Phil Robertson Leaves An Eternity-Focused Legacy That Will Last Well Beyond Duck Dynasty’s Fame

[rebelmouse-proxy-image https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Screenshot-2025-05-27-at-7.39.04 AM-e1748349631780-1200x675.png crop_info="%7B%22image%22%3A%20%22https%3A//thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Screenshot-2025-05-27-at-7.39.04%5Cu202fAM-e1748349631780-1200x675.png%22%7D" expand=1]Life for Robertson was so much more than duck hunting in the swamp. Death for Robertson holds an even bigger promise.

Why Men Must Abandon The False Gospel Of Nice-Guyism

The core problem is that nice guys' self-sacrifice is rooted in a falsehood. It's not motivated by strength or obedience to God — it’s motivated by insecurity and fear.

How Joe Rogan dismantled the Big Bang with one sentence — and made atheists squirm



Many people sneer at Christ's resurrection yet swallow the Big Bang whole. This odd fact is not lost on Joe Rogan.

On a recent episode of his podcast, the modern-day Renaissance man delivered one of those offhand remarks that stick.

There's a hunger again for something real and permanent, something that won’t update to Version 2.0 in six months.

“People will be incredulous about the resurrection of Jesus Christ,” he said, "yet they're convinced that the entire universe was smaller than the head of a pin, and for no reason that anybody's adequately explained to me ... instantaneously became everything?”

It wasn’t a sermon or even a statement of belief. It was, however, a reminder of how absurd “rational” ideas can sound when you say them out loud.

But these are the times we live in, where absurdity reigns supreme. What used to be “God said, ‘Let there be light’” is now “A singularity inflated with no cause.” Same mystery. Same unprovable leap. But only one gets you mocked at dinner parties. Physics hasn’t given us a grand unifying theory. It hasn’t solved consciousness. It hasn’t even explained gravity properly. String theory, dark matter, and multiverses aren’t answers. They’re sci-fi with equations. Quantum mechanics can predict probabilities but not causes. Cosmology plays with infinities it can’t test.

Somehow, we’re expected to accept all this on trust — you know, because it’s peer-reviewed.

The James Webb Telescope can show us light from 13 billion years ago, but not what happens when a human dies. It can zoom in on galaxies, but not on meaning. It dazzles, but it doesn’t deliver. Not really.

And evolutionary biology? Bret Weinstein tries to use it to explain awe, sacredness, and communion.

On Tucker Carlson’s show, Weinstein tried to use natural selection to make sense of the supernatural. But it didn’t work. He squirmed, stalled, and face-planted. Because, after all, the soul isn’t an adaptation, and meaning isn’t a side effect. Moreover, he repeatedly leaned on the law of parsimony — the idea that the simplest explanation is usually right — to explain why humans seek God and kneel before things we can’t quantify.

Weinstein, who seems like a nice enough fellow, seems to forget that wonder isn’t something you pin down with logic — it’s something that pins you.

Try using Darwin to explain why a man drives six hours just to sit in silence next to his brother, who’s falling apart; or why a man stays with his wife after the third miscarriage; or why a parent gives up a kidney to a child who may not survive the year. You can’t, because you can’t chart love, loyalty, or devotion on a fitness curve. You can’t explain self-sacrifice in terms of gene preservation and expect to be taken seriously by anyone who’s actually suffered.

When belief is banished, substitutes always appear: simulation theory, the multiverse, and emerging properties. “We might be living in a video game” isn’t edgy; it’s just spirituality with training wheels.

I'll go one step farther: Atheism doesn’t exist.

The reason why is obvious: Everyone worships something. There’s no such thing as not believing. There are just new liturgies, new gods, and new robes. For some, it’s “The Science” or transgenderism and the supposed fluidity of biology. For others, it’s a black hole spinning at the galaxy's center, speaking a language no human will ever understand.

But don’t call it faith — because faith is for peasants. This is “science.” This is “truth.” This is "reality."

That’s the fashion now, or at least, it was — until very recently.

Something is shifting. Young people across America — yes, even in blue cities — are starting to look past the algorithms and the nihilism. They’ve seen what secular modernity has to offer: sex with no intimacy, food with no nutrition, careers with no meaning, bodies with no spirit. The dopamine hits don’t land like they used to. The apps offer nothing of substance. The rituals of progress — DEI seminars, TikTok therapy, oat milk lattes — can’t fill the aching void.

So they’re turning back. Not to politics or to self-help, but to Christ. It’s happening — quietly and organically. Bible study groups are forming in places that once would have mocked them. Churches are filling — some of them ancient and beautiful, others run-down and barely lit.

There’s a hunger again for something real and permanent, something that won’t update to Version 2.0 in six months.

You see it with the 20-somethings, many of whom are porn-poisoned, fatherless, medicated, and highly anxious. Now, they're clutching Bibles like they are lifesavers. And for many, they are. They’ve tried everything else. Everything Silicon Valley sold them. Everything academia promised. Everything the New York Times said would liberate them.

Science gave them information, but not wisdom. Progress gave them speed, but not direction. Screens gave them access, but not intimacy. The brain was fed. The heart, however, was starved.

Now, after all that progress, they’re lonelier than ever — with more therapists than priests, more diagnoses than confessions, more likes than love. But now they're coming home because what people want isn’t more clever "laws" or overly complex jargon. They want connection and transcendence.

