At a time when Western leaders are embarrassed to speak openly of Christianity, Marco Rubio has boldly proclaimed Christ before the world, declaring that the soul of America has always been rooted in the Christian faith.

In a speech delivered for the Rededicate 250 National Prayer Jubilee, the United States Secretary of State said America’s identity and greatness cannot be understood apart from Christianity.

“From our country’s beginning,” Rubio said, “for as long as America has embodied freedom and exceptionalism, the soul of our nation has been rooted in the Christian faith.”

Rubio described the gathering as a continuation of the kind of national prayer and repentance that has marked America’s founding. He noted the Continental Congress’ 1775 call for prayer and fasting prior to the Revolutionary War, and said the founders publicly humbled themselves before God even as war with the British Empire loomed.

“In three and a half months’ time,” Rubio said, “the colonists would be in open revolt against the most powerful empire in the history of the world.”

The founders, he explained, understood the enormous cost of what they were doing. Referencing Benjamin Franklin’s famous remark after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Rubio said: “We must indeed all hang together or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

Despite the danger, Rubio explained the founders did what Christians have always done in times of uncertainty.

“With the dark storm clouds of war looming on the horizon,” he said, “they did what Christians have always done across place and time for 2,000 years. They turned their eyes to heaven and placed their fate in the hands of God.”

Rubio argued that Christianity fundamentally shaped Western civilisation and, in particular, America’s sense of purpose in history.

“Our faith calls us outwards into the limitless darkness of the unknown,” Rubio said. “It tells us to go forth and preach the Gospel to the world as a witness unto all nations unto the ends of the earth.

“From that command came America,” he added.

Throughout the speech, Rubio traced the influence of Christianity through key moments in American history. He referenced John Winthrop’s famous “city upon a hill” sermon, frontier missionaries spreading the Gospel westward, and Samuel Morse sending the first telegraph message with the words: “What hath God wrought?”

Rubio concluded by warning Americans not to forget the spiritual roots that shaped the nation.

“America is still a young nation measured against the record of history,” he said. “But the soul of our nation has always been rooted in an ancient faith.”

At a time when many Western leaders are abandoning the Christian foundations that once shaped their nations and institutions, Rubio’s speech stood as a reminder to the world that America still has the potential to be Winthrop’s “city upon a hill” — a nation that serves as an example to the world of what a people grounded in faith, morality, and divine providence ought to be.

Of course, America is far from perfect, and much work remains to be done. Yet on the global stage, it is increasingly one of the few Western nations still willing to acknowledge the moral and spiritual direction in which a nation ought to face.

WATCH:

United States Vice President JD Vance has said that America’s identity is inseparable from its Christian inheritance.

During an address delivered for the Rededicate 250 National Prayer Jubilee, Vance traced America’s spiritual foundations from the Pilgrims and the Continental Congress to George Washington’s 1789 Thanksgiving proclamation.

It was in that proclamation that Washington called on all nations to “acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor.”

As such, “The duty Washington described to honour, obey, and give thanks to our Creator was woven into America’s character long before the founding,” Vance said, arguing that the United States has always been “a nation of prayer.”

Quoting John Adams, Vance also noted that the Constitution was “made only for a moral and religious people,” and insisted that America’s system of justice, liberty, and civic virtue flows directly from its religious — and specifically Christian — inheritance.

Quoting Charlie Kirk, the Vice President also emphasised the religious morality underpinning law and society, stating—as we have many, many times—that “all law reflects a morality,” and that both morality and law ultimately rest on religion.

“The morality and religion that formed the American consciousness were decidedly Christian,” he said.

As America marks 250 years, Vance called on citizens to pray not only in crisis, but continually — asking for wisdom and courage for national leadership, and for God’s guidance over the nation’s future.

WATCH:

From the very first moment European settlement began in 1788, Christianity was deeply woven into the social, cultural, and political fabric of Australia. The Christian faith has shaped institutions, laws, public life, and national identity for more than two centuries.

Undoubtedly, Christianity formed the backdrop against which Australian society developed, whether through the arrival of the First Fleet’s chaplain, the overwhelming Christian demographics at Federation, or the early establishment of schools, Christian education, charities, and religious civic norms.

Here are fifteen historical markers that trace how Christian belief and practice informed Australia’s constitutional language, parliamentary traditions, welfare systems, education framework, and cultural landscape, demonstrating the central role Christianity played in shaping the nation.

1. Arrival with European Settlement (1788)

The First Fleet, which established the British colony in New South Wales, brought Christianity to Australia. Reverend Richard Johnson, a Church of England cleric, held the first Christian service on February 3, 1788, and was tasked with promoting public morality, health, and education in the colony.

2. Dominant Religion at Federation (1901)

At the time of Australia’s federation, approximately 96% of the population identified as Christian (40% Anglican, 23% Catholic, and the rest other Protestant denominations). This make-up reflected the overwhelmingly Anglo-Celtic settler society derived from Christian Britain.

3. Acknowledgment of God in the Constitution

The preamble to the Australian Constitution (1901) states that the people “humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God” agreed to unite. Thus, the nation explicitly acknowledged divine providence in a document influenced by Christian framers and conventions, which also opened with prayer.

4. Parliamentary Traditions

Both federal and most state parliaments open daily sessions with the Lord’s Prayer (or Christian prayers). This is a practice dating back to federation and reflects the nation’s historical Christian underpinnings.

5. Christian Public Holidays

Major national holidays like Christmas and Easter (including Good Friday and Easter Monday) are enshrined in law as public holidays.

6. Role in Education

For much of Australia’s history, Christian churches, especially Anglican, Catholic, and later others, established and ran the majority of schools. Even today, a significant portion of non-government schools (about one-third of students) are Christian-affiliated, with historical state aid to church schools dating from the 19th century.

7. Welfare and Social Services

Christian organisations pioneered hospitals, aged care, orphanages, and charities. Groups like the Salvation Army, St Vincent de Paul, Anglican and Catholic welfare agencies, and missionaries (e.g., John Flynn’s Flying Doctor Service) provided foundational social infrastructure across the country, much of which the nation still relies on today.

8. Legal and Ethical Foundations

Australia’s common law system, inherited from Britain, is deeply rooted in Christian principles, including concepts of human dignity, justice, and morality—all influenced by the Bible, and Jesus’ teaching in particular.

9. Cultural and Architectural Landscape

Churches, cathedrals (e.g., St Mary’s in Sydney, St Paul’s in Melbourne), and Christian monuments dominate historic town centres and skylines. These serve as visible testaments to Christianity’s central role in community-building from colonial times onward.

10. Historical Majority and Influence Until Recent Decades:

Christianity remained the affiliation of over 88% of Australians as late as the 1960s census, shaping national identity, politics (e.g., sectarian divides between Protestants and Catholics), and public discourse well into the 20th century, with Christian leaders influencing policy on issues like education, welfare, and morality.

11. Christian Moral Framework in Early Colonial Governance:

Early governors explicitly relied on Christian moral teaching to guide penal reform, social order, and expectations for public behaviour. Sermons, chapel attendance, and moral instruction were considered essential to “civilising” the colony and reforming convicts. This reflected the belief, inherited from Britain, that Christianity was absolutely necessary for a stable society.

12. Missionary Activity and Indigenous Engagement:

Christian missionaries were among the first non-military Europeans to establish long-term settlements across the continent. Figures such as Lancelot Threlkeld, Samuel Marsden, and later the Australian Inland Mission saw their work as foundational to the moral and social development of the colony. Their presence created early schools, farms, hospitals, and written records of Indigenous languages.

13. Christian Influence on Early Social Norms and Law:

Even before Federation, colonial legal codes embedded Christian assumptions on marriage, Sabbath observance, oaths of office, blasphemy, charity obligations, and public morality. Courts routinely referenced biblical ethics, and judges assumed a Christian moral order as the baseline for legislation—an inheritance from English common law.

14. The Central Role of Churches in Community Formation:

Christian institutions were woven into the formation of civic life. In almost every emerging settlement, the first public buildings erected after basic shelters were churches. They served not only as places of worship but also as community centres, town halls, early schools, and venues for public meetings.

15. Christian Symbols and Language in Early National Identity:

Throughout the 19th century, politicians, newspapers, and public figures routinely described Australia as a Christian society. Public events opened with prayer, Christian hymns were played in national celebrations, and political speeches frequently invoked divine providence or biblical themes. Even debates over immigration, morality, and governance assumed a shared Christian cultural framework.

Taken together, these historical realities show that Christianity was not merely present in Australia’s development but foundational to it. From the Constitution’s acknowledgment of God to the dominance of Christian social institutions, public holidays, legal concepts, and community life, Australia grew within a distinctly Christian cultural framework that persisted well into the modern era.

Is it any surprise that Australia adopted overt Christian symbolism for its national flag? As Dr Francis Nigel Lee notes, “It needs to be remembered that the Australian flag unites the three Christian crosses of England, Ireland, and Scotland in the Union Jack – the Christian crosses of St George, St Patrick, and St Andrew – with the Southern Cross. Indeed, it is hard to imagine the flag of any country with a more graphic Christian significance.”

Many Australians today champion the “separation of church and state” and a secular public square—principles rooted not only in the Bible but also in Australia’s founding—yet over the past half-century, these ideas have devolved into a version that would be unrecognisable to previous generations, let alone the nation’s founders, conflating the separation of church and state institutions with a separation of Christianity from politics.

For Sir Robert Gordon Menzies (1894–1978), founder of the Liberal Party and Australia’s longest-serving Prime Minister, and as for Australia’s founders, secularism did not mean a separation of Christianity and politics, but rather ensuring that no particular Christian denomination was favoured by government, while still assuming that the Christian faith and religion would influence the political landscape.

Menzies maintained that, although Christianity should not be expressed in party political terms, it was the duty of all citizens to examine their politics through a Christian lens, noting: “To be a good Liberal, to be a good Labor man, to be a good Country Party man, you will be all the better if you are a Christian.” Christianity is, after all, what Australia is built upon.

Crossway Publishing has removed its audiobooks from Canon+.

According to Canon Press, the move came just one week after the Christian streaming platform announced the addition of Kevin DeYoung’s audiobooks to its catalogue.

In an email to subscribers, Canon Press CEO Brian Kohl said that shortly after the announcement, Crossway instructed the audiobook distributor to stop making the titles available to Canon+ subscribers.

