Mary, did you know one day you’d be reimagined?
Before you hit play, you have to read what those behind the new Netflix film “Mary” — billed as a “survival thriller” — are saying to understand the direction Hollywood is going with the movie.
Released earlier this month, screenwriter Timothy Michael Hayes <a href="https://whitmanhansonexpress.com/whitmans-timothy-michael-hayes-pens-netflix-film-script/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>, “One challenge was that they wanted (the) film to appeal to all denominations and all dogmas.”
The first hint at a modern-day inclusive Mary.
After all, they consulted Christian, Jewish, and Muslim leaders when writing the screenplay. Yes, Muslim leaders. Show of hands if you think Hollywood would consult Christians on a film about Mohammed. Me neither.
Bible-believing Christians are naturally upset about the liberties taken to recreate Mary. Director of &#8220;Mary,&#8221; D.J. Caruso, said he wanted to give the world a portrayal of the real, human Mary even though the Bible doesn&#8217;t have much to say about her.
And the anti-Israel crowd is coming in hot because an Israeli Jewish woman, Noa Cohen, was cast as Mary, the Jewish mother of Jesus. The calls for boycotts quickly went out on social media.
Let’s just be real: If you are in the habit of spewing anti-Semitism online, then you are probably never going to watch a movie about the mother of Jesus.
Cohen, clearly has no idea who Mary was, <a href="https://thedirect.com/article/mother-mary-netflix-noa-cohen-bible-story-movie" target="_blank" rel="noopener">saying</a>, 
<blockquote>Mary’s being portrayed in a whole new light in my opinion. It&#8217;s giving her her voice back. She&#8217;s not just a vessel for something greater than herself.</blockquote>
Actually, that’s exactly who the mother of Jesus was. Saying she’s “not just a vessel” is an ignorant statement — as if it’s not enough to be chosen by God as a key instrument in His perfect plan to bring His son to earth so that He may be the ultimate sacrifice for our salvation, as Christians believe. This production brings an obvious feminist twist and an attempt to modernize Mary with an actress who doesn’t understand her story or purpose.
<div id="attachment_848557" style="width: 471px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-848557" class="wp-image-848557 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/MixCollage-23-Dec-2024-10-50-AM-4074-461x576.jpg" alt="&quot;Mary.&quot; Netflix. Aloe Entertainment. Creativity Media. IMDB." width="461" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/MixCollage-23-Dec-2024-10-50-AM-4074-461x576.jpg 461w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/MixCollage-23-Dec-2024-10-50-AM-4074-240x300.jpg 240w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/MixCollage-23-Dec-2024-10-50-AM-4074-768x960.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/MixCollage-23-Dec-2024-10-50-AM-4074-1229x1536.jpg 1229w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/MixCollage-23-Dec-2024-10-50-AM-4074.jpg 1440w" sizes="(max-width: 461px) 100vw, 461px" />&#8220;Mary.&#8221; Netflix. Aloe Entertainment. Creativity Media. IMDB.</div>
With some exceptions, faith-based movies often ping-pong between being cringe-worthy or missing the biblical mark. A mark they likely never intended to hit.
When I heard that prosperity gospel megachurch pastor Joel Osteen was an executive producer of Mary, I was fairly confident this movie would plant itself in the second camp, landing short of the biblical target. Gaining health and wealth is at the center of the prosperity gospel, and generally absent of sound biblical theology.
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On X, Osteen <a href="https://x.com/JoelOsteen/status/1865074051921641658" target="_blank" rel="noopener">teased</a> the movie, saying, “See Mary like you’ve never seen her before.” Tell me you’re not going to stick to the Bible without telling me.
If you hit play, right out of the gate, Mary opens the film with, “You may think you know my story. Trust me, you don’t.”
Trust me, Netflix, we do — for the Bible tells us so.
Friendly PSA: If you’re letting Hollywood teach you theology, you’re doing it wrong.
It’s bad enough Disney is tragically “reimagining” their classics — one painful reboot at a time. Their <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/soniathompson/2024/08/22/did-disney-make-the-right-decision-about-the-dwarfs-for-snow-white-movie/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">second attempt</a> at reimagining “Snow White” comes out next year, and includes seven computer-generated “magical creatures” instead of dwarfs and a Latina Snow White who publicly trashed the original “Snow White.” In spite of the politically correct ring kissing having no floor or ceiling — you can never bend the woke knee enough, even for magical creatures — everyone understands animated fairytales are fiction. That doesn’t change the fact that liberties taken with Dopey and Sneezy are still dumb. For a majority of Americans, however, the Bible is not fiction. Adherence to its original context without ad libbing an agenda is something many of us take very seriously. 
Director of “Mary,” D.J. Caruso, <a href="https://religionnews.com/2024/12/06/new-netflix-film-wants-to-make-mary-accessible-to-all/">said</a>, 
<blockquote>The world needs to see Mary, and they need to see her in a new light. My goal was to see if I could present Mary in a beautiful way, in a way that a younger audience could see her and relate to her as not just this beautiful, iconic holy mother, but as a young girl who had to make sacrifices and struggle and deal with things that a lot of the contemporary youth are dealing with today.</blockquote>
While, no doubt, young girls today have serious struggles and make sacrifices, none will ever be able to relate to being chosen to carry the Savior of the world through an immaculate conception and the potential earthly consequences she may have faced. The most they can do is respect her faithfulness.
A bright light has been shining on Mary for more than 2,000 years. Her story and her obedience to God are just as beautiful and relevant today as it was back then.
If God wanted us to have a different take on Mary, He would have provided one and not waited more than 2,000 years for Netflix to offer its take.
In “Mary,” her cousin Elizabeth <a href="https://stmarkministries.com/2024/12/should-you-watch-the-mary-movie-on-netflix/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tells her</a>, “Trust the strength inside of you.” It sounds eerily like the gospel of self-actualization trending in today’s “me” centered culture. It also sounds like something you’d hear straight from Joel Osteen.
Hollywood doesn’t need to give the mother of Jesus a reboot in order to reach large audiences and reap the financial rewards. On the rare occasion it does produce a film that&#8217;s faithful to Scripture, such as “The Passion of the Christ,” audiences turn out in droves — to the tune of over $600 million at the box office.
Hollywood is great at making Hallmark movies, but not so much with theologically accurate narratives.
Caruso <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/mary-noa-cohen-comments-bible-113606680.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wants us to believe</a> that Mary is &#8220;sort of a superhero without powers.” The film wraps with Mary — the superhero — announcing that “Love will save the world.”
Nice bumper sticker, but if you’re a Christian, you know that it’s God’s Son who came to save the world, and He’s the only superhero in this story.
* * *
Lauren DeBellis Appell, a former lobbyist and communications aide on Capitol Hill, is a writer based in Fairfax, Virginia. Follow her on X <a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__twitter.com_ldappell-3Flang-3Den&amp;d=DwMFaQ&amp;c=cnx1hdOQtepEQkpermZGwQ&amp;r=kaAUPcZhpO1MvBc6jwa0VBiGZWXka6ART1tFuyQjLfc&amp;m=vTKo4FePDMyKVWSuxLCuaaDL3sLK4GEfxQYz1yppw20&amp;s=SGybKxJyqU1J2FWxExk5C2vqBiQeF6THIyErZ--DZHc&amp;e=" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@LDAppell</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

