The Media’s Pulp Fiction Hegseth Hoax Is As Dumb As It Gets
Hegseth's full remarks leading up to the 'fake Bible verse' show he was never under the impression that it was an actual Bible verse.Hegseth's full remarks leading up to the 'fake Bible verse' show he was never under the impression that it was an actual Bible verse.My son is fighting for his life. The FDA doesn't seem to care.
I’ve been fighting Duchenne muscular dystrophy for 40 years. My brothers Angelo and Antonio died from it at ages 20 and 22, respectively. Antonio died in 2015, when my son, Ryu, was barely a toddler and had already been diagnosed with the same terminal illness.
My childhood memories are of praying for my brothers, caring for them with my mother, and Mom taking all five of her kids to church almost every day. I always asked God to heal my brothers, and — after Ryu was born — I added him to those prayers.
I’ve been saying the same prayer for help and to be able to lend my voice for over 40 years.
But I also went to God with another prayer — I asked that He would open the door that allowed me to share our family’s story. I didn’t know what that looked like, or when it would come, but I trusted in it.
This year, that prayer was answered when I was asked to speak out not just on behalf of my brothers and son, but for every family that feels isolated because of a terminal rare disease.
I visited Washington, D.C., to share my story with lawmakers from both parties as well as patient advocates and to ask them to push the Food and Drug Administration to stop standing in the way of drugs like Elevidys, the only gene therapy treatment for my son’s illness.
The advocacy worked. I can’t say how much my own small voice, speaking up for the first time, helped, but so many people speaking out made a difference.
The first indicator was when the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Director Dr. Vinay Prasad announced his resignation from the FDA just a week later — he leaves this month. Prasad blocked treatments, with the support of FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, that could have helped kids like Ryu all across the country to live.
RELATED: Trump is keeping his word on health care costs
I’m just a mom. But we recently celebrated Easter, where a carpenter saved the world. He overcame the establishment of His time, which was willing to throw the vulnerable and sick to the side. He fell, but He didn’t falter — I hope to follow His example.
As we were approaching Holy Thursday this year, Ryu was having a hard evening. He needed his Bipap machine to help his lungs function, as he so often does. But he looked at me — my 14-year-old wheelchair-bound boy who is the happiest kid I know — and said, “Mom, this sucks. But what you’re doing makes it a lot easier.”
My story may not matter to FDA Commissioner Makary, who seems to have forgotten about Ryu and thousands of other kids like him. But God sees every hair on our heads. He named us before our parents knew us. And sometimes, like Gabriel told the prophet Daniel, prayers are answered long before we see their fruition.
I’ve been saying the same prayer for help and to be able to lend my voice for over 40 years. To the world, Antonio and Angelo may be long deceased, but they are the foundation for how my husband and I have cared for Ryu. And God has allowed me to carry their stories from my home in El Paso to our nation’s capital.
Commissioner Makary and Dr. Prasad may have forgotten that their job is to save lives, but God seems to have different plans. He’s just getting started with me in spreading His good news, and so far it has been amazing.
But I’m also not surprised, because I knew God would take care of it all.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published in the Christian Post.
Love one another: What the first Christians can teach us about fellowship
The Bible is pretty straightforward about the most important command Christians have in regard to one another. It sounds so simple: Love one another.
When you want to really accomplish something for the kingdom, a very small discipleship group is an effective tool.
And yet it doesn’t seem so simple, perhaps. Where can we go for practical instruction on how to do this right?
I think a good place to start might just be the very first church.
It perhaps is a bit presumptuous to assume that we are in the “later” days of the church age — the church age being defined as the period between Christ’s ascension and His return. But aren’t there an awful lot of signals that we’re getting closer?
So for my purposes here, I’m going to call us — Christians on the earth today — the “late church,” as opposed to the early church, the first believers described in the book of Acts.
How are we doing compared to our brethren of 2,000 years ago? It’s a topic worth considering, since their example shines brightly for us.
They lived in an upside-down culture characterized by sin, idolatry, despair, pride, hatred, division, and societal expectations completely at odds with Jesus’ teaching. Sound familiar?
