization, inquiring further whether a recent study he previously discussed may provide a hint.

'Law follows culture more than culture follows law.'

After reviewing various religious liberty decisions in federal courts, Gregory Sisk, a legal scholar and professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, and Michael Heise, a law professor at Cornell, indicated in a 2022 paper that "a decrease in religious affiliation may not inevitably be accompanied by a secularist opposition to acknowledgment of religion in the public square or the robust participation of religious persons and entities in public life."

"What they said is that judges who are nones, they would expect them to be very strong on the Establishment Clause — they’d want to get rid of all the religious symbols on public property and so on, and Greg and Michael didn't find that," said Movsesian. "If you're a none, you probably don't care that much about religion. You're just kind of checked out. So the idea that there's a cross on public property, it's not going to bother you terribly much."

Movsesian indicated that nones in the judiciary may, however, be prickled by the perception of special treatment for Christians and for other religious Americans.

While a handful of irreligious judges have been indifferent to religion in the past, Movsesian would not rule out the possibility that a de-Christianized America could be hostile to religious citizens, noting that even the seemingly laid-back none judges alternatively care about exemptions afforded to those who, for instance, do not want to serve a gay wedding on religious grounds.

"The fact that more and more people are unfamiliar with institutional religion, with organized religion, with religious communities, I think you're going to see more fights when it comes to religious exemptions," said Movsesian.

As for American law in general, Movsesian said, "Law follows culture more than culture follows law. So if the culture becomes disaffiliated and religion is not important to large groups of people, then of course the influence of religion on the law is going to be less."

Modernism's prize

Dr. Ryan Cragun is a professor of sociology at the University of Tampa and the coauthor of "Beyond Doubt: The Secularization of Society."

Cragun suggested to Blaze News via written responses that the "massive religious decline" under way can broadly be attributed to "modernization" — what he and his co-authors described in "Beyond Doubt" as a "transition from a traditional, rural, non-industrial society to a contemporary, urban, industrial or post-industrial society."

While he generally credited "modern ways of thinking" with causing problems for religion, he also highlighted generational changes, clerical scandals, and corruption as factors for the decline in American religiosity.

"Younger generations are increasingly liberal and more likely to question traditional religious teachings, especially when these teachings conflict with modern values such as gender equality and LGBTQ+ rights," wrote Cragun.

'As religion declines, humans are returning to more "human" ways of living.'

Cragun indicated that perhaps more impactful than American youth pursuing paths of least resistance are the breaks in lines of cultural transmission.

"The real key here is the 'transfer' of religion from parents to children," wrote the sociologist. "There has been a radical shift in how people parent their kids in that parents give their kids a lot more autonomy today than they did 40+ years ago. Because kids have more autonomy, when they are asked if they want to continue to go to church, many kids are opting out of religious services. In many Western countries, the 'mechanism' of religious decline is generational change."

Cragun suggested further that financial misconduct and sexual scandals within religious institutions have served to damage the credibility of organized religion and have likely served as a repellant.

In terms of the consequences of religious decline, Cragun appeared to see only upsides.

"I would argue that as religion declines, humans are returning to more 'human' ways of living that don't involve the supernatural and human exceptionalism," he wrote.

Satanic Temple co-founder Lucien Greaves did not similarly adopt a triumphant tone in his response to Blaze News, noting that the decline is "at least partially a result of religion's increasing politicization" and emphasizing that "it is apparent that religion can play an essential role in enriching, contextualizing, and guiding communities."

Working under the assumption that "religion doesn't make society function," Cragun noted that the decline of religion will not produce "meaningful changes in donations to charities, volunteering, health, happiness, marital satisfaction, tolerance, kindness, valuing family, morality, etc."

Cragun did, however, highlight a political impact: "The decline in religious participation has led to a weakening of the influence that religious institutions have over policy and public life. This can be seen in the increasing support for policies that conflict with traditional religious teachings, such as same-sex marriage and reproductive rights."

In response to the question of whether there are substitutes (i.e., for religion), Cragun answered, "This is the wrong question. This assumes that religion is a core or essential part of what it means to be human or for societies to function. That is not true."

"Religion is just one way people have found to accomplish some of the things humans enjoy or prefer, including explaining some aspects of the world, providing a community, giving people some moral perspectives, etc.," continued Cragun. "But religion is not and never has been necessary for any of these things. In other words, nothing 'substitutes' for religion because religion is not the default way of being."

