Why are so many young Americans struggling to find lasting relationships? According to BlazeTV host Nick Freitas, the answer has a lot to do with the way modern dating has not only been influenced by feminism — but has been reshaped by the apps.

These apps, Freitas says, have created a “fake environment” where men get far less attention than women do.

“On Tinder, men’s average match rate is 5.26%. Women’s is 44.4%. So that’s an eight times difference, roughly. On Hinge, men swipe right on 61% of profiles. Women swipe right on 5% of profiles,” he explains.

“This part blew my mind. There’s a huge gender skew, like on Tinder, 67%-76% of the people on there are male. For Hinge it’s 60%-40%; for Bumble it’s 54%-46%,” he continues.

“On all these platforms where, again, we’re being told to go find people … it’s even worse, because one of the things that women typically need to truly be attracted to a man is they actually need to be able to be in proximity toward them,” he adds.

And an Institute for Family Studies study found that couples who meet in real life are much happier than ones who met online — and there’s good reason for it.

“Modern dating is already set up for failure, which is to say that you’re essentially putting on a performance for another human being. But your ability to perform outside of who you really are is far more limited in person than it is online, especially when we have all kinds of enhancements and filters and everything else that are going on,” Freitas explains.

However, as men and women begin to point the finger at each other for the growing issue of modern dating, Freitas points out that there’s something they both need to realize.

“As we go into this final phase talking about what should you be doing is men, you have every right to be pissed at the system that was set up for you,” he says.

“What I want you to understand is that it’s harder sometimes to understand how the women were also lied to because the women were lied to in a very, very different direction. You were put down by the system; they were built up by it,” he explains.

“But you were both lied to,” he adds.

Making the Argument with Nick Freitas” is available on BlazeTV+, YouTube, and major podcast platforms.

Start watching Nick Freitas NOW at blazetv.com and use the promo code NICK40 for $40 off your BlazeTV+ subscription.

​Dating apps, Modern dating, Nick freitas, Online dating, Feminism, Data, Tinder, Hinge, Bumble, Blazetv show 

DiJonai Carrington may have committed the most educational flagrant foul in the history of basketball.

I was discussing the episode with a friend who asked, “Do you remember roller derby?” I confessed I did not. “It was a sport where people enjoyed watching women beat each other up,” he said. I saw the connection immediately.

‘White privilege’ did not appear spontaneously in professional sports. It has an intellectual pedigree.

It reminded me of undergraduate classes in which feminists argued that women should run the world because they are more level-headed, calm, and compassionate than men. I had also watched some of those same people treat conservative colleagues with remarkable contempt. The theory and the behavior did not always match.

The WNBA has lately offered a rather vivid reminder that women, being human, are perfectly capable of aggression, rivalry, resentment, and the occasional refusal to accept responsibility.

During Saturday’s game between the Chicago Sky and Indiana Fever, Sophie Cunningham broke toward the basket for a layup. Carrington pursued her from behind and struck Cunningham across the head and neck. Officials reviewed the play, upgraded it to a flagrant 2, and ejected Carrington.

This was WNBA drama. Then higher education entered the game.

After her ejection, Carrington posted on Threads: “WHITE PRIVILEGE @indianafever.”

One has to admire the efficiency. Universities can spend an entire semester teaching students to interpret ordinary human interactions through racial categories. Carrington managed it before the game was over.

Predictably, people asked the obvious question: What precisely did Cunningham’s whiteness have to do with Carrington hitting her in the face?

Former NFL player Emmanuel Acho was among those who challenged Carrington’s invocation of white privilege. Carrington later said people had misunderstood her: She was not claiming the ejection itself was caused by white privilege, but pointing to what she regarded as a larger pattern of white players receiving different treatment. She defended her understanding of the subject by citing her education, including Stanford.

And there, buried beneath the WNBA drama, was the genuinely interesting story.

Carrington herself appealed to her education as authority for the framework she was using. That does not prove some Stanford professor taught her how to explain this particular foul. It does show how natural it has become for educated Americans to reach for concepts such as “white privilege” when interpreting conflict and punishment.

RELATED: Magical thinking just made the WNBA Draft

Melissa Tamez/Icon Sportswire/Getty Images

America’s universities have spent decades teaching students to interpret institutions and human behavior through racial categories. “White privilege” did not appear spontaneously in professional sports. It has an intellectual pedigree. Students encounter frameworks in which racial identity becomes a morally significant category through which achievements, punishments, disagreements, and disparities are interpreted.

Carrington apparently regards her education as establishing her authority on the subject. Fine. Then taxpayers and parents should pay attention to what that education teaches people to see.

Stanford is private, of course, but like many American universities, it receives substantial federal funding. Universities receiving federal money are subject to federal antidiscrimination law. That does not mean professors cannot discuss controversial theories of race. They obviously can. The serious question comes when theories move from subjects to be examined into institutional doctrines that classify people morally by race.