Kohl stated that Canon Press had contacted Crossway’s head of licensing directly regarding the decision but had yet to receive a response.

“We are not holding our breath,” Kohl remarked.

Crossway has not yet publicly explained the reason for the removal. However, DeYoung has previously criticised Douglas Wilson and the broader culture surrounding Wilson’s ministry in Moscow. In particular, DeYoung drew attention to what he described as the “Moscow Mood,” a phrase originating from his critique published on Clearly Reformed.

In response to Kevin DeYoung’s article, Douglas Wilson and his supporters argued that institutions such as The Gospel Coalition and 9Marks had become overly cautious, soft, and “respectability-driven” in their engagement with modern cultural decline, which explains why more muscular and confrontational voices have gained influence.

DeYoung’s criticism was viewed by many of Wilson’s supporters as a form of evangelical gatekeeping, aimed at policing tone and vibe just as Wilson’s influence was significantly growing, particularly among younger men drawn to his more direct, culture-war framing.

Joe Rigney, Fellow of Theology at New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, also responded to DeYoung’s criticisms. Rigney’s reply can be read here.

Notably, Crossway’s audiobooks remain available on major mainstream godless platforms, and Canon Press closed its statement to subscribers with an apt remark to disappointed listeners, noting that those unable to finish DeYoung’s audiobooks on Canon+ could still find them on “Amazon, Apple, Spotify, and other Babylonian outlets.”

Turning Point Australia (TPAUS) is urging the Australian Senate to keep the sunset clause for counter-terror laws.

Under the Labor proposal, Australia’s 2003 add-ons to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979 would become permanent.

This means that ASIO’s extraordinary powers for the “War on Terror” will no longer have a use-by date.

Since their inception, Australia’s precision post-9/11 policing laws have had the necessary parliamentary review, review, review, accountability.

Labor wants the Senate to ditch this stopgap.

The bill, called the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2025, will also increase the reach of the Attorney-General.

He or she is the only one with the power to issue “compulsory questioning warrants” (QW) against both suspects and non-suspects.

Under current counter-terror QW laws, no judge is required.

Naturally, under the Sussan Ley “opposition,” the Liberals helped pass the bill through the House of Representatives in February.

The battle to save judicial oversight and keep Australia from permanently becoming a police state is now in the hands of the Senate.

As Senator Alex Antic noted, this should concern every “Australian who values freedom under the law.”

Speaking about the temporary nature built into the law by design, Antic said,

“Instead of respecting that original intent, this bill seeks to remove that safeguard entirely.”

There are three main areas of concern.

First, these extraordinary powers for policing terrorism become permanent.

Second, it supercharges the policing powers of a politician.

Third, the reasons a person can be dragged in for compulsory questioning expand to include “incitement,” and potentially (so-called) “hate speech.”

As I explained in the Daily Declaration on Friday,

“Compulsory questioning warrants (QW) have granted ASIO the power to question and detain anyone, regardless of whether or not they are a suspect.

Questioning warrants apply to both adults and minors who “are at least 14” (see here).”

Keep in mind here the absence of a bill of rights in Australia.

Rights are, for the most part, considered “implied rights.”

Protections for Australian civil liberties largely come under Australia’s commitment to uphold international law.”

For these reasons, the expansion of “war on terror” powers should have churches, not just civic and civil rights groups, deeply concerned.

This is why Turning Point Australia isn’t just raising awareness; they’re firmly opposing the amendments, and asking Australians to do the same.

TPAUS see the dangers as clear and present.

Such as there being no right to remain silent. Even access to a lawyer, and the lawyer’s ability to do his or her job, is significantly restricted.

Additionally, if questioned or detained by ASIO, regardless of whether a person is a suspect or not, there is the threat of 5-years in prison for talking about the incident.

The amendment cements this denial of due process into Australian law.

Indirectly backing TPAUS, the Law Council of Australia has said – and I referred to this in the Daily Declaration – that they are seriously concerned.

Consequently, they said, “We do not support the removal of the sunset clause for these powers.”

“This is because of a longstanding failure to strike an appropriate balance between responding to the gravity of evidenced threats to national security with compliance with the rule of law, Australia’s obligations under international law, and respect for human rights obligations.”

Because of the law’s huge potential for abuse, the Law Council said policing of the legislation requires constant review.

Regular scrutiny of powers that restrict rights, and scrutiny of how that power is wielded, matters.

“Periodic opportunities to publicly make the case that exceptional powers that trespass on fundamental rights are necessary and proportionate,” the Law Council argued.

The use-by date provides “an essential democratic oversight function and should not be surrendered.”

“We maintain,” they added, “that ASIO must be required to regularly demonstrate to the Australian public that these powers continue to be both necessary and proportionate to the threat environment.”

To date, TPAUS have helped Australians send over 580,000 emails asking the Senate to save the sunset clause by voting against the ASIO amendment.

Debate was set for Friday. That date has since been pushed back to June.

Noting the reprieve, TPAUS said, Australians now have a renewed opportunity to raise awareness and act on widespread concerns.

You can join with them in telling the Senate to boot the bill by tapping here.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has admitted he does not know what an Australian is, suggesting there is no distinction he’s aware of between Australians, migrants, and refugees.

Speaking at a press conference, the Prime Minister said:

“I wonder what the distinction between Australians and migrants is, because I’ve never seen that used before in a country like ours. You know, we have people who are in senior positions in our government, in business—you know, some of the giants of business in this country came here as refugees and as migrants. Are they seperate from Australians?”

In other words, according to the Prime Minister, “Australian” means everyone and everything in general—and therefore, nothing in particular. It’s not a specific people, it’s not a heritage, and it’s not an ethnicity—it is something that anyone from anywhere can simply “become” with the right paperwork.

Of course, this is nothing new to the Anglo-Celtic sphere. Across the world, we’re all being fed the same slop—where citizenship and ethnic identity are being intentionally conflated and confused. You are no more British, American, Irish, Canadian, or Australian than the migrant who received citizenship five minutes ago.

Vivek Ramaswamy made a similar claim last month when he contrasted the United States with other nations. Ramaswamy suggested that while one may live in France, Germany, or Japan, citizenship can never make a person truly become French, German, or Japanese. America, he argued, is entirely different. Anyone can arrive from anywhere and become fully American.

It’s probably safe to assume that Albanese has adopted a similar philosophy. I’m yet to hear anyone argue that Japanese citizenship is all it takes to make a man “Japanese.” But as I argued in response to Ramaswamy last month, this notion uniquely carves out a supposed exception for Anglo-Celtic nations without any explanation of how that works.

It is to strip the labels “Australian,” “American,” and “English” of any inherent ethnic meaning. The terms are now so inclusive that they cannot refer to any ethnic group in particular. What Albanese is effectively claiming is that either “Australian” has no real historical, national, or ethnic meaning beyond paperwork, or else he’s suggesting that citizenship in Australia can somehow transform biological identity in a way it clearly cannot. Neither option is coherent.

As I argued then:

The idea that nations founded by the Anglo-Celtic people of the British Isles are uniquely exempt from the normal relationship between people, culture, and nationhood is a relatively modern invention. It gained traction in the post-World War II period, alongside broader efforts to undermine nationalism, and redefined Western nations in purely civic and universal terms.

What this does is dissolve the distinction between a nation, as a particular people, and a geographical, legal jurisdiction. If anyone can become fully “American” in the same sense that no one can become French or Japanese, then “American” ceases to describe a people at all. It becomes a label with no fixed substance. “American” is open to anyone and anchored in nothing, except a geographic location.

What’s more, it reduces a country to the property of the world, belonging to no particular people group, subscribing to no particular religion, and living by no particular culture. When anyone and everyone can become something, that thing is without meaning or limit. And that is, of course, the end goal of the “melting pot” that is Globalism: No nations, only global citizens—people assigned to specific regions, like economic widgets—and nothing more.

What’s more disturbing is when this kind of people-denying rhetoric is voiced by the Prime Minister of the country to which those people belong. As Sam Bamford of the 2 Worlds Collide podcast aptly noted: “If you clearly can’t define Australian, you’ll never be able to protect its people, culture and history.”

He’s absolutely correct. This is no small admission from the Australian Prime Minister. If he doesn’t know what an Australian is, how can he govern in our best interest?

Not that anyone was particularly convinced he was.

A petition calling for the dissolution of the Australian Parliament and an immediate federal election was launched earlier this week, and close to 15,000 Australians have already added their signatures.

The “Albo Must Go” campaign, created by former federal MP George Christensen, accuses Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Albanese government of presiding over soaring inflation, record migrant levels, and growing censorship measures while ignoring the concerns of everyday Australians.

“What if the pain isn’t a policy failure but a plan?” the petition asks.

“Australians are being crushed by inflation, overrun by mass migration, and muzzled by censorship laws… while Anthony Albanese pretends nothing is wrong.”

The campaign argues that Australian families are struggling, faced with mounting financial and economic pressure, coupled with rising costs across groceries, fuel, rent, and electricity.

“Families are working longer hours just to fall further behind. The Aussie dream is slipping out of reach,” the petition states.

The campaign also slams the government’s migration policies, claiming the country is experiencing “the biggest population surge in our history,” which is “driving up prices, crowding our services, and placing impossible pressure on hospitals, roads, schools, and housing.”

Another major focus of the petition is online speech regulation. The campaign references the federal government’s misinformation legislation, which was paused following public backlash.

“Albanese’s government already tried to ban lawful speech online through the now-paused ‘misinformation’ bill,” the petition states. “But he’s not done.”

It also claims that the proposed legislation would “scan your private messages and hand unelected bureaucrats the power to suppress your opinions.”

The petition intends to force an earlier election before the next scheduled election in 2028.

“The campaign will rattle Labor MPs,” the petition reads. “The ones in marginal seats will panic. If we make enough noise, it could crack their unity and break Albanese’s grip.”

The public is also encouraged to send a formal letter to both the Prime Minister and the Governor-General calling for Parliament to be immediately dissolved.

The letter reads:

To the Prime Minister and Governor-General,

Australians are hurting. Families are stretched thin. And trust in this government has collapsed.

Prices are surging. Housing is scarce. Roads, hospitals, and schools are overcrowded. All while record-breaking immigration continues without a plan.

Meanwhile, freedom is under attack. This government has already tried to censor the internet and will come back for more.

