For decades, Christians in Africa have faced intense persecution at the hands of Islamic extremists. That persecution has especially focused on Christians in Nigeria and Sudan, two war-torn nations that President Donald Trump now wants to address.
Last month, Trump designated Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern, saying that &#8220;Christianity is facing an existential threat.&#8221; Then, last week, the president vowed to take more action to end the civil war in Sudan. Both countries are in the midst of upheaval and have large Christian populations, whose faith puts a target on their backs.
Trump&#8217;s <a href="https://www.state.gov/frequently-asked-questions-irf-report-and-countries-of-particular-concern">designation</a> of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern means that the United States will seek to actively address Nigeria&#8217;s violations of religious freedom and opens the door to potential economic penalties.
“When Christians, or any such group, is slaughtered like is happening in Nigeria (3,100 versus 4,476 Worldwide), something must be done!&#8221; Trump said.
For Nigerian Christians, the Country of Particular Concern designation could be a useful tool to push the Nigerian government to take more action to protect Christians from Islamic extremists, according to Ryan Brown, CEO of Open Doors U.S., an organization that helps raise awareness and get aid to persecuted Christians.
The situation in Nigeria has gained attention thanks to the Trump administration, along with some unlikely cultural figures who have called out the persecution against Christians in the country, including left-wing political commentator <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bill-maher-exposes-nigerias-christian-genocide-in-47-seconds">Bill Maher</a> and pop star <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nicki-minaj-teams-up-with-trump-will-highlight-christian-persecution-in-address-to-united-nations">Nicki Minaj</a>. Minaj even met with Trump administration officials about the issue earlier this month and raised awareness about Christian persecution in Nigeria in front of the United Nations.
The slaughter of Christians in Nigeria has become a full-blown genocide, according to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-can-the-world-still-deny-nigerias-christian-genocide">on-the-ground accounts and data from recent years</a>. Just this year, more than 7,000 Christians have reportedly been killed for their faith in Nigeria, including 250 Christians who were <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/morning-brief-nigerian-christians-slaughtered-russia-standoff-illegal-alien-tiktoker-nabbed">killed</a> by Islamic extremists in the Yelwata village massacre in June. Research on worldwide Christian persecution suggests that Nigeria accounts for around 80% of the Christian deaths worldwide that come from persecution, according to Open Doors.
Nigeria&#8217;s government has denied that Christians in the country are being systematically targeted, saying, &#8220;There is no Christian genocide in Nigeria,&#8221; but it has agreed to discuss the issue with the United States. Last week, the Trump administration took more steps to address persecution in Nigeria, with War Secretary Pete Hegseth meeting with the country&#8217;s national security adviser.
&#8220;Under [President Trump&#8217;s] leadership, [the Department of War] is working aggressively with Nigeria to end the persecution of Christians by jihadist terrorists,&#8221; Hegseth <a href="https://x.com/SecWar/status/1991908064912617733">said</a>.
Brown told The Daily Wire that Nigerian Christians &#8220;would certainly say that the Nigerian government has not done enough to protect the freedoms and provide safety for the men and women on the ground there.&#8221;
<div id="attachment_1006245" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1006245" class="wp-image-1006245 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2244444115-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2244444115-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2244444115-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2244444115-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2244444115.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />A general view of a catholic Church in Maiduguri on November 3, 2025. (Photo by Audu MARTE / AFP) (Photo by AUDU MARTE/AFP via Getty Images)</div>
Some media <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/10/2/no-bill-maher-there-is-no-christian-genocide-in-nigeria">outlets</a> have also <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgqlzkdeeqjo">scrutinized</a> claims of targeted violence toward Christians in Nigeria, writing that the violence in the African nation is too complicated to say that Christians are being systemically wiped out. But Brown told The Daily Wire that the reports of violence against Christians in Nigeria are not exaggerating the extent of the situation.
&#8220;These are realities on the ground that Christians are facing. In Nigeria, this has really been a multiple-year trend,&#8221; Brown said. &#8220;I was with a pastor from Nigeria a couple weeks ago, and he said for the better part of 15 years, he&#8217;s been trying to tell this story to the world, and he&#8217;s been just so thankful that the collective attention finally is seeming to be raised.&#8221;
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Nigeria received more attention earlier this month when more than 300 students and 12 staff members were <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/21/africa/students-kidnapped-nigerian-catholic-school-intl">kidnapped</a> from a Catholic boarding school by armed men. That mass kidnapping came shortly after 25 girls were abducted from a government boarding school in Nigeria and after an <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/gunmen-attack-church-nigeria-killing-two-kidnapping-others-2025-11-19/">attack</a> on a church, where at least two people were killed, and the pastor was abducted.
<div id="attachment_1006343" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1006343" class="wp-image-1006343 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2247525679-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2247525679-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2247525679-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2247525679-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2247525679.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />A pair of shoes is seen inside a student dormitory at St. Mary&#8217;s Catholic School in Papiri, Agwarra local government, Niger state, on November 23, 2025. Gunmen raided the school early on November 21, taking 303 children and 12 teachers in one of the largest mass kidnappings in Nigeria. (Photo by Ifeanyi Immanuel Bakwenye / AFP via Getty Images)</div>
Each year, Open Doors releases a &#8220;World Watch List&#8221; which shows where Christians face the most persecution. In its 2025 list, released in January, Nigeria was near the top at 7th. Open Doors uses research teams to follow news updates in countries around the world and on-the-ground relationships with Christians in numerous countries, according to Brown.
Islamic extremists with terror groups, such as Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province, are targeting Christians mainly in the country&#8217;s northern regions, but the violence isn&#8217;t completely centered on Christians. Muslims with different ethnicities from the terrorists are also killed for political and religious reasons.
&#8220;There are so many different contributing factors that are at play here. It&#8217;s a complicated situation,&#8221; said Brown. But he added that the nuance doesn&#8217;t mean the world should look past the violence targeting Christians.
&#8220;Some have said because it&#8217;s nuanced and complicated, the conclusion we should draw is Christian persecution is not happening. We would look at those same nuances and complexities and say no, it&#8217;s an oversimplification to say that Christian persecution is not part of the fabric of what&#8217;s being woven here,&#8221; Brown said.
Nigerian Christians continue to hold their faith as they face threats and violence from radical Islamic terrorists, and they are hopeful that President Trump&#8217;s focus on their plight will result in positive steps being taken toward religious freedom. When Trump designated Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern, Brown said that Nigerian Christian leaders had &#8220;an incredible sense of gratitude and thankfulness,&#8221; but added that they also recognized there was a lot of work to be done to address Christian persecution in the African nation.
The Trump administration is not just seeking to end the persecution of Christians in Nigeria — it also has its sights set on ending the war in Sudan, a conflict that has resulted in the deaths of numerous Christians and Muslims. Like in Nigeria, the violence against Christians in Sudan spans decades and is perpetrated by radical Islamic extremists.
Gasim Domkog, a pastor who grew up in Sudan before coming to America, told The Daily Wire that the violence against Christians has been nonstop as the country has gone through regime changes and civil war.
&#8220;We went through a lot. I personally went through a lot,&#8221; Domkog said, adding that many members of his own family have been killed by the Islamic extremist violence.
&#8220;It&#8217;s very rare to find anybody from Sudan that has not had people from their family that has been killed,&#8221; added Domkog, who now leads an Arabic-speaking church in Nashville and ministers to Christians who came out of Islam.
Along with facing intense persecution for their faith, Sudanese Christians are also affected by the civil war that has torn the country apart. Sudan&#8217;s current civil war, which started in 2023, is fought between the government and the Rapid Support Forces, a powerful Islamic militant group seeking to gain control of the country. More than 150,000 people have been killed in the war, and over 12 million have been forced to flee their homes.
<div id="attachment_1006235" style="width: 850px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1006235" class="wp-image-1006235 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2245123877-840x576.jpg" alt="" width="840" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2245123877-840x576.jpg 840w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2245123877-300x206.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2245123877-768x527.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2245123877.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 840px) 100vw, 840px" />AL DABBAH, SUDAN &#8211; NOVEMBER 8: Sudan&#8217;s Sovereignty Council Chairman and Army Commander Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan visits the newly established Al-Afadh camp in Al Dabbah, Northern State, where tens of thousands of Sudanese have taken refuge after being displaced by clashes following the Rapid Support Forces&#8217; takeover of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur. (Photo by Stringer/Anadolu via Getty Images)</div>
Sudan ranks 5th on the Open Doors &#8220;World Watch&#8221; list of countries where Christians face the most persecution. Violence against Christians in Sudan is perpetrated by the radical Islamic extremist groups that vie for control of the country. Often, these groups are controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood.
The country has been unstable since the early 1980s, when civil war broke out and continued until 2005. Following more than 20 years of conflict, South Sudan, which is made up mostly of Christians, broke away from Sudan and formed its own country in 2011.
Similar to the Muslim extremists in Nigeria, terrorists in Sudan also target Muslims who have ethnic differences. In the war-torn region of Darfur, militants have gone door-to-door killing thousands of people. Evidence of the mass killings could be seen from <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/blood-visible-space-sudan-shows-evidence-darfur-genocide/story?id=126985544">satellite images</a>, which showed blood-soaked neighborhoods in Darfur. The killings took place immediately after the Rapid Response Forces took control of the city. Most of the people killed in Darfur are Muslims and are targeted because they have darker skin, Domkog told The Daily Wire.
&#8220;At first, the jihadists were using religious war as holy war, but now they&#8217;re focusing on ethnicity,&#8221; Domkog said. &#8220;They say that if you&#8217;re not of Arab descent, you need to be killed. Now, they&#8217;re killing their own people.&#8221;
&#8220;The agenda was either to become Muslim and obey their rules and to be under Sharia Law or they will get rid of you, and that&#8217;s what they&#8217;re doing,&#8221; he added.
<div id="attachment_1006239" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1006239" class="wp-image-1006239 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2247191335-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2247191335-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2247191335-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2247191335-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2247191335.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />A Sudanese woman who fled El-Fasher in Darfur carries jerrycans of water at the Al-Afad camp for displaced people in the town of Al-Dabba, northern Sudan, on November 21, 2025. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP) (Photo by EBRAHIM HAMID/AFP via Getty Images)</div>
President Trump <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-announces-us-making-new-effort-end-war/story?id=127683382">said</a> last week that after meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, he has agreed that the United States will &#8220;do something very powerful having to do with Sudan.&#8221;
The war will be a complicated web for the Trump administration to address. Evidence presented by human rights groups <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/article/how-congress-can-help-curb-the-uaes-role-in-sudans-crisis/#:~:text=The%20UAE%27s%20role%20in%20perpetuating,and%20supplies%20as%20humanitarian%20aid." target="_blank" rel="noopener">shows</a> that the United Arab Emirates is the main backer of the Rapid Response Forces, while other nations, including China, Iran, Egypt, Turkey, and Russia, send weapons and ammunition to both sides of the war. Trump acknowledged that the war in Sudan will not be an easy fix, but added that he believes it&#8217;s important to seek peace in the country.
&#8220;I thought it was just something that was crazy and out of control,&#8221; Trump said. &#8220;But I just see how important that is &#8230; and we&#8217;re going to start working in Sudan.&#8221;

