Category: Blaze Media
Protestant pastor says polygamy is biblical: ‘He divinely ordained it’
A protestant pastor is not backing down from his claim that he can have multiple wives.
Rich Tidwell, a pastor in Canton, Missouri, has sparked an online debate about the acceptance of polygamy in Christianity and whether or not it is biblically justifiable.
‘I have two beautiful wives.’
To the expected amount of backlash, Tidwell recently made an announcement on his Instagram page that his second wife is expecting his eighth child.
“I have two beautiful wives,” Tidwell wrote in a long entry. “We’re thrilled for what the Lord has done for our family,” he added, citing Bible passage Luke 18:29.
The pastor wrote about his justifications in an article called “Plural marriage,” labeling the practice as polygyny, which refers to one man being married to multiple women.
“In 2019, I discovered the surprising fact that God not only never prohibited polygyny throughout the entire biblical narrative (as He did with polyandry or homosexuality), He divinely ordained it in several cases,” Tidwell claimed.
He then cited more passages.
RELATED: Church-hopping: Confessions of an itinerant worshipper
Exodus 21:10 regulates but does not prohibit the practice, Tidwell claimed, when it says, “If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights.”
Tidwell also noted 2 Chronicles 24:2-3, which mentions that “Jehoiada took two wives for him, and he became the father of sons and daughters,” as well as 2 Samuel 12:7-8:
This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: “I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you all Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more.”
The pastor continued with more citations and said that if God explicitly gave men more than one wife at any time in history, “Then it was not and is not sin.”
For those who argued that polygyny is not the original design for mankind, Tidwell countered, “Neither is death, nor clothing, nor eating meat.”
RELATED: This crisis in churches is real. Will Christians fight back?
In an article titled “Should polygamist families be welcome at church?” Tidwell shared a letter he wrote to an Anglican church in Missouri requesting to attend its worship services; he was soundly denied.
A priest replied, saying the bishop, clergy, and parish council “unanimously decided against” the family’s participation.
“On multiple levels, polygamy is forbidden in our convictions, interpretation of Scripture, and the Canons and Constitution of the [Anglican Church of North America],” the unknown representative wrote, citing the following: “Canon II.7: Of Christian Marriage, which defines marriage as a lifelong union of one man and one woman.”
“These convictions are non-negotiable,” the letter said. “If you ever repent and become functionally and theologically monogamous, you are welcome to participate.”
Tidwell is a pastor at the nondenominational Ormond Church in Canton, Missouri, according to Protestia.
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ESPN’s empire is crumbling — and Netflix and Amazon are ‘ready to pounce’
ESPN’s reign as the king of sports media may be nearing its end.
BlazeTV contributor Paul Burkhardt is among those who believe this to be true, explaining that the network is “very vulnerable” as competitors like Netflix and Amazon prepare to make a “power play” that could permanently reshape the sports broadcasting landscape.
“I don’t think a lot of people are realizing — and I’ve been on this and been studying this now for probably about a year and a half — I believe ESPN is very vulnerable right now,” Burkhardt tells BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock and the rest of the panel on “Fearless.”
“And it’s the worst time for this to happen, because I think Netflix and Amazon are in a position to make the ultimate power play over the next, say, two to five years. They’ve already started to dabble into the games. They already have the leagues with them to some varying degree,” he continues.
“I think there’s a takedown about ready to happen, and I’m in line to watch it,” he adds.
Burkhardt believes that “Netflix and Amazon are ready to pounce.”
“I think that ESPN could be drunk on its success. ESPN has always had an overinflated sense of itself, particularly the on-air talent, because ESPN had such a monopoly on sports coverage that anybody you put on there was going to have the feeling of having a following,” Whitlock agrees.
“I don’t think Stephen A. Smith has a sincere following. I think he’s been forced down our throats on ESPN, but no one thinks Stephen A. Smith is talented. No one thinks he’s that informed or that insightful about sports,” he continues.
“It’s kind of reflective of the whole mentality of Hollywood and the leftist deal. … If they decide this person’s important; if they want to put Joe Biden in as president even though he’s half dead; if they decide, ‘Hey, no one likes Hillary Clinton, but we’re going to run her for president,’” he adds.
Want more from Jason Whitlock?
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Washington’s priorities are backward — and veterans know it
When Washington shuts down, it doesn’t just stall politics — it shakes the lives of America’s veterans. At the outset of the government shutdown last month, a veteran named James called VetComm in tears. His question was simple but heartbreaking: “Will I still get paid next week? Because I can’t afford groceries if I don’t.”
James served his country with honor. Yet he worried about feeding his family because Democrats in Washington insist on prioritizing illegal immigrants over the very men and women who defended this nation.
