This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
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Catholicism is having a moment, and now the church is getting even more good press.
On Saturday, beauty brand founder Scott-Vincent Borba, 52, will give up his former life of fame and fortune to begin life as an ordained Catholic priest in his hometown of Visalia, California. 
&#8220;I have never been happier in my life,&#8221; Borba <a href="https://abc7news.com/post/former-elf-beauty-founder-scott-vincent-borba-preparing-become-catholic-priest/19083729/">told</a> ABC 7 of his massive life change. &#8220;Once I started to reorient myself, recalibrate myself with God&#8217;s help to the focus to Him, the joy started coming.&#8221;
Borba co-founded the makeup brand e.l.f. Cosmetics (“eyes, lips, face”) in 2004 with Joseph Shamah. The brand became a huge success in the mid-2010s thanks to clever marketing campaigns and affordable prices. Per <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2026/02/22/management-without-managers-elfs-influencer-driven-beauty-revolution/">Forbes</a>, it reached $100 million in sales in 2014, and Borba was living a lifestyle to match his newfound success.
&#8220;We ran around with the likes of Paris Hilton and partying with Kardashians and just doing up the Hollywood life,&#8221; the brand founder told ABC 7. &#8220;I was a poster boy for luxury living. I was not in any which way humble. I was very prideful,&#8221; he added.
&#8220;I was vapid. I had a perverse life,&#8221; Borba <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moo80FP9M_Q">told</a> CBS 47 during another interview. &#8220;I went to L.A., I got sucked into the Hollywood lifestyle — it was almost to a point where I was trying to sell my soul, right, for all of the riches of the world, which is not what we&#8217;re supposed to be … I was living for myself.&#8221;
Borba is currently living as a deacon and, because he’s becoming a priest so late in life, is in the minority. But what makes his story so remarkable is how he lived with such success and turned away after realizing the money never delivered true joy.
Instead of turning to sex, drugs, and alcohol or chasing more success, Borba gave away all his earthly possessions and tried something radically different. 
&#8220;I asked our Lord to help me be the man that he created me to be. And upon that instance, I had this massive flood of love and mercy that came into my life,” Borba told ABC. “It was a very mystical experience.”
&#8220;I live in a little tiny room with &#8230; it&#8217;s sparse, nothing in it,&#8221; Borba said of his current seminary life. &#8220;I have a few bits of clothes and a few pairs of shoes. And my life has been culled down to the bare minimum.&#8221;
The e.l.f. brand founder said he always felt called to become a priest but ignored it until a few years ago, which is when he finally discovered that the treasures of the world would never fill the void in his soul.
This story couldn’t come at a more critical moment for the Catholic Church. While there has been a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/more-americans-are-finding-faith-but-social-media-is-changing-what-that-looks-like">massive uptick in converts</a> to Catholicism, including among young adults who have a particular interest in the traditional Latin Mass, there is also a huge shortage of priests. Parishes are merging and closing even as the number of interested congregants continues to grow.
According to the Church’s statistical yearbook, the number of priests worldwide fell to 406,996 in 2023, representing a multi-year decline that doesn’t appear to be changing. Older priests are retiring or dying, and not enough young men are coming to replace them, despite the massive number of Catholic converts.
Dan Monastra, a seminarian for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, said he has a theory about this. 
&#8220;One reason is the overall lack of desire in our culture to commit oneself to something permanent, especially among younger generations. We see this not only with the priesthood but with marriage as well. Another reason is that the priesthood is antithetical to what modern culture offers: namely, comfort,&#8221; he told Fox Business during an <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/revival-pews-crisis-altar-why-churches-closing-amid-catholic-comeback">interview</a> on the topic last month.
That explains why the global Catholic population has surpassed 1.4 billion, but there is still a critical shortage of men willing to step up and join the priesthood. People in Borba’s position are even rarer. According to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the average age for new priests is 33. Only 3% of current seminarians are over 50, according to Zach Flanagin, a professor of theology and religious studies at Saint Mary&#8217;s College of California.
&#8220;We are entering into a different time with new challenges. The world is constantly changing, and it is up to the Church to find ways to bear witness to Christ in the midst of these changes while still upholding the ancient faith,&#8221; Monastra said of the new reality.
With stories like Borba’s being reported, it could inspire more men who feel the call to change their lives to consider entering the priesthood, even if it’s a second act.
&#8220;I think that a story like his is a great opportunity to inspire people,&#8221; theology and religious studies professor Zach Flanagin told ABC 7 of Borba’s journey. &#8220;And certainly, his call, I hope it&#8217;s genuinely successful because if it is, then he will hopefully bring in people to know Christ.&#8221;

Gemini_Generated_Image_r0dmgyr0dmgyr0dm

He Lived The Hollywood Dream. Then He Found God.

