Editors’ Note: This is Part I of a two-part essay.

What is the right or the best way for Christians to live in a non-Christian world? How can we, who find ultimate meaning and hope in a source of truth beyond scientific demonstration or democratic construction, best serve a country and a community that increasingly disdains our faith and the moral understanding that faith supports? In a new book, Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy, Jonathan Rauch, a candid atheist, proposes a mutually beneficial alliance between Christianity and secular liberalism. His proposal includes a surprising appeal to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) to join his efforts to cement a new liberal-Christian friendship and a still more surprising appeal to other Christians to model their political theologies on the Latter-day Saint understanding of “agency.”  

While the latter strategy seems an unlikely way to engage theologically serious Protestants or Catholics, it is undeniable that the LDS-directed appeal has met with some early signs of success among some members of the Utah-based faith. More generally, Rauch’s ideas interest us insofar as their reception is symptomatic of a psychological and sociological need felt by many Christians. For believers eager to have a voice in a secular liberal society or simply to find peace and a home in such a society, and thus to avoid dispiriting “polarization,” Rauch’s appeal appears to resonate with a surprising power. 

While the author’s efforts are in the end of no great significance either in terms of political philosophy or of Christian theology, they do provide a telling case study of the problem of Christianity and secular liberalism as we are living it today. Rauch’s fledgling reflections on the status of “agency” in Christianity can prompt a serious return to the perennial problem, both practical and theological, of how best to interpret and conserve the moral liberty that liberalism, at its best, has fostered. Engagement with Rauch’s argument may thus yield lessons for all Christians and for all friends of a sustainable liberalism.

Jonathan Rauch on Christian Politics: “Thin,” “Sharp,” and “Thick”

The resonance of Jonathan Rauch’s appeal for a liberal-Christian friendship has been undeniable among certain members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Rauch received what can only be called a hero’s welcome at Brigham Young University’s Provo, Utah campus last January. (BYU-Provo is the flagship institution of higher education owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.) Hosted by BYU’s Wheatley Institute, a think tank focused on “the core institutions of family, religion, and constitutional government,” he addressed a packed ballroom of eager listeners to whom were distributed hundreds of free copies of his book. 

This event was prepared, moreover, by a well-organized publicity campaign touting Rauch’s religious outreach, notably in the LDS church-owned daily newspaper, the Deseret News. Many prominent Latter-day Saints were apparently encouraged to receive the suggestion of the nationally prestigious journalist and  emphatically avowed atheist (an avowal that is clearly re-affirmed in the book in question) that a certain feature of LDS theology is now crucial to liberalism, precisely because it holds the key (in this atheist’s considered opinion) to what it means to be like Christ. Clearly there is something appealing in Rauch’s proposition that Christianity has “broken its bargain with democracy,” and that LDS theology is somehow best equipped to restore the friendship between Christianity and liberalism. 

Rauch objects to the way that religion and politics have gotten mixed up together in contemporary politics. But he is by no means arguing that they should be completely separate. Whereas he once thought the best way to deal with the religion and politics question was to require a strict “separation between church and state,” he now sees this approach as simplistic and inadequate. The problem today is that religion (in particular the former majority belief, which Rauch labels “white Protestantism”) is bound up with politics in the wrong way. This is what he calls “sharp,” that is, politicized, partisan, divisive, even “secularized” Christianity. His aim is to promote what he considers the right way of “aligning” religion and politics. This depends upon the active social and political role of what he calls “thick” Christianity.

“Sharp,” the reader will have guessed, is bad: “sharp Christianity” is conservative white Protestantism. It is “sharp” because it has been politicized in a conservative way. “Thick” Christianity is good, because it adds moral substance to liberalism but without adding anything “illiberal.” 

But let us start where Rauch starts, that is, with the political and religious developments that set the stage for the rivalry between versions of Christianity that he labels “thin,” “sharp,” and “thick.” Rauch defines the “thinning” of Christianity, not with reference to its doctrinal substance or salvific power (in which of course he, as an atheist, has no intrinsic interest), but in relation to the requirements of liberal democracy. He seems to feel no need to spare the religious sensibilities of the “thick” Christian allies he is courting. Since he regards the normalizing and constitutionalizing of “gay marriage” as an irreversible “advance of enlightened secular values,” as a matter of the “very real social and moral progress” of “secular culture,” there is no question of opening a conversation with those traditional Christians who are obviously on the wrong side of history. “I am not on board,” he plainly confesses, “with those who hanker for a time when ‘morality,’ ‘faith,’ and ‘tradition’ gave cover to oppression, superstition, and dogma.” The scare quotes make it clear enough how little interest the author has in engaging a conversation with any who might still harbor any sympathies with an old-fashioned, let us say “pre-liberal” understanding—Tocqueville’s understanding, for example, of Christianity’s moral contribution to liberalism. 