The pagan empire

John Daniel Davidson, an Alaska-based senior editor at the Federalist, is the author of "Pagan America: The Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come."

Citing the "wealth of survey and sociological data that we have built up over years," Davidson told Blaze News that Christianity is indeed declining in America. Unlike past busts, which largely took place within the context of a highly religious and religiously homogenous society, Davidson noted that this decline, long in the making, has "coincided with a kind of cultural revolution and a societal transformation."

Previously, Christian groups may have splintered off from one another, but this time around, Davidson indicated, "people are just kind of dropping out entirely."

Like Movsesian, Davidson emphasized that the resulting nones are not necessarily atheists or cold hard materialists. In some cases they are "spiritual, not religious."

"They are consciously disassociating themselves from formal religious structures, namely in America and the West, in Christianity, and instead are drawn to new forms of religion, which are really old forms of religion — paganism in a modern context," said Davidson.

'Once you cut liberalism off from its source, it will wither and die. And once liberalism withers and dies, what you have is brute force.'

Davidson indicated that the neo-pagan ethos, which has come to dominate public life in America, "is a kind of inversion of the Christian ethos, which is to say a rejection of transcendental truth, of a transcendent god, of objective morality, or even of objective reality and an embrace of relativism, an embrace of subjectivism, an embrace of the divinization of the here and now: the immanent versus the transcendent."

Davidson underscored that paganism — not secularism, rationalism, or materialism, which he regards as outgrowths or aberrations of Christianity — is the only real alternative to Christianity and that this old and real enemy "is coming back to fill the vacuum, refuting that humans are made in the image of God; that they have innate dignity and worth; and that human rights are an inheritance of Christendom."

"So the pagans say, 'All men are not created equal.' They don't have equal rights, so therefore there's no need to have consent of the governed. There's no need for me to respect the weak, for example, because human beings are, by nature, unequal. That's why all pagan societies were slave societies across vast expanses of time and geography and culture."

There's apparently no basis for tolerance either, certainly not of violations of the public morality, which is distinct from private religion under pagan regimes. It is for this reason that those Christians who silently pray near abortion clinics in the increasingly pagan U.K. are hauled away by British police, he suggested.

Contrary to Cragun's suspicions about the post-Christian world to come, Davidson indicated that liberalism and its other extensions celebrated by secularists won’t survive in the pagan empire.

"Liberalism is going to go away," said Davidson. "Its source of vitality comes from a Christian society, from a Christian worldview, and it depends, for its coherence, on that. So once it's cut off — you don't get the culture without the cult. Once you cut liberalism off from its source, it will wither and die. And once liberalism withers and dies, what you have is brute force, a society that's organized not around the idea of human rights, but a society that’s organized around brute force."

Tocqueville, invoked earlier by Mitchell, indicated that the breakdown of religion would "prepar[e] citizens for servitude" in such a despotic state. Tocqueville stated in "Democracy in America":

When religion is destroyed among a people, doubt takes hold of the highest portions of the intellect and half paralyzes all the others. Each person gets accustomed to having only confused and changing notions about the matters that most interest his fellows and himself. You defend your opinions badly or you abandon them, and, since you despair of being able, by yourself, to solve the greatest problems that human destiny presents, you are reduced like a coward to not thinking about them. Such a state cannot fail to enervate souls; it slackens the motivating forces of will and prepares citizens for servitude. Then not only does it happen that the latter allow their liberty to be taken, but they often give it up.

A silver lining in this dark cloud is that "those who remain faithful Christians, who are going to be keepers of the flame, so to speak, will become more potent. They'll become more powerful in a sense because there won't be any social benefits or prestige associated with being a Christian," said Davidson.

The beleaguered church, too, would be reduced to the faithful and the defiant.

'If that means persecution, then so be it. Let's return to an era of persecution.'

According to Davidson, this coming pagan empire's attacks on Christians may ultimately be its undoing: "Historically, the only thing that has broken the stranglehold of paganism over any society was its encounter with Christianity because Christianity posits a radically different way of seeing the world. It's from this smaller but more potent, faithful Christian community in the West, Christian church in the West, that I think the neo-paganism era that we're coming into now is going to be shattered."

