Long before the Daily Wire launched the infamous Leftist Tears tumbler, I was a loyal supporter, and I have no intention of withdrawing that support now. Essentially, if I ever had the privilege of joining them for a cigar and whiskey on Backstage, these are the topics I would raise for discussion. So, if you’re an antisemite looking for some juicy roast about the DW and Jewish space lasers, take a hike. I think all the guys are great, but some are just morally misguided.

The Daily Wire (DW) has done immense good for our society, especially by elevating discussions about faith and morals into the mainstream. But recently, Jeremy Boreing made a post on X endorsing IVF and surrogacy. Granted, he qualified it, but he did so in a way that will only breed apathy about IVF on one hand, outright acceptance and use of it on the other, and downplay support for those who recognize these fertility technologies as evils.

When the left wants to “trans the kids” and legalize infanticide, Christians and DW share a common enemy, but this does not mean they share the same moral conclusions. I want DW and other like-minded companies to be the best force for good they can be. But it would be foolish to think that a conservative movement arguing that artificially creating children, homosexuality, pornography, and money as a sign of virtue will create a culture where Christianity thrives.

That said, my first critique is of Jeremy Boreing and his recent support of IVF and—to my surprise—surrogacy.

Jeremy Boreing is Wrong About IVF and Surrogacy

About a week ago, the President signed an Executive Order aimed at increasing the availability and affordability of artificial conception, i.e., IVF and surrogacy. Many pro-life influencers, most of them Catholic, took to social media and argued against this EO. This created tension within the “conservative Christian” coalition that elected Donald Trump.

As the pro-life Catholics—with a few Protestant exceptions—argued against the use of IVF, I presumed the DW would stand alongside their Catholic allies, not against them. Jeremy Boreing proved that hypothesis wrong with the following post.

There are three main problems with his argument. First, it doesn’t even call out the fact that babies are sacrificed for a mother and father to have a child. Second, he gives no argument for how it should be practiced. Third, he says that just because we do something the wrong way now doesn’t mean we can’t do it the right way later. In this context, the wrong way now is the killing of kids. So how does he intend to develop IVF technology to a morally acceptable state without the killing of kids? He doesn’t explain this part because it’s already happening; his argument reduces to, “Well, if I can’t beat them now, I’ll wait till it’s morally acceptable to join them later.”

He also says we should “create a framework that prevents the deliberate destruction of embryonic life,” and he adds, “To be clear, I think we can.” But how exactly does one do this without the loss of embryonic life? His statement seems to imply, “I don’t think this is a good technology, but I like where it could lead, so I’m here for it.”

But let’s grant Jeremy’s position that it can be done “ethically.” This will ultimately undermine the family structure in a way similar to how the gay “marriage” and transgenderism debates did, but from another angle.

The Undermining of the Family: Who Are the Parents?

The left is typically credited with undermining the family, but Christians like Jeremy Boreing are doing the same when they promote IVF and surrogacy. Jeremy’s support of IVF and surrogacy is a blunder I did not expect from him.

Understandably, a Protestant like Jeremy Boreing, who appears to rely more on reason alone than scripture alone, might stumble ethically on IVF. But there are no positive arguments for surrogacy in the Bible. In every instance, it is seen as the first cause of political and generational turmoil. Furthermore, if Jeremy thinks surrogacy is morally permissible for Christians, does he also believe polygamy is morally permissible? One could argue there is more implied support for polygamy in scripture than for surrogacy—to be clear, polygamy is morally wrong.

In the book Contraception Deception, author Patrick Coffin retells a story he heard from a former abortionist and Catholic convert, Dr. Bernard Nathanson. According to Nathanson, there was a legal case in California where an infertile couple purchased sperm from a donor, eggs from another donor, and rented another woman’s womb (five parties are now involved)—all to produce a child the parents eventually abandoned. Coffin writes:

Dr. Bernard Nathanson related a story to Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests For Life regarding a California trial that sounds more like a Monty Python sketch than a real life case. An infertile couple (where both partners were sterile) hired a reproductive technologist to mix a male donor’s sperm with a female donor’s egg. The resultant embryo was implanted in the womb of yet another party (a surrogate mother) and she delivered the baby nine months later…At the time of the trial, the child was eight. The litigation was meant to answer the legal question “who are the parents?” As that question began to be asked, the original couple that paid for all this. . . filed for divorce. . .Who indeed are the parents?. . . Legally speaking, it’s a moot question. The judge eventually placed the child in a foster home.1

While I could not find this exact case, it’s not hard to find others like it. Just do a quick search of surrogacy court cases using Grok 3.0, and you’ll discover cases like this happen fairly frequently. According to a law firm out of Pennsylvania, parents paid a surrogate to use the husband’s sperm, and then the couple divorced. The husband used the surrogate as a babysitter for three years! After three years, he married another woman who was later discovered to be an alcoholic. According to the law firm’s description of the case, a legal custody battle between the father and the surrogate/biological mother (she used her own eggs) ensued:

The father terminated the relationship between the child and the surrogate because he had remarried. The new wife had some problems, however, including one with alcohol. She had accumulated a number of DUIs and had her driver’s license revoked but continued to drive with the child in the car and with the blessing of the father. In addition, the child was placed in a temporary facility numerous times when her father and stepmother were not prepared to take adequate care of her.