Imagine reversing the language. Imagine a university program teaching students to interpret the behavior of black classmates through a theory of “black privilege,” complete with generalizations about what black people characteristically possess, how they characteristically think, and what judgments should attach to them because of their racial identity.

Would anyone seriously maintain that race had nothing to do with it?

The Carrington episode also illustrates something universities rarely advertise about these theories: They can be wonderfully useful for avoiding personal responsibility.

In the classical university, education aimed at forming a good soul: one capable of wisdom, ordered toward what is good, and disciplined against vices such as hatred, envy, and bitterness. This did not mean the good person escaped persecution or injustice. It meant that injustice did not excuse becoming unjust in return. A good soul fears God, not men — or women.

Today’s university is different. It teaches students to locate wrongdoing in systems, structures, identities, and power. Once in a while those explanations are relevant. But they can also become a vocabulary for explaining away one’s own choices. For the philosophy students reading this, the contrast is Socrates versus Thrasymachus: seek the good, or reduce everything to power.

The old-fashioned response to committing a flagrant foul was fairly straightforward: “I went too far.”

The new response requires considerably more vocabulary.

One can discuss systems, privilege, disparities, power structures, historical patterns, and institutional inequities until the original question — “Why did you hit her in the face?” — disappears beneath a small graduate seminar.

That is one of the most corrosive temptations of identity ideology. It can supply an external explanation for almost every unfavorable consequence. If I succeed, I overcame oppression. If you succeed, you benefited from privilege. If I am punished, we investigate the system. If you are punished, justice has finally arrived.

Personal responsibility becomes strangely difficult to locate.

Carrington has also defended her aggressive play on the grounds that she will do everything she can to prevent an opponent from making a layup. Fair enough — except that this rather misses the point of organized sports.

Basketball is not defined as “do everything you can to stop the other person.” It has rules.

That’s what distinguishes basketball from rugby or a parking-lot fight.

RELATED: ‘She didn’t wait until it was easy’: Victim of brutal injury from male athlete praises Sophie Cunningham

Michael Reaves/Getty Images

You may contest the shot. You may block the ball. You may position yourself defensively. You may even commit an ordinary foul to force free throws. What you may not do is simply employ whatever technique seems most likely to prevent the basket.

Otherwise, why stop with a cross-face? Tackle her. Bite her. Kick her. Put her in a rear-naked choke.

Although, given recent WNBA highlights, perhaps I should stop giving anyone ideas.

The rules are not an obstacle to the game. The rules constitute the game. And that is precisely the moral lesson obscured by the ideology Carrington invoked.

Civil society works the same way. We do not get to suspend ordinary standards of conduct because we believe ourselves to be fighting injustice. We do not get to judge people by their skin color because an elaborate theory tells us doing so is enlightened. Anti-racism becomes corrupting when it licenses hatred, envy, or racial blame in the name of correcting hatred, envy, and racial injustice.

Carrington’s foul lasted only a moment.

Her explanation deserves more attention because it inadvertently reminded Americans that when racial ideology shows up on the basketball court, it did not necessarily begin there.

Someone taught the framework. Quite possibly at a university. And taxpayers help support the institutions where it flourishes.

​Chicago sky, Dijonai carrington, Indiana fever, Sophie cunningham, White privilege, Higher education, Diversity equity inclusion, Identity politics, Racism, Stanford university, Wnba, Opinion & analysis 

Until now, Google Gemini has been an optional part of Android. Most of its features are locked behind the dedicated Gemini app, or you can choose to rely on Google Assistant as your on-device companion for fielding questions and completing tasks. That is all about to change, though, as Google officially prepares to retire its old assistant for an AI future, and it is coming sooner than you think.

Google brought Gemini to Android in early 2024. Since then, the company has progressively injected its AI into every corner of its operating system. The latest iteration, Gemini Intelligence, aims to take its chatbot a step farther by giving it agentic capabilities. At launch, the only way to set Gemini as your default personal assistant instead of Google Assistant was to manually make the switch in your settings. Many newer phones, however, default to Gemini straight out of the box.

You aren’t allowed to delete it from your phone. You can, however, take away its functionality.

Needless to say, if you have avoided Gemini like the plague thus far, your efforts are commendable, but your luck is about to run out.

Starting on September 4, Google will start rolling out Gemini support as the default personal assistant in all applicable Android models — devices with 2 GB of RAM or more that run on Android 9 or later. The process will take several weeks to reach everybody, so you may not lose access to Google Assistant immediately. However, once it is complete, Gemini will take over as the default assistant on your handset, whether you like it or not.

It’s not just your phone, either. The switch is coming to all devices in Google’s product ecosystem, including tablets running Android, car infotainment systems with Android Auto, smartwatches running on Wear OS, and TVs with Google TV or Android TV. In other words, you can’t escape it … but you might be able to turn it off, if you know where to look.