Enough is enough. Stop putting illegal immigrants ahead of the heroes who built and defended this country.
I’ve dedicated my life to fighting for veterans like James — those who bled for this country, only to watch so-called representatives in Washington bend over backward for people who entered it illegally. With this latest government shutdown, Democrats have again slammed the door on veterans while rolling out the red carpet for illegal aliens.
A manufactured crisis
For over a month, Democrats held the entire nation hostage, demanding a $1.5 trillion, poison-pill-stuffed funding bill that includes “free health care” for illegal aliens while programs for veterans teeter on the brink. It’s not just reckless — it’s cruel. These are the same priorities that helped drive a 19% spike in veteran homelessness while illegal migrants got luxury hotel rooms on the taxpayer’s dime.
As the shutdown ends, the facts are clear. The House passed a clean continuing resolution to keep the lights on, maintain VA funding, and avoid chaos. But Senate Democrats — led by Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York — rejected it, choosing to plunge the country into an unnecessary shutdown to appease their left-wing base.
The Democrats’ alternative was loaded with giveaways: subsidies for illegal immigrants’ doctor visits, hospital stays, and “health care rights,” while hundreds of thousands of veterans remain stuck on VA wait lists — some dying before they’re seen.
Staggering hypocrisy
Schumer once said avoiding a shutdown “is very good news for the country, for our veterans … all of whom would have felt the sting.” More recently, he warned that “a shutdown would mean chaos and pain and needless heartache for the American people.”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez declared, “It is not normal to shut down the government when we don’t get what we want.” Jeffries said shutdowns are “about the harm.”
Those very same politicians ended up leading one — weaponizing activist wish lists and pet projects against the GOP and the nation.
RELATED: Disabled vets denied dignity as VA claim backlog becomes unbearable
Johnrob via iStock/Getty Images
This pattern of betrayal isn’t new. Under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the VA was caught reimbursing health care for illegal immigrants and their families, draining resources from veterans. I’ve seen it firsthand in San Diego — hotels packed with migrants while homeless veterans sleep on sidewalks, dodging needles and despair.
Over 10 million illegal crossings have occurred under the Biden administration’s watch. The result: big money for migrants, broken promises for veterans. The audacity to continue putting invaders ahead of patriots is shocking — and unforgivable.
The real human cost
Everyone knows a shutdown hurts troops, veterans, and families. Yet Democrats embraced it anyway, in service to radical ideology over national duty. Americans overwhelmingly oppose this madness.
Enough is enough. Stop putting illegal immigrants ahead of the heroes who built and defended this country. It’s time to restore sanity and start prioritizing America again.
At VetComm, we see the toll every day. The sleepless nights. The panic over missed paychecks. The spiraling PTSD and anxiety triggered by uncertainty. Veterans have already given everything; they shouldn’t have to fight their own government for stability and dignity.
Our mission is simple: Stand in the gap for those who stood for us. We help veterans understand their rights, claim the benefits they earned, and remember that their service still matters. A shutdown tests that mission — but it also steels our resolve.
Because while Washington bickers, we will keep fighting for every veteran, every day, not just Veterans Day.
‘Begin repatriating’: German chancellor admits it’s time to give Syrian migrants the boot
The Alternative for Germany party has spent over a decade sounding the alarm about the fallout of mass migration in Europe. For its efforts, the German political establishment has sought to ban, vilify, disarm, debank, and criminalize the party and its members.
Now that imported crime has become too much to bear — such that Berlin is once again a dangerous place for Jews and homosexuals — and the AFD has become too popular to ignore, a leading German official has joined the chorus of those seeking to repatriate so-called asylum seekers from Syria.
‘41.8% of all people suspected of crimes in Germany last year — a year that saw a nearly 6% increase in year-over-year violent crimes — were foreign nationals.’
Chancellor Friedrich Merz — whose center-right coalition consisting of the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union parties is neck and neck in the polls with the AFD — struck a new tone last week, suggesting that the bulk of the over one million Syrians who flooded into the country over the past decade should hit the road.
Merz suggested further that he’ll work with Syria’s terrorist president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, to help facilitate the return, reported Politico.
“The civil war in Syria is over,” said Merz. “There are now no longer any grounds for asylum in Germany, which means we can begin repatriating people.”
The chancellor noted further that the Syrians temporarily dwelling in Europe have a responsibility to rebuild their war-torn nation.
“Without these people, reconstruction will not be possible,” said Merz. “Those in Germany who then refuse to return to the country can, of course, be deported in the near future.”