Upon hearing this information, the surrogate filed a custody complaint and was named the child’s temporary guardian. This caused the father to file his own lawsuit, claiming the surrogate had violated the original agreement. In addition to custody, he is seeking thousands in financial compensation.2

Upon hearing this information, the surrogate filed a custody complaint and was named the child’s temporary guardian. This caused the father to file his own lawsuit, claiming the surrogate had violated the original agreement. In addition to custody, he is seeking thousands in financial compensation.

Just to drive the point home, there was another case where a surrogate was pressured to get an abortion because the child had severe defects, but ironically, the surrogate was “pro-life” and did not want to get an abortion. In a defiant and extremely ironic statement, she said:

“I told them that they had chosen me to carry and protect this child, and that was exactly what I was going to do,” Kelley said. “I told them it wasn’t their decision to play God.”3

Finally, there was another case reported by Live Action News in which a surrogate was pressured to get an abortion after she took a sip of alcohol.

This couple feared their baby might have been harmed by the alcohol, and apparently feared other bad things might happen to him or her due to an ‘untrustworthy’ surrogate, so their “solution” was… to execute the child.4

In all these cases, IVF and surrogacy per se—which Jeremy favors—act like acid on an already weakened cultural understanding of the institution of the family. This doesn’t even cover the cases where fertility clinics implant the wrong embryos! In all such cases, the rights of the mother, father, and child are completely obliterated in an epistemic nuclear bomb. IVF and surrogacy will have the same effect on the family that gay “marriage” had on matrimony. It will only further secularize the sexual act.

The obvious question for Jeremy is: How on earth does he intend for IVF and surrogacy to be done “properly”? He conveniently left that part out. The truth is, there is no way to obtain the ideal forms of surrogacy or IVF that do not involve children being lost, murdered, or commoditized; both forms lead to the undermining of the family and the trafficking of men, women, and children in a culturally “acceptable” way.

Furthermore, there is no way to remove the incentivization of using discarded, damaged, or healthy embryos for research. There is also no way to prevent a new cultural mind virus from infecting society with the belief that children can be created by any means necessary. We’ve tried these kinds of things before with contraception and divorce, and it did not end well for society.

None of these conclusions are consistent with a Christian ethic, unless, of course, you believe morality is discovered the same way scientific truths are: hypothesize, experiment, examine the results, and chart your path.

Daily Wire and Progressive Christianity

What Jeremy demonstrates, along with his colleagues, is that the Daily Wire is more a product of the liberal and pragmatic philosophies that have dominated Christian morality since the 1930s. Transgenderism is evil, says Jeremy Boreing, and I agree with him. But so is transhumanism, and the idea that Christians can experiment with whatever technology satisfies their deepest urges simply because the Bible doesn’t condemn said technologies will ultimately lead to a Christianity indistinguishable from secularism. Whether it’s transgenderism or transhumanism, both lead to a church run by scientists.

It is not a coincidence that Jeremy is a Protestant with ethical standards that are myopic and transhumanist in outlook. In the end, every Protestant is his own priest, prophet, and king. He ultimately believes morality is determined by individual reason, not institutional authority inspired and led by God.

Jeremy is a product of modern Protestantism influenced by modern philosophy, which ultimately reads its own history the same way Marx read Western history: We were oppressed by moral dogmas, but Protestantism’s greatest strength is that it can always be wrong. Every generation must reinterpret scripture to prove the previous generation did not have the true gospel—we must negate tradition to progress toward the future. His worldview is grounded more in pragmatism than morality. His position, at least on IVF and surrogacy, ultimately reduces to utilitarianism: So long as it doesn’t kill babies and it works, you can do whatever you want.

In short, the Daily Wire and some of its founders are progressive, but in a different way. They rightly decry transgenderism, racist DEI policies, and the totalitarian left that tried to gain the right to inject whatever they wanted into our bodies, but then claim IVF and surrogacy can be done ethically and that the church should accept homosexual relationships as good. Just as a theist may know an atheist is wrong, that doesn’t mean the theist is a Christian. Some of the greatest arguments for God’s existence came from Muslims (e.g., the Kalam Cosmological Argument). Similarly, the Daily Wire and its leaders have demonstrated that they are a powerful force against the insanity of the left. Unfortunately, they have also shown that, on some significant moral issues, they are more likely to submit to men of science than to men of God.

As Hannah Arendt, author and philosopher during World War II, writes in The Human Condition:

In religion it was not the belief in salvation or a hereafter that was immediately lost, but the certitudo salutis — and this happened in all Protestant countries where the downfall of the Catholic Church had eliminated the last tradition-bound insitution which, wherever its authority remained unchallenged, stood between the impact of modernity and the masses of believers…The radical change in moral standrads occuring in the first century of the modern age was inspired by the needs and ideals of its most important group of men, the new scientists.5

— DR

While many would attribute this decline to the rejection of “Biblical Worldview(s)” or some other foundational aspect of Protestantism, I would like to propose another possible reason for this decline. To put it bluntly, they are not having enough kids, and their varied authority structures and competing theological commitments prevent them from establishing and normalizing any viable solution.