In any case, Rauch does not hesitate to ridicule the idea of a personal God, a “big Father in the sky,” though he then recounts how he learned to recognize a possibility he had as a youth found oxymoronic, that is, the existence of “a good Christian.” And so Rauch is willing to relativize his atheism, his allergy to the idea of the “big Father,” as a kind of idiosyncratic “color-blindness.” Still, he shows no signs of hesitating in his atheistic commitment: “faith is a part of the human experience in which I do not share.” It is from this standpoint that he proposes to instruct the reader on the true, operative meaning of Christianity in American society today.

Having outgrown his earlier, simplistic strict separationist understanding of the relationship between Christianity and liberalism, Rauch explains that he is now ready to acknowledge that liberal democracy needs a kind of Christianity ready to “align itself” with liberalism. Here, in an apparent concession to Christian sensibilities, he insists on a rather careful distinction between “aligning” and “supporting:” “religion’s job is not to support republican government,” but rather to stabilize it by teaching virtue. But then, in apparent disregard for this fine distinction, Rauch goes so far as to cite George F. Will’s 1984 “classic book Statecraft as Soulcraft: the businesses of making public laws and shaping public morals are inevitably interwoven” (my emphasis). This formulation is indeed very far removed from a “strict separationist” sensibility. But how can religion “align” itself with liberalism, even be “interwoven” with it, in the task of shaping the souls of citizens without at some level in or some way “supporting” Rauch’s liberal (that is, atheistic and “scientific”) understanding of truth and of humanity?

Rauch’s Rational Liberalism

Rauch defines liberalism by the belief that all human beings are free and equal, that the people are sovereign, or, rather, that no one is “in charge,” because society is governed not by rulers but by rules. We are thus asked to believe that the “rules” we must follow favor no class of persons and are absolutely neutral with respect to contending views of human flourishing, as if a regime of laws, institutions, and regulations could somehow equally honor all possible priorities of the governed. The essential task of “shaping public morals” can apparently be achieved without favoring one or another idea of human meaning. For Rauch, the rules in question include, not only the basic political principles (those of the US Constitution, most notably), but also those of “market capitalism” and of “science.” The rules that are taken to be inherent in this impersonal trinity (rule of law, capitalism, science) represent the institutional framework that accords with the belief (apparently a self-evidently rational truth, independent of any religious foundation) that “all humans are free and equal.”   

It is not clear how the ascendancy of “science” is supposed to align with what appears to be the fundamental ethical truth of freedom and equality. Rauch acknowledges that modern naturalistic science, which sees all reality as finally reducible to the chance motion of blind matter, cannot address the question of the purpose of human existence, and he has no problem understanding himself as a “soulless clump of cells.” But “philosophers and societies” need answers to certain questions, even if Rauch does not, and thus on pragmatic grounds he is ready to accept pragmatically the notion of God as a “philosophical shortcut.” He thus stipulates that societies need some foundational paradigm of knowledge, and he sees the authority of “science” as a bulwark against irrationalism both left and right. Concerning the left, Rauch acknowledges the threat posed by postmodernist and neo-Marxist enemies of reason. As for the right, Rauch warns against MAGA “conspiracy theorists” and “science-deniers,” as well as against those who would promote the direct public relevance of religious beliefs. 

Rauch seems completely untouched by any concern that scientists as human beings themselves be influenced in any way  by partial or partisan views of the truth or driven by motives other than some assumed fusion of pure love of truth and pure benevolence toward humanity—understood, that is, as pure, selfless commitment to the ideals, mysterious in their origin and foundation, of freedom and equality. 