Catholicism

Christianity

Faith

Upstream

Thousands of believers gathered in the nation’s capital on Sunday for an all-day prayer and worship service honoring America’s Christian heritage ahead of the country&#8217;s 250th anniversary.
The event — <a href="https://freedom250.org/celebration/rededicate-250-a-national-jubilee-of-prayer-praise-and-thanksgiving">Rededicate 250</a>, part of the Trump administration’s Freedom 250 initiative — featured a host of political, Catholic, and evangelical leaders, including Speaker Mike Johnson, Secretary Pete Hegseth, Bishop Robert Barron, and Franklin Graham, who did not hold back in condemning what he described as America’s moral decline.
&#8220;People have become lovers of themselves rather than lovers of God,&#8221; Graham said, painting a dire picture of the country&#8217;s biblical literacy. &#8220;America has become morally rotten, completely sick with sin, transgenderism, same-sex marriage, opening women&#8217;s locker rooms to men are just the tip of the iceberg.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfyAL0e6ei0">In a recorded address,</a> Trump struck a similar tone, reading a passage from 2 Chronicles that calls for repentance and urges people to turn from their wicked ways.
Located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., thousands braved 80-degree heat and waited in hour-long lines that stretched for blocks to call on their fellow Americans to repent and join each other in prayer and worship. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Large crowd waiting in line for Rededication 250 event <a href="https://t.co/eJCZwAM5Ft">pic.twitter.com/eJCZwAM5Ft</a>
— Jacob Wheeler (@JWheelertv) <a href="https://twitter.com/JWheelertv/status/2056072888407507331?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 17, 2026</a></blockquote>
Grammy-winning Christian artist Chris Tomlin performed &#8220;Holy Forever&#8221; to the thousands on their feet.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
HOLY FOREVER
&#8220;Your name is the highest 
Your name is the greatest 
Your name stands above them all 
All thrones and dominions 
All powers and positions 
Your name stands above them all&#8221;<a href="https://twitter.com/christomlin?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@christomlin</a> <a href="https://t.co/7ie11Vtn9z">pic.twitter.com/7ie11Vtn9z</a>
— Real America&#8217;s Voice (RAV) (@RealAmVoice) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealAmVoice/status/2056139300798877984?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 17, 2026</a></blockquote>
In front of a crowd wearing Bible-themed shirts and waving Jesus-inspired flags, top Trump administration officials and Republican leaders offered historical and personal reflections.
&#8220;On this day, two and a half centuries ago, our forefathers gathered for the second time in as many years for a national day of fasting and prayer,&#8221; <a href="https://x.com/StateDept/status/2056011858201764095?s=20">Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a Roman Catholic, said.</a> &#8220;They knew that what they were trying to do had never been done before in human history, but with the dark storm clouds of war looming on the horizon, they did what Christians have always done across place and time for 2000 years. They turned their eyes to heaven and placed their faith in the hands of God.&#8221;
&#8220;This is who we are. It is who we have always been. America is still a young nation, measured against the record of history, and from the beginning, we have carried the belief that our country represents something new in the world, but the soul of our nation has always been rooted in an ancient faith,&#8221; Rubio added.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
On this day 250 years ago, our forefathers gathered for a national day of fasting and prayer. Today, Americans will come together again as one Nation under God.
This is who we are and who we’ve always been. <a href="https://t.co/0r4QUsy1hY">pic.twitter.com/0r4QUsy1hY</a>
— Department of State (@StateDept) <a href="https://twitter.com/StateDept/status/2056011858201764095?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 17, 2026</a></blockquote>
Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) spoke about Christianity in personal terms.
&#8220;I stand before you as living proof that prayer, the power of prayer, changes lives,&#8221; <a href="https://x.com/Freedom250/status/2056090057812111708?s=20">Scott said.</a> &#8220;It&#8217;s prayer that inspires our nation. It&#8217;s prayer that transforms our world. There is no way to grasp the last 250 years of America without looking to the power of prayer.&#8221;
Actor Jonathan Roumie, best known for portraying Jesus Christ in “The Chosen,” urged Americans to recommit to the idea of being “one nation under God.”
&#8220;No matter who you are, or what you&#8217;ve done, or how long it&#8217;s been, or how bad things might all seem when you get stuck in the doom scroll of it all, simply stop and pray,&#8221; <a href="https://x.com/RSBNetwork/status/2056079289926259196?s=20">Roumie said.</a> &#8220;And if you still feel burdened, maybe it&#8217;s time to go to confession. There is power in repentance.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
FULL SPEECH: Actor Jonathan Roumie Provides Testimony and Reflects on Portraying Jesus &#8211; 05/17/26 <a href="https://t.co/8DFzOZSYZz">pic.twitter.com/8DFzOZSYZz</a>
— RSBN 🇺🇸 (@RSBNetwork) <a href="https://twitter.com/RSBNetwork/status/2056079289926259196?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 17, 2026</a></blockquote>
The nod to faith comes amid increasing signs of a religious revival in America, especially among young men.
About 42% of men aged 18 to 29 now say religion is “very important” in their lives, up from just 28% two years prior, according to a<a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/708410/young-men-religious-young-women.aspx"> new survey from Gallup</a>. The 14-point jump marks the steepest increase measured across any demographic group in the poll’s recent history and returns young men to levels of religiosity not seen since the early 2000s.
Vice President JD Vance said the trend is defying what the expert class had predicted.
&#8220;Defying predictions, the experts said that religion and faith were dying. Today, a wave of young Americans is returning to the pews, and we know that they&#8217;re looking for meaning, for authority, for direction, and of course, for closeness with God,&#8221; Vance said. &#8220;That should give all of us hope for our future together.&#8221; 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
WATCH: Vice President JD Vance&#8217;s Rededicate 250 message:
“I always ask people to pray for wisdom and for courage for their leadership. Pray for wisdom that we know the path God wants us to walk. Pray for courage that we have the ability to walk that path.” <a href="https://t.co/5hKNESi7hV">pic.twitter.com/5hKNESi7hV</a>
— Vice President JD Vance (@VP) <a href="https://twitter.com/VP/status/2056135528752234892?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 17, 2026</a></blockquote>
<a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2026/05/14/how-americans-feel-about-religions-influence-in-government-and-public-life/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email">A Pew Research poll</a> this week showed 37% of U.S. adults believe religion is gaining influence in America, the highest share since 2002.
&#8220;No one saw this coming, and this is something that the world, I think, wasn&#8217;t really prepared for but is in awe of watching,&#8221; <a href="https://x.com/foxandfriends/status/2055993621027905540?s=20">The Daily Wire host Isabel Brown</a> said of<a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/media/bible-sales-surged-following-killing-of-charlie-kirk-7da17aec"> rising Bible sales</a> and <a href="https://www.barna.com/research/young-adults-lead-resurgence-in-church-attendance/">Gen Z leading a resurgence in church attendance.</a> &#8220;I think because of the secularism and the moral relativism we&#8217;re living through every single day in our secular culture. We&#8217;re finding the answers in God.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
REDEDICATE 250 🇺🇸 <a href="https://twitter.com/theisabelb?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@theisabelb</a> joins <a href="https://twitter.com/RCamposDuffy?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RCamposDuffy</a> at the event to discuss the Gen Z revival in attending church! <a href="https://t.co/rNs4YidI4y">pic.twitter.com/rNs4YidI4y</a>
— FOX &amp; Friends (@foxandfriends) <a href="https://twitter.com/foxandfriends/status/2055993621027905540?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 17, 2026</a></blockquote>

IMG_2579

America’s Spiritual Revival Just Sent A Powerful Message

America 250

News

Trump Administration

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is waging a war against faith, a war that it could win if we don’t wake up and start fighting. With everything we have.
And this is a war that China must lose.
Because what China is doing — what we are permitting China to do — brings back chilling memories of the Holocaust.
The campaign was fought for many years on the local level. Now it is coordinated at the very top of the Chinese government and with the kind of technology that should make all of us terrified.
Not just on a moral level. Because we care about the Chinese believers who are the victims of horrifying persecution today.
We should be terrified because China’s war on faith can come here. To the United States. I can make the case that it already has.
The Chinese have taken the war to authoritarian countries like Iran and Nicaragua, where surveillance technology enables the persecution of Muslims who object to Islamist repression of women and Catholic priests who offer a creed different from Marxism.
The CCP is also winning here, in free capitalist America, where two huge businesses, Hollywood and the National Basketball Association, have become willing enforcers of Chinese censorship. Censorship that has shielded China’s crimes against humanity — the internment of hundreds of thousands, forced abortion and sterilization, organ harvesting from living victims — from international notice and protest.
The movie industry is in bed with the Chinese because it often relies on the Asian market to make a profit.
The NBA’s star players sell shoes in China. How hypocritical it was several years ago when these incredibly well-paid athletes never uttered a negative word about what was going on in China, while often condemning our own society.
Only one player has called out the Chinese Communists — Enes Kanter Freedom, the third overall pick in the 2011 NBA Draft, whose story I tell in this book. He no longer plays in the league, and that’s because he had the audacity to speak out against China’s oppression. Yes, Black Lives Matter, but what about Chinese lives? Don’t they matter, too?
Look, I’m as fervent a believer in the capitalist system as the next guy, siding with big business throughout my years as a congressman, senator, and governor. That does not mean, however, that we should be doing business with everyone.
Certainly not with a regime that is waging a war against religion and conducting genocide against the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, the members of Falun Gong, and the Buddhists in Tibet — and persecuting Christians who refuse to put the CCP above the Bible.
With their relentless pursuit of the almighty dollar and cheap products, a number of American businesses are acting as accomplices. U.S. companies’ investment in China, as of 2025, totaled $127 billion. That’s billion with a B. Those companies include Apple, BlackRock, JPMorgan Chase, and Tesla. Here’s a quote attributed to Karl Marx: “We will hang the capitalists with the rope they sell us.”
China has been waging this war — in one form or another, against one religion or another — for nearly eighty years, since 1949, when Mao Zedong defeated the Nationalist forces, and Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan. Today, the war on faith is being fought more aggressively than ever by a government led by a Mao-like dictator, Xi Jinping.
Let me share with you a few examples of what China has been doing:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Pressuring Christians to replace pictures of Jesus with posters of Xi Jinping</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Arresting priests who do not acknowledge the Chinese Communist Party as the ultimate authority. Catholic bishops in China are in prison or have disappeared, or live under house arrest or surveillance</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Detaining Uyghurs, a mostly Muslim, Turkic-speaking ethnic group who live in the northwestern province of Xinjiang, in concentration camps — at least one with a crematorium attached, as Ethan Gutmann, a senior fellow at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, reported to Congress in 2022</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Harvesting organs from prisoners who are still alive — both Uyghurs and practitioners of Falun Gong — to support the country’s billion-dollar organ export industry</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Subjecting Uyghurs to pregnancy tests, forced intrauterine devices, and forced abortions</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Demolishing sacred religious sites. Chinese authorities destroyed five thousand mosques over a single three-month period, and 97% of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and nunneries are now gone</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Forcing teachers to give up Christian beliefs and practices</li>
</ul>
Time is not on our side. Every day, innocent people in China are being imprisoned, tortured, raped. Killed.
These people of faith are similar to the Jewish refuseniks of the 1970s and ’80s (so named because the Soviet Union refused their request to emigrate to Israel), incredibly brave souls such as Natan Sharansky, who spent nine years in a Siberian prison. While small in number, they challenged the legitimacy of the Russian Communist regime and helped crush the Soviet Union. Or, as President Ronald Reagan rightly put it, “the Evil Empire.”
Some of these men and women have suffered for years behind bars, others enduring physical torture. They lost family members and friends and were subjected to unimaginable assaults on their privacy and their personal integrity. Every story demonstrates the cruelty of the regime that poses the greatest threat to freedom in our lifetime. Even greater than the Soviet Union during the Cold War, something I never thought was possible. But none of this horrific persecution deterred them from fighting for their right, and the rights of others, to practice their faith.
The war is being conducted by the CCP, not by the Chinese people themselves, whom I have admired since my first visit in 1985 (my wife Mary and I are blessed to have a brilliant daughter adopted from China), and led by Xi Jinping, the president of China since 2013 and general secretary of the Communist Party since 2012. It reminds me of the Soviet Union at its worst and even of the Holocaust. In fact, the CCP has killed more of its own people than any regime in history — more than Adolf Hitler’s Germany or Joseph Stalin’s Russia. By far. Let that sink in for a little bit.
For the longest time, I could not understand how so much of the civilized world, armed with overwhelming evidence from eyewitnesses, could be silent while Hitler’s Third Reich carried out the Final Solution against the Jews of Europe.
Now I understand. I understand too well.
Because it is happening again, before our very eyes — in the twenty-first century, no less, in a world where everyone has a smartphone, with access to the facts and the pictures at their fingertips. Facts and pictures from three genocides that China has perpetrated: Uyghurs with shaved heads loaded on trains to concentration camps, Tibetan Buddhist monks in chains, the face of a thirty-seven-year-old woman burned with electric batons for practicing Falun Gong. The consequences for freedom everywhere — and that includes the United States of America — will be dire if we fail to act. I pray that it is not already too late.
Adapted from: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Chinas-War-Faith-Sam-Brownback/dp/1645721132/ref=sr_1_2?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.GGfY2swQbHYVnUMulvWUaRGRqN5fjk5y9kgTxleLwG29lbD0L30zLTnhJWx49tp64QwY8uV34t4nHU7Q7wIDg8i5SVLOU0IE5GRSNOV8fLg98OzodOg467kajZnOL-XBPA_IXRca1HVVdPoZgAaGD8XGgJaIzG0i1GMvVHVwPXGIVuvZg52yTd1g0U5ULKMYtQpfv8cO-E7AofRD9MrTSPPNf9zAMez_9y-SzpD5SoM.PYKc8TKZCuMIlA0r_zr2gwqXAy4sD0ZbGa0LJYzTOwY&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;qid=1778706504&amp;refinements=p_27%3ASam+Brownback&amp;s=books&amp;sr=1-2">China&#8217;s War on Faith by Sam Brownback</a> (Author), Michael Arkush. Republic Book Publishers.

