CCP Expands Control Over Religion with New Online Code of Conduct

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has issued new rules targeting the online activities of religious leaders, further tightening its control over faith groups.  Analysts say the measures are a part of the CCP’s broader effort to suppress public expression of religious beliefs and control ordinary citizens.

On September 16th, China’s National Religious Affairs Administration released a new code of conduct for the online behavior of religious clergy.  The new code bans religious figures from being involved in “foreign religious infiltration, extremist ideologies, cults, and pseudo-religions.”  It also emphasized that religious figures in China must endorse “patriotism, socialism, and the leadership of the CCP.”  

New Rules After Shaolin Temple Scandal Analysts suggest the move may be linked to the recent downfall of Shi Yongxin, the former abbot of the famous Shaolin Temple.  Shi was expelled from the Buddhist clergy in July and placed under investigation for alleged embezzlement, corruption, and maintaining romantic relationships that resulted in multiple children conceived out of wedlock, which is prohibited in Chinese Buddhism.  He was also accused of turning the temple into a money-making machine through ticketed attractions and commercial ventures.  

China current affairs commentator Li Linyi told The Epoch Times that although the scandal likely prompted Beijing to act, the new rules go far beyond one man.  “The so-called laws and regulations previously issued by the CCP had no effect on powerful figures like Shi Yongxin, who had political backing,” he said.  “Now that Shi has fallen, they have introduced a new regulation.  The authorities will also use this as a pretext to target normal religious activities, as a way to suppress human rights and to create new excuses for collecting fines everywhere.”

The new code of conduct prohibits clergy from using online platforms—including livestreams, short videos, online meetings, WeChat groups, and even personal social media accounts—to preach, conduct online services, or participate in activities such as prayers, baptisms, or ordinations.  It also stresses that online activities must uphold CCP leadership and must not contain content deemed to “subvert state power” or challenge the Party’s authority.  The rules apply not only within mainland China but also to religious personnel from Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan and foreign nationals in China.  

Critics have said the policy is less about regulating religious leaders than about controlling public communication.  “On the surface, it targets clergy, but in reality it affects ordinary citizens,” said Lin Bin, who holds a PhD in political science from the University of New South Wales in Australia.  “For many Chinese people, WeChat is also a way to stay connected with the outside world.  Now that the CCP is tightening control even further, it is also affecting the ability of people in mainland China to communicate with Chinese communities overseas.”

A China-based independent scholar, who requested anonymity for safety reasons, told The Epoch Times the timing reflects the regime’s insecurity.  “The CCP’s ideology has collapsed, and with the economy worsening, people are seeking spiritual comfort,” he said.  “The CCP fears a rapid awakening among the public, so it bans this kind of expression.”  

Broader Campaign Against Religious Liberty Observers note that the new measures are part of a broader campaign against religious freedom under CCP leader Xi Jinping. More than three years ago, in March 2022, Beijing introduced the Measures on the Administration of Internet Religious Information Services.  That regulation required official approval for anyone disseminating religious teachings, services, or activities online through websites, apps, blogs, livestreams, or instant messaging platforms.  

At a 2022 congressional hearing in Washington, Nury Turkel, former chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, warned that the regulation created a “chilling effect” on faith communities in China, especially unregistered religious groups, by criminalizing much of their online presence.  Now, with the latest code of conduct, Beijing is using religion as a new frontier for surveillance and censorship, experts said.

 

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

Amid the Unimaginable Violence and Atrocities, Be Assured That Our Rescue is Coming

Have you had enough yet?  Violence and lawlessness seem out of control.  Senseless violence.  Snipers unleashing bullets carved with evil messages on them!  Who thinks this way?

The line-up of atrocities never ends.  An innocent Ukrainian woman coming home from her pizza job, casually scrolling on her phone on a train in North Carolina, is stabbed to death by a demonized thug.  She had left war-torn Ukraine for the supposed safety of America. Yet a monster lurked in the shadows and ended her young life.  And it was all captured on camera.

In Minneapolis, children in a Catholic school were mowed down by a lunatic.  The shooter blocked the church doors so that the children could not escape before he began shooting through the church windows.  Can you imagine?  I can’t.

Sure, the Bible says that evil is to get worse in the end-times (2 Timothy 3:13), but who can comprehend such barbarism?

They said that about 9/11, which we recently observed and remembered as well.  Even our national leaders admitted they didn’t have the imagination to anticipate the evil of Islam flying planes into buildings.

Don’t forget earlier this year, two Jewish believers were gunned down in Washington, D.C., and in June, an Egyptian terrorist set Jews on fire in Colorado a few days later.  If we dared look, the Colorado event was also filmed and aired.

Then on September 10th, we had a flashback to July 13, 2024, when there was an assassination attempt on President Trump.  This time, the target was Charlie Kirk, and this time, the shooter was successful.  But the assassins bullet that killed Charlie didn’t kill a movement.  It ignited many people to press on with truth-telling, love of country, and honoring God.

As one observer suggested, it is a reminder that speaking truth, particularly Biblical truth, is inherently dangerous in a world where truth sounds like hate to those who hate the truth.  When leftists rejoice at the death of godly people, as they are doing with Kirk’s death, it is a foreshadowing of the Two Witnesses of Revelation 11.  The world will rejoice over their demise as well. 

Very often, the perpetrators of the carnage are deeply involved in alternative lifestyles, and so they view conservatives, Christians, and the biblical worldview as the enemy.  We become their prime target just as the early martyrs of the church.  Constantly accusing righteous or conservative people of being fascists and Nazis has deadly consequences.

Charlie has now finished his race, his earthly course, and we celebrate his graduation into the presence of Jesus Christ and the glories of eternity.

The New York Post, not known as a spiritual publication, had an appropriate one-word headline—“Demonic.”  That accurately summarized the end-time fight we are in.  Satan is making his last stand before the church is taken in the rapture, which removes believers from this sin-wracked, violent world.