Photo by Wagner Meier/Getty Images
Marc Bernhard, an AFD lawmaker, recently told PBS’ “Frontline” that of the 1 to 1.2 million Syrians now in Germany, “Most of them don’t have jobs. Most of them are not well integrated. That’s exactly the issue.”
Fewer than 290,000 Syrian nationals were reportedly employed in Germany last year.
So-called asylum seekers from Syria receive over $500 a month under the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act as well as other benefits, including housing support, dental care, and health insurance.
‘These people must return to their homeland.’
In addition to draining citizen resources, Syrians in Germany are also grossly over-represented in crime statistics.
Mass migration to Germany from the Middle East has coincided in recent years with a massive spike in rape and other violent crimes.
A government-commissioned study revealed in early 2018 that there was a 10.4% increase in violent crime at the height of the immigration crisis. Deutsche Welle reported that 90% of this violent crime increase was attributable to immigrants, predominantly males between the ages of 14 and 30.
Foreign nationals have continued to commit an alarming number of crimes in the years since. Federal police crime statistics indicate that 41.8% of all people suspected of crimes in Germany last year — a year that saw a nearly 6% increase in year-over-year violent crimes — were foreign nationals.
The top five nationalities of non-German suspects in 2024 were: Syrian, 114,889 suspects; Turkish, 93,253 suspects; Ukrainian, 55,669 suspects; Romanian, 65,041 suspects; and Afghani, 49,427 suspects.
The imported crime problem became so bad last year that Olaf Scholz, the former German chancellor who long championed predecessor Angela Merkel’s open-borders policies, acknowledged that criminal noncitizens should be deported.
Speaking a month after an Afghan migrant butchered a police officer at an anti-jihad demonstration in Mannheim, Germany, Scholz said, “It outrages me when someone who has found protection here commits the most serious of crimes.”
“Such criminals should be deported, even if they come from Syria or Afghanistan,” added Scholz.
Just weeks after Scholz dared upset the open-borders leftists in the Bundestag, a 26-year-old Syrian migrant butchered three people — two men ages 56 and 67 and a 56-year-old woman — and left another six grievously wounded at a Christian music festival in Solingen.
The situation has deteriorated further in the months since, prompting Scholz’s successor and other German establishmentarians to echo the AFD’s calls for action; however, they appear unwilling to fully embrace mass deportations. Instead, they are reportedly entertaining the prospect of deportation of criminal Syrian nationals.
Merz indicated last week that he would speak to al-Sharaa about deporting Syrians convicted of crimes back to their homeland.
The AFD clearly isn’t interested in such half-measures.
“We say quite clearly: Syrians must now have their protected status revoked because the reason for their fleeing no longer applies,” AFD co-leader Alice Weidel said two days after German authorities arrested a Syrian man suspected of preparing a jihadist attack in Berlin. “These people must return to their homeland.”
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Lowering the bar doesn’t lift women up
For years, Americans have been told a comforting lie: Anyone can do anything, be anything, and succeed at anything, regardless of limits or differences. But ideological fantasies collapse on the battlefield, where physics, endurance, and human limits matter more than slogans.
After years of social experimentation, the military is rediscovering a basic truth: Equality of opportunity makes the force stronger, while equality of outcome weakens it. The return to gender-neutral standards announced last month by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth marks a long-overdue step toward restoring merit, discipline, and respect across the ranks.
Pretending that men and women have identical physical capabilities doesn’t empower women; it endangers them.
For most of our history, the armed forces held one clear principle: Anyone, male or female, could serve in any position if they met the same standard. The promise was simple and fair — the uniform didn’t care about sex or gender, only performance.
That began to change in 2015, when the Army opened all-male combat units to women. At the time, the Pentagon promised no dilution of standards. But in 2018, when the new gender-neutral Army Combat Fitness Test was introduced, 84% of female soldiers failed. Instead of maintaining expectations, the Army rewrote them.
By 2022, the ACFT 4.0 came with gender-based scoring — a quiet admission that standards had become negotiable. The result: Combat units staffed with soldiers unable to meet the physical requirements of their jobs. That puts missions, morale, and lives at risk.
Worse, it undermines respect for women who do meet the standard. When the bar moves, doubt replaces trust. Hardworking female soldiers — the ones who earned their places — are forced to prove themselves twice: once in training and again in the eyes of their peers.
Diversity by design, weakness by consequence
In 2021, U.S. Special Operations Command declared that “diversity is an operational imperative.” But this new “imperative” wasn’t about the real diversity already found across the military — people from every background, race, and income level serving side by side. It was about engineering statistical parity, even in elite combat units where performance alone must decide who stays and who goes.