How to remove Google Gemini as the digital assistant on Android

To disable Gemini on a Samsung Galaxy device, open the Settings app, select “Apps” near the bottom of the page, and tap “Choose default apps” at the top. From there, tap “Digital assistant app,” and choose either an alternative to Google or select “None” from the options. Now, when you invoke the digital assistant on your phone, absolutely nothing will happen. Your digital assistant is effectively gone.

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw/One UI 9.0 on Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8

For Google Pixel phone owners, open up the Settings app and choose “Apps” near the top of the page. Next, select “Default apps,” followed by “Digital assistant app,” and finally, choose “None” or an alternative option to Google, if applicable. Congrats, now your phone no longer has an AI-powered digital assistant!

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw/Android 17 on Google Pixel 10 Pro XL

If you use an “other” branded Android phone, such as a Motorola, OnePlus, Nothing, etc., the process should be similar to the steps above. The main goal is to find the default apps section in your settings and change the digital assistant to anything other than Google. Once you do that, you’re free from Gemini! Well, sort of. There’s more …

How to remove Gemini from your Android apps

Google has also baked Gemini into many of your favorite apps, including Gmail, Maps, and Drive, but this should only work if you have Personal Intelligence enabled. To check, open the Gemini app on your phone, select “Personal Intelligence,” and then “Connected Apps.” From here, uncheck every app and service that’s enabled. There are a lot of integrations on this page, so make sure you scroll all the way to the bottom and get every single one.

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw/Android 17 on Google Pixel 10 Pro XL

How to disable the Gemini app on Android

Now that we’ve fired Gemini from its digital assistant role and banished it from Google apps, there’s one last thing to do, and this one comes with an unavoidable caveat.

Some new phones these days, especially from Samsung and Google, come with the Gemini app installed by default, and you aren’t allowed to delete it from your phone. You can, however, take away its functionality.

RELATED: Google forced age restrictions onto Android. Are they right for you?

yourstockbank/Getty Images

To disable Gemini on Android, simply swipe into your app drawer and locate Gemini in the app list. Hold your finger on the app for several seconds to bring up the secondary menu, and choose the “i” icon that indicates “App info.” Next, tap on the “Disable” switch. You’ll get a warning message to try to convince you to change your mind. Ignore that, disable the app anyway, and you’re all set. You will no longer see Gemini in your app drawer, and it will cease to work.

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw/Android 17 on Google Pixel 10 Pro XL

Reclaim your privacy from Gemini

As expected, it’s not easy to pry Gemini’s grubby claws out of an Android device. The service is ubiquitous, and as Google triples down on its AI strategy, it will only become more prevalent throughout its operating systems. However, if Gemini is not something you want anywhere near your phone and your data, these steps will help you reclaim some of your privacy and peace of mind.

​Artificial intelligence, Tech 

Since the 1980s, Cliffe Knechtle has been evangelizing on college campuses as part of his “Give Me an Answer” ministry. His son Stuart joined him in 2015, and together the father-son duo continue to conduct their open-air Q&A sessions on campuses around the nation, addressing students’ questions and doubts with the explicit goal of sharing the gospel.

In the nearly five decades “Give Me an Answer” has been operating, Cliffe has had a front-row seat to observe college students devolve in many disheartening ways.

On this episode of “Relatable” with Allie Beth Stuckey, Cliffe and Stuart explain the three biggest factors that have changed since the dawn of the ministry — and which one has been the most disturbing.

The emotional fragility of students is something Cliffe didn’t have to consider back when the ministry began — but today, it is something he is forced to adjust to everywhere he goes.

“My dad grew up in Switzerland, and when he was 18, he sat up in the Alps with a gun, watching Hitler’s Panzer divisions roll toward Switzerland. My grandpa, my dad’s dad, was in the front lines with his gun,” he reflects. “Today, when Donald Trump wins the election, university students go to a crying room to get counseling.”

This hypersensitivity has been a challenging factor to adapt to, he admits.

“I’m so grateful for Stuart and for my wife, Sharon, because they’ve helped me understand that and helped me not be quite as harsh and quite as direct as I have often unfortunately been,” Cliffe shares.

The second shift he has seen is the growing belief in moral relativism — the idea that right and wrong are subjective.

“Moral relativism and sexual immorality has become so commonplace that if you stand against that, you are really, really weird,” says Cliffe.

The third shift he has seen is the rising conviction that science is the ultimate truth.

“Unfortunately, what has become too firmly entrenched is unless you can prove it scientifically, it’s not true,” says Cliffe.

“It’s fascinating to watch — one group is totally into relativism, and the other group is into unless you can scientifically prove it, it’s not true,” he continues, “and so to be able to address both of those camps is a challenge.”

It is difficult, he explains, because the gospel, with a few minor exceptions, is largely opposed to moral relativism, and while the gospel of Jesus Christ is “based on evidence,” it is not based on “scientific proof.”

But of all three shifts, Stuart finds the second — the rising belief in moral relativism — to be the most shocking.

He shares a story from one of his college campus visits where a large group of students followed him around, pressing the issue of euthanasia.