Enough is enough.

When a government becomes reckless, when it silences critics and fails its people, it is time for Australians to step in.

We call for the immediate dissolution of Parliament and a federal election, so the people can decide our nation’s future.

Add your name now. Help us trigger change before it’s too late.

Kind regards,

[Your Name]

You can read more about the campaign here.

Christopher Nolan’s upcoming film The Odyssey is already facing a barrage of criticism, and it hasn’t even been released yet. Much of the fire has largely been directed at Nolan’s painfully “woke” casting choices.

His retelling of Homer’s legendary Greek epic will include transgender actress Ellen Page, rumoured to play Achilles, rapper Travis Scott as a Greek poet, Zendaya as Athena, and Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o portraying Helen of Troy.

The backlash has been fierce, and arguably well-deserved. Many see it not as creative licence, but as the deliberate defacement of Greek history and one of antiquity’s greatest works of literature. This is not material that should be remoulded to satisfy Hollywood’s diversity quotas.

Nolan’s defence of the casting hasn’t done much to help his cause either. When asked why he cast rapper Travis Scott in the film, Nolan reportedly explained: “I cast him because I want to nod towards the idea that this story has been handed down as oral poetry, which is analogous to rap.”

Author and Christian commentator, Eric Metaxas, came out guns blazing, stating on X: “As a lover of Western Civilization—and the proud son of a Greek immigrant—I denounce Nolan’s sacrilege in perverting this great epic with DEI [Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion] and trans lunacy.”

“Shame on him and shame on Hollywood,” Metaxas added.

Elon Musk replied, saying that Nolan has shown “total contempt for the Greek people.”

In another post, Musk said Nolan has “lost his integrity,” and accused him of desecrating Homer’s legacy entirely: “Chris Nolan is pissing on Homer’s grave,” he said. “Disgraceful.”

It’s difficult to believe that Nolan genuinely thought a woke retelling of The Odyssey would be well received by the public, most of whom are already exhausted by overtly ideological “reimaginings” of beloved stories. Public attitudes toward “woke” casting and storytelling have undoubtedly shifted in recent years, and there clear examples we can point to.

Disney’s recent live-action Snow White bombed at the box office, and it’s said to have cost The Walt Disney Company around $170 million.

Forbes reports:

Disney lost $170 million on ‘Snow White’ as studio reveals movie blew its budget. The dark spell cast on Disney’s bottom line by last year’s live action version of Snow White has been revealed in filings which show that the movie “was forecasted to be over the production budget” with costs of $336.5 million (£271.1 million).

Then there’s Disney/Marvel’s all-female superhero film The Marvels, which was reportedly the biggest bomb of 2023, and cost The Walt Disney Company a staggering $237 million.

There’s also Disney Pixar, with two 2022 animated bombs: Strange World, featuring a gay teenage romance, was the biggest bomb of 2022, and cost the company $197 million. Lightyear, the Toy Story spin-off, featured a same-sex kiss, which cost the company $106 million.

Not to mention the 2016 reboot of Ghostbusters, featuring an all-female cast. That cost Sony around $70 million. Other woke remakes that notably underperformed include Charlie’s Angels (2019), Wonder Woman 1984, and The Little Mermaid.

Surely, Nolan would be well aware of this, and his casting choices are arguably more absurd. What’s more, it’s not just a fairytale he’s reimagining. It’s one of the foundational texts of Western civilisation itself.

So, why do it?

Why imitate failure? Why jump off the same cliff? Is it some kind of humiliation ritual? Is it ideological activism masquerading as art? Is it an attempt to deliberately deface cultural heritage? What exactly is the point?

Is it simply the case that modern-day filmmaking is less about faithfully adapting cultural masterpieces and more about reshaping them to conform with contemporary political and ideological expectations? Well, Hollywood’s awards system is certainly pushing the industry in that direction. Little wonder why Musk went on to accuse Nolan of chasing awards. If Nolan is after an Oscar, he’ll have to clear a number of industry hurdles—and The Odyssey looks like it clears them all.

In 2020, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, or the Oscars, announced new representation and inclusion standards for films seeking eligibility for the Best Picture category at the Academy Awards, beginning in 2024.

To qualify for the top award, a movie must now cast more black, female, homosexual, transgender, or disabled characters or address themes relevant to their communities.

Academy President David Rubin and Academy CEO Dawn Hudson said in a statement: “The aperture must widen to reflect our diverse global population in both the creation of motion pictures and in the audiences who connect with them. The Academy is committed to playing a vital role in helping make this a reality.

“We believe these inclusion standards will be a catalyst for long-lasting, essential change in our industry.”

According to the Los Angeles Times:

“To be eligible for best picture, a film must meet at least two standards across four categories: ‘Onscreen Representation, Themes and Narratives,’ ‘Creative Leadership and Project Team,’ ‘Industry Access and Opportunities’ and ‘Audience Development.’ Within each category are a variety of criteria involving the inclusion of people in underrepresented groups, including women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people and those with cognitive or physical disabilities.”

The Academy’s website outlines the requirements as follows:

To achieve Standard A, a film must meet one of the three following criteria:

First, one of the lead actors or significant supporting actors must be:

• Asian

• Hispanic/Lantinx

• Black/African American

• Indigenous/Native American/Alaskan Native

• Middle Eastern/North African

• Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander

• Other underrepresented race or ethnicity

In other words, fewer white people.

Second, at least 30% of all actors in secondary and more minor roles must be from at least two of the following underrepresented groups:

• Women

• Racial or ethnic groups

• LGBTQ+

• People with cognitive or physical disabilities, or who are deaf or hard of hearing.

In other words, fewer straight, white, able men.

And third, the main storyline, theme or narrative for the film must center on one of those “underrepresented groups.”

To achieve Standard B, a film must meet one of the three following criteria:

First, at least two of the creative leadership positions and department heads must be from the following groups:

• Women

• Racial or ethnic group

• LGBTQ+

• People with cognitive or physical disabilities, or who are deaf or hard of hearing

At least one of the two must belong to the following non-white racial or ethnic group:

• Asian

• Hispanic/Lantinx

• Black/African American

• Indigenous/Native American/Alaskan Native

• Middle Eastern/North African

• Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander

• Other underrepresented race or ethnicity

Second, at least six other crew/team and technical positions must belong to these non-white racial or ethnic groups.

And third, at least 30% of the film’s crew is:

• Women

• Racial or ethnic group

• LGBTQ+

• People with cognitive or physical disabilities, who are deaf or hard of hearing

To achieve Standard C, a film must provide paid apprenticeship and internship opportunities for the same “underrepresented group” as well as provide them with training opportunities and skill development.

To achieve Standard D, a studio or film company must have multiple in-house senior executives who are:

• Women

• Racial or ethnic group

  • Asian

  • Hispanic/Latinx

  • Black/African American

  • Indigenous/Native American/Alaskan Native

  • Middle Eastern/North African

  • Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander

  • Other underrepresented race or ethnicity

• LGBTQ+

• People with cognitive or physical disabilities, who are deaf or hard of hearing

So, there it is: a film that doesn’t actively discriminate against straight, white males will no longer be eligible for an award.

Ultimately, the question is less about one film and more about the incentives shaping modern filmmaking itself. Is Nolan’s retelling of Homer’s classic primarily an expression of his own creative vision, or has it been largely influenced by the demands of awards eligibility and industry incentives? Given the recent track record of “woke” films at the box office, it’s difficult to see how Nolan could be pursuing anything else.

On a positive note, nominations for Best Picture will now also double as a list of pictures not worth the time it takes to watch the trailer.

A district judge in Northern Ireland has convicted a 78-year-old retired pastor for preaching a sermon on John 3:16 near an abortion buffer zone.

Pastor Clive Johnston was convicted on May 7 in Coleraine Magistrates’ Court for breaching Northern Ireland’s Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act after conducting an open-air service on July 7, 2024, near the perimeter of a hospital buffer zone.

The service, held near Causeway Hospital, used a PA system, but Johnston’s sermon made no mention of abortion. He carried no signs or placards and was not accused of harassing anyone. Nevertheless, the judge ruled that the service amounted to an attempt to “influence” those accessing abortion services at the hospital. Johnston was fined £450, including for failing to leave promptly when requested.

The so-called “buffer zones” were established by law under the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act (Northern Ireland) 2023. The legislation prohibits certain activities within designated areas, typically extending 100-150 metres around hospitals and abortion clinics. Prohibited behaviours include activities capable of influencing those seeking an abortion or causing alarm or distress.

In a Facebook post, Franklin Graham wrote:

“God bless Pastor Clive Johnston for preaching the Gospel—John 3:16! … Pastor Johnston didn’t even mention abortion; he just preached the Gospel in a public space. I hope his legal team at The Christian Institute will have success in appealing this. Religious freedoms are being threatened not only in the U.K., but here in the U.S., Canada, and around the world.”

Graham added:

“There is an anti-Christ spirit that is prevailing in our world today. It’s as though every demon in Hell has been unleashed.”

The Christian Institute director Ciarán Kelly criticised the ruling, saying:

“Despite assurances to the contrary when this legislation was being considered, we now see that an already controversial and deeply unjust law has been selectively applied to criminalise Gospel preaching.”

Options for an appeal are currently being considered.

In 2025, the United States, under the Trump administration, sent a State Department team to the United Kingdom to investigate alleged violations of free speech, particularly targeting pro-life campaigners.

According to The Telegraph, the five-person delegation, led by Samuel Samson from the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, met with British officials in March 2025 and held private interviews with activists arrested for silently praying or protesting near abortion clinics. Their findings are being reported directly back to the White House.

One month before the delegation’s arrival, Vice President J.D. Vance delivered a pointed speech at the Munich Security Conference, accusing British and European officials of suppressing dissent and abandoning core Western values. He warned that across Europe—and in Britain in particular—free speech was “in retreat.”

The White House also issued a statement affirming concern over the U.K.’s direction. In a post on X, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor said: “US-UK relations share a mutual respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. However, as Vice President Vance has said, we are concerned about freedom of expression in the United Kingdom.

“While recently in the UK, DRL Senior Advisor Sam Samson met with Livia Tossici-Bolt, who faces criminal charges for offering conversations within a legally prohibited ‘butter zone’ at an abortion clinic. We are monitoring her case. It is important that the UK respect and protect freedom of expression.”

