In June, the Army issued two new directives regarding the handling and reporting of “protest, extremist and criminal gang activities” by soldiers. Army directive 2024-07 on handling extremist activity, as well as the service’s directive 2024-08 on reporting extremist activity, can both be found on the website of the Army Inspector General.

WorldNetDaily interviewed Dr. Charles “Chase” Spears, recently retired after a 20-year Army public affairs career specializing in ethical military communication strategy.

“Since day one of his tenure as secretary of Defense,” Spears told WND, “Lloyd Austin claimed that there is a major issue with [Christian] extremism in the military.” Spears added, “This is the same military that made [Austin] a four-star general.”

But the Army’s new rules beg the question: “Why now, when multiple reports have debunked Austin’s claim?” Even if, Spears said, the Army’s directives were implemented with the intention of clarifying what amounts to “extremism,” a word he says is “open to wide interpretation in the current political climate,” the new policy “makes it appear that if you disagree with [the views of Austin and the Biden administration], then you’re an extremist.”

Attorney R. Davis Younts agrees with Dr. Spears, telling WND that he likewise fears the ambiguity in the Army’s new rules. According to the retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and former judge advocate general (JAG) officer, the directives encompass an “extremely broad range of activities.”

Both Spears and Younts are concerned about how the new directives will be interpreted. For example, considering the 0recent Army portrayal of pro-life organizations as terrorist organizations, Younts said his concern has been heightened. “If a service member offers money or resources or volunteers to support a group that advocates against abortion, could he be viewed as supporting extremists?” Younts questioned. “What about supporting a group that advocates for … the existence of only two genders?”

Taking it one step further, Younts asked, “If I were still in the Air Force and tithed to my church, which goes out to pray in protest against a transgender story hour, would my church fit the Army’s definition of an extremist group?”

To that end, Spears pointed out that Army directive 2024-07 states extremist activity includes “advocating widespread unlawful discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex (including pregnancy), gender identity, or sexual orientation.” He warned that “because they feel they need to please their political superiors, some military commanders will infer that because you disagree with women competing in men’s sports, you are now engaging in an act of extremism.”

In fact, Spears added, the Army’s new reporting requirements “essentially force commanders to prove the innocence of soldiers accused of extremism, rather than guilt.”

“These are now things every single Christian military member that is doctrinally aligned with traditional biblical views of life, marriage and gender must consider,” Younts told WND. For this reason, he recommends “these service members should be raising the issue to their congressmen, and apply for a religious accommodation to be exempted from the policy.”

“We have to get [military] leaders to clarify what they are saying in the new directives,” Younts argues. “I don’t think it’s irrational to believe that some of today’s senior leadership would view the church or another 501(c) nonprofit organization as an extremist for disavowing abortion, same-sex marriage and a host of other sins running rampant in society.”

For Spears, one of his biggest concerns is the fact that the directives apply not only to active-duty Army personnel, but also to inactivated members of the Reserve and National Guard. “When reservists and guardsmen are activated, they fall under the Uniform Code of Military Justice – but when not activated, they fall under civil law, like all other civilians,” he explained. “The Army’s new rules on so-called ‘extremism’ further erode the line between civilian and military life.”

“This is a terrifying development that extends the Defense Department’s intrusive reach into the personal lives of non-activated Reservists and National Guardsmen,” Spears argued. And this, he concluded, “sends a chilling message across the force that must be overturned by the courts.”

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The vice president’s own religious background is telling. Her mother was Indian and Hindu, her father Jamaican and Christian. As Trump has pointed out, she has alternated between identities during her career. During her formative years in Canada and later in the US, she attended both a Black Baptist church and a Hindu temple. Like Barack Obama, Harris’ father is a Marxist academic, which provides crucial context to her record of hostility toward Catholics and evangelical Christians. But whatever influences hit closest to home during her upbringing and throughout her political career, her record on religion is worthy of close scrutiny – and deep concern.

“The vice president has a strong Christian faith that she’s talked about a lot,” Jamal Simmons, Harris’ former communications director, told The Washington Times. But like so many other aspects of her persona, you would be hard-pressed to figure out exactly what that means in light of her record over more than a decade of public service.