NigeriaTrump

Trump’s Next Peace Push Focuses On Nigeria And Sudan, Where Christians Are Killed By The Thousands

Christianity

Donald Trump

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Persecution

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Trump Administration

World

The Ohio state House of Representatives passed a bill along party lines last week that would allow public schools to teach on the &#8220;positive influence of religion,&#8221; particularly Christianity, in history courses.
House Bill 486, titled the &#8220;<a href="https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/136/hb486">Charlie Kirk American Heritage Act</a>,&#8221; would codify teachers&#8217; rights under the state constitution to instruct their students on how Christianity positively shaped U.S. history, according to one of the bill&#8217;s sponsors, state Rep. Gary Click, NBC Columbus affiliate WCMH <a href="https://www.nbc4i.com/news/politics/charlie-kirk-bill-to-teach-positively-about-christianity-passes-ohio-house/">reported</a>.
&#8220;The teaching of the historical, positive impact of religion on American history is consistent with the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. An accurate and historical account of the influence of Judeo-Christian values on the freedom and liberties ingrained in our culture is imperative to reducing ignorance of American history, hate, and violence within our society,&#8221; the bill states. &#8220;Accurate historical instruction regarding verifiable, historical impacts of religion on American history is factual and is not proselytization or a violation of the First Amendment.&#8221;
The text of House Bill 486 provides examples of how public school teachers can teach on the positive influence of Christianity, such as the faith of the pilgrims, the clear presence of Christianity in the Mayflower Compact, the appeal to divine power in the Declaration of Independence, and Christianity&#8217;s influence on the U.S. Constitution. The bill is named after conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, a devout and outspoken Christian, who was assassinated while speaking on the Utah Valley University campus on September 10.
“Charlie was a committed Christian, whose life and work will serve as a testament to the power of conservative ideals combined with a legacy of faith for generations to come,” Click said.
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All 62 Republicans in the Ohio House voted in favor of the legislation, while all 27 Democrats opposed it. It now heads to the state Senate, where Republicans hold a 24-9 majority.
“It’s essential that we highlight the positive influence religion has had throughout our history – uniting communities, enriching our shared values, and safeguarding our First Amendment rights as Americans to speak and worship freely,” said Republican state Rep. Michael Dovilla.
The bill was criticized by education and civil liberties groups and advocates for the separation of church and state. The Ohio American Civil Liberties Union <a href="https://www.acluohio.org/news/house-bill-486-opponent-testimony/">argued</a> that the bill &#8220;is obviously designed to paint Christianity in the most positive light while deliberately avoiding the negative.&#8221;
&#8220;The ACLU of Ohio submits HB 486 is, at a minimum, unneeded,&#8221; the organization added. &#8220;Politicians leaning on schools and universities to teach their version of Christianity and religion is an idea rejected centuries ago, and for good reasons.&#8221;
Gabe Guidarini, chairman of the Ohio College Republican Federation, pushed back on the criticism, arguing, “This bill does not impose a belief system, it simply allows teachers and professors to include historical truths that have too often been neglected — how faith shaped the resolve of the pilgrims, guided our Founders’ convictions, inspired movements that provided us the liberties we enjoy today and informed the moral fabric that has bound our republic together since its birth.&#8221;

Charlie Kirk

Charlie Kirk-Inspired Bill Allowing Schools To Teach Christianity’s ‘Positive Influence’ Nears Law