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Given the nationwide decline in birthrate, it’s not surprising that we would also see a drop in religious affiliation as well. While the factors for this decline are multiple, there is historical evidence to suggest that Protestantism’s decline is related to their rejection of traditional Christian teaching in favor of Margret Sanger’s teachings on contraception and abortion.

In the early 1920s, Margaret Sanger and her American Birth Control League (which later became Planned Parenthood) challenged [contraceptive taboos] and quickly won widespread acceptance among middle-class Protestants for the use of contraceptive devices…In less than a generation, a once-taboo (and often illegal) practice had become a positive good that was now used by most middle-class Protestant couples, prescribed by their doctors, and endorsed by their pastors.1

Is it any wonder that as contraception and abortion became more mainstream, we would also see a correlation to the Protestant decline in the country? Margret Sanger was brilliant in targeting the liberal denominations first. By the end of the 1930s, “the overwhelming body of Protestant opinion in the United States was in favor of birth control use, with 85 percent of Americans in 1943 believing that married women should have access to contraceptives…”2

Sins of The Fathers

Scripture says that God sends wrath for generational sin, but it also talks about God showing love to the thousandth generation when they do what is right (Ex. 20:5-6). Christian tradition has always condemned abortion, sterilization, and acts that prevent the conception of a child (i.e. coitus interuptus). But in the 1930s, everything changed when the Anglican Communion permitted the use of contraception for its members. This ushered in a new kind of Protestantism that was based more on modernity than it was traditional morals and principles. One by one, the denominations, including the theologically conservative ones, began to shake off their traditional foundations in favor of a more relevant and modern philosophical approach.

Assuming that Protestantism prefers to be “in the world and not of it”, it is hard to see how they reverse this trend without adopting some kind of Catholic social teaching on marriage and fertility. At the moment, there is very little difference between the moral dogmas of a “good atheist” and a “good protestant”, which essentially amounts to “You do you.” To prove this point, here is a thought experiment called “The Baby Maker 3000.”

The Baby Maker 3000

Economists frequently talk about technological disruption in the public square, but many ignore its disruption in the Church. In short, the chaotic evolution of technology and the moral questions it is raising expose Protestantism’s inability to judge the moral “dos” and “don’ts” of individual Christians.

For example, suppose the year is 2055, and IVF doctors and engineers have now produced a “Baby Maker 3000” — no sexual intercourse required. You can use your own “biological materials” or use a donor’s. Whenever you're ready to have your first child, you just turn the machine on, and it goes to work creating your child. The question for Protestants is, “Is it a sin for a Christian to use this machine to start a family?”

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While individuals may have their vociferous opinions, individual opinions do not matter on this sort of thing. Without authority, no opinion can become normative behavior. To be sure, there is a morally right answer and a morally wrong answer to this question, but people will search the scriptures in vain to find a Bible verse that says “You can’t use the Baby Maker 3000”. One may think this is a silly example, but Protestantism has already demonstrated it lacks the moral tools within itself to establish objective moral prescriptions, that is moral truths that are true for all Christians. One of the most obvious examples is contraception and abortion.

The moral confusion on this issue is even more evident when we look at the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). In 1971, at the height of the abortion debate, they encouraged their members to,

…work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother…3

The fact that Protestants have been a cultural surrogate for contraception and abortion ethics is a serious mark on their credibility, not because their members failed to live up to their doctrines and morals, but because they had exchanged the ideas of religious authority for religious subjectivism. One thinker believed that this leads only to one of two places, paganism or Catholicism. His name was Alexis de Tocqueville, also known as “America’s Philosopher.”

Is the Future Pagan?

During his travels in the 1830s, the Catholic Frenchman and political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville made several prophetic observations about America’s social, political, and religious future. One of these is around the nature of religious pluralism in America and man’s need for it to stabilize. Tocqueville observed that men need the “fixed ideas” of life to be settled for them or else they would fall into a nihilistic confusion.

Men have, therefore, a huge interest in creating fixed ideas about God, their soul, their general duties toward their creator and fellow men; for any doubt about these first concerns would put all their actions at risk and would condemn them in some way to confusion and impotence.4

When the ideas about God and morality are no longer fixed, man descends into moral and theological chaos. When you convert to Catholicism, this becomes crystal clear as each Protestant’s reason for you not to convert contradicts the next Protestant’s reason for you not to convert.

Tocqueville recognized that the teaching of the Church was necessary for a nation to remain Christian, otherwise it would revert to paganism.

I am drawn to the belief that the number of those people will be smaller in democratic times than in others and that our descendants will tend increasingly to divide into only two parts, some leaving Christianity entirely and the others embracing the Church of Rome.5

This is one of the miracles of the Catholic faith, and it testifies to its truth. While it may have its wolves within it, the teachings of the Church on morality and dogmas remain a beacon of light to destroy the darkness of a technological dark age where morality is obscured and our most base desires satisfied on demand. Contraception and abortion were the straw that broke the “camel’s back”, and the fruits of this decision are being observed in real-time as we witness, not just the decline of Protestantism, but the decline of all groups that seek to avoid “religion” in favor of a worldview made in their own image.