The Kamala Harris Brand of Christianity

Harris’ 2019 ranking as the single most liberal senator in the entire nation was not without merit. One year earlier, she had famously ignored Article VI of the US Constitution prohibiting religious tests on judicial appointments during a Senate hearing. She asked a nominee to the federal court, Brian Buescher, if he was aware that the Knights of Columbus (KOC), a widely familiar charitable organization, “opposed a woman’s right to choose” and whether he had “ever, in any way, assisted with or contributed to advocacy against women’s reproductive rights.” Incredibly, Harris’ progressive colleague, Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI), went on to ask the nominee if he would resign from the KOC if confirmed.

As California attorney general, Harris backed a 2015 state law requiring pro-life pregnancy crisis centers to offer abortion referrals. The US Supreme Court vacated the law as a violation of free speech. As a longtime supporter of Planned Parenthood, she also authorized a 2015 raid on the home of pro-life activist David Daleiden after he secretly recorded Planned Parenthood affiliates selling fetal tissue from abortions.

Then there was her time in the Senate, when she sponsored a bill, the 2019 “Do No Harm Act,” requiring  Catholic hospitals to cover abortions and gender-transition surgeries, despite their objections based on centuries of settled Catholic theology. She infuriated Christians by cosponsoring the 2017 Equality Act to protect the right of biological males who identify as female to enter girls’ and women’s facilities. And as part of her radical agenda during her run for the presidential nomination in 2020, she proposed that states be required to obtain permission from the Justice Department to pass any abortion restrictions.

Like many left-wing Christians, Harris claims that traditional Christian beliefs are perfectly compatible with her own, declaring at a recent NAACP Convention that supporting abortion access “does not require anyone to abandon their faith or their beliefs.” Of course, that flies directly in the face of the teachings of the Catholic Church, even with a Pope in the thrall of progressive theology, which continues to unilaterally oppose abortion.

But perhaps the most revealing insight into the Democratic presidential nominee’s beliefs might come from her statement excising one-third of the most defining statement of American values ever written. Indeed, in 2023, Harris deliberately left out the word “life” in stating during a pro-abortion speech that the Declaration of Independence guaranteed the right to “liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Almost 20% of the US population is Catholic. Another 39% identify as “born again” or evangelical, according to Gallup. That adds up to more than half the country.  Will Kamala Harris reassure people of faith that she will protect their religious liberty, or will she try to win the election by doubling down on her progressive view of faith?

Coinciding with the neo-Marxist narrative that has been implemented since the 1960s, the decades of godless influence is now producing the desired results: The end of the Christian social order, end of stability, end of the family, end of marriage, end of personal freedoms, end of the church, end of wealth for the large parts of the middle- and lower classes. Even middle-class families are now struggling to make ends meet as our political leaders seem completely unwilling to solve even the most basic problems in society. Christian morality has been substituted by hedonism, endless greed among our economic elites, the legalization of selfishness, gluttony, anger, murder, hatred and pride: the very vices that Christian ethics devised how to conquer and quench.

Then suddenly, as if frightened by the results of his own demonic preaching, Dawkins, who has had free access to the mainstream media loudspeaker, changed his stance, as I recently wrote about at WND. In an interview with LBC, he now calls himself a cultural Christian. Some epiphany moment must have occurred.

This brings me to another world-famous atheist who has been a convenient tool for the mainstream Marxist push for godlessness and chaos in the West, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. In a recent UnHerd debate with Dr. Dawkins, she explains that she is now a Christian. Considering taking her own life after a decade of depression, self-loathing and anxiety, Hirsi Ali felt disconnected from a meaningful existence. She chose to pray to God for help.

Hirsi Ali came to comprehend that the history of Western civilization is mainly Christian. She no longer mocks Christ or Christians, she states, pointing out that the external forces that now threaten the West should have been countered by the message of the genuine Christian civilization – the message of love, redemption, renewal and rebirth, which makes Christianity a very powerful story for the human condition and human existence. Also part of that story is the recognition of suffering and sin – the character traits both good and evil that are within us. These teachings of Christianity are far more powerful and have led to the flourishing of Western civilization.

Consequently, Christianity restored Hirsi Ali’s faith in life and removed the mental state of spiritual bankruptcy she had been battling. She says that she regrets her role in the New Atheist movement that has been so influential in the 2000s. She made the grave mistake of conflating Christianity with Islam, she explains, thinking that all perceptions of God are the same and equally wrong.

Yet, watching the debate between Hirsi Ali and Dawkins, one cannot help but notice how deep we have fallen the past century, as leading intellectuals are completely ignorant of the massive Christian influence on Western civilization. They simply do not know that it was Christian morals that produced the Western dawn of human rights, the principle of equality regardless of race, gender and status, the abolishment of slavery, the institution of the family, the emancipated role of the woman and much more.