Though he suspects "we're going to win," Davidson acknowledged that there will be bad times first and that the current generation may not see the earthly victory in their lifetimes. Nevertheless, it is incumbent upon them to fight for their children and grandchildren "in hopes that they might be able to reclaim the Western Christian inheritance that was lost on our forebears' watch."

"Find ground that you can win on and fight on that ground," said Davidson. "At the same time, you protect your family and you protect your church, and you build up the community around you to weather the storm. But then you don't just keep your faith in those private spaces. You take it out into the street."

"If that means persecution, then so be it. Let's return to an era of persecution. The blood of the martyrs is the seeds of the church," added Davidson.

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Cargo ship rams into major Baltimore bridge, causing total collapse



Early Tuesday morning, a Singapore-flagged container ship called the Dali rammed into one of the piers holding up Francis Scott Key Bridge, a steel arch-shaped truss bridge extending Interstate 695 some 1,200 feet over the Baltimore Harbor. Upon impact, the bridge came toppling down — along with those vehicles on the compromised segments.

Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman indicated the bridge has "totally collapsed" and that rescue teams are on site.

So far, there have been no reports of casualties.

Baltimore Fire Chief James Wallace indicated that two people were pulled from the waters, one of whom was in serious condition, reported the Associated Press.

Wallace noted that authorities "may be looking for upwards of seven people."

The fire department reportedly employed sonar to detect vehicles that plunged into the depths.

A livestream captured the precise moment the 984-foot vessel crashed into the bridge, timestamped at 1:28 a.m.. The ship can be seen smashing into one of the piers on its way out of the port, triggering a chain reaction.

Minutes earlier, the lights aboard the ship appear to flicker, suggestive of a possible electronic malfunction.

The 9-year-old ship was on its way to Colombo, Sri Lanka, according to VesselFinder.

BREAKING: Ship collides with Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, causing it to collapse
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A photo from the tragedy at the Francis Scott Key Bridge. \n\n*Double checked, actual photo of cargo ship. #francisscottkeybridge \n\nAwaiting press conference around 7amET\u2026.
— (@)

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) declared a state of emergency and indicated the state is working with an inter-agency team to deploy federal resources.

Kevin Cartwright, director of communications for the Baltimore Fire Department, called the incident a "dire emergency" and expressed concerns earlier in the morning that the collapse may amount to a "developing mass casualty event."

The remains of both the collapsed bridge and the ship's cargo may hinder traffic into and out of the port, the second-busiest port in the mid-Atlantic. This could prove greatly consequential for trade and commerce.

— (@)
\ud83d\udea8#BREAKING: Morning Daylight reveals the aftermath of the mass casualty event of the Scott Key Bridge collapse\n\n\ud83d\udccc#Baltimore | #Maryland\n\nWatch As morning daylight approaches, it reveals the devastating aftermath of an early morning incident after a large cargo ship from\u2026
— (@)

Synergy Marine Group, the outfit that owns and manages the vessel, reportedly confirmed that the ship collided with the bridge while in control of two pilots. The crew suffered no fatalities or injuries.

Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley indicated there is "absolutely no indication" that the Dali rammed into the bridge intentionally.

An unclassified Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency report noted that the Dali "lost propulsion" while leaving port and that the pilots alerted officials to their loss of control, reported ABC News.

The Maryland Transportation Authority noted that alternate routes across the harbor are the I-95 or I-895 tunnels. Vehicles transporting hazardous materials are barred from using the tunnels and must use the western section of I-695 around the tunnels, according to the MDTA.

Brandon Scott, Baltimore's Democratic mayor, said, "This is a tragedy that you can never imagine," adding that the collapse "looked like something out of an action movie."

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Mayor Eric Adams admits influx of illegal aliens under Biden 'will destroy New York City'



Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) used to have to travel by plane to feign heartbreak at the fallout of what she claimed was a "manufactured crisis." Owing to the Biden administration's failure to secure the southern border, Ocasio-Cortez recently admitted she has been spared the need to leave New York City for a repeat performance, as "this crisis is in our own backyard."

Ocasio-Cortez is not the only open-borders and sanctuary city champion in NYC now unable to ignore the devastating impact of Democratic policies and mismanagement.

NYC Mayor Eric Adams' campaign to have fliers distributed at the U.S.-Mexico border telling illegal immigrants not to make life more difficult for him appears to have failed, leaving him at wit's end.