Rauch’s confidence in the alliance between liberal democracy, market capitalism, and science thus appears quite untroubled.  He imagines our political order, not as a form of moderated democratic self-government, but rather as a regime, or rather a kind of anti-regime, a neutral system, where impersonal rules are sufficient to organize society and where an institutionalized “science” fulfills the whole vocation of reason. Society needs knowledge, he posits; and human beings are admittedly fallible. Therefore we must trust in some supposedly morally neutral, non-partisan, non-religious, and progressive “constitution of knowledge.”

This is Rauch’s portrait of a rational liberal order. The author long considered such an order complete and self-sufficient, and regarded religious beliefs as personal idiosyncrasies that could be tolerated as long as they confined themselves strictly to the private realm. But of late Rauch has seen through the “wall of separation” view of religion in liberal democracy and experienced a kind of religious awakening, by no means an awakening to the truth of religion, but rather to the usefulness of religion (the right kind of religion, to be sure), as a kind of complement to the rational liberalism that defines his own worldview.  

Aligning Christianity with Liberalism

It is clear that Rauch’s stabilizing “alignment” between Christianity and democracy brings with it a certain perspective on ultimate truth, and that any contribution of Christianity must be provided on the terms of the “soulcraft” established by secular liberalism and its purely “scientific” constitution of knowledge. There can be no question, certainly, of secularism’s retreating in the slightest degree from its commitment to the “moral progress” represented by the radical redefinition of marriage, which presupposed a liberation from oppressive “dogma” or “superstition” under the cover of so-called “faith,” “tradition,” and “morality.” 

The progressive-liberationist gains of just the last decade (which depended, it should be noted, not on democratic deliberation or, for that matter, on some impersonal scientific process, but on the dictate of the Supreme Court) must now be considered essential to liberalism itself. The “bargain” that Rauch proposes renewing between Christianity and secular liberalism is very clearly to be negotiated under a post-Obergefell regime.  Still, Rauch is now ready to concede that liberalism needs to “bargain” with Christianity to fill the “God-shaped hole in American life.” He is even prepared to acknowledge that liberalism and religious faith are not only “instrumentally interdependent” but are in fact intrinsically reliant” on each other “to build a morally and epistemically complete and coherent account of the world,” but somehow so as not to compromise in any way the secular and supposedly scientific self-understanding of liberalism.  

It is far from clear how this expression of Rauch’s openness to religion is to be squared with his modern natural-scientific understanding of liberalism’s “constitution of knowledge,” not to mention his personal self-satisfaction as an atheist and “soulless clump of cells.” Clearly, Rauch has his work cut out for him in proposing a version of Christianity that will “align” with his post-Obergefell liberalism, and even contribute to its “soulcraft,” but without conjuring any of the dogmatism and superstition of Christianity’s past. Rauch seeks a Christianity that will somehow complete liberalism in practice, but without interfering in any substantial way with its “scientific” epistemology or with its “progressive” understanding of “freedom” and “equality.”

Rauch proposes to explain the necessary “alignment” of liberalism and Christianity by reference to the four existential questions to which “most people” feel the need for answers. These he presents in the form of a mnemonic, that is, the “four M’s:” mortality, morality, murder, and miracles. Rauch’s own blithely reductionist nineteenth-century view of the “strictly scientific” account of humanity is that “[a]ll of our loves, hopes, and fears are the result of chance combinations of organic molecules.”  

As a “scientific materialist,” Rauch admittedly has no answer to this rather dreary, if not desperate, vision, but somehow, he claims, this really is not very much a problem for him. But, happily, for others less “weird” than himself, “in those moral and spiritual areas which science cannot reach, we are just as entitled to accept the guidance of faith as to reject it.”  After all, we need some answer to the central question of Plato’s Republic:  why should we be just, or do the right thing, even when we know we can get away with doing what society considers “wrong”? Rauch is willing to admit that, for now, secular thinking cannot provide a foundation to morality.  Neither can Christianity, really, he thinks, but it cheats with its talk of “God” in a way that can provide a necessary service to a secular liberal society. So, despite the fact that the belief in God “breaks the universe” or completely short-circuits any rational stance toward existence, Rauch is willing to befriend Christians, or, rather, to accept their friendship, in order to bolster the moral basis of liberalism.  Apparently, Rauch sees this need as temporary, since he has faith in scientific reason in the long term, that is, faith in the wholesome “directionality” of “secular thinking,” in the “objective advance of moral knowledge” on the basis of “reason.” Meanwhile, along the way to this “objective” moral knowledge, Rauch would have us follow the rules of his scientific Constitution of Knowledge (capitals in the original), which requires us to take our public bearings from “a coherent, reliable, and socially adjudicable account of the material world” (my emphasis).