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Tucker Carlson shocked nearly everyone last week when he implied that Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a pastor and one of the most revered heroes of World War II, had to abandon Christianity in order to turn on Adolf Hitler.
Bonhoeffer attempted to assassinate the Nazi leader and was murdered by the Third Reich in 1945. Bonhoeffer’s actions are almost universally regarded as heroic — but not to Carlson, who <a href="https://www.newsmax.com/us/tucker-carlson-dietrich-bonhoeffer-adolf-hitler/2025/11/13/id/1234491/">declared</a> recently that Bonhoeffer had simply &#8220;decided &#8230; Christianity is not enough, we have to kill the guy.”
Carlson held Bonhoeffer up as a warning to conservatives who criticize antisemitism on the Right, saying, &#8220;once you start calling people Nazis, we really have no choice but to start shooting them,&#8221; Carlson said.
So much sloppy thinking, so little time. 
Carlson is right that falsely labeling someone a “Nazi” or a “fascist” today paints a target on that person. It was reckless, for example, for California Governor Gavin Newsom to call White House advisor Stephen Miller <a href="https://stream.org/gavins-gambit-newsom-doubles-down-on-the-fascist-slander/">a fascist</a>, prompting leftists in Miller’s neighborhood to dox him, plastering telephone poles and lampposts with Miller’s home address.
But what does any of this have to do with Dietrich Bonhoeffer? He wasn’t sloppily using “Nazi” as a slur against his political opponents, the literal Nazis. Nobody was falsely claiming that the ordinary enforcement of just laws amounted to genocidal terror. Genocidal terror was written into the laws of a regime which had seized power in a crisis, suspended the constitution, outlawed all opposition, and stripped Jews of citizenship. 
Literal Nazis, who called themselves “Nazis,” were filling concentration camps with non-violent political dissidents, and preparing a war openly designed to conquer, enslave, and exterminate the peoples of neighboring nations. The Nazi blueprint for obtaining “Lebensraum” in Poland and the Soviet Union, <a href="https://wwv.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206247.pdf">Generalplan Ost</a>, envisioned wiping out some 80 million Slavs by either direct murder or slow starvation, to be replaced by German colonists. 
Carlson’s absurd criticism of Bonhoeffer is rooted in a fundamental misrepresentation of Christianity and its teachings. Despite Jesus’ words about turning the other cheek on a personal level, Christianity was never rigidly pacifist.
By the time of St. Augustine, the Church had developed the “Just War” doctrine, narrowly defining occasions when military action by the state was morally good and right. That teaching is widely accepted by most Christian churches, and codified by the Roman Catholic Church in its <a href="https://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/war-and-peace/excerpts-from-catechism-of-the-catholic-church-safeguarding-peace-1997">Catechism</a>.
Catholic teaching holds that a Just War is one in which “the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain,” and “all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective.” There also “must be serious prospects of success” and “the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.”
The language above refers to the actions of the state, not individual citizens. On the surface, it seems only to apply to decisions by nations such as Great Britain and France, whose declarations of war on Germany were obviously just. 
But the Just War analysis doesn’t only apply to states. As I explained in my recent book, “<a href="https://www.calamopress.com/store/no-second-amendment-no-first">No Second Amendment, No First”,</a> during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation religious persecution by intolerant monarchs drove thinkers in both the Jesuit and the Calvinist traditions to ask if those conditions could justify a civil war, a rebellion against a tyrant. Most of them answered “Yes,” and Christian political thinking began for the first time to countenance the overthrow of evil governments by their people. The men who removed King Charles I, and rebelled against French monarchs during the Wars of Religion, cited such arguments. 
So would later rebels, right here in America. Our own Declaration of Independence is actually an eloquent argument that the misgovernment of the 13 colonies by the British parliament and crown amounted to tyranny, and met the Just War requirements, making armed resistance not just permissible but obligatory.
The anti-Nazi resistance to which Dietrich Bonhoeffer belonged was steeped in this same tradition, and saw its efforts to overthrow a wicked tyranny in wartime as perfectly compatible with the broad Christian tradition. Their actions had nothing in common with the violence fostered by irresponsible leftist zealots in our non-tyrannical country in peacetime, which enjoys free elections and a free press.
For the real story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, treat yourself by streaming the recent, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B0DQRBSF6S/ref=atv_dp_amz_c_TS8274d9_1_1?jic=16%7CCgNhbGwSA2FsbA%3D%3D">powerful biopic</a> about the man, or reading Eric Metaxas’s <a href="https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fclicks.aweber.com%2Fy%2Fct%2F%3Fl%3DFqFpc%26m%3D3XCdD_eFuk3cNaF%26b%3DK55f0DFRsI09TrIYGhU2MQ&amp;data=05%7C02%7C%7Cc0c9bf61e6b1422e8efa08de239ce248%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638987353876021137%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=aDTERBtB%2BmLzyO29EYFDyIh%2F8siQ%2B153YsTF2xJeGhA%3D&amp;reserved=0">magisterial book</a> on his inspiring life. And remember to always take with a grain of salt anything claimed by a certain former bow-tie-wearing war hawk with a maniacal laugh.
* * *
John Zmirak is author of many books, including the biography of anti-Nazi exile <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Wilhelm-Ropke-Library-Modern-Thinkers/dp/1882926560/ref=sr_1_1?crid=34MC41KJSEC8Z&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.IFJtRxoqeob52UgE206MCA.1YpaMP-rgHyaWkbhgF5AQT2XVjYRBIJOa9zsKPTGzuQ&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=Wilhelm+Ropke%3A+Swiss+Localist%2C+Global+Economist&amp;qid=1763142650&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=wilhelm+ropke+swiss+localist%2C+global+economist%2Cstripbooks%2C79&amp;sr=1-1">Wilhelm Röpke</a>, and the recent <a href="https://www.calamopress.com/store/no-second-amendment-no-first">No Second Amendment, No First</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
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Critics Of Dietrich Bonhoeffer Are Wrong About Everything

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Fitness influencer Jillian Michaels was amazed to discover that Jesus Christ was a real person whose existence was chronicled in texts beyond just the Bible.
The conversation took place during an episode of Michaels’ podcast while she was speaking with world-class historian and Hoover Institution senior fellow Victor Davis Hanson.
Hanson was discussing the specific issues the Romans had with Jesus, which prompted her to admit that she was surprised to learn his existence was widely accepted as a historical fact.
 “I thought we didn&#8217;t even know this guy… this is going to infuriate people and I&#8217;m so sorry and I stay out of it, but I thought we weren&#8217;t even really sure whether or not Jesus existed and the apostles wrote this stuff hundreds of years ago,” Michaels said. 
Hoover explained, “We have Roman documents completely separate from religion, that he was a magnetic, he was a romantic, wonderful person to the people who knew him and he had staged a revolution and that presented a problem in this troublesome province.”
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The historian recounted how Pontius Pilate was a Roman official who was most interested in keeping peace in the region, so he pushed the blame for Jesus being put to death onto the Pharisees, using the justification that this move helped achieve that goal.
Hanson also noted how Jesus’ teachings were the antithesis of what the Romans believed. “He&#8217;s got a new religion and unfortunately it&#8217;s turned the other cheek, brotherhood of man, blessed are the meek, blessed are the poor, that&#8217;s not Roman. We have a Roman military ethos that the strong inherit the earth and if an enemy offends you, you hit him twice. And this guy is preaching something very different,” the historian explained.
“When anybody says that the Jews killed Jesus, it&#8217;s more like the Romans wanted a quiet province and they did not like Jesus and what he represented was anti-Roman…So they said basically, well, in Judaism, in Judea, the Jewish establishment, the religious establishment doesn&#8217;t like him any more than we do. So we can get rid of him and then say the Pharisees basically did it.”
“This is so wild. I&#8217;m sorry. I know it&#8217;s not wild for people who know this information, but I genuinely thought, okay, the Jews had the Old Testament, the Torah, and then maybe there was this guy, Jesus,” Michaels said as she looked on in awe. “The apostles wrote stuff, but the first guy who wrote something was like 90 or so years later. We think maybe there&#8217;s some Dead Sea Scrolls kind of mentioned this guy, Jesus.”
Michaels doesn’t talk much about religion publicly, but <a href="https://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/jillian-michaels-stands-by-criticism-of-the-olympics-opening-ceremony/">described herself</a> as “not a religious person” and “agnostic” in 2024.