That mindset has consequences. Combat units can’t afford ideological experiments. The job is to close with and destroy the enemy — not to serve as laboratories for social theory. Lowering standards in the name of inclusion doesn’t just weaken readiness; it puts soldiers in unnecessary danger.
And no woman who trains to fight wants pity disguised as progress. The women who seek out elite units don’t ask for special treatment — they ask for the same chance to prove themselves by the same rules. When standards drop, those women lose too.
Strength in truth
Gender-neutral standards don’t discriminate. They recognize that men and women are different and that most people — men included — simply can’t meet the demands of combat. That’s not “oppression.” It’s just reality.
Women who pass those standards have demonstrated extraordinary strength, skill, and resolve. They deserve admiration, not suspicion. And those who don’t — along with the vast majority of men who don’t — can still serve honorably in the hundreds of vital roles that keep America’s military functioning.
RELATED: How America lost its warrior spirit when it feminized its academies
Photo by Kevin Carter
A sex-neutral standard is an act of fairness, not exclusion. It’s a recognition that excellence demands truth, not ideology — that merit, not identity, keeps soldiers alive and wins wars.
Restoring purpose
The military’s duty is national defense, not social engineering. Pretending that men and women have identical physical capabilities doesn’t empower women; it endangers them.
Reaffirming one standard for all isn’t an attack on women — it’s a defense of every soldier’s dignity. It calls each person to rise to the challenge, to serve according to one’s God-given abilities, and to be judged by results.
If we want a stronger force — and a stronger nation — we must stop confusing fairness with fantasy. Let’s demand standards worthy of the uniform, and let every soldier, male or female, earn respect the same way: by meeting them.
The H-1B system is broken. Here’s how to fix it.
Imagine spending four years studying to become an engineer or computer scientist, believing a STEM degree would guarantee success, only to graduate jobless.
That isn’t a hypothetical. It’s the reality facing thousands of young Americans. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, graduates in physics, computer engineering, and computer science now face some of the highest unemployment rates of any field.
American workers have lost out on jobs given to visa holders and have been forced to work for lower wages, creating a race to the bottom for companies to treat workers as widgets.
America’s flawed H-1B visa system is a major reason why. Established under the Immigration Act of 1990, the H-1B program was intended to let companies hire exceptional foreign specialists only when no qualified Americans were available.
It no longer serves that purpose. Today the H-1B has become the nation’s largest temporary work visa program, with nearly 600,000 foreign workers and 50,000 participating companies. In 2022, the 30 biggest H-1B employers hired more than 34,000 new visa workers while cutting roughly 85,000 existing jobs.
Companies claim they can’t find American STEM talent, yet the numbers tell a different story. In 2023, roughly 134,000 Americans and green card holders earned computer science degrees. That same year, the federal government issued work permits to 110,000 foreign guest workers in computer-related jobs.
In some STEM fields, up to half of new American graduates can’t find work. Tens of thousands of qualified workers remain unemployed while their government floods the market with cheaper, compliant labor.
How companies game the system
The law requires H-1B workers to be paid the same as Americans, but reality tells another story. In 2019, 60% of H-1B positions paid below the median wage for comparable U.S. workers. The visa lottery treats low-paying jobs and high-paying jobs the same, incentivizing companies to pursue cheap labor.
Even the statutory cap on H-1B visas doesn’t stop abuse. A loophole known as Optional Practical Training lets foreign students work in the United States for up to a year after graduation, or three years if they hold a STEM degree.
OPT isn’t authorized by law. It has no cap, no wage floor, and no accountability. Worse, it acts as a corporate subsidy because employers don’t pay payroll taxes on any of the half million foreign workers now in the country under this program.
Time for a real fix
Even the architects of the H-1B system admit it’s broken. Former Connecticut Rep. Bruce Morrison, a Democrat who helped design the visa in 1990, told “60 Minutes” in 2017 that “the H-1B has been hijacked as the main highway to bring people from abroad and displace Americans.”
To build on that effort, I’ve reintroduced the American Tech Workforce Act, which attacks the problem on three fronts.
RELATED: Trump admin announces major H-1B visa abuse investigation, but critics want more
Photo by Andrew Harnik / Contributor via Getty Images
First, it raises the wage floor. Companies that truly need foreign specialists should pay them the same as top American workers, ending the incentive to undercut domestic wages.
Second, it closes the OPT loophole. Foreign students shouldn’t have a back door to replace American graduates. The jobs belong to the people who earned them here.
Finally, my bill would shut down staffing scams. Third-party agencies flood the H-1B lottery with low-quality applications to drive down wages. My bill blocks those schemes and creates a true marketplace where visas go to the highest bidders — boosting both fairness and economic value.