Vice President J.D. Vance has previously warned Western nations that U.S. military support should depend on respect for American values, especially free speech.

He argued it’s “insane” to back any alliance that doesn’t uphold free speech, saying American power comes with conditions, particularly from European allies. While he wouldn’t impose values on other nations, he expects European countries to share basic American principles like free speech.

“Look, I’m not going to go to some backwards country and tell them how to live their lives, but European countries should theoretically share American values, especially about some very basic things, like free speech,” he said.

Government employees don’t really pay income tax. When government employees are taxed by the same government that pays them, it’s essentially a bookkeeping illusion, since their tax payments are just returned to their employer—the state.

In Democracy: The God That Failed, Hans-Hermann Hoppe explored the hypothetical scenario of abolishing all taxes and questioned whether this would lead to an increase in everyone’s income. Undoubtedly, that would be the case for non-government employees, but it would not be so for those employed by the government. Hoppe argued that for government employees, their salaries would decrease by the amount they currently pay in taxes, effectively leaving their net income unchanged.

This is because the taxes they pay are essentially a portion of the government’s own funds being cycled back to itself. Therefore, eliminating taxes would not result in a real income increase for these employees; instead, it would transparently reveal their actual earnings without the misleading appearance of taxation.​

Hoppe argued, “Their salaries could not possibly rise, if taxes were abolished. Rather, their salaries would fall to zero, which demonstrates that they are not paying any taxes at all.”

He then cites Murray Rothbard, in his work, Power and Market: Government and the Economy, which highlights this reality further: “If a bureaucrat receives a salary of $5,000 a year and pays $1,000 in ‘taxes’ to the government, it is quite obvious that he is simply receiving a salary of $4,000 and pays no taxes at all.

“The heads of the government have simply chosen a complex and misleading accounting device to make it appear that he pays taxes in the same way as any other man making the same income.”

Rothbard observes that it would be more transparent for governments to follow the United Nations’ model, where employees are exempt from income taxation under the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations (1946). This agreement grants UN staff tax immunity on income earned through official duties, aiming to ensure uniform treatment across member states and avoid disparities arising from differing national tax laws.

​Hoppe argued that once it is understood that government employees don’t pay income tax, it “becomes obvious why certain groups such as school teachers and university professors are almost always and uniformly in favour of higher taxes.”

“They are not, thereby, generously accepting a greater burden imposed on themselves,” he said. “Instead, higher taxes are the means by which they increase their own tax-financed salaries.”

For decades, ordinary Westerners have been gaslit, demonised, and, in some cases, socially or even professionally punished for voicing concern about demographic change in their own communities. Many now say they feel like strangers in their own hometowns, yet are often smeared as racists for expressing anything short of enthusiastic approval.

The subject became virtually untouchable. And yet for many ordinary people, it seemed to describe something they felt they were already experiencing firsthand. So many people stayed silent—at least in public.

Well, this week, the United States Department of State openly accused the UN of facilitating “replacement migration” against the will of the American people and other Western nations, while undermining national sovereignty.

Under Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the Department declared on X that the United States would not participate in facilitating “replacement migration,” adding that the administration is instead committed to a policy of “remigration.”

In the statement, the Department said that the United States refused to participate in the UN’s review of the Global Compact on Migration, stating:

“The United States objects to the Global Compact on Migration and UN efforts to facilitate replacement migration to the United States and our Western allies.”

The statement repeatedly portrays mass migration as an instrument engineered and facilitated by international institutions, and in direct opposition to the democratic will of the nations upon which it was imposed:

According to the Department:

“UN agencies systematically facilitated mass migration into America and Europe, even as citizens of these nations called for restrictions on migration.”

The statement goes further still, alleging that UN-linked organisations helped build the infrastructure of mass migration itself:

“UN agencies — working with the NGOs they fund — established a migration corridor through Central America and to the U.S. border.”

It also claimed the UN was physically present along key migrant routes:

“UN officials greeted migrants along the route through the deadly Darien Gap. UN-funded NGOs handed out maps to migrants en route to the U.S.”

The Department argued that while ordinary Americans were dealing with the consequences of unprecedented migration levels, international bodies were effectively assisting and accelerating the process:

“As the American people suffered under an unprecedented wave of mass migration, the UN was on the ground pipelining migrants to our southern border.”

The statement also accused the UN of undermining national sovereignty and attacking nations that attempted to enforce immigration laws or secure their borders.

Regarding Europe, the Department stated:

“As Europe endured sustained migratory pressures, UN officials staffed all ends of the Mediterranean migration route.”

It added:

“Then UN agencies condemned frontline states who refused to open their borders.”

The United Kingdom was singled out as well:

“While the United Kingdom faced unprecedented illegal boat crossings, UN agencies condemned plans for deportations.”

The Department also slammed the UN, accusing it of violating the UK’s national sovereignty:

“UN officials pressured aviation regulators to prevent the deportation of migrants — an appalling violation of UK’s national sovereignty.”

The Department further rejected the claim that mass migration is “safe” and beneficial for Western nations, stating:

“For the citizens of Western nations, mass migration was never safe.

“It introduced new security threats, imposed financial strains, and undermined the cohesion of our societies.”

The Department stated that the United States would not legitimise global compacts that enable mass migration into America or Western nations.

“Under President Trump, the State Department will facilitate remigration—not replacement migration.”

Several European nations broke with the UN Global Compact for Migration when it was adopted in 2018, citing concerns over national sovereignty, the erosion of distinctions between legal and illegal migration, and the Compact’s underlying assumption that migration should be treated as an inherent human right.

Hungary was the most vocal opponent of the Compact, withdrawing from negotiations entirely and voting against the agreement. The Czech Republic, Poland, Austria, Italy, Slovakia, Latvia, Bulgaria, and Romania also expressed opposition or declined to endorse it.

Opposition to the Compact was concentrated largely among Eastern and Central European nations, whereas most Western European governments ultimately endorsed the agreement—and are today suffering the devastating consequences.

Full statement below:

Last week, the United States refused to participate in the UN’s review of the Global Compact on Migration.

The United States objects to the Global Compact on Migration and UN efforts to facilitate replacement migration to the United States and our Western allies.

UN agencies systematically facilitated mass migration into America and Europe, even as citizens of these nations called for restrictions on migration.

Now the Global Compact’s largest report urges nations to expand migration pathways and pursue ‘regulation’ of migrants.

UN agencies - working with the NGOs they fund - established a migration corridor through Central America and to the U.S. border.

As the American people suffered under an unprecedented wave of mass migration, the UN was on the ground, pipelining migrants to our southern border.

UN officials greeted migrants along the route through the deadly Darien Gap. UN-funded NGOs handed out maps to migrants in route to the U.S.

After facilitating mass migration to the United States, UN agencies condemned the deportation of illegal immigrants.

As Europe endured sustained migratory pressures, UN officials staffed all ends of the Mediterranean migration route - from the coast of Libya to the shores of the Aegean to the islands of Greece.

Then UN agencies condemned frontline states who refused to open their borders.

While the United Kingdom faced unprecedented illegal boat crossings, UN agencies condemned plans for deportations.

UN officials lobbied aviation regulators to prevent the deportation of migrants - an appalling violation of UK’s national sovereignty.

The Global Compact on Migration claims to support ‘safe’ migration.

For the citizens of Western nations, mass migration was never safe. It introduced new security threats, imposed financial strains, and undermined the cohesion of our societies.

The United States will not legitimise global compacts that enable mass migration into America or Western nations.

Under President Trump, the State Department will facilitate remigration - not replacement migration.

Women’s Minister Katy Gallagher is under fire—and rightly so—after suggesting that the earlier children enter child care, the better. That’s right, the Australian Minister for Women seems to believe that children, raised by their own mothers, are worse off than those raised by the employees at the local daycare.

According to The Australian, the senior Labor figure pointed to “published research” to justify ruling out income splitting for families—a policy proposed by the Nationals aimed at making it easier for parents to spend more time at home with their newborn children. A pro-family, income-splitting tax policy would allow married couples to combine and average their incomes, reducing the disproportionate tax burden that’s often placed on single-income households. In particular, it would benefit families where a mother remains home, or works reduced hours, to raise young children.

So, rather than penalising families who rightly prioritise parental care during the early years, income splitting recognises the value of unpaid household labour while acknowledging the utmost importance of child-rearing. You would think the Minister for Women would recognise that this essential and often unpaid labour is overwhelmingly carried out by women—women who, in many cases, also bear the financial burden imposed by a tax system that disadvantages families choosing to prioritise raising their own children at home.

But Gallagher’s comments reflect a religious assumption that has become increasingly entrenched in modern culture, namely, that a woman’s highest and most unquestionable calling is full-time participation in the workforce. Motherhood is treated as secondary, lesser, or even a wasteful use of a woman’s potential. Conveniently enough, this shift also happens to double the government’s taxable income base, but I’m sure that fiscal incentive had nothing to do with pushing women away from unpaid work at home and into full-time employment, right?

Now, of course, there are circumstances where childcare might be necessary or even beneficial. Not every home environment is stable or healthy. But policy shouldn’t be pushed based on the exceptions. Gallagher is effectively treating the family, and the unpaid labour involved in raising children and maintaining the home, as secondary to taxable income generation. In effect, she’s doing what all good statists do by prioritising GDP, taxable incomes, or institutional childcare over the irreplaceable and formative love of parents, particularly mothers, in a child’s early years.

Many mothers and fathers are not embracing the two-income model because it is their ideal preference, but because they feel they have little alternative. High housing costs, rising living expenses, and taxation burdens have made single-income family life virtually impossible for many to sustain. They don’t have the choice to stay home and raise their children anymore. The government has made that choice for them. Now they want to gaslight us into thinking we’re all better off this way.

By opposing income splitting, Gallagher is effectively treating the family—and the unpaid labour involved in raising children and maintaining the home—as secondary to taxable income generation. Economic participation is prioritised over parental presence, and institutional childcare over family-based care.

What’s more, Australia’s fertility rate remains well below replacement level, yet governments increasingly appear more comfortable relying on mass migration to offset demographic decline than addressing the economic and cultural pressures discouraging Australians from forming and raising families in the first place. Why prioritise policies that support Australian families when “new Australians” can simply be imported instead?