Striking irrationality is found across the hardcore beliefs of the New Atheist movement, for example the assumption that one either believes in God or in “enlightened secular rationality”. Throughout Western history, it was precisely Christian scientists who sought to understand how God created the world who applied scientific rationality. It is equally unbelievable, for example, that atheist intellectuals actually attempt to apply empirical hypothesis to the metaphysical, which exists above the empirically provable. Everyone knows that empirical evidence is only applicable to matter that exist on earth and its cosmos. Not beyond it. It is like trying to prove how the currents in the ocean flow by examining trees.

Consequently, whether one speaks about moral, cultural, political or spiritual Christianity, one ends up agreeing with the new version of Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Without Christianity, the West is a lost cause.

Watch the debate:

Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@wndnewscenter.org.

According to Showalter, his first encounter with the world of transgenderism was in 2016. At that time, Showalter says he was “thrown into” the subject because of the meteoric rise of “gender clinics” in the United States, which he says do “atrocious” things to children.

Subjecting children to puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones will “almost certainly render a child [permanently] sterile,” Showalter explained.

“Since when did it become ethical to sterilize a child, especially when there’s no disease like cancer, where … you might lose your fertility because you’ve got drugs for chemo and radiation?”

“Gender confusion … [is] a psychological condition that does not warrant a hormonal or surgical intervention. So it’s a disgraceful practice. It should never happen in my opinion.”

Listen to the full episode below:

Becoming your “authentic self” through mutilation

What bothers Showalter the most are the “gruesome” surgeries that children go through in order to become another gender. Boys and girls are getting their genitals cut off and sometimes replaced with fake genitals to match their desired “transition.”

The process is not only gruesome but also expensive with taxpayers footing much of the bill, all because of the “ideological indoctrination” that Showalter says children are being exposed to at school and in the media.

“This is neo-Gnosticism on steroids, literally,” Showalter said about these deceived children’s efforts to become their “authentic self.”

“And it’s happening to young people, very young people, including teenagers as young as 13 or 14 years old,” he added.

In order to successfully reconstruct fake genitals for transgenders, body butchers must harvest and remove tissue from elsewhere on these children’s bodies, including from the abdomen and forearm.

These “Frankenstein surgeries,” as Showalter calls them, are rough approximations and do not even serve a functional purpose once complete.

“This is intentionally damaging the body in pursuit of a physiological impossibility. This is surgery in pursuit of a lie,” Showalter warns.

“A surgery should never be done to remove a physically healthy body part. Medical ethics is just dead as a doornail, in my opinion, that this would be something doctors or surgeons would ever do.”

Christians everywhere, Showalter says, need to be praying every day for divine deliverance from this societal curse.

“There are stories in Scripture where all hope seems lost and that we’re up against seemingly insurmountable odds,” Showalter said. “But God then shows up, and He uses a remnant of people.”

“If we pray, and if we set our faces like flint, and we believe that God is for us and not against us … and that He loves the little children … [Jesus] has very harsh words for those who harm them … If we pray, I believe we will see this wickedness dismantled in the realm of the spirit.”

Any additional action beyond prayer is between a person and God, Showalter added, encouraging people to do what they feel they are led to do without having to be told from someone else what to do.

“I pray and ask God the Father to comfort any and all children who are suffering with loneliness and confusion right now at this moment,” one person prayed in the comment section.

“That they would feel and know the personal touch of you, Jesus, for you are the only one who can justify any one of us. That they would be cocooned in a warm blanket of your love. Put safe people in their space. To know they are not alone.”

The powers that be want your children to become transgenders. Learn more at Transhumanism.news.

Sources for this article include:

• LifeSiteNews.com
• NaturalNews.com

(WND)—Dr. Richard Dawkins has spent his life tearing down the belief in the cultural Christian values that have been the pillars of strength in Western civilization. He has been one of those white male, atheist fundamentalist intellectuals who have – with remarkable passion – belittled and rampantly attacked Christianity and its reverence of God in the complexity of nature, effectively denying the existence of the metaphysical dimension and its influence on the physical, material world.

In a recent interview with Britain’s LBC, this architect of the contemporary mainstream evil caricature of who God is, the designer of the hatred against anything Christian left in our culture, this man has the audacity to state that he was “slightly horrified Ramadan is being promoted instead of Christian Easter.” This is the very same man who for generations has demonized and twisted the message of the ancient Holy Books, calling God a sex-obsessed tyrant and actively pushing for the purging of anything religious. This arrogant atheist missionary now states that “we are a culturally Christian country” and again says, “I call myself a cultural Christian.” So, in his opposition of Islam this delusional man is suddenly a Christian, after all?