But they had it far worse than most of us in the Western world today. Thus far our culture hasn’t quite devolved into killing humans for entertainment on a regular basis.
Meet your oldest brothers and sisters
The very first report we have resulted from the day of Pentecost, when 3,000 souls joined God’s family in Jerusalem:
And they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers. —Acts 2:42
“They were continually” indicates this became a pattern, so let’s break down how they were devoting themselves.
1. They were gathering together to hear teaching
At that point, there was no New Testament, so the apostles — men who had had personal contact with Jesus Christ — were directly sharing Christ’s teaching with His new children.
The apostles were also explaining how Christ fulfilled the scriptures they did have (the Old Testament), and helping the new believers understand how to imitate Him and be part of His family. Eventually these early believers became the first to hear the New Testament writings, as many were letters to their various congregations.
We no longer have apostles, but we do have the books the Holy Spirit inspired them to write that became the New Testament. Hearing all the scriptural teaching is of primary importance. Then, as now, God's word should be the focal point of any good church.
2. They were fellowshipping, gathering together physically
Of course these days you can hear the word preached while sitting on your sofa — but they were gathering together physically. Plenty of scripture backs that up as a commandment we are to follow (Hebrews 10:24-25, Colossians 3:16, 1 Corinthians 14:26, to name a few).
How are we doing on that, Late Church? Are we still sitting on the sofa six years after COVID?
Fellowshipping — of course — is meant to be done in person.
Food for thought: Should churches stop sharing their worship services online? What are the pros and cons of continuing to make it easy for people to “do church” from home? I’m not sure of the answers, but I think the question is worth contemplating.
3. They were eating together
A couple of verses after describing Pentecost, Acts expands its description of the new believers’ day-to-day existence:
And daily devoting themselves with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart. —Acts 2:46
So they weren’t just taking Communion (which is likely what verse 42 referred to), but after meeting together in the temple, they were breaking into smaller groups and going from house to house, sharing meals (gladly!).
4. They were praying together
Praying together, the last thing on this list, could well have meant larger corporate prayer — but likely also meant smaller groups praying together. This is the only way, logistically, that thousands of people can pray together meaningfully for each other. They have to break into small groups.
How are we doing on smaller, accountable groups of fellow believers, Late Church?
Unless your church is very tiny, you need a smaller group of believers to live out these excellent examples of eating and praying together in each other’s homes, as well as digging deeper into scripture, meeting each others’ needs, and providing and obtaining accountability.
But just because something is called a small group doesn’t mean it is. Some churches just throw everyone into a few Sunday-school classrooms each week and call it good. Others offer groups that are far too large for the kind of one-on-one accountability and care that a true small group provides.
RELATED: Reclaiming Pentecost: Fire, spirit, and the forgotten power of God
A dozen does it
Jesus demonstrated that a very effective size for a small group is a dozen. That’s about the right size for fellowship where we get to know and trust one another well enough to pray for each other, know each other’s needs, and literally show love for one another. And with that number, you might even be able to meet — and eat — in each other’s homes.
My friend Pastor Sam Evans says the smaller the group, the greater the growth — and some churches understand this and encourage very small discipleship groups of two or three individuals (same-sex, usually, so that they can be intimately acquainted). This too is a pattern Jesus demonstrated with His “discipleship” group of just three disciples — the three He met with even more often: Peter, James, and John. When you want to really accomplish something for the kingdom, a very small discipleship group is an effective tool.
Our early brothers and sisters were easy to spot
Author Kristi McLelland notes that the early Christians were easy to spot because they refused to participate in that upside-down culture of their time.
First, they refused to worship the emperor or other gods — which meant they were branded as heretics because Roman emperors were to be worshipped as gods. Instead, they stood as committed followers of Jesus Christ.
How are we doing on worshipping what the world worships, Late Church?
Sports, politics, celebrities — any of that too high on our priority list? Too much of our budget?