No particle accelerator will ever deliver that.

Colorado just criminalized truth — how weak Christians let it happen



I’ve watched the gospel-centered movement sweep through evangelicalism over the past two decades. It began with good intentions to help Christians be “salt of the earth,” but it’s become a trap that convinced Christians to abandon the public square, shrinking the gospel to a private, individualized experience that neglects our duty to engage the world.

In other words, the salt has lost its saltiness.

How can its saltiness be restored? That’s what this essay is about.

A real-world example of what's at stake

To give a live example, Colorado’s monstrous bill HB1312 was signed into law last week. The bill criminalizes “deadnaming” and “misgendering” someone who claims a transgender identity.

This bill is state-supported child abuse. And we cannot ignore the fact that this bill passed the legislature along party lines, with every Republican voting against it and nearly every Democrat voting for it.

Courageous pastors like Chase Davis and Chris Goble led the charge against this bill, pleading with larger and more powerful Colorado-based Christian organizations to wield their influence to prevent the bill’s passage. Some of them reluctantly complied after being publicly shamed for their cowardice.

Jesus clearly asserted His authority and power as the animating force of the Great Commission.

The downstream effects of this bill would make sharing the gospel illegal, since the gospel requires preaching God’s law, repentance of any/all sin, and explicit faith in Christ for salvation. If a Christian pastor or parent told a child to repent of embracing transgender identity, that would be a criminal act that could even lead to the state forcibly removing the child from the home.

I have a friend with a conservative Christian family in Colorado, and they chillingly shrugged at the bill, saying, “This doesn’t affect us.” That’s the trap I’m talking about: "If it doesn’t affect me personally, then I need not be concerned about it."

But what about our duty to uphold truth and justice in the public square? What about our duty to be salt of the earth and light of the world?

This attitude is loser theology, which I’ve criticized many times (see here, here, here, and here). Loser theology privatizes the Christian faith to mere “heart religion,” while blinding us to our public duty to stand for truth. It convinces us to “keep quiet, stay safe, and let the world burn.”

The global scope of the gospel

The gospel is a public declaration of Christ’s victory over all the earth. The Great Commission opens with Jesus announcing He has all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, we (Christians) must disciple every nation on earth by preaching repentance of sins and obedience to God’s commands (Matthew 28:18-20). Similarly, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us that we are the salt of the earth and light of the world (Matthew 5:13-16).

The apostle Paul echoes this in Acts 17:30-31: “[God] commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed.”

Jesus’ authority is absolute: He has all authority in heaven and on earth.

Our mandate is global: Disciple all nations, being salt of the earth and light of the world.

Our message is twofold: (1) Repent of sins and believe in Christ for salvation, and (2) obey Jesus’ teaching.

Thus, preaching the gospel is not limited to inviting people to become Christians. It also requires telling the world that God commands them to repent and obey Christ because judgment is coming. In preaching the gospel, we are heralds of Christ’s victory, whereby the victor dictates the terms of peace.

But in modern times, the gospel has been reduced to a privatized religion, and we’ve abandoned our public duty. How did we get here?

The narrow gospel of the gospel-centered movement

About 20 years ago, the gospel-centered movement emerged to refocus Christians on the core of the gospel. The goal seemed noble enough. But since then it has become a marketing strategy in which “gospel-centered” was slapped on every Bible study, book, church planting network, and conference to make conservative Christians trust it.

The problem was not centering on the gospel. The problem was this definition of the gospel. This definition was too narrow, limiting it to individual conversion and private faith. It stripped away the gospel’s public mandate to assert Christ’s lordship over nations.

This shift had consequences.

Christians began abandoning their duty to be ambassadors for Christ, salt of the earth, and light of the world (2 Corinthians 5:20; Matthew 5:13-16). Once “gospel-centered” became a badge of trust, leftists co-opted it, labeling unbiblical ideas as “gospel issues.” Then, the term was twisted to mean, “The left wins now, and we’ll win in heaven.”

Even worse, it suggested God wants us to surrender our prophetic voice in the public square because getting stepped on for Jesus keeps us humble. This mindset convinced Christians that being passive in the face of evil is somehow an expression of gospel faithfulness and that asserting Christianity in public is “grasping for power.” Thus, abandoning the public square became a “gospel issue.”

My journey through the gospel-centered maze

Years ago, I did a Bible study written by Tim Keller on the book of Galatians that rocked my world.

Before that study, I thought the gospel meant repenting, believing in Jesus, receiving salvation, living in obedience to God, and calling others to do the same. But that study suggested my desire to obey might be legalistic pharisee-ism.

Since I wanted myself and others to obey God, was I being a self-righteous pharisee?

Keller’s study also warned about “heart idols,” quoting John Calvin’s line that the heart is an idol factory. Anything and everything could be a potential idol: power, approval, comfort, control, success, marriage, children — everything. This sent me on an inward quest, paranoid that any strong desire was evidence of idolatry.

The movement’s rhetoric was amplified by powerful outlets that saturated evangelicalism like the Gospel Coalition. The “gospel-centered” buzzphrase was everywhere.