In Rauch’s view, both secular liberalism and Christianity are insufficient to guide and sustain human society. Both involve a certain faith in the eventual vindication of one or another view of reality and human meaning. But the Christian faith can have no independent public standing, since it is in the end a delusion that requires the positing of an unknowable “God.” Faith in the secular Constitution of Knowledge, based ultimately on a materialist view of reality and of humanity, has proven to be shareable and reliable. Thus only secular and scientific materialism can provide the basis of a shared and publicly authoritative understanding of reality. Christianity can support the authority of secular liberalism by supporting its attendant morality with stories concerning “God.” 

In Rauch’s vision of a partnership between liberalism and Christianity, there can thus be no question who the senior partner is. Adopting a liberal strategy that in its essentials is at least as old as John Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration, Rauch invites a moral and political alliance with a version of Christianity for which the moral essentials are for all practical purposes the same as those of secular liberalism. Any additional moral beliefs that Christianity might bring to the partnership would thus be tolerated insofar as these do not conflict with the certified secular interests of society, that is, the interests of the individual understood as a material and yet somehow self-owning or autonomous being.

Political Christianity, Good and Bad

While still on the path toward this secular “moral knowledge,” however, Rauch acknowledges a “cultural trade deficit” resulting from religion’s failure to answer liberalism’s need for religious support. Religion in America, in particular, the religion of American white Protestants, has failed to keep its part of the implicit bargain between Christianity and constitutionalism that has sustained us so far. Rauch dismisses the possibility that secular liberal elites might have violated the terms of this bargain by, say, espousing and imposing a worldview incompatible with Christianity. The critique of contemporary liberalism from the standpoint of more conservative Christianity and a traditional moral framework is nothing but a “straw man” argument. The notion of a legal attack on Christianity is fanciful. American Christians are the least persecuted in world history; even the Supreme Court is on their side. Still, Rauch concedes that there is some truth in the conservative complaint that cultural elites have long been waging war on morally conservative believers. “That is true to an extent,” he avers, even granting that “America’s secular culture has been adversarial to conservative Christian values . . . [and] has been aggressive and successful in moving the Overton window in its direction, especially on cultural issues.” 

Obviously, as he confesses, this profound transformation has been massively beneficial to homosexuals like himself, “and we don’t apologize.” But none of this counts for much as a grievance, because the elite warfare is motivated not by their adversaries’ Christianity, but by their conservatism. In any case, although Rauch might be willing to admit that some degree of partisanship and political activism on the part of “white evangelicals” might be considered acceptable, the decisive practical point for us here and now is this: “Absolutely nothing about secular liberalism required white evangelicals to embrace the likes of Donald Trump.”

All that is needed to overcome the illiberal temptation of some Christians is for them to understand their Christianity as perfectly compatible with liberalism as Rauch understands it, that is, post-Obergefell liberalism. Thus, rather than engaging any non-liberal moral or political propositions (say, for example, the question of the conception of sexuality and of the family most conducive to human well-being) on their merits, Rauch warns of “sharp” Christianity’s vague, incoherent, baseless and authoritarian “catastrophism” that evokes the specter of the Inquisition, of pogroms, and of the Crusades. 

Rauch explicitly invites Christianity to partner with liberalism, or with a certain liberalism, yet, at the same time, he diagnoses the problem with Christianity as resulting from succumbing to the temptation to be “political.” But has Christianity ever been simply “apolitical?” How might one even conceive of a Christian worldview without political implications, without a stake in the fundamental direction of our country? Rauch is well aware that American Christianity’s self-understanding has always been bound up with fundamental political questions. But his view of religion’s purpose is that it “works best when it adapts to meet the needs of real people.”   

Speaking “for many gay and Jewish Americans, and also many women and for the matter Christians,” Rauch posits that to be “more Christlike” can be reduced to being “more tolerant,” and, again, more “reality-based.” If “secularization” is understood as being tolerantly reality-based, or, if I may translate, tolerant of emerging social realities that Rauch favors, then of course secularization is a good thing. Thus he credits the mainline churches in the twentieth century with the noble and “well-intentioned gamble” of becoming “the church of social justice,” but recognizes the risk inherent in this strategy, that is, that mainline Protestantism thereby ended up standing for nothing. Religious zeal was diverted into (progressive) politics, which led to the collapse of the “ecumenical churches.” Rauch would love to see a revival of the mainline, with its “noble aspirations,” but given the unlikelihood of such a development, he proposes a renewal of the American alliance of Christianity and liberalism on new terms: Christianity must retreat from politics, except insofar as it forms the personal virtues and attitudes needed to support liberalism. 