(Photo by Eduardo LEAL / AFP via Getty Images)

Sam Brownback: If You Believe In God, China Wants You Dead

China

DW Opinion

Freedom of Religion

Agriculture Department employees sued USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins on Wednesday, alleging she subjected workers to “government-sponsored religious coercion” by promoting an Easter message.
<a href="https://www.au.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/1-NFFE-v-USDA.pdf">The lawsuit, filed by a union representing 19,000 USDA employees,</a> centers on an Easter message Rollins shared, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ and other faith-based holiday messages.
On Easter Sunday, Rollins shared a memo with the roughly 100,000 USDA employees, saying, “Happy Easter — He is risen indeed!”
&#8220;From the foot of the Cross on Good Friday to the stone rolled away from the now empty tomb, sin has been destroyed. Jesus has been raised from the dead. And God has granted each of us victory and new life. And where there is life — risen life — there is hope,&#8221; Rollins wrote, <a href="https://www.au.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Happy-Easter.pdf">according to Politico</a>.
That message, according to the lawsuit, violated the First Amendment&#8217;s Establishment Clause and the Administrative Procedure Act.
&#8220;Secretary Rollins’s practice and policy of subjecting agency employees to proselytizing messages conveys the expectation that USDA employees share in the Secretary’s religious beliefs, even when doing so would betray an employee’s own beliefs,&#8221; the lawsuit reads. &#8220;It is exactly the sort of government-sponsored religious coercion, religious sermonizing, and denominational preference that the Establishment Clause prohibits.&#8221;
For nonreligious USDA employees, the Christian message amounted to religious indoctrination.
&#8220;Secretary Rollins’s Easter Sermon draws heavily on biblical references that promote a particular religion — Christianity — which the Secretary’s message evangelizes as fact. The denominational favoritism conveyed in Secretary Rollins’s communications indoctrinates USDA employees and has caused them to feel coerced, unwelcome, excluded, and like outsiders to the agency,&#8221; the lawsuit said. 
The organization Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the progressive legal advocacy group Democracy Forward also joined the case.
In a striking request, the plaintiffs ask the court to block Rollins and any other USDA official from issuing “such religious communications” and to declare the secretary’s religious messages unlawful.
“While we do not comment on pending litigation, we will keep the plaintiffs in our prayers during this process,” a USDA spokesperson said in a statement to The Daily Wire. 
A vocal Christian, Rollins regularly speaks about her faith and has said she holds a Bible study with other members of the Trump Cabinet.
&#8220;We are very deep into studying service and being servants of God and servant leaders, but also being able to resist the temptation that comes with power — staying humble and serving God in these positions,&#8221; <a href="https://billygraham.org/decision-magazine/articles/fighting-for-the-soul-of-america">she said in June 2025</a>.