But this is today’s progressive movement: twisted and evil.  What a reminder that the last days will be as the days of Noah!

And to add to the lunacy, and what should convince us we are in a Romans chapter 1 society, is that the deranged Left celebrates some of this.  Again, this stretches credulity and is beyond our imagination.  It is last days delusion.  The prophet Isaiah told us that evil would be called good by some (Isaiah 5:20).

Take these daily evil reminders with the assurance that they are a sign that Jesus is coming again.  Our rescue is coming.  Soon.  Perhaps today.

 

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

“Demonic” Trans Ideology Seeks to Replace God

Conservative political commentator Mark Steyn recently claimed the murder of Charlie Kirk is an example of a gathering spiritual war manifesting in the wake of Christianity weakening as a dominant cultural force.  “It’s good versus evil that’s going on here,” Steyn said during his “Clubland Q&A” podcast last week, responding to a listener’s question asking whether Kirk’s murder was “demonic.”

Kirk was shot dead on September 10th in Utah by a 22-year-old alleged assassin who reportedly harbored leftist political views and lived with a trans-identifying partner.  Steyn suggested that transgender ideology and other left-wing ideologies are filling a post-Christian vacuum in the West, and that transgenderism especially allows adherents to replace traditional Christian faith by becoming their own gods.

“When you live in a society where faith is weak, as the entire Western world is, and a society where the mainline churches are almost all post-Christian to one degree or another, the need for a transcendental meaning to life will become overwhelming for most people, so they look elsewhere,” Steyn said.  “[Transgenderism] presupposes that you are God,” he later continued.  “That if you can wake up one morning like [former assistant secretary for health] Rachel Levine, and you’re a 63-year-old, lumpy, unprepossessing bloke, and decide you’d like to be a 63-year old, unprepossessing, lumpy woman, you can do that.” Steyn observed how rapidly transgenderism has proliferated from a “niche” fetish to something afflicting many schoolchildren throughout the U.S., a trend he characterized as evil.

“The core value, as we're seeing, of this mass transgenderization is evil — inflicting permanent damage on school children for a phase they may be going through,” he said. Steyn noted that despite their inherent contradictions, both Islam and transgender ideology presently share the common goal of replacing Christianity.  He dismissed those who would focus on the “cognitive dissonance” of those on the Left who support both Islam and transgenderism.  “It’s not about that.  It’s a bloody war, right?  We’re not at some think-tank having a panel discussion.  It’s war.”

In a Monday column about Kirk’s memorial service, which was attended by tens of thousands and focused heavily on the Gospel, Steyn noted that Islam and transgender ideology also share a tactic of silencing those who disagree.  He predicted both are headed toward increasing clashes with Christianity in the coming years.  “But, absent the ‘revival’ that was the theme of the Kirk memorial, it is not hard to predict what will happen:  The false religions, whether Islam or mass trannification, will increase their tribe — although it is not hard to see which one would win a head-to-head showdown,” he wrote.  

Noting the example of Episcopal Bishop of Washington Mariann Edgar Budde, who he called “a tool of Satan” earlier this year for pushing the idea of “transgender children” from the pulpit, Steyn said many churches that have abandoned the faith are aligning with Christianity’s opponents.  “In the meantime, both will co-opt the ‘mainstream’ churches — as we heard from that tranny fetishist in the forty-seventh president’s inaugural service at the National Cathedral and more recently in the reaction to the Tommy Robinson rally from the woeful bishops’ bench in the House of Lords: the road to hell is greased by the post-Christian churches.”

Steyn, who was baptized Roman Catholic before becoming Anglican and ultimately a Baptist, first rose to prominence for his 2006 book, America Alone, about Europe’s demographic death spiral.  He often served as a regular guest host for the late Rush Limbaugh and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

The Real Danger of Progressive Christianity

When Baylor University returned a $1.65 million LGBTQ+ grant recently — one tied to DEI efforts and LGBTQ initiatives — it sent a ripple through the Christian world.

On the surface, it looked like a victory: A Christian institution backing down in the face of public pressure from believers.  But as Allie Beth Stuckey and others rightly pointed out, this wasn’t a win born from spiritual conviction.  It was a calculated retreat.  One that exposed a much deeper problem than any single grant.  It exposed the growing danger of Progressive Christianity.

This movement isn’t just a theological shift.  It’s a spiritual counterfeit — one that keeps the language of Christianity but trades the authority of Scripture for the approval of culture. Progressive Christianity deceives from the inside.  It misleads under the banner of Jesus — offering a form of godliness but denying its power (2 Timothy 3:5).  And it’s costing people their salvation.

What is Progressive Christianity, really?

Progressive Christianity isn’t just a more “open-minded” version of the faith — it’s a total redefinition of it.  At its core, progressive theology tends to reject the authority and inerrancy of the Bible, reinterpret sin through the lens of human experience, emphasize love and inclusion over holiness and repentance, and downplay the exclusivity of Christ for salvation.  In this view, truth is flexible.  God’s commands are negotiable.  And Jesus becomes more of a moral teacher than a Savior who calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him (Luke 9:23).  That’s not Christianity.  That’s deception.

Why Progressive Christianity is more dangerous than atheism.

Here’s why.  Atheists make no pretense about their disbelief.  You know where they stand.  But progressive Christians use Christian language, Scripture, and emotion to validate teachings that directly contradict the Bible.  They redefine sin, affirm lifestyles that Scripture calls us to repent from, and reduce salvation to a vague message of self-love.  In doing so, they lead others down a path that feels spiritual — but is ultimately separated from Christ.  Jesus warned about this kind of deception: “Watch out for false prophets.  They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves” (Matthew 7:15).  Progressive Christianity often wears that sheep’s clothing well.  But it leaves people spiritually lost, thinking they’re saved while embracing a gospel that has no power to save.