For our politicians, it would appear that supporting the growth of Australian families simply isn’t a priority. Why would it be? We all know how heavily they rely on mass immigration to sustain demographic and economic growth. Rather than creating conditions that make marriage, family, and child-rearing possible for Australians, our government’s only solution to maximising the tax base and supplementing population growth is through mass migration.

As such, our politicians have little incentive to pursue policies that strengthen and grow the natural family, reduce the financial burden on parents, or make it easier for mothers to invest time in raising the next generation. Why introduce policies that allow mothers to stay home and raise their children, when governments can keep them in the workforce, and instead rely on immigration to meet future labour and population needs?

It’s no surprise that a government whose primary strategy for demographic growth is mass immigration, rather than supporting its own families, will inevitably treat child-rearing as a private lifestyle choice rather than a social good for the future of the nation.

The British Australian Community has called on the Australian Government to clarify its position on national identity and the place of Anglo-Celtic Australians following controversies surrounding ANZAC Day commemorations last month.

In a press release issued on 10 May, the organisation addressed disruptions that occurred during ANZAC Day services in Sydney and Melbourne, particularly, the booing of the Acknowledgement of Country delivered by Ray Minniecon at the Sydney Cenotaph.

BAC argued the incident reflected a growing sense of alienation felt by Australians of British and European descent, and raised concerns surrounding the increasing prominence of Acknowledgement of Country ceremonies at national events.

The group highlighted the often-used phrase, “always was, always will be Aboriginal land,” and said many Anglo-Celtic Australians interpret the slogan as implying they are “merely tolerated transient guests” in a nation their ancestors built, defended, and helped shape through generations of settlement and sacrifice.

The statement also referenced comments later made by Ray Minniecon in media interviews, in which he reaffirmed that Australia “always was and always will be Aboriginal land” and described Indigenous Australians as the “traditional owners” and “sovereign owners” of the country.

The British Australian Community argued that such remarks raise questions about the legitimacy of the Australian nation-state and claimed the views expressed were incompatible with the spirit of ANZAC remembrance.

“From the perspective of British descended Australians, to have someone with such extreme views, which are antithetical to the spirit of the ANZAC sacrifices, playing a leading role in the ceremony is an outrage,” the statement said.

The organisation also formally called on the Australian Government to declare its position on the historical and civic role of Anglo-Celtic and European Australians. The statement argued that those communities should be recognised as the people who “settled, built, and shaped the Commonwealth of Australia.”

They outlined questions it wanted clarified by government, including whether Anglo-Celtic Australians should be recognised as the founding people who established one of the world’s “most advanced, egalitarian, and just societies,” whether their cultural and historical concerns deserve recognition comparable to Indigenous Australians, and whether ANZAC servicemen largely fought for a nation that was historically British and European in character.

BAC wrote:

“Specifically, we ask the Government to clarify the following matters:

1. Are Anglo-Celtic and European Australians to be recognised as the people who created, on this continent, one of the most advanced, egalitarian, and just societies on the planet or are we to regard ourselves as second-class inhabitants whose perspectives will always be subordinate to those of Aboriginal heritage?

2. Does the Government accept that the concerns of the Anglo-Celtic founding people—concerns shaped by our British heritage of parliamentary democracy, individual liberty, and a tradition of earned national belonging—are legitimate and deserving of special recognition, just as Indigenous peoples are recognised for their special status as the first residents?

3. Can we agree that the great majority of our service men and women courageously fought, with many falling in combat, for a nation that was almost entirely demographically, culturally, technologically, and historically British and, to a lesser degree, European? It is neither fair nor rational to believe that they would have made such a tremendous sacrifice for a country that considered them invaders and second-class citizens.”

The statement concluded by saying the request was made “not in confrontation, but in good faith,” arguing that clearer recognition of the country’s British-derived foundations would help foster “honesty and mutual respect” rather than deepen division on days intended for national remembrance.

The press release was authorised by Harry Richardson, president of the British Australian Community, and can be read here:

“History made,” says Great Yarmouth MP Rupert Lowe, after his new party, Restore Britain, scored major victories in the recent 2026 local elections.

The Britain-first party won ten out of ten seats contested, with overwhelming majorities in every single one across Norfolk County Council and Great Yarmouth Borough Council.

This marks Restore Britain’s first major electoral test since the party formally launched earlier this year and has emerged as one of the fastest-growing political forces in modern British history. It’s not hard to see why.

In just months, the party surged in national polls, reaching up to 9% in some surveys shortly after registration. Membership has reportedly skyrocketed past 100,000, surpassing the Conservative Party and more than doubling that of the Liberal Democrats.

Founded by Lowe after his departure from Reform UK, Restore Britain has built a dedicated base of supporters enthusiastic about policies targeting immigration controls, capping net zero burdens, abolishing inheritance tax, and prioritising British citizens.

These recent wins prove that Restore Britain’s message of patriotism is connecting with voters disillusioned by the establishment parties, which seem to govern for everyone but the British people.

Congratulations to Rupert Lowe and the entire Restore Britain team on this well-deserved victory. May there be many more to come!

Dan Bongino says he knows what’s coming for him once diehard Marxists get back into power.

This isn’t so much a matter of if, it’s a matter of when, he revealed in a recent, jaw-dropping two-hour sit-down with Sean Hannity.

“I’m not going to put on some fake tough guy act,” the former police officer, Secret Service Agent, and FBI deputy director later wrote on Instagram.

“I’m scared, folks.

“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think that they may one day come for me.”

Bongino isn’t paranoid, nor is it a “sob story,” he told Hannity. This is pragmatism.

While deputy director of the FBI, he saw what no one was ever meant to see.

Pages and pages of information found inside “burn bags” revealing how the Obama/Biden bureaucracy took over America’s institutions in an attempt to take out Trump.

These contained the inner workings of the apparent Clinton-driven coup, Crossfire Hurricane (now correctly labelled: the Russiagate hoax).

Bongino told Hannity the burn bags were discovered on the 9^th floor.

He then explained that it looked like someone with a conscience had left them there on purpose.

“This is why I say to people that be careful painting the entire bureau with an overly broad brush.

“There were a ton of bad actors and more than I expected, but there were a lot of people in there under extreme pressure who were probably like, ‘This isn’t right.’

“It was the mother lode,” Bongino exclaimed.

“And there was a document in there that we were never meant to find that was basically the keys to the kingdom on Crossfire.

“The document was so sensitive we were not even allowed to carry it outside of the office,” he said, not even outside in an official bag.

“I wasn’t bringing it home - it was a weekend - so I just stayed at the office to read it, which was about 100 pages.

“The footnotes were probably as interesting as the actual document. It took me a good four hours [to read]”, he recalled.

Entering the job with some idea that the apparent Crossfire coup was going to be bad, Bongino said, “he didn’t think it was going to be worse than bad.

“I’m reading this document, and I’m like, I can’t believe this happened in the United States,” he recalled.

“It wasn’t just that this happened in the United States. It was that so many people knew about it,” and nobody had the courage to call it out.

Stating that the agency knew the Russian collusion claims against Trump were a hoax, he asserted, “There is no way they thought this was real.

“I’ll never be the same after learning what I’ve learned,” Bongino added.

“I’m not the same. I’m scared. You know why I’m scared?

“I don’t lose sleep. I sleep through anything. It doesn’t matter. That one night I really did lose sleep.”

That night, he had to take two theanine vitamin supplements to calm down, saying “he couldn’t go to sleep.”

Bongino said this was how shook up he was.

It was also why he took to X the next day, writing,

“The Director and I are committed to stamping out public corruption and the political weaponisation of both law enforcement and intelligence operations.

“What I have learned in the course of our properly predicated and necessary investigations into these aforementioned matters has shocked me down to my core.

“We cannot run a Republic like this.”

Current FBI director Kash Patel confirmed the burn bag discoveries, adding that the room with the burn bags wasn’t on any blueprint of the building.

“Nobody had access to it,” he announced in a separate interview with Hannity on Tuesday.

Patel said with the smoking gun evidence that he and others had uncovered during Trump 1.0 about illegal surveillance and “institutional weaponisation,” there had to be more.

He was also certain that because “these individuals, these purported leaders of law enforcement and government are so arrogant that they write the stuff down themselves to memorialise how great they are.”

“That’s how we caught them in Russiagate. It wasn’t my documents. It was their emails. It was their FISA application. It was their bogus steel dossier.”

Saying they knew more information had to have been hidden, Kash said, “We set out to find it, and we did.”

Four months before the burn bags were found, President Trump directed materials related to the ongoing investigation into Crossfire be declassified.

According to the Epoch Times, the previously unknown material found in the burn bags will be released at a later date.

The release of those files depends on the current investigation, the discretion of Congress, and whether or not they take the evidence to a public trial.

Patel adamantly reassured Epoch that one way or another, we’re “going to see everything they found in that room.”

In his own sit-down with Hannity, Bongino made a point of saying he accepts that tackling such a high level of bureaucratic corruption and espionage makes him a target.

As the father of two noted,

“I know what we did. I know what’s coming. I know what I started.

“I knew what I was getting into.”

They did this to Donald Trump, “the president of the United States,” he gasped.

“He went through just the worst destruction of his civil liberties I’ve ever seen.”

Bongino implied that for exposing their works of darkness, the next Marxian Woke White House will now have him squarely in its sights, too.

WATCH:

Suppose they suddenly dropped compelling evidence suggesting the existence of alien life. Would it rattle your faith? How should Christians respond? Panic and blind acceptance are both wrong answers. So, before rushing to either conclusion, we should recognise there are only a few basic possibilities before us.

First, the evidence itself is fabricated, and therefore, the interpretation of the evidence is false also. Second, the evidence is genuine, but the explanation is false. Third, both the evidence and the interpretation of the evidence are accurate. These are the broad lenses through which any alleged “alien disclosure” ought to be examined.

Christians shouldn’t approach these sorts of claims with naive gullibility or irrational fear. Remember how that worked out for everyone during the “pandemic.” The Bible not only repeatedly warns us about deception, but it also tells us that reality consists of more than the material world, and there are things within our own universe that science simply cannot explain.

1. The Evidence Could Be Fake

The first possibility is that the so-called evidence itself is entirely fabricated. In this scenario, the explanation would also be fabricated. In other words, it’s one big lie.

Oddly enough, it is this kind of general scepticism that is today portrayed in the public mind as akin to the wide-eyed “conspiracy theorists,” warning that an alien invasion is imminent and the President is in on it. But it’s a possibility that simply cannot be dismissed as a paranoid delusion.