According to the Institute for Progress, these reforms would strengthen the economy by $1.1 trillion over the next decade.
Putting Americans first
The current system rewards corporate exploitation and punishes American ambition. Workers lose jobs, wages stagnate, and graduates who followed every rule are told to wait in line behind foreign contractors. Discrimination based on national origin is already illegal, yet Washington’s visa policies effectively endorse it.
President Trump’s executive order, combined with the American Tech Workforce Act, offers a rare opportunity to restore sanity to the system. We can defend innovation while defending American workers — the people who built this country and still drive its future.
The next generation deserves more than broken promises and outsourced dreams. They deserve a fair shot to work, build, and thrive in the nation they call home.
Church-hopping: Confessions of an itinerant worshipper
I have been church-hopping since the summer of 2020. This means that a lot of “concerned evangelicals” have felt justified in asking, “What are you searching for?”
That first summer, I claimed to be searching for holy ground. However, I already knew that this was wherever a saint steps — wherever God speaks to us and we listen in prayer.
We had spent a wonderful evening with an elderly Latter-day Saints couple who found us hitchhiking, then brought us home to ‘show us some literature.’
I have never been searching for anything as much as I have been interested to see what it is that others claim to have found. It thrills me to see that it is all pretty much the same, in minor degrees. Some pastors are more boring than others. Everyone makes claims about the “other” churches in town. Everyone has their rituals, their deeds, the words that are not works. And very few are curious about the others.
“Seek and ye shall find,” they murmur among themselves in the territory of their home church, patting one another on the back because they somehow found truth without seeking it. Why aren’t the others seeking it? They’d be here among them if they sought — if they loved the truth as they loved the Bible.
Not all. Only the majority. Maybe not even that many — only a few loud ones.
I, too, among them, also vocal, a little charismatic, a little opinionated, forgetting what it means to seek before you find.
The world is not our home
Now I have dragged my husband in on the game of flirting with the appearance of universalism. And yet we are no more universalist than Paul or St. Francis of Assisi or C.S. Lewis. We are curious, alive, and nonplussed by the promissory comforts of the world. This world is not our home, and neither is a single building.
And yet, if you seek, ye shall find. It matters not that my intentions were no different from those of an atheist — to attend, to observe, to write. I am relating to the woman at the front of the church who is not Catholic but is hired to sign the sermon and songs for the deaf attendees, thus hearing every word of the priest and chorus more thoroughly than any of the parishioners and finding that her job has morphed into a spiritual awakening.
I am finding community, kindred spirits, truth outside my understanding of it, and a narrow path. I am becoming less curious as a larger passion consumes my heart and soul.
We intended to attend Mass while on our honeymoon — something difficult to do when you have no agency over where you will be day to day, as hitchhikers reliant upon the goodwill of strangers and public transit. We joked about putting up a cardboard sign, our thumbs in the air, “TAKE US TO CHURCH.” Maybe someday.
Instead we went where we could.
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A.M. Hickman
A church for widows
The first place was an Anglican church in Newfoundland that seemed to be run by little old ladies — 30 of them, to be precise, scattered in the pews, in the choir, and at the altar. There were only five men, all of them seated. This did not bode well, we thought.
But it was truly a church for widows, a church that was doing its very best to remain active, putting on plays and picnics even though there were no young people or children. The Spirit was there with those little old ladies. It was comforting them, pushing them forward even though they had lost much. It was reminding them of all that awaited them in paradise. And they were ready.
They gave us cookies and greeted us with forgetful, motherly smiles, as if we were not mere strangers but apparitions of heavenly promises. We were their reminder to keep hoping, and they were our nudge toward charity. We sat, we witnessed, and we listened.
Seventh-day supper
After that we found different Catholic churches to pray in, which somehow always seemed to be far away when Sunday came around. There was a large one — a shrine — on the border of Quebec, Labrador, and Newfoundland, then another a little farther into Quebec, in an Inuit village. This one hearkened to the traditions of these people, too. How beautiful, I remember thinking, the way the Church uses each people’s specific culture and history to express the truth.
Then we walked by a window that sported “Seventh-day Adventist” in a French-Canadian Maine town. It was a Thursday, and we had already determined to stay in town for a French-Acadian Mass on Sunday.
“Let’s go there,” I told my husband. “It might be a little frustrating, but it’ll be a good experience for you.”
He agreed, and so we brought ourselves and our backpacks there Saturday morning. The church was new — it looked more like a Main Street business because of its location and the large windows. There were only six or so people inside.
“Can we join you all?” I asked. “No, I am not Seventh-day Adventist, but I’ve attended many services because my family keeps Sabbath on Saturday.”