For the moment, Catholicism appears to be remaining consistent relative to the rest of the religious trends. But as Protestantism continues to decline and technology continues to introduce new moral dilemmas, the nation is likely to become a more techno-pagan culture and one less friendly to Catholics. Regardless of how dark the times get, we should continue to use this time to help our fellow Christians see the error of this transhumanist ideology and the ways it’s infected their ranks.

The Blessed Mother, when she appeared to St. Bernadette, said “I do not promise to make you happy in this life but the next.” If we are to serve Christ to the fullest, we too must remember that these words are not just for Bernadette but for all of us. This is something we should all remember as we enter these dark woods.

— DR.

*This was written during my investigation of the Catholic Faith, and I had not yet committed to becoming Catholic. Later that year, my family and I were confirmed into The Church.

In order for politicians to believe that a principle is worth protecting, they have to believe that supporting it will lead to political power and influence. If politics is downstream from culture, then religion is upstream of culture. As the Scripture says, “judgment begins with the house of God.” Following the analogy of the stream, the path to ensure that religious freedom is supported by GOP candidates is as follows:

1. Religious Devotion - The faithful must believe their religious teaching transcends government decrees. We must obey God rather than people.

2. Cultural Support - Not to be confused with a culture that tolerates religion.

3. Political Viability - Supporting religion has to lead to rewarding politicians with power and influence.

But as we will see, the Church is lost, the culture is confused, and this leads to a divided Republican base and leadership that is obscure on the issue of religious freedom. If Christians are not loyal to God and His Church’s teaching, then we should not be surprised when the culture declares us hypocrites, and politicians cannot confidently defend what we desire for religious liberty. So, as the saying goes, if we want revival, revival has to start with us.

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Religious Devotion - Judgement Begins with The House of God

No matter which denomination you are in— not to be confused with your local church — there is a good chance that your denomination’s defense of marriage and the differences between men and woman has been inconsistent, or worse, heretical. Despite the denominations’ official positions, this remains a consistent pattern among the various traditions. This is leading to schisms and splits throughout the Christian world. In a nation that polls 80% Christian, we should not be surprised that the confusion in the culture goes back to the church. If the lighthouses go out, the world descends into darkness and finds itself dashed on the rocks.

For example, in 2017 the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) concluded a 5 year theological task force where they determined that they would remain together, but divided on the issue of male and female ordination. The debate about female ordination is not just an ACNA thing either. It was a recent controversy within the SBC as well. Either women can be ordained, and it is a fulfillment of God’s design for the church, or it is not. To affirm that you can be of “one mind” on a contradictory position is merely a means to temporary peace. It will not last.

Below is the introductory paragraph on the issue of female ordination.

PREAMBLE: In an act of mutual submission at the foundation of the Anglican Church in North America, it was agreed that each Diocese and Jurisdiction has the freedom, responsibility, and authority to study Holy Scripture and the Apostolic Tradition of the Church, and to seek the mind of Christ in determining its own convictions and practices concerning the ordination of women to the diaconate and the priesthood. It was also unanimously agreed that women will not be consecrated as bishops in the Anglican Church in North America…

Logically speaking, if one has the “freedom, responsibility, and authority…to determine its own convictions…” on ordination to the priesthood and diaconate, it will only take a few liberal bishops to change this fact. In short, this position is like a parent giving house rules to a child, and then telling the child that it is now his decision to follow those rules or make is own.

The document goes on to conclude that there is “insufficient scriptural warrant to accept women’s ordination to the priesthood as a standard practice throughout the Province…” This will be difficult to defend in light of the recent 2023 Kigali Statement, which re-affirmed the Bible as “God’s own authority”.

The Bible is God’s Word written, breathed out by God as it was written by his faithful messengers (2 Timothy 3:16). It carries God’s own authority, is its own interpreter, and it does not need to be supplemented, nor can it ever be overturned by human wisdom. 

This is not intended to single out the ACNA. There are priests and deacons seeking to honor God on this issue and standing firm against the tide of liberal theology. Many are actively fighting and encouraging the faithful to remain true to their doctrine. But for the purposes of this article, the ACNA is unique. Its issue on female ordination coincidentally parallels what’s happening in the GOP on same-sex marriage. When people assemble under the same name, whether that be a political party or religion, but hold mutually exclusive positions, eventually someone wins and the losers have to find a new home. One need look no further than the SBC and Saddleback controversy earlier this year.

Are we surprised that there is confusion in the culture, when there is confusion in the church? “Woman,” the Church says, “we have no idea what you are, or how you fit into the church, and gosh darn it, we really don’t even know if you’re supposed to have kids and raise them or pursue a career. And if you have questions on the ethics of contraception, just ask your doctor because there’s no mention of it in the Bible. So, follow your heart. Go wherever your spirit leads.” Is it any wonder that things have crumbled so fast? Attack the role of men or women, and you ultimately crack the foundation of family and its value is called into question.