Jillian Michaels

Jillian Michaels Is Shocked To Discover Jesus Was A Real Person

Celebrities

Entertainment

Jesus Christ

Rapper Nicki Minaj spoke at a United Nations event on Tuesday to bring attention to the persecution of Christians in Nigeria.
The Trinidadian pop star thanked President Donald Trump for prioritizing the issue and urged people “to defend Christians in Nigeria, to combat extremism and to bring a stop to violence against those who simply want to exercise their natural right to freedom of religion or belief.” Minaj was part of a panel that included U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz and faith leaders. 
“Today, faith is under attack in way too many places. In Nigeria, Christians are being targeted, driven from their homes and killed. Churches have been burned. Families have been torn apart and entire communities live in fear constantly, simply because of how they pray,” the 42-year-old celeb <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jcssdZvTK8">said</a> during her speech.
“Sadly, this problem is not only a growing problem in Nigeria, but also in so many other countries across the world, and it demands urgent action,” Minaj said. “And I want to be clear, protecting Christians in Nigeria is not about taking sides or dividing people. It is about uniting humanity.”
<a class="c-link c-link--focus-visible" href="https://www.dailywire.com/shop" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://www.dailywire.com/shop" data-sk="tooltip_parent">30% off razors &amp; DW Shop, 25% off Candle Club, 7–10% off Mayflower—bundles, gifts, &amp; last-chance holiday shipping</a>
The “Super Bass” singer isn’t politically active, but many of her fans have been melting down, accusing her of “going MAGA.” Minaj, who calls her fans “Barbz,” attempted to soothe their ruffled feathers by explaining that this issue transcended politics.
“Barbz, I know you&#8217;re somewhere listening. I love you so very much. You have been the ultimate light in my life and career for so long. I appreciate you, and I want to make it very clear, once again, that this isn&#8217;t about taking sides. This is about standing up in the face of injustice. It&#8217;s about what I&#8217;ve always stood for my entire career. And I will continue to stand for that for the rest of my life. I will care if anyone, anywhere, is being persecuted for their beliefs,” Minaj said.
In late October, Trump said the State Department would add Nigeria to its list of “Countries of Particular Concern.”
“Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria. Thousands of Christians are being killed,” Trump said. “Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter. I am hereby making Nigeria a ‘COUNTRY OF PARTICULAR CONCERN’ — But that is the least of it. When Christians, or any such group, is slaughtered like is happening in Nigeria (3,100 versus 4,476 Worldwide), something must be done!”
Trump said he would send troops into Nigeria “guns a-blazing” if its government “continues to allow the killing of Christians.”
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu disputed Trump’s assertions, saying they did not reflect the facts.
“The characterisation of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality, nor does it take into consideration the consistent and sincere efforts of the government to safeguard freedom of religion and beliefs for all Nigerians,” he <a href="https://x.com/officialABAT/status/1984640117361840491">said</a>.
“Religious freedom and tolerance have been a core tenet of our collective identity and shall always remain so. Nigeria opposes religious persecution and does not encourage it.”

Nicki Minaj

Nicki Minaj Drops Mic On Nigeria’s Anti-Christian Violence At UN

'Faith Is Under Attack': Nicki Minaj Addresses UN About Christians Persecution In Nigeria

United Nations

Nicki Minaj’s music introduced a new generation of female rappers. But now she’s lending her voice to a more important cause — stopping the killing of Christians in Nigeria.
Minaj is set to speak at the United Nations this week alongside United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz. They will discuss what President Donald Trump and his administration are doing to stop the persecution of Christians in Nigeria. According to the International Society of Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, 7,000 Christians have been killed in 2025 alone.
“[Minaj] is not only arguably the greatest female recording artist, but also a principled individual who refuses to remain silent in the face of injustice,” Waltz wrote on X on Sunday. “I’m grateful she’s leveraging her massive platform to spotlight the atrocities against Christians in Nigeria, and I look forward to standing with her as we discuss the steps the President and his administration are taking to end the persecution of our Christian brothers and sisters.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/NICKIMINAJ?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NICKIMINAJ</a> is not only arguably the greatest female recording artist, but also a principled individual who refuses to remain silent in the face of injustice.
I&#8217;m grateful she&#8217;s leveraging her massive platform to spotlight the atrocities against Christians in Nigeria, and I… <a href="https://t.co/LOLrU1PZye">https://t.co/LOLrU1PZye</a>
— Ambassador Mike Waltz (@michaelgwaltz) <a href="https://twitter.com/michaelgwaltz/status/1990189618172432615?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 16, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Minaj was flattered. She responded to the ambassador’s remarks, writing, “Ambassador, I am so grateful to be entrusted with an opportunity of this magnitude. I do not take it for granted… I will never stand down in the face of injustice. We’ve been given our influence by God. There must be a bigger purpose.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Ambassador, I am so grateful to be entrusted with an opportunity of this magnitude. I do not take it for granted. It means more than you know.
The Barbz &amp; I will never stand down in the face of injustice. We’ve been given our influence by God. There must be a bigger purpose. 🎀 <a href="https://t.co/Mdh0nBWwm1">https://t.co/Mdh0nBWwm1</a>
— Nicki Minaj (@NICKIMINAJ) <a href="https://twitter.com/NICKIMINAJ/status/1990212305783836689?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 17, 2025</a></blockquote>
The collaboration came together over social media earlier this month when Waltz invited Minaj to talk with him at the U.S. Embassy to the United Nations after the Grammy-nominated rapper publicly thanked Trump for bringing attention to the slaughtering of Christians. Trump advisor Alex Bruesewitz coordinated the Waltz-Minaj meeting, <a href="https://x.com/EricCortellessa/status/1990097775858417714?s=20">set</a> to take place Tuesday, according to TIME Senior Political Correspondent Eric Cortellessa, who first broke the news of the meetup.
On Halloween, Trump <a href="https://truthsocial.com/users/realDonaldTrump/statuses/115470116607441456">said</a> the State Department would add Nigeria to its list of “Countries of Particular Concern.”
“Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria. Thousands of Christians are being killed,” Trump said. “Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter. I am hereby making Nigeria a ‘COUNTRY OF PARTICULAR CONCERN’ — But that is the least of it. When Christians, or any such group, is slaughtered like is happening in Nigeria (3,100 versus 4,476 Worldwide), something must be done!”
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-threatens-to-completely-wipe-out-the-islamic-terrorists-killing-nigerian-christians">RELATED: Trump Threatens To ‘Completely Wipe Out The Islamic Terrorists’ Killing Nigerian Christians 
</a>
Minaj <a href="https://x.com/NICKIMINAJ/status/1984566555460485280?s=20">thanked</a> the Trump administration “for taking this seriously,” adding, “God bless every persecuted Christian. Let’s remember to lift them up in prayer.”
Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/nigerias-tuggar-trump-state-backed-religious-persecution-impossible-under-2025-11-04/">argued</a> that the government was not supporting the persecution of Christians “in any way.”
“This is what shows that it’s impossible for there to be a religious persecution that can be supported in any way, shape or form by the government of Nigeria at any level, be it federal, be it regional, be it local, it&#8217;s impossible,” Tuggar said November 4 during a press briefing in Berlin.
The Daily Wire has reached out to Bruesewitz for more details.