We put our bags in front of a pile of unopened boxes of “The Great Controversy,” and they handed us a booklet on Romans and two pens. The room was ugly, like a warehouse, except for the lace curtains in the windows.
For the next two hours, we “studied the Bible,” mostly discussing how wonderful Jesus is and what it means to pray — how often we should pray and what makes prayer sincere — and how all Protestant churches are basically Catholic because they acknowledge the authority of Rome and the pope to change the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday.
The church service was bland, hard to follow. I tatted a lace bookmark to try to keep awake. The speaker was likeable, but he droned on about a Bible story, not really recounting it accurately. I don’t think that was the point of his speaking, though — they were simply allowing him a moment to speak, because he was a man and the church had few members and needed participation from everyone in order to keep the spirit alive.
They did not give us cookies, but something better — a meal of various bean and rice dishes. There was fresh homemade hummus, too.
Nine out of Ten
As we ate, everyone continued to ramble on about how awful it was that other churches didn’t care to follow all of the Ten Commandments.
“Evangelicals want the Ten Commandments in schools, and yet they do not want them in their churches.”
“If children came home from school and refused to do their homework on Saturday, most Christian parents would not be happy.”
“There’s a church in town that has the Ten Commandments hanging on the outside of their building,” the pastor began.
So I talked to them about it and asked them why they don’t care about the fourth commandment. Oh, boy! The pastor said he’d get back to me, and let me tell you, oh boy, oh boy, that he finally decided that he could piecemeal a bunch of verses today and how he thinks he can prove that Jesus wants us to keep all the commandments now except that one.
That night the pastor let us stay in his house, and as he showed us all his proof for Saturday Sabbath and how the Catholic Church has duped nearly all mainstream churches, Andy finally confessed, “I am a Roman Catholic, and I believe the Church had the authority to change the Sabbath to distinguish us from the Jewish faith.”
The man started. Then he said, “Well, I think Jesus will save Catholics, too, even though they are only keeping nine of 10 of God’s commandments. But they will be judged for disregarding the Sabbath Day.”
We were friends now.
Answered prayers
In the middle of Maine, we attended one other church. All the days leading up to it were edifying. We had spent a wonderful evening with an elderly Latter-day Saints couple who found us hitchhiking, then brought us home to “show us some literature.” It was not the “Book of Mormon.” They handed us a glass of orange juice and a box of raisins and played old 1960s and 1970s love songs for us, then told us their love story — of how they had a temple wedding in Switzerland; of their 14 children, 88 grandchildren, and 17 great-grandchildren.
After we played a game of cards, they brought us to our destination, where we stayed with a Quaker-esque hippie Christian family. This family brought us to their church the next day.
It was as if God was answering our longing for Mass. Although the church was small and non-denominational, it felt how an early church might feel or how a Catholic service might feel if it were in someone’s home. They prayed and sang some of the songs you’d hear in a Catholic church, along with songs from an Assemblies of God or Baptist-type non-denominational church. They said the Apostles’ Creed together and took communion as a Catholic church does, with everyone coming up front and receiving it in long lines from the pastor.
The sermon was sound — like a homily — and did not feel as scattered with pieces of scripture as many non-denominational church services are. We were spellbound. If it weren’t for how modern everyone seemed to be dressed, I would have thought we had been transported to an era before the Reformation.
Shared roots
After it was over, I asked the pastor if their church had any Catholic influence.
He laughed and said no, that if there were ex-Catholic members, they would probably oppose these traditional Orthodox inclusions. No, these were things he had included because from his studies and experiences, he had come to believe that there was a lot that Protestantism lost when it spurned tradition and ritualism, and he was slowly trying to incorporate it back into church. “It’s in our roots, too.”
I talked to his wife and told her about my Living Room Academy (she had heard of it) and how it was partially inspired by my travels in woke circles when I realized that many lesbians and liberal women were doing a better job of being women and passing on beauty and skills than Christian women. Her eyes opened wide. “You’re right.” I’ve heard that since we left, she has decided to open her own iteration of the Living Room Academy for the girls in their church.
What I loved about their church was that they didn’t seem to be stuck in their bubble. Their church wasn’t really their “home” as much as it was them trying to find out what home means by looking to the past and looking to paradise. They seem to be doing a very good job at making it work — their church was filled with children, happy-looking teenagers, and a diversity of fashion from very beautiful dresses to jeans with frilly purses. There seemed to be room for expression of faith.
Coming home
After that we finally made it to a Mass in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. And I must admit, it kind of felt like coming home.