Second, they revered life, in a culture that routinely abandoned newborn babies to die (often girls). Instead, they rescued and raised those children.
- How are we doing on issues related to life, Late Church?
- Do we understand why it is always wrong to kill an unborn child, or do we waffle on that to be seen as more “center”?
- Do we support pro-life centers and causes?
- Do we reach out to help vulnerable young mothers, foster kids, kids who need a permanent home?
- Are our churches filled with families who have adopted at-risk kids?
- Do we speak out against societal trends, like gay marriage, that put adult desires ahead of children’s needs?
- Do we speak out against the destruction of innocent life in any form?
- Are we willing to risk being jailed, as we have seen happen to some pro-life activists?
Third, they ignored the ironclad stratifications of Roman society. Christians who were nobility fellowshipped and ate with Christians who were slaves.
- How are we doing on true inclusiveness, Late Church?
- Do we ignore the boundaries that some mistakenly promote and reach out to individuals at their point of need?
Fourth, they gave generously, although many suffered significant financial loss as a result of becoming a Jesus-follower. They sold their belongings and shared so that “there was not a needy person among them” (Acts 4:34).
- How are we doing on generosity, Late Church?
- Do we buy in to the culture’s message that we deserve that new car, fancy vacation, or remodel of a home that’s practically new, or do we want to seek to help our fellow believers?
- Do we see the world’s needs through God’s eyes, remembering that everything we have comes from Him, and give accordingly?
Finally, they not only lost livelihoods, they often lost their lives.
- Late Church, are we willing to lose our wealth — our freedom — our lives for the cross?
They were, and they did. Not one of them was perfect, just like we are not perfect. But shouldn’t we all work harder at engaging with the “late world” the way they engaged with the “early world” — while we still have the time?
BONUS RESOURCE
If your heart was stirred by the description of the early church here, you might want to consider a new church undertaking, if there’s one of these near you. Church Project is a church, and a project, aimed at building local church communities that mirror the early church, along the lines of the descriptions above.
A version of this essay previously appeared at She Speaks Truth.
Gwen Stefani reveals 'miracle' that brought her to God at 44
Singer Gwen Stefani grew up in a Catholic household but drifted away from the Church as an adult — until an unexpected prayer brought her closer to God than she ever thought possible.
The No Doubt co-founder and multi-platinum solo artist recently opened up about her newfound faith with Jeff Cavins from Christian prayer and meditation app Hallow.
'Please, God, let my mom have a baby.'
Stefani said her shift came 12 years ago, after talking to an acquaintance who had converted to Judaism despite a non-religious upbringing in Israel.
Wake-up call
"He was studying the Torah, and he had this big epiphany, ... and he starts talking to me about the Torah. And I was desperate at this point, too, during all this. I really wanted to have another baby," Stefani told Cavins. "I really did. And I couldn't."
After describing the teachings of the Torah as "waking me up," she recalled talking to her then-8-year-old son about why he was unlikely to get his wish for a younger sibling.
"I'm sorry, your mommy's too old," she told him.
He then shocked her with a spontaneous prayer: "Please, God, let my mom have a baby."
"I never taught him that," Stefani marveled as she remembered the moment.
Running to God
To Stefani's surprise, she learned she was pregnant just four weeks later.
"I was pregnant with Apollo, who I had at 44 years old naturally, totally a full-on gift. And that was the first miracle," she explained.
"You can run from God, or you can run to God," Cavins responded, with Stefani noting that she was always taught to run toward him.
The 56-year-old also revealed during her interview that the closest she feels to God is when she is doing music.
"Honestly, it's 'cause I'm desperate for him because I'm like, I'm about ready to go on stage, and I'm not nervous, but I just want God to use me. I just want people to see God's light through me," she explained.
Daily practice
Stefani went on to say that she discovered the Hallow app during the COVID-19 lockdown and became so attached to the idea of daily prayer, she would have fears that one day the app would shut down and she wouldn't be able to use it.