Rauch’s quest for religious support for contemporary liberalism bears a striking resemblance to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s finally contradictory wish, at the end of his Social Contract, for a new “civil religion” fashioned for the moral needs of his political ideal of equality and solidarity embodied in a general will. This purely democratic general will excludes all appeal to a higher authority, natural or divine. But it needs the support of a religion just religious enough to motivate obedience to the laws, yet not so religious as to pose any threat to a tolerant and agnostic civility.  

To promote his new liberal civil religion, Rauch ventures to “skate out on thin ice” by lecturing Christians about their faith, the same faith that he regards as an appalling short-circuiting of reason.  Rauch proposes that Christianity, reconceived as the perfect ally of liberalism, should be defined by three injunctions: “Don’t be afraid. Imitate Jesus. Forgive each other.” These mantras are the key to reversing the tendency of American evangelicalism to become conservative and thus “antithetical to authentic Christianity.” And they all reduce, it is clear, to one negative injunction: Don’t try to win in the political realm! Let it go, forget the culture war, and focus on eternity, while accommodating the unquestionable reality of the emergent new society that Rauch so values. 

Rauch is indeed amazingly open in his pleading with Christians to abandon all hope of substantial participation as Christians in public life. Rather than seeking “dominion,” he proposes, they should have an attitude of “exile.” “Can conservative white Protestantism make its peace with exilic life?” he asks. Rauch’s solicitude for the spiritual purity of his cultural rivals is touching. And here again, Rauch follows in a long line of liberal political theorists, going all the way back to John Locke, who argue: you Christians say there is another world. Well, we’ll concede that world to you, just do not interfere with our rational management of this world. 

Rauch makes a fair and important point about Christianity and politics that we should pause to appreciate. Certainly it is true that believers should strive to adopt a perspective of eternity, to trust in God’s grace and his providence. There is no doubt that politics can loom too large in the concerns of some Christians and can even become the object of a fanatical idolatry. Trump-adoration, where it exists, is a case-in-point. The fact that Rauch would be happy to endorse a partisan Christianity that embraced his partisan liberal understanding of justice should not prevent us from accepting his warning against the political “thinning” of Christianity on the political right. What should concern us is the speciousness of his invitation to adopt his supposedly apolitical interpretation of Christianity, one that just happens to hit the sweet spot of his post-Obergefell progressive (but perhaps not by post-2015 standards “radical”) political vision. Christians should not need a confirmed atheistic progressive to tell them that God’s love and their eternal souls are much more important than whatever controversies are roiling our political world today. At the same time, it would be foolish for Christians to accept Rauch’s assurance that there is nothing at stake in today’s political controversies that bears on fundamental moral and religious concerns. 

“Don’t be afraid. Imitate Jesus. Forgive each other.” While subject to interpretation, these injunctions certainly deserve a place in any Christian worldview. Still, Rauch must strain even the most expansive credulity when he proposes that this Christian essence coincides with what he takes to be James Madison’s pluralistic politics of “negotiation.” In any case, it should be clear that for serious Christians, “don’t be afraid” cannot mean: don’t worry, the ruling media, academic, and political elites can be trusted to serve your interests as a Christian citizen. “Imitate Jesus” may be interpreted, according to Rauch’s modest suggestion, as recognizing the “equal intrinsic worth” of each human person, but certainly not, for an actual, serious Christian, in the relativistic and liberationist sense understood by today’s left. “Forgive each other” indeed implies civility and a degree of forbearance in the public realm, but whether a Christian disposition to forgive translates into a readiness to “compromise” must depend on what is to be compromised and what are the available practical options.   

To see the tendentiousness of Rauch’s “Christian” appeal for “negotiation,” it is sufficient to consider whether the author would care to “renegotiate” the recent and thoroughly radical redefinition of marriage that is so central to his conception of liberal justice.

Image by Seadog81 and licensed via Adobe Stock.