I hadn’t realized how much I had come to love attending Catholic churches with my husband. There are still many questions I have had to sort through about the Church and whether or not I can in good conscience submit myself to its authority. However, being there, surrounded by the beauty of the type that God requested when He detailed the temple He wanted from the Jews, feels like being at home … in paradise.
Everything else feels so earth-like, so business-minded and corporate and mechanical. Even though the “music” of mainstream churches claims to have more life in the show, there’s nothing quite like the chorus in a cathedral. And while you might get a good sermon in a Protestant church, you’re not going to hear near as much scripture read as is read at Mass.
Most Protestants would complain if they had to sit through half of what is read — they want a Bible verse that corroborates a sermon. Meanwhile, you might get about 15 minutes of rich preaching at a Mass — the rest is pure scripture.
It’s almost a hobby now — I will certainly never stop church-hopping, comparing and pondering. I want our children to have these experiences. So many wonderful conversations have sprung up between my husband and me because of these visits, and we are finding ourselves growing more spiritually aligned because of it.
And so I will continue to exhort anyone of any faith: Visit the churches around you, no matter their denomination. Every church has something to offer you and will give you an opportunity to practice humility and charity.
Editor’s note: A version of this essay earlier appeared on the Polite Company Substack.
The SECRET every young man NEEDS to hear
Young men are inheriting a spiritually starving society, where they’re being sold a future of cheap pleasures, hollow heroes, and never-ending screen time.
It’s a lot of noise, and it will rob the youth of all purpose.
But Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck has some advice.
“If there is anything virtuous, lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy, seek those things. Don’t admire them. Don’t nod at them. Seek them. Hunt them. Chase them. Build your life around those things,” Glenn explains.
“A man who will do that, a boy, a young man who will do that, will become different, noticeably different. He will stop letting the culture feed him garbage. He stops applauding the trivial. He stops laughing at the obscene or cheering for the cruel. He will become a curator of real, lasting beauty in an age that has forgotten what beauty even looks like.”
“When other men are chasing down or holding up cynicism, this man holds up hope. When everyone around him is chasing dopamine, he chooses discipline. When others will blame their circumstance, he’ll take responsibility for his own action. When the world worships the shallow, he goes and searches for the deep.”
“You become what you seek. If you seek trash, you become trash. You seek virtue, you become a man of virtue. You seek excellence, and your life will begin to shine, not loudly, but steadily like the steel glow of a blade being forged.”
The world, Glenn says, already has a never-ending supply of “angry,” “addicted,” and “distracted” boys.
What it needs now, he explains, are men.
“Whole men. Clear-eyed men. Men whose souls are anchored to something higher than the algorithms trying to own them,” he says. “Build a life worthy of admiration. Forget about the applause. Fill your mind with words that make you wiser.”
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You can’t follow Jesus and despise the people who brought us Jesus
America suffers from more than political unrest. We are in a spiritual drought — a values famine so deep that even the conservative movement, once grounded in virtue, now splinters under the weight of ego and bitterness. Too many voices compete for authority on the right, but too few echo the one voice that matters: God’s.
This isn’t about pundits or personalities. It’s about the soul of our movement and the substance of our faith. Somewhere along the way, many conservatives forgot a truth written plainly in Scripture: It is Christian to love and support the Jewish people.
If we can’t love our spiritual cousins — the people through whom our faith was born — what are we even defending? What good is a ‘Christian’ movement that forgets the Christian part?
When Jesus was asked which commandment was greatest, He didn’t hedge: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37–40).
Two commandments. No asterisks, no exemptions for those who worship differently or descend from another people. Jesus didn’t love selectively. He loved sacrificially.
The roots of the faith — and the movement
Conservatism, at its best, has always drawn strength from virtue — faith, family, freedom, and responsibility. Yet we’re watching parts of the movement trade virtue for venom. Courage has been confused with cruelty, boldness with bitterness, and orthodoxy with outrage.
That confusion has allowed an old poison to re-emerge: open hostility toward Jews and Israel. It comes disguised in respectable terms like “nationalism,” “authentic Christianity,” or “anti-globalism.” But strip away the labels and you find something that bears no resemblance to Christ.
Scripture leaves no doubt: “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse” (Genesis 12:3). That was God’s covenant with Abraham — the father of Israel and of faith itself. You cannot claim to follow the God of Abraham while despising Abraham’s descendants.
Christian Zionism isn’t a modern political fad. It’s the natural outflow of biblical belief. The early church didn’t view itself apart from Israel; it saw itself grafted into the same vine. “Do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches,” Paul wrote. “If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you” (Romans 11:18).