Dr. Dawkins seems surprised that Islam takes dominion in the West. Which powers did he think would dominate when Christian compassionate spiritualism is forcibly removed by the relentless work of atheist apostles like himself? His own raging revolt against God’s order in the traditional Western religion is about to succeed completely. Of course, Islam fills the spiritual vacuum.

Dawkins’ assumptions about the metaphysical world are quite well summed up in his notoriously destructive work “The God Delusion,” in which he states that God almost certainly does not exist. This he determines with the utmost demonic pride, he who speaks of biological science and empiricism, yet determines that there is little probability of a Creator, based entirely on his own subjective perception.

Or has this culturally destructive atheist, this influencer of New Atheism, traveled beyond the edges of the universe to examine whether God is there? Is he able to determine empirically that there is no God outside the scope of this universe? Or, can he scientifically prove that man’s heart, his innermost being, cannot be in touch with the celestial Spirit of God, who by the way exists outside of the realm of the empirical. Scientific hypothesis can only empirically prove that which exists in the material dimension.

So, this little man wants to disprove the metaphysical by applying empiricist methods that only describe the material dimension. He finds biological evolution more probable than creation, even if Darwinists never have been able to prove anything more than mutations within a species. Darwinism is a faith – belief not based on empirical evidence – like any other. Evolution from one species to another has never been observed while it was happening and therefore is non-verifiable. It has never evolved beyond an unprovable theory. So, while he warns of anti-scientific fairytales as a great evil, he should be sure to include his own.

Dr. Dawkins, who arrogantly only operates in the low dimension of empiricism, who cannot even add 10 years to the length of his own life, has preached that “God is dead” to generations and inserted nihilist hopelessness, emptiness and lovelessness into our century. For without God’s justice, His metaphysical love for the physical humankind and promise of a world after the current calamity, what is there to hope for? What does the 83-year-old Dawkins hope for after his own death? Does he expect to meet demons or angels? Does he actually dare to bet on nothingness, he who has not been able to prove anything regarding this topic?

As Dr. Dawkins joins Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Auguste Comte and other white male, ignorant Western atheists who were hellbent on tearing down the respect for traditional values, he points out that the Christian faith is a delusion. From these “delusional” Christian ideals stem groundbreaking values such as the belief in natural human rights, equality regardless of race, gender or social standing, the abolition of slavery, individual rights to own and control the fruit of one’s own labor, an economic system based on trustworthiness and accountability where private property rights, Christian moral standards and the separation of powers form the basis for stability and growth.

Naturally, the effect of willfully creating a burning hatred for Christianity in the general public and in the mainstream media, Christopher Dawkins has greatly contributed to the current Western collapse and disintegration of society.

Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@wndnewscenter.org.

Whether it is accurate or not, many on the left consider evangelical Christians to be Donald Trump’s most hardcore supporters, and church buildings are the most visible representation of the evangelical movement.  Since church buildings are not guarded most of the time, they are easy targets, and they are being attacked at a frequency that we have never seen before in the entire history of this country.

According to a report that was released by the Family Research Council, church attacks in the United States have risen 800 percent during the last six years…

While the Biden administration cracks down on the Christians Democrats and the press smear as extremists, church attacks are up 800 percent in the last six years, according to a new report from the Family Research Council (FRC).

In February, the conservative group published the report, “Hostility Against Churches Is on the Rise in the United States.” It identified 915 acts of hostility against churches between January 2018 and November 2023.

There is so much talk in the mainstream media about “right-wing extremism”, but it is actually the left that has been committing acts of terror over and over again.

In particular, the number of church attacks absolutely exploded in the year following the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade…

The report found hostile church incidents more than doubled in 2023 compared to 2022, with 436 counted a year after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision returned abortion lawmaking to state legislatures. The number of attacks in 2023 was more than eight times greater than those reported in 2018.

These attacks are not about what happens on Sunday mornings.

Rather, these attacks are all about what is happening in the political realm.

When a crazed woman walked into Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church and started shooting, it wasn’t because she hated his preaching…

A woman who walked into a popular Texas megachurch Sunday afternoon with a long gun and her 7-year-old son opened fire before she was killed by law enforcement officers on scene. The gunfire left the child in critical condition and another man injured, officials said.