If you’ve had a chance to read any of the stories I’ve written about the abortion-driven, stumbling Democrat party, you know that a common theme is not to rethink their embrace of baby killing and other stupid positions but to “reframe” them. Assumption? That the American people are gullible and stupid. The Democrats’ contempt for the intelligence of Americans is a primary reason they are in the shallow end of the electoral pool.

This reminded me of something I talked about a while back. The ACLU and the creative agency Oberland –the “purpose-driven ad agency”–had convinced themselves that they had a humdinger of a strategy to make abortion more palatable.

“Forcing people to rethink the language they use, how they empathize and understand who is being affected by these restrictions, might actually put pressure on legislation and these restrictive laws and these restrictive laws and help overturn them,” said Kate Charles. Oberland’s Chief Strategy Officer.

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So what language were they proposing?

“I think getting people to say I’m pro-life is much easier to say than ‘I am pro-forced pregnancy,’”

It’s as simple as that? Changing “pro-life” to “forced pregnancy” and suddenly pro-lifers will be disarmed, falling into babbling incoherence and irrelevance?

Sort of. The ad [titled “Disclaimer”]follows a pregnant woman who wants an abortion. She is stymied by “unnecessary restrictions and politically-motivated bans,” we were told. It goes without saying that their ad campaign not only totally ignored the unborn child but also ridiculed protective legislation that many, many states have enacted .

“We felt by changing the terminology [to forcing pregnancy] we were highlighting the pregnant person’s life, and the cruelty and control that politicians are trying to enforce on people, which are very un-American, and these restrictive laws that are controlling bodies,” said Charles.

This is the Abortion Industry’s umpteenth iteration of isn’t-abortion-wonderful. They all have in common the same basic lie: Just ignore who it is that you are getting rid of. In this case, it’s just the same-old, same old: The ad “reframes the issue as a battle between government-mandated forced pregnancy and reproductive freedom.”

Mariah Cooper wrote

The campaign will follow up with a second spot, titled “Forced,” in February, which will air digitally and on streaming services. The spot shows what people seeking abortions are forced to deal with, including paying for care, hours of travel, taking unpaid leave from work and oftentimes, staying pregnant. 

The campaign will also include digital ad units, which are geographically targeted to states where abortion access is restricted.

Only the willfully blind will fall for “forcing pregnancy.” You can “reframe” abortion six ways from Sunday but it remains a cruel, brutal, unnatural act.

LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. He frequently writes Today’s News and Views — an online opinion column on pro-life issues.

The post No Matter What They Call Abortion, It’s Killing a Baby appeared first on LifeNews.com.

Two reminders. One, elections have consequences—good and bad. Two, it makes a difference when statutes are read as they are written, not as pro-abortionists want them to be interpreted.

To cut to the chase, as Nancy Flanders reminds us, “The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) rescinded Biden-era guidance Tuesday that attempted to force emergency room (ER) workers to carry out induced abortions.”

This misuse of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) was one major pro-abortion response to the Dobbs decision which overturned Roe, and largely, but not exclusively, returned the abortion issue to the states. EMTALA was  originally created to safeguard access to emergency care, especially for people with low incomes. The Biden administration hijacked the law in its  whole-of-government pursuit of multiplying the number of dead babies by forcing hospitals nationwide to perform abortions.

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They said that EMTALA preempted state pro-life laws that protected unborn children. Their “guidance” asserted that EMTALA legally obligates emergency room doctors to commit abortions, potentially turning all hospitals into quasi-abortion clinics.

Yesterday, the Trump administration rescinded those provisions. Under the title “CMS Statement on Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA),” it reads

The Department of Health and Human Services and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) are rescinding July 2022 guidance from CMS with the subject “Reinforcement of EMTALA Obligations specific to Patients who are Pregnant or are Experiencing Pregnancy Loss” and the accompanying Letter from the former Secretary of Health and Human Services, which do not reflect the policy of this Administration. CMS will continue to enforce EMTALA, which protects all individuals who present to a hospital emergency department seeking examination or treatment, including for identified emergency medical conditions that place the health of a pregnant woman or her unborn child in serious jeopardy. CMS will work to rectify any perceived legal confusion and instability created by the former administration’s actions.

