The left’s Cesar Chavez problem is much bigger than Cesar Chavez



For decades, Cesar Chavez occupied near-canonical status in American universities. The United Farm Workers leader’s name adorned schools, his image filled lecture slides, and his story was told as secular hagiography: the humble labor leader who organized the oppressed, challenged exploitation, and embodied moral courage in the struggle for justice.

Now that image is cracking.

The reassessment of Chavez is not the end of something. It is the beginning of a broader reckoning.

A blockbuster New York Times story this month detailed serious allegations of sexual misconduct, including deeply disturbing claims that, if true, must force a fundamental reassessment of Chavez. The question is not only whether the allegations are true, but why this reckoning arrived only now.

What we are witnessing is not merely the fall of a man but the exposure of a pattern — one that reveals more about the moral framework of academic elites than about Chavez himself.

The manufactured hero

For years, Chavez has been presented, especially in university settings, as a hero of the proletariat. Not always in explicitly Marxist terms, of course. The language is smoother than that. But the structure is unmistakable: Chavez as the labor leader who stood against capital, exposed exploitation, and mobilized collective struggle in the name of justice.

Students are taught to see history as the story of structural oppression and economic conflict. Chavez became a usable symbol in that story. Because he served that function, his image was carefully curated.

What is now becoming clear is that the darker aspects of Chavez’s life were not entirely unknown. Reports of infidelity, domineering leadership, and abuses of power were not buried in some inaccessible archive. They were part of the broader historical record.

Silence around sin

Yet they were largely ignored.

That is how leftist professors handle their heroes. The facts that do not serve the narrative get minimized, reframed, or omitted. This is the first lesson of the current moment: The moral concern of the DEI professoriat is not truth but rather usefulness to the cause.

A figure is praised or condemned not by a consistent moral standard, but by whether he advances a political project. As long as Chavez could serve as a symbol of labor activism and anti-capitalist struggle, his sins remained background noise. Now that those sins threaten his usefulness, they have moved to the foreground.

No new moral conscience has emerged on the left. What we’re seeing is pure calculation.

RELATED: Labor group cancels Cesar Chavez events over 'profoundly shocking' new allegations

Tony Korody/Sygma/Getty Images

A narrow moral vision

The deeper problem goes beyond hypocrisy. The moral vision offered by Chavez’s academic admirers is radically narrow. It focuses almost entirely on one category of wrongdoing: economic injustice. Greed, real and serious as it is, gets elevated into the supreme moral concern. Entire departments and movements organize themselves around exposing and correcting it.

But what about lust? What about pride? What about the abuse of power in personal life, not just economic systems?

Those sins get treated as secondary or, worse, as distractions from the real work of social transformation. The result is a moral framework that is selective and shallow. It addresses external structures while neglecting the corruption of the human heart. Marxism 101 still teaches that if we revolt our way into a better system, we can somehow produce a better man.

But a philosophy with no coherent account of sin cannot solve sin.

From moralism to tyranny

That failure has predictable consequences. If the problem lies mainly in external systems, then the solution must also be external: regulation, enforcement, and conformity. Behavior must be monitored. Speech must be controlled. Dissent must be suppressed.

That is why academic environments that preach tolerance so often practice censorship. That is why calls for equity come paired with ideological compliance. Those who depart from the approved narrative do not get argued with. They get disciplined.

Until we recover a full account of human nature, one that takes sin seriously and looks beyond man for its cure, we will repeat this cycle again and again.

And that is why such movements, once they gain power, tilt toward tyranny. They do not govern by the standards of fairness they once demanded, because their moral framework never grounded those standards in the first place. It only deployed them when useful.

The fall of Chavez is not an anomaly. It is a case study. A movement that cannot account for sin will eventually be undone by it. Robespierre gets guillotined every time.

The deeper problem

At the heart of all this sits a basic misdiagnosis. Man’s greatest problem is not economic inequality. It is not structural oppression. It is not even political injustice, though all of those are real. Man’s greatest problem is sin.

It is the corruption of the heart that gives rise to every form of injustice, whether in the marketplace or the home, the factory or the family. No amount of social reorganization can fix that. You can redistribute wealth, rewrite laws, and restructure institutions and still end up with the same fallen human nature operating under new conditions.

That is why movements that promise moral transformation through politics end in disappointment. They try to fix what is internal by manipulating what is external. A Latin American studies professor once told a friend of mine, “Che su Christo.” Che is Christ.