Baylor is a symptom — not the disease

The Baylor grant controversy is just one example of a larger pattern.  Christian institutions across America are slowly conforming to culture while keeping the appearance of faith.  Many churches and universities want the brand of Christianity without the cost of obedience. Whether it’s partnering with groups that affirm sin, or seminaries quietly shifting their theological standards, the same compromise is at work — affirming the feelings of man over the commands of God.  This isn’t about one issue. It’s about all of them.  Whether it’s sexuality, gender, marriage, abortion, or even the exclusivity of the Gospel, this movement molds faith to fit culture, rather than calling culture to repent and follow Christ.

What the Bible really calls us to

True Christianity isn’t comfortable.  It has never been.  Jesus said: “Enter through the narrow gate.  For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it” (Matthew 7:13).  The road of Progressive Christianity is wide.  It’s attractive.  It’s affirming.  But it does not save.  God’s Word doesn’t change.  His standards don’t evolve with the culture.  The call to repentance, faith, and obedience is still the same today as it was 2,000 years ago.  And anything less than that isn’t good news at all — it’s a lie with eternal consequences.

A call to courage

If you’re a believer who sees what’s happening in the Church and you feel discouraged — don’t be.  God always preserves a remnant.  But it’s time to wake up.  We cannot keep pretending that agreement equals love or that silence equals peace.  True love tells the truth. And true peace only comes through Christ — not cultural affirmation.

The danger of Progressive Christianity is that it speaks peace where there is no peace. It offers comfort without conviction, and affirmation without transformation.  That is not the Gospel.  And it’s time we say so — with boldness, clarity, and compassion.

 

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

Jesus Painting Brought Up from Basement at USMMA

A historic painting of Jesus saving sailors lost at sea was brought up last week from a chapel basement at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) in Kings Point, New York, according to a midshipman who spoke to The Christian Post (CP).

“All glory to God! ‘Christ on the Water’ is out of the basement,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted to X on August 8, along with a photo the midshipman shared with CP. “Work will continue to get it fully restored and back into a place of prominence.  To our amazing men and women at [USMMA] — religious expression is something we celebrate, not condemn."

The relocation of the 1944 painting, titled “Christ on the Water,” comes four months after Duffy first visited the USMMA and drew raucous applause from midshipmen when he called for its restoration during a speech at the school’s annual Battle Standard Dinner on April 3.  The painting had hung in the USMMA’s Wiley Hall for 76 years until a 2023 letter from Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) founder Mikey Weinstein demanded its removal, claiming a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Under the leadership of the recently removed USMMA Superintendent Vice Adm. Joanna M. Nunan, the school’s administration first covered the painting with a curtain during official events before placing it in the flood-prone basement of the school’s chapel. 

Weinstein, who has threatened “World War 8” if the painting is restored to its original location, condemned the recent news in a statement to CP that accused Duffy of being a Christian nationalist.

“The only type of disingenuous religious expression this MAGA sycophantic servile Secretary Duffy celebrates here is extremist, Christian nationalism, make no doubt about it,” Weinstein said.  “If it goes back to the same mandatory conference room MRFF fought to have it taken down from, the unconstitutional restoration of this blatantly sectarian expression of wretched, fundamentalist Christian supremacy and triumphalism is as repugnant to our U.S. Constitution’s separation of church and state as it would be for an ice cream aficionado if an ice cream shop offered a dog feces flavor to the public.”

Midshipmen who have spoken to CP in recent months explained that “Christ on the Water” had come to symbolize God caring for them amid the storms in their own lives.  “I remember many times when I used to pray underneath that painting when I was on the verge of failing a class, or I had big tests, or I was worried about something,” one midshipman said.  “I’ve prayed underneath that painting when it used to be in Wiley Hall. So, to me, it’s a very significant, important painting, and I think it’s an important part of the school’s history.”

Despite its historic nature, the painting has become a flashpoint of debate amid concerns that the Trump Administration is not maintaining an appropriate separation between church and state.

Last month, Rep. Jared Huffman, (CA-D), grilled Duffy about the painting and suggested that having a painting of Jesus in an administrative building with mandatory meetings and disciplinary hearings threatens to alienate non-Christian midshipmen.  Duffy, who has hung a replica of the painting in his office at the U.S. Department of Transportation in Washington, D.C., pushed back against Huffman’s concerns, noting, “We’re all in this together.”  He also suggested members of Congress should be more concerned with fixing the dilapidated state of the USMMA, where midshipmen have reportedly gone for months at a time without hot water.

 

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

Gen Z Embracing Christian Faith

Suicidal ideation, drug dealing and abuse, pornography addiction, crippling anxiety, and unforgiveness.  Those are just some of the wrenching problems a group of pastors and ministers personally endured before their Christian faith healed them.

Armed with these experiences, these leaders over the past two years have guided more than 100,000 college students nationwide in how faith in Jesus can also heal Gen Z— a generation wrestling with record depression and other mental illnesses.

The story of these college gatherings, led by students and organized through a nonprofit called UniteUS, was in a new documentary called “The Revival Generation,” that premiered at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on August 27. The film, directed by Laura Hand, founder of Handwritten Studios, is produced by Christian Broadcasting Network’s Abigail Robertson.

“The media paints Gen Z as broken and lost, but what I saw on campuses was the opposite,” Hand told The Daily Signal.  “We hear endless headlines about chaos and division, but almost nothing about the unity and faith spreading among students.  I knew it was a story that needed to be told because the strength of our nation depends on the strength of our young people.”

“The Revival Generation” film has been endorsed by the Trump Administration, which is taking a hands-on approach to reshaping the cultural powerhouse that is the Kennedy Center.

“In the early 1900s, my mom’s family was part of the Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles which helped ignite the Jesus movement of the 1970s,” Ambassador Richard Grenell, president of the Kennedy Center, said in a press statement.  “Today, we are on the cusp of another exciting revival in America and this film premiere at our nation’s cultural center highlights some of those beginnings.”