Authorities are now probing the shooting at televangelist and pastor Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church – roughly 6 miles from downtown Houston.

The woman, identified in a search warrant as Genesse Ivonne Moreno, 36, entered the church shortly before 2 p.m. wearing a trench coat and backpack and opened fire, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said in a Sunday afternoon news conference.

According to ABC News, when authorities recovered the AR-15 she used during the shooting, there was a sticker that said “Palestine” on it.

She was a pro-Palestinian radical that hated evangelical support for Israel.

Sadly, these sorts of incidents are becoming way too common.

We have reached a stage where every single church in America needs an armed security team, and things will inevitably become even crazier during the months ahead.

As I have warned my readers numerous times, we are entering the most chaotic election season in U.S. history.

The Lincoln Project is already releasing ominous videos warning that Trump will become a dictator, and hordes of liberal pundits are breathlessly telling us that another Trump presidency will be the end of America as we know it today.

There are millions of leftists that are deeply internalizing this messaging, and if Trump wins they will be ready for action.

A recent New York Post article explained that if Trump is able to get back into the White House “some portion of the left will convince itself that only a color revolution can save the country”…

And if Trump emerges victorious and the alleged dictatorship is underway in earnest?

Certainly, the reaction will make the pro-Hamas protests that have roiled college campuses and disrupted transportation nodes around the country look small-scale by comparison.

If the republic is supposedly on the verge of falling, extralegal means of resistance are justified.

At least some portion of the left will convince itself that only a color revolution can save the country.

I wish that I could tell you that such claims are exaggerated.

But the truth is that leftists are already buzzing about a “revolution” all over social media.

And politicians on the left are certainly not helping matters.  For example, Bernie Sanders insists that another Trump presidency will mean “the collapse of American democracy”…

A second Trump presidency would be much more extreme than the first. “He’s made that clear,” says Sanders. “There’s a lot of personal bitterness, he’s a bitter man, having gone through four indictments, humiliated, he’s going to take it out on his enemies. We’ve got to explain to the American people what that means to them – what the collapse of American democracy will mean to all of us.”

We are so deeply divided, and a movie entitled “Civil War” is about to be released as the upcoming presidential election looms over our nation…

The upcoming release of A24’s Civil War during a contentious presidential election year comes amid worry about the prospect of an actual civil war — or, at least, real-life political violence — and has some questioning the movie’s timing.

Talk about predictive programming.

The film is about an alliance of states that rebels against an authoritarian president that is abusing his powers.

Many are questioning the wisdom of releasing such a movie at this particular moment in our history…

“The idea of another American civil war happening today actually keeps me up at night,” wrote one reader on an American Civil War subreddit. “This is a movie that I want to keep far away from. Even if it’s based on a political scenario so far removed from our own. I just do not want to entertain the notion of something so horrible.”

“A movie about a second American Civil War in an election year in which the second American Civil War is a serious concern among law-enforcement and rational people alike?” wrote another.

I think that it would have been wise for those in charge of this film to delay it until 2025 at the earliest.

But of course people like you and I do not get to make those kinds of decisions.

For many on the left that do not worship God, politics is essentially their religion.

And to them, the worst thing that could ever possibly happen would be for Donald Trump to become president again.

I realize that may sound really bizarre to you, but this is how they actually see the world.

So if Trump wins the election in November, we are going to witness a nationwide outpouring of negative emotion that will be unlike anything that any of us have ever experienced.

Needless to say, they won’t be satisfied with just protesting in the streets.

We could potentially see civil unrest on a scale that many would consider to be unimaginable right now, and that would set the stage for so many of the things that I have been warning about all these years.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

It’s a plan to “criminalize Christianity, with Bible reading and prayer considered ‘hate speech’ – a ‘crime’ punishable with prison time,” according to a new report from NewsAddicts.

The report explains, in blunt terms, “Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s World Economic Forum-controlled government is planning to outlaw Christianity with the introduction of an amendment to the Criminal Code that could see believers face jail time for expressing historic Christian teachings.”

The problems are found in Canada’s Bill C-367 that “will make it illegal to reiterate parts of the Bible, stripping away the ‘good faith’ defense for what is deemed by the state as ‘hate speech’ or ‘antisemitism.’”

Explained the report, “Traditional Christian practices such as celebrating Christmas or attending church service will be considered crimes that carry severe penalties.”