RELATED: The lie that launched a thousand riots

Fitzgerald Whitney/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

The only real solution

But there is only one Christ and only one remedy for sin, and it is the one most conspicuously absent from the classrooms that long celebrated Chavez.

The answer is not a program or a policy. It is a person.

Christ does not merely demand outward reform. He gives a new heart. He restores sinners to communion with God. He addresses not only the consequences of sin, but its source. He transforms the inner man, and from that transformation flow justice, righteousness, and love.

That is precisely why He is excluded. A system built on human effort, collective struggle, and ideological conformity cannot tolerate a solution rooted in repentance, grace, and divine authority. It is the works-righteousness religion of our age.

The inevitable reckoning

The reassessment of Chavez is not the end of something. It is the beginning of a broader reckoning. If our heroes are chosen for usefulness rather than virtue, they will disappoint us. If our moral standards are selective, they will collapse under their own inconsistency.

And if we refuse to acknowledge the true nature of sin, we will keep acting surprised by its consequences. The real lesson of this moment is not that another historical figure has fallen. It is that a moral system built on partial truths and ideological commitments cannot bear the weight of reality.

Until we recover a full account of human nature, one that takes sin seriously and looks beyond man for its cure, we will repeat this cycle again and again.

How the modern world gets Christian forgiveness wrong



For millennia, we have all more or less understood one thing about forgiveness: You cannot demand it.

You can ask for it. You can plead for it. You can try to earn it. But the moment you insist that someone owes it to you, you have misunderstood the thing itself.

You can command a Christian to forgive because he has been given a new heart. You cannot litigate him into loving his enemy.

Sam Ridge, a philosopher at the University of California San Diego, thinks that conventional wisdom is wrong. In a recent paper, he argues that there are cases in which a wrongdoer has “a right to be forgiven by their victim.”

In other words, forgiveness can be understood as a claimable moral asset — not just something one hopes for, but something one may, under certain conditions, press for. That may sound tidy in a philosophy seminar. It sounds far less plausible beside a bloodstained cross and wounds that still bear a name.

Promise ring

Ridge’s argument begins with promises. “Promises generate rights,” he writes. And since “we can promise to forgive,” it follows that “we can have a right to be forgiven.”

He then pushes beyond explicit promises. Long habits of forbearance, he argues, can create expectations and implicit commitments inside relationships. Over time, those too may harden into something like a right. Philosophers, he says, have been wrong to treat forgiveness as if it were always the victim’s exclusive property.

From a Christian standpoint, there is something here to appreciate. Ridge is at least pushing back against the modern cult of grievance, where outrage becomes a vocation and to forgive is to cede power. He is right to insist that resentment cannot simply be nursed forever. He is also right to note that relationships impose real obligations and that promises are not decorative sounds. In a culture that treats every vow as provisional, the suggestion that words bind has the ring of sanity.

But having glimpsed the truth that forgiveness cannot be purely discretionary, Ridge reaches for the bluntest tool in the secular toolbox: rights language.

RELATED: Mary Clarke: Beverly Hills socialite who traded haute couture for a habit

Eudist Servants of the 11th Hour

Forgiveness fix

The move also fits a broader cultural drift. In recent years, forgiveness has steadily been reframed in therapeutic terms. Harvard researchers now explain that “forgiveness is good for us,” meaning it lowers stress, improves mental health, and stabilizes relationships.

In popular self-help language, the advice is even simpler: Forgive so you can heal; forgive so you can move on.

Once forgiveness is treated primarily as a psychological good, it becomes easy to assume that people ought to supply that good to one another. Ridge’s argument may simply be the next step in that progression: If forgiveness benefits everyone, why shouldn’t the offender have some claim to it?

The result is philosophically clever and spiritually tone-deaf.

Debt relief

The trouble with Ridge’s proposal appears in at least three places.

The New Testament does not picture forgiveness as a debtor’s legal claim against the heart of his neighbor. It presents forgiveness as an act flowing from divine mercy: “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Christian forgiveness is commanded, yes, but it is not coerced. It grows out of a heart that knows it has been forgiven more than it will ever be asked to forgive.

That is the first problem with Ridge’s view. He treats forgiveness as a morally chargeable transaction. I promised; therefore you can bill me. We have a pattern; therefore you can invoice me again. But Scripture treats forgiveness not as a payable debt but as the fruit of regeneration. You can command a Christian to forgive because he has been given a new heart. You cannot litigate him into loving his enemy. You can wring out an apology. You cannot compel the release of a grudge.