Backdrop

Idaho, to its great credit, fought back against the Biden administration’s July 2022 memorandum and letter from then-Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra that threatened to remove Medicare funding.  National Right to Life filed a friend of the court brief supporting Idaho’s pro-life law. It read in part

HHS’s attempt to discover an abortion mandate within EMTALA’s limited stabilization requirement for emergency medical conditions exceeds the bounds of regulatory authority granted by Congress. EMTALA contains no language expressly directing abortion services. Rather, HHS is reaching beyond EMTALA’s text and structure to insert its own policy preferences favoring abortion access. This overreach contravenes foundational limits on agency power.

HHS has issued guidance purporting to discover a federal abortion mandate in EMTALA’s requirement to provide stabilizing treatment. But this mandate exists only from HHS’s erroneous interpretation, not EMTALA’s text. The guidance represents a stark example of agency overreach— HHS conjuring new regulatory powers on a political whim.

Hat’s off to HHS and the CMS! Another pro-life victory!

LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. He frequently writes Today’s News and Views — an online opinion column on pro-life issues.

The post Thank President Donald Trump for Another Pro-Life Policy appeared first on LifeNews.com.

New findings from the Democrats’ costly and widely panned Speaking with American Men (SAM) project found that many young men view the party as “weak” while seeing the Republicans as “strong,” Politico reported on Wednesday.

An initial round of research from SAM—first reported by Politico—showed that many young men think that “neither party has our back,” as one black man from Georgia said in a focus group. SAM is a new $20 million initiative aiming to study how Democrats can better connect with young male voters they lost in the 2024 election cycle, according to The New York Times.

Some participants said they viewed the Democratic Party as cautious, but viewed the GOP as more confident, Politico reported.

The research “reaffirms what young men already think, that Democrats don’t want to invest in you,” Ilyse Hogue, a co-founder of the Speaking with American Men project, told Politico. Hogue is a well-known left-wing feminist activist who served as president of NARAL Pro-Choice America for eight years.

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Hogue also told Politico that many young male voters believe the Democratic Party does not “care” about them.

“Democrats are seen as weak, whereas Republicans are seen as strong,” Hogue told the outlet. “Young men also spoke of being invisible to the Democrat coalition, and so you’ve got this weak problem and then you’ve got this ‘I don’t think they care about me’ problem, and I think the combination is kind of a killer.”

One focus group participant described Democrats as embracing “the fluid masculinity of being, like, empathetic and sensitive,” while “Republicans are more like the traditional masculinity of a provider, strong, and the machismo type,” Politico reported.

In the 2024 presidential election, male voters significantly shifted toward the Republican Party. An analysis from Democrat firm Catalist found that while 55% of women continued to support former Vice President Kamala Harris at about the same levels that they supported former President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, male voters shifted toward President Donald Trump in 2024, from 48% support for Biden in 2020 to 42% support for Harris in 2024.

Hogue told Politico that Democrats will not be able to win over voters unless they are “speaking the language that young men are speaking.”

“Democrats can’t win these folks over if they’re not speaking the language that young men are speaking,” Hogue told Politico.

Republicans have widely criticized SAM with House Republican Conference Chair Lisa McClain in a May X post likening the expensive initiative to the Democrats lighting “$20 million on fire to study their unpopularity.”

Republican Arizona Rep. Abe Hamadeh similarly blasted SAM on X in May.

“The Democrats declared war on masculinity and lost a generation of young men,” Hamadeh wrote. “Instead of doing any introspection as to what they did wrong, they’re going to invest $20 million studying ‘male Syntax’ to try to better communicate their radical message.”

The Democratic Party has been reportedly strategizing about the best way to reconnect with voters following the GOP winning control of the White House and both houses of Congress in November 2024.

Some Democrats have recently criticized their own party’s brand. In May, Rahm Emanuel, an ex-Obama White House chief of staff, criticized the Democratic Party brand as being “weak and woke.”

Still, Ross Morales Rocketto, a Democrat strategist who is not involved in the SAM project, told Politico that part of Democrats’ current messaging problem is that many young men think that “the Democratic Party doesn’t really like or respect them.”

“The Democratic Party is missing that we’re not going to be able to message our way out of these deep problems men are facing, starting with the fact that they know the Democratic Party doesn’t really like or respect them,” Rocketto said. “It’s really easy for Republicans to play off the politics of grievance.”

SAM could not immediately be reached for comment.