The procedure is simple. The changes in the law will remove a defense to hate crimes charges that allow statements if individuals “genuinely believe in and were merely expressing religious teaching” from the Bible.

Christian persecution is about to be introduced in Canada:

If passed, Bill C-367 could land Christians in jail for quoting the Bible or expressing a faith based opinion if the Canadian government deems it “promotion of hatred or antisemitism”.

This is an absolute disgrace. pic.twitter.com/Bq8zT8N3J9

— Eva Vlaardingerbroek (@EvaVlaar) February 22, 2024

Warning! Canada's Bill C-367 to repeal Section 319(3)(b) of Criminal Code – a protection against "Public Incitement of Hatred" if established upon "… opinion on a religious subject or belief in a religious text;" Enforcement of this & related legislation (Bill C4) is coming.

— Joseph Boot (@DrJoeBoot) February 22, 2024

The legislative scheme states its plan specifically: “The enactment amends the Criminal Code to eliminate as a defense against wilful promotion of hatred or antisemitism the fact that a person, in good faith, expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion or a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text.”

The result if ratified will be the willful and knowing persecution of Christians in Canada, an expert said.

It was Joseph Boot, chief of the evangelical think tank Ezra Institute, who said, “If ratified, Canada’s anti-Christian legal apparatus created over the last decade will overtly persecute Christians with the force of criminal law.”

He warned heavy fines or jail time will be imposed on those participating in “evangelism, preaching, counseling, statements in the workplace, on social media, and in books that condemn homosexuality or transgenderism on biblical grounds.”

And, the report said, Gab CEO Andrew Torba warned, “Christians who maintain traditional orthodox perspectives about Jews – views that have been part of our faith for 2,000 years, are the primary obstacle to the Ruling Regime.”

The bill, while still pending in parliament, is expected ultimately to pass.

WND’s original reporting on the issue first arose in 2008 when an official with the National Religious Broadcasters Association warned about Canada’s “hate crimes” laws targeting Christians.

At that time, what used to be called MacGregor Ministries, which offered lessons on how to recognize and eliminate “faulty fads” in Christian churches, made a forced move into the U.S. and created another name because of government threats in Canada.

A spokeswoman for the ministry said, then, “When a group such as Jehovah’s Witnesses said of our doctrine we’re worshipping a freakish three-headed God (the Trinity), we should be able to respond. We say, ‘Here’s the doctrine of the Trinity and here is where it is in the Scripture.’”

But those opinions, she explained, would be found in violation of Canada’s hate crimes laws.

The spokeswoman said the government ordered a complete change, or a shutdown, so the ministry moved.

“There was nothing we could do that would please them,” the spokeswoman said. “They wanted us every time we criticized something to say, ‘So Christianity is equal to Buddhism, Islam, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses… Just decide for yourself.’”

At the same time, WND discovered the Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family, one of the largest Christian publishing and broadcasting organizations in the nation, was reviewing and editing its broadcasts to avoid offending Canadian “hate crimes” censors.

The ministry stated, “In particular, our content producers are careful not to make generalized statements nor comments that may be perceived as ascribing malicious intent to a ‘group’ of people and are always careful to treat even those who might disagree with us with respect. Our Focus on the Family content creators here in the U.S. are also careful to consult with Focus on the Family Canada whenever questions arise. Focus on the Family Canada, in turn, monitors the content produced in the U.S. and assesses this content against Canadian law.”

Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@wndnewscenter.org.

Speaking of phones, the other day, a few hundred thousand mobile subscribers lost connection to their cellular networks, and amateur sleuths jumped into action — scrutinizing which carriers and cities were most affected in hopes of isolating some nefarious intent behind the inconvenience. Was it a Chinese cyber-attack? A series of small electromagnetic pulses set off by some terrorist cell inside the United States? A CIA/NSA test run for the Intelligence Community before it instigates information blackouts in the run-up to the 2024 election? Or could it have simply been the result of a particularly strong solar flare? Nobody knew for sure, but everybody had a theory. For what it’s worth, AT&T blamed the outage on an improperly executed software update, but that clarification didn’t answer every question or quell suspicions that something more serious had occurred. When everyone is anxiously awaiting the end of the world, there is little room left over for mundane explanations.

Nobody believes anybody right now. That makes sense. Distrust of institutions and authority figures has skyrocketed. News reporters have essentially become the public relations arm of the Intelligence Community. They repeat risible lies without even the pretense of journalistic incredulity. For instance, how could Hunter Biden’s laptop — filled with videos documenting his own debaucherous and criminal activities — have been “Russian disinformation”? Only corporate news mouthpieces paid to deliver the I.C.’s talking points know. Because they refuse to ask obvious questions, the public has learned to distrust their point of view.