This gospel-centered craze led to absurdities, like these:

  • “The heart of the gospel is the cross, and the cross is all about giving up power.” — Tim Keller
  • “We must repent of the way that we have prized the powerful over the powerless.” — Russell Moore
  • “To be like Christ, we must lay down our need to dominate, to wield power over others, and embrace the humility of serving as He served.” — Beth Moore

These lines sounded profound, but notice the false dichotomy: You can either have power, or you can be humble — but you can’t have both.

Ironically, these champions of powerlessness are three of the most powerful voices that have shaped evangelicalism over the past 20 years. Besides, as noted above, Jesus clearly asserted His authority and power as the animating force of the Great Commission.

5 rotten fruits of the gospel-centered movement

It took me a while to untangle the good from the bad of the gospel-centered movement.

As I did, I noticed these five trends of the gospel-centered movement:

  1. Equating humility with self-loathing: Humility was twisted into self-hatred. Of course, Christians must learn to hate their own sin and love what is good (Romans 12:9). Humility is not self-hatred, it is an accurate self-assessment according to God’s holy standard (Romans 12:3). Similarly, confidence was equated with arrogance. Thus, to be a humble Christian, you must be insecure and hate yourself.
  2. Antinomianism: The gospel-centered movement veered into antinomianism, using “gospel” to negate morality, especially on issues like sexuality. Obedience to God’s law was considered legalism.
  3. Unwillingness to oppose worldly ideologies: Christians became reluctant to oppose ideologies like LGBTQ activism or feminism, fearing they’d seem judgmental. Apathy about other people's sins was considered a mark of humility and a badge of virtue.
  4. Left-leaning politics: The movement tilted center-left, and its adherents often viewed leftists as their primary mission field. One of the go-to evangelistic tactics to reach these leftist unbelievers was sneering at conservatives to their right, branding them “culture warriors” and “fundamentalists.” Throwing shade at conservative Christians was how they showed their leftist unbelieving friends they were the “good guys” and the “kind of Christian you can trust.”
  5. Smugness: Gospel-centered Christians grew smug, but it was carefully hidden beneath a cloak of false humility. They were smug because they were the ones who truly “got” the gospel, leading them to become the self-appointed gatekeepers of the gospel, making sure to keep the fundamentalists safely on the margins.

I felt this personally. When I got angry about sin, I worried I was a pharisee. When I felt guilty for being a pharisee, I thought, “OK, now I’m getting the gospel!”

The more I shrugged at wickedness, the more I felt humble and Christ-like. If other Christians publicly opposed evil, I saw them as arrogant “elder brother” Christians and fundamentalists.

As this played out over the years, the same, tired talking points got recycled again and again. If someone said, “Christians should speak truth and call people to repentance,” a gospel-gatekeeper would respond, “Sounds like you’re grasping for power! The cross is about laying it down.” If someone warned about cultural decline, someone would respond, “True power is losing! We show Jesus’ kingdom by being the best losers.”

This mindset turned losing into a status marker for evangelical elites, silencing the church’s prophetic voice. The result is a weak church that doesn’t have the nerve to speak truth in public.

In 2025, the American church is weak. We have little influence and power in society. We’re over-coddled, clueless, gullible, and arrogant about it. Our weakness feeds a persecution fetish that is an invitation for disaster. We can no longer afford to be silent.

Conclusion: The global gospel

In Acts 1:8, Jesus promises, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses ... to the end of the earth.” The scope is global, the mandate is public, and the power is divine. We’re not called to get stepped on for Jesus but to proclaim His lordship over every nation.

Tech pioneer Marc Andreessen is not a Christian, but evangelical Christians can learn a thing or two from this statement of his: “The world is a very malleable place. If you know what you want, and you go for it with maximum energy and drive and passion, the world will often reconfigure itself around you.”

He’s right. If we have the will to act with courage, Christians can reshape the world for the glory of God.

The society we leave our children will depend on one thing: Do we have the will to assert Christ’s supremacy? Our enemies have plenty of will. Do we?

Therefore, it’s good for Christians to gain power and to wield it for godly purposes — not just political power, though we must pursue that, but influence in every sphere.

The gospel-centered movement, for all its initial promise, has led us into a trap that we need to find our way out of. It’s narrowed the gospel, privatized our faith, and convinced us that losing is godly.

But Jesus calls us to be salt and light, to disciple nations, and to proclaim His lordship with boldness. The future of our culture — and the legacy we leave our children — depends on it.

Let’s stop coasting on the fumes of Christendom and start fighting the good fight for the glory of God.

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

Is your kitchen table off limits to Jesus?



Throughout the Bible, we are told that once we become followers of Jesus, we are part of God’s family. One family.

But I don’t think we are doing a good job of living like family, at least not here in the West. The problem is that we don't understand the crucial role of Christian hospitality.

A love that would be noticed

Loving one another is our primary responsibility when it comes to our fellow believers, and loving one another is a good practice for learning how to love our neighbors and the lost among us, too.

The lost must see our love for one another because, as the apostle John told us (John 13:35):

By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.

How did the early church demonstrate this love to the world?

Their practices included gathering together daily for fellowship, meals, prayer, and teaching. Acts 2:42-47 illustrates families “doing life together” — to use a current churchy phrase — but for them that meant daily, communal, self-sacrificial living.

My house doesn’t belong to me. Your house doesn’t belong to you. Our homes are a gift meant to be shared.