Vice President JD Vance Speaks At A Manufacturing Facility In Des Moines, Iowa

‘He Is Risen’ Message Sparks Meltdown Against Top Trump Official

brooke rollins

The problem of evil is the greatest emotional obstacle to belief in God. It simply doesn’t feel right that God should allow people to suffer, or at least to suffer as much as they do. 
The late atheist philosopher J. L. Mackie, a fellow Aussie, maintained that belief in God was irrational, for if God were all-knowing, He would know that there was evil in the world; if He were all-powerful, He could prevent it; and if He were all-good, He would wish to prevent it. The fact that there is evil in the world proves that God doesn’t exist, or if he does, that He is “impotent, ignorant, or wicked.”
I’ll be honest: when I think about the kinds of evil some people endure, and are enduring even as I speak, I find myself feeling as though an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good God may not exist after all.
But feelings, however powerful, are not arguments. And since we are engaged in philosophy here, we ought to be more concerned with right thinking than with how we are feeling. In fact, when I step back and consider the problem of evil from a rational point of view, rather than simply reacting to it emotionally, I do not think it succeeds as an argument against God’s existence.
Mackie was wrong. The existence of God and the existence of evil aren’t mutually exclusive. And to see why, let’s look at the three attributes of God that Mackie named.
Omnipotence
Omnipotence does not mean the ability to do what is logically impossible because what is logically impossible is nothing at all. God cannot make a square circle, for instance, or a married bachelor, not because his power is limited, but because there is nothing there to be made. Logical contradictions are not difficult tasks awaiting divine power; they are empty descriptions.
As St. Thomas Aquinas put it, &#8220;Whatever implies contradiction does not come within the scope of divine omnipotence, because it cannot have the aspect of possibility. Hence it is better to say that such things cannot be done, than that God cannot do them.” It follows then that while God can create beings with free will, capable of choosing between good and evil, He cannot both grant that freedom and simultaneously override it by forcing creatures always to choose the good. A forced choice is not a free one.
C.S. Lewis captured the point succinctly: “If you choose to say, ‘God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it,’ you have not succeeded in saying anything about God.” 
Omniscience
If God has infinite knowledge, then he knows many things we don’t. This means that He may, in fact, have good reasons for permitting evil and suffering that seem inexplicable to us. Human beings have a very limited vantage point, and we often lack knowledge of things of true significance. What appears to us to be a tragedy may have effects that bring about great good, and conversely, what appears to us as a good thing may, in the long run, prove harmful.
Consider the analogy of a small child being taken to the doctor for his immunization shots. He knows the needle hurts, and he can’t understand why his own parents are allowing the doctor to cause him such pain. The child is unable to grasp that the inoculations will help prevent the much greater suffering of disease. He’s unable to perceive the greater good. Likewise, we should recognize that a being with more knowledge than us, like God, may have good reasons for things, even pain and suffering, of which we are unaware. He allows evils to exist because of His omniscience, not despite it.
Omnibenevolence
As we think about the goodness of God, we must be careful not to impose on Him our inadequate understanding of what goodness is. In his book “The Problem of Pain,” C. S. Lewis writes:
<blockquote>By the goodness of God we mean nowadays almost exclusively His lovingness; and in this we may be right. And by Love, in this context, most of us mean kindness. . . . What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, “What does it matter so long as they are contented?” We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven, a senile benevolence who, as they say, “liked to see young people enjoying themselves” and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, “a good time was had by all.” 
Furthermore, most theists do not believe that God created us merely for happiness in this life. He created us most importantly for eternal happiness with Him in the next. So, His omnibenevolence should be judged neither by our limited human standards of goodness nor by what happens in this world alone.</blockquote>
Putting all this together, we can recognize that an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent creator might have good reasons for tolerating abuses of human free will that lead to evil and suffering. We may not know what all His reasons are, but we sense the value of freedom, including the value of being able to choose good freely rather than by compulsion. We can see how God&#8217;s power and knowledge can bring good out of evil in ways that our limited minds aren’t able to comprehend. In faith, we can say along with St. Paul, “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him” (Rom. 8:28).
Evil: An Argument for God
Evil, rather than disproving God’s existence, can actually point toward it, at least indirectly. To call something evil is not merely to register a feeling of dislike or pain, but to make a moral judgment. And moral judgments presuppose the reality of moral norms that are not reducible to individual preference or social convention. If such objective moral norms exist, then they must have an origin that transcends human opinion.
The theist would say that this origin is God. Moral laws point beyond themselves to a moral lawgiver. Only within such a conceptual framework does it make sense to say that suffering is not merely unfortunate, but unjust, that it cries out for explanation, and that it ought, somehow, to be answered. This does not dissolve the mystery of why an all-good God permits suffering and evil. It doesn’t tell us the meaning, but it does tell us that it’s not meaningless. On this view, God can bring good out of evil, ensure that injustice does not have the final word, and ultimately bring about justice in a way that the bare facts of suffering alone never could.
This is essentially St. Thomas Aquinas’ response to the problem of evil. Citing St. Augustine, he writes: “&#8217;Since God is the highest good, He would not allow any evil to exist in His works, unless His omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil.&#8217; This is part of the infinite goodness of God, that He should allow evil to exist, and out of it produce good.”

Silhouette of Man Praying Outside

Why Does God Allow Suffering?

Matt Fradd

Religion

Theology

An illegal immigrant hid in the ceiling of a women&#8217;s bathroom in a Florida church while recording video on his phone, according to authorities.
The Fort Walton Beach Police Department arrested Panamanian illegal immigrant Aquilino Sanjur Ortega on Sunday after receiving a call about a possible armed person at Grace Church during a religious service. One woman said that while she was inside the women&#8217;s restroom, &#8220;she observed a mobile phone positioned above the ceiling with its camera pointed downward in her direction,&#8221; police <a href="https://www.facebook.com/fwbpd/posts/pfbid02BeudRCiPUCdk3ycUCELR71UDLdc3pPm2gD3TxEgviCoxoXhmPNGUGVznTBJq7iPMl?rdid=GIAivwzSYIKbGnwu#" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>.
The woman &#8220;immediately&#8221; left the restroom and informed church staff.
Parishioners evacuated from the building before officers arrived at the scene, according to authorities. Witnesses told the officers that a man was hiding in the women&#8217;s restroom ceiling, which they confirmed after entering the church.
Ortega, who was unarmed, was swiftly arrested.
Ortega is charged with video voyeurism and disturbing a religious assembly.
Ortega came to the United States in March 2007 with a tourism visa that expired that September, federal law enforcement sources told The Daily Wire. Because Ortega overstayed his visa by nearly two decades, he&#8217;s considered an illegal immigrant.
As a result, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has lodged a detainer with the Okaloosa County Jail. Local authorities are likely to honor the request and hand Ortega over to federal authorities for eventual deportation.
He is being held on a $250,000 bond.
&#8220;Under President Trump and Secretary Mullin, criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S.,&#8221; the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told The Daily Wire in response to the case.
Upon his return to the White House, President Donald Trump stripped churches, schools, and hospitals of protections that prevented ICE from entering. They were previously considered &#8220;sensitive&#8221; locations that ICE could not enter or go near.
“This action empowers the brave men and women in CBP [Customs and Border Protection] and ICE to enforce our immigration laws and catch criminal aliens — including murderers and rapists — who have illegally come into our country. Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” DHS <a href="https://apnews.com/article/immigration-enforcement-sensitive-locations-trump-ab0d2d2652e9df696f14410ebb52a1fc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> at the time of the policy change.
Trump&#8217;s border czar, Tom Homan, has said that ICE attempts to avoid those institutions. But if an illegal immigrant criminal tries to hide inside a church, ICE may go in to arrest them, Homan <a href="https://www.facebook.com/reel/2609704789400477" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> while leading immigration operations in Minneapolis in February.
&#8220;Those locations are not off the table. I&#8217;ve said from day one, there&#8217;s no sanctuary for a significant public safety threat or a national security threat,&#8221; he said at the time.

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EXCLUSIVE: The Creepy Church Bathroom Discovery Now Fueling A Bigger Immigration Debate