“When I started 11 years ago with [my dad], I did not see — for the first few years, at least — any type of devaluing of human life — the relativizing of human value like I do today,” he says.

“[At one campus], this group follows me — very, very progressive group — to a corner where I was eating a sandwich. And they corner me and they say, ‘Hey, how dare you say that you are going to try and save the life of a suicidal 16-year-old woman? That’s devaluing her freedom and autonomy. If anything, you should aid her in her decision to kill herself,”’ Stuart shares.

Their certainty, he says, left him “shell-shocked.”

“They wouldn’t say get a noose or, you know, push her off a cliff. They were more so saying, though, a type of euthanization like the elderly get, you know, whether it’s a pill or something along those lines,” he says, “and so they pressed me for a good hour in a very angry way.”

“Personal autonomy and freedom is considered really the top idea and thing to pursue, even more so than the value of human life.”

To hear more about the Knechtles’ ministry, watch the episode above.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Allie beth stuckey, College campus, Indoctrination in schools, Evangelists, Blazetv show 

I was lucky to grow up during the adolescence of the tech age. Sleepovers meant Super Smash Bros. with friends. The 2000s meant building free personal websites and poking around whatever new technology had just appeared. A lot of my formative experiences came from discovering what these tools could do.

Now I’m a young father, and I want my kids to have the same chance to enjoy technology’s creativity and connectivity.

The KIDS Act risks placing more sensitive information in more places while flattening the very different ways children use technology.

Of course, security was always part of the bargain. As technology has evolved, so have the vulnerabilities. But the KIDS Act approaches those risks with a sledgehammer — and may make children less safe in the process.

A basic cybersecurity principle is that services should collect as little data as possible — certainly no more than they can reasonably protect. The KIDS Act pushes in the opposite direction.

If gaming services and social media platforms must make legally consequential decisions based on a user’s age, more of them will need some way to verify it. That means more companies asking children and parents for sensitive information — and more databases that can be breached.

The risk is not merely that more data could leak. The data itself could become more sensitive. Liability concerns may be enough to incentivize some services to demand government-issued IDs, biometric information, or similarly intrusive identifiers.

We have already seen the danger of age-verification systems creating new troves of information. In the United Kingdom, a similar law helped drive broader age-checking requirements, and a later Discord data breach exposed identity documents held by a third-party verification provider. The point is not that every age check will produce a breach. It is that collecting information that was never needed before creates something new to steal.

The KIDS Act also sweeps very different online experiences into a one-size-fits-all framework. App-based games, console games, PC games, and social platforms do not expose children to the same kinds of interactions or risks.

Parents should be vigilant about how their children use all of them. But parents are better positioned than Congress to decide which spaces are appropriate for a particular child. When we hand that judgment to a clumsy legal framework, kids may either lose access to genuine social interaction or start bypassing the safeguards altogether — often ending up in less safe corners of the internet.

That matters because online connection is not fake connection.

RELATED: British Invasion: Inside the UK’s Orwellian plan to control YouTube

Anna Barclay/Getty Images

The lockdowns made this obvious. When governments shut down schools, workplaces, churches, and ordinary social life in 2020, millions of people turned to the internet because they had nowhere else to go. Friends used Zoom to play Dungeons and Dragons. Families bonded over Animal Crossing. For many, online spaces were not a replacement for real life so much as the only part of real life still available.

The lockdowns are over, but the lesson remains. Online communities can be frivolous, toxic, educational, creative, supportive, or all of those things at once — just like offline communities.

The harms of youth overexposure to social media are real. So are the benefits lawmakers risk sweeping away. People have used online communities to find life-changing information about rare medical conditions and to build what amounts to one of the largest educational ecosystems in the world.

The problem with the KIDS Act is not that Congress wants to protect children. Parents want that too. The problem is that the law treats more data collection and centralized rules as if they were synonymous with safety.

They are not.

As a parent who grew up online, I want my kids to have access to creativity, connection, and fun without turning their identities over to every service they use. My wife and I do not even post photos of our children online. Privacy is not an abstraction in our house.

Parents already have tools. Nintendo offers parental controls, and services such as Bark and Aura can help families manage devices and online activity without requiring the government to redesign the internet around age verification.

The KIDS Act pushes in the wrong direction. It risks placing more sensitive information in more places while flattening the very different ways children use technology.

Those of us fortunate enough to grow up with the opportunities the internet created should be careful about raising the digital ladder behind us — especially when the safety measure at the top may make the fall worse.

​Age verification, Cybersecurity, Data collection, Data privacy, Opinion & analysis, Social media, Technology, Parental controls, Video games, Congress, Kids act, Safety 

A rifle-toting male allegedly tried robbing a convenience store in Oklahoma City last month — but when the clerk said there was no cash, the suspect lowered the bar just a bit.

KOKH-TV reported that officers were called to a possible armed robbery at a convenience store near N.E. 63rd and Bryant Avenue on July 16.