Trump, Nicki Minaj

Nicki Minaj Teams Up With Trump, Will Highlight Christian Persecution In Address To United Nations

Christians

News

It was quite possibly the most remarkable literary friendship of the 20th century. 
As young men, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien both endured the utter devastation of trench warfare during World War I. Then, as unrivaled evil once again ravaged the European continent during the 1930s and ‘40s, these two Oxford professors produced epic works of fiction, masterpieces imbued with moral purpose and beauty.
Like many lovers of the classics, Joseph Loconte shares a lifelong fascination with Lewis and Tolkien. As a professor and scholar, Loconte marvels at how the writers produced their most beloved works in the dark crucible of World War II. So, why are their novels — and the films they inspired — still considered among the greatest of all time?
Glad you asked. This excerpt from Loconte’s new book, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/War-Middle-earth-Confront-Gathering-1933-1945/dp/1400247934/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.XOB86YWCWn1uj4Zfk3oqTB9WG9MQQbLwBASgkqr15NWkKfOSXC-5RpcIzhcqguAh6u2mAEA__rlmNbTJXc-q7fuDoUvDpYw_bftz3i-JMZz-OT115AAqgAplDhdZqNRi4ew80IZaX6eRtLnMMl14zg.GtxJWFQj59jzOCdkAcMWFPD19R7M4lvbo1EeMK8gFDA&amp;qid=1763159058&amp;sr=1-3">The War for Middle-Earth</a>,” may help light the way. — Joel Kneedler
* * *
<h3>Minds Lit by Fire</h3>
Halfway through the Great War, on November 30, 1916, a small group of European leaders managed to attend the funeral of Franz Joseph, ruler over the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In a ceremony scripted by the emperor before his death, the Grand Cortege carrying his coffin halted outside the Capuchin Monastery in Vienna, where all the Hapsburg emperors were laid to rest.
What transpired was a whisper from an earlier era, a nod to the transcendence of God and the frailty of men. The herald, on behalf of the emperor, knocked on the monastery door.
“Who is knocking?” shouted the abbot inside.
“I am Franz Joseph, emperor of Austria, king of Hungary.”
“I don’t know you.”
Again the herald shouted: “I am Franz Joseph, emperor of Austria, king of Hungary, Bohemia, Galicia, Dalmatia, Grand Duke of Transylvania, Duke of—”
“We still don’t know who you are,” interrupted the abbot.
At this moment the herald fell on his knees and in front of all assembled declared, “I am Franz Joseph, a poor sinner, humbly begging God’s mercy.”
“Enter then,” the abbot said. And the gates opened.
The funeral of the Austro-Hungarian emperor symbolized an outlook already in an advanced stage of decay. Settled beliefs about the religious dimension to human life were becoming unsettled. Assumptions about the moral life, about the existence of good and evil, seemed to have vanished into the killing fields of the 1914–18 war. By the end of the war, the emotional and spiritual lives of millions of ordinary Europeans were caught up in a no-man’s-land of doubt and disillusionment.
Two of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, were soldiers in the Great War. They fought in the trenches in France, what one contemporary called “the long grave already dug.” They emerged from the mechanized slaughter of that conflict physically intact—just barely.
No man could pass through the fires of the Somme and Arras and remain unchanged. For Tolkien, his war experience created an enduring sense of sadness. Yet he found that his imaginative cast of mind, his early taste for fantasy, was “quickened to full life by war.” For Lewis, the conflict deepened his youthful atheism: the growing conviction that if God existed, he was a sadist. Paradoxically, the war years launched Lewis on a spiritual quest, a desire for “Joy,” which ultimately led him on a remarkable journey of faith.
<div id="attachment_1000277" style="width: 394px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/War-Middle-earth-Confront-Gathering-1933-1945/dp/1400247934/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.XOB86YWCWn1uj4Zfk3oqTB9WG9MQQbLwBASgkqr15NWkKfOSXC-5RpcIzhcqguAh6u2mAEA__rlmNbTJXc-q7fuDoUvDpYw_bftz3i-JMZz-OT115AAqgAplDhdZqNRi4ew80IZaX6eRtLnMMl14zg.GtxJWFQj59jzOCdkAcMWFPD19R7M4lvbo1EeMK8gFDA&amp;qid=1763159058&amp;sr=1-3"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1000277" class="size-large wp-image-1000277" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Book-cover-Loconte-384x576.jpg" alt="Cover Design: Thomas Nelson" width="384" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Book-cover-Loconte-384x576.jpg 384w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Book-cover-Loconte-200x300.jpg 200w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Book-cover-Loconte-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Book-cover-Loconte-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Book-cover-Loconte-1360x2040.jpg 1360w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Book-cover-Loconte.jpg 1365w" sizes=" (max-width: 384px) 100vw, 384px" /></a>Cover Design: Thomas Nelson</div>
The lives of these two men intersected after the war as they were launching their academic careers at Oxford University. They soon formed a bond of friendship that, given the reach and influence of their novels, must rank as one of the most consequential friendships of modern times.
There was nothing inevitable about it. Tolkien was a devout Catholic; Lewis an Ulster Protestant and lapsed Anglican. At their first English faculty meeting, they circled each other like tigers in the wild. Yet they soon discovered that they loved many of the same things: ancient myths, epic poetry, medieval stories of honor, chivalry, sacrifice, and war.
The theme of war would become a defining feature of their professional and literary lives. Their personal lives would be upended by two global conflicts. Barely twenty years after surviving what was the most devastating conflict in history, Tolkien and Lewis would watch in anguish as new forces of aggression gathered and dominated the geopolitical landscape of Europe.
In 1938, a year before the outbreak of the Second World War, author H. G. Wells terrified millions with a radio broadcast based on his novel The War of the Worlds, in which an imaginary Martian invasion devastates the earth. Art would imitate life. As British historian Niall Ferguson observes, “men proved that it was quite possible to wreak comparable havoc without the need for alien intervention. All they had to do was to identify this or that group of their fellow men as the aliens, and then kill them.” This was the terrible pattern in the aftermath of the First World War. Communism, fascism, Nazism: all produced political systems that drew their strength from their hatreds.
The totalitarian states of Europe and Asia, despite their differences, shared another unifying characteristic: a contempt for the democratic and religious ideals of the West. Their ambitions made another global conflict almost inevitable.
“If the first great war was the seminal catastrophe,” argues historian Sir Ian Kershaw, “the second was the culmination of this catastrophe—the complete collapse of European civilization.” Living and working in Oxford, England, Tolkien and Lewis found themselves at the storm front of this tragedy. Like no other conflict in Britain’s long history, the Second World War created an existential crisis. For many months the political survival of their island nation was an open question.
It was in the crucible of this experience that Tolkien and Lewis sought each other out. The horror of the First World War instigated a cultural backlash, setting loose forces that tore at the moral and spiritual foundations of Western civilization. Both men were determined to fight back. They formed the nucleus of a group of like-minded writers, all resolved to establish a beachhead of resistance in the war of ideas that was raging around them.
The onset of the Second World War created a profound sense of urgency. Tolkien and Lewis came to believe that the soul of their neighbor, as well as the soul of their civilization, hung in the balance. In ways not fully appreciated, the 1939–45 war utterly transformed their lives and literary imaginations. Their most beloved works — including The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Screwtape Letters, Mere Christianity, and The Chronicles of Narnia — were conceived in the shadow of this conflict.
“Talent alone cannot make a writer,” observed Ralph Waldo Emerson. “There must be a man behind the book.” Behind the extraordinary works of Tolkien and Lewis stood a cloud of witnesses: individuals whose contributions to the literary canon of Western civilization provided the inspiration for their epic novels. Both authors instinctively looked to this inheritance and were nourished by it in wartime.
As a result, they acquired something that our modern era has mostly abandoned: perspective. By being rooted in the great books of the Western tradition, they knew where to look for wisdom, virtue, courage, and faith. Intimate knowledge of the past braced them for the crisis years of 1933–45. In this, they reinforced each other’s best instincts. “My entire philosophy of history,” Lewis once told Tolkien, “hangs upon a single sentence of your own.”
Could an entire philosophy of history be summed up in a single sentence? What sentence? It is from a passage in The Lord of the Rings, when Gandalf the Wizard explains to Frodo Baggins something of the ancient struggle for Middle-earth. “There was sorrow then, too, and gathering dark, but great valor, and great deeds that were not wholly vain.” Here is an approach to history — to the terrible history of the twentieth century — that invites reflection.
The lives of Tolkien and Lewis, after all, were embedded in this story when another disastrous war unleashed upon the earth a storm of human misery unsurpassed in the catalogue of world catastrophes. “Middle-earth, I suspect, looks so engagingly familiar to us, and speaks to us so eloquently,” writes biographer John Garth, “because it was born with the modern world and marked by the same terrible birth pangs.” We cannot fully appreciate the achievement of these two remarkable authors until we try to see the world as they experienced it. They possessed a deep awareness of life’s sorrows.
Yet this is only part of their story. Their experience of suffering was held in check by something stronger: gratitude. The Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero called this quality “not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.” Like no other authors of their age, they used their imagination to reclaim—for their generation and ours—those deeds of valor and sacrifice and love that have always kept a lamp burning even in the deepest darkness.
* * *
Adapted from &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/War-Middle-earth-Confront-Gathering-1933-1945/dp/1400247934">THE WAR FOR MIDDLE-EARTH: J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Confront the Gathering Storm, 1933-1945</a>,&#8221; by Joseph Loconte. Copyright 2025 by Joseph Loconte. Published by Thomas Nelson. Available wherever books are sold on November 18, 2025.
* * *
Joseph Loconte, PhD, is an author, historian, and filmmaker. He serves as Director of The Rivendell Center in New York City. He is a Presidential Scholar at New College of Florida and a Senior Fellow at the Sagamore Institute. Mr. Loconte’s commentary appears in outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Affairs, The New Criterion, National Geographic, Law and Liberty, The National Interest, and National Review. For ten years Mr. Loconte served as a commentator for National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. A native of Brooklyn, New York, he divides his time between Washington, DC, and New York City.
* * *
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Tolkien Lewis II