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***
Something seems to be changing in American culture. Some have described it as a “<a href="https://a.co/d/07YhPOKQ">vibe shift</a>,” like a tangible sensation of spiritual change in the air, perhaps not all that different from the way a sailor might sense when the winds are about to turn. But last month, new data came out that give a specific shape to one key dimension of this shift. The polls point to an unprecedented spiritual reversal happening with young men in America, and one that has turned very suddenly.
Gallup <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/708410/rise-young-men-religiosity-realigns-gender-gaps.aspx">released numbers</a> in April showing that the share of American men ages 18 to 29 who say religion is “very important to them” jumped from 28% to 42% between 2023 and 2025. That&#8217;s a 14-point swing in two years — a 50% proportional increase, and the single largest shift in our lifetime on how young men relate to religion. This vibe shift erased a nearly 25-year decline in religious interest in just two years.
While the change is statistically unprecedented, if you have been watching the culture rather than the polls, none of this should surprise you. The polls are just catching up.
The statistical decline of traditional religious participation and the rise of those who claim to believe in “nothing at all” began in the mid-1990s. The New Atheist decade that followed made a specific wager: Strip away “superstitious” beliefs of our bygone religious past, and civilization will march onward in an unfettered path of progress. But by the 2010s, as we moved into an era of intense cultural tumult dubbed the “Great Awokening,” it was obvious we were not getting that promised utopian outcome from our anti-religious experiment.
What we got instead was a “meaning crisis” and a generation of young men who grew up feeling the weight of hopelessness. They watched as deaths of despair skyrocketed, institutional trust declined, and civilization slowly descended into ruin as Marxist and postmodern ideologies rushed to fill the religious vacuum.
They were handed a world stripped of the timeless guiding stories upon which everything good in American culture had been built, and they were told that all guiding stories — including the stories of scripture — were just propaganda power plays or backwards superstitions. The colloquial phrase for the result was simply “the young men are not okay.”
What the data now suggest is that a critical mass of young men have decided this anti-God experiment has run long enough. Young men are tired of not being okay.
The early signals were everywhere. Jordan Peterson sold out theaters lecturing on Bible stories with millions more watching on YouTube, hungry for someone to show them a story that could give their lives meaningful direction. Tom Holland’s &#8220;Dominion&#8221; became the book that thoughtful young men discussed in dorm rooms, with its thesis that the moral foundations of the modern West — human dignity, universal rights, concern for the downtrodden — is Christianity all the way down, whether we remember it or not. Justin Brierley, who spent 15 years hosting debates between Christians and the New Atheists, began to notice that young men weren’t listening to the New Atheists anymore. He covered the precipitous decline of New Atheism’s influence in &#8220;The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God.&#8221;
If anyone has been paying attention to the most popular podcaster on the planet, they’d notice a similar religious arc happening with Joe Rogan. Not that long ago, Rogan sounded like the average red-blooded American male of the old cultural moment: bemused by traditional religion and comfortable with the assumption that faith was something smart people had outgrown. In the last several years, his posture has shifted so visibly it has become a running theme of his show. Guest after guest, from biblical scholars such as Wesley Huff to Christ-curious comedians, get invited to wrestle seriously with the question of God rather than brush it aside. In 2025, Rogan himself started attending church, something <a href="https://x.com/paulanleitner/status/1874246583820157084?s=61&amp;t=GEWkhsehIN24AI-EHnUXaQ">I predicted</a> would happen in 2024. 
There were other signs in pop culture that, in strange ways, hinted at a coming spiritual turn. In late 2023, young men started playing old Creed songs again without an ounce of cynical irony — songs drenched in a sincere, hungry religiosity the 2000s had trained everyone to mock. In 2024, Creed had its highest-grossing year as a band, propelled primarily by young men who were too young to listen to the band&#8217;s religiously tinged albums when they first came out.
The popular stories that filled our screens began to reflect the ache men had for a positive vision of male heroism rooted in sacrificial love and the pursuit of something bigger than oneself. They made &#8220;Top Gun: Maverick&#8221; and &#8220;F1&#8243; enormous hits — films that refuse the postmodern move of telling you the male hero is an oppressive force of the patriarchy. More recently, they embraced &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hollywood-makes-a-story-where-doing-the-right-thing-still-matters">A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms</a>,&#8221; a story about an earnest young man who wants, with his whole heart, to be genuinely good in a franchise famous for insisting that wanting to be good is how you get killed. They cheered for &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ryan-gosling-breathes-new-life-into-a-tired-genre-with-project-hail-mary">Project Hail Mary</a>,&#8221; whose “hopecore” message is built on a man named Grace laying down his life for the sake of the world.
None of these pop culture signposts are as explicitly “religious” as a Sunday school lesson, but what do they all have in common? They show that young men are hungry for hope, meaning, and purpose in their lives. They reflect a shift from the spiritual “closedness” of the last two decades to a fresh spiritual openness, and a growing appetite for timeless religious themes of virtue, sacrifice, and the quest for a higher purpose.
Is this a full-blown religious revival? Revival probably isn’t the best word to describe what’s happened. Young men’s interest in traditional religion has spiked, and some have started to fill the church pews. I suspect more will follow. What it does point to should be encouraging for anyone who cares about the future of America.
Young men are increasingly willing, in numbers now measurable, to entertain the possibility that the religious wisdom we had discarded was something we needed, but did not see the need for until we tried to live without it.
For 25 years, the trend line pointed in one direction, and even some of the most devoted church-going observers assumed it would keep tailing downward. It did not. It broke. In the span of a few short years, a generation of young men looked around at the trajectory of an anti-God culture and, with something like collective intuition, decided they had had enough.
***
Paul Anleitner is a cultural theologian whose work focuses on the role of culture and story in our quest for meaning. He is the author of “Based on a True Story: Vibe Shifts, the End of Deconstruction, and the Reboot of Meaning.”

Worshipper praying on a church

Young Men Are Finding Their Way Back To Something The Culture Tried To Replace

This piece is adapted from the latest episode of Matt Fradd All Access. You can watch the full episode <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/matt-fradd-monologue-joseph-smith?elementPosition=3&amp;row=5&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">here</a>.
***
This is a controversial topic, so let’s dive right in: Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, was a false prophet.
A couple of disclaimers, right off the bat: entire books have been written on this subject, so we’re only going to scratch the surface. And to my Mormon friends, I understand that some of this may be difficult to hear. And I just want you to know that this isn’t meant to be some kind of attack. I love you guys, but we have to get to the truth. I encourage you to hear what I have to say, look into it for yourself, and let me know what you think.
Here we go.
<h3>Reason #1: False Prophecies That Didn’t Come True </h3>
Let’s start with one of the easiest ways to test a prophet: are their prophecies actually true? Deuteronomy 18:20-22 lays it out clearly: if what a prophet says doesn’t come true, then they’re not speaking for God.
Joseph Smith gave numerous revelations that are flat-out false.
For example, in 1842 Joseph Smith published a supposedly prophetic translation of real Egyptian documents he owned, which he called The Book of Abraham. He claimed, as a prophet, to translate specific Egyptian writings and drawings, and to know their meaning. Important to note, at the time, scholars couldn’t translate Egyptian. But now they can, and we know that his translations are simply wrong. In one drawing, Smith claimed one figure was “King Pharaoh, whose name is given in the characters above his head,” but it turns out this figure is the goddess Isis, and the characters above the head read, “Isis the great, the god’s mother.” He falsely claims the god Osiris is Abraham, and that the god Anubis is a slave. A prophet’s words have to match reality, and in Smith’s case, they just don’t.
<h3>Reason #2: Contradicting Revelations</h3>
Another red flag with Joseph Smith is his contradicting revelations. For example, the Book of Mormon says, “Is there more than one God? And he answered, No.” But in a later revelation, he says that “the Gods organized and formed the heavens and the earth,” and that righteous Mormons “shall be gods,” “from everlasting to everlasting,” with “all power.” Smith even claimed that God was once a man who became divine.
This is a huge change in foundational beliefs! If someone is truly a prophet of God, their message should be consistent, especially when it comes to who God is. Yet with Smith, we see clear contradictions that raise serious doubts about his claims to divine revelation.
<h3>Reason #3: The Book of Mormon’s Historical Problems </h3>
Next, let’s talk about the Book of Mormon itself. Joseph Smith claimed it tells the history of ancient American civilizations, including the Nephites and Lamanites, who came from Jerusalem. But here’s the problem: there’s zero archaeological evidence for these civilizations. No cities, no artifacts, nothing.
Now, some might argue, “There’s little archaeological evidence for the Exodus, and Christians believe that.” But while evidence for the Exodus may be debated, there is some support — such as Egyptian records mentioning Semitic peoples and archaeological findings in the Sinai suggesting nomadic groups. Scholars continue to explore these possibilities.
With the Book of Mormon, however, we’re talking about entire civilizations that supposedly existed for thousands of years but did not leave behind a single trace. If these civilizations were real, we’d expect something — but we find nothing. That’s a major problem.
<h3>Reason #4: Fabrication &amp; Plagiarism </h3>
There’s also strong evidence that the Book of Mormon simply mirrors Joseph Smith’s time and place. Many books at this time, and in Smith’s area, theorized that the American Indians had come from Israel. And Smith lifted entire sections from the King James Bible, even copying translation errors from the King James Version into his “ancient” text. This isn’t the behavior of a divinely inspired prophet; it’s the behavior of someone fabricating a religious document.
<h3>Reason #5: Joseph Smith’s Dubious Character </h3>
We can’t ignore the moral inconsistencies in Joseph Smith’s life. He secretly practiced polygamy and even married — and slept with — teenage girls, claiming he was divinely commanded to do so.
This is someone who violated the Christian principles of marriage and morality. A true prophet should be held to a high standard of holiness and integrity, but Smith’s life was filled with moral failures. It’s hard to reconcile that with someone who claims to be God’s chosen messenger.
But isn’t there polygamy in the Bible? Yes. But it’s important to note that polygamy in the Old Testament is descriptive, not prescriptive. And the New Testament makes it very clear that monogamy is the only expected and permitted form of marriage.
<h3>Reason #6: Contradictions in the First Vision Accounts </h3>
Smith’s famous &#8220;First Vision,&#8221; where he claims to have seen God the Father and Jesus Christ, is foundational to Mormonism. But did you know there are multiple versions of this event that contradict each other?
In the earliest version, Smith says he saw only one figure, “the Lord,” but later versions claim he saw God the Father and Jesus as separate beings. If this vision were a true, divine encounter, it wouldn’t make sense for there to be conflicting stories about such a pivotal moment. The discrepancies suggest that Smith may have fabricated or embellished his experience over time.
<h3>Reason #7: The Problem of Polytheism </h3>
Finally, Joseph Smith taught that God was once a man who became God, that humans can become gods in the same way, and that there are many gods in existence. That’s not just a different emphasis. It’s a different view of God altogether.
In the King Follett Discourse, Smith said that God “was once as we are now” and that we must learn how to become gods ourselves. In other words, God is not the eternal, uncreated Creator, but a being who progressed to divinity.
This is directly opposed to biblical monotheism. Isaiah 44:6 says, &#8220;I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God.&#8221;
The Bible is clear: there is one God. Smith’s teaching of an eternal progression to godhood is not just unbiblical, it’s a complete departure from the Christian understanding of God’s nature. Any prophet who teaches something so fundamentally opposed to Scripture can’t be a true prophet of God.
Whether it’s his failed prophecies, shifting doctrines, or contradictions in his story, the evidence is compelling: Joseph Smith was a false prophet.
***
If you’d like to learn more, see my interview with Joe Heschmeyer, <a href="https://youtu.be/5cvXRlMHMzI?si=U5IBDJNO8Q2qwFSb" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Incoherence of Mormonism</a>.