Your word and God's word

The second problem is more basic. Ridge blurs the line between keeping one’s word and performing a spiritual act. If a father tells his daughter, “I promise to forgive you,” then yes, he has taken on a real obligation. He ought to master his anger, repent of bitterness, and restore goodwill where he can.

But it does not follow that the daughter acquires a standing right to demand what only grace can genuinely produce. Ridge’s own formula — “We can promise to forgive. Therefore, we can have a right to be forgiven” — slides too quickly past that distinction. The pressure falls first on the father’s conscience before God, not on the daughter’s ability to cash a promissory note.

His friendship examples make the same mistake in softer form. Old friends do owe one another patience, mercy, and readiness to reconcile. If a man refuses forgiveness after decades of mutual forbearance, then yes, something real has broken down. But what has broken down is not best described as a hidden contract. It is a failure of charity, of character, of fidelity to the shape of friendship itself. Friendship is sustained by habits of mercy, not by enforceable claims.

Crucifying pride

The third problem is where Ridge’s framework leads, once applied to what he calls “moderate wrongdoing,” the ordinary failures “we have all committed and, regrettably, will commit again.” Those are precisely the daily arenas in which Christ calls people to crucify pride and extend mercy before they feel like it. Once those moments are reframed in the language of rights, forgiveness begins to sound less like grace and more like entitlement: I repented; I made amends — now you owe me.

That posture may satisfy a theorist. It corrodes the virtue itself.

The philosophers Ridge is pushing against — figures like Lucy Allais, Cheshire Calhoun, and Charles Griswold — were right to sense the danger. Many of them describe forgiveness as supererogatory: admirable, fitting, sometimes morally beautiful, but not something the offender may demand as a matter of right. As Ridge himself notes, there is “near universal agreement” on this point. They understood something Ridge does not fully reckon with: Forgiveness can be morally urgent without becoming something the offender may properly claim. The instant it hardens into entitlement, something essential has already been lost.

More demanding, more humane

To be fair, Ridge does try to hedge the claim. He confines it to a certain band of offenses. He concedes that some acts may be unforgivable in practice. He also insists that victims retain “leeway” and cannot be pushed into immediate or shallow reconciliation. Those are sensible guardrails. But his own framework undermines them. Once forgiveness is grounded in rights talk, the victim’s conscience becomes one more obstacle to be managed, pressured, and eventually treated as suspect for failing to deliver on schedule.

The Christian alternative is both more demanding and more humane.

It says to the wrongdoer: You are not entitled to your neighbor’s forgiveness; you are entitled only to throw yourself on the mercy of Christ.

It says to the victim: You are not entitled to nurse hatred forever; you are commanded to forgive as you have been forgiven.

But that command comes from God, not from the person who hurt you.

And it reminds both parties that a wounded relationship is not a contract to be litigated, but a place where grace, repentance, truth, and sometimes hard boundaries must coexist — not a ledger of claims and entitlements.

James Talarico found a verse — and twisted the meaning



Democrats can learn. Political survival demands adaptation, and lately some on the left have started studying their Republican opponents with something like anthropological curiosity. They watch Republicans work a crowd and ask a practical question: What works?

One answer keeps recurring. Republicans like to quote the Bible.

Christians should stay alert. Not everyone who borrows the language of faith speaks truth.

You can picture the light-bulb moment. A candidate cites Scripture. The audience nods. Somewhere, a strategist thinks: Let’s find a guy who can do that for us.

Enter James Talarico, the Texas Democrat nominee for U.S. Senate who quotes Scripture all day long.

That tactic may sway voters who enjoy hearing a verse, even when it gets pulled out of context to bless ideas Scripture condemns. Christians who know their Bibles will spot the move fast.

Jesus warned about this exact type: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits.”

A Bible verse proves nothing by itself. Wolves can quote Scripture, too. So can the devil.

The question is what the verse is being used to defend.

The abortion argument

Talarico claims Genesis 2:7 teaches that a human being becomes alive, and worthy of legal protection, only at first breath.

Wrong. The verse describes Adam’s creation. God formed the first man from dust and then breathed life into him. That account does not describe ordinary human development in the womb. It describes a singular act of creation.

Every other human life begins at conception. A distinct organism exists from that point, with its own DNA and its own trajectory of development. Scripture treats unborn children as living persons. Psalm 139:13-16 speaks of God knitting a child together in the womb.

Even if someone granted Talarico’s “first breath” premise for argument’s sake, the logic collapses quickly into moral absurdity. It pushes abortion right up to delivery. Some activists embrace that conclusion. Most Americans recoil, however, because they sense the truth: Killing a fully formed child moments before birth differs only in location from killing the same child moments after birth.