In a 2021 poll from Pew Research, only 34% of adults believe that people are “…better off” if they make “marriage and having children a priority.” Among Religious respondents, mainly Catholic and Protestant groups, 43% believed you were better off prioritizing marriage and family. Finally, and most relevant to our purpose is the Republican numbers, which landed right at 50%. This includes religious and non-religious individuals. This 50/50 split, which will be discussed in more detail, is a major factor in the candidates’ hesitance to integrate their definition of family with their definition of religious freedom.

Feminism did its job. It offered women an alternative that didn’t include men. As a result, it poisoned the view of marriage in the eyes of both men and women. It is not good for men to be alone, God said. But in today’s clown world, man looks at what women have become and says “No, it is good to be alone.” You shall be saved in childbearing, says God to the woman. “No, I will be saved by my individuality.” This is tragic, and as long as Christians continue to be cowards on their definitions and doctrines, the culture will continue to take our words and make them their own. Marriage will become whatever they feel it should be, children will be able to do whatever they want, and churches can shut up because they don’t know what they believe anyway.

The Culture - DeFamily or DeSurrogacy?

With these religious factors in mind, it’s uncertain the level of political unity and support Republicans will give to religious freedom. Now, they aren’t going to ever say “We don’t believe in religious freedom anymore.” Instead, they will treat it the way they did the abortion issue. Lots of talk, but little progress will be made on the issue. For example, Ron DeSantis’ latest statement on faith and family will lead optimists to disregard this analysis. Faith and family, are the “building blocks” of society, says DeSantis.

If a candidate is going to unite the word “family” with “faith, then the question “What is a family?” is not merely an ivory tower issue. In the same way God precedes creation, so marriage precedes family. If we change the definition of God to Gaia, it will have a cascade effect on our thinking about men, women, children, the Son of God, his Mother, and a whole host of other dogmas and morals. Therefore, it’s only logical that if marriage can be redefined arbitrarily, then so can family.

In light of this fact, it’s difficult to see how DeSantis can simultaneously defend religious liberty against gay activism, while also garnering support from gay-Democrat-turned-Conservative influencer Dave Rubin. For those that don’t know, Dave Rubin and his partner recently purchased and adopted two children via surrogacy. In the following video, Rubin explains how he defends DeSantis to his gay friends:

As an aside, Rubin openly discussed the surrogacy process with arguably the most famous clinical psychologist in the world, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson. You can hear that interview here. Regardless, of what you think about the morality of surrogacy and homosexuality, Rubin exhibited courage in discussing openly the whole process with Peterson. For that, anyone should be able to applaud him.

This doesn’t mean we should think that his participation in surrogacy was morally right; it was not. But the fact that surrogacy and IVF are becoming normalized only further illustrates the deep moral and spiritual confusion within culture. The whole techno-fertility industry (surrogacy, IVF, contraception), divorces man and woman from their God-given creative act, and in the case of surrogacy, separates the mom from her child for money. The children created in surrogacy are biologically hers and the sperm donor is the father. This creates massive confusion in the legal system where the child is the one who suffers most. Imagine being a test-tube baby of a marriage, gay or straight, where the relationship ends in divorce and no one wants the child. It’s tragic, and these cases are not mere conjecture. They have been well documented in the book, Contraception Deception by Patrick Coffin.

DeSantis rightly states that “faith” and “family” are the basis of society, but what a conservative Christian believes on these subjects is very different from what the LGBT community believes on these subjects. When we compare DeSantis’s statement on faith and family with Dave Rubin’s support for DeSantis, we can see that at some point the Republicans will fail one of the two parties involved. They will have to choose to support either the conservative gay rights advocates or the conservative religious advocates.

The confusion around family and religious creates real consequences. A recent case from the Beckett Law Firm, where a Catholic family was rejected from participating in the Massachusetts’ foster care system is a prime example.

In Burke v. Walsh, Mike and Kitty Burke wanted to foster and someday adopt children in need of a family. Even though Massachusetts has a foster care crisis, state officials refused to let the Burkes foster any children in the state. The reason was their religious beliefs about marriage, sexuality, and gender…

The couple’s home study said, “Their faith is not supportive.” DCF officials said that while they had strengths, their answers about sexuality and gender barred them from being licensed.

A few years ago, there was a case where the tables were turned. In this scenario it was the Catholic Social Services (CSS) on trial, “…because it barred same-sex couples from applying to become foster parents.” The CSS won the case with all justices siding with the Catholic adoption agency.

This reversal highlights that not everyone can win on the discussion around family, religious rights, and LGBT advocacy. As the LGBT lifestyle becomes more normalized, they will expect more cultural and religious representation. To be clear it is not that we can’t agree with those in the LGBT lifestyle on morality, economics, and politics. It’s that the conservatives and those outcast by the radical left are going into survival mode. While it is making for some unique alliances, it will come at the cost of watering down the importance of religious morality in the public square.