The church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints sign, Thetford, Norfolk, England, UK

7 Reasons Joseph Smith Was A False Prophet 

Bible

Mormonism

secret lives of mormon wives

Initially, it was all very dapper: the tea, the crumpets, and the fanfare. They were all good and fine.
But then the King of England, King Charles III, decided to use his royal prerogative and lecture us on how to run our country, on how America ought to lead the world.
Shut the hell up.
It’s true that there are many lessons to be learned from Great Britain over the past century.
But the biggest one is this: Don’t do what they did.
King Charles is currently representing a civilization that no longer exists. He&#8217;s an empty crown, sitting atop a civilization that gave up the ghost a long time ago. There&#8217;s only one takeaway Americans should have from the King&#8217;s visit: If Great Britain has zigged, we ought to zag.
Britain is a cautionary tale. If we follow their path, we collapse the same way they have.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ben-shapiro-ep-2416?elementPosition=5&amp;row=5&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
Charles’ visit to the United States began with Revolutionary-Era soldiers welcoming the king in the Rose Garden.
Somewhat ironic; the last king who experienced Revolutionary-era soldiers would not have been welcomed in quite this way.
As a student of American history and as a devotee of British philosophers ranging from John Locke to Edmund Burke, I love the fact that the United States is rooted in Anglican and English history. I love it. It&#8217;s great.
Charles called the bond between the United States and the UK priceless and eternal. He joked about the idea that if it were not for Great Britain, we would be speaking French, a response to President Trump saying that if it were not for us, the British would be speaking German (I assume Charles was referring to the French and Indian War, which doesn&#8217;t make a whole hell of a lot of sense, because if the French had won the French and Indian War, it is very likely that many of the settlers would have returned to England).
But then the king decided it was time to lecture the United States. And this is the part to which I object.
It began with him talking about Christianity. He said, “For many here and for myself, the Christian faith is a firm anchor and daily inspiration that guides us not only personally.”
So far, so good, although I&#8217;m not sure why Democrats were clapping.
“Together as members of our community, having devoted a large part of my life to interfaith relationships and greater understanding,” he continued. “It is that faith in the triumph of light over darkness, which I have found confirmed countless times through it. I am inspired by the profound respect that develops as people of different faiths grow in their understanding of each other.”
There we go. This was all going to lead up to a bit of a lecture about America&#8217;s foreign policy.
As a person who is not Christian, I have tremendous admiration for Christianity and what it has done in the world. I encourage people to go to church all the time, but it turns out that if you want a robust Christianity, that Christianity cannot be based on vague principles. It has to be based on faith.
So when you hear the Brits lecturing the United States, a much more religious country, about Christianity and interfaith relations, let&#8217;s be real: Great Britain has taken religion and trodden it through the mud.
The statistics don&#8217;t lie. According to the UK&#8217;s 2022 census, 51% of people in the UK identify as having no religion, according to a 2024 British Social Attitudes Survey. A paltry 9% of the population attends a religious service once a week or more.
And as far as Anglican identity, it doesn&#8217;t exist anymore. 2.6% of people aged 16 to 34 identify with the Church of England.
Meanwhile, the tremendous increase in radical Islam in the kingdom has been overwhelming. 15% of London, at a minimum, is Muslim. A huge percentage of those people are radicalized. According to one survey conducted in 2016 by the polling exchange, 4% of British Muslims say that 9/11 was executed by al Qaeda, 7% say the Jews, and 31% say the American government.
Great Britain imported millions of people who believe this. Millions of people. This is where their interfaith nonsense has gotten them.
So, as far as being lectured on Christianity and interfaith attitudes by the Brits, the answer is no.
You know where interfaith is going in Britain. Interfaith is about tolerance for radical Islam, which is why today, the day after King Charles visited the United States, there was an attack in Golders Green, which is a very heavily Jewish part of London, in which a radical Muslim took out a kitchen knife and started stabbing people who were wearing Jewish garb.
According to UK government data, there were 15,859 total reported incidents of knife crime in London in 2025 alone. We know that Great Britain&#8217;s interfaith tolerance allowed for gigantic grooming gangs to basically run the place for years on end, out of fear that there might be a backlash to open immigration.
King Charles also took the opportunity to lecture us on climate change. We should mention that the UK has destroyed its own economy on the basis of this nonsense.
Listening to the Brits lecture us on energy production is ridiculous. Roughly 78% of the UK&#8217;s energy still comes from hydrocarbons. That would be things like oil and natural gas. The UK is constantly on the economic edge because of its extraordinary regulations and low domestic gas storage capacity. According to an article in The American Spectator, there&#8217;s a 78% tax rate on North Sea gas production and a nuclear program that&#8217;s not going to deliver energy for a decade.
The energy programs in the UK have driven them into the dirt, economically speaking.
All of this culminated in King Charles lecturing the United States on how to beat swords into plowshares rather than plowshares into swords.
I understand: King Charles represents the monarchy. Keir Starmer&#8217;s government is an appeasement-oriented, left-wing pacifist government.
In order to understand my ire here, I think you have to understand that having the British Crown come to the United States and tell us all about the old-style civilization that Britain basically surrendered in favor of welfare statism is highly irritating. 
In 1933, there was a resolution at Oxford University at their debate club, the so-called King and Country Resolution, in which the students voted, “that this House will under no circumstances fight for its king and country.” This was reflective of British sentiments; an attempt in the aftermath of the course of World War I to recede from global leadership.
You know what ended up happening? It was a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I was recently reading Winston Churchill&#8217;s “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Gathering-Storm-Second-World-War/dp/039541055X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0">The Gathering Storm</a>,” which is, of course, a classic. It is the first volume of his Second World War series. In the beginning pages of the book, Churchill explains his purpose in writing the book, saying he was writing to demonstrate “how the malice of the wicked was reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous, how the structure and habits of democratic states, unless they are welded into larger organisms, lacked those elements of persistence and conviction which can alone give security to a humble masses. How, even in matters of self-preservation, no policy is pursued for even 10 or 15 years at a time. We shall see how the counsels of prudence and restraint may become the prime agents of mortal danger. How the middle course, adopted from desires for safety and quiet life, may be found to lead direct to the bullseye of disaster.” 