Daily? Communal? Self-sacrificial? Have you ever considered what it might look like if we tried to more closely pattern the early church in this practice?

Author Rosaria Butterfield certainly has. She is living it, in fact, as she describes in a book she wrote several years ago called "The Gospel Comes with a House Key: Practicing Radically Ordinary Hospitality in Our Post-Christian World."

Radically ordinary hospitality

Most nights at the Butterfield house, more than just immediate family sits around the table. The Butterfields open their home for communal dinners with their fellow church members, and meals include a time in the word, prayer, and singing. Feeding a dozen or a couple dozen people is not unusual.

Other church members help bring food as well and sometimes host such gatherings. But the Butterfields have made an ironclad commitment to hospitality and making their church family a real family, with members who are intimately aware of each others’ needs, sorrows, victories, and joys.

Just like a “real” family.

There are some small groups, within churches, that might approximate this kind of commitment to each other, if they meet regularly in each other’s homes — but I think that’s rare.

And in churches where home fellowships are not even encouraged, especially in bigger churches, it’s all too easy to pop in and out on any given Sunday without even speaking to another human, much less building a relationship with them.

This is particularly problematic for our single brothers and sisters, who literally have no family to go home to after Sunday services.

As Butterfield notes in her book:

Kent and I practice daily hospitality as a way of life because we must. We remember what it is like to be lonely. We remember the odd contradiction: to be told on the Lord’s Day that you are part of the family of God but then to limp along throughout the rest of the week like an orphan begging bread. ... We believe that the Bible’s high calling for singleness compels us to live communally when we can and to feast nightly on meals and Scripture and prayer with doors wide open.

Did I mention this is 'radical'?

There’s a lot in the above passage. Not only are the Butterfields offering communal dinner most nights, with all the work and expense that entails — but they are also advocating living “communally” as it relates to singles.

If we are family — and in light of how God teaches us to view people like the widows and the orphans — I think these are fair questions:

  • Why does anyone go home alone after church, especially singles? For that matter, why do any families go home without a chance to fellowship with another family or two?
  • Why are we so intent on protecting our privacy and/or independence? Imagine if every Christian who is currently single had the option of renting a room within a Christian family. Or even in a house with other singles! Are we as believers meant to live life day after day alone? (Hint: The answer is no. See Psalm 68:5-6.)
  • Is all this something our churches should be encouraging and perhaps even facilitating? (Hint: The answer is yes.)
  • Are these ideas we should all thoughtfully consider how we might implement? (You know the answer.)

What is Christian hospitality?

That’s the real question here. I used to envision opening my home — at carefully selected times entirely of my own choosing and convenience — to people I wished to be closer to, serving a delicious meal on nice dishes and a lovely tablecloth with vases of fresh flowers decorating my perfectly cleaned house, appropriate soft music playing in the background.

This is an “ideal” that gives most of us a severe case of anxiety, and no helpful books of hospitality tips or recipes can really make it less stressful.

But that is not what Christian hospitality is. Not at all. Really.

Butterfield says:

Our homes are not our castles. Indeed, they are not even ours.

This is the key point of the book — and the starting place for true Christian hospitality.

Our homes are a gift to be used to love others. Starting with our family — and that means our blood family and our church family. If our home is always to be used to love our family, why is it not open to all of our family more often?

Why is hospitality a once-every-so-often rare occasion requiring superhuman preparation, with exhaustion and relief once it's over?

In my view, it's nearly impossible to practice biblical hospitality regularly if both dad and mom work outside the home. A full-time homemaker can incorporate hospitality as part of her daily life rhythms. Should we not be opening our homes to each other daily as a practice?

Loving our singles

Along those lines: Why are we not encouraging singles from our church family to live in our families? God put them there! Why are we ignoring them or assuming they prefer to live alone in a sterile apartment?

Are we under the mistaken impression that this would adversely affect our children?

Surely the opposite is true, according to Butterfield:

It is good for children to have many Christian adults pouring into their lives, helping them apply faith to the facts of a hard situation.

That’s our bottom line. My house doesn’t belong to me. Your house doesn’t belong to you. Our homes are a gift meant to be shared, first with family, with the caveat that family means more than just our kids. It means our church family, and/or any believer we encounter who might need our hospitality, whether it’s around the table or in the spare bedroom.

This requires sacrifice. You might not be able to walk around the house in your underwear. You might not be able to spend hours binge-watching Netflix. You might not both be able to have full-time jobs. It will involve a sacrifice of time, effort, and money.

Did I mention that our time and effort and money also don’t belong to us?

Where Rosaria and I don’t see eye to eye

Our home is also a tool to love our neighbor (meaning both our brethren and nonbelievers), and this is where I take exception to Butterfield’s perspective on hospitality.

Throughout her book, she reiterates her view that her home is open at virtually all times to everyone — believer and nonbeliever alike, or as she calls them, “family” and “neighbor.” Her goal is that neighbors will be transformed (by Christ) into family, and that’s a mission with which I agree wholeheartedly.

But I think there are problems with her approach, namely that she combines the two categories at inappropriate times. Butterfield writes:

And those who don’t yet know the Lord are summoned for food and fellowship.

This statement is part of her description of a nightly communal meal at her house, where church members and neighbors freely mingle (the neighbors know they are welcome to come any time, just like her church family).