In the old days, political operatives got paid to construct convenient “narratives,” while reporters got paid to distill hidden truths. As the distinction between “operative” and “reporter” disappeared, ordinary people learned that fictitious “narratives” completely replaced any representation of objective reality. Because a free press has always been instrumental in containing institutional corruption, the implosion of professional journalism should be understood as a late-stage symptom of our present system’s impending death. Reporters who spend more time explaining why boys should dominate girls’ sports than investigating how mail-in ballot fraud subverts democratic elections cannot be taken seriously as factual custodians or arbiters of truth.

While citizens have adjusted to journalism’s irrelevancy, they have held out hope that science — a philosophy dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge — would be more resilient. However, science, too, has abandoned rigorous discipline for the ease of regurgitating unscrutinized “narratives.”

Perhaps the most consequential upside of COVID was its exposure of most medical doctors as unscientific bureaucrats willing to parrot absolute nonsense if it meant they got paid. Why would a physician prescribe an experimental “vaccine” in lieu of available over-the-counter remedies that have been around for fifty or more years? Because pharmaceutical companies can’t make money from generic medicines with expired patents, and medical doctors can’t procure financial benefits from pharmaceutical companies if they don’t first push their newest drugs. Why would any physician coerce patients (even healthy ones) to undergo experimental treatments without their informed consent (including explicit warnings of known side effects and the impossibility of knowing potential long-term harms) in blatant disregard of the Nuremberg Code’s well established principles for preventing crimes against humanity? Because white coats who uninquisitively follow government orders have sold their ethical obligations to the highest bidder.

As with journalism, the scientific pursuit of knowledge has become a hustle. The World Health Organization and the World Economic Forum have made it abundantly clear that global pandemics and man-made “climate change” are existential threats that coincidentally require more intrusive public surveillance and greater government control over the economy. It should be no surprise that the prospect of future apocalypse tends to short-circuit the human mind and convince otherwise rational people to hand over their freedoms to doom-and-gloom charlatans and fear-peddling carnival barkers. It should be a surprise, however, when handsomely paid “scientists” manipulate research and punish academic dissent in order to fraudulently support bureaucrats’ self-serving conclusions. When “scientific consensus” arrives in advance of scientific corroboration, researchers aren’t seeking objective knowledge but rather selling snake oil for professional aggrandizement and monetary gain.

With the deaths of journalism and science laid bare before the public, a salubrious shift in social consciousness has occurred. People are once again asking critical questions in search of basic truths. For too long, professional disciplines have insisted on doing society’s thinking. Whenever significant public policy debates have arisen, common people have been condescendingly told, “Leave that to the experts.” With busy lives filled with other obligations, most people have been okay with this arrangement. Caveat emptor (“let the buyer beware”) and other fundamental notions of personal responsibility have been traded for the modern conveniences of letting the Food and Drug Administration, the White House press corps, and (SMDH) the Central Intelligence Agency decide what is true. If processing information and making wise decisions is part of what it means to be alive, then the effect of transferring these responsibilities to third-party institutions is a bit like lobotomizing a population. You end up with a highly dependent society beholden to the mercies of designated “experts.”

For a while, a lobotomized population might find relative happiness within this arrangement — so long as the “experts” continue to share the population’s general worldview and can be trusted to pursue policy goals that consistently advance the population’s priorities. However, if the “experts” are guided by beliefs divergent from those of society, or worse, if they reveal themselves as a privileged class filled with rapacious liars and frauds, then common people have no other choice but to reclaim their natural authority by exercising their own brains.

That latent energy beading up right now beneath the surface of Western civilization is what happens when a slumbering society begins powering up its long-dormant capacity for self-government. As old brain cells are put back into proper use, the body politic is trying to remember how to do things it once took for granted. In trying to separate lies from truths, it has begun to remember why virtuous character establishes mutual trust. And as it recalibrates its moral compass, society is a little unsteady on its feet. Cellular networks go down, and nobody knows what to believe.

Lack of trust in government, news media, and science has produced something far more extraordinary: a spiritual awakening. Why? Because the illusion that government-run institutions have our best interests at heart has shattered into a million pieces, and it is impossible to glue those pieces back together into some kind of reconstructed “truth.” If government and its vassals in science and journalism can no longer stand in as secular priests, then people desperate for authentic truth are forced to ask tough questions of themselves.