He continued, “We shall see how absolute is the need of a broad path of international action, pursued by many states in common across the years, irrespective of the ebb and flow of national politics.”
Great Britain is currently telling the United States that we ought not do what we are doing in Iran. They are doing absolutely nothing to help us in the Strait of Hormuz. They are perfectly willing to allow China to maximize its global influence. Only in the case of Ukraine has Britain taken a leading role in any sort of way, and even there, it&#8217;s basically to beg us for money and armaments.
After World War II, Great Britain decided it would give up global leadership in favor of irrelevance and socialism.
No country has done as much damage to itself as Great Britain through pacifism, socialism, redistributionism, and open borders.
The Brits can&#8217;t even leave their kids money, because when you give up global leadership, free markets, private property, and skew in favor of socialist idiocy and global weakness, you become irrelevant.
You don&#8217;t get to come here and lecture us about any of this.

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The Empty Crown: Why America Should Ignore King Charles

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This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
When news broke last month that a Minnesota district would include Islamic prayer rooms in its new high school buildings, many commenters drew the wrong conclusion. Some expressed legitimate concerns about the scale of Muslim migration, but others seemed committed to accusing the district of hypocrisy.
“Separation of Church and State for 1 religion only it appears,” one X user <a href="https://x.com/lanedrivinsmoke/status/2046246050508263593?s=46">snarked</a>.
To which another <a href="https://x.com/jacktomczak/status/2046275017302757521?s=46">replied</a>, “What do you mean? Christian and Jewish kids can use this room too.”
They both have a point. The blueprints include foot-washing stations for Islamic ritual ablutions, which makes it pretty obvious which religion these <a href="https://alphanews.org/plans-for-prayer-room-and-foot-washing-station-at-minnesota-schools-go-viral/">prayer rooms</a> are designed to serve. At the same time, there’s nothing stopping Christian students from using these rooms. They just won’t do it. And that should set off alarm bells for Christians.
A quick example should suffice to illustrate what I mean. One day last spring, when I was between jobs working as a substitute teacher at a local public middle school, a few Muslim students approached my desk and let me know they’d be leaving class to pray in a room set aside for that purpose.
A few minutes later, the conclave in Rome elected Cardinal Robert Prevost as Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope. I’d been monitoring the election closely (<a href="https://spectator.com/article/betting-on-a-papal-conclave-felt-mildly-degenerate/?edition=us">because I had money on it</a>), so I saw the news right away and decided to share it with my students, of whom a plurality, if not a majority, were Hispanic. 
And because I still had the prayer room on my mind, I mentioned that I’d be happy to let any Catholics among them leave class briefly to pray for their new pope. In response, I got nothing but blank stares.
I realize this is a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison. The obligation to pray at five set times each day is one of the five pillars of Islam. There’s no comparable Catholic tradition of laypeople interrupting their day to pray for a newly elected pope (or for any other reason).
But maybe that’s the problem.
American Christianity has become invisible in the public square. We don’t wear headscarves, grow forelocks, carry <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirpan">special daggers</a>, or stop what we’re doing to flop down on prayer rugs. Our Sabbath-keeping is a joke compared to how the Jews do it.
We don’t even fast much anymore. In 1966, U.S. Catholic bishops “ended the obligation to abstain from meat on the Fridays outside of Lent” as long as “some other form of penance or work of charity was done,” the <a href="https://dio.org/catholic-times/hey-father-what-is-the-history-of-no-meat-on-friday/">Catholic Times explains</a>. That leaves a grand total of seven mandatory meatless days per year. Whoop-dee-doo.
Evangelical Protestants, meanwhile, tend to define their faith as a liberation from man-made rituals and religious obligations. They might endorse fasting as a valuable personal discipline, but the idea of requiring everyone to fast in the same ways on the same days sounds too much like works-based righteousness.
Why Christianity has adapted itself to secularism more fully than other religions is a tricky question. Tom Holland addresses it at length in his book &#8220;Dominion,&#8221; but the short answer is that this transformation is the product of the Christian West’s unique history and of Christianity’s own internal logic.
The reasons might be complex, but the negative consequences are obvious. 
First, Christians lose cultural influence. A religion that’s willing to make demands on secular institutions can often extract concessions. Muslims get foot-washing stations in public schools. Jews get “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbat_elevator">sabbath elevators</a>” that stop automatically on every floor so they don’t have to break their law by pushing an electronic button. <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/features/how-a-catholic-businessman-put-the-filet-o-fish-on-the-mcdonald-s-menu?amp">Catholics got the Filet-O-Fish</a>, but that was back in 1963. Today, with the fasting rules relaxed, McDonald’s would have little reason to introduce it.
Second, Christians internalize the idea that there’s nothing different about them. This is especially true during adolescence, the stage when <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9167890/">peers become a bigger influence than parents</a>. If faith is part of a tween&#8217;s home life but doesn&#8217;t matter at school, it will naturally become less important to him over time.
Third, non-religious people come to regard Christianity as thin and ephemeral, something anyone can simply “<a href="https://www.wishtv.com/news/national/taylor-swift-calls-gop-sen-marsha-blackburn-trump-in-a-wig-in-new-documentary/">identify as</a>” without any skin in the game. Remember, these &#8220;nones&#8221; don’t see what happens at mass or mosque. They’ve watched their Muslim friends, even those for whom religion is mostly cultural, suffer through Ramadan fasts. But what do their Christian friends do? Try to be nice to people? That’s fine as far as it goes, but it doesn’t exactly scream “<a href="https://biblehub.com/john/1-46.htm">come and see</a>.”
Fortunately, I have a solution: Catholics should use the noon <a href="https://www.usccb.org/prayers/angelus">Angelus</a> as a ministry to members of their church who attend public schools. This medieval devotion consists of ringing a bell, followed by a few scripture verses commemorating the Annunciation and a few Hail Marys. The whole thing takes about two minutes.
Implementing the Angelus in public schools would be easy. All you’d need is a bell, a parent, or a mature student to lead the prayers, and an empty room reserved from 11:55 to 12:05. If the school won’t give you a room, sue them. You’ll win.
For Protestants, a shortened version of <a href="http://bcp2019.anglicanchurch.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/07-Midday-Prayer.pdf">the midday prayer service from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer</a> would be just as workable.
It is, of course, possible that some kids would attend these services just to get out of class. But that’s a feature, not a bug. 
Carving out space for Christian worship in public schools would strengthen the faith of devout students, but it would also give nominal adherents a stronger sense of themselves as Christians while showing non-believers that Christianity is a religion worth taking seriously.
The reason Muslims have public school prayer rooms and we don’t isn’t because administrators favor Muslims over Christians (though I’m sure they often do). It’s because Muslims demand them and we don’t. It’s time for that to change.
***
Grayson Quay is the author of &#8220;The Transhumanist Temptation&#8221; and a former editor at the Daily Caller.