‘He’s a revolving door; he knows nothing will happen …’

When police arrived at the scene, the station said a store employee told investigators a male wearing a gray mask over his head tried to rob him.

The employee said the suspect was carrying an AR-15-style rifle and demanded “$100 to $200,” KOKH said, citing the incident report.

However, when the employee said he didn’t have any money, the suspect grabbed about five Hostess snacks from the shelf and walked out, the station reported.

RELATED: Inmate hands judge ‘wad’ of counterfeit cash to pay bond — then actually tells judge to ‘keep the change’: Police

PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images

Authorities later arrested Tobias Braddy on a complaint of attempted robbery with a dangerous weapon, the station said.

WKRC-TV said Braddy was taken to the Oklahoma County Detention Center, but Blaze News last week checked the detention center’s inmate list, and Braddy wasn’t on it.

One commenter under KOKH’s Facebook post about the incident said, “He’s a revolving door; he knows nothing will happen …”

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Oklahoma county sheriff’s office, Arrest, Bizarre news, Attempted robbery with a dangerous weapon, Oklahoma city, Crime 

Across Canada, Europe, and a growing number of U.S. states, assisted death is increasingly presented as relief from suffering. The Netherlands even uses “unbearable suffering with no prospect of improvement” as part of its legal standard for euthanasia.

Before lawmakers and physicians define suffering as unbearable, they should listen to someone who has borne it.

No one can bear a lifetime of suffering at once. But the shepherd gives grace for the next 24 hours.

In a recent interview with my longtime friend Joni Eareckson Tada, she addressed California’s End of Life Option Act.

“It’s almost like people who feel they live with unbearable suffering can just move to California and end it all,” she said.

“Unbearable” does a great deal of heavy lifting in that sentence.

A diving accident at 17 left Joni a quadriplegic. Now turning 77, she has endured two rounds of breast cancer and decades of chronic pain.

By almost any ordinary measure, Joni has endured what lawmakers increasingly describe as unbearable suffering. Yet she is still here. Still serving. Still living a life of substance and consequence.

She has written more than 60 books, reaches more than a million radio listeners, and leads a worldwide disability ministry. Few living Christian voices speak more clearly to those who suffer.

At the end of our interview, I asked whether she would ever retire.

“No.”

Joni cited Paul, torn between departing to be with Christ and remaining because others still needed him. Heaven was “far better,” but the work was unfinished.

She does not minimize pain. She rejects death as its most compassionate answer.

I have spent 40 years beside my wife, Gracie, who has endured 98 operations, bilateral amputations, and relentless pain.

Joni sees unbearable suffering from the wheelchair. I see it from beside the wheelchair.

She sees the suffering person think, “My life has become a burden.”

I see the caregiver think, “This burden is mine alone.”

My own recent cancer treatment brought a familiar question to the front row: Who will care for the person I love when I no longer can?

As assisted death spreads, vulnerable people can hear another question beneath the language of choice: Would everyone else be relieved if I were gone?

That is where compassion can become something darker.

RELATED: Euthanasia and the lie of the ‘good death’

Mininyx Doodle/iStock/Getty Images

Death can begin to look like the answer to suffering we fear, consequences we refuse to bear, or lives that ask more of us than we believe we can give.

The prevailing creed is autonomy: I alone decide what suffering I will endure and what another person’s life may require of me. The same logic appears in abortion: No life may demand more of me than I am willing to give.

But once death becomes an accepted answer to suffering, the judgment does not remain entirely private. Families, physicians, insurers, and institutions inevitably begin weighing burdens, costs, prognosis, and quality of life.

They may call that compassion. Christian compassion asks something harder.

Compassion enters suffering. It does not eliminate the sufferer.

If suffering is merely random, eliminating the sufferer can masquerade as mercy. But if a sovereign God rules over this world, suffering is never meaningless or beyond His reach.

Christianity rejects that counterfeit compassion. We entrust ourselves to Christ and enter the burdens of others.

Human worth is not conferred by health, independence, or usefulness. God made us in His image. Paul calls members of Christ’s body who appear weaker “indispensable” (1 Corinthians 12:22).

But what sustains us when the pain does not end?

Joni’s answer is not willpower. Gracie’s answer is not optimism. They are sustained by Christ.

What does that look like?

No one can bear a lifetime of suffering all at once. But the shepherd gives grace for the next 24 hours. Psalm 23 does not promise a short valley. It promises we will not be abandoned within it.

Following Gracie’s 92nd operation, she returned to her hospital room tangled in tubes and IV lines. A young nursing assistant came in to check on her.

Still emerging from anesthesia, Gracie sensed something was wrong.

“How are you?” she whispered.

Tears filled the woman’s eyes as she confided that her marriage was in trouble.

Gracie threaded her hand through the lines and took the woman’s hand. Then she weakly quoted her friend Joni: “God permits what He hates to accomplish what He loves.”

Neither woman could see what God was doing. Neither believed He was doing nothing.