Tolkien, Lewis, And The Battle To Save Western Civilization

Books

C.S. Lewis

J.R.R. Tolkien

Oxford University

World War I

Through four books now, fans of Andrew Klavan’s Cameron Winter novels have wondered if the assassin-turned-poetry professor would conquer his inner demons and realize his life’s great ambition: becoming worthy of a good woman’s love. In his fifth outing, After That, the Dark, readers may at last have their answer.
This installment finds Winter continuing to flirt with faith — literally. The object of his affection, therapist Gwendolyn Lord, is a committed Christian, and her belief in the spiritual realm prompts Winter to wonder whether his latest case is bringing him in contact with the demonic. 
When Winter first meets Gwendolyn in the third book of the series, The House of Love and Death, he tells her of his “strange habit of mind&#8221; that leads him to obsess over crimes that don’t make sense. Remembering this, now that Cam has, thanks to therapy, overcome his guilt and self-loathing enough to ask her out on a date, Gwendolyn shares the story of an “impossible murder.”  
After a mental breakdown leads him to slaughter his wife and baby, upstanding Tulsa man Owen McKay is confined to a jail cell and under constant video surveillance when he’s found dead of a single bullet to the heart. The authorities preposterously rule his death a suicide, but it’s obvious to Winter they’re covering up evidence.
Just as he’s decided to solve the classic locked room mystery to impress Gwendolyn, he gets word of a similar murder in Connecticut. Once again, a loving husband and father is overcome by dark impulses that seem completely out of character. Is technology or something even more malevolent driving these violent breaks? And are there other ordinary family men out there at risk of committing similar crimes? 
Klavan tells me part of the fun of writing this novel was contrasting Gwendolyn’s faith with Cam’s agnosticism as they consider motives for the killings. “Cam’s absolutely crazy about Gwendolyn from the first minute he sees her in one of the earlier books,” Klavan shares, “but at the same time, she&#8217;s saying things that make him feel like he doesn&#8217;t know what she&#8217;s talking about. Every time she says, ‘Well, maybe it&#8217;s a problem with demons,’ he&#8217;s thinking, ‘What on earth is this woman?&#8217; But at the same time, he&#8217;s swept away by her. So he&#8217;s trying to take it seriously.”
As Cam continues to hunt for clues, he discovers the killers may have been possessed by a more artificial form of intelligence — one that’s learned to take advantage of ordinary human predilections for evil. 
Klavan says that if he were starting out writing today, he would focus on science fiction for the simple reason that while technology is moving faster than ever and challenging our culture’s moral boundaries like never before, ultimately, it is still our own virtue, or lack of it, that shapes how we use the tools the best and brightest minds invent. 
“It&#8217;s never the technology. It&#8217;s always the people,” Klavan says. “People always say, ‘We&#8217;ve got to regulate this.’ But you can’t regulate technology. You regulate what people do because people do evil things. And so, everything we create has a possibility to do something good and has a possibility to do something bad. And people being what they are, those who want to do bad with them are kind of ahead of the game.”
This focus on the fallen nature of man occupies Winter’s mind, too, as he considers his service to his country and weighs the assassinations he once considered patriotic. 
“No country can really be good, can it?” he thinks. “They’ve all got people in them. And you know what they’re like.” At the same time, he is coming to understand that the inability of a country and its people to be all good doesn’t erase their noble and worthy aspects. He even begins to realize that his protective instincts may redeem his own lethal past—the one that has so plagued his psyche during his sessions with therapist, Margaret: if taking up killing again means protecting Gwendolyn.
“Cam had a major breakthrough in the fourth book,” Klavan explains. “He really deals with the past that has had its grip on him, and he’s now he&#8217;s free, and we&#8217;re going to see what he&#8217;s like when he gets rid of all this baggage. I mean, here&#8217;s a guy who walks into mortal danger cool and calm. He&#8217;s a courageous guy, yet he cannot bring himself to call this girl on the phone, because he knows she matters. He knows she&#8217;s not just another girl. He knows that this is something important. And so when he finally works up the courage and does it, it is a genuine catapult into his own future. And so I think that this is the book where Cam becomes fully himself.”  
And a Cam who is fully himself may have to return to the work he once did so well—removing opposition. But this time, he will do it not for duty. Not for country. But for love.