GettyImages-682359680

Why Public Schools Are Making Space For Faith And Christians Aren’t Part Of It

Public Schools

In a move that underscores a commitment to religious freedom and moral accountability, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced Tuesday that they have successfully replaced a statue of Jesus in the southern Lebanese village of Debel. The original religious monument had been damaged by a lone Israeli soldier, sparking immediate condemnation from Israel’s military leadership and a swift effort to make amends.
The IDF’s Northern Command spearheaded the restoration, working in &#8220;full coordination&#8221; with the local Christian community to ensure the sacred symbol was replaced.
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A short while ago, in full coordination with the local community of Debel in southern Lebanon, the damaged statue was replaced by IDF troops. The Northern Command worked to coordinate the replacement of the statue from the moment it received the report of the incident.
The IDF… <a href="https://t.co/nGh1s1iia1">pic.twitter.com/nGh1s1iia1</a>
&mdash; Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) <a href="https://twitter.com/IDF/status/2046597268904558765?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 21, 2026</a></blockquote>
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In a <a href="https://x.com/IDF/status/2046589834341351758">statement</a> released on X, the IDF expressed &#8220;deep regret&#8221; over the incident, characterizing the destruction as a &#8220;moral failure&#8221; that contradicts the fundamental values of the Jewish state and its military.
Beyond merely replacing the physical property, Israel took decisive disciplinary action to uphold its standards of conduct. The soldier who damaged the statue and the individual who filmed the act have both been removed from combat duty and sentenced to 30 days of military detention. Furthermore, the remaining troops present during the incident have been summoned for clarification discussions, with the Chief of the General Staff reinforcing that such behavior &#8220;far exceeds any acceptable standard.&#8221;
This swift restorative justice stands in stark contrast to the treatment of Christian institutions in many neighboring Muslim and Arab states. While Israel officially recognizes ten Christian denominations and grants them internal autonomy, other nations in the region continue to enforce systemic prohibitions. In Saudi Arabia, the construction of public Christian churches remains strictly forbidden under a rigid interpretation of Islamic law. In Somalia and Yemen, open Christian worship is virtually non-existent, often carrying the threat of execution by extremist groups like al-Shabaab or the Houthis.
The honorable conduct displayed in Debel also highlights a growing global disparity in religious safety. While Israel took immediate steps to punish its own for a single act of vandalism, Christian communities elsewhere face far more lethal threats. In Nigeria, militant groups like Boko Haram and ISWAP continue to bomb and burn churches, with over 3,400 Christians killed in 2025 alone. Similarly, in Pakistan, &#8220;mob justice&#8221; frequently leads to the destruction of dozens of churches over mere rumors of blasphemy.
By taking responsibility for the actions of a few and working with Lebanese locals to restore their religious heritage, Israel has demonstrated a Western-style tolerance that remains rare in the Middle East. The IDF has pledged to reinforce procedures regarding religious symbols for all troops, ensuring that the protection of faith remains a cornerstone of its operational ethics.

Silhouette of soldier saluting with Israel flag on background of sunrise or sunset. Armed forces of Israel concept

After Jesus Statue Is Vandalized, Israel Takes Swift Action

Global Politics

Israel

Israel Defense Forces (IDF)

Lebanon

Statues

World

After a viral photo showed an Israeli soldier severely damaging a Christian icon in Lebanon, Israel Defense Forces immediately investigated the incident, and finding the story factual, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the action in harsh terms, while reminding others that Israel always welcomes Christians and makes a home for them.
The Israel Defense Forces issued this statement:
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Following the completion of an initial examination regarding a photograph published earlier today of an IDF soldier harming a Christian symbol, it was determined that the photograph depicts an IDF soldier operating in southern Lebanon. The IDF views the incident with great severity and emphasizes that the soldier’s conduct is wholly inconsistent with the values expected of its troops.
The incident is being investigated by the Northern Command and is currently being addressed through the chain of command. Appropriate measures will be taken against those involved in accordance with the findings. Furthermore, the IDF is working to assist the community in restoring the statue to its place. The IDF is operating to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure established by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, and has no intention of harming civilian infrastructure, including religious buildings or religious symbols.
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Following the completion of an initial examination regarding a photograph published earlier today of an IDF soldier harming a Christian symbol, it was determined that the photograph depicts an IDF soldier operating in southern Lebanon.
The IDF views the incident with great… <a href="https://t.co/U6P3x8KWBb">https://t.co/U6P3x8KWBb</a>
&mdash; Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) <a href="https://twitter.com/IDF/status/2045973415643767091?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 19, 2026</a></blockquote>
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Netanyahu declared:
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As the Jewish state, Israel cherishes and upholds the Jewish values of tolerance and mutual respect between Jews and worshippers of all faiths. All religions flourish in our land and we view members of all faiths as equals in building our society and region. Yesterday, like the overwhelming majority of Israelis, I was stunned and saddened to learn that an IDF soldier damaged a Catholic religious icon in southern Lebanon. I condemn the act in the strongest terms. Military authorities are conducting a criminal probe of the matter and will take appropriately harsh disciplinary action against the offender. 
While Christians are being slaughtered in Syria and Lebanon by Muslims, the Christian population in Israel thrives unlike elsewhere in the Middle East. Israel is the only country in the region that the Christian population and standard of living is growing. Israel is the only place in the Middle East that adheres to freedom of worship for all. We express regret for the incident and for any hurt this has caused to believers in Lebanon and around the world.
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As the Jewish state, Israel cherishes and upholds the Jewish values of tolerance and mutual respect between Jews and worshippers of all faiths. All religions flourish in our land and we view members of all faiths as equals in building our society and region.
Yesterday, like the…
&mdash; Benjamin Netanyahu &#8211; בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) <a href="https://twitter.com/netanyahu/status/2046166181258650016?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 20, 2026</a></blockquote>
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Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa’ar added:
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The damaging of a Christian religious symbol by an IDF soldier in southern Lebanon is grave and disgraceful. I commend the IDF for its statement, for condemning the incident, and for conducting an investigation into the matter. I’m confident that the necessary strict measures will be taken against whoever carried out this ugly act. This shameful action is completely contrary to our values. Israel is a country that respects the different religions and their sacred symbols, and upholds tolerance and respect among faiths. We apologize for this incident and to every Christian whose feelings were hurt.
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The damaging of a Christian religious symbol by an IDF soldier in southern Lebanon is grave and disgraceful.
I commend the IDF for its statement, for condemning the incident, and for conducting an investigation into the matter. I’m confident that the necessary strict measures…
&mdash; Gideon Sa&#39;ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) <a href="https://twitter.com/gidonsaar/status/2046098060590076132?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 20, 2026</a></blockquote>
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Unlike the Arab countries that surround it, in Israel, the Christian population is <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/christian-population-in-israel-is-around-184000-and-growing/">growing</a>. In March 2025, Joseph Puder, the founder and director of the Interfaith Taskforce for America and Israel, <a href="https://www.jns.org/opinion/joseph-puder/where-are-the-christians-of-bethlehem-and-the-middle-east#:~:text=Between%20October%202000%20and%20November,a%20Christian%20city%2C%20Bethlehem%20exemplifies">noted</a>, “In 1950, two years after Israel’s independence, there were 36,000 Christians in Israel. Today, there are 187,900 Christians in Israel, making it, as of 2021, the only country in the Middle East with a growing Christian population.”
He added:
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While the number of Christians in the Jewish state grows, a different story is occurring in areas controlled by the Palestinian Arabs, including Gaza. The Greek Orthodox Church recently said that “Terrorist attacks against Christians, assaults on churches, cemeteries, and Christian properties in the Palestinian Authority &#8230; have become daily occurrences, and their severity clearly intensifies during Christian holidays.”
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In January, Open Doors International released its annual <a href="https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/world-watch-list-2026-christian-persecution-at-all-time-high-in-15-nations/#:~:text=Syria%20suffered%20the%20largest%20single,Assad%20regime%20in%20December%202024.">World Watch List</a> of the 50 most dangerous countries for Christians, with Muslim countries dominating the list. They reported:
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North Korea maintains its top spot on the list for the 24th year, with a persecution score of 97; followed by Somalia, second on the list with a persecution score of 94; Yemen, third at 93; Sudan, fourth at 92; Eritrea, fifth at 90; Syria, sixth at 90; Nigeria, seventh at 89; Pakistan, eighth at 87; Libya, ninth at 87, and Iran, 10th at 87.
Rankings continue respectively with Afghanistan, India, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, Mali, Burkina Faso, China, Iraq, Maldives, Algeria, Mauritania, CAR, Morocco, Cuba, Uzbekistan, Niger, Tajikistan, Laos, DRC, Mexico, Tunisia, Nicaragua, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Turkmenistan, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Oman, Mozambique, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, Egypt, Comoros, Qatar, Kazakhstan, Nepal, Colombia, Chad, Jordan and Brunei.
</blockquote>
Israel was nowhere on the list.

Israeli Authorities Announce Rescue Of Four Hostages From Gaza

Netanyahu Doesn’t Mince Words In Response To Vandalism Of Christian Icon By IDF Soldier

Benjamin Netanyahu

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