But spiritual endeavors are never to be pursued in concert with unbelievers. That is exactly what 2 Corinthians 6:14 talks about. We can never really fellowship with unbelievers — they are from a different spiritual world.

What’s more, their presence in an environment where believers have gathered to pursue true fellowship — including sharing our most intimate prayer needs — is harmful to the growth of those family relationships. Family fellowship is by definition for family. It is the ultimate “safe place.” It is not where our unbelieving neighbor should be, generally speaking.

So as much as I admire the Butterfields for opening their home to their neighbors, I don’t believe this is a biblical approach to family (meaning our church family) fellowship.

Does our home play a role, then, in loving our neighbor? It sure does. Butterfield is absolutely right about that. And her book gives many examples of how her family is exemplary at loving their neighbors.

She’s also right that our Christian hospitality is not just for our church family — although that is where it should start. Opening our homes to our brethren is an excellent way to begin prying our grasp free of what we may have seen as our sovereign castle.

It’s time to start.

This article was adapted from an essay originally published on Diane Schrader's Substack, She Speaks Truth.

NY Times discovers cross necklaces — then things get predictably absurd



Only the New York Times could spot a cross and confuse it for a fashion trend.

Christians have been wearing the most important symbol of their faith — the crucifix — for more than a thousand years. But if you read the New York Times last week, you might think that adorning the historic symbol is a resurgent fashion trend.

What is going on here?

In a story titled "A Hot Accessory, at the Intersection of Faith and Culture," writer Misty Sidell observes that "cross necklaces are popping up everywhere," because government officials, influencers, and celebrities are wearing them. The story treats the apparent resurgence of the cross necklace as a groundbreaking revelation, leading readers to wonder: Did the New York Times finally discover Christianity?

Unless you've lived under a rock — or only in elitist circles — the bizarre premise of the story is obvious because Christians everywhere have always worn cross necklaces. This isn't new.

'For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.'

Not only are cross necklaces not new, but they're not a mere fashion accessory or trendy object. Christians wear them because they symbolize something important: the sacrifice, redemption, and radical love that God displayed through Jesus Christ on the cross.

In other words: Cross necklaces do not need a sociological explanation in the "Style" section of the New York Times.

Perhaps the biggest problem with the "news story" is that it never seriously considers the obvious reason why Christians wear cross necklaces, beyond a vague comment about "faith." The suggestion, therefore, that cross necklaces are now suddenly "in vogue" because they're cool (or something?) demonstrates not only a misunderstanding of fashion history but of Christian faith.

Isn't it obvious?

Here's the truth: Christians wear cross necklaces because they are Christian. No fancy explanation needed.

But that doesn't stop Sidell from straining credulity as she attempts to discover an eccentric reason for the supposed rise in cross necklace wearers.

For example, Sidell claims the "cultural meaning" of cross necklaces "can be harder to define as the symbol now seems to vary in interpretation across geography, church affiliation and even — to a growing extent — political value systems." She even quotes a theologian, Robert Covolo, who claims that "people bring their own meaning" to the cross, "which is where symbols really get their power."

And, of course, Sidell draws a connection to the Trump administration:

The Trump administration has welcomed religion into the West Wing with the establishment of a new White House Faith Office. In recent months, pastors with Christian nationalist beliefs have been invited to the White House numerous times.

Cross necklaces have, in a way, become the jewelry of choice most associated with President Trump’s second administration.

The real story here isn't that cross necklaces are suddenly making a fashion comeback.

The real story is that one of the biggest newspapers in the world is apparently surprised that the cross has enduring significance and found it necessary to use fashion as the angle to make sense of it.

It's a wasted opportunity that amounts to journalistic malpractice.

Instead of treating cross necklaces as a fashion trend, the New York Times could have investigated whythe decline of Christianity in America has plateaued. That would have made for a much more interesting story in the context of a supposed rise in cross necklace wearers.

Paul's prescient message

This "story" is yet another example proving why we cannot trust the legacy media to cover Christianity.

Instead of taking serious the deep and rich meaning behind the cross as a symbol and why Christians proudly wear them, the New York Times reduces cross necklaces to an aesthetic trend that is all about the "vibes." It's the true and time-tested way the legacy media covers Christianity: through mockery, ridicule, condemnation, and a refusal to understand.

If you could ask the apostle Paul, he might even suggest the legacy media's inability to understand Christianity — as this New York Times story demonstrates — is evidence of the media's godlessness.

Paul wrote, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (1 Corinthians 1:18).

Clearly, the cross is still foolishness to those who don't understand it.

That's the great irony of this story: What looks like a jewelry fashion trend to the New York Times (i.e., "those who are perishing") is, for Christians, the symbol of God's salvific power.

It's not a trend. It's eternal.

Christians adorn themselves with the cross to remember their crucified savior, the risen Christ, and to declare without shame their allegiance to Christ, an obedience that cannot be broken — no matter how much the world mocks or misunderstands.

The cross isn't "style" — but a scandal and a signpost to the greatest story the world has ever known.

Crunchy to cultish: The deconstruction of 'Rose Uncharted'



Questioning authority has proven to be generally good in the age of modern politics and health care — but sometimes those who question take it a bridge too far.

One of them, a crunchy mom influencer known as “Rose Uncharted” on Instagram, recently deconstructed from Christianity and began sharing New Age ideas and beliefs to her 165,000 followers on the social media platform.