At a town hall on the Upper West Side Wednesday night, Adams stressed that "this issue will destroy New York City."

"Let me tell you something, New Yorkers: never in my life have I had a problem that I did not see an ending to. I don't see an ending to this," said Adams. "We're getting 10,000 migrants a month. One time, we were just getting Venezuela. Now we're getting Ecuador. Now we're getting Russian-speaking coming through Mexico. Now we're getting Western Africa. Now we're getting people from all over the globe that made their minds up that they're gonna come through the southern border and coming to New York City."

The New York Times indicated that over 100,000 illegal aliens have stormed the city, overwhelming services intended for down and out American citizens. Having had its 200 shelters maxed out, the city has been dumping illegal aliens into humanitarian centers, converted hotels, school gymnasiums, and religious buildings, as well as imploring citizens to do what Adams is unwilling to do himself: bring the unwelcome guests into their homes.

The city is also looking to enroll nearly 20,000 migrant children in public schools this fall, which may similarly have an adverse impact on the legal population.

Though apparently unwilling to stem the flood of illegal traffic into the country, the Biden administration has suggested that NYC offload its problem to federal-owned facilities farther afield, such as a tax office on Long Island and Atlantic City International Airport, reported Bloomberg.

However, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) appears keen to respect NYC's sanctuary status, stating, "We cannot and will not force other parts of our state to shelter migrants, nor are we going to be asking these migrants to move to other parts of the state against their will."

The cost to NYC of reaping the whirlwind of Democrats' open-border policies and sanctuary city invitations has grown to at least $12 billion just to house and care for the illegal aliens. This price tag has prompted Adams to demand that the Biden and Hochul administrations "step up."

Adams underscored Wednesday, "We have a $12 billion deficit that we’re going to have to cut. Every service in this city is going to be impacted, all of us."

"I said it last year when we had 15,000 and I'm telling you now with 110,000. The city we knew, we're about to lose, and we are all in this together, all of us," he added.

Adams took a not-so-subtle shot at President Joe Biden, noting that "month after month I stood up and said this is gonna come to a neighborhood near you. Well, we're here, we're getting no support on this national crisis."

While the mayor made a veiled dig at Biden, he saved his most vicious barb for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who has bused illegal aliens to sanctuary cities around the nation, proving every time leftists' rhetoric to be hollow. Even though the Republican governor is desperately trying to solve their shared problem — having his latest effort thwarted once again by the Biden administration and a federal judge — Adams suggested Abbott is a "madman."

TheBlaze recently noted that a new Siena College poll found that 82% of New Yorkers called the migrant crisis serious and 52% called it "very serious," having likely become unable to ignore the multitudes of illegal aliens straining the system, some of whom are contributing to the city's worsening crime.

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) emphasized that this is a "crisis of their own making."

"It's very similar to cashless bail," said Lawler. "When you create a sanctuary city policy that invites migrants to come regardless of their status, you are going to get a lot of people coming, and now they can't handle the influx."

— (@)

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Tori Kelly & Bronny James: Why are young stars collapsing?



There has been a disturbing trend surfacing in the news lately.

Young stars like LeBron James’ son, who recently suffered a cardiac arrest, have been collapsing despite otherwise being extraordinarily healthy.

Allie Beth Stuckey is worried and thinks we may need to be asking some questions — but believes we also shouldn’t be jumping to conclusions.

“For people to come to an immediate conclusion — that it has to be because of the vaccine, because of political reasons, because that’s expedient for you to get clicks or whatever — I don’t like that, because we really don’t know,” Stuckey says.

“It could be because of mRNA, or it may not be. Either way, it’s pretty scary,” she adds.

Bronny James plays basketball for the University of Southern California and suffered a cardiac arrest during a workout. Luckily, he is now in stable condition and no longer in the ICU.

Even Elon Musk has come out of the woodwork to comment on what’s going on with young athletes suddenly collapsing.

“We cannot ascribe everything to the vaccine, but, by the same token, we cannot ascribe nothing. Myocarditis is a known side-effect. The only question is whether it is rare or common,” the CEO of Twitter, now X, tweeted.

LeBron’s son is not the only one who has been in the news lately. Two-time Grammy winner Tori Kelly is being treated for blood clots in her lungs and legs after being rushed to a hospital on Sunday after collapsing.

Stuckey believes that ascribing everything to the vaccine, while it has been a major change in our society recently, is not the way to go about this.