RELATED: The small mercy of a pressed pillowcase

zsv3207/iStock/Getty Images

The woman’s shoulders straightened, and she breathed a little easier.

Gracie was one beggar showing another where she had found bread.

We do not become someone else’s savior. Even from within our own anguish, we can help people catch their breath and point them to the Savior who understands their suffering and whose purposes extend beyond what we can explain.

“Bear one another’s burdens,” Paul writes, “and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2).

That command applies to everyone who belongs to Christ. It cannot be outsourced.

If we say Christ is sufficient, visible obedience should follow.

Do we take Him at His word? If we do, how would anyone know?

They would see us entering the burdens of others.

Sometimes to sit. Sometimes to carry. At all times, to point to the Savior.

​Euthanasia, Opinion & analysis, Chronic pain, Caregiving, Faith, Maid canada, Assisted suicide, Death, Suffering, California, End of life option act 

On a recent episode of his “Interesting Times” podcast, New York Times opinion columnist Ross Douthat interviewed Yale law and history professor Samuel Moyn.

One particular clip from the episode has gone wildly viral. In it, Moyn suggests that minors should have some stake in elections because decisions about the future impact them. But since the law prohibits their casting votes, another eligible class should be charged with casting those votes on their behalf.

But his most shocking claim came next.

When Douthat inquired about the parents of children being the ones to cast those additional votes, Moyn argued against the idea.

His reasoning? Parents aren’t the best ones to determine what’s in their kids’ best interest.

“Because there’s a divergence of interests between parents and children. And I think it’s likelier that young people — not people who are raising families — will have the best insight into the interests of children,” Moyn said.

“I think parents generally confuse the interests of their family with the interests of their children. Part of our goal, I think, as parents, but also as a society, is trying to make sure that children aren’t the hostages of their parents,” he added.

On this episode of “Live Free,” BlazeTV host and Lakepointe Church Pastor Josh Howerton exposes not only what he sees as the spiritual danger behind Moyn’s words but also how popular this toxic ideology has become in our current culture.

Moyn’s belief that what’s in children’s best interest cannot be determined by their parents, Howerton says, is “emblematic of thinking that is far more prevalent and far more influential in our culture than people realize.”

Moyn, he explains, is not some “fringe” thinker. “This is the person that’s training the most prominent legal minds in our nation,” he points out.

Moyn’s proposal to shift the proxy voting power for children away from parents and give it to young adults is the “demonic reverse image of Malachi 4:6,” says Howerton.

“Malachi 4:6 says that what the Spirit of God does … is He turns the hearts of the children to the fathers and the fathers to the children. What unholy spirits do is they turn the hearts of the fathers against the children and the hearts of the children against the fathers,” he explains.

The three main “streams of progressivism” push this spiritually toxic ideology, says Howerton.

He then explains how each goes about poisoning the minds of kids against their parents:

Critical theory teaches children to “see their parents as racist oppressors that they have to oppose in order to stand on the side of justice”; queer theory “disciples kids to see their parents’ views on gender, marriage, and sexuality as bigoted and repressive, so they have to rebel against their parents to ‘be themselves”’; and hyper-therapy culture “disciples children to see their family of origin … as the source of every problem that they ever have, so they have to go no-contact or separate from their parents to be happy.”

All three of these streams are specifically “designed to reverse-disciple children to turn the hearts of children against the fathers,” says Howerton.

Moyn’s proposal is simply “a fourth way” to do this, he argues.

Join BlazeTV+ and start watching Josh today at blazetv.com/JOSH. Use promo code JOSH40 to get $40 off your subscription.

​Critical theory, Fathers, Josh howerton, Queer theory, Ross douthat, New york times, Blazetv show 

If you were a kid in the 1960s or ’70s, chances are you watched “Davey and Goliath” without ever seeking it out. It was just there. On Sunday mornings, when television offered slim pickings for a kid, you might stumble across a slightly stiff clay boy named Davey Hansen and his morose talking dog, Goliath.

“But, Daaavey …” the dog would protest in his deep, reproachful voice whenever his owner was about to do something foolish.

An entire children’s television plot about two boys looking forward to Holy Communion. Try pitching that one today.

Unless you paid attention to the opening credits — the Luther rose, the Lutheran Church credit, and the theme music, Martin Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” — you might not even have realized you were watching religious programming. Yes, Davey moved at a less frenetic pace than most children’s fare, had no toys or breakfast cereal to sell, and usually learned a lesson before the credits rolled. Otherwise, it was just another kids’ show.

Looking back, that’s the remarkable part. A church-funded children’s show could simply turn up on commercial television alongside everything else, with no explanation required.

‘Gumby’ gospel

In 1958, Franklin Clark Fry, president of the United Lutheran Church in America, committed an astonishing $1 million of church money to creating a television program for children. The church’s original idea was to put a minister in front of a camera to deliver short sermonettes.

Fortunately, Dick Sutcliffe thought this sounded like terrible television.