Andrew Klavan, After That, the Dark

Winter In Love: In New Book, Andrew Klavan’s Tortured Detective Finally Gets The Girl

Andrew Klavan

Faith

love

Mystery

Novel

Thriller

Light streaming through arched windows of church

The Fight To Make A Christian College Christian Again

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)

A Democrat-backed bill sitting on Governor JB Pritzker’s desk would turn Illinois into an assisted suicide destination and severely curtail the rights of Christian doctors, a conservative legal group is warning. 
Just a few hours after midnight on Halloween morning, Democrats in the Illinois Senate rammed through legislation that would legalize doctor-assisted suicide in a 30–27 vote. The <a href="https://ilga.gov/Legislation/BillStatus/VoteHistory?GAID=18&amp;DocNum=1950&amp;DocTypeID=SB&amp;LegId=161335&amp;SessionID=114">bill</a>, which was passed by the state House in May, is awaiting Pritzker’s signature. It would allow doctors to prescribe deadly pills to those who are sick and have been given a prognosis of less than six months to live. 
Conservative groups in the state say that the legislation would force doctors to promote and make referrals for the deadly practice.
“You&#8217;re not just allowing physicians to give people deadly drugs to kill themselves, but you&#8217;re actually forcing us or people of faith, to be part of it, to promote it,” Peter Breen, the head of litigation at Thomas More Society, told The Daily Wire. “I know of no other state where the legislature has gone this far in restricting the religious liberty rights of people of faith.”
While the bill says that doctors would not be forced to participate in prescribing the fatal pills, Breen said that the text contains provisions that would “force institutions and physicians to refer for and to inform about the opportunity to take deadly drugs and end your life.”
Breen noted that parts of the bill would make it impossible for a Christian hospital to fire a doctor who promoted assisted suicide or facilitated one off the grounds of the hospital. 
Currently, 11 states and Washington, D.C., allow for physician-assisted suicide, but Illinois would be the first in America’s heartland. 
“Illinois would become the first state in the middle of the country to enact assisted suicide,” Breen said. “There&#8217;s a significant concern that this is going to turn Illinois into a suicide tourism state.”
He said that what Illinois Democrats were trying to do was “beyond the pale” and that assisted suicide was in opposition to Christian ethics. The Illinois Catholic Conference has come out strongly against the bill and urged Pritzker to veto it. 
While Breen acknowledged that Pritzker was one of the most leftist governors in America, he said he had some “hope” that he would veto it because of the religious liberty implications. 
Pritzker has not yet signaled whether he will sign the measure. 
“I know how terrible it is that someone who’s in the last six months of their life could be experiencing terrible pain and anguish. And I know people who’ve gone through that,” he <a href="https://capitolnewsillinois.com/news/legislature-passes-medical-aid-in-dying-bill-that-governor-says-he-will-review/">said</a> on Monday. “It hits me deeply and makes me wonder about, you know, how we can alleviate the pain that they’re going through?”
If Pritzker signs the legislation, Breen said that the Thomas More Society would sue to block it. The law firm has already challenged Illinois over a similar law forcing crisis pregnancy centers to promote abortion.

Learning With Love: The 2025 PFLAG National Convention in Chicago, IL

‘Beyond The Pale’: JB Pritzker Could Soon Make Illinois A Hub For ‘Suicide Tourism’

Assisted Suicide

Illinois

JB Pritzker

Religious Liberty

Do you agree with the Apostle Paul?
That was the question police asked Finnish parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen repeatedly over the course of 13 hours of interrogation over a social media post she made featuring a Bible verse. 
Six years ago, Räsänen found herself in a small room being questioned after she <a href="https://x.com/PaiviRasanen/status/1140693636176384011">shared</a> a Bible verse from the book of Romans detailing the Christian understanding of sexuality. After she shared the verse, she was charged with hate speech and dragged to the police station for numerous rounds of questions about her beliefs. 
“It was a very, very absurd and surreal experience,” Räsänen said on Thursday when asked by The Daily Wire to describe her experience. “I was sitting in a small room in a police station. I had the Bible on the table and the police were asking me very theological questions.”
She said that she was asked about the meaning of Romans and about the concepts of sin and shame in the Bible. Räsänen said she was brought in for questioning three times for a total of 13 hours, leading to a joke that she was “going to have a Bible study” at the police station, she said. 
Räsänen said her experience reminded her of stories she heard about Christians being persecuted by the Soviet Union. 
“Those stories that I had heard from these communist countries,” she said. “So I was so shocked that something like that could happen in Finland, in a country that has long roots in Christianity and rule of law and freedom of speech and faith.”
After each interrogation, she was given two weeks to delete her social media post and apologize. She refused each time. 
“I said that I do not apologize… because it&#8217;s not my opinion, it is what the Word of God says,” Räsänen said. 
She is a member of the Lutheran Church and was previously Finland’s Ministry of the Interior, meaning she once oversaw the police who interrogated her. Her case is now before Finland’s top court and comes after she was unanimously acquitted in 2022 and 2023 by lower courts. She faces two criminal charges for “agitation against a minority group.”
Räsänen’s case was heard on Thursday by the Finnish Supreme Court. She was represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom International and criminal defense lawyer Matti Sankamo. 
<div id="attachment_993749" style="width: 1674px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-993749" class="size-full wp-image-993749" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-30-at-1.20.01-PM.png" alt="" width="1664" height="1106" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-30-at-1.20.01-PM.png 1664w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-30-at-1.20.01-PM-300x199.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-30-at-1.20.01-PM-867x576.png 867w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-30-at-1.20.01-PM-768x510.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-30-at-1.20.01-PM-1536x1021.png 1536w" sizes=" (max-width: 1664px) 100vw, 1664px" />Räsänen outside the Supreme Court/ Alliance Defending Freedom International.</div>
In a press call after Thursday’s hearing, Sankamo said that it appeared that prosecutors had changed the primary focus of their case against Räsänen.
Also on trial is Bishop Juhana Pohjola, a Lutheran church leader who published a pamphlet in 2004 written by Räsänen defending the Christian view of marriage as between one man and one woman. Prosecutors have called for Pohjola to pull the pamphlet from circulation. 
“The Christian message of marriage and sexuality has been taught for two millennia, and it should never be considered a crime to speak what Christians have always believed,” he said ahead of the hearing. 
Both Pohjola and Räsänen face a hefty fine if they lose their case. The charges they face could come with prison time, though prosecutors have not requested that punishment. 
Paul Coleman, the executive director of Alliance Defending Freedom International, said that losing the case could make countless other Christian materials considered criminal. 
“We&#8217;ve not yet seen a case reach the highest court of a land where actual theological concepts like sin are considered hate speech, or where the words of the Bible are being put on trial,” he said Thursday. “And so again, if the prosecutor is successful, then that will set a new low, really, for freedom of expression in Europe and specifically for Christians.”
A verdict in the case is not expected until spring 2026, but Räsänen is hopeful that the result will be a resounding win for freedom of religion and speech. 
“The main question in this whole process is, the heart of this trial, is the question of whether teachings related to the Bible can be presented and whether it is still permissible to agree with the Bible, even when they contradict the main ideology of the society,” she said.

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The Bible On Trial: Christian Politician Goes Back To Court Over Religious Beliefs