“That can’t be our automatic reaction every time, our automatic assumption, because we live in a fallen world. There are a lot of things that can wreck our health, tiny microbes, things that we don’t even know. There are a lot of factors that go on in people’s lives that we just, we don’t know about,” she says.


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I-95 rebuild after partial collapse may take 'months'; tanker truck driver identified; human remains found in wreckage



Interstate 95 in northeast Philadelphia has been shut down in both directions after a commercial truck burning beneath an overpass caused a portion of the roadway to collapse, officials say.

"With regards to the complete rebuild of the I-95 roadway, we expect that to take some number of months," Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D) said in a press conference late Sunday afternoon.

"Interstate 95 is a critical artery that supports our economy and plays an important role in Pennsylvanians' day-to-day lives. My administration is all hands on deck to repair this safely and as efficiently as possible," Gov. Shapiro also said.

Officials are still working to identify "an individual or individuals" who may have been caught in the fire and the collapse.

The tanker truck driver is Nathaniel Moody, family members and other sources confirmed to WPVI. Moody was an experienced driver who worked for a trucking company from Pennsauken.

Human remains were discovered in the wreckage Monday, but the the identity of the remains is unknown, the outlet also reported.

Shapiro, having seen the site both from aerial and ground-level perspectives, described the collapse as "remarkable devastation."

"I found myself thanking the Lord that no motorists who were on I-95 were injured or died."

Shapiro shared overhead photos of the active scene showing cleanup and recovery efforts under way.

\u201cEarly this AM a vehicle fire under I-95 in Philly caused part of the highway to collapse.\n\nWhile this is still an active scene, I completed an aerial view of the site and was briefed by first responders, law enforcement and transportation experts on the ground with @PhillyMayor.\u201d
— Governor Josh Shapiro (@Governor Josh Shapiro) 1686522262

A commercial truck carrying a "petroleum-based product" was the source of the fire that caused the northbound side of the interstate to collapse and the southbound side to buckle and become structurally unsound, Shapiro said.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney urged travelers to plan alternate routes and thanked state and federal partners who offered support.

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg tweeted that he was in contact with Gov. Shapiro, Mayor Kenney, and other regional leaders regarding the collapse.

"I've spoken directly to @SecretaryPete, @SenBobCasey, @RepBrendanBoyle and other federal officials. All of our federal partners, including the @WhiteHouse, have pledged complete and total support and assistance as we create alternative routes," Gov. Shapiro tweeted Sunday evening.

Governor Shapiro signed a proclamation of disaster emergency Monday to allow the commonwealth to access federal funds and expedite repair work. The proclamation makes $7 in state funds immediately available to begin the reconstruction, according to a press release from the governor's office.

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Former Dallas Fed head warns the US regional banking crisis is 'more serious than we currently understand'



There have been three major bank failures so far this year, and some experts claim the carnage may not yet be at an end.

Former Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Robert Kaplan told Bloomberg Television this week that he thinks "the banking situation may well be more serious than we currently understand."

Silicon Valley Bank collapsed in March, marking the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history. Signature Bank, which had $110 billion in assets at the end of 2022, making it the 29th largest U.S. bank at the time, failed shortly thereafter.

Americans have pulled nearly $100 billion out of banks since, according to Fox Business.

Biden Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen claimed in mid-March that the "banking system is sound." However, just weeks later, First Republic Bank, which had assets over $200 billion and catered to wealthy elites, similarly failed.

First Republic's demise represented the second-largest banking failure in American history, trailing the 2008 collapse of Washington Mutual.

Over the weekend, regulators seized First Republic and sold the bank's deposits and a "substantial majority of assets" to JPMorgan Chase, the largest U.S. bank. JPMorgan similarly absorbed Washington Mutual after its collapse.

Echoing Yellen's March claim, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon suggested Monday that the primary phase of the regional bank crisis was "over," reported the Guardian.

"There may be another smaller one, but this pretty much resolves them all," Dimon said. "This part of the crisis is over."

Tomasz Piskorski, a professor of real estate in the finance division at Columbia University, told Bloomberg, "There are a lot of signs telling us the U.S. banking system is in distress. ... We might want to close our eyes and pretend nothing’s happened, but the signs are already there."

CNBC reported that bank stocks fell dramatically Tuesday, in part because confidence remains shaken and pressure on the sector continues to build.