The documentary also features comments from Dr. Ben Carson, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development during the first Trump Administration.

“The Revival Generation” shares the story of UniteUs founder Tonya Prewett, a loving mother of three members of Gen Z who felt ignited by concern for one of her daughters, who almost died and landed in jail for drunk driving.  Prewett’s daughter shares on camera her struggle with alcoholism and her mother’s unconditional, Christlike love through her shame and suicidal ideation while in jail.  Burdened by her daughter’s pain and Gen Z’s technology-infused anxieties, Prewett envisioned a series of gatherings for Christian evangelism, not unlike Billy Graham’s famous revivals from generations ago.

Seasoned author and Bible teacher Jennie Allen, one of the UniteUS ministers, is shown throughout the film joining with pastor Jonathan “JP” Pokluda, to mentor and baptize thousands of students at the revival gatherings, which began September 12, 2023, with 6,000 students at Auburn University’s Neville Arena.  Since then, students have invited UniteUs onto numerous campuses including Ohio State University, Florida State, University of Mississippi, Purdue, University of Alabama, and the University of Georgia. In September, UniteUs will land in Oklahoma, Phoenix, Cincinnati, Tennessee, and University of South Florida in Tampa.

Prior to the large stadium gathering with bright stage lights and music from viral contemporary worship groups like Elevation Rhythm, UniteUs connects with local pastors and campus ministry leaders in each community, bringing them in to set up tables outside the event so students can get connected that night.  This ensures that the commitment made amid the glitz and glamour of the thunderous applause and bright lights in the arenas during an emotional night isn’t just a flash in a pan.  Partnerships with the local and campus churches ensure the students get plugged into their local church, with many reporting they’re now serving at their church or leading small groups or discipleship programs— continuing in their faith walk.

In the film, Allen powerfully challenges a dusty stereotype that church is a place where people dress in their finest, putting up fake, shiny facades of perfectionism while secretly deeply mired in pain, sin and doubt.  This inauthenticity fails with Gen Z.  Allen poignantly calls for Christians to treat church as a hospital, a place for recovering sinners who encounter Jesus, the “Divine Physician,” who heals souls and binds wounds.  She’s absolutely right.  This is how a lost generation is found.

“The Revival Generation” is available for streaming and in DVD.

 

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

Senator Rejects the Judeo-Christian Foundation of America

Last week, a U.S. senator from Virginia flatly rejected the central principle of the Declaration of Independence.
 
“The notion that rights don’t come from laws and don’t come from the government but come from the creator—that’s what the Iranian government believes,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (VA-D) who ran for vice president alongside Hillary Clinton, during a confirmation hearing.  “It’s a theocratic regime that bases its rule on Shia law and targets Sun nis, Bahá’is, Jews, Christians, and other religious minorities.  And they do it because they believe they understand what natural rights are from their creator.”  Kaine went on to say, “The notion that our rights do not come from our laws or our government should make people very, very nervous.”  He said,  Americans should worry about someone who believes rights come from God “because people of any religious tradition or none are entitled to the equal protection of the laws under the 14th Amendment.  It shouldn’t matter what their religious background is, what they think about God or the Creator, what their church affiliation is.”
 
Kaine accused Riley M. Barnes, President Trump’s nominee for assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, of attempting to “demean” laws and governments by saying that they are not the source of our rights.
 
Notice the sleight of hand: Kaine suggests that if we ground natural rights in the Creator rather than government, then we will deny natural rights to people who don’t believe in God.  Yet the senator, gets the problem exactly backward.
 
We cannot deny rights to people based on what they believe exactly because we believe rights come from God, not from government.  The very notion of religious freedom comes from the belief that it is our duty as human beings to honor God, that God wants us to do so voluntarily, and that duty comes before the duty to government.  Therefore, government cannot compel us to adopt one religion or another—that would be abusing its limited role established by God.  If we dig up the divine grounding of our rights and instead plant them in the unstable soil of limited human governments, we are not just causing our rights to wither, but actively uprooting the foundation of our country.
 
It is shameful that Sen. Kaine, who might have been a heartbeat away from the presidency, appears to have forgotten the words of the Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.”
 
If Kaine is so intent on stopping us from “demeaning” laws and governments, will he lead a petition for the United States to subject itself again to Great Britain?  Should the United States submit itself to the Roman Empire, of which Britain at one time was a part?
 
I hasten to add, I agree with the senator that Iran gets human rights disastrously wrong, but I would ask Kaine how we know that Iran is wrong.  If government is the grounding of our rights, then by what basis do we say one government’s definition of rights is superior to another?
 
For almost 250 years, our great nation has grounded our rights in the firm, sturdy soil of God’s creation, and we defend religious liberty precisely because we believe our rights are more abiding than any human government.  That is exactly what Barnes meant when he wrote, “I believe our country and our government is the best in the world, and our strength comes from our enduring values.  These values aren’t an endless list of ‘rights’ that people create and change and form to meet their own needs or desires.  These values aren’t identity politics.  They are the historic, natural rights that we have as individuals, pursuing life, liberty, and happiness in this world.”  “For rights to be untethered from this core principle is to make them mere sentiments, easily manipulated by authoritarians and bad actors,” Barnes added.  “Natural rights are a blessing and an immutable reality.”
 
That’s exactly the sentiment I want to hear from a government official, sworn to follow the Constitution and tasked with promoting human rights abroad.  If anything makes me nervous, it is hearing a U.S. senator seeking to chip away at that foundation.
 
Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

New Guidance Protecting the Right to Prayer in Public Schools

President Donald Trump announced that the Department of Education will issue new guidance protecting the right to prayer in public schools.
 
“To have a great nation you have to have religion,” Trump said at the second meeting of the Religious Liberty Commission at the Museum of the Bible last Monday morning.  Trump honored students whose religious liberties had reportedly been violated at public school.
 