Governments and institutions have repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to manipulate the public, conceal information, and shape narratives for their own political purposes and power. Recent history alone should show us how easy it is for the masses to be managed through fear and uncertainty.

It’s for this reason that Christians, above all, should exercise discernment before embracing any official narrative concerning so-called “alien life.” It is entirely possible that any large-scale disclosure event could function as:

• a political distraction,

• a psychological operation,

• an attempt to unify populations against a global threat or around a particular narrative,

• or even an attempt to undermine confidence in the Bible.

None of these would be unprecedented. Scripture and history books constantly show us that earthly powers desire control, not only over our money and behaviours, but over our beliefs and convictions. Christians are commanded to test all things, and not to be carried away with every new teaching (1 Jn. 4:1; Eph. 4:14).

In our current climate, already conditioned towards distrust, scepticism towards state-managed fear-mongering isn’t irrational—it’s basic wisdom. Then again, given how the “Epstein files” have been handled, it’s likely all the hype will be spent on the anticipation, not the revelation.

2. The Evidence Could Be Real, But the Interpretation False

The second possibility is a little more complicated. The phenomena themselves may be real, but the explanation offered by those in power could be false. In other words, we might be encountering something genuinely outside ordinary experience and materialistic explanation while misidentifying what it actually is—either in ignorance or for nefarious purposes.

For the Christian, this scenario is entirely possible because Christianity is not a materialist worldview. Christians already affirm the existence of realities beyond the physical and visible world. Although the Bible doesn’t claim to catalogue every metaphysical reality, it does teach of the existence of angels, demons, principalities, powers, and spiritual beings that operate beyond our ordinary perception.

Scripture’s primary focus is the revelation of God Himself, and all things necessary concerning Jesus, man, sin, and salvation. As such, Christians already have conceptual categories for realities that the modern materialist mindset cannot account for.

What this means is that any unusual phenomena don’t require “extraterrestrial” explanations. What people call “aliens” could theoretically be demons and spiritual entities. It’s also possible that what we’re seeing is just classified human technology, or realities not yet discovered.

Of course, Christians shouldn’t just attribute every unexplained event to demonic forces, but neither should we adopt that materialist assumption that attributes every unexplained event to life originating on another planet.

The Bible teaches us that spiritual deception is part of human history. Paul warns that Satan disguises himself “as an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:14). If the devil can present himself as the exact opposite of what he is, then disguising himself as an extraterrestrial would be no greater feat to pull off. Likewise, John, in Revelation, describes deceptive signs and wonders that are capable of misleading the nations (Rev. 13:13-14, etc.).

In short, Christianity already provides a framework for realities that a purely materialist worldview has no real category for.

The Problem With Time Travel

Some have proposed the possibility that so-called “aliens” may actually be humans from a different point in time. But this option also has its problems. To begin with, Christianity teaches that God governs history providentially. It is not part of the created order that God subjected to human mastery. Humans are bound by the limits of time. God alone stands sovereign over time.

The Bible repeatedly emphasises our limitations in this regard. We cannot add a single hour to our span of life (Matt. 6:27); We cannot control tomorrow (Prov. 27:1); God determines our span of life (Job 14:5); Even heaven is subject to time (Rev. 6:10). God alone is above and beyond time (2 Pet. 3:8).

The idea that humans eventually master time itself. so as to make time travel possible. elevates man to the position of God, making him the master manipulator of history. That and the fact that the Bible says nothing about the tour groups taking snaps at the Garden Tomb.

3. The Aliens Are Real

The third possibility is the most controversial, for obvious reasons. What if extraterrestrial intelligent life genuinely exists?

Many Christians will reject this outright, arguing that Genesis presents humanity as the central focus of creation. Therefore, it’s concluded that the Biblical story leaves no room for other intelligent races elsewhere in the universe.

Others will argue that Genesis doesn’t necessarily describe every act of creation exhaustively. For example, the Bible never details when or how the angelic beings were created. Their existence is just assumed. But we know they were all created at some point in time.

Because of this, some have speculated that God could theoretically have created other worlds or intelligent beings beyond humanity without contradicting the account in Genesis itself.

Yet even if we grant such a possibility, serious theological problems arise. Christianity isn’t just a theory of origins. It’s an account of redemptive history, a story of sin, death, and salvation through Jesus Christ so exhaustive that all creation will be recovered (Rom. 8:20ff).

We’re told that sin entered into the world through Adam (Rom. 5:12), that death entered through sin (1 Cor. 15:21-22), and Christ became incarnate as a man to redeem the world itself (Jn. 1:14). All of which raises unavoidable and obvious questions. If aliens exist, are they fallen or unfallen? Do they experience death? Are they descendants of Adam? Are they under Adam’s domain? Did Christ die for them also? Do they require salvation? Have they received divine revelation?

If such beings die, they must be subject to the curse. If they are subject to the curse, they must be subject to Adam, or mankind. But if they’re superior beings, over and above mankind, then how are they redeemed? Christ became a man to redeem mankind, not whatever they might be.

If they are unfallen, then they would be untouched by sin, death, and the curse. Yet Paul tells us that creation itself was subjected to futility through the fall (Rom. 8:20). How could unfallen creatures fit within the biblical framework?

The problems accumulate, and as soon as someone seemingly resolves one, they end up creating five more.

Other Possibilities

But there are also entirely natural explanations that deserve some consideration, also. Alleged “UFO” phenomena could simply involve classified military technologies, experimental aircrafts, advanced drones, and even a human civilisation unknown to the public.

Speculation about isolated advanced societies has existed for centuries. While these theories are usually dismissed as the stuff of science fiction, the point remains: Unexplained phenomena do not automatically justify extraterrestrial conclusions.

The chasm between “We can’t make sense of this” and “therefore, aliens” is quite large.

The Christian Response

Regardless of what sensational news headlines might say, Christians should neither panic about nor blindly trust whatever slop those in power feed them. And we know they like to feed us slop.

If an alleged alien disclosure ever occurs in a meaningful sense—and not just fuzzy images of unidentified aircrafts—Christians need to respond sensibly, and biblically. We are in a unique position. Unlike materialism, the Christian worldview is equipped to handle not only the deception peddled by those always grasping for more control, but metaphysical questions too. Christianity already recognises metaphysical realities beyond the material world.

At the same time, Christians should be careful not to fill the gaps in knowledge with worthless speculation. Whether it’s the government peddling lies or unexplained phenomena, the Bible remains true. God remains sovereign. Christ remains King. And no “disclosure” will change that reality.

Whatever may or may not exist beyond our present understanding, Christians are called to remain grounded in Scripture, and the firmer our footing in the Truth, the less likely it is that we’ll be swept away by lies, whether they’re being peddled by the devil or the government.

I’ve seen a bit of confusion surrounding the pro-life vs abolitionist debate, so I thought I’d offer a few comments to help clarify the point of difference. These thoughts are largely based on conversations I’ve had with folks elsewhere.

When it comes to this topic, particularly in Australia, the disagreement is not ultimately about the end goal, but about the means by which that goal is reached. Both abolitionists and incrementalists say they want to see abortion abolished. Good! That’s true justice. The real question is how that goal ought to be pursued, and whether certain strategies compromise justice by making concessions for evil in the process.

For the abolitionist, opposing abortion is fundamentally a question of faithfulness. The Bible consistently places responsibility and emphasis on obedience, not outcomes. We are called to act righteously and justly, regardless of what we imagine the outcome will be. This is because the results ultimately belong to God. In other words, the end intended doesn’t justify the means employed.

This point is illustrated in several places within the Bible, but I’ll offer one obvious example: In 2 Samuel 6, when oxen, carrying the Ark of the Covenant, stumbled, the Ark fell. In that moment, Uzzah reached out his hand to catch the Ark. The action seemed good. The outcome seemed beneficial. Uzzah saved the ark from ruin. Yet he was struck down and killed in that moment because he acted in disobedience. God did not command Israel to protect the ark by any means. He commanded them not to touch the ark, whatever their intention might be (Num. 4:15). Hence, good intentions don’t justify the use of unlawful means.

Similarly, abolitionists argue that any legislative approach must be judged not merely by what it hopes to achieve pragmatically, but by whether it upholds justice without compromise. That means, without making any concessions for evil. This is where their central critique of incrementalism emerges.

Incremental laws, such as those banning abortion after a certain number of weeks, are often defended as reducing harm. However, abolitionists argue that such laws do more than merely restrain evil; they formally redefine it, and legally condone it.

A law that says “abortion is illegal after X weeks” necessarily implies that abortion before that point is both morally and legally permissible. In doing so, the law arbitrarily draws a line between children who may be killed and children who may not. From the abolitionist perspective, this is still the state explicitly sanctioning the killing of a class of human beings. And that’s an evil, the abolitionist would contend, that we should have no participation in—whatever our intentions may be.

It’s for this reason that abolitionists charge incrementalism with partiality in judgment. They argue that what we end up with is still an unjust law. And the Bible condemns unjust laws. Isaiah 10:1–2 pronounces woe upon “those who make unjust laws” and “issue oppressive decrees.” So, the issue is not whether a law reduces the total number of victims, but whether it upholds justice in principle. Even if only one innocent life is left unprotected, the law remains unjust. As such, limiting evil doesn’t make it righteous or just, especially if evil is still legally permitted to some degree.

To give another example: Imagine a society in which it is legal for men to marry multiple children. If legislation were introduced to regulate this practice, allowing a man to marry only one child instead of many, it might reduce the scale of the evil. Yet it would still enshrine the legitimacy of the act itself. Such a law would not merely restrain evil; it would redefine and make concessions for it. For abolitionists, this is precisely the problem with incremental abortion laws. They do not simply oppose injustice. They codify it, even if it is a lesser form of it.

All Christians should agree that God’s moral law is universally binding, not limited to the church. In the Old Testament, Mosaic civil laws are applications of that moral law to specific cases. That is, case-law. This is not to say that we should replicate every Old Testament judicial statute in a modern legal code, but it does mean that human law must reflect God’s moral standards of good and evil. Civil authorities are not free to redefine these moral categories. As Romans 13 assumes, civil authorities are accountable to God’s definitions of justice. We are not only to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, but also to render to God what is God’s. The authority to define what is moral belongs to Him alone.