MixCollage-23-Dec-2024-11-00-AM-8948

Netflix’s ‘Mary’ Is Quite Contrary To Reality

Netflix’s 'Mary' Is Quite Contrary To Reality

Bible

Entertainment

Film Reviews

Jesus Christ

Movies

Netflix

Opinion

Woke Culture

Born into lowly circumstances, he came without fanfare, without flair, without majesty of royalty. Yet his coming fulfilled Old Testament prophecies that pronounced God would send a savior for the world — for every individual in every subsequent time period in every society. The birth story of Jesus has transcended time, and Dr. Jordan B. Peterson’s series, “The Gospels,” is evidence of that transcendence. 
To examine the birth of Jesus Christ is to assess the nativity story itself. Peterson and the scholars who join him at the table to read the words of the narrative that begins Jesus’ life and mission take up the task of expository discussion: They analyze the story’s personal and cultural implications, evaluate its historical and political context, and address how it applies to us today. The nativity story continues to draw us in, sometimes in ways we simply cannot explain — try as we might. 
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<h4>Mary and Joseph: Personal and Cultural Significance </h4>
“And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.” Luke 1:31-33
The birth story of Jesus involves several visits from angels: to Mary, with news of her pregnancy; to Joseph, in a dream with instructions to marry Mary; to shepherds, in a field with directives to find the baby. The greatest of stories, Jordan has said before, omit everyday, common material, but they include excitement — just as the Gospels exclude extraneous details around these angel visits. But the day-to-day happenings were still going right on in these people’s lives. By the time the angel visits Joseph, Mary has somehow already told him, even though they would have been supervised at all times. How? When? Afterward, Joseph had “considered these things,” but what, exactly, was he thinking? What overwhelming news this would have been for them both. 
Yet even in the midst of immensely life-changing, supernatural news, Mary “says ‘yes’ to the fact of the child,” Jordan notes. “There isn’t a deeper reflection of fundamental faith in the goodness of being and becoming than the decision a woman takes to throw herself wholeheartedly and without reservation into the relationship with her infant.” On a personal level, Mary embodies great faith in motherhood. More broadly, Mary’s attitude reflects that of a healthy culture: one that holds the image of mother and infant sacred. Without the values of maternal love, life, continuity, and sacrifice, a culture has no future. 
So, too, does Joseph accept the angel’s directions without question. This is not because the Gospels shy away from addressing doubt and disbelief, as Gregg Hurwitz points out. After all, “How much can you spring on one person at once?” Jordan posits. Joseph had resolved to send Mary away quietly, but he, instead, pushes any doubt or disbelief aside. Like Mary’s, Joseph’s faith as an individual is evident. But on a cultural level, his willingness to act in good faith creates a solid foundation for the family. 
<h4>The Birth of Jesus: Historical and Political Significance </h4>
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6
Context always matters — always. The time of Jesus’ birth is unmistakably significant to his life’s mission, which the group discusses at length. At his birth, the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus had come to be known as Divi Filius, a Latin phrase meaning “son of a god.” This is an undeniable mark of a hero story: the genuine God is born during a false god’s tyrannical rule. At the same time, many historians consider Augustus one of the greatest leaders in history. He is responsible for establishing the Pax Romana, a 200-year period of peace. During his reign and the years following, the Romans did not rebel and no outside forces attacked Rome. Considering this period of stability, Jesus is auspiciously born into a time his mission can be most fruitful. Undoubtedly, the Christian message was able to spread with astonishing speed. 
The true emperor where true peace will be found is born into a hidden location, and his coming is not announced to the masses. It is announced to those who shared a specific relationship with the prophets of the Old Testament: shepherds. But the choice of shepherds is significant beyond even the prophetic; it is significant in regards to the universal. The shepherds to whom the angel delivers the birth announcement would have been considered lowly because of their socioeconomic status. Christ’s birth, his mission, his salvific nature is universally salvific, intended for everyone.
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/jordan-b-peterson/gospels-christmas/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH JORDAN B. PETERSON&#8217;S SERIES, &#8220;THE GOSPELS,&#8221; ON DAILYWIRE+</a>
Accompanying the angel who delivers the birth announcement to the shepherds comes “a company of the heavenly host” (Luke 2:13). The Hebrew defines this heavenly host as an “army.” Bishop Barron reminds the group that though emperors dominate the world with human armies, Christ will have ultimate dominion with a fierce, angelic, supernatural army. 
<h4>The Heavenly Host: Spiritual and Universal Significance</h4>
“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” Luke 2:11
What does this nativity story tell us about today? About ourselves? About this life — and the next? It tells us that Jesus — the giver of personal peace and worldly peace to come — brings hope, and he intended us to carry that eternal hope with us. 
The host of angels and shepherds signify the fullness of universal reconciliation: two extremes, above and below, connected together through Christ’s birth. Their angelic message proclaims, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” Jesus’ mission was to bring true peace, reconciling man to God through his eventual sacrifice. When glory is given to God, as Bishop Barron explains, peace suffuses personally, culturally, and universally. 
It is a story for us, one with the hope of peace and the promise of life.

Jordan Peterson, The Gospels

Critically Examining The Nativity Story: Contextual Study In ‘The Gospels’

Critically Examining The Nativity Story: Contextual Study In 'The Gospels'

DailyWire+

Gospel

Jordan Peterson

Well, my friends, this is my final post before Christmas break. So as we approach this holiest of holy days, I would like to set all the political animosity aside, and reach out in love and charity to all people made in the image of God, and also to Democrats, and deliver a seasonal message full of lofty-sounding sentiments that seem uplifting on first hearing only because, when studied carefully, they reveal themselves to be empty of anything resembling wisdom or even meaning. And I want to speak these empty phrases in a pious-sounding voice like this one so that they sound like they either come from the heart or from one of those excruciatingly worthy NPR reports about the art of flute-making among Amazonian Kumonga-Bonga tribesmen or some other bull-pucky you couldn’t care less about, but you can’t turn it off because then people will think you don’t like primitive indigenous people which, of course, you don’t but if you wanted anyone to know that, you wouldn’t be listening to NPR in the first place.
And when I deliver these pseudo-deep yuletide meditations, I want to rely on a lot of cutesy, unnecessarily allusive phrases like “this festive season of the year,” or “the babe laid in a manger,” instead of just saying Christmas or Jesus like any normal person. Do you think Jesus’s mother called him “the babe laid in a manger?” Like, “Hey, babe laid in a manger, make sure you’re back by dinnertime and don’t forget to wear your helmet when you’re riding your bike.” Of course not. They probably didn’t even have helmets then since it was back in olden times.
So without further ado — and before I get sick of talking like some shmuck on the classical music station — let me get to this year’s Christmas message.
You know, at this festive season of the year, when our thoughts turn once again to that babe laid in a manger so very long ago when there were still mangers, but you couldn’t get a bike helmet for love or money, it’s customary for us to go shopping for gifts. Uncle Harry wants a new tie because he got so smashed last Christmas he spilled gravy on his old tie and had to spend the entire year telling people it was handmade by South American craftsmen and what looked like a gravy stain was actually an outline of Argentina. Little Tommy wants a telescope because little Julie across the street keeps forgetting to draw the curtains before she gets ready for bed. And Mom, who’s always so sweetly selfless, just wants a modest little ticket to Pittsburgh and a new social security number along with a driver’s license with her picture on it but an entirely different name.
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But is buying presents really what this festive season of the year is all about? Or is it about that child laid in a manger back in olden times and the shepherds who were watching their flocks by night when an angel of the Lord appeared before them and said, “Don’t be afraid. Because lo, a savior has been born to you who will return to judge you for your sins. So wait, I take back what I said about not being afraid. You should probably be scared out of your wits. But never mind that. Go to Bethlehem and see where this child is laid in a manger, and if you find out what a manger is, send word. And bring him gifts like, I don’t know, maybe a lamb chop or something. You’re shepherds. You figure it out. Only leave the little drummer boy home this year because if he wakes that kid up after Mary finally gets him to sleep, she’s gonna slap his face off.” Then the angel vanished and a heavenly host appeared singing “Peace on earth to men of good will. But the rest of you are screwed.”
So in conclusion, let me just remind you that, when you get your religion from chintzy sentiment like this, you get what you deserve.
And believe me, you do not want that.
* * *
This excerpt is taken from the opening satirical monologue of “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Andrew Klavan Show</a>.”
Andrew Klavan is the host of “The Andrew Klavan Show” at The Daily Wire. He is the bestselling author of the Cameron Winter Mystery series. The fourth installment, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1613165536?ref_=dbs_m_mng_rwt_calw_thcv_3&amp;storeType=ebooks" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A WOMAN UNDERGROUND</a>,” is now available. Follow him on X: @andrewklavan
The views expressed in this satirical article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

I wish you a warm welcome to Christmas dinner!