 A young boy named Shane spoke about being required to read a book about transgender ideology at school.  His parents complained, and the boy was bullied at school.  “I believe kids like me should be able to live our faith at school without being forced to go against what we believe,” said Shane.  “I hope no other family has to go through what mine did.”
 
Trump also honored a high schooler named Hannah who was punished for praying at school for an injured classmate.
 
Trump also slammed Sen. Tim Kaine (VA-D) for his comments last week that rights [come] from government, rather than God.  “The ineffectual senator from Virginia, man named Tim Kaine, stated that the notion our rights come from our creator is, quote, ‘extremely troubling to him,’” Trump said.  “But as everyone in this room understands, it is tyrants who are denying our rights and the rights that come from God, and it’s this Declaration of Independence that proclaims we’re endowed by our Creator with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” the president added.  “The senator from Virginia should be ashamed of himself.”
 

Trump invited Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner to take the stage. He announced the Administration’s new “America Prays” initiative, which calls on Americans to dedicate time every week to pray for the country.  “What if believers all across this great nation got together with 10 people, friends, family members, colleagues, work associates, 10 people each week to pray for our country and for our fellow citizens?” Turner said.  Turner invited all Americans to pray for the renewal of the country.  “Think about the miracles that would take place over the next year; think about the transformation that you and I could witness in communities all across the land,” he continued.  “Sons returning to their fathers, daughters returning to their mothers, families coming back together, health being restored, financial needs being met, mountains being moved.  Think about it, and for millions of us every week, got together and prayed for this great country.”

 
Let’s take up the call and see God answer in response to our prayers.
 
Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

Why the Left Wants to Destroy the Judeo-Christian Ethic … But Spare Islam for Now

The battle for America’s soul is under way—and Christianity and Judaism is in the crosshairs.

In 1939, George Orwell coined the phrase “Judeo-Christian ethic” to include the values that formed the moral foundation of Western Civilization.  This ethic influenced the American founders and helped shape their views on liberty, rights, and law.

Post-Enlightenment philosophers have criticized the irrational aspects of religion and its role in the politics of state, but most have acknowledged the role that the Judeo-Christian ethic has served in preserving the fabric of society.

The Left on the other hand, is a political philosophy focused on social progress through systemic reforms.  It demands a strong central government dedicated to countering societal inequality and injustice.  The progressive Left movement historically shares roots in Christianity and secular humanism, although in recent decades it has emphasized a reliance on science and technology and antipathy toward any expression of religion in the public square.

Since its inception in the 19th century, the Left has, since the 1960s, adopted misotheistic Marxist ideology.  Its proponents have focused primarily on discrediting Christian religious practice.   In the Biden Administration, for example, both public and private expressions of Christianity came under attack by federal agencies despite First Amendment guarantees that Americans can practice their religion without government interference.  These government transgressions are currently being reversed by the new faith-friendly Trump Administration.

The question is: Why does the Left target Christianity specifically?  The obvious answer is that Christianity has been the dominant religion in America since its founding, and at least until recently, most Americans continued to engage with its practice.  But religious affiliation constitutes a challenge to the progressive secular state, as this state insists that there can be no greater authority than itself.

The emphasis on the freedom of an individual within Christianity also tends to resist the enforced conformity that is central to neo-Marxist ideology and identity politics.  The Left is best viewed as a secular humanist civic religion that is engaged in a religious war with monotheistic faith.

As Bertrand Russell opined, Marxism is in many respects an atheistic restatement of Christianity, but unlike the Christian “kingdom of God,” its utopian goals can only be realized through the authority of the state.  For this reason, all Marxist states are openly antagonistic to theistic religion.

Since the 1960s, Marxist ideologues, many having fled Nazi fascism in Europe, recognized that a revolution to install socialist and communist values was un likely to succeed in America. Instead, they envisioned a less radical evolutionary strategy aimed at infiltrating the institutions that define American culture—including its educational systems, news media, entertainment industry, and corporations—with Marxist ideas.  But for this strategy to succeed, it would first have to transform the values of the Judeo-Christian ethic in the direction of Marxism.

A document in the 1963 “Congressional Record” outlines the plan of Marxists to undermine America by targeting the family unit, promoting deviant sexualities, and fostering criminal behavior.  This strategy was aligned with neo-Marxist postmodern philosophies being taught in universities that questioned the possibility of objective truth and viewed virtually all societal transactions through the post-colonial polarized lens of “oppressors” and “oppressed.”  But to succeed, this strategy could not break radically with the past.  Rather, it was necessary to retain those aspects of the Judeo-Christian ethic that had been established as part of the American “social imaginary.”  To this end, neo-Marxism adopts Judeo-Christian concerns with “social justice” but ignores its focus on law.  This has allowed progressivism, in its current neo-Marxist “woke” avatar, to “stand for social justice” while simultaneously attacking white privilege, normative sexuality, law and order, and religion.

Although Christianity has been the primary focus of the Left’s vitriol, it stands to reason that the other source of the Judeo-Christian ethic would also be a target for hostility.

Following the October 7, 2024, terrorist attacks in Israel, anti-Israel protests led by the Left erupted on America’s college campuses and streets.  Jews represent a small minority of Americans and, as such, do not represent a numerical challenge to the Left’s goals.  However, loyalty to religion and the state of Israel, as well as Judaism’s focus on law, elicited the age-old criticisms of Jewish particularism by Marxists.