Now, she is doing work with the Christian prayer app, recently releasing videos like a 40-day Lent prayer challenge in which she encourages users of the app to pray every day leading up to Easter.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
A protest doesn’t become lawful because Don Lemon livestreams it
What should have been a peaceful Sunday service at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, turned into a political ambush. Roughly 30 anti-ICE protesters pushed into the sanctuary mid-worship, chanting slogans and confronting church leaders as families tried to pray.
Disgraced former CNN anchor Don Lemon was there, too, livestreaming the chaos.
If activists can storm a church mid-service, scream at families, and then hide behind the First Amendment, the standard becomes simple: The loudest mob sets the rules.
The Department of Justice has opened a formal investigation and signaled that federal protections for houses of worship may apply. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon noted on the “Glenn Beck Program” that the activists’ conduct could implicate the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which bars intimidation, obstruction, and interference with the free exercise of religion in places of worship. The protesters may have also violated the Ku Klux Klan Act, a post-Civil War law that makes it illegal to terrorize and violate the civil rights of citizens.
According to multiple reports, the demonstrators were tied to the Racial Justice Network and aimed their protest at a church leader they accused of working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The protest followed rising tensions in Minnesota after the fatal shooting of anti-ICE activist Renee Nicole Good during a confrontation with federal agents.
Lemon framed the entire spectacle as civic virtue. He insisted he was “not an activist, but a journalist” and argued that protest inside a church remains constitutionally protected speech.
The footage tells a messier story.
Video released after the incident shows Lemon interacting with the group beforehand, appearing familiar with organizers and the plan. One outlet described the operation as “Operation Pull-Up.” That undercuts the narrative Lemon later pushed — that he simply arrived to document an event that unexpectedly “spilled” into a worship service.
Intent matters. So does outcome. The outcome looked like this: a sanctuary overrun, a service derailed, congregants shaken, and children crying while activists shouted and gestured at the pews.
That is far from “peaceful assembly.” It is targeted disruption.
The First Amendment protects speech. It does not grant a roaming license to invade private spaces and commandeer them for political theater. Rights have edges because other people have rights too. Worshippers do not lose their liberty because activists feel righteous.
That basic distinction keeps a free society from collapsing into a contest of intimidation.
RELATED: Americans aren’t arguing any more — we’re speaking different languages
This case matters because it tests whether the country still draws that line. If activists can storm a church mid-service, scream at families, and then hide behind the First Amendment, the standard becomes simple: The loudest mob sets the rules. Next week it will be another church. Then a synagogue. Then any gathering that activists decide deserves punishment.
The Justice Department is right to examine the FACE Act here. Congress passed it to stop coercion dressed up as protest — the use of obstruction and intimidation to prevent Americans from exercising basic freedoms. That principle doesn’t change because the target shifts from an abortion clinic to a church sanctuary.
The press corps’ selective outrage makes the problem worse. Cultural elites demand “safety” and “inclusion” in every other arena, but many of them treat Christian worship as an acceptable target. They police speech in classrooms and boardrooms, then shrug when activists shout down prayer.
That double standard signals something deeper than hypocrisy. It signals permission.
Lemon’s defense captured the rot in one sentence: Making people uncomfortable, he said, is “what protests are about.” Fine. Protest often makes people uncomfortable. But discomfort does not justify trespass. It does not excuse intimidation. It does not cancel someone else’s right to worship in peace.
A society that cannot protect sacred spaces will not protect much else for long. If the law refuses to punish conduct like this, the lesson will spread fast: Invade, disrupt, harass — then claim virtue and dare anyone to stop you.
America does not need a new normal where mobs treat churches like political stages. It needs consequences.
6 ways I'm using 2026 to deepen my relationship with God
Personally I think springtime is the best time to start something new — after all, the sunshine gets warmer, everything is budding and greening up, and my energy level is definitely higher than it is right now, in the “bleak midwinter.”
Nevertheless January 1 looms large. We're less than a week into the new year, a time that practically begs us to turn over a fresh page, a new leaf.
The idea is putting my daily meeting with God on my calendar as a nonnegotiable appointment.
So let’s talk about how to use 2026 to improve your relationship — with your creator.