The ‘nonbinary God’ argument

Talarico also claims God is “nonbinary,” as if that settles the modern LGBTQ agenda.

God has no biological sex. God is spirit. That does not erase the created order for human beings.

Scripture speaks plainly: God created humanity male and female. Genesis 1:27 teaches it. Jesus repeats it when he addresses marriage: “From the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’”

Christian teaching on marriage does not float as an arbitrary rule. It rests on creation itself, and Jesus affirms it.

RELATED: Talarico self-owns when he warns fascism will ‘be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross’

Photo by Gabriel V. Cardenas/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The rainbow vs. the Ten Commandments

Talarico asks why a rainbow flag in a classroom counts as indoctrination while posting the Ten Commandments does not.

The answer isn’t complicated. The Ten Commandments summarize foundational moral truths about God, human life, and justice. They shaped the moral vocabulary of Western civilization for centuries.

The rainbow flag represents a moral program that rejects the biblical account of sex, marriage, and human nature. The two messages do not belong in the same moral category.

Fruit tells the truth

Jesus gave a practical test for identifying false teachers: Look at the fruit.

When someone uses Scripture to justify abortion or to deny the created order of male and female, the fruit shows itself. The apostle Peter warned about this kind of manipulation: “Untaught and unstable people twist [the Scriptures] to their own destruction.”

Christians should not get impressed because a politician can quote a verse. Even Satan did.

The question is whether the Bible is being handled faithfully or weaponized to sanctify fashionable sins.

Stay awake

Christians should stay alert. Not everyone who borrows the language of faith speaks truth.

Know the word of God. Test what you hear against it. Teach your children to do the same.

That’s how you recognize wolves, even when they show up in sheep’s clothing with a Bible in hand.

Anti-ICE Activism Represents The Suicide Of Western Civilization

'Liberalism is the ideology of Western suicide,' wrote James Burnham more than half a century ago. This ideology is hard at work.

Why the pro-life movement fails without a Christian worldview



In the United States and other Western nations, pro-life organizations are the primary means through which conservative Christians oppose legalized abortion.

With their cultural engagement and legislative efforts, these pro-life groups and leaders purport to oppose the murder of preborn babies, ultimately desiring the complete end of abortion. But a simple examination of the worldviews held by these groups shows that many are not operating in a distinctly Christian fashion, even when they are led by professing Christians.

We continue to practice child sacrifice today through abortion.

Some pro-life organizations are self-admittedly non-sectarian, seeking to build coalitions of anti-abortion people who may be Christians, other religious conservatives, agnostics and atheists, or feminists.

But even the pro-life groups that are convictionally Christian, or led by convictional Christians, often functionally set aside the Christian worldview.

The church through the ages, bearing the gospel of life, has been the means by which the deathly deeds of child sacrifice have been overturned in countless cultures. The dearth of a Christian worldview in the current anti-abortion movement should, therefore, be gravely concerning to any believer who likewise wants to see modern child sacrifice abolished.

The doctrine of man

Christianity teaches that humans are creatures made in the image of God with rational souls (Ecclesiastes 7:29), but that mankind fell in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:1-7) and became dead in sin (Ephesians 2:1-3). We, therefore, have a thoroughly corrupted nature by which we are innately inclined toward evil (Romans 3:10-18).

The act of child sacrifice is one particularly brazen form of evil toward which man has always been predisposed. The murder of children for reasons of prosperity or convenience has occurred on every continent and was practiced by most major civilizations at some point in their history.

We continue to practice child sacrifice today through abortion.

In almost every abortion decision, the motivation is a rejection of inconvenient responsibility, the desire to prioritize college or career, or some other factor that could never even start to approach a justified reason for murdering an innocent human made in the image of God.

Western nations used to presuppose the Christian worldview. But in recent centuries, Enlightenment ideas have corrupted or entirely usurped the Christian worldview, especially concerning the sinful state of human nature.

Rather than saying that mankind is a valuable yet fallen creature, Enlightenment heretics taught that humans are fundamentally blank slates or even morally good and that with education or infusion of knowledge, mankind can experience true moral progression.

Such a worldview can be seen in pro-life groups claiming that “if wombs had windows, babies would be protected from abortions.” Others say that they are working to “make abortion unthinkable,” as if sin could ever be made completely unthinkable to fallen sinners.

— (@)

Enlightenment presuppositions about human nature also impact pro-life legislative strategy. Many pro-life groups try to pass laws that seek to mandate informed consent or require viewing ultrasounds before a woman willfully decides to murder her preborn baby.

While some pregnant mothers, especially those who are already soliciting the help of a crisis pregnancy center, may choose life after seeing an ultrasound image of their babies, there are still plenty of others who choose to murder their babies even after seeing the images.

In other words, abortion is not caused by mere ignorance, but by the selfish desires of fallen men and women who value their own prosperity or convenience more than the very lives of their children.

— (@)

We indisputably live in a culture of death that increasingly accepts abortion. But the development of this culture has occurred alongside the most rapid development of ultrasound technology.

In past generations, mothers and fathers did not see advanced ultrasounds of their preborn babies, yet those generations were considerably more anti-abortion than their children and grandchildren are today. In our current culture, everyone has seen ultrasounds of their own children or the children of others, but abortion is more accepted and even normalized, despite this increased knowledge about life in the womb.

The answer to legalized abortion is not merely an infusion of more education or knowledge for those who would willfully murder their preborn babies.

The answer to legalized abortion is to make abortion illegal. But pro-life organizations are often hesitant to embrace such a position.

The doctrine of government

Christianity teaches that God has established civil authorities to govern human society (Genesis 9:6). These civil authorities are servants of God commanded to bear the sword (Romans 13:1-7) against those who practice evil (1 Peter 2:14). The government exists under the dominion of Jesus Christ (Revelation 19:16) to uphold the public good and to deter evil conduct through the threat of swift punishment (Ecclesiastes 8:11). The act of murdering a preborn baby qualifies for such penalties (Exodus 21:22-25).

Most pro-life organizations would agree with God that abortion is murder. Many would agree that because preborn babies are made in the image of God, there is no inherent moral difference between murdering a person who has been born and a person who has not yet been born.

But when legislating against abortion, they almost never extend that moral equivalence into a legal equivalence, and they functionally address abortion as less than murder.

Many pro-life groups have even actively subverted efforts to establish equal protection of the laws for preborn babies.

Rather than simply treating abortion as murder, they self-admittedly seek to be “innovative” with the laws they write, and they almost never create effective anti-abortion deterrents as a result.

The vast majority of pro-life bills regulate the circumstances of abortion. They allow for abortion once certain conditions are met, such as murdering a baby provided that he or she receives a proper burial, or murdering a baby before he or she reaches a certain stage of development.

Some even adopt the false moral framework of abortion activists by regulating abortion like health care. They allow abortion after the woman who desires to murder her preborn baby first obtains permission from a doctor, essentially legitimizing and sanitizing abortion through the health care system.

There are many proposals specifically targeted at providers of abortion pills, ignoring the reality that even if the flow of abortion pills is truly halted, many methods of abortions exist beyond those substances and have become increasingly popular in recent years.

These laws largely shift behavior rather than save lives, ensuring that abortions continue through legally sanctioned channels instead of deterring the act of abortion entirely.

— (@)

The emphasis of these pro-life regulations is not criminalizing abortion as murder. If the pro-life groups that write such legislation acted consistently with their professed beliefs about abortion as murder, they would seek to criminalize all abortion accordingly.

But instead of pursuing such an objective, many pro-life groups have even actively subverted efforts to establish equal protection of the laws for preborn babies.

Christian organizations have repeatedly proposed bills that would simply extend the existing homicide, assault, and wrongful death laws that protect born people in order to protect preborn people. Rather than supporting those bills, leading pro-life groups have issued a national open letter to all lawmakers in the U.S., urging them to oppose such proposals because they could lead to penalties for women who willfully have abortions.

Over the past decade, state and national pro-life organizations have been instrumental in subverting dozens of equal protection bills, largely in conservative states that should otherwise have the power to abolish abortion.

— (@)

The task of civil authorities, as the Christian worldview affirms, is the punishment of wicked conduct, which preserves innocent life by deterring future wicked conduct and provides justice on behalf of the victims. God clearly expects abortion, which is an act of murder, to be punished by civil authorities.

When pro-life groups advocate for regulating abortion rather than punishing those who willfully murder their preborn babies, they protect the legally sanctioned practice of abortion and keep the sword of justice in the sheath.

These pro-life groups not only enable the murder of preborn babies made in the image of God, but protect conduct that damages the bodies and souls of the perpetrators.

The doctrine of repentance

Christianity teaches that repentance occurs when a sinner sees his or her sin as contrary to the nature and law of God (1 John 3:9), despises those sins (2 Corinthians 7:10), and turns from them to Jesus Christ (Acts 17:30-31). In order to properly confess sins, one must specifically name and acknowledge them before God (Psalm 32:5).

Many pro-life organizations not only oppose laws that could impose penalties on women who willfully have abortions, but actively write blanket legal immunity for women who have abortions into their laws. They insist that women who have abortions are categorically second victims, meaning that they cannot be held legally accountable for their actions.

Some pro-life groups claim that most women are coerced into abortions. Others insist that our culture of death removes all accountability from women by indoctrinating them into believing that their preborn babies are mere clumps of cells.

Such arguments are then used to support laws exempting all women — including those who can be shown in a court of law to have willfully murdered their preborn babies — from any criminal penalties.

— (@)

But the assertions about widespread coercion are simply not true, as even surveys sponsored by pro-life research groups indicate that only a very small minority of women are truly forced into abortions they do not want.

In the same way, merely choosing to convince oneself of falsehood does not excuse evil actions that follow from those lies and almost never qualifies for the mistake of fact necessary to excuse someone of legal culpability.

Beyond the poor arguments required to support the claim that all women are categorical victims of abortion, and the ways in which they undermine the cultural and political credibility of pro-life groups, these arguments also deprive women who have had abortions of true repentance and, therefore, true forgiveness.

Those with a Christian worldview would invite a woman who has murdered her own preborn baby to confess her sin before God and receive abundant forgiveness through the gospel. But pro-life groups and leaders who believe that all women are second victims of abortion have little to offer such women beyond hollow “sympathy” and therapeutic reassurance.

— (@)

If a woman is a mere victim who has not committed sin, then she has no need of repentance because she has no specific fault to confess before God.

But most women are willful participants in their own abortions. When pro-life groups insist to all women that they are indeed victims, they rob the very women they claim to love of any hope for true peace and pardon.

The pro-life groups functionally seeking to oppose abortion outside the Christian worldview will continue in their failure to end abortion. They will continue to lose, not only to the detriment of their cause but to the detriment of countless millions of preborn babies.

Christianity alone has the potency to end child sacrifice in a depraved civilization like the U.S. and the broader Western world. If we want to abolish abortion, Christians must never set aside the truth of God, but instead rely on the light of those truths to dispel the darkness of child sacrifice once and for all.

AI Idols Will Make Idiots Of Us All — If We Let Them

We're making utter fools of ourselves while claiming to have reached the apex of wisdom.

The archbishop who drove the gospel out of England



At Arizona State University, where I teach, faculty were recently told to “decolonize our curriculum.” On the surface, the directive sounded progressive: Expose power structures, elevate marginalized voices, and promote inclusion. But a closer look revealed something deeper.

“Decolonization,” as defined by many academic theorists, has less to do with confronting material exploitation and far more to do with dismantling the Christian worldview itself.

Leftists celebrate the new archbishop as a victory for progress. Yet the victory coincides with the collapse of the church that achieved it.

In today’s universities, decolonization has become a framework for deconstructing Western civilization — its moral assumptions, its epistemology, and, most of all, its biblical foundations. The movement borrows heavily from Marxism: Everything becomes a struggle between oppressors and oppressed, and redemption comes not through faith but through revolution.

Christianity has long condemned greed, injustice, and oppression. It calls for compassion, justice, and humility. The biblical ethic already provides a moral standard against exploitation. What “decolonization” targets, then, is not exploitation itself but the very source of the Christian moral order: creation, sin, redemption, and divine authority. Strip those away, and what’s left is a vacuum quickly filled by ideology — Marxism, postmodernism, or nihilism disguised as liberation. Think Antifa in the ivory tower.

The church follows the university

That same dynamic now defines the Church of England. The recent appointment of Sarah Mullally as archbishop of Canterbury — the first woman ever to hold the title — was heralded as a triumph for “equity” and “representation.” Yet the decision has fractured the Anglican Communion. Churches in Africa and the Global South have declared they will no longer recognize Canterbury’s authority.

Their leaders insist the move abandons biblical teaching: The pastoral office, they say, is reserved for men — not as a symbol of domination but as a form of service patterned after the Old Testament priesthood and Christ Himself. Scripture, not patriarchy, defines this calling.

The irony is painful. The very church that once sent missionaries to Africa now lectures African believers on theology — in the name of “decolonization.” British progressives who claim to defend the oppressed now reject the self-governing authority of African churches, imposing instead a white, European moral framework they no longer believe in.

The logic of ‘liberation’

The academic rationale behind this mirrors what I see on campus. In decolonization theory, patriarchy is treated as a system of control, and dismantling it becomes an act of liberation. But the Christian vision of leadership never equated masculinity with power. It defined male pastoral authority as a burden of service, not a privilege.

This distinction matters. In pagan antiquity, priestesses wielded ritual power at Delphi and other shrines, while biblical religion defined priesthood in terms of obedience and sacrifice. Christianity’s inheritance of that pattern was countercultural — not oppressive. To erase that distinction under the banner of equality is to mistake service for subjugation and hierarchy for injustice.

The irony of ‘progress’

Leftists celebrate the new archbishop as a victory for progress. Yet the victory coincides with the collapse of the church that achieved it. Attendance across England has cratered; belief is evaporating. The light they claim to be spreading has gone out.

Meanwhile, Christianity burns brightly in the very regions now scolded for their “backwardness.” African churches remain faithful, growing, and theologically vibrant — a continuity stretching back to Augustine of Hippo, the African theologian whose writings shaped European Christianity for a millennium.

RELATED: The castration of Christendom

Photo by FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP via Getty Images

If decolonization truly sought to redistribute power, it would look to Augustine’s model: a church grounded in scripture, not ideology; global, not provincial; rooted in divine order, not social theory.

The lesson

When my university asks me to “decolonize” my teaching, I ask in return: into what? If the answer is Marx, Freud, or Foucault — the very European thinkers who replaced faith with power analysis — then the process is just another colonization under a different name.

But if the goal is to return to the Bible’s vision of creation, fall, redemption, and service under Christ, then by all means, decolonize. Reclaim what ideology stole. Because the alternative is what we now see in England — a church that traded revelation for relevance and ended up preaching nothing at all.

Christians should take heed: The light leaving Canterbury won’t stay confined to England.

Trump Is Right: Nothing He Does Will Get Him Into Heaven — But Jesus Can

Trump’s confession, however accidental, touches the one truth that no empire can spin: Eternity in heaven or hell is not negotiable.

Why Calling Charlie Kirk A Martyr Matters

Charlie Kirk’s murder was not simply the death of a man, but a spiritual assault in a spiritual war between Good and Evil.

Beware of the sin crouching behind this popular Christian idea



In our modern age — especially within Christian circles that embrace self-awareness and spiritual growth — people often talk about identity in terms of personality types and natural strengths.

Tools like the Enneagram, Myers-Briggs, and StrengthsFinder are often used as mirrors to better understand ourselves and others. I’m a sucker for a good personality test like anyone. Though these frameworks can be enlightening at times, here’s the danger: These tools, as helpful as they may be in their place, can quietly become idols. They can morph into spiritual blinders that reinforce something far more subtly dangerous than we realize — the sin of self-determination.

True freedom isn’t found in finding our perfect role — it’s in letting God define our role entirely.

Let’s be clear: Nowhere in scripture does God say, “Because of your personality type, you get a pass on obedience.” He doesn’t say, “Oh, you’re an Enneagram 5, so it’s fine that you’re emotionally detached,” or, “You’re naturally quiet — don’t worry about speaking the truth or sharing the gospel.”

And yet, how often do we do just that? We spiritualize our preferences and protect our comfort zones, all while whispering to ourselves or boastfully proclaiming to others, “This is just how I am.”

That mindset is a slow poison to surrender. Instead, we should be asking, “How are you shaping and stretching me, God?” When personality profiles become excuses, and natural giftings become the boundary lines of our obedience, we risk falling into the ever-subtle sin of self-determination rather than surrender to God and His calling.

But we must be open-handed to how the Lord wants to use us.

When personality becomes permission & gifting becomes a boundary

The moment personality becomes a shield and natural gifting becomes the edge of our obedience — we’ve stopped following Jesus and started following ourselves. The line is razor-thin, and it’s easy to cross. And when we do, we quietly slip into the belief that we get to define what obedience looks like.

We must resist the lie that God only wants what comes easily. His Spirit is not limited to what we’re “good at.” He doesn’t ask for your comfort — He asks for your "yes." A surrendered, open-handed "yes."

I hear these phrases often:

  • “I’m not a good cook — that’s not my gift.”
  • “I’m not into hosting — it drains me.”
  • “That’s just not my personality.”

But scripture doesn’t ask if hospitality is our thing. It commands us to pursue it. Romans 12:13 says, “Seek to show hospitality.” In John 21, the resurrected Jesus makes breakfast for His disciples. The Son of God washed feet and fed friends. Not because it was His “strength,” but because love serves. These were not “kingly” activities, but the model of Christ crushes our excuses.