My Seasonal Message Full Of Lofty-Sounding Sentiments

Andrew Klavan

Christians

Christmas

Humor

Satire

Last Saturday, Pope Francis attended a nativity exhibit in the Vatican that depicted the baby Jesus as a Palestinian.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Pope Francis inaugurates the new nativity scene called ”Betlehem 2024” in the Vatican
Looks like the Pope has also fallen for the absurd claim that Jesus was a Palestinian. <a href="https://t.co/nVhsOW8vuL">pic.twitter.com/nVhsOW8vuL</a>
&mdash; Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) <a href="https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1865501290031165766?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 7, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The exhibit in Paul VI Hall was <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/pope-francis-inaugurates-nativity-scene-in-vatican-showing-baby-jesus-on-keffiyeh/#:~:text=The%20keffiyeh%2Ddraped%20cradle%2C%20which,Bethlehem%2C%20according%20to%20Vatican%20News." target="_blank" rel="noopener">created by Palestinian artists</a>. The baby Jesus was swathed in a Palestinian Keffiyeh. Palestine Liberation Organization spokesperson Ramzi Khouri brought “warm greetings” from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and lauded Francis, telling of his “deep gratitude for the pope’s unwavering support for the Palestinian cause and his tireless efforts to end the war on Gaza and promote justice.”
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Francis has expressed anti-Israel beliefs before, apparently labeling Israel’s response to the October 7 Hamas massacre of more than 1200 people in Israel as immoral, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/pope-israel-lebanon-hezbollah-72b592696627d1a671e7419e98e354b6" target="_blank" rel="noopener">saying</a>, “A country that does these things — and I’m talking about any country — in a superlative way, these are immoral actions.”
Francis has <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/pope-francis-calls-for-probe-to-determine-if-israels-actions-in-gaza-constitute-genocide/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">called</a> for an investigation into Israel’s actions in Gaza to see if they should be labeled “genocide.” On the first anniversary of the October 7 massacre, Francis issued a Letter to Catholics of the Middle East. In the letter, he cited John 8:44. “The verse chosen by the pontiff, a vitriolic accusation that the Jews ‘are from [their] father, the devil,’ has for centuries provoked and been used to justify Church hostility to Jews,” Tablet Magazine <a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/unfulfilled-promise-pope-francis-israel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">noted.</a>
The consistent attempts by Palestinians and their supporters to rewrite the history of the land of Israel have included trying to claim Jesus was a Palestinian, a claim easily refuted since there was never a state of Palestine. Yet in 2013, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/2013-12-23/ty-article/abbas-jesus-was-palestinian/0000017f-e55e-d9aa-afff-fd5e01410000" target="_blank" rel="noopener">called</a> Jesus “a Palestinian messenger,” and in 2019, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) shared a tweet that stated, “I was once asked by a relative who is a Palestinian Christian why the Christian right in America largely supports their oppression. ‘Don’t they know we’re Christian too? Do they even consider us human? Don’t they know Jesus was a Palestinian?’”
As Peter Wehner has <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/01/jewish-history-jesus-settler-colonialism-claims/677149/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">written</a>, “In fact, although many Palestinians today are Christians, Jesus himself was not one. He was born to Jewish parents in Judea, he lived as a Jew, and he died as a Jew. In the time of Jesus, Palestine didn’t exist—as a place, an entity, a word, or a concept. In the second century, Judea, which was the epicenter of large-scale Jewish rebellions against Roman rule, was renamed Syria Palaestina—later simply Palaestina—by the Romans.”

VATICAN-RELIGION-POPE

Pope Francis Attends Vatican Nativity Exhibit Showing Jesus As A Palestinian

Palestinians

Pope Francis

Religion

Vatican

World

It is a truth universally acknowledged (by all right-thinking people, anyway) that Christmas comes too early. First you have the people who hoist up their wreaths and garlands at the first sign of falling leaves—a practice which should, in my opinion, be punishable by immediate deportation. I don’t care if you’re a legal citizen. The spirit of Project 2025 surely demands that we send October hall-deckers back to whichever country their ancestors most recently arrived from. Boughs of holly, gay apparel, and so forth become permissible at exactly the moment when Santa Claus reaches Herald Square in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. This was decided at the Council of Chalcedon.
But even then, December 25 is surely a demoralizing choice of dates for the pinnacle of all jollities. The excitement ramps up to a maximum just as the days are starting to droop into their coldest and darkest. This is a bright consolation for the feeling that you are looking at the sun from an increasingly unflattering angle. But then Boxing Day hits like a hangover on December 26 when, in the words of an extraordinarily depressing and mawkish poem by civil rights leader Howard Thurman, “the star in the sky is gone” and “the kings and princes are home.”
Thurman somehow meant this to be inspiring, but it’s obviously a galactic let-down. Here you are, your yearly allotment of cheer utterly spent, and there now stretch before you two months of slush and darkness with nothing to punctuate the tedium but New Year’s resolutions and Valentine’s Day. So the only activities scheduled to leaven the winter doldrums in our modern system are setting homework assignments for yourself and grappling with the crushing fear that you might die alone. Nice going, everyone.
Our ancestors knew better. What if I told you December 25 could be not the punishing end, but the gleeful start of the festivities? “The Twelve Days of Christmas” isn’t just the wish-list of an eccentric and high-maintenance wifejak. It’s a picture of how the season ought to be. Instead of dutifully pledging to obsess over hydration come January, you could be cavorting merrily among a retinue of milkmaids and an assortment of waterfowl. Or at least you could leave your Christmas lights up without remorse.
All this and more can be ours if we simply ditch the secular falderal and refer back to the liturgical calendar. Christmas would then last until January 6—which is not the Solemnity of the Insurrection but the Feast of the Epiphany, commemorating the wise men’s visit to the manger. The kings and princes are not home come New Year’s, thanks very much, they are just getting started—as we should be. By some accounts the Christmas season extends all the way to “Candlemas” on February 2, which commemorates the presentation of the baby Jesus in the temple according to Jewish rite. That would make Christmas 40 days long, rivaling the 50 days of “Eastertide” to celebrate the resurrection.
But just as the exuberance of Easter is preceded by the 40 somber days of Lent, the 40 days of Christmas are preceded by days of preparation known as Advent. This is the key to understanding the rhythm of the whole liturgical calendar: it goes through successive periods of grief and joy, silence and music, death and resurrection. It takes the natural ebb and flow of the light throughout the year as raw material in a grand work of art, using the solar system itself to construct a symbolic picture of Jesus’ life. In Genesis, when God sets up the stars as “signs to mark the seasons,” the rhythm of the year becomes a language for conveying the order of creation. The Jewish calendar, pinned to the cycles of the moon, established the pattern. The Christian calendar, founded on the schedule of Jewish feasts that Christ observed, grows out of it.
The winter solstice, when the daylight becomes shortest, makes for a natural beginning to this yearly sequence. Unlike Easter, which took place firmly during the festival of Passover, Christmas isn’t identified with a specific date in the Bible. Many people now think Jesus was born sometime in the Spring. But the winter date was fixed already by the <a href="https://referenceworks.brill.com/display/entries/EMCO/SIM-00726.xml?language=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">4th century A.D</a>. St. Augustine of Hippo loved to <a href="http://dec25th.info/Augustine's%20Sermon%20192.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">preach</a> about the symbolic appropriateness of December 25th as an entry point for God into the world, precisely because of the dark and the cold: “He, therefore, who bent low and lifted us up chose the shortest day, yet the one whence light begins to increase.” As the day wanes to its lowest ebb and the year rolls into its most brooding silence, the light of the world slips in and begins to grow.
This is deep and ancient magic. Every people and tribe has long since recognized that the earth wheels through a cycle of death and rebirth. Christians saw in their lord and savior the answer to a promise whispered through the very structure of creation, written in the very bones of the year. This is why it remains hilarious when detractors, as they have done since antiquity, accuse Christians of “appropriating” or imitating pagan rituals. The obvious answer to this is that yes, of course—in Christ we behold the fullness of a reality only dimly glimpsed in the nature worship of old. All the pageantry of myth and legend points at last to the greatest story ever told, and told again each year.
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Hence the season of Advent, a period of waiting and watching as the world grows dark. It covers the four weeks before Christmas, each one of which is dedicated to a different element of the story—the hope of the prophets, the peace of Bethlehem, the joy of the shepherds, the love of the angels. Shortly after <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3501.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">St. Martin of Tours</a> ripped his cloak and gave half to a beggar on a cold winter day, the season became associated in France with alms and fasting. Now most churches keep some form of the ritual. Creation itself holds its breath, and mankind awaits the adventus, the arrival, of a transforming light.
Not that you can’t play Christmas music in December. But you’ll get more out of the season if you spend part of it in contemplation, reading, and prayer. The world winds down this month in anticipation of a rebirth that comes just when creation feels most exhausted, its natural powers and energies spent. At that moment an all but invisible gap opens in the machinery of things, and there enters—unseen by the government sentries prowling the city streets, undreamt of in the palaces of emperors—the light and the lord of the world. At which point, the party’s on.
* * *
Spencer A. Klavan is host of the Young Heretics podcast and author, most recently, of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Light-Mind-World-Science-Illuminating/dp/1684515335" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Light of the Mind, Light of the World: Illuminating Science Through Faith</a>. The associate editor of the <a href="https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Claremont Review of Books</a>, he has written for many outlets, including The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Times, City Journal, Newsweek, The Federalist, The American Mind, and The Daily Wire. Follow him on X: <a href="https://x.com/SpencerKlavan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@SpencerKlavan</a>. You find his daily Advent posts on Substack at and read further theological reflections at <a href="https://thenewjerusalem.substack.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The New Jerusalem</a>, where he writes alongside his father, novelist Andrew Klavan.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Daily Wire.

Four lit candles for Advent

The Case For Advent-Maxxing

Advent

Catholicism

Church

History

Liturgical

As Jesus embarked on his ministerial journey, word of his miracles spread throughout the Holy Land. The accounts of his miracles have since filtered through time and across the world to the point we are still discussing them today. To what degree does spiritual healing change and positively impact an individual’s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-eternal-question-of-human-beings-how-do-you-live-in-the-world">day-to-day life</a>? How do the stories of Jesus physically healing the sick relate to our society&#8217;s need for its own type of healing today? How would witnessing these events, on a micro and macro level, affect a soul in search for rescue? Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, surrounded by nine other scholars, leads a conversation about these questions in the third episode of “The Gospels.” And <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-modern-day-socrates-jordan-b-peterson-conducts-socratic-seminar-in-new-gospels-series">the tabletalk</a> is real. Each member of this group takes up their knowledge, devoid of pretentious facade, as they vulnerably talk of Jesus’ miracles applicability to life in the present day and age.
To imaginatively place yourself in the Holy Land during the early stage of Jesus’ ministry is a curious notion. Imagine hearing by word of mouth that a man in the town where you live is performing outright miracles. This is a tiny town of maybe 1,500 people — where people move to get away from social media, television, email, and phones in general. It is a place devoid of electronic communication, yet the rumor slowly spreads, ever so gradually. You hear it from a neighbor, from a friend, from conversations spoken in whispers on the dirt road you walk. A man’s son is sick to the point of death, but he recovers his health. A crazed man becomes instantly sane. A man with a deadly skin, nerve, and respiratory disease is healed in an instant.
Then, you find yourself in the right place at the right time to see the rumor turn to reality before your very eyes. From a short distance, you see a crowd clambering around this man, pressing in on him. Some hope to be healed; some hope to see healings. A window through the horde of hopefuls forms, and you catch a glimpse of him. Surrounded by this small mob, the man simply touches the sick, and they are healed in that moment. What would you think? What would you do? How would seeing the miraculous affect you?
Perhaps witnessing a miracle would make clear the path of your life as an individual moving throughout the world. Perhaps it would, in some way, alleviate the pressural pursuit of wealth, pleasure, power, or honor. As the group recounts Jesus’ travels through Samaria, they discuss Jesus’ meeting with the woman at the well. Here, Jesus essentially announces himself as the source of salvation — the Living Water. Rather than continue to pursue counterfeit satisfaction in the four <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/substitutes-for-religion-are-meaningless">substitutionary (and earthly) pursuits</a>, Jesus offers an opportunity away from contagious rhythms through a relationship with Him. This cyclical nature of unending and ill-begotten pursuits has a universal appeal. Bishop Barren posits that this is where hope enters in, because, “At the well, I meet Jesus — if I have eyes to see.” In other words, Jesus is the escape from the trap of pursuing meaningless accolades that never truly satisfy.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-gospels" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH JORDAN B PETERSON&#8217;S THE GOSPELS ON DAILYWIRE+</a>
Perhaps watching a miraculous occurrence in real life would unveil the beauty of community. In their discussion, Jordan makes the point that Christ represents a sacrificial offering that paradoxically returns everything in abundance, including the pathway forward to life. Community is founded on this relationship — of giving and receiving. And as Douglas Hedley mentions, Christ gave expression to a philosophical universalism with imaginative power, vision, and spiritual sincerity. His sacrificial teachings, actions, and being itself represents community.
But perhaps seeing a miracle performed in real life would bring clarity to your role as an individual within the greater context of society. During the time Jesus walked the earth, philosophy had shifted to focusing on the human as a part of the cosmos. In other words, particular significance was given to the individual in relation to the universal. How unique a time for Jesus to come to earth and illuminate a philosophy already in vogue. In the present day, Jordan has tailored his teachings in this way, advocating for individuals to <a href="https://store.dailywire.com/collections/books/products/12-rules-for-life-an-antidote-to-chaos">set themselves in order before criticizing the world</a>. Societal <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/its-going-to-be-ok-jocko-willink-on-dealing-with-sadness-and-forgiving-yourself">healing begins</a> on the level of the individual.
“The question of miracles is fascinating,” Dennis Prager says, continuing, “Obviously, they’re miracles within the framework of the world as it exists because they’re suspensions of the natural in some way.” But the miracle of the universe, the presence of life itself, and the existence of consciousness is all miraculous, Prager contends. As the group reads the biblical stories of Jesus’ miraculous physical and spiritual healings, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/meditations-with-oliver-anthony-negotiating-a-shared-vision-and-taking-a-leap-of-faith">the topic of faith </a>organically makes its way into their discussion — as founding belief and fostering faith was part of Jesus’ point in performing these miracles.
“What do you make of this miraculous healing and its constant repetition throughout the text?” Jordan inquires of the religiously diverse group of scholars. Before they answer, he defends the text through a psychological lens, implicitly demonstrating the masterful purpose in bringing nine voices to surround this table. Each offers a certain area of specialization alongside a particular religious perspective. When one man poses a question based on a passage, another answers with, sometimes obvious, indications of their background. This, then, is followed by a comment from another that steers — and sometimes entirely redirects — the conversation back to the biblical text.
Why the need for such steerage or redirection? The answer is obvious in the third episode. Obvious are the varied interpretations of the text, which, as John Vervaeke points out, gives it a surplus of meaning and makes evident its sacredness. But where does the interpretation end? At this, Jordan asserts his hopeful purpose of this seminar: to specify the symbolic relationships <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-role-of-the-holy-spirit-distinguishing-between-your-will-and-gods-will">encoded</a> in the text. Jesus’ interaction, for example, the woman at the well was to give her hope in this life and of the next, but that was not his sole intention.
What else did Jesus intend to communicate symbolically through the Living Water he offered her? What else did Jesus intend to communicate by performing healings? What else did Jesus intend to communicate by fulfilling Old Testament prophesies of the Messiah’s coming? Jordan wants to discover those answers. “I’ve been thinking we’re on the verge of something like computational epistemology,” he says — intending that meaning is not arbitrary. Tradition brings meaning to the forefront, making the most potent and actual relationships within the text not merely interpretive but, rather, reflective of meaning.
When Jordan began his investigation into the Bible, he did so with humble curiosity, professing he came to it not knowing what he was doing and not having “a prior presumption of my superiority in any manner to the text.” He continues, “Now, that doesn’t mean I had any real attitude towards it except what in the world is this? And perhaps there’s something I can learn from it.” He has, both implicitly and explicitly, taught others during his own learning process — with a keen sense to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/wherever-you-are-is-not-as-good-as-it-could-be-plot-a-course-forward">aim at the highest</a>.
While the group often has differing ideas, one consensus is clear: Jesus’ miracles go beyond supernatural events (as if that would not be a fine stopping point). They are stories that teach of healing the individual and society — stories still teaching us today should we so choose to investigate them with curiosity and expectation.

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson

Hope In, Through, And From Miracles — And The Miraculous In Peterson’s ‘Gospels’

U.S.

For only the second time in their 41-year marriage, Calvin and Trish Zastrow will be spending Thanksgiving apart. The first time was due to travel — this time it&#8217;s because Cal is serving a six-month prison sentence over a peaceful protest at a Tennessee abortion facility in 2021.
Zastrow was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pro-lifer-targeted-by-biden-admin-sentenced-to-prison" target="_blank" rel="noopener">convicted</a> earlier this year on FACE Act-related charges brought by the Biden administration after he prayed, sang hymns, and sat in front of the door to the entrance of an abortion facility in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee. Calling from the Federal Correctional Institute Thomson in Illinois this week, Zastrow told The Daily Wire he was doing “absolutely fantastic.”
“I’m all on fire for Jesus,” he said. “I’m doing absolutely great, I’m on a big mission trip here.”
Over one month into his prison sentence, Zastrow said he has kept busy praying, reading his Bible, and teaching his fellow inmates about Christianity.
“There’s a whole lot of prodigals who are wallowing in pig mud, but they want to come back to Jesus, and so I’m here as a missionary to pull them out of that and help them get back on the Jesus road,” he said.
He said his friends and family have sent him over 50 books, mostly about Christian missionaries, and he has turned his cell into a sort of library. Zastrow said he’s been giving away a lot of copies in English and Spanish of the book &#8220;Tortured for Christ,&#8221; which is about Richard Wurmbrand, a pastor who spent years in a communist prison in Romania.
In a low-security section of the prison, Zastrow said he has seen few fights but has met a broad diversity of prisoners — from men convicted over January 6 to recruiters for ISIS and the Taliban.
He said that many of the January 6 prisoners are optimistic that they will get pardoned once President-elect Donald Trump takes office. He also referenced the discussion that Trump may pardon him, as the president-elect previously indicated that he would look at the cases of pro-lifers targeted by the Biden administration.
“I’m not getting my hopes up too high,” he said. “Plus I’m busy here. I’m busy. This prison holds almost 2,300 men and their need to hear about Jesus, their need for that is greater than my need for liberty. And so I’m here on a DOJ-sponsored mission trip.”
He said that most of the guards in the prison were unpleasant and would frequently “bark” and “scream” at the prisoners. “They can’t touch my joy, they can’t touch my soul, they can’t touch my attitude,” he said.
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Meanwhile, he said he has been able to call his wife pretty much every day so far.
“We are very proud of our Cal,” Trish told The Daily Wire on Wednesday. “He’s in there ministering every day. He’s doing well. He isn’t backing down from things.”
Trish was able to visit her husband earlier this month, saying she was able to spend about four hours talking to him. Still, she said it has been tough to be away from him.
“We miss him around here,” she said, noting that they had a new grandson born on November 1. “I didn’t get to share it with Cal, he’s such a great grandpa.”
Zastrow gets 500 minutes a month to call people in 15-minute increments. Trish said her daughter put a special ringtone on her phone so she knows whenever he calls.
“One of the hardest things is I can’t just call and talk to him whenever I want,” she said. “I don’t want to ever miss a call.”
Zastrow is scheduled to be released from prison on April 8, but may be able to qualify for a few days of early release if he takes some classes. His family is eager to see him back, but say they are grateful for the opportunity he’s been given to share his faith.
“I feel very privileged to be his wife and I’m very proud of him for standing,” she said. “I’m excited to see what God does with all this.”

457851552_537827162147496_1532708814140668634_n

Pro-Lifer Spending Thanksgiving In Prison Grateful For Opportunity: ‘A DOJ-Sponsored Mission Trip’

Biden Administration

Christianity

Department of Justice

FACE Act

Illinois

Prison

Pro-Life Movement

Tennessee

Whoopi Goldberg scolded Christians and Catholics from her perch behind the table at ABC&#8217;s &#8220;The View&#8221; on Thursday, chastising them for daring to stand on doctrine and say that abortion is wrong.
Goldberg, who has often pushed the illegal-back-alley-abortion narrative as the reason that women should be free to end the lives of their unborn children without restriction, also suggested that the mother was the only human being whose life would be impacted in any way by the abortion issue.
WATCH:
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Whoopi lectures &quot;all of those Christians and Catholics out there&quot; that the only &quot;human being&quot; impacted by abortion is the mom. &quot;Is this the way Jesus wants you to be? Is this the way Jesus wants you to act?&quot; She also suggests that religious folks don&#39;t care about folks&#39; struggles <a href="https://t.co/8L6JSg8hle">pic.twitter.com/8L6JSg8hle</a>
&mdash; Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) <a href="https://twitter.com/NickFondacaro/status/1841860098290864423?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 3, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;I&#8217;d like to remind all those Christians and Catholics out there that it is a much bigger conversation than just abortion,&#8221; Goldberg began. &#8220;And if you are concerned about what this does to a human being in their life — Is this the way Jesus wants you to be? Is this the way Jesus wants you to act?&#8221;
&#8220;Doesn&#8217;t Jesus want you to be able to say to somebody, &#8216;Come over here, I know you must be something tough,'&#8221; she added, repeating the false narrative that pro-life activists only care about the babies and not the mothers. &#8220;As opposed to what we&#8217;re seeing, which is insane.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.amiracist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amiracist.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1726313279401000&amp;usg=AOvVaw115_qPFFEePDP86-Fvo-Vd">Am I Racist? Is In Theaters NOW — Get Your Tickets Here!</a>
Goldberg and her cohosts also discussed former first lady Melania Trump&#8217;s recent video, in which she stated that she favored abortion rights for women — and Sunny Hostin in particular seemed almost giddy over the news.
Hostin argued that Melania Trump — who has made a series of similar videos to promote her memoir due out next Tuesday — would only release that particular video if she hated her husband, former President Trump, and wanted him to lose the 2024 election.
WATCH:
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DISGUSTING: Sunny Hostin says First Lady Melania &quot;hates&quot; President Trump, &quot;wants to take him out.&quot;
This is your modern Democrat Party, folks. <a href="https://t.co/3iD1WQdWRT">pic.twitter.com/3iD1WQdWRT</a>
&mdash; Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) <a href="https://twitter.com/TrumpWarRoom/status/1841860927181705422?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 3, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;I think she hates him,&#8221; Hostin began, and when there were a few positive murmurs from around the table, she continued, &#8220;So we can all agree on that, that&#8217;s a given.&#8221;
&#8220;I also think that she wants to take him out,&#8221; Hostin said then, not really clarifying whether she meant &#8220;out&#8221; of the presidential race or &#8220;out&#8221; in a more permanent sense. &#8220;She does not want to be the first lady anymore. She destroyed the Rose Garden. Who hates Christmas? Melania Trump hates Christmas. She doesn&#8217;t want to decorate for Christmas, she doesn&#8217;t want anything to do with it. She doesn&#8217;t want to sleep in the same room with him. She can&#8217;t tolerate him.&#8221;
&#8220;Allegedly,&#8221; Goldberg interrupted.
&#8220;How do you know all this?&#8221; Joy Behar asked, and Goldberg quickly explained that was why she&#8217;d jumped in to say, &#8220;allegedly.&#8221;

WHOOPI GOLDBERG

‘Is This The Way Jesus Wants You To Be?’: Whoopi Suggests Jesus Is Cool With Killing Babies

'Is This The Way Jesus Wants You To Be?': Whoopi Suggests Jesus Is Cool With Killing Babies

Abortion

Catholic

Media

Politics

The View

Whoopi Goldberg

Daily Wire Editor Emeritus <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-ben-shapiro-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ben Shapiro</a> and Christian Pastor John MacArthur called for a return to biblical morality amid plummeting church attendance across the United States in the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/john-mac-arthur" target="_blank" rel="noopener">latest episode</a> of the Sunday Special. 
The two discussed the decline of religiosity in America and how many churches have twisted the Bible to be more in line with woke culture. They also discussed how modern secularists have embraced moral relativity and rejected any claim of a higher power. 
During the conversation, Shapiro asked MacArthur, the pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, how people looking for a biblical truth “determine what is a Bible believing church that&#8217;s worth their time versus a church that maybe has a Pride progress flag hanging off the door and claims to be speaking in the name of the Gospels.”
“A church that is faithful to scripture, a synagogue that is faithful to scripture, bears moral authority,” MacArthur said. “I mean, it exists to say, ‘this is what the Lord has said. This is what God requires.’ This is divine mandate. This is the morality that leads to blessing and disobedience. And disregard for this morality leads to cursing.”
MacArthur added that many in America wanted to live by their own standards of morality and not have any authority over them. 
“The bottom line is, if you&#8217;re living in the culture that we&#8217;re living in, where you want absolute freedom to do anything you choose to do, to establish your own set of rules, your own truth, your own standards of morality, the last thing you want is to step into some place that&#8217;s going to call into question everything you&#8217;re choosing to do in your life and is going to exercise authority over you,” he said. 
The two also discussed the person of Jesus Christ, who many Americans have twisted into a generic hippy-type figure, Shapiro noted. He said that modern secularists tried to turn Jesus into a “bizarre pacifist with nothing of morality to say.”
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/john-mac-arthur" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH THE FULL ‘SUNDAY SPECIAL’ EPISODE WITH JOHN MACARTHUR</a>
The Daily Wire host noted that “the perversion of Jesus into a sort of namby-pamby, bizarrely androgynous creation from Haight-Ashbury is one of the stranger things that&#8217;s happened over the course of the last 50 or 60 years in American life.”
MacArthur agreed that the moral character of Jesus was transcendent and pointed out how much of Jesus’s ministry was about judgment. 
“You either come to God for forgiveness and salvation, or you&#8217;re going to come under divine judgment. That&#8217;s the real Jesus,” he said. 
Shapiro also asked MacArthur how he might convince a skeptic of Christianity to start attending church. MacArthur replied by saying he would recommend that people read the Bible. 
“Read the Bible. Just read the Bible. It has the ring of truth. It defends itself,” he said. “It&#8217;s like a lion. You don&#8217;t defend it. You don&#8217;t defend the lion. You open the cage and let it out. It&#8217;ll be okay. And the scripture is like that. But it&#8217;s like that even morally, there&#8217;s something in the heart of people that resonates with biblical morality.”
The two also discussed the distinction between faith and acts. 
Shapiro said that in Judaism you can bring people to faith “through acting in the way that the Bible suggests, that you set up a track record of success by acting in moral ways and because you&#8217;re now living in the realm of godly morality, you&#8217;re living what God wants you to live.”
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/john-mac-arthur" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH THE FULL ‘SUNDAY SPECIAL’ EPISODE WITH JOHN MACARTHUR</a>
MacArthur agreed, noting that often people need to be able to see the change in another’s life to come to faith. 
“I think, how can I convince somebody to be a Christian if they can&#8217;t see the transformation? I mean, what am I trying to do if I can&#8217;t say to somebody, you need to be obedient to the law of God, you need to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. You need to be obedient to God&#8217;s will and God will bless you,” the pastor said. 
The two also discussed the spread of wokeness, building church community, and religion’s role in politics. Watch the full interview here: 
<iframe loading="lazy" title="The Religious Decline of the West | John MacArthur" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fr95oTGqnVQ?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

MixCollage-07-Jun-2024-03-05-PM-4327

Ben Shapiro And John MacArthur Discuss Church, Jesus, And A Return To Biblical Morality

Ben Shapiro

Faith

John MacArthur

Sunday Special

“<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/faith-based-series-the-chosen-hits-3-at-box-office" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Chosen</a>” creator Dallas Jenkins opened up about Season 4, 5, and what fans can expect as the hit faith-based series gets back to filming.
Speaking to The Daily Wire, the creator of the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-chosen-actress-once-skeptical-about-god-says-role-has-been-life-changing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">series</a> — which explores the life of Jesus through those who were closest to him — talked about the unique legal and financial challenges the series has faced with releasing Season 4 to the streaming site after releasing the season exclusively in theaters earlier this year.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-chosen-creator-talks-about-season-4s-extreme-pain-and-sadness" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jenkins</a> has been very transparent with his audience throughout the entire delay and says it has been, “painful and no one has been more frustrated about it than I am.”
“But I do promise that Season 4 is going to be very impactful, if you haven’t seen it yet,” he added. “And that in a few years when you look back you&#8217;re not going to remember these couple of months that we didn’t want to wait.”
<div id="attachment_744165" style="width: 805px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-744165" class="wp-image-744165 size-large" title="The Chosen" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/fds-sssd-f-795x576.jpg" alt="The Chosen (2017). Loaves &amp; Fishes Production. Out of Order Studios. The Chosen Texas. IMDB." width="795" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/fds-sssd-f-795x576.jpg 795w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/fds-sssd-f-300x217.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/fds-sssd-f-768x556.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/fds-sssd-f.jpg 1207w" sizes="(max-width: 795px) 100vw, 795px" />The Chosen (2017). Loaves &amp; Fishes Production. Out of Order Studios. The Chosen Texas. IMDB.</div>
In a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-wait-is-finally-over-the-chosen-announces-huge-news-about-season-4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">press release</a> on Wednesday, “The Chosen” announced the first episode of <a href="https://www.thechosen.tv/en-us/statement?utm_source=vanity&amp;utm_medium=vanity&amp;utm_campaign=season4news" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Season 4</a> will be available for streaming beginning on Sunday, June 2, with the second episode coming out the following Thursday, June 6.
“The wait is finally over,” Dallas Jenkins, creator, producer, director and writer of the hit <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-chosen-actress-once-skeptical-about-god-says-role-has-been-life-changing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">series</a> said in the release.
“The response from those who’ve seen Season 4 in theaters was that this is our best season, so I can’t wait to deliver these episodes free and easy to the world,” he added.
“We wanted to offer fans a chance to see it on the big screen together in theaters,” Jenkins continued. “But I’ve maintained the show will always ultimately be available free and easy, and we’re now ready for our livestreams, which are going to be bonkers this year.”
<h4>SEASON 4</h4>
“<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/the-chosen" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Chosen</a>” first three seasons were all available for fans to watch on the show’s <a href="https://new.thechosen.tv/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">app</a> and stream for free with a message about paying it forward. Season 4 was the first time they opted to release it first exclusively in theaters. Jenkins said doing so helped with funding the show so that they can provide it for free to stream.
“Releasing it in theaters first not only allowed us to give the fans a great experience, and allowed those who were willing to pay for it to to see it on the big screen and to see it in community which is important to a lot of people, see it in the way that we really intended it,” the creator said.
“But it was also able to give us a little bit of a financial boost and we have to come up with creative ways to do that when we have a show that’s ultimately free and the people don’t have to pay for it if they don’t choose to,” he added. “So, when people are willing to do that, we want to definitely take advantage of that because we need it. We have a lot of money to raise, a lot to finance. We don’t have a studio or streaming platform that’s financing this whole operation.”
<div id="attachment_744167" style="width: 586px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-744167" class="wp-image-744167 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/fdsa-dd-576x576.jpg" alt="The Chosen (2017). Loaves &amp; Fishes Production. Out of Order Studios. The Chosen Texas. IMDB." width="576" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/fdsa-dd-576x576.jpg 576w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/fdsa-dd-300x300.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/fdsa-dd-150x150.jpg 150w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/fdsa-dd-768x768.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/fdsa-dd.jpg 874w" sizes="(max-width: 576px) 100vw, 576px" />The Chosen (2017). Loaves &amp; Fishes Production. Out of Order Studios. The Chosen Texas. IMDB.</div>
Season 4 is an emotional one with the feeling of impending doom surrounding Jesus and his followers. Jenkins talked to us about how he tries to strike a balance between the difficult parts of the greatest story in human history — about “life triumphs over death and good triumphs over evil” — and how vital it is for the audience to relate to Jesus’ disciples.
“But every good story also is not going to shy away from the pain,” Jenkins said. “And the pain and the sadness, and the impending doom is a part of life. I think it’s essential for audiences to go through with us.”
“Because maybe there’s some who don’t want to go through some of that pain but I think for others, they need to, they want to because they want to be able to relate to this story and to these people and to know that that the followers of Jesus in history, the builders of the early church … were human beings just like us,” he added.
“And they struggled just like we did and they have questions just like we do,” Jenkins continued. “And they experience poverty, oppression, and racism, and tribalism, and hardships and health problems just like we do. And that is so essential for the audience to understand and to know. Because when they relate to that then the answer and the hope that is provided can apply to them too.”
<h4>SEASON 5</h4>
Production on Season 5 has begun with more than three weeks so far of filming in Utah where 600 extras, from all over the world, were on set everyday for three weeks.
As for what fans can expect from Season 5, the creator of the series confirmed it’s going to be about Holy Week. Jenkins said that, just as the Gospel of Luke references the resoluteness of Jesus during the Passion Week, those working on the series have “absolutely” felt that same sense of resolve and urgency.
“The filming of Season 5, we are a few weeks into it, and it has really been overwhelming,” Jenkins said. “For three weeks we had 600 ‘Chosen’ fans per day on set in first-century costumes participating with us in some of these immensely important and life-changing events from scripture during Holy Week. The most impactful week in the history of the world.”
“Week one we filmed Jesus arriving in Jerusalem for Holy week and the actors were overwhelmed,” he added. “Several of them would come back after a take with tears streaming down their face talking about how humbling it was to see 600 people waving palm branches and chanting and singing and Romans on horseback and this big Jerusalem set that we’re filming on I mean it felt like we were in the first-century.”
<div id="attachment_744181" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-744181" class="wp-image-744181 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/fdfdsaasaa-1024x505.jpg" alt="The Chosen (2017). Loaves &amp; Fishes Production. Out of Order Studios. The Chosen Texas. IMDB." width="1024" height="505" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/fdfdsaasaa-1024x505.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/fdfdsaasaa-300x148.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/fdfdsaasaa-768x379.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/fdfdsaasaa-1536x758.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/fdfdsaasaa.jpg 1680w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />The Chosen (2017). Loaves &amp; Fishes Production. Out of Order Studios. The Chosen Texas. IMDB.</div>
“That’s happened a few times, filming moments from Holy Week, historical moments that were so impactful,” Jenkins continued. “Getting a chance to recreate those and see them in real time really is jaw dropping. And having the fans there with us and crying during some of these scenes, and supporting us and telling us that the show has changed their lives, is the fuel for us.
Jenkins couldn’t say whether all of Season 5 will be first released in theaters exclusively. He added that “it’s very likely they will release the entire thing in theaters first, but hopefully next time around there won’t be a delay in the streaming.”
As the creator of the hit series, Jenkins will often say “something special is happening on the set of ‘The Chosen,’” and he told The Daily Wire that is already evident during the filming of Season 5.
Obviously, Jesus’ character (played by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/jonathan-roumie-says-hes-on-mission-from-god-with-his-portrayal-of-jesus-in-the-chosen" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jonathan Roumie</a>) is going to have a huge impact in the upcoming season, but another character he said the audience is going to get a deep dive into is Judas (played by Luke Dimyan).
Jenkins said during a press conference he loves looking into how Jesus’ followers didn’t know it was Judas who betrayed him.
“How they wrestle with the fact that something bad is happening,” Jenkins said. “Jesus outright told the disciples one of you will betray me. How did this impact Judas? Who is it that Judas first approached? Specifically, the Romans, the religious leaders? How did it happen without the disciples knowing. The betrayal in Season 5 is really exciting and heartbreaking.”
<h4>Popularity Growing</h4>
The creator of the series also talked about its growing popularity, noting that when singers like Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani post on <a href="https://x.com/blakeshelton/status/1792722359281184908" target="_blank" rel="noopener">X</a> about watching and loving the show, news outlets have to pay attention.
Shelton recently took to X and wrote to his 19 million followers, “Random two thumbs up from a country singer… Just finished season 3 of ‘The Chosen’ and I absolutely love it. No question in my mind why it’s a worldwide phenomenon.” Stefani <a href="https://x.com/gwenstefani/status/1792783298894410149" target="_blank" rel="noopener">added,</a> “[BlakeShelton] Obsessed, Can’t wait for season 4 [thechosenTv] u better not watch w out me!! Gx.”
“… they aren’t journalists, but when the Kardashians and Gwen Stefani, Blake Shelton are tweeting about how much they love the show, at some point it [success] becomes undeniable and at some point, whether you are a mainstream or faith-based journalist, you can’t deny what’s growing,” Jenkins said during a press conference later.
With over 200 million viewers, “The Chosen” is one of the most-watched shows in the world, a press release noted. The series is consistently a top performer across streaming platforms Amazon Prime, Peacock, and Netflix plus a top-rated broadcast weekly on The CW.
<div id="attachment_744195" style="width: 873px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-744195" class="size-large wp-image-744195" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/fs-fssa-1-863x576.jpg" alt="The Chosen (2017). Loaves &amp; Fishes Production. Out of Order Studios. The Chosen Texas. IMDB." width="863" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/fs-fssa-1-863x576.jpg 863w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/fs-fssa-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/fs-fssa-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/fs-fssa-1-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/05/fs-fssa-1.jpg 1310w" sizes="(max-width: 863px) 100vw, 863px" />The Chosen (2017). Loaves &amp; Fishes Production. Out of Order Studios. The Chosen Texas. IMDB.</div>
<h4>SEASON 6</h4>
Looking ahead, Season 6 will deal entirely with the crucifixion and Season 7 the resurrection. Jenkins, who didn’t want to get ahead of the current season they are working on, did say that he recently read the script for episode one of Season 6 and could say that, “I&#8217;m absolutely just telling you we are doing it in a way that’s never been done.”
“And it’s really going to blow people away,” he added. “These last few seasons I think are not only going to be the best seasons but they are going to justify the time that we have taken to set them up with the first four seasons.”

The Chosen

‘Life Triumphs Over Death’: ‘The Chosen’ Creator Dallas Jenkins On What Fans Can Expect From Seasons 4 And 5

'Life Triumphs Over Death': 'The Chosen' Creator Dallas Jenkins On What Fans Can Expect From Seasons 4 And 5

interview

Readers Pass

Utah

After making $9 million on the pornography-streaming site OnlyFans, Nala Ray told The Daily Wire host Michael Knowles that she&#8217;s found God and quit the biz.
Ray sat down for a wide-ranging interview with Knowles, who dug into her own past as the daughter of a pastor and how she initially got into pornography — and what finally made her decide to let it all go.
<h3>WATCH:</h3>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
&quot;$9 Million on OnlyFans &amp; God Saved Me&quot; | Michael &amp; Nala Ray <a href="https://t.co/kPP2eCm12Y">pic.twitter.com/kPP2eCm12Y</a>
&mdash; The Michael Knowles Show (@MKnowlesShow) <a href="https://twitter.com/MKnowlesShow/status/1776686310004249037?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 6, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The former model detailed a series of losses — from losing her home in a tornado at a young age to going through her parents&#8217; divorce, all by age 11 — and how her family fundamentally changed when her parents remarried a few years later and her father became a pastor.
The years that followed were also tumultuous, as churches they were part of went through painful splits that she said were much like divorces on a grander scale. It wasn&#8217;t until she was old enough to get her first job — at a Hardees — that she said she finally felt like she had some autonomy.
The move into pornography, she explained, came as the result of an innate fascination with the human body and its beauty.
&#8220;I love the human body, I think it&#8217;s artwork,&#8221; she explained. &#8220;When I started this journey on OnlyFans, I was very pro — like — nudity. Because I love the human body, I think we&#8217;re beautiful, truly. I have a different form of that love now, for — it&#8217;s more I love what God created instead of just nudity.&#8221;
&#8220;What do you see as the distinction?&#8221; Knowles asked, and Nala&#8217;s response was immediate: &#8220;Perversion.&#8221;
Nala said that what ultimately brought her to Christ was the fact that she felt &#8220;numb&#8221; — and that she believed there had to be something more. &#8220;It was difficult for me to feel things. Like sadness, I felt like I had never cried. I could get angry, and my temper was probably a little worse than it should have been, but crying was not a big thing for me. I didn&#8217;t feel very emotional, I felt very numb to things.&#8221;
She went on to say that she wouldn&#8217;t take anything back — although she admitted she felt shame for the things she did while on the pornography platform – because it was what had &#8220;shaped&#8221; her and brought her to where she is today. And that, she said, might help her to reach young people who were thinking about joining the platform.
&#8220;I feel like my testimony is very strong now,&#8221; she explained, referencing Saul who had persecuted Christians before his Damascus road conversion. &#8220;He got radically changed on the road to Damascus, completely changed &#8230; and became a living, walking testimony to people who were just like him.&#8221;
&#8220;Why I say I wouldn&#8217;t take it back is because God could absolutely use me if I never would have gotten on OnlyFans. I don&#8217;t need to have that testimony to be able to reach people,&#8221; she continued. &#8220;But if you were a young girl thinking about starting an OnlyFans and being influenced by this current generation to start an OnlyFans, would you listen to the person that&#8217;s never been on OnlyFans or never had any direct connection to it saying, &#8216;Don&#8217;t do it, don&#8217;t do it,&#8217; or would you listen to the person at the top of the hill who&#8217;s saying, &#8216;There&#8217;s a cliff after this&#8217;?&#8221;

Screenshot 2024-04-07 at 6.27.58 PM

Onlyfans Model Quits Platform After Making Millions, Says She Found God

Online porn

OnlyFans

Pornography

&#8220;The Daily Show&#8221; senior correspondent Desi Lydic mocked Jesus in her defense of the White House&#8217;s decision to move forward with recognizing the &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/joe-biden-honors-trans-day-of-visibility-on-easter" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Transgender Day of Visibility</a>&#8221; despite the fact that it coincided with Easter Sunday.
Lydic appeared to be arguing that because Christians believe in a triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit — they were essentially worshipping a being that embraced multiple identities and that was the same as embracing radical gender ideology.
Grabien founder Tom Elliott shared several clips on the subject, beginning with an MSNBC panel discussion claiming that &#8220;the Jesus [Christians] celebrate today would have been inclusive of the transgender community.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Comedy Central&#39;s <a href="https://twitter.com/DesiLydic?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DesiLydic</a>: &quot;By total coincidence, Trans Visibility Day happened to fall on Easter this year. Which seemed like, I don’t know, a good fit to me. I mean, Jesus did identify as the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit. Live your truth, queen!&quot; <a href="https://t.co/PER4YlN1cb">pic.twitter.com/PER4YlN1cb</a>
&mdash; Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1775849064518537706?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 4, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Elliott followed with a clip of Lydic addressing the topic: &#8220;By total coincidence, Trans Visibility Day happened to fall on Easter this year. Which seemed like, I don’t know, a good fit to me. I mean, Jesus did identify as the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit. Live your truth, queen!&#8221;
&#8220;Now, you wouldn&#8217;t think that Easter falling on a holiday that&#8217;s been March 31st for 15 years would be that big of a deal,&#8221; Lydic continued. &#8220;But conservatives processed this like a child meeting the Easter Bunny: by losing their f**king minds.&#8221;
A number of conservatives did criticize Biden for going ahead with Trans Visibility Day despite the fact that it fell on what is arguably the holiest day in the Christian calendar — particularly when he <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-blasted-for-proclaiming-trans-people-made-in-the-image-of-god-on-easter" target="_blank" rel="noopener">went out of his way</a> to post several times on X in support of the trans community while his administration only mentioned the Easter holiday in passing.
&#8220;Today, on Transgender Day of Visibility, I have a simple message to all trans Americans: I see you. You are made in the image of God, and you&#8217;re worthy of respect and dignity,&#8221; one such post read.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Today, on Transgender Day of Visibility, I have a simple message to all trans Americans:
I see you.
You are made in the image of God, and you&#39;re worthy of respect and dignity. <a href="https://t.co/ihvsJrXEyd">pic.twitter.com/ihvsJrXEyd</a>
&mdash; President Biden (@POTUS) <a href="https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1774511985700352189?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 31, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;Correctly saying trans people are made in the image of God while simultaneously celebrating these same people for altering God&#8217;s perfect &amp; intentional creation is 100% blasphemous. On EASTER nonetheless &#8230; &#8216;Be not deceived; God is not mocked,'&#8221; Riley Gaines posted in response.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Correctly saying trans people are made in the image of God while simultaneously celebrating these same people for altering God&#39;s perfect &amp; intentional creation is 100% blasphemous. 
On EASTER nonetheless&#8230;
&quot;Be not deceived; God is not mocked&quot; <a href="https://t.co/2UaW63Sh3x">https://t.co/2UaW63Sh3x</a>
&mdash; Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) <a href="https://twitter.com/Riley_Gaines_/status/1774643561885003954?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 1, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

74th Primetime Emmys – Arrivals

‘Live Your Truth, Queen!’: ‘The Daily Show’ Mocks Jesus In Defense Of ‘Trans Day Of Visibility’

'Live Your Truth, Queen!': 'The Daily Show' Mocks Jesus In Defense Of 'Trans Day Of Visibility'

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