For instance, shares of the California-based PacWest Bancorp fell nearly 28% on Tuesday. The stock was halted for volatility on a number of occasions.

Shares of Western Alliance bank dropped 15%.

The SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF fell 6.3%.

\u201cBREAKING: US Banking Crisis - Bank Shares Plummet \n\nShares of major U.S. regional banks fell further on Tuesday in the aftermath of the collapse of First Republic Bank, the largest U.S. bank failure since the 2008 financial crisis.\n\nShares of PacWest Bancorp tumbled nearly 30%,\u2026\u201d
— Mario Nawfal (@Mario Nawfal) 1683043099

According to Time, investors and analysts remain concerned about banks such as Comerica and KeyCorp, which — like SVB and Signature Bank — have a large number of accounts with deposits over the federally insured level of $250,000.

CNBC indicated that this concern can be attributed to the recent failures, the expected regulatory changes they have prompted, and prospective Fed rate hikes.

Former Dallas Fed president Robert Kaplan suggested that as far as the regional banking crisis goes, it would be ill advised for the Federal Reserve to continue its rate hike campaign.

The Fed is expected to raised its benchmark rate by 0.25 percentage points on May 3.

"I’d prefer to do what’s called the hawkish pause, not raise but signal that we are in a tightening stance," Kaplan told Bloomberg. "It is more important to be able to sustain the current rate for an extended period of time, longer than the market thinks, than to get another 25-50 basis points and risk having to cut again. I think that will be very troubling."

Economist Peter St Onge of the Heritage Foundation noted Monday that thousands of banks are "in trouble because of the fastest rate hikes in 50 years [which] crashed their bonds, impaired their loans, and vaporized the easy profits they were making paying depositors pennies."

Onge further claimed that virtually every bank in America loaded up on expensive bonds "to park the influx of pandemic-era deposits" then lost "hundreds of billions as rates went up. American banks are now sitting on at least $620 billion of unrealized hidden losses. So First Republic was about 5% of that and we've got 95% to go."

\u201cFirst Republic bailed out for $63 billion\u201d
— Peter St Onge, Ph.D. (@Peter St Onge, Ph.D.) 1682944624

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Glenn: Prepare your family for impact



Moody’s is a major rating entity that’s been following the SVB failure, and it has now downgraded its rating of the entire U.S. banking system from stable to negative.

Great.

It’s the latest sign, among many others, that what President Biden is telling Americans is far from the truth.

Moody’s also issued warnings for several individual banks with substantial unrealized security losses. And if you don’t know what that means, Glenn Beck has a metaphor for you.

He says, “My son is collecting baseball cards, and he’s like, 'Dad this one is worth —' and I said, 'Son, it is only worth it when you sell it. You can say it’s worth anything and it can even be marked as worth this, but until you sell it, you don’t know what it’s really worth.'”

He continues, “In the case of bonds, an unrealized loss is: I’m counting on my sheet here to be worth this, but if I have to sell it today in a panic, I’ll lose 25%. That’s an unrealized loss.”

While this is all terrifying, he says if you have your money in an FDIC insured bank, do not take your money out.

If all of the banks start to fail, the first thing that will happen is the local banks will fail. And they’ll fail because people panic, and they take their money out.

Even though we are heading toward a Venezuela-style collapse, he says still — do not panic, and do not take your money out of the bank unless it’s not insured.

He adds that the “one thing you have to do is get on the phone with your local state house member, your state senate member, and your governor and tell them you must not pass the UCC legislation ... it’s flying through the House and the Senate and governors are ready to sign this stuff. It has got to be stopped. That will allow only the digital currency coming from the central bank to be considered money.”

Once the government has this, they control your life entirely.

Glenn says this is “not an overstatement.”

The financial collapse is inevitable, and paired with inflation, it is destroying our currency.

The government tells you to stop spending frivolously on things like hiring people for your small business, meanwhile it's spending money at a record unheard of in all of human history.

It is the most anyone has spent, ever. And the American government is doing it right before our eyes.

Glenn continues, “This is poison, but people haven’t been willing to stand up and say it and it is killing all of us. It will enslave our children. People will die because of the insanity that is going on.”

He says, “Exactly what they did to Venezuela is what this group of dangerous clowns are doing to us now.”

“It’s got to stop. Please prepare your family for impact.”


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