Because that is unquestionably the most important task on our to-do list. Full stop.
How to do that? Well some things never change. God gave us an instruction manual, and immersing ourselves in that should be our absolute highest priority. This includes:
- reading the Bible by ourselves;
- reading the Bible with others;
- studying the Bible by ourselves;
- studying the Bible with others;
- memorizing the Bible by ourselves (you can do this with others too, but it’s really more of a solitary pursuit);
- reading what other people have written about the Bible; and
- listening or watching other people teach the Bible (priority one is your weekly sermon by your own pastor — after that, my highest recommendation is the treasure trove of sermons John MacArthur left behind, covering all the New Testament books as well as many Old Testament books and topics).
And of course along with immersion in the Word, which involves absorbing things God wants us to learn and act upon, He also welcomes us into His very presence. We are invited to bring our worship and gratitude to Him in prayer as well as our every request and concern, big or small.
Yeah, it always comes back to those two things.
Prayer and the Word.
And now here are some suggestions about how to prioritize these most important of life activities, now that 2026 is underway ...
The morning meeting
I read this idea this year on Substack (if anyone can remind me of who suggested it, please comment, and I’ll update with the link), and it hit me hard. Probably because I find too much of the day slipping away from me even though I’m not bound to external employment hours, and I know I need to take better control of my time. I’m still wasting too much sand!
The idea is putting my daily meeting with God on my calendar as a nonnegotiable appointment. You can make this appointment any time of the day that works for you, but I do think morning is preferable if you can swing it. This meeting can be as long or brief as this stage of your life requires, but give it a hard start time and a hard stop time (of course you can always tweak this as life changes).
A meeting requires an agenda. You can make a general agenda for all meetings, or you can prepare a separate agenda for each daily meeting. Right now I’m working with an ambitious general agenda, but giving myself grace to skip some items if need be. Here’s my meeting agenda:
1. Read-through-the-Bible time
No, I’m not doing it in a year. I’m doing a three-year plan, because I want to savor what I’m reading and avoid the “check-it-off-for-the-day” mindset.
I used Biblereadingplangenerator.com to create exactly what I wanted to cover — the Bible chronologically as it happened, with the prophets intertwined with other Old Testament passages where they fit chronologically, and the New Testament letters in the order they were written.
I removed Psalms and Proverbs from the plan, then added them back in at a rate of one per day (one Psalm, one chapter of Proverbs). This is because I’ve learned that I need to really slow down to savor the depth and wisdom contained in these two books.
Another benefit of taking three years for this is I have time to read and analyze the study notes in my Bible or even look up other commentary perspectives.
A final part of this agenda item: reading through books about the books of the Bible I’ve completed (this falls under the general category of “reading what other people have written about the Bible”).
2. Daily Bible chunks
There’s probably a more elegant way to say that. But the point is, since read-through-the-Bible time stays in each book of the Bible for quite awhile, I want to dip my toe into other sections as well on a regular basis. Here’s how I’ll divide it up by each day of the week this year, reading generally shorter sections of each book (I use my study Bible’s book outlines to guide me):
- Monday - Torah/OT history (Genesis through Song of Solomon, but minus Psalms and Proverbs, since I’m already in them daily)
- Tuesday - OT prophets (Isaiah through Malachi)
- Wednesday - Gospels
- Thursday - Acts
- Friday - Paul’s letters
- Saturday - other Epistles
- Sunday - Revelation
Notice the emphasis on the New Testament, since my foundational Bible reading will be mostly Old Testament for at least two years!
3. Devotional
If I’m working through a devotional, here’s where I’ll do that.
4. Memorization
I’m trying something new this year! I want to memorize whole big chunks of the Word. I think I’m going to start with the tiny book of Jude, where the topic is false teaching. Very relevant for 2026, I believe.
I’ll study it first before beginning to memorize, a verse or two at a time. I'm planning to do this with my mini-discipleship group, so there’ll be at least two of us working our way through it.