For that reason, abolitionists reject the idea that non-Christian lawmakers operate under a different or lower moral standard where evil is to be tolerated, even if under duress. The Bible presents God’s law as the standard by which all people, and especially rulers, are judged. As Paul writes in 1 Timothy 1:9, the law is laid down for the lawless and disobedient. It is precisely those who enact or permit injustice who are accountable to it.

Finally, abolitionists reject the assumption that we must settle for imperfect justice simply because perfect justice cannot be fully realised in a fallen world. While comprehensive justice may await the end of all things, it does not follow that just laws are unattainable now.

A law that fully protects innocent life without exception is not an unrealistic ideal. It’s the very standard all Christians ought to be pursuing. It’s possible to write a just law today, and that wouldn’t be historically unprecedented either. Many Western countries once punished murder and rape with the death penalty. That is perfectly just. There’s no reason to imagine that standard is beyond recovery.

In short, the abolitionist position insists that evil must be opposed without qualification in both principle and law and without any concession for evil. Any legislation that permits the intentional killing of the innocent, even in a limited or regulated form, is, by definition, an unjust law.

Therefore, the abolitionist does not call for gradual accommodation, but for immediate and uncompromising justice, pursued in faithfulness to God, not in confidence in whatever pragmatic outcomes we presume to be more achievable.

You might still disagree with the abolitionist approach, but it’s best to do so with an accurate understanding of the abolitionist position first.

One thing the abolitionist must be aware of, however, is not unintentionally functioning like an incrementalist for the pro-abortion cause. The abortion regime was not established all at once, but rather, through decades of gradual legal, cultural, and political advances. It's the ultimate incremental approach. If every measure that resists abortion short of total abolition is rejected outright, the practical effects may be that the pro-abortion movement continues advancing incrementally while its opponents resist only in principle rather than in law.

In such a case, the question must be asked whether, by refusing to support partial restrictions, we are leaving each pro-abortion gain intact and uncontested, allowing the incremental erosion of protections for the unborn to continue advancing unchecked. While abolitionists rightly demand complete justice, does the refusal to oppose lesser evils through achievable legislative means unintentionally aid the steady consolidation of the greater evil they seek to abolish? In other words, is it possible they’re abolitionists in theory, but incrementalists for the pro-choice cause in practice?

In the end, however, we should ultimately stand with all those who are working to end the killing. Of course, some approaches will be wiser, more effective, and more faithful to Scripture than others.

We can’t expect everyone to arrive at the same conclusion all at the same time. Sanctification is a process, learning is a process, growing in wisdom is a process. None of it is instantaneous. Differences are inevitable, and that means grace is absolutely essential—regardless of what side you’re on.

What matters is that those differences are not used to serve the interests of the enemy we oppose. Though our methods and tactics may vary and our convictions develop at differing paces, if death is our common enemy, then a united front against that enemy should be our goal.

Few things serve the cause of evil more effectively than when those who oppose it turn their sights away from it and towards one another.

I have no idea what Trump understands or does not understand. Unlike many people online, I do not consider him to be as dumb as is often claimed by some, nor as brilliant as is often claimed by others. For a long time, he had good instincts about how to get support from a broad base in society.

He has shown good instincts on domestic policy, and even some of his international excursions have worked out better than some predicted they would. But I think the old adage, “the seeds of defeat are sown in victory,” applies to this situation with Iran. Things he had done well have caused him to overextend and land the US in a much more difficult situation.

With Venezuela, he got away with a bold and, in the modern mind, unique style of strike. It was not as unique as some think; if you read the Old Testament, there are very similar actions taken by other nations. For instance, at one point, both Syria and Samaria plot to take out the leader of Judah, so that they can get Judah on board with their foreign policy (Isa. 7:1-9). However, in the context of recent US foreign policy, it was quite unique, and the quickness with which Venezuelan ships started taking their oil where the US and its allies would prefer, really even got many critics to support the actions after the fact. But it has caused his most avid supporters to overestimate his abilities.

Iran has proven a much harder nut to crack. There are various reasons for this. The ancient nature of their society. The fact that for decades now, they have forged a relatively successful economy under sanctions. The ideological nature of their leadership makes it far more impervious to pressure. The distance from the US to the Middle East. Iran’s placement in the world trade system and its ability to turn around and impose sanctions on much of the world in response to attacks.

The US’s intricate relationship with Israel, which makes it harder for the US to act completely in its own interests (though I suspect this relationship is being strained by this conflict). And various other factors make this situation much harder to handle. But there is also one other, very significant reason why this nut is much harder to crack.

Trump’s policies towards Iran are accelerating the very fracturing of the world trade system that many of his supporters argue that he was seeking to protect with this war. Some argue he was really seeking to address the city of London’s hold on global trade through ancient legal structures and remove the United States from under the sway of these influences. There may even be some solid reasons to agree with this analysis.

The problem is that the city of London’s hold on trade was already declining, because as many analysts have observed, the world is bifurcating into an economic zone centred in Asia which includes China, its allies and its satellites, and another zone which includes much of the historical west led by the USA, along with its allies and satellites, this is where the city of London still has power as well. In other words, if the city of London and the Trump administration were competing, they were competing over and already shrinking influence.

This is the part of the analysis that many people are not factoring in. They think it is Trump versus the globalists. Others think Trump has been co-opted by the globalists. But there is no reason to be so binary about how world power works; there are clearly many factions and centres of power, and they are competing with each other. The Western centres of power are increasingly losing their dominance.

This can be seen in different ways, but one of the core ways is how nations on the Asian continent are increasingly seeking to build more land trade routes. I touched on this as being one of the real reasons behind Israel and the US’s attack on Iran back in June 2025,

“Iran is succeeding to grow its economy, and it is succeeding in a way that it should not be under some of the harshest sanctions in the world. It is succeeding in a way that presents a challenge to the US dominance of the world economy, and the US/Israeli dominance of the Middle East.

You have probably heard of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative? This is China’s attempt to create a trade network all across the world, with interlocking infrastructure to increase China’s trade power in many regions of the world. But did you know how closely China is working with Iran to achieve this trade dominance in the Eurasia? China and Iran have jointly created a successful China-Iran railway corridor, and guess what, it just went operational,

“On May 25, 2025, the first freight train from Xi’an, China, arrived at the Aprin dry port, Iran, marking the official launch of a direct rail link between the two countries. This new logistical artery significantly reduces transit times (from 30–40 days by sea to roughly 15 days by land) yielding a direct impact on transportation costs.”1

This railway is part of a much larger and broader East-West Corridor that is designed to link China, physically, with a trade route directly to Africa, and to Europe, without having to use the more traditional sea trade routes. Think of it as a new railway-based silk road, the very concept that China implemented in the past to make itself an economic powerhouse is previous eras.”[1]

The United States, along with Britain before it, and France and Holland before that, built their wealth and their power around being sea powers. This is one of the reasons that, after World War 2 the dominance of the world system moved so readily towards the United States. During the war, America had focused so much on sea power to crush Japan that its navy remained unquestionably the dominant navy.

The Soviet Union had the chance to do what China is now doing and turn its place on the Eurasian continent into a power that could bypass US-controlled sea lanes, but the corrosive nature of communism made it quickly collapse from within. However, China is a much more resilient nation, has learned from the mistakes of the Soviets, and is seeking to build its influence in a much slower and methodical way, while the US galivants around the world using a combination of force, threat of force and economic warfare to harangue everybody to stay in line. However, this influence is waning, as wealth concentrates in Asia.

This war is quickening the rise of the Eurasian continent, with an emphasis on Asia, and now Pakistan is following the approach of China. As Simplicius notes,

“From the above—Pakistan has created “an overland sanctions-resilient corridor [to Iran] capable of reshaping regional trade geometry”:

Pakistan’s decision to formally open its territory for third-country goods bound for Iran marks far more than a customs adjustment, because it inserts Islamabad directly into one of the most strategically sensitive logistics contests now unfolding across the Middle East and the northern Arabian Sea.

At a moment when the Strait of Hormuz faces severe disruption, Iranian ports remain under intense maritime pressure, and more than 3,000 Iran-bound containers are stranded at Karachi, Pakistan has effectively created an overland sanctions-resilient corridor capable of reshaping regional trade geometry.

By activating Gwadar, Karachi, Port Qasim, Taftan, Gabd, Quetta, Khuzdar and Ormara as integrated transit nodes, Islamabad is not merely facilitating commerce but redefining force posture, strategic access, and geopolitical leverage between Washington, Tehran, Beijing, and the wider Indo-Pacific maritime system.”2

Pakistan is taking the opportunity this war presents to restructure how it trades with Iran through land routes. This is the kind of situation that sea powers fear, one where land-based powers can simply ignore them or largely work around their influence and power. Britain worked hard for centuries to support rising powers in Europe to challenge the dominant land powers, in an effort to stop any one continental power from becoming too dominant.

This policy eventually culminated in two of the worst wars in history, WW1 and WW2, where the size and power of the British Empire drew most of the world into their final two attempts to maintain their dominance. World War 1 was indecisive, and World War 2 ended with Britain in steep debt and then decline and the US, a sea power, and the Soviet Union, a land power, squaring off for dominance of the world system.

While the US was dominant over the West for much of that time, it really only became the true singular world power when the Berlin Wall fell, and with it the Soviet empire. But rather than maintain order and stability, the US has engaged in foreign war after foreign war in the Middle East, severely weakening its prestige in the world, and incentivising the switch to land-based trade in the Eurasian continent. In other words, Trump’s efforts to stop what is happening are accelerating the bifurcation of the world system. He may have intended to fight a different type of war, but the Middle East is not known as an ancient quagmire for empires for no reason.

Even Ukraine can be seen as part of this trend. Prior to the Ukraine war, Europe’s dependence on Russian resources was increasing, and this would have concerned the powers that reside in Washington. Most of the world, and most of the wealth of the world, is concentrated in Europe and Asia. If that continental block were able to draw together, it would be able to exchange wealth and grow prosperous without any real need for US naval power or influence. Empires do not like seeing themselves become obsolete.

It is for reasons like this that I analyse the Iran war through the lens of collapsing US dominance and growing Asian dominance. Or, in other words, through the historical lens of the rise and fall of empires. The sad thing is that the rise of Asia came about as a direct result of Anglo-American free trade policies that moved technology and industry to that region. And now, whether he knows it or not, Trump’s policies are accelerating the very thing that Anglo-American powers have sought to avoid for centuries: a European/Asian trade network which they cannot dominate. I do not see them letting this happen without fighting hard to stop it; therefore, we can conclude that there are worse wars to come.