“This is not an attack on this individual person. I’m not trying to even focus on this one individual, but the content that she has publicly produced and published on her Instagram is a really good example of false teaching that Christians need to be really aware of, especially the demographic in my audience,” Allie Beth Stuckey of “Relatable” explains.


“The Christian on the crunchy side mom that tends to question authority and question the government and push back against the arbitrary rules — all of those things are great,” she continues, noting that this can lead to being “attracted to certain forms of false teaching” and “perversions of Christianity.”

While these women believe it to be “thinking outside of the box,” Stuckey says that it’s “really just the work of the devil” and an “anti-Christ philosophy.”

“Rose Uncharted” became extremely popular during COVID for pushing back against many of the regulations that didn’t make sense and were clearly restricting our freedoms — like mask and vaccine mandates.

She’s also very vocal about taking a holistic, natural approach to medicine and birth, and she asks a lot of questions about typical Western medicine. Now, she’s begun to become vocal about deconstructing.

“Now, if you don’t know what deconstruction is, I would say it’s a very polite euphemism to describe the process that a Christian goes through when they no longer believe what the Bible teaches about a lot of things in general,” Stuckey says.

In her initial announcement that she was deconstructing, "Rose Uncharted" wrote, “Stepping out of religion feels like stepping out of a room that was never built for me in the first place. It was never about truth — it was about pledging allegiance to the Bible, not as something to seek and wrestle with, but as something already decided for you, imposed upon you, interpreted for you by men through the ages with a variety of intentions, good and bad.”

“I’ve come to believe Christianity is a corrupt and flawed man-made system designed to keep us afraid of ourselves, afraid of our own instincts, afraid of wanting more, afraid of our very own hearts,” she continued. “Now, the unknown is no longer a threat to me — it’s an invitation.”

“She’s saying that outside of religion she has been able to really find God, find God for herself,” Stuckey explains, noting that this February, the influencer made a Western versus Eastern comparison.

“I see this so much in progressive circles. The demonization of the Western lens and the Western mentality, as if Western civilization, because of Christianity, isn’t responsible for the concept of human rights,” she continues, adding, “I loathe that.”

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

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Viral Debate: Do Stay-At-Home Moms Need a Hobby? | Ep 1184
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Viral Debate: Do Stay-At-Home Moms Need a Hobby? | Ep 1184

Is Jesus a liberal? Democrat senator weaponizes Christ — then condemns himself



Does the Democratic Party have a monopoly on Christ?

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), a pastor and progressive Democrat, recently implied as much. In fact, Warnock suggested that his political views are not only aligned with scripture, but they are synonymous with the teachings of Jesus Christ. And for anyone who disagrees with him, such as Republicans, he believes they're not only wrong — but they're abusing Jesus.

Warnock said on "The View":

I think Jesus is the biggest victim of identity theft in this country. I don’t know who this Jesus is they’re talking about. The Jesus I know was born in a barrio called Bethlehem, raised in a ghetto called Nazareth. He was an immigrant, smuggled into Egypt.

In another interview on MSNBC, Warnock spewed the same message. He said Jesus is a "victim of identity theft" — suggesting that Republicans are the perpetrator — and implied Republicans are acting in cruel, anti-Christian ways when they cut government funding.

Jesus, the progressive?

Warnock's message is dangerous. It is the theological equivalence of gerrymandering: He is redrawing moral and theological boundaries so that only his side can claim righteousness.

Even worse, Warnock is using his definition of righteousness to divide between the sheep and the goats, replacing Christ's teachings with progressive policies. In his telling, only progressive policies are truly Christlike, while conservative policies are anti-Christian.

Warnock wants to baptize progressive politics, call it righteousness, and condemn his opponents into outer darkness.

Warnock describes himself as a "Matthew 25 Christian," referring to Jesus' famous teaching that Democrats love to weaponize against conservative Christians, to emphasize the Democratic Party's supposed concern for the poor and marginalized. It sounds noble. But who is opposed to caring for the needs of the poor, victimized, and marginalized? Certainly not conservative Christians. It's what Christians have done for 2,000 years!

The truth is that conservative Christians disagree on the means. They do not believe a large, centralized, power-hungry government is the best way to achieve this goal. Yet, Warnock talks as if anyone who doesn't support his preferred legislation is abandoning Christ.

In recasting his policy preferences as the only legitimate Christian action, Warnock condemns himself with the exact kind of holier-than-thou spiritual arrogance that he accuses others of.

Especially troubling is the fact that Warnock, a pastor of a historic church, would frame his political opponents as morally and spiritually compromised — and opponents of Christ Himself — rather than acknowledging the legitimate policy disagreements among his fellow Christian brothers and sisters.

It should go without saying: If you oppose government "solutions," that does not mean you oppose Christ.

Jesus healed the sick, cared for the poor, and gave hope to the marginalized. He did that because He is God — not because He is a government bureaucrat.

Warnock, guilty as charged

Not only is Warnock engaging in a rhetorical game to shame Christians for policy disagreements, but he is reducing the Gospel to progressive social policy.

It's not prophetic boldness, though it resonates with his base. It's dishonest spiritual gatekeeping.

The irony is palpable: Warnock accuses his opponents of stealing Jesus' "identity" and weaponizing Christianity, while he does exactly that. He uses Christ as a partisan mascot to gain moral leverage over his political opponents.