Why, then, has Islam, a monotheistic religion, been spared the wrath of progressives? There are several likely reasons.  First, Islam is a newcomer to the American scene and, until recently, had little political influence and did not constitute a noticeable resistance to progressive goals.  Second, “woke” progressives imagine all Muslims as oppressed peoples of color who have suffered at the hands of imperial governments.  Moreover, radical Islam, like Marxism, seeks to undermine the Judeo-Christian traditions of the West.  Jihad against the West with the goal of restoring a theocratic caliphate has been a goal of fundamentalist Islam since its inception.  Indeed, nowhere in Islamic countries have Christians or Jews ever enjoyed equitable freedom with Muslims, nor are women or the LGBTQ+ afforded equal freedoms with Muslim men, a fact that progressives assiduously avoid admitting.  Although Marxists and Islamists have banded together to undermine Judeo-Christian values in the West, theirs is an uncomfortable alliance, as the atheistic Marxist state is ultimately incompatible with an Islamic caliphate.  Only in Muslim countries governed by secular strongmen has an alliance with Marxism achieved even a modicum of success.  Finally, one must always “follow the money.”  And in recent years, Islamic governments have provided substantial financial resources to progressive causes because they share the goal of “transforming” America.  [Don’t forget which presidential candidate talked of “transforming” America—Barack Hussein Obama.]

If the right to practice the Judeo-Christian traditions is to be preserved, it is incumbent upon America’s religious leaders to recognize that the goals of the Left are antithetical to faith, and they must resist being co-opted by misotheistic ideology out of fear or ignorance.  The idea that secular humanism is salvific for the individual or for society at large has been repeatedly discredited when Marxist ideology has been put into practice.  Marxist ideology, therefore, should be seen in its true light, which is as the product of a destructive impulse within the human psyche that will only be fully extinguished in the Messianic future.

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel
Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

“The Purpose of Abortion Is to Produce a Dead Baby, Not to Save a Mother’s Life”

The Harris-Walz campaign wasn’t shy in its push for abortion.  It has been a major emphasis for the ticket this election cycle, with both Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her running mate and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz openly supporting abortion with no limits.  According to Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, the Left, including the Harris-Walz campaign, have continuously told “deceptive, incomplete, [and] sometimes flat-out false narratives to give lift to Kamala Harris’s talking point on what she calls ‘Trump’s abortion bans,’ which are the pro-life laws of states.”

In an of “Washington Watch,” Dr. Donna Harrison, board-certified OB-GYN and director of Research for the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, joined host Perkins to discuss the truth behind the “lies” coming from pro-abortion activists on the Left, drawing special attention to the story of a woman in Texas whom abortion activists “claim died after doctors said it would be a crime to intervene in her miscarriage.”  The story was published by ProPublica.  But as Perkins asked, could it be that this is “just another case of a woman dying because of the Left’s lies and not pro-life laws?”

As Harrison pointed out about this case in Texas, “A lot of what we know is just what’s reported in the media.”  However, “what I can say is … that pro-life doctors for 40 years before Dobbs have separated moms and babies when the mom’s life is at stake.  And that isn’t anything” new.  It’s “part of the tragedy” of caring for “any mom that is sick” with an “infection [and] needs to be separated from her baby,” she emphasized — “even if that baby can’t live.”  But being able to discern when to make that decision is “just part of … good medical care.”  It “has nothing to do with pro-life laws,” Harrison underscored, and “nothing to do with abortion regulations.”

“[A] mother is the first patient, is she not?” Perkins added.  And while she’s not the only patient, doctors “are always going to work to help that mother in her medical condition.”  Harrison agreed.  “The mother is our patient.  The child is our patient.”  But the reality is, “There are … situations that are life-threatening that will save the mom’s life even though the baby dies.”  And yet, even in those cases, Harrison contended that they’re still not considered abortions.

Harrison went on to explain how “the confusion about what an abortion is” often remains at the center of this debate pertaining to the treatment of miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies.  “An abortion,” the doctor clarified, “is a procedure that’s done for the purpose and intent of producing a dead baby.”  She further clarified that in an instance where a mother’s life is at risk, and the baby does not survive, that is not an abortion because “the purpose [was] not to produce a dead baby.”  Again, Harrison stated, “The purpose of an abortion is to produce a dead baby.”

She went on to illustrate this further: “If there’s an abortion going on at 32 weeks and the baby lives, what do you call that?  That’s a failed abortion.  Why?  [Because] the baby failed to die.  The baby didn’t fail to separate.  The baby failed to die.”  As such, “it’s very clear that the purpose of an induced abortion … an elective abortion, is to produce a dead baby, not to save a mother’s life.  That’s a completely different purpose.”

And now, Perkins argued, in addition to the harmful nature of abortion, “women’s lives [are] being endangered by these false narratives that are being told by political leaders like Walz and Harris.”  In fact, he contended, “what I take away from statements they have made” is that they want “no limits” on abortion.

“Well, that’s exactly right,” Harrison replied.  “[T]here are women that are dying from chemical abortions in states that have no pro-life restrictions.  It’s not an issue of regulating abortion causing women to die.  It’s an issue of women [who] deserve excellent medical care, and they deserve medical care that treats both them and their child as patients.”  This, Harrison stressed, is “what we do as OB-GYN’s.”

“But when you become fixated on abortion [and] the ending of life,” Perkins concluded, “it’s hard to provide good health care and saving lives.  I mean, that [abortion] becomes their top priority [is] astounding.”

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

Kamala Harris Concession: Loyalty to ‘Our God’ Drives Me to Fight for Abortion

Vice President Kamala Harris conceded the 2024 presidential race in a brief, angry, and graceless call-to-arms in which she claimed her “loyalty to our conscience and to our God” and belief in “the dignity of all people” will drive her to continue fighting for abortion.

Harris delivered her concession speech at her alma mater, Howard University, where she had planned to hold her victory party.  About one-third of those at her watch party returned to “The Yard” to hear Harris admit defeat and prod them to take up four, or eight, years of hostility.

“[T]he light of America’s promise will always burn bright, as long as we never give up,” she said, her voice rising to a crescendo, “and as long as we keep fighting.”