5. Other reading or training
I’ll try to work my way through my enormous “books I’d like to read” list during this time as well, since I have countless spiritually enriching titles collected but not yet read. Or I’ll watch videos I’ve been saving to work through, like Stand to Reason’s excellent apologetics series.
6. Throne room time
This is where we gratefully accept His gracious invitation to come directly to the foot of His throne with all our prayers.
I’ve always tried to systemize my prayers, keeping lists and focusing on different people and needs on different days, but I’ve never journaled my prayers. The reason I’m excited to do this now is this — I’m excited to crack open my new five-year prayer journal.
The idea of this is to write out a prayer (or prayers) for each day, then after a full year of filling the journal, we circle back and fill it out a second year and a third and a fourth and a fifth — reviewing the previous year’s entry as we do.
I can’t wait to see how God works in my life as I review prayers I prayed a year earlier!
RELATED: How to bring Charlie Kirk's vision to life — starting in your own family
A few final thoughts
So that will be my morning meeting in 2026. I will devote a couple of hours to it every day. After all, I’m in the season of life where I can devote more time to this most worthy endeavor, and I’m excited to make that commitment.
I’ve written a few other pieces to help you plan, execute, and enjoy this most marvelous time of the day:
- A basket of God
- Quiet time 101 (although your morning meeting does not have to be quiet!)
- Creating space for God
With the year just beginning, there is nothing more important to lock in for 2026 than your time with God.
Happy (and God-centered) new year to all of you!
A version of this article previously appeared on the She Speaks Truth Substack.
Catholic priest accused of changing the outcome of the last NFL game of the season
With everything on the line, a Catholic priest's blessing may have changed the outcome of the NFL playoffs on Sunday.
The Pittsburgh Steelers hosted the Baltimore Ravens at Acrisure Stadium for "Sunday Night Football" with the season on the line. The game would decide who topped the AFC North and the final playoff spot.
'The Catholic community in Pittsburgh is very strong.'
A perfect, dramatic ending was set up for the last game of the season, after the Steelers went ahead 26-24 with a late touchdown. After blocking their opponent's extra point, the Ravens converted a pivotal fourth-down play to get into position for a 44-yard game-winning field goal.
However, kicker Tyler Loop pushed the ball right, and the Ravens lost in dramatic fashion.
Just after the game, NBC commentators Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth decided to sprinkle some Catholic lore on the ending and revealed that a priest may have been involved in the missed field goal.
At 6:15 p.m. local time, Tirico revealed, a priest was seen "spreading holy water" in the Steelers' defending end zone, where the kick was missed.
"The Catholic community in Pittsburgh is very strong ... and down at that end zone, Tyler Loop misses the ... field goal ... and allows the Steelers to win," Tirico explained.
"So it's not Tyler Loop's fault," Collinsworth laughed.
RELATED: Pope Leo calls out gambling addiction and 'demographic crisis' in Vatican meeting
The priest in question has since been named by local outlets as Father Maximilian Maxwell. Maxwell currently serves as the prior of Saint Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. According to WJCL, the Steelers have held their training camp at the college since 1966.
At the same time, Benedictine Military School in Savannah, Georgia, was quick to claim Fr. Maxwell as one of its own and proudly boasted on the school's Facebook page.
"Check out former Benedictine Military School theology teacher Fr. Maximilian Maxwell blessing the Pittsburgh Steelers' football field with holy water before the game Sunday night!" the school wrote.
Following the dramatic ending, Steelers defensive lineman Cameron Heyward was asked about the potential blessed outcome.
"I'm not gonna ask questions," Heyward said, per WJCL. "The good Lord made a good decision tonight. I'm thankful, and we keep moving on."
RELATED: New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan resigns; pope appoints his replacement
On the other side of the ball, Ravens players still kept their faith, particularly Loop, who said he will be leaning on his religion to get him through the tough moment.
"I had written down a little prayer before the game. ... Faith is a big part of my life and right now I'm reading the book of Romans, and in Romans 8 it says God works for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose."