This game isn't new for Warnock. Ever since he entered politics, he has leveraged his Christian faith to advance the Democratic Party's agenda.

Warnock is very concerned about the victim, poor, and marginalized. But what about unborn children? Warnock, of course, boasts about being a "pro-choice pastor," and he cannot name a single abortion restriction that he endorses. This example alone proves the hollowness of Warnock's browbeating. If he were truly concerned about every marginalized person — those who do not have "power" or a "voice" — certainly he would advocate for the protection of every unborn life, each of which is formed in God's image and has neither power nor a voice.

Now, Warnock is using his political leverage to oppose immigration policies that, despite critics, aren't unbiblical. Christ never said that America has a moral and spiritual obligation to welcome with open arms every migrant who desires to live here.

The Kingdom of God is not of this world. But Warnock wants to baptize progressive politics, call it righteousness, and condemn his opponents into outer darkness.

It isn't Christianity. It's pure political and spiritual manipulation.

Christians must reject Warnock's attempt to conflate his progressive gospel with the good news that Jesus preached. Christ seeks not political conformity but repentance and disciples.

The Son of God doesn't take marching orders from the Democratic Party. He is Lord, and He won't be used.

The art of prayer: How to unleash its power



As Christians, we should know what we owe to our fellow Jesus followers — “one another” as the Bible calls us.

Before we can effectively love our neighbor — “neighbor” in this context meaning those not yet a part of the family of God — we need to understand the importance of how we interact with our brethren in Christ.

Paul’s prayers center on one thing: that believers may become more and more like Christ, growing into spiritual powerhouses.

Obviously, we are to love one another. We are to model the early church as it is described to us in Acts. We are to mindfully learn and apply all the “one anothers” the Bible gives us. We are to speak truth in love to one another (and others, as well).

One of the most powerful ways to love one another is to diligently pray for one another (James 5:16). And one of the most powerful ways to accomplish that is to pray scripture for them.

This is nothing new. After all, many of us have been praying the Lord’s Prayer, which is straight out of scripture, for much of our lives. Many psalms also lend themselves to prayer and worship. Much scripture has been set to music so that we can pray in song, as well.

But when it comes to powerfully praying for our brethren, the apostle Paul was a master. In God-breathed letters to at least three churches — the Colossians, the Philippians, and the Ephesians — he tells his flock exactly how he’s praying for them.

Paul’s prayer for the Colossians

Colossians 1:9-12:

For this reason also, since the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the full knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and multiplying in the full knowledge of God; being strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

What a magnificent prayer! In a few short lines, Paul asked God that the Colossians might:

  • Be filled with the knowledge of God’s will, in all spiritual wisdom and understanding: This is a wonderful starting place for praying for your fellow believers — that they understand and wisely follow God’s will for their lives.
  • Walk worthy of God, pleasing Him in every way

And then he prayed specifically for how they could do that:

  • Bear fruit in every good work and increase in the knowledge of God: These two categories are what should comprise our day-to-day existence! Knowing Him and making Him known. Sitting at His feet daily, and serving Him wholeheartedly.
  • Be strengthened with all power, according to God’s glorious might, to attain perseverance and patience: Paul recognized that persevering and being patient only come through the mighty power of the Holy Spirit within us and are important enough to merit their own mention in his prayer.
  • Joyously thank the Father, who has qualified us to share in His inheritance of our fellow saints in light: Here, he prays for his fellow believers to be filled with joy and gratitude, looking up to what lies ahead.

If you’re praying for the believers in your life to understand God’s will, walk worthy and please Him, bear fruit and know Him better, be strengthened In God’s power, and joyously give thanks — you’re on target.

Again, this was a prayer for a specific group of people from Paul. But because it is recorded in holy scripture, we know this prayer is God-breathed. What a privilege to be able to pray this exact prayer for our brothers and sisters in Christ. We can do that in general, praying for all our fellow disciples this way.

But it is perhaps more meaningful to actually write out this prayer for a specific brother or sister, by name.

For example:

Lord, I continually ask You to fill Anna with the knowledge of Your will in spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that she will walk worthy of You and please You in every way — bearing fruit in every good work and growing in her knowledge of You. Please strengthen her with all power, according to Your glorious might, so she may obtain great perseverance and patience. And help her joyfully thank You, who has qualified us both to share in the inheritance of Your saints in the kingdom of light.

Praying this way ignites my spirit. We know that when we pray in alignment with God’s will, He acts. How amazing that He’s given us scripture like this that demonstrates, in a very practical way, how He would have us pray for the “one anothers” with whom He has blessed us.

Bonus question: How might you adapt this prayer for your unbelieving friends?

Paul’s prayer for the Philippians

Another rich prayer is recorded for us in Philippians 1:3-6:

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now. For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work among you will complete it by the day of Christ Jesus.

This is a good reminder to thank God for the Jesus followers He’s brought into our lives — and to start any prayer for them by expressing our gratitude for the blessings they bring to us.

Note also the attitude he brings to his prayer time for them. He is mindful of their “participation in the gospel” — he is mindful that they are walking the same path as he is — and this brings him joy.