“I know folks are feeling and experiencing a range of emotions right now.  I get it,” she said laughing, as no one in the crowd joined her laughter.  “But we must accept the results of this election.  Earlier today, I spoke with President-elect Trump and congratulated him on his victory,” she said, as the crowd booed.

“We owe loyalty not to a president or a party, but to the Constitution of the United States, and loyalty to our conscience and to our God.  My allegiance to all three is why I am here to say, while I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fuels this campaign, the fight — the fight for freedom, for opportunity, for fairness and the dignity of all people, a fight for the ideals at the heart of our nation, the ideals that reflect America at our best.  That is a fight I will never give up,” thundered Harris, as she turned to the theme that would dominate most of her 11-minute address.

“I will never give up the fight for a future where Americans can pursue their dreams, ambitions and aspirations — where the women of America have the freedom to make decisions about their own body and not have their government telling them what to do,” said Harris, tying success to abortion as she received a fulsome cheer primarily from young college-aged females in the crowd.  College-age single women constitute the abortion industry’s target market.  “[W]omen in their 20s accounted for more than half of abortions (57.2%),” and 86% of women who had an abortion were unmarried in 2020, according to data from the Biden-Harris administration.

Apparently without appreciating the contradiction latent in her beliefs, Harris also claimed to uphold “the sacred idea that every one of us, no matter who we are or where we start out, has certain fundamental rights and freedoms that must be respected and upheld.”

Harris made abortion the primary, virtually the only, issue of her 107-day campaign, saying she would not consider any protections for unborn children at any stage of development, nor any exemptions for people of faith who did not want to participate in an abortion.  “I don’t think we should be making concessions when we’re talking about a fundamental freedom to make decisions about your own body,” candidate Harris told MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson in a rare campaign interview. 

She also vowed to continue to oppose “gun violence,” which in the Democratic lexicon translates to putting restrictions on the right to bear arms, and to continue “the fight for our democracy.”  Her campaign attempted to paint Donald Trump as “a unique threat to democracy.”  When Anderson Cooper asked Harris “Do you think Donald Trump is a fascist?” during a poorly received CNN town hall, Harris rapidly replied, “Yes, I do.”

Harris encouraged the crowd to begin “looking in the face of a stranger and seeing a neighbor” — a reference to continued support for illegal immigration, when her administration’s spokespeople rebranded illegal aliens as “newcomers.”

“This is a time to organize, to mobilize and to stay engaged for the sake of freedom and justice and the future that we all know we can build,” Harris stated.  “We will continue to wage this fight in the voting booth, in the courts and in the public square, and we will also wage it in quieter ways.”

Harris, who underperformed President Joe Biden’s 2020 performance in all 50 states and lost the popular vote, appeared to be casting herself as the leader of a new anti-Trump Resistance movement.  “What exactly is Kamala doing here?  Trying to position herself as some sort of future Dem powerbroker,” said Saagar Enjeti, the co-host of “Breaking Points” with Krystal Ball.  “Hillary could cling to the popular vote and Russiagate.  She has literally nothing.”

“On the campaign, I would often say, when we fight, we win.  But here’s the thing, here’s the thing, sometimes the fight takes a while.  That doesn’t mean we won’t win,” Harris told the crowd, including her husband, Doug Emhoff, who at times began openly weeping.  “Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars,” she said, holding up her hands and nodding her head as she did when describing space exploration to children.

“Many people feel like we are entering a dark time … [I]f it is [true], let us fill the sky with the light of a brilliant, brilliant billion of stars” seemingly echoing President George H.W. Bush’s description of the United States as a “thousand points of light.”

Viewers were quick to dismiss Harris’s remarks, which Fox News host Laura Ingraham described as “a Resistance speech.” 

“It felt inauthentic.  It felt light,” Ed Henry told Newsmax moments after the conclusion, and featured “cheap shots there at the end.” 

Pro-life observers also chided Harris for placing her faith in the power of abortion to power her campaign to victory.  “Killing babies is not the W,” or win, “you thought it was, Kamala,” noted Lila Rose of Live Action.

“Page, turned.  What’s been, unburdened,” said Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life of America Action.  “Goodbye Kamala, and don’t come back.”

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

Joy Came in the Morning … After the Election

If Kamala Harris ever lived up to her self-description that she is “not aspiring to be humble,” it came when her campaign treated the Bible verse “joy cometh in the morning” as though it foretold her election as president.  Yet on the morning that false prophecy came to nought, God seemed to reassert His sovereignty, deliverance, and vindication through His Word and an ancient hymn recorded in a prayer book used by 85 million Christians worldwide — including many of her supporters.

Early Wednesday morning, it became clear America had been spared the election of a candidate who promised to erase religious objections and force Christians into funding and participating in abortion and other sinful activities.  The 2024 election felt different; it felt definitive.  On one side stood a candidate who wanted to honor America’s heritage; on the other, a team that aimed at “fundamentally transforming the United States of America” now asked for four more years to “finish the job.”  In 2024, America voted in favor of itself.

Through the centuries, it has become customary to pray a hymn known as the Te Deum after receiving a blessing, or deliverance from some great calamity.  This hymn, which is so ancient that no one is certain who wrote it, welds every order of earthly and angelic creation into one chorus of praise.  Before proceeding to the Te Deum, look at Psalm 30.  The Bible always applies God’s eternal and unchanging wisdom to our everyday circumstances, but this specific Psalm prophetically addressed the election and its misuse of God’s Word.

“I will magnify thee, O LORD; for Thou hast set me up, and not made my foes to triumph over me,” it began.  “O LORD my God, I cried unto Thee; and Thou hast healed me.  Thou, LORD, hast brought my soul out of Hell: Thou hast kept my life, that I should not go down into the pit.” 

Reading this Psalm the morning after an election, God seemed to engage the Harris-Walz campaign’s hermeneutic and convey the voice of America itself crying out to God in thanksgiving.