Loop continued, "Ultimately, I'm here to love on the guys around me. I'm here to try and have their back ... reminding myself that 'hey, God's got my back even when stuff sucks.'"
Ravens running back Derrick Henry told reporters that he advised Loop to keep his faith and trust in God's plan.
"I just told him the story after this is gonna be great for him because God put him in this position to use him as an example," Henry revealed.
The Steelers will host the Houston Texans in Pittsburgh on January 12.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
Christian woman charged for thought crimes after investigation into silent prayers
A woman in the United Kingdom is in trouble with law enforcement yet again for daring to engage in silent prayers.
Isabel Vaughan-Spruce learned in March that she had been under investigation by Midlands Police in the U.K. since January. She has now been criminally charged for praying in her head.
'You've said you're engaging in prayer, which is the offense.'
More specifically, Vaughan-Spruce was allegedly charged because she "stood outside" an abortion facility in Birmingham, England, to conduct her silent prayers and, therefore, tried to "influence" visitors, which is prohibited.
According to the Alliance Defending Freedom, the charge against Vaughan-Spruce is under Section 9 of the U.K.'s Public Order Act 2023, which outlines "Safe Access Zones" around abortion clinics in England and Wales.
Discretion under the act is left to each individual officer, but all decisions must be made "on a case-by-case basis and must be balanced and proportionate to the circumstances," the document says.
The law states it is an offense to recklessly or intentionally "do an act" that:
- Influences "any person's decision to access, provide, or facilitate the provision of abortion services at an abortion clinic";
- Obstructs or impedes any person "accessing, providing, or facilitating the provision of abortion services at an abortion clinic"; or
- Causes "harassment, alarm, or distress to any person in connection with a decision to access, provide, or facilitate the provision of abortion services at an abortion clinic."
Violators are subject to a fine.
In 2022, Vaughan-Spruce made headlines for admitting to possibly engaging in silent prayer near an abortion clinic. She was asked by an officer to voluntarily go to a police station, and, upon declining, was informed that she was under arrest for failing to comply and would be charged with "anti-social behavior."
According to a city of Birmingham website, anti-social behavior "includes behavior which has caused or is likely to cause you harassment, alarm, or distress."
Vaughan-Spruce was later charged with "protesting and engaging in an act that is intimidating to service users" but was reportedly acquitted because the facility was actually closed at the time she was there.
She was arrested again in 2023 for praying in an excluded zone, this time on the corner of a road.
"You've said you're engaging in prayer, which is the offense," an officer told her.
Vaughan-Spruce claimed at the time that she assumed her acquittal meant she could now pray outside of the facility without causing offense.
RELATED: Real-life dystopia: Police arrest woman AGAIN after she silently prayed near abortion facility in UK
Similar charges were recently brought upon a retired pastor in Northern Ireland for preaching inside one of the protected zones.
According to the New York Post, the 76-year-old faces two charges and has pleaded not guilty to seeking to "influence" people accessing abortion services and for not immediately vacating the area when asked by police.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
Ted Nugent's loud protest is the wake-up call Western elites want to ignore
Ted Nugent is known for many things. Subtlety isn't one of them.
This is a man who treats volume knobs the way toddlers treat bedtime: with open defiance. So when a mosque in his Michigan town began broadcasting the early-morning call to prayer over loudspeakers, Nugent reacted in the way only Nugent would. He turned his back yard into a launchpad for a one-man rock assault.
You don’t need to be religious to see the problem. You only need to have ears.
Excessive? Perhaps. But it tapped straight into a frustration millions feel but rarely voice — not loudly, anyway.
The early-morning Islamic call to prayer echoing through American suburbs isn’t “diversity” or a charming cultural detail. It’s noise — loud, sudden, inescapable noise. It jolts families awake, spooks pets, startles infants, and demands that the entire block adapt.
Nugent’s counterattack may have been a little over the top, but beneath the distortion pedals sits a simple point: Public peace matters. In a free country, quiet hours come first. And no imported custom, however sacred to some, earns an automatic exemption.