When we survey the conservative influencers, we see a wide spectrum of mutually exclusive beliefs. Whether that’s Dave Rubin and Andrew Klavan arguing for gay marriage, or Michael Knowles and Matt Walsh arguing against it, or conservative commentators having multiple marriages that end in divorce, the right is in a state of moral confusion on faith and family. As DeSantis said, these are the “building blocks” of society, but a house divided cannot stand, and a foundation divided never gets a house. Is there a way forward for conservative religious and conservative LGBT? I think so, but that is a article for another time. For the time being, the fissure is widening.

Polls, Influence, and Corruption

We have established that confusion in the church is leading to moral confusion in the culture. The diversity of conservative influencers and their views demonstrates this. This will have an impact on what positions Republican representatives view as politically viable. If only 1% of Republicans believe religious freedom is important, then Republicans will not fight for it. Candidates get into politics and support causes that they believe will lead them to victory. They will not champion losing issues. This not wrong, its just politics.

When we survey the data on Republican voters, it’s clear that GOP candidates have a difficult road ahead on religious freedom. And if you needed any proof of the divide, just take a look at GOP Representative Max Miller’s response to a pro-life Christian who stated that Jesus is the only means of salvation. He called her statement bigoted and demanded she remove it. He later apologized, but as a candidate he revealed what he believes about Christians who believe, well, what Christians have always believed: Jesus is the only way to heaven, and they should tell people that. If the divide on religious freedom issues was fractured within the GOP, candidates would never dream of shaming their constituents this way.

According to Pew Research from November 2022, over 61% of American’s say that the legalization of gay-marriage is “very good” or “somewhat good”. This means on a raw numbers level, a GOP candidate is already at a disadvantage on an issue that is most threatening to religious liberty. Pew also reported the following:

There are wide ideological differences within both parties. Two-thirds of conservative Republicans (66%) view the impact of same-sex marriage negatively. Nearly the same share of moderate and liberal Republicans (62%) take a positive view.

This means that within the Republican tent, there is a radical divide on the issue. To make matters worse, 63% of young Republicans (18-29), think its a good thing that same-sex marriage was legalized. When you look at Democrats, they were way more united than the conservatives on the issue. According to Pew,

Among Democrats, liberals overwhelmingly view the legalization of same-sex marriage positively (93%), while a smaller majority of conservative and moderate Democrats (69%) say the same.

A house divided cannot stand. Why? Because enemies typically unite when they see division in their opponent’s ranks. Finally, when we look at Catholics and Protestants on the issue, we see data that justifies the spiritual confusion we said has bled into the culture. Reporting from Pew again,

Opinions about the effect of same-sex marriage vary widely among religious groups. While 71% of White evangelical Protestants say the legalization of marriage between same-sex couples is bad for society, 62% of White non-evangelical Protestants say it is good. So too do about two-thirds of Catholics (66%) and a much larger majority of religiously unaffiliated adults (82%). In contrast, Black Protestants are closely divided on same-sex marriage: 49% say it is good, while 46% say it is bad.

Is it any wonder that DeSantis or Ramaswamy, the two candidates attempting to overtake Trump, are having to walk a tight rope between Christian and LGBT beliefs about religious freedom? Do we know what these candidates mean by “family”, “faith”, or “gay rights”? Do the Christians within their voter block know what these terms mean? If you ever find yourself at a rally, you ought to ask them to define these things. But given the state of affairs, one can understand why Max Miller attempted to shame a Christian for her faith on Twitter.

Final Thoughts

Religious reformations typically lead to moral reformations. America is facing a religious reformation, as demonstrated by the wavering leaders across all denominations. cultural influence, and political parties. Combine this with the corruption of government, the power of Big Tech and Big Money to de-platform or de-bank their opponents, and the path of what is right and true is quickly becoming the path of resistance, which most GOP candidates will quietly avoid. We religious conservatives must get vocal and demonstrate that we are worth defending politically, and that our beliefs about family and faith are actually better for society.

Many discuss the metaphysical relationship between feminism and the LGBT movement, which I find compelling. But this presumes that immorality is like morality, in that it is linear. While morality is like an ascending a mountain, immorality seeks to keep you in the plains where it can scatter you whichever direction you desire.

While Rubin and others have made their choices, Christians have made it easy for them to do so. Marriage is the foundation of family, and family is the basis for society. It is the peak we ought to aim at, but sadly only ~30% of Americans are. When family is subverted and its meaning changed, it is not that we descend a slippery slope hitting each vice on our way down: feminism, lust, adultery, homosexual tendencies, multiple partners, transgenderism, pan-sexualism. It’s that marriage confines our desires and protects us from desires for vice. Undirected desire will subdue the intellect and ravage the will. Desire and the will then become indistinguishable, and it takes our body where it wills.

Being virtuous is difficult. But by the graces of God, one can obtain a moral and upright life. But it is hard, and not something acquired by talent. As Venerable Fulton Sheen said,

Rights are transactional. Meaning, whether there is a law protecting your freedom of religion or not does not change the fact that you can indeed exercise it. We serve God, not man. When a government commits to protecting a God-given right, they are making it, politically speaking, cost less for you to exercise it. It’s cheaper to exercise that right in America than it is to exercise it in North Korea. At least, for the time being.