In my experience, the tougher those questions become, the more likely that people find their way to God. And once they find their way to God, they tend to realize that they were meant to govern themselves. As freedom is God’s gift to every soul, spiritual revolutions always precede political ones. That inalienable truth ought to give every true believer some needed peace of mind.

Each year, the report brings vital attention to brave Christians around the world who suffer because of their faith.

Tragically, the 2024 report reveals that persecution against Christians is worsening.

The previous year’s World Watch List found that more than 360 million Christians faced severe persecution and discrimination for their faith. Today, this figure has increased to more than 365 million people, with “dangerously violent” instances of persecution taking place in listed countries.

Further, the 2024 report records a significant increase in the number of attacks on churches and Christian properties last year. According to Open Doors: “More than 14,700 churches or Christian properties such as schools and hospitals were targeted in 2023. It marked a sevenfold increase compared with attacks recorded the previous year.”

Additionally, in 2023 the total number of Christians who were forced to leave their homes for various reasons—including political instability, war, and extremism—more than doubled from the previous year. Nearly 300,000 Christians had to flee their homes and approximately 3% of Christians in sub-Saharan Africa’s most dangerous countries were displaced.

According to the report, North Korea is “the most dangerous place in the world for Christians.” If a person’s Christian faith is discovered, he or she is killed on the spot or shipped to a labor camp where the chances of survival are slim. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un sees Christianity as a threat to the dictatorship and carries out an effective death sentence on believers.

In China, General Secretary Xi Jinping similarly sees Christianity as a threat to the Chinese Communist Party’s power. Last year, at least 10,000 churches (mostly underground house churches) were closed in China; other, state-sanctioned churches were required to display signs that read “Love the Communist Party; Love the country; Love the religion.”

In Asia as a whole, 2 in 5 Christians are persecuted for their faith. Christians in India face violent attacks from Hindu extremists and are punished for violating anti-conversion laws in some states.

Rishi, a church leader in India, told Open Doors: “Though I was attacked twice, still I can feel God’s protection in my life. I was attacked, yet was not crushed. I will continue to trust my God.”

In Africa, 1 in 5 Christians are persecuted. Somalia was ranked No. 2 for countries in which Christians face the most extreme persecution. In Somalia, most Christians are Muslim converts and are consequently targeted by Islamist extremists, namely the terrorist group al-Shabaab, which has expressed its objective to eliminate Christians from the country.

Nigeria, according to Open Doors, “remains the deadliest place to follow Jesus.”

In 2023, nearly 5,000 Christians were killed for their faith, with 82% of the slayings occurring in Nigeria. Ranked No. 6 on the 2024 World Watch List, according to Open Doors: “More Christians are killed for their faith in Nigeria than in all the other countries of the world combined.”

For millions of Christians around the world, the cost of worshipping freely is high. Some even pay the price with their lives.

Open Doors’ 2024 World Watch List brings crucial attention to Christian persecution and discrimination— and is a vital tool for those who wish to help Christians around the world.

Downey said her touching new book is deeply personal, with the concept predicated upon her childhood. “This story for this book has sat in my heart for a really long time,” she told CBN Digital. “My mother died when I was just a little girl. I was only 10.” As a result of such a monumental loss due to an unexpected heart attack, Downey said she became quite close to her father, whom she described as a “great dad.” The struggles that came along with her mother’s death, though, were profound.

“To say that we were heartbroken would be an understatement, because we didn’t even have the preparation of illness, which I know can be traumatic and painful for a child to see their parents suffer and go through a long illness,” she said. “But … there was no warning, and so it was as if somebody just turned the lights out in our lives.”

Downey continued, “If I was making a movie of my own life, my childhood would be in full Technicolor, and then, when my mother died, it’s as if the movie then went into black and white.” The actress said she doesn’t know how she and her family would have coped if not for their faith. “If we hadn’t had faith to lean into, if we hadn’t been people of faith, I don’t know how we would have coped,” she said. “I really don’t know. … As Christians and as believers, we have an understanding of the promises of Christ around this issue, and the promise of heaven, and the resurrection of the body, and all the things that we’ve been taught and believe.”

Downey said she believes the experience of losing her mother so young helped give her empathy and compassion. These emotions and attributes have since colored much of her personal and professional work and story. Watch Downey tell her story and explain why she wrote “A Message in the Moon.”