Europe

Finland

Free Speech

Marriage

Religious Freedom

Persecution reaches a fever pitch in the “Christian Murder Capital” of the world, Russia ratchets up its saber-rattling with a nuclear drill, and an illegal immigrant honored by the City of Los Angeles allegedly rams an ICE vehicle.
It’s Thursday, October 23, 2025, and this is the news you need to know to start your day.
Morning Wire is available on video! You can watch today’s episode here:
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If you would rather listen to your news, today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below:
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<h2 style="text-align: center;">The Christian Genocide You Probably Haven’t Heard Of</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-990063" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Christian-Murder-Capital-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Christian-Murder-Capital-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Christian-Murder-Capital-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Christian-Murder-Capital-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Christian-Murder-Capital-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Christian-Murder-Capital.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: The Christian genocide ongoing in Nigeria has claimed thousands of lives this year alone, but human rights advocates say the Nigerian government has turned a blind eye.
In the first nine months of this year, advocacy groups estimate that more than 7,000 Christians have been killed across Nigeria, many in attacks that leave entire communities burned to the ground.
For more than a decade, this pattern of violence has gone largely unnoticed. But American lawmakers — including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) — are calling for Nigeria to be reclassified as a “country of particular concern” for religious persecution.
“Many in the media share the same woke mindset that they will not call out radical Islamic terrorism for what it is, especially when it&#8217;s Christians who are the victims. And so it takes the rest of us to highlight this needs to end,” Cruz told Morning Wire.
Join us now during our exclusive Deal of the Decade. Get everything for $7 a month. Not as fans. As fighters. Go to <a href="http://dailywire.com/Subscribe" target="_blank" rel="noopener">DailyWire.com/Subscribe</a> to join now.
Judd Saul is the founder of Equipping the Persecuted, a group that has been on the ground trying to minister to Nigerian Christians. He said the crisis has been building for decades as radical Muslim groups have been taking control of the area.
“What they have done is they move in, they populate, and once they gain population, they start taking political control. And once they gain political control, the killing starts,” Saul told Morning Wire.
These deaths often occur among women, children, and the elderly who can’t easily flee their small villages.
Why the silence: One of Saul’s biggest frustrations is how little the world knows about the ongoing genocide. The Nigerian government effectively controls what gets reported. Western outlets too often repeat official denials without sending reporters to see the devastation themselves.
“The mainstream media never shows up. They just take the government’s word for it, and every time Christians are killed, it’s always ‘unknown gunmen.’ But we know who’s doing it,” Saul said.
Now footage is emerging of burned churches, mass graves, and displaced families living under tarps in camps with no food or medicine.
Response from Washington: Cruz introduced legislation this month: the Nigeria Religious Freedom Accountability Act of 2025. It will impose sanctions on Nigerian officials accused of facilitating violence against Christians and other religious minorities.
Response from Nigeria: Nigerian officials continue to deny that Christians are being targeted for their faith. They’re framing the violence as clashes between herders and farmers. But many international watchdogs like Open Doors and International Christian Concern say that’s false.
Saul says the Nigerian military has repeatedly failed to respond to warnings of attacks. It’s because of this inaction that many Nigerian Christians are calling on the United States government to use its international influence to shine a spotlight on these atrocities.
<h2 style="text-align: center;">The Push For Peace In Ukraine</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-990061" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Peace-Summit-Axed-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Peace-Summit-Axed-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Peace-Summit-Axed-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Peace-Summit-Axed-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Peace-Summit-Axed-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Peace-Summit-Axed.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: President Trump canceled a second summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and hours later, a fresh barrage of Russian missiles rained down on Ukraine.
Moscow doesn’t appear to want to end the war. It recently launched another major missile and drone attack on Ukraine that killed seven people – part of Russia&#8217;s campaign to knock out Ukraine’s energy supplies ahead of winter.
According to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/u-s-lifts-key-restriction-on-ukraines-use-of-western-long-range-missiles-5a15c12d?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=AWEtsqdQ8iMn0Xl6WlTrEflM-qAdv5sTUs7vuBvNZqNHOO44yer9ClOXnPh5RoBrwOw%3D&amp;gaa_ts=68f9bcbf&amp;gaa_sig=bR0aCbBe-iAb62JlmwUtP7EmQ0bOUlbyBoNFYlO5isMUbFBJT0FTYJFJG1PtWOXrVgGcUK2uNDoFNFO31R14WQ%3D%3D">The Wall Street Journal</a>, the United States has given Ukraine the green light to launch its own attacks inside Russian territory. Trump has <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115419686256202789">denied</a> that report, but on Tuesday, Ukraine used a British Storm Shadow cruise missile to hit a plant in Bryansk, Russia.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also announced on Wednesday a “substantial pickup” in sanctions against Russia.
The exchange in missile attacks came as Trump backed out of a second peace summit with Putin. It was supposed to be held in Budapest, Hungary. The White House canceled the summit after a phone call between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Trump said Tuesday he <a href="https://x.com/Osint613/status/1980741977000821245">canceled</a> the summit because he did not “want to have a wasted meeting.”
Foreign policy experts <a href="https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2025/10/22/russia-does-not-feel-enough-pressure-ukraine-bombarded-over-2-deadly-nights-as-trump-sours-on-meeting-with-putin/">say</a> this was a necessary move by Trump, recognizing that Putin does not feel enough pressure for peace talks to be productive.
Ceasefire deal?: Trump said this week that the battle lines should be frozen where they are as a precondition to peace talks. Europe has backed that position, as well as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“I think that was [a] good compromise, but I’m not sure that Putin will support it,” Zelensky told reporters after landing in Oslo.
The Ukrainian president has continued to press his case for Tomahawk missiles after his meeting at the White House last week. Zelensky said in a <a href="https://x.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1980683702448386417">post</a> on X that “Russia continues to do everything to weasel out” of a ceasefire, and “as soon as the issue of long-range capabilities for Ukraine became less immediate, [Moscow’s] interest in diplomacy faded. This signals that deep strike capabilities may hold the key to peace.”
Israel: Vice President JD Vance paid a visit to Israel this week, primarily signaling the Trump administration’s commitment to holding together the ceasefire and moving forward with Trump’s 20-point peace plan. While there, Vance recognized some of the limits of the current situation.
“You basically have two regions in Gaza, one of which is relatively safe – I wouldn&#8217;t say very safe – and one of which is incredibly dangerous, and part of ensuring that we get to a durable peace is to broaden the scope of the area that&#8217;s safe,” <a href="https://x.com/AdamMilstein/status/1980692659422576716">said</a> Vance. “The international security force is a big part of that. We don&#8217;t yet have the international security force set up. That&#8217;s something we&#8217;re working towards.”
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Illegal Alien TikToker Nabbed In Los Angeles</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-990059" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Anti-ICE-Activist-Shot-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Anti-ICE-Activist-Shot-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Anti-ICE-Activist-Shot-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Anti-ICE-Activist-Shot-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Anti-ICE-Activist-Shot-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Anti-ICE-Activist-Shot.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: An illegal immigrant and well-known TikToker was shot by federal authorities in Los Angeles after he tried to evade arrest for a second time and allegedly rammed a federal vehicle.
The illegal immigrant allegedly behind the attack is Carlitos Ricardo Parías, 44, who is known on TikTok as Richard LA and who regularly exposes ICE operations online to his more than 132,000 followers.
The suspect allegedly tried to impede an ICE operation months ago, but got away. He was seen in handcuffs being hauled into a vehicle by bystanders while federal authorities were trying to arrest him for allegedly interfering with immigration operations, federal law enforcement sources told The Daily Wire.
U.S. Marshals encountered him again this week, arresting him while he attempted to flee a second time. During the attack on ICE agents in which Parías allegedly rammed a federal vehicle, agents responded with gunfire, hitting Parías in the elbow. A U.S. Marshal was wounded by a ricochet bullet that hit him in the hand.
Parías has been charged with assaulting a federal officer, which carries a sentence of up to eight years in prison.
Parías has been considered somewhat of a local hero, being honored by the Los Angeles City Council for his “tireless efforts to safeguard our neighborhoods from illegal raids” in exposing ICE operations on TikTok.
He is being prosecuted aggressively by U.S. attorneys in part because federal officials get so little support in deep blue, sanctuary areas that protect illegal aliens.
New York City riot over deportations: Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Tuesday raided New York City’s Canal Street, notorious for illegal immigrant crime, as a mob of rioters attempted to stop them.
Law enforcement arrested illegal aliens of African origin, each with a lengthy rap sheet. Five of the aliens entered the United States illegally and were let go under former President Joe Biden.
The raid on Canal Street came after Turning Point USA reporter Savanah Hernandez exposed African immigrants selling counterfeit designer handbags along the sidewalk. The aliens would take off running wherever the police showed up.
Sanctuary policies have protected the illegal immigrants, as well as facilitated their illicit activities on Canal Street, according to federal officials.

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Morning Brief: Nigerian Christians Slaughtered, Russia Standoff, & Illegal Alien TikToker Nabbed

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