Then, verse five says: “Heaviness may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”

Kamala Harris, or whoever writes her soliloquies, branded the party’s desperate defenestration of Joe Biden after his June 27 debate performance an act of “joy.”  Soon, Psalm 30:5 became the ubiquitous rallying cry of Democrats, who had begun to despair over Biden’s inevitable loss.  House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY-D) gave an uncharacteristically religious speech to the Democratic National Convention, invoking the phrase like a revivalist trying to get the American people to accept Kamala Harris as their political lord and savior.  Jeffries quoted the verse twice in one minute — just 50 seconds after he reassured the nation that a President Harris would “always protect a woman’s freedom to make her own reproductive health care decisions,” a euphemism for abortion.

Maryland Senate candidate Angela Alsobrooks wound the Psalmist’s verse into a political omen as she completed her DNC address.  “It’s always darkest before the dawn.  We know that we can endure for a night, because ‘joy cometh in the morning,’” Alsobrooks, who won her Senate race on Tuesday, told the DNC.  “Morning is coming!  Morning is coming, and that joy will be led by Kamala Harris!”  Last Sunday, nine days before the election, the vice president even shouted the phrase from the pulpit of West Philadelphia’s Church of Christian Compassion in a strange new accent.  (Unlike Jesus, she thought it appropriate to bear witness of herself.)

A better scriptural commentator, St. Augustine of Hippo, interpreted Psalm 30’s “weeping” as the human race straining under the yoke of sin and death, while the “joy” foretells “the exultation of the resurrection, which hath shone forth by anticipation in the morning resurrection of the Lord” Jesus Christ.  Crafting an entire campaign around the idolatrous application of a Messianic prophecy to Kamala Harris is … not an act of humility.  Yet ever since “values voters” made up the margin of victory in the 2004 presidential election, Democrats have alternated between invoking their newfound public faith on the campaign trail and violating its traditional beliefs in office.  Nancy Pelosi invoked her Catholicism at least 10 times while supporting abortion and claimed it “compels” her to support same-sex marriage.

In 2024, the Kamala Harris campaign tried to conceal its contempt for half of America and rebellion against God’s moral standards behind a campaign of vibes wrapped up in a twisting of the Bible.  But God had the last laugh, putting the words of her failed campaign slogan on the lips of Christians in praise to Himself on the morning she contemplated writing her concession speech.

The Book of Common Prayer has been a resource for the 85 million Anglicans around the world.  The vast majority of clergy in The Episcopal Church not only supported Kamala Harris but preach a god who blesses abortion and the LGBTQIA+ agenda in sermons that combine thick, syrupy postmodernism and a thin gruel of non-specific religious sentimentality.  And, despite many unhappy revisions to the American prayer book, Psalm 30 remains the first Psalm read on the sixth of each month.  They, too, read Psalm 30 the morning after the election as an indictment of their attempts to redefine biblical morality.

America will not find healing until it learns that no politician delivers any lasting joy.  God alone can provide satisfying and abiding spiritual joy, which is a virtue, not a vibe; a fruit of the spirit, not a fleeting campaign slogan; and the gift not of any earthly ruler, prince, or satrap, but of the King of kings and Lord of lords, Who has given us an everlasting kingdom that is not of this world.

If you share my view that God has given us a reprieve from the worst, I invite you to join me in reading Psalm 30 in its entirety and praying the Te Deum, which I’ve printed below.  And let us give thanks for the power of the One Who alone brings true joy.

Psalm 30:

I will magnify thee, O LORD; for Thou hast set me up, and not made my foes to triumph over me.

O LORD my God, I cried unto Thee; and Thou hast healed me.

Thou, LORD, hast brought my soul out of Hell: Thou hast kept my life, that I should not go down into the pit.

Sing praises unto the LORD, O ye saints of His; and give thanks unto Him, for a remembrance of His holiness.

For His wrath endureth but the twinkling of an eye, and in His pleasure is life; heaviness may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.

And in my prosperity I said, I shall never be removed: Thou, LORD, of Thy goodness, hast made my hill so strong.

Thou didst turn thy face from me, and I was troubled.

Then cried I unto Thee, O LORD; and gat me to my LORD right humbly.

What profit is there in my blood, when I go down into the pit?

Shall the dust give thanks unto Thee? or shall it declare Thy truth?

Hear, O LORD, and have mercy upon me; LORD, be Thou my helper.

Thou hast turned my heaviness into joy; Thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness:

Therefore shall every good man sing of thy praise without ceasing. O my God, I will give thanks unto Thee for ever.

Te Deum laudamus:

We praise Thee, O God; we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord.

All the earth doth worship Thee, the Father everlasting.

To Thee all angels cry aloud; the heavens, and all the Powers therein;

To Thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry,

Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth;

Heaven and earth are full of the majesty of Thy glory.

The glorious company of the Apostles praise Thee.

The goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise Thee.

The noble army of Martyrs praise Thee.

The holy Church throughout all the world doth acknowledge Thee;

The Father, of an infinite Majesty;

Thine adorable, true, and only Son;

Also the Holy Ghost, the Comforter.

Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ.

Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father.

When Thou tookest upon Thee to deliver man, 

Thou didst humble thyself to be born of a Virgin.

When Thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death, 

Thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers.

Thou sittest at the right hand of God, in the glory of the Father.

We believe that Thou shalt come to be our Judge.

We therefore pray Thee, help Thy servants, whom 

Thou hast redeemed with Thy precious blood.

Make them to be numbered with Thy saints, in glory everlasting.

O Lord, save Thy people, and bless Thine heritage.

Govern them, and lift them up for ever.

Day by day we magnify Thee;

And we worship Thy Name ever, world without end.

Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this day without sin.

O Lord, have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us.

O Lord, let Thy mercy be upon us, as our trust is in Thee.

O Lord, in Thee have I trusted; let me never be confounded.

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel