Commentary: Four Things People Can Do to Change the Culture in 2024

People Praying

Maybe I am on a new year high, but as I consider the West’s cultural renewal, I sense an optimism in the air I haven’t felt for years.

In 2023, we saw a growing public awareness about the dangers and futility of transgender surgery. Alongside that, many woke up to the hypocrisy of the climate alarmists. And building on the success of Roe v. Wade’s demise, many states have now passed heartbeat bills, providing robust protections for many of the nation’s unborn. Surprisingly, pollsters even picked up on a decline in support for same-sex relationships.

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Commentary: Giving Before Getting

Gift Giving

When I was a little girl, my mother would take me and my five siblings to Grants, a long-gone discount store. We did this the first week in December every year, shopping for each other using money we had earned and saved. Running down the aisles, touching everything, brimming with excitement, and bursting with secrets, we pondered, prattled, and preened our way to the checkout register.

We shouldered big secrets in our little souls, guarding our arms with shouts of “Don’t look!” Arriving home, we immediately began wrapping in various places throughout our tiny house, knowing our treasures would soon be given away. The anticipation, giggles, scrambles, and copious quantities of tape make me now wonder how my mother could stand it. But stand it she did, and in so doing, she taught us necessary lessons in gift-giving.

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The Tennessee Star Appeals Judge’s Decision Allowing School and Parents to Intervene in Covenant Killer Manifesto Lawsuit

The Tennessee Star and other plaintiffs in a closely watched public records lawsuit are appealing Davidson County Chancellor I’Ashea Myles’ decision last week to allow the Covenant Presbyterian Church, the school and parents of students to intervene in the case. 

Filed in the Tennessee Court of Appeals-Middle Section, the appeal could soon be consolidated with those of the other plaintiffs in the case — The Tennessean with State Senator Todd Gardenhire (R-Chattanooga), the Tennessee Firearms Association, and the National Police Association with private investigator Clata Renee Brewer — should the court grant it. 

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Survey: Faith Surged Among Young People amid COVID Pandemic

A survey first reported Monday by the Wall Street Journal found that 30 percent of young people say their faith grew stronger during the COVID pandemic, and that the percentage of those who say they know a “higher power” exists surged to 28 percent in December 2022 from the 22 percent reported in the 2021 survey.

Conducted by nonprofit Springtide Research Institute, the survey cites the context of the COVID pandemic lockdowns, when young people were largely isolated from others, and the subsequent mental health crisis among them had already begun to reach “epidemic proportions.”

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Commentary: Getting Young People Back in the Pews

Only 54 percent of Christians aged 18–35 attend church once a month or more. Meanwhile, Christianity is rapidly declining in the American population, especially in the younger generations.

The secularization of society is evident wherever we turn, and it will only worsen as young people continue to turn away from Christianity. To survive, the church needs to continue through the generations and get young people back in the pews.

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Bishop of Steubenville Diocese Seeks Merger with Columbus Diocese

The bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Steubenville is looking to potentially merge with the Catholic Diocese of Columbus. The merger is being considered for several reasons such as a declining Catholic population in the Steubenville diocese, an aging population of priests and Catholics, and economic struggles in the Ohio Valley.

“It is with sadness of heart that I share with you the continued decline in the Ohio Valley population and how it adversely affects our future sustainability. Furthermore, we are all too aware how the population is aging as well, to our ministerial detriment,” Bishop Jeffrey Monforton of Steubenville said.

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Commentary: I Went to Church on Sunday

I attended church last Sunday. It was an Episcopal church in a large California coastal city—and it blew me away, even though (or because) I am a confirmed member of the Anglican Communion, and a confessing Christian.

Now, I have not been in an American Episcopal church for about a decade, due in part to COVID-19 and the fact that I was living abroad, in Tory England, for a very long spell.

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Catholic Charities Official Invites Biden to Witness Border Crisis in Person

Sister Pimentel

Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley in southern Texas invited President Joe Biden to witness the migrant crisis for what would be his first trip to the southern border as president.

Thousands of migrants resorted to staying in dangerous tent cities in Mexican border towns after the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) were implemented in 2019 and the Supreme Court blocked the Biden administration’s efforts to repeal the policy, Catholic Charities Executive Director Norma Pimentel said in an op-ed Monday for The Washington Post.

Pimentel asked Biden to visit the Rio Grande Valley and negotiate with Mexican officials to secure more humane conditions for the migrants. She appealed to the president’s Catholic faith to provide humanitarian assistance to the migrants.

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Mother and Son Indicted for Theft of over $83,000 from Meigs County, Tennessee Church

Carolyn Mullins and her son William “Larry” Mullins are charged with theft of $83,710.82 from Peakland Baptist Church in Decatur, Tennessee, state Comptroller Jason Mumpower announced Tuesday. 

The church’s sanctuary area was consumed by fire on February 18th, 2019, according to the Comptroller’s Office. When insurance proceeds totaling $189,000 became available, members of the congregation—four altogether—decided to rebuild. Disbursement of the reconstruction funds was entrusted solely to Larry and Carolyn Mullins, then the treasurer and assistant treasurer of the church, respectively. They were the only authorized signers on the church’s bank accounts. 

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Commentary: Catholics Are Getting Smart About Responding to Gender Ideology

People sitting in pews at a Catholic church

Catholic parishes, schools, and dioceses have for years responded to transgenderism by simply ignoring the issue altogether. But that’s starting to change, largely because the problem is getting too big for churches to ignore. 

“My sense is that nearly every parish includes families with loved ones grappling with identity issues or gender dysphoria,” Mary Rice Hasson told The American Spectator. 

Hasson, who directs the Catholic Women’s Forum at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, recently founded an initiative called the Person and Identity Project, which aims to equip Catholic parishes and schools with resources to combat gender ideology. 

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California Ordered to Pay $2 Million in Legal Fees to Church that Violated Coronavirus Restrictions

People holding hands in air at church worship service

After a lengthy court battle, the government of the state of California backed down in its efforts to enforce coronavirus restrictions on a church that continued hosting in-person worship services, and has now agreed in a settlement to pay the church’s $2 million worth of legal fees, Breitbart reports.

When the state repeatedly attempted to enforce strict capacity limits, mask mandates, and other “social distancing” requirements on the San Diego-based Pentecostal church, the church’s lawyers filed suit with the United States Supreme Court, winning all three suits. This ultimately led to lawyers on behalf of the state of California agreeing to the settlement, which was approved by a federal judge.

Responding to the settlement, an attorney with the Thomas More Society, a legal group that represents churches facing suppression of their First Amendment rights, pointed out that while businesses such as Costco were limited to 50 percent capacity, while churches were forced to stay as low as 25 percent, and sometimes even lower.

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Commentary: The Rise of the New State Church

Saint Marys Cathedral, Natchez, United States

The United States is historically a Christian country, that is, it was founded by Christians and its population remains largely Christian to this day. The speeches and statements of our presidents, our official holidays, the prayers that are said before the opening of Congress and the Supreme Court, the imagery we see on official buildings all attest to the religious, indeed Christian, foundation of our nation. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court in an 1892 decision declared explicitly that “we are a Christian nation.”

Nevertheless, at least until recent days, Americans have understood that we live in a pluralistic society where Protestants, Catholics, Jews, even atheists, were equal before each other and equal before the law. There was no official church at the federal level that would require belief, assent, or obedience. This is not to say that there have not been dark times in our history when we failed to live up to our ideals. Catholics may recall times when our churches were burned and there were riots against us. But the highest American aspiration has always been that all should be treated equally, that a Jew should get the same treatment in a court of law as a Methodist or a Muslim.

Our twin understanding of our country’s deep religious roots coupled with an ideal of religious freedom grew out of the English tradition of religious toleration. The English had an official state church, but the English also recognized the importance of providing dissenters with some measure of freedom. The Act of Toleration of 1689 provided this freedom.

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Three Dead in Church Attack, Plunging France into Dual Emergency

A man armed with a knife attacked people inside a French church and killed three Thursday, prompting the government to raise its security alert status to the maximum level hours before a nationwide coronavirus lockdown.

The attack in Mediterranean city of Nice was the third in two months in France that authorities have attributed to Muslim extremists, including the beheading of a teacher. It comes during a growing furor over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that were republished in recent months by the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo — renewing vociferous debate in France and the Muslim world over the depictions that Muslims consider offensive but are protected by French free speech laws.

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Californians Are Violating Worship Restrictions to Stand up for Their Liberty, Pastor Says

California Pastor Rob McCoy says the thousands of people who attend services at his church in violation of California coronavirus restrictions are not only coming to worship — they are coming to exercise their liberties.

The pastor discussed action that authorities have taken against him and Godspeak Calvary Chapel in a Thursday interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation. The conversation came after the County of Ventura sought an additional restraining order after Godspeak Calvary Chapel continued to hold worship services despite an initial emergency restraining order issued August 7.

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Fire Destroys Much of 249-year-old Church in California

A fire early Saturday destroyed the rooftop and most of the interior of a Catholic church in California that was undergoing renovation to mark its upcoming 250th anniversary celebration.

Fire alarms at the San Gabriel Mission rang around 4 a.m. When firefighters arrived, they saw smoke rising from the wooden rooftop in one corner of the historic structure, San Gabriel Fire Capt. Paul Negrete said.

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Commentary: COVID-19 Has Plagued Religious Freedom

As the coronavirus crisis unfolds and the 2016 election and post-electoral scandals ooze into the open, God is affronted and false gods disintegrate. The discussion over the opening of churches is generally presented as a public health issue, coupled with a First Amendment freedom of religion argument. But, in many cases, it is an outright assault on the practice of religion generally.

Compared to other advanced Western democracies, the United States is a country that practices religion. But the media, academia, and conventional wisdom embedded in the contemporary ethos of America’s governing elites is, estimating very roughly, one-quarter religious communicants or sympathizers, one-quarter agnostic, one-quarter atheist, and one-quarter anti-theist. All of these groups, of course, are entitled to have and to express their opinions—but they are not entitled to impose their opinions on others. 

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More California Churches, Sheriffs Announce Defiance of State, Local Orders

California entered phase 2 of its reopening plan Friday, but that excluded houses of worship being able to hold in-person services. Regardless, several thousand church leaders say they plan to reopen by May 31 no matter what the governor says.

California Church United, a network of 3,000 California churches, representing 2.5 million members, announced it plans to open May 31, instead of waiting until the state implements phase 3, which includes allowing modified reopening of houses of worship.

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Chinese Pastor Could Reportedly Face 15 Years in Prison for ‘Inciting Subversion of State Power’

by Joshua Gill   Chinese authorities reportedly charged an evangelical pastor and his wife with “inciting subversion of state power” Wednesday, for which they face potentially 15 years in prison. Chinese police in the town of Chengdu arrested Wang Yi of Early Rain Covenant Church, his wife Jiang Rong and more than 100 members of his congregation Sunday after Wang published a manifesto accusing President Xi Jinping of instituting “Caesar worship” and calling Christians to civil disobedience. The independent church’s leaders face charges of illegally operating a business and illegally publishing religious material, and Wang and his wife face the harsher charge of subverting the state’s authority, reported The New York Times. Escalated. At least ten are confirmed for criminal detention including pastor Wang Yi and his wife Jiang Rong both of whom are charged for “inciting subversion Of State power.”2 of the criminal detention notice including pastor Wang Yi’s wife Jiang Rong and Deacon Tan Defu. pic.twitter.com/ieNm4a773e — Bob Fu 傅希秋 (@BobFu4China) December 13, 2018 Photos of Jiang’s detention notice surfaced on social media Thursday. The charge against her and Wang carries a maximum sentence of 15 years imprisonment and is often used against political dissidents and those criticize…

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DNC Chair Tom Perez Complains That Voters Influenced by Church

by Peter Hasson   Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Tom Perez on Wednesday complained that voters are influenced by what they hear in church on Sundays. Perez claimed that Republicans have an advantage because “people buy” what they hear at church. “And we all have to make sure that we’re fluent in what’s happening across our ecosystem so we can come to each other’s defense because we need to build a bigger orchestra. They’ve had a big orchestra for some time and they’ve got the megaphones to amplify it, whether it’s Sinclair at the local level or Fox at the national level,” Perez said at an event for Demand Justice, a left-wing political group. “I’ve learned this from the outreach we’ve done at the DNC. Why aren’t we penetrating, I ask? And I had someone in northwest Wisconsin tell me: ‘You know what? For most of the people I know, their principle sources of information are Fox News, the NRA newsletter and the pulpit on Sunday.’ And it should come as a surprise to no-one that our message doesn’t penetrate,” Perez continued. “It should come as a surprise to no-one that that person has elevated the issue of courts to…

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Steve Gill: Indiana Church Misguided for ‘Detainment’ of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in Protest of Trump Border Policy

Steve Gill

Tennessee Star Political Editor Steve Gill, on Wednesday’s Gill Report broadcast live on WETR 92.3 FM in Knoxville, discussed the Biblical protest by an Indianapolis church and its misguided interpretation of the holy family as immigrants. “An Indianapolis church is putting Jesus, Mary and Joseph in a cage, to protest president Trump’s zero tolerance policy cracking down on illegal immigration,” stated Steve Gill; adding, “Apparently the church is incapable of understanding the term ‘illegal,’ you know, ‘criminal behavior.’ Apparently, we shouldn’t put people in prisons if they break the law.” He continued: I wonder if somebody broke into the church and stole all the church items and stole the money in the church whether they would prosecute or just turn the other cheek and say we shouldn’t jail anybody because it might separate them from their families. Anyway, Christ Church Cathedral constructed a cage made of chain link fence on its lawn overnight and placed statues of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph inside to represent Christ and the holy family being detained by immigration authorities. The church tweeted out yesterday morning, ‘On our lawn tonight, we place the holy family in an ICE detention.’ Steve Carlson, the church’s rector and dean,…

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1 Dead, 8 Injured in Antioch Church Shooting

  At least one person is dead and eight more are injured after a gunman stormed the Burnette Chapel Church of Christ in Antioch this morning. WKRN reports: One woman was killed and eight people, including the gunman, were injured in what officials are calling a “mass casualty” incident at a church in Antioch Sunday morning. Metro police responded to the Burnette Chapel Church of Christ on Pin Hook Road at 11:15 a.m. The preliminary investigation shows the gunman, whose identity has yet to be released, arrived to the church in a blue SUV wearing a mask. Metro police said he immediately confronted a woman outside the church, shooting her at least one time, killing her on the scene. Developing… UPDATE: Metro Nashville Police has released the shooter’s identity as Emanuel Kidega Samson.      

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