May God help us in this fight against the darkness, and may our lights shine on the hill knowing all that may come against us. Should evil attempt to extinguish our light, it will only fan the flames revealing God’s glory and his desire to restore the sinner to his place in the Kingdom of God.

Next Steps

So how do we work hard? For starters, we must become visible to the public. This must start in our churches. If your pastor is scared to confront these issues, it’s likely because he does not know if he will have support from the congregation. Our church leaders need encouragement, especially these days, to stand firm in the faith and laws of God.

Second, open your home to those in your church and community that recognize the times in which we fight for freedom. When your group discovers there is a court hearing on religious liberty in your state, you show up in prayerful support of all those involved in the trial, the accusers and the accused.

Third, we must not hide in our churches and homes. We must begin to remind people of the laws of God, even if it means we lose our careers. Suffering for the truth is a part of the Christian way, as the bible and the saints throughout history testify. The older must support the younger, as it is the younger that must take up the cross and burdens of firing from their jobs, cultural exile, and potentially jail time (see Michigan’s latest attempt to make speech illegal).

These are by no means the only things we can do, but they are a start. Comment below with ideas for getting the faithful more outspoken and in the physical public square, not merely the digital one.

— DR

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Below are some details about who the party of dangerous rhetoric actually is, but first let me say this. Everyone should be praying for our country and the protection of our leaders. We are spiritually and morally weak right now, and that is not something that we can fix by pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps. So, pray for our country and share these facts below with love and concern for the safety of our politicians, family, and friends, no matter what side of the aisle they may be on.

1. Summer 2017 - Steve Scalise is shot at a congressional baseball game and almost dies.

2. Fall 2017 - Rand Paul is attacked by his neighbor and suffers broken ribs and damage to his lungs.

3. Spring 2022 - Justice Kavanaugh has an attacker apprehended at his home.

4. Summer 2024 - Trump is nearly a*sa*sinated at a rally.

When people say that Trump is the dangerous one or that they are concerned about "Crazy Republicans", remind them that the "Crazy Dems" already are, and that the GOP is not like them.

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Remember when Kathy Griffin posed with an image of a severed h*ad of Trump? This is dangerous imagery and propaganda that creates a toxic context that is dangerous for everyone.

Next, show them receipts of their representatives and senators using dangerous rhetoric prior to these events. Senators like Chuck Schumer (D) who said to the Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, "You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions." (src: VOX 👇)1, or Representative Steven Woodrow (D) who posted this shortly after Trump’s brush with death.

In addition to posts like this, President Biden and other Democrats, prior to this weekends horrific events, have repeatedly said that Trump is the most dangerous threat to our American freedoms. But it's President Biden who has been using his “presidential” character and presidential platform to constantly smear Trump as the most dangerous candidate in American history. See the image below, courtesy of @ighaworth.

Finally, when people say the media is just doing an “embarrassing job in their coverage”, remind them that propaganda is real and it works. You cannot have 4 attacks on political opponents in 7 years and play the "we didn't know that would happen" card anymore, nor can you read headlines that imply that Trump was merely "injured" or that he had "fallen" and pretend the “journalists” are being professional. This is not the media lacking the skills necessary to be professional journalists, it's that they are professional propagandists and they need to curb their propaganda and return to reporting neutrally and without volatility. #MakeNewsBoringAgain

Whether you're working on messaging for your local community outreach event with your church or trying to get people out for a political cause, we know that the purpose of messaging in media is to garner a particular behavior. The obvious question for the mainstream media is what behavior are they trying to evoke?

The purpose of this post is to shine a light on the propaganda and remind people that we cannot win this if we don't love our enemies. Christ said, "pray for those who persecute you". If we are going to truly Make America Great Again, we must understand it will not happen without prayer. Turn off the news, grab a rosary, and start praying for those who are captured by the propaganda.

God bless.

— DR

To demonstrate this we will use good-ole-fashioned Cross Country scoring, where you take the position your individuals finished and add them together. In the example below, I went through the list of like-minded conservatives and put them into two teams and then added their scores together, as if the list below were a 5k race between two rival teams.

The Top 40 Conservative Podcasters

To highlight the divide among Conservatives, I looked at a few different questions: Who was supportive of Trump while DeSantis was in the Primary? Are they likely to be early adopters of conspiracy theories or wait six months? And which hosts would likely ally with Candace Owens recent departure from the Daily Wire, even if they haven’t done so publicly?

In short, if Ben and Tucker were starting high school political clubs, who do I think is mostly likely to join the Elitist Club (Shapiro) or the Populist Club (Tucker), respectively. Here is the break down.

Not everyone will agree with my categorization. I don’t listen to all of these, so you may have an argument for why someone should shift the teams. For example, John Solomon and Allie Stuckey I’m not as familiar with, though I have seen their posts in my timeline from time to time, so I did a quick search of their socials and podcasts to categorize them. Either way, if you were to field a team based on the list, the scores would still end up, as Lego Darth Vader would say, “Pretty darn close.”