Sutcliffe, a former newspaperman working in the church’s broadcasting operation, didn’t object to the content. As his daughter later recalled his verdict: “The theology is fine, but it’s not good for television.”

Instead, he thought about his own young son. “What would I say to Mike about God?” he asked himself. “And how would I say it to him?”

Sutcliffe conceived a series of modern parables and hired Art and Ruth Clokey, the husband-and-wife team behind “Gumby,” to make them. Ruth was herself the daughter of a Lutheran minister. Sutcliffe wrote the first script, and the Clokeys produced the 15-minute pilot, “Lost in a Cave,” in 1960.

“Davey and Goliath” premiered in syndication the following February and soon reached nearly 200 television markets — thanks to a distribution strategy hard for television stations to resist: The Lutherans gave it away.

Commercial stations got polished children’s programming; the church got access to American living rooms. By 1973, an audience study estimated that “Davey and Goliath” was reaching 5.1 million people a week.

Imagine a mainline Protestant denomination attempting something that ambitious today.

God willing

“Davey and Goliath” was no “VeggieTales.” Still, Davey’s family went to church, and God came up a lot.

And the Christianity amounted to considerably more than “be nice.”

In the very first episode, “Lost in a Cave,” Davey hears his father say “God willing” and wants to know what he means. His father tells him that God cares about what happens to every one of us because he loves us.

Then Davey gets lost in a cave.

A guide searches for the injured boy and eventually rescues him. Back in the sunlight, Davey grasps the point of the whole adventure: The guide came looking for him when he was lost; God seeks and cares for us when we are lost too.

Other episodes went considerably farther. In “The Family of God,” Davey and his friend Jonathan are downright excited about receiving their first Communion. Another boy, Cisco, is decidedly less impressed: “Communion? Who cares?”

Davey and Jonathan spend much of the episode trying to convince him otherwise. Pastor Miller, meanwhile, visits the Hansen home to make sure Davey understands what he is about to receive, explaining the bread and wine in relation to Jesus’ death on the cross and the unity of Christians as the family of Christ.

An entire children’s television plot about two boys looking forward to Holy Communion.

Try pitching that one today.

More than the ‘Davey face’

For all this God talk, “Davey and Goliath” was very much a product of mainline Protestantism, which by the early 1960s increasingly understood fighting racial prejudice as part of its Christian mission. The show addressed race and integration remarkably early.

Jonathan was black, and Cisco was Hispanic. Jonathan in particular was among television’s early examples of a black child depicted simply as the close friend of a white child. “The Polka-Dot Tie,” from 1961, tackled racial prejudice, and later episodes made an increasingly integrated cast part of Davey’s ordinary world.

Sutcliffe’s daughter later offered a wonderfully concise explanation of her father’s thinking: “Dad would say if we’re going to talk about God loving all of us, we ought to get to see more than the Davey face.”

The social message still had an explicitly theological source. God loved everybody, so Davey’s little clay world ought to have everybody in it.

RELATED: When Archie Comics found Jesus: Strange artifacts from a once-Christian culture

Albert L. Ortega/Sidney Morning Herald/Getty Images

Staying power

“Davey and Goliath” had surprising staying power. After the initial run of 39 episodes and four specials, the Lutheran Church in America funded another 27 episodes and two specials in the 1970s. The last original special aired in 1975, although reruns remained a Sunday-morning fixture into the early ’80s.

Then even that began to change. According to the Associated Press, commercial stations discovered they could make money selling airtime around other religious programming — much of it produced by conservative Christians — rather than carrying the Lutherans’ free little claymation show. “Davey and Goliath” gradually disappeared from mainstream television.

The United Lutheran Church had meanwhile become part of the Lutheran Church in America in 1962. Another round of mergers in 1988 produced the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Along with churches, pension obligations, and hymnals, the ELCA inherited an unusual piece of intellectual property: “Davey and Goliath.”

And eventually it decided Davey was worth dusting off.

Snowboard synodality

The duo’s first resurrection was an unlikely one. In 2001, the ELCA licensed “Davey and Goliath” for a Mountain Dew commercial that gently spoofed the characters’ hopeless squareness. The joke worked precisely because viewers still recognized them. Better yet for the ELCA, the royalties helped finance a proper comeback.

In 2004, after nearly three decades without a new adventure, Davey and his dog returned in the hour-long “Davey and Goliath’s Snowboard Christmas.”

Davey now has two new friends: Sam, who is Jewish, and Yasmeen, who is Muslim. The three go snowboarding while comparing Christmas, Hanukkah, and Ramadan and learning to respect one another’s religious traditions. ELCA staff worked with Jewish and Muslim scholars on the script.

ECLA communications director Eric Shafer described the resulting program to the Associated Press as “very much an interfaith show about the oneness of the three faces of Abraham.”

In 1961, Davey’s lessons about how to treat other people proceeded from a specifically Christian account of reality: God, Scripture, church, Christ on the cross, Holy Communion. By 2004, interfaith understanding and inclusion had moved much closer to the center of what Davey’s church wanted him to tell the wider world.