Richard Dawkins once called the Islamic call to prayer “hauntingly beautiful.” This from a man who spent decades explaining that God doesn’t exist. It’s a strange kind of aesthetic tourism: Romanticize a religious ritual while rejecting the very religion that produced it. Dawkins was wrong about the existence of God, and he is equally wrong about the Islamic call to prayer.
The call to prayer wasn’t designed as background music, and it wasn’t conceived for multicultural suburbs where everyone keeps different hours and believes different things. It was forged in a seventh-century society where faith and authority were fused, where religion structured public life down to the minute, and where submission — literal, explicit submission — wasn’t merely encouraged but expected.
Islam’s founding worldview assumed a unified religious community, a shared legal and moral order, and a sharp distinction between believers and nonbelievers. That distinction shaped status, obligation, and allegiance.
In the Muslim context, the adhan makes perfect sense. It is a public summons for a public faith, a declaration of dominance over the rhythm of the day, and reminder that life moves according to Allah’s schedule — not yours. It reminds everyone, believer or not, that the community’s obligations take precedence over the individuals’ preferences.
But transplant it into America (or any predominantly Christian society), and it makes zero sense. The operating systems and expectations are different. The very idea of a faith dictating the morning routine of people who don’t share it runs directly against the grain of Western life.
RELATED: Why progressives want to destroy Christianity — but spare Islam
This is the part Dawkins missed entirely when he praised the adhan.
It’s easy to romanticize a sound when you encounter it on holiday, filtered through distance, novelty, and sand-warm nostalgia. It’s quite another when it is broadcast at 5 a.m. into a neighborhood that never agreed to have its eardrums shattered before the coffee even brews.
Dawkins hears melody, but he ignores meaning. He praises the tune while overlooking the text, which was never written for pluralism. It was written for a social order in which Islam set the terms — and nonbelievers either complied or faced the consequences.
You don’t need to be religious to see the problem. You only need to have ears.
The adhan doesn’t float gently on the breeze. It is projected through megaphones with the explicit purpose of commanding attention. It is designed to override the soundscape of daily life. Barking dog? Buried. Garbage truck? Drowned. Your alarm clock? Irrelevant. The Islamic call to prayer cuts through everything because that is precisely what it was built to do.
And that is where the first collision occurs. In America, no foreign religion should be granted the right to reorder everyone’s routine. Christianity, which most readers know intimately, offers a useful contrast. Church bells ring, yes, but briefly and symbolically. They don’t deliver multi-minute recitations meant to summon or correct anyone.
But with fewer bells ringing, other sounds inevitably move in to fill the void. These include ones far louder, far longer, and far less rooted in America’s traditions.
There’s a difference between freedom of religion and freedom to dominate the public square.
In a predominantly Christian society, faith is personal, chosen, and interior. Prayer happens inside churches, inside homes, inside hearts — not broadcast across rooftops as compulsory ambience. The Western idea of worship is reflective and voluntary. The call to prayer, by contrast, is commanding and public by design.
Sound, as Ted Nugent knows well, is anything but neutral. A community’s soundscape shapes its psychology. People become anxious, irritable, exhausted, and far more prone to accidents when their sleep is disrupted. After all, we prosecute noisy neighbors for far less.
Yet Western elites recoil at the idea that a religious practice might be subject to the same standards as the guy who revs his motorcycle at midnight. If anything, a more intrusive and more extended ritual deserves more examination — not less.
Although I truly dislike what Islam represents, this isn’t about hatred. It is about the delicate, daily compromises a pluralistic nation depends on. When one group insists on broadcasting its obligations to everyone else, the common ground cracks, the social contract comes apart, and people start to feel like strangers on their own streets.
The call to prayer has no place in polite society. There’s a difference between freedom of religion and freedom to dominate the public square. One belongs in America. The other never will.
What The Bible Says About When To Obey And Ignore The Government
Whether we’re resisting or obeying civil authorities, our actions must reflect God’s love, mercy, and truth, doing as Jesus commanded.Today's top stories
www.theblaze.com
www.theblaze.com
freebeacon.com