If Jesus Himself served others in such a practical, humble way, how much more should we be willing to do the same?

RELATED: The secret to happiness? It's not what you've been sold

Jorisvo/iStock/Getty Images Plus

There are many everyday skills — like cooking, cleaning, and hosting — that may not come naturally to us, but they are often the very means through which we love others well. It’s been said: "Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard.”

God calls us to serve and be uncomfortable by stretching ourselves in areas we’re weak in. In fact, God rarely calls the “qualified” to accomplish His purposes in the Bible or those with natural talents to lead.

Moses, Jeremiah, Gideon, the disciples — all were not technically qualified to do what God called them to, but God chose them to lead because He’s not hamstrung by “natural giftings.” He delights in using weak vessels marked by humility far more than those who believe they’re strong enough and talented enough to do life without Him.

God rarely chooses the 'qualified'

Look at the men and women God uses throughout scripture.

Moses stuttered and protested God’s calling — pointing to his lack of eloquence and confidence. Gideon was timid and afraid — weakest in his family and least in his tribe — yet called to deliver Israel. Jeremiah was “too young” and didn’t know how to speak, but God gave him the words and equipped him. The disciples were unremarkable fishermen, tax collectors, and misfits. Their resumes were unimpressive, but their obedience was history-making.

God delights in using the weak. Why? So no one else gets the glory but God.

In God’s Kingdom, the question isn’t, “What are you naturally good at?” It’s: Are you willing to obey, even when you feel utterly unqualified?

And the truth is: We’re all unqualified — until the Holy Spirit empowers us.

When we rely solely on our strengths, we rob God of the opportunity to showcase His. When we only serve from comfort, we take credit for the fruit. But when we step into weakness, we have to depend on God — and He loves to meet us there.

This pattern is found all throughout the Bible. Jesus didn’t choose disciples based on charisma, influence, or spiritual gifts. Peter was impulsive and brash; Thomas was analytical and skeptical; James and John were ambitious. Yet, Jesus called each to follow, be transformed, and participate in His mission.

The biblical narrative consistently confronts the lie that our natural bent defines our usefulness. In God’s economy, identity is not who we are by default, but who we become through surrender and obedience.

God’s power is made perfect in what we’d rather avoid

Let’s not forget what Paul said: “But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Do you believe that God wants to show His power through your discomfort? That He may intentionally be calling you to that ministry, that task, that person — not because it fits you perfectly, but because it will stretch you deeply?

Spiritual gifts, too, are not about personality. They’re supernatural empowerments from the Spirit for the edification of the church. And often, they come in areas where we feel most ill-equipped. Why? So we’ll never forget that it’s God working through us, not us working for Him.

RELATED: Why 'follow your heart' is terrible advice — and God knew it all along

Arthit_Longwilai/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Just look at Billy Graham. The man who would preach to millions of people around the globe was initially hesitant to speak in public and cut off the very idea of it as an adolescent. He was so uncomfortable as he felt God pushing him to share the gospel through public speaking that he practiced sermons to birds and trees just to gain confidence. But his fear didn’t get the final word — God’s calling did. And because of that surrender, eternity is different for countless souls.

If we only say "yes" to what we like or understand, we miss the miracle of transformation. God's call is not about where we shine most naturally — it’s where He shines most supernaturally. Our weaknesses are not a liability; they're an invitation.

So let’s stop asking, “What do I want to do for God?” and start asking, “God, what do You want to do through me?” Let’s not be closed-fisted with our preferences when God is asking for open hands.

Here are a few practical steps toward true surrender:

  • Pray with a posture of surrender: Don’t just ask for clarity — ask for courage.
  • Use personality tools with humility: They’re descriptive, not prescriptive.
  • Get around people who challenge your comfort: Don’t just look for affirmation — pursue sharpening.
  • Step into discomfort as a form of worship: Obedience is often inconvenient — and that’s the point.

True freedom isn’t found in finding our perfect role — it’s in letting God define our role entirely.

There is no “personality pass” in God’s Kingdom — only the call to be conformed to the image of Christ. That means surrender. That means obedience. That means going where we’d rather not go and doing what we’d rather not do — because He is worthy.

We were not made to serve from comfort. We were not saved to play it safe. We were called, chosen, and commissioned to live a life that displays the glory of a God who works powerfully through surrendered weakness.

Let’s stop limiting God to our giftings. Let’s start asking Him to do what only He can do — in us, through us, and in spite of us.