It might be asking a lot of a little clay boy and his talking dog, but “Davey and Goliath” remained in Lutheran hands long enough to become a potent symbol of American religious decline.

Somewhere between the cave and the snowboard slope, “Davey and Goliath” changed — from teaching Christian truths with a light touch to burying them beneath universalist platitudes. And in that journey, you can see American mainline Protestantism changing with it.

​Art and ruth clokey, Davey and goliath, Franklin clark fry, Gumby, Kids television, Lifestyle, Sunday mornings, United lutheran church, Syndication, Ecla, Mainline protestantism, Culture, Faith 

The conga line of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” guest hosts has us thinking the unthinkable: Do we miss the real deal?

Make no mistake, Kimmel’s Trump derangement long ago gave the comic osteoporosis of the funny bone. But a quick sample of this week’s guest host reminds us there are even worse options than the former “Man Show” star.

It appears that the creative team used AI to help design the Lobo character played by Jason Momoa.

Take “Black-ish” alum Anthony Anderson. To the actor’s credit, he hasn’t cried like a widdle baby like Kimmel sometimes does. Still, one of his recent monologues proved painful.

A sample?

Apparently, after the NATO summit last month, Trump hid inside a catering cart to sneak out of Turkey due to security threats. And let’s give it up. Let’s give it up to the Secret Service. Do you know how hard it is to sneak a pig out of Turkey? … That’s the same way he used to get onto Epstein’s plane.

Comedy needs a kernel of truth to be funny. And as we’ve known for some time, Trump wasn’t a presence on Epstein Air, regular or otherwise.

Someone else was though. Remember when all the late-night shows piled on former President Bill Clinton for taking the Lolita Express a reported 26 times?

Somehow, Kimmel and co. forgot that news …

AI/DC

There’s a morbidly funny “Simpsons” meme that captures the “piling on” of anyone who has already suffered enough.

“Stop! He’s already dead!”

Now, it’s “Supergirl’s” turn. The Warner Bros. bust flamed out this year with critics and moviegoers. It stalled the DC Comics franchise and put overseer James Gunn in the hot seat.

The clunker is facing new problems this week. A featurette sharing some behind-the-scenes magic from the movie revealed the production used AI to enhance the movie.

In particular, it appears that the creative team used AI to help design the Lobo character played by Jason Momoa.

That’s a no-no in Hollywood these days (even if more and more artists are copping to using the technology).

Team Warner Bros. yanked the video off of YouTube, but the news went viral all the same. Turns out Kryptonite isn’t the only thing Supergirl fears …

Presidential pardon

There’s a reason the legacy media is suddenly in love with all things “South Park.” It has nothing to do with Cartman, Butters, or the show’s no-holds-barred approach to comedy.

Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone pounced on President Donald Trump all last season. Hard. Relentlessly. Now, suddenly, the show has fawning articles across the media landscape.

Imagine that!

Deadline did the honors this week, recalling how the show has tackled American presidents over its 30-year run. Yet one leader got very little attention. Hmmm. As the trade rag writes:

“Curiously, Joseph Robinette Biden — 47th President of the United States — has never appeared in a significant role in ‘South Park,’ having had his animated cameo cut from [season 12 episode] ‘About Last Night …’ There were fewer seasons during his presidency, so that may be why.”

Fewer seasons. Yeah, that’s the ticket. It has nothing to do with the creators ignoring a leader with obvious cognitive decline or a vice president known for her word salad spinning …

With cancellations like these …

Blacklists ain’t what they used to be.

Once upon a time, a communist sympathizer would be hounded out of Hollywood. Or worse.

In recent times, all it took to get blacklisted was suggesting you voted for President Donald Trump. James Woods hasn’t had a major starring role in a decade, meaning La La Land would rather ignore his two Oscar nominations to make sure a free thinker didn’t grace the movie set.

And of course, he’s far from alone. Cheryl Hines’ bustling career dried up the moment her husband, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., joined team Trump.

Now, ex-“Scream” actress Melissa Barrera is complaining about her blacklisting for her anti-Israel musings.

“There are a lot of people that got fired for basically saying Palestinians deserve human rights and they shouldn’t be getting bombed and attacked in this way.”

“Basically” does a ton of heavy lifting in that quote. Except that’s not why a microscopically small group of stars, including Barrera, suffered professional punishment. Nor does it explain why she’s so … busy … all of a sudden.

Her recent credits include “Your Monster” (2024), “Abigail” (2024), “The Copenhagen Test” (2025), and the upcoming “Black Tides” and “The Collaboration.” Plus, she just made her Broadway debut earlier this year.

Worst. Blacklisting. Ever.

​Anthony anderson, Bill clinton, Celebrity, Cheryl hines, Entertainment, Hollywood, James gunn, Jason momoa, Jimmy kimmel live, Lifestyle, Matt stone, Melissa barrera, Movies, South park, Supergirl, Palestine, Israel, Joe biden, Toto recall