Typically in Cross-Country, if you take your top 5 runners vs another team’s top 5 runners, you get a better picture of who has the better team. Right now, these scores align with the reality that the Trumpkins have not only more reach, but more influence. It also shows that despite Alex Jones not making either “Varsity” squad, the more sensational content is the content that is resonating with people, not necessarily the personality (sensational doesn’t mean false, by the way). This experiment doesn’t determine who’s right or wrong on the issues, but it does mean that more populist content is becoming a dividing issue between elite conservatives and cultural conservatives. This means that there is an incentive to become more sensational even if it’s not necessarily a true story. This may also explain some of the recent fallout between Daily Wire and their longtime friend, Steven Crowder, as well as their more recent falling out with Candace Owens, but I digress.

In short, the divide in the conservative party is real and it’s not a sign that “freedom is alive” on the right. The divide is not a a political problem, it’s a values problem. And to make matters worse, not only do they not consider each other allies, they also don’t respect one another. They are literally a divided house of elephants and rhinos. If their top 40 podcasters are split down the middle ideologically on fundamental issues, the Conservative movement will eventually die, either by natural causes or the jackboots of the left. When similar comparisons are done to the left, politically speaking, they are united on nearly every issue and each proposed political or cultural solution.

Take any major cultural issue that the right believes is important and you will find substantial division. The prolife movement is a great example. None of these influencers agree on whether IVF and surrogacy should be supported by the prolife movement. Many prolifers will even suggest that IVF is providing such a good to the mother who wants a child, that it’s morally licit for the mother to pursue abortive fertility treatments even though other child embryos will be lost. Others will point out the inconsistency of being prolife on abortion, but then being willing to sacrifice a child for the possibility of having a family. Ask a leftist and they will say abortion, surrogacy, and IVF are all part of the woman’s choice. The left may be authoritarian in nature, but they are not divided.

Where The Divide is Headed…

Those who still believe in an elite institution, whether that be Harvard or Yale, or a private college that has yet to bend the knee, are those who would fall into the “Elitist” category. This is not necessarily a negative category. It is merely to highlight those who believe pedigrees conferred by the system, i.e., PhDs, JDs, MDs, etc., are the pre-requisite for a bringing about real change. They want a DeSantis because he’s a man who obtained status in a culture against him. They see this as a sign that he has wisdom, not that he may have made moral compromises to get to where he is today. The elite may not see these compromises as significant because they are ultimately pragmatists, rather than principled in their conviction.

A good example of this is Tucker vs Ben Shapiro. Anyone who listens to Ben Shapiro, knows that he went to Harvard and that his wife is “a Doctor”. There was even a Freedom Toons episode about it. But where did Tucker Carlson go to university? Probably some Ivy League thing. The point is I have no idea, not because he’s never said it, but because he doesn’t flaunt his education to his audience. This isn’t necessarily a negative for Ben or for Tucker, its just to show that they are catering to different audiences.

The other group is the Populists. They lean into their common sense, but they often emphasize what they have in common, i.e. what is going viral, over what is reasonable. They take risks, not based on what is politically advantageous but based on their conscience. They place a high value on morality, and they will sacrifice their well-being for what they believe is right. But they also tend to be sensational. They don’t “believe Alex Jones”, but they think he “makes some good points.” They trust their gut more than they trust the system. For them, degrees and corporate success are a sign of suspicion unless of course your as sensational as they are. This is because they, like the left, value victim status. In order to win their trust, they want to see how you lose more than they want to see how you win. This is why they disdain the DeSantis crowd because the DeSantis crowd, after losing the primary, continues to blame Trump supporters for wanting Trump in office over DeSantis. This is not because the left is making Trump a martyr; it’s because Trump is not afraid to be a martyr and for people who are taking stands in the work place and putting their small businesses on the line, this is the type of person that “speaks their language” of morality, which is ironic considering who Trump is.

The Populists are a complicated group of individuals whose simple view of life is no indication of their monetary accomplishments or their political pull. However, their “simple way” of viewing the world tends towards an oversimplification and being led to believe they have the knowledge of “what’s really going on.” They tend to emphasize faith over reason, while the elites emphasize faith through reason. This doesn’t mean that faith and reason are opposed. Just that they are approaching our cultural divide from different starting points.

Both groups have their strengths and weaknesses but as their content shows, they are using their strengths to exploit each other’s weaknesses, either implicitly or explicitly. Both groups see a storm on the horizon, and they are both presuming that the sign of who’s right is decided by who is left standing after the storm has passed. But when we read the stories of those who survived political tyranny, they survived for one of two reasons: providence or cowardice. Rarely is someone hailed as a survivor because they “saw it coming and everyone else just didn’t listen.”

We are now living in a political tyranny, and the reality is the conservative movement, the movement against the totalitarian and Marxist ideologies of our day, is divided like a fault line through California. If they do not unite, they will not stand. As mentioned above, a united tyranny will always outlive a divided movement. Hopefully, the elites and the populist can find a way to unite on issues, otherwise the house will not stand.