Martin Luther was right about many things, but not everything. All Protestants will now agree that his assessment of the Epistle of James was mistaken. In the 1522 preface to his German translation of the New Testament, Luther wrote:

“In a word, St. John’s Gospel and his first Epistle, St. Paul’s Epistles, especially Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians, and St. Peter’s first Epistle are the books that show you Christ and teach you all that is necessary and salvific for you to know, even if you were never to see or hear any other book or doctrine. Therefore, St. James’ epistle is really an epistle of straw, compared to these others, for it has nothing of the nature of the Gospel about it.”

Luther’s assessment was shaped in large part by the theological battles of his day. Although he criticised James, he did not remove it from his German New Testament; it remained in his translation, albeit without the same central status he accorded to the Gospels and Pauline epistles. In fact, he elsewhere acknowledged, “I praise it and consider it a good book, because it sets up no doctrines of men but vigorously promulgates the law of God.”

It is said that Luther’s primary concern was his reading of James’ statement that “a person is justified by works and not by faith alone,” which he thought stood in tension with Paul’s teaching that “one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” On this basis, Luther struggled to reconcile James’ teaching with that of Paul’s. He wouldn’t be the last.

At first glance, James does appear to sit uneasily alongside Paul’s doctrine of justification, and Luther is far from alone in raising this question. James states that Abraham “was justified when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar” (James 2:21–24), whereas Paul insists that Abraham was justified by faith apart from works (Romans 4:3).

So how are we to make sense of this? Is there a genuine contradiction within Scripture?

Some argue that James is speaking plainly and that Paul has been misunderstood. Others maintain that Paul is clearer and that James must therefore be interpreted differently. So which is it? If the two cannot be reconciled in our minds, we are left with two possibilities: either Scripture contradicts itself, or we have misunderstood it.

Which is the case?

Paul: Justification by Faith

In several of Paul’s epistles, the apostle is concerned with the basis on which sinners are declared righteous, or justified, before God. In Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians, he is explicit:

“For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law” (Romans 3:28).

“A person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ” (Galatians 2:16).

Paul’s argument is not merely that Mosaic boundary markers are excluded, but that all works are excluded as a basis for justification. He draws a clear contrast between wages earned through works and righteousness received through faith, presenting justification as grounded in God’s grace rather than human merit.

“What does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes… his faith is counted as righteousness” (Romans 4:3-5).

Justification, for Paul, is a matter of grace and not a mixed outcome of faith plus human cooperation. This is reinforced further in Ephesians, where the Apostle states: “By grace you have been saved through faith… not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Grace, by definition, ceases to be grace if it is conditioned upon works.

However, the apparent contradiction arises when we turn to James’ teaching on justification, particularly in his use of Abraham as an example of justification by works.

James: Justified by Works

In James 2:21–24, James writes: “Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness’—and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.”

James clearly states that Abraham was justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar. Yet Paul has already argued that Abraham was justified by faith apart from works. Is this a contradiction? Is James correcting Paul, or have we misunderstood one or both of them?

Before answering that question, we need to be precise about what each writer is referring to. What, exactly, does James mean when he speaks of Abraham being “justified”? Is he referring to Abraham’s initial declaration of righteousness before God? If so, the difficulty becomes even greater. Not only would James appear to be at odds with Paul, but also with Moses, who records Abraham’s justification in Genesis 15:6 as occurring long before the offering of Isaac.

In fact, in Genesis, Abraham is declared righteous before God seven chapters prior to the event James refers to—and six chapters before Isaac is even born.

In Genesis 15:6, Moses explicitly states that Abraham “believed the LORD, and [God] counted it to him as righteousness.” On that basis, Genesis clearly presents Abraham as being justified not at the time of his offering up Isaac in Genesis 22, but years before.

James is clearly aware of Abraham’s declaration of righteousness in Genesis 15:6, since he explicitly quotes it in James 2:23. This means he is not contradicting that earlier declaration. Rather, James appears to be addressing a different aspect of “justification” than what is in view in Genesis 15 (and in Paul’s appeal to it), suggesting that the two authors are speaking about different moments or dimensions of Abraham’s life rather than offering competing accounts of the same event.

Therefore, James is not redefining justification but using the term in a different sense. When he says Abraham was “justified” in offering Isaac, he is not describing Abraham’s initial being brought into right standing with God, but rather the outward demonstration or vindication of a faith that had already been counted as righteousness years earlier. It was Abraham’s works that outwardly proved his faith was genuine.

If Abraham had not believed God’s promise, that Isaac would live, marry, have descendants, and ultimately give rise to the promised seed, then he would not have been willing to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. His obedience in Genesis 22 reflects a belief that God was able to fulfil His promise that Isaac would live. In Abraham’s words, “God will provide for himself a lamb” (Genesis 22:7-8).

The chronological sequence in Abraham’s life is essential for understanding both Paul and James. Abraham is first declared “righteous” by faith in Genesis 15:6, and later that faith is tested by obedience in Genesis 22.

James is not redefining justification, but rather exposing counterfeit faith. A profession of faith that produces no obedience is not saving faith at all. Abraham’s willingness to offer Isaac shows that his faith was living, active, and real. Abraham believed that even if Isaac were to die, “God was able to raise him from the dead” in order to fulfil his promise (Hebrews 11:19).

Thus, James treats Genesis 22 as the outworking and fulfilment of Genesis 15:6. The earlier declaration of righteousness is shown to be genuine and publicly vindicated in the later act of obedience. In a similar way, Jesus teaches that true and false professions of faith are recognised “by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16), since genuine belief is ultimately expressed in behaviour.

James uses “justified” in a demonstrative or vindicatory sense, showing that Abraham’s faith was genuine and living—thereby publicly confirming or vindicating the faith that had already been counted as righteousness. This is why he immediately explains, “faith was completed by his works” (James 2:22). The point is not that Abraham’s works produced righteousness, but that they demonstrate the reality of the living faith that justifies.

Two Men, One Gospel

The apparent contradiction between James and Paul dissolves when we recognise that they are addressing different errors: Paul is refuting legalism, the idea that works can earn or contribute to justification. James is refuting antinomianism, the idea that faith can be real without obedience.

Paul speaks of the root of justification, how sinners are made right with God. James speaks of the fruit of justification, what living faith inevitably produces.

James is addressing a particular problem: a claim to faith that produces no obedience. Hence his warning that “faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:17). Even demons, he notes, possess a form of intellectual belief—but it is barren and unfruitful (James 2:19).

In this sense, Abraham is not an exception to justification by faith; he is the paradigm of living faith. His obedience in Genesis 22 reveals the authenticity of what was already true in Genesis 15.

Abraham remains central to both authors. Paul cites Genesis 15:6 to show that righteousness is credited apart from works. James draws on Genesis 22 to show that the faith that justifies is never barren. He even ties the two together explicitly: “And the Scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness’” (James 2:23).

The offering of Isaac does not contradict Genesis 15; it fulfils it in the sense of confirming its reality.

Conclusion

James does not correct Paul, nor does Paul contradict James. Both stand within the same inspired testimony: salvation is by grace through faith in Christ alone, but true faith is never alone (Ephesians 2:8-10).

Abraham is not divided between two contradictory accounts of justification. Rather, he is presented as a single, coherent witness, declared righteous by faith, and shown to be righteous by obedient faith.

Hence, the historic summary holds true: We are justified by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone.

“We are a nation of migrants,” they say. But by their own impossibly broad definition, every nation is a nation of migrants. People don’t emerge from the soil. At some point, all peoples moved, settled, and built, which means the phrase explains exactly nothing. It is a mind-numbing slogan, not an argument.

But even if we were to accept the premise, the point is not simply that yesterday’s migrants founded today’s nations. It’s that particular migrants did. That is, people from specific places, bound by a common ancestry, faith, culture, and civilisational inheritance.

Despite what today’s proponents of open borders might suggest, their defining characteristic was not some generic status as “migrants,” but their belonging to a distinct people, settling in a distinct place, and for a distinct purpose. They set out to build a nation precisely for their progeny to inherit. They were not building a waystation for an ever-expanding, interchangeable, and amorphous category of humanity with no shared history, no common loyalty, no unifying commitment or similarity—other than the shared designation of “migrant.”

What’s more, the slogan belittles the sheer magnitude of what those founders actually accomplished. They established themselves in untamed wilderness and bushland, in territories where there was nothing at all. There was no infrastructure, no institutions, no organised society to take them in. It was in this harsh and unforgiving environment that they built churches, schools, courts, and first-world cities from bare earth. They forged legal traditions, civic cultures, and high-functioning societies in a remarkably short span of time.

That’s not the same thing as migrating into already established nations, moving into their homes, taking over their institutions, inheriting the fruit of an existing social order, drawing on public goods others sacrificed to create, imposing a foreign culture, all while claiming to identify with the nation’s builders because “we’re all migrants, after all.” There should be no conflation or confusion between the two.

In particular, mass migration into an existing nation has civilisational impacts. It inevitably reshapes the cultural fabric, strains civic institutions, alters the linguistic, moral, and social character of communities, and, when it is large enough, fast enough, and culturally distant enough, can effectively displace the very people whose forebears built those institutions. The people who arrive inherit the fruit of a civilisation their families played no part in creating and bear no obligation to preserve. Any unwillingness to assimilate is a fairly good indication of that.

If the fact that a nation’s founders were once migrants themselves means all subsequent migration must be welcomed without limit or restriction, then by the same logic, since the nation was built by human beings, it must remain open to every human being without condition or end. The argument is absurd. And a nation can only adopt that rationale to its own demise.

To reduce a nation’s founders to mere “migrants” is to strip the word of any meaning whatsoever. It makes no distinction between the pioneer and the passenger, between the builder and the beneficiary, between the man who lays the foundation and the man who moves into the finished house.

Nations are not abstract propositions. They are the living inheritance of particular peoples, shaped by particular histories, held together by particular bonds of culture, memory, and mutual obligation. The question of who joins them, on what terms, and in what numbers is therefore not a trivial administrative matter. It is a civilisational one. And it deserves an answer more serious than empty and insulting slogans.