His next thought is a verse we often quote as a reminder that “God isn’t finished with us yet.” Isn’t it interesting that he put it right here in a prayer for them? Almost like he wanted to remind himself that no matter what mistakes and stumbles he might have to address, these beloved friends were a work in progress, in the process of being sanctified.

In other words, they were people deserving of his grace, too. Another good reminder.

But the real meat of his prayer for them is found in verses 9-11:

And this I pray, that your love may overflow still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may discover the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and blameless for the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, for the glory and praise of God.

That our love may overflow ... in real knowledge and discernment. What do those two things have to do with love?

As for knowledge: Our agape love for our brothers and sisters does not spring from some sort of flowery sentimentality. It springs from scriptural truth. Scripture is what defines love, so we can’t love well without that knowledge. Again, we speak the truth in love and love others well with truth — always.

As for discernment: It turns out love is not blind, after all. The Greek word used here for "discernment" is where we get our English word “aesthetic,” which as John MacArthur notes, speaks of moral perception, insight, and practical application of knowledge. “Love is not blind,” he says, “but perceptive, and it carefully scrutinizes to distinguish between right and wrong.”

That biblical, perceptive love is what Paul wants overflowing in believers. Why?

So that we can discover what things are excellent. This is about developing keen perception, distinguishing between which things are worthy of our time and which are hindrances. And what does this pursuit of excellent things net us?

It means we are sincere and blameless as we transition out of this world and into our heavenly reward in glory with Jesus. It means that in this life, we are filled with thefruitof righteousness, again as a result of Jesus’ work. And what is the purpose of those results? The glory and praise of God.

Don’t we all want someone praying these things for us? So let us pray them for one another — wholeheartedly and personally.

Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians

Ephesians 1 is a magnificent chapter, and I encourage you to read it right now. Paul’s first prayer for the Ephesians comes toward the end of that chapter:

Ephesians 1:15-19a:

For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints, do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the boundless greatness of His power toward us who believe.

This is such a rich passage. Paul is telling the Ephesians that when he mentions them in his prayers, he does so with continuous gratitude for them — due to their exemplary faith, evidenced by their love for one another.

And then he goes on to tell them what he asks God for, on their behalf:

  • Wisdom: The ability to take knowledge and put it into action, or in other words, how to live well in God’s world. This is an attribute we should diligently seek always. The first nine chapters of Proverbs make a powerful argument for this pursuit.
  • Revelation in the knowledge of Him: This is the continuing learning process (“revelation”) that we undergo as we learn more about God through immersion in His Word.
  • Enlightened “eyes of the heart”

That last one means seeing God clearly with a spiritually enlightened mind, which results in knowledge of three life-changing truths:

  • The truth of the hope of His calling: a confident understanding of the hope He provides His children, and a grasp of what awaits us.
  • The truth of the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints: again, starting to grasp the immense and glorious riches that are ours as His saints.
  • The truth of the boundless power of His greatness toward us who believe.

I love what John MacArthur says about this last point:

God’s great power, that very power which raised Jesus from the dead and lifted Him by ascension back to glory to take His seat at God’s right hand, is given to every believer at the time of salvation and is always available. Paul therefore did not pray that God’s power be given to believers, but that they be aware of the power they already possessed in Christ and use it. — MacArthur Study Bible (notes)

That’s really the point of Paul’s prayer for enlightened eyes of the heart: that we be aware of what God in Christ has already given us — and then we use it.

This is indeed an immensely powerful prayer that we can personalize for our brothers and sisters. And there’s nothing wrong with asking our brothers and sisters to pray this for us, too.

But Paul had one more spectacular prayer for his beloved Ephesian church. It is one of the most beautiful passages in all his letters (and there are a lot of beautiful passages, to be sure):

Ephesians 3:14-19:

For this reason I bend my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner self, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to all the fullness of God.

Praying this sublime language is an act of worship in itself, since it includes such a marvelous depiction of God’s unquestioned authority.

But let’s look at what Paul is asking God to grant the Ephesians here “according to the riches of His glory,” which again are available to every Christ-follower:

  • That God would grant them strength, derived from the power of the Holy Spirit within each individual, so that Christ dwells in their hearts through faith. In other words, that we would please Him by keeping our hearts clean through the power of His Spirit as we submit to His lordship.
  • That God would grant them the state of being rooted and grounded in love — the self-sacrificial agape love given for us by Him, that we are to freely share.
  • That God would grant them comprehension (awareness and understanding), along with all the other saints, of the vast immensity of the love of Christ, which surpasses simple head knowledge. We can’t know this kind of love without being His children.

Knowing all of this leads to being filled with the fullness of God. It leads to spiritual strength as we discipline our minds and spirits to study, understand, and live by God’s word through His Spirit’s power — increasingly, as we mature in Him.

Quoting my friend Dr. MacArthur one more time:

Although the outer, physical person becomes weaker with age, the inner, spiritual person should grow stronger through the Holy Spirit, who will energize, revitalize, and empower the obedient, committed Christian.

But wait — there’s more

Here are a few more of Paul’s prayers that you can personalize for those you are bringing to God’s throne room:

Paul’s prayers center on one thing: that believers may become more and more like Christ, growing into spiritual powerhouses. That is why these passages are so powerful when we pray them for each other, by name, specifically.

Let’s love one another by praying this way.

This article was adapted from an essay originally published on Diane Schrader's Substack, She Speaks Truth.