Jesus was born a Jew, lived as a Jew, and died under a sign that read “King of the Jews.” The apostles were Jewish. The first believers were Jewish. The Old Testament — the foundation of Christian morality — was written by Jews. To despise the Jewish people is to despise the very tree that bore the Savior.
Love commands courage
Christ’s command in John 13:34 is unmistakable: “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” If we can’t love our spiritual cousins — the people through whom our faith was born — what are we even defending? What good is a “Christian” movement that forgets the Christian part?
The world starves for grace. Our culture feasts on outrage, cynicism, and suspicion. The church’s mission — and the conservative movement’s moral responsibility — is not to mirror that chaos but to model something better.
We talk about “saving America,” but no nation can be saved if it forgets how to love its neighbor. America’s founders drew moral strength from Scripture because they understood that the deepest revolutions begin not in politics but in the human heart.
Jesus didn’t build walls between people — He built bridges to their hearts. He dined with tax collectors, healed Roman soldiers, and forgave His executioners. He chose compassion over contempt.
When He met the Samaritan woman at the well, He didn’t belittle her faith — He offered her living water. When Christ told the parable of the Good Samaritan, He made the hero an outsider despised by His own people. Love, He showed us, knows no boundary.
If Jesus could forgive the people who nailed Him to a cross, surely we can love the people through whom God gave us His Son.
Truth without love is just noise
Love does not mean silence. The same Jesus who preached mercy also overturned the tables of corruption. Scripture commands believers to “have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them” (Ephesians 5:11).
Today a dangerous strain cloaks hatred in holiness. It mistakes cruelty for conviction and turns “truth-telling” into a license to dehumanize. But righteousness without love is rebellion, not faith.
Standing against that spirit isn’t weakness. It’s obedience. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for pride and hypocrisy, warning that “many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord,’ … Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you’” (Matthew 7:22–23). Faith without love is empty. Theology without mercy is just noise.
A call back to first principles
We are not only in a culture war; we are in a crisis of the soul. Civility has been replaced by performance. Grace by grudges. Authenticity by algorithms. Too many of our debates aim to win arguments rather than save souls.
Differences are inevitable. Divisions are a choice. We can disagree passionately and still love deeply. That is the mark of maturity — and the essence of Christianity. “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?” Jesus asked in Matthew 5:46. Real love begins where comfort ends.
RELATED: This crisis in churches is real. Will Christians fight back?
Photo by John Greim/Contributor via Getty Images
The conservative movement must decide: Will we reflect Christ or merely invoke His name when it’s convenient? Will we unite around truth or fracture around pride? Anti-Jewish rhetoric isn’t just politically foolish — it’s spiritually corrosive.
It isn’t “based.” It’s blasphemous.
Winston Churchill once said, “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” What we need now are not louder voices but larger hearts. Not more outrage, but more grace. Not more warriors in the comments section, but more witnesses in the world.
It’s time to return to first principles: Love God. Love your neighbor. Those two commandments are enough to heal a movement — and maybe even a nation.
The next time someone claims to speak for Christianity while spewing hate, open your Bible. The truth is written in red.
Jesus didn’t call us to divide. He called us to love. And love, real love, always points back to the cross — and to the people through whom God brought the Savior of the world.
Jimmy Kimmel’s wife has cut off family members over Trump: ‘We’re not aligned anymore’
The public feud between the president of the United States and late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel led to Kimmel’s wife distancing from pro-Trump family members.
Molly McNearney is a writer on the show and is Kimmel’s wife. She made the comments while a guest on the “We Can Do Hard Things” podcast.
‘It hurts me so much because of the personal relationship I now have where my husband is out there fighting this man.’
McNearney said that she felt family members who supported Trump were a personal insult to her.
“I personalize everything now. When I see these terrible stories every day, I’m immediately mad at certain aunts, uncles, cousins who put him in power. And it’s really hard,” she said.
She also said she had “sympathy” for relatives who are “deliberately being misinformed every day,” but added that “it hurts me so much because of the personal relationship I now have where my husband is out there fighting this man.”
McNearney said she had tried to persuade her relatives against voting for Trump.
“I’ve definitely pulled in closer with the family that I feel more aligned with. And I hate that this has happened,” she said.
“Part of me goes, ‘Don’t let politics get in the way.’ But to me, this isn’t politics. It’s truly values. And we just were not aligned anymore,” she continued.
She added, “To me, them voting for Trump is them not voting for my husband and me and our family.”
RELATED: Warren faces continuing backlash over outlandish response to Kimmel controversy
She also recalled the moment she and her husband went home to tell their children that Kimmel’s show had been canceled.
“Our daughter immediately burst into tears. And she said, ‘I’ll sell my Labubus,'” McNearney recalled.
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