LifeNews Note: Ireland Owens writes for Daily Caller. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience.

The post Democrats Spent $20 Million Studying Men and They Still Don’t Appeal to Men appeared first on LifeNews.com.

Pentecost! It’s the grand finale of the Easter season, a spiritual explosion that marks the descent of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Catholic Church.

But it’s more than just a single Sunday; it’s a powerful outpouring of God’s grace, a renewed call to mission, and a season for us to live with intentionality and fiery zeal.

As Pope Francis so beautifully reminded us in his 2024 Pentecost homily,

The feast, which lands on June 8 this year, isn’t just about showing up on Sunday. It’s about how to prepare our hearts and live out the Holy Spirit’s gifts with intention and passion.

Here are nine fruitful ways to prepare for Pentecost and live with the Holy Spirit’s zeal:

1) Novena to the Holy Spirit

The traditional Pentecost Novena involves nine days of prayer leading up to the feast. It mimics the apostles’ time in the Upper Room with Mary, praying for the Holy Spirit. 

Each day, focus on a specific gift or fruit of the Spirit, inviting Him to transform you. Remember:

2) Make “Veni Creator Spiritus” Your Morning Go-To

Start your day by inviting the Holy Spirit in! The ancient hymn, "Veni Creator Spiritus" (“Come, Creator Spirit”), is a powerful way to do that.

Integrate this beautiful prayer into your morning routine. Its lines, like “Kindle our sense from above, and make our hearts o’erflow with love,” are a perfect daily petition for Pentecostal grace.

3) Pray the Chaplet of the Holy Spirit

The Chaplet of the Holy Spirit centers on the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. It’s a fantastic way to ask for these specific graces to empower you and deepen your faith. You can also pray the Litany to the Holy Spirit for a powerful invocation of the Holy Spirit’s gifts.

4) Rock Some Red (Liturgically Speaking!)

The color red symbolizes the tongues of fire that descended upon the apostles and the Holy Spirit’s transformative power.

Wearing more red in your clothing choices, especially on Pentecost Sunday and throughout its octave, is a simple, visible way to connect with the feast and show your enthusiasm for the Spirit! 

5) Read the Acts of the Apostles

Want to see the Holy Spirit in action? The Book of Acts is your go-to. Read the first two chapters of Acts before Pentecost to immerse yourself in the Upper Room narrative.

After Pentecost, keep reading! See how the apostles, empowered by the Spirit, boldly preached the Gospel and built the Church.

6) Practice Everyday Discipleship

Pentecost isn’t just about what you receive; it’s about how you act. Reflect on how you can intentionally live out your Catholic faith in your daily interactions.

This could be a kind word, a moment of forgiveness, lending an ear, or simply radiating Christian joy. Let the Spirit take your ordinary actions and turn them into extraordinary acts of love.

7) Explore Creative Ways to Celebrate

Pentecost can be a truly joyful and vibrant feast!

This includes fun ideas like baking a “Holy Spirit” cake or hosting a spiritual discussion with friends. These creative expressions help bring the significance of the day alive in your home and heart. 

8) Learn from Saints with June Feast Days

The month of June, often encompassing Pentecost and its octave, is packed with saints whose lives were profoundly shaped by the Holy Spirit. Take inspiration from:

• Saint Anthony of Padua (June 13): A powerful preacher, truly gifted by the Spirit.
• Saint Aloysius Gonzaga (June 21): A model of purity and discernment.
• Saints Peter and Paul (June 29): Pillars of the Church, transformed by the Spirit from fearful followers into bold apostles.

Their stories show us the endless ways the Holy Spirit empowers believers! 

9) Conclude with a Prayer to Mary, Mother of Pentecost

Mary was in the Upper Room, prayerfully awaiting the Holy Spirit with the Apostles. She is truly the Mother of Pentecost! 

Turn to her to deepen your own reception of the Spirit, or use a powerful prayer directly to the Holy Spirit:

Or simply:

Pentecost is a re-ignition, not just a remembrance.

By consciously preparing and intentionally living out the presence of the Holy Spirit, we can experience a profound transformation, moving from passive believers to active disciples, truly empowered to live with zeal and bear witness to Christ in the world. 

So go ahead, embrace this powerful season!

Let your heart be open, your prayers fervent, and your daily life a vibrant testimony to the Spirit alive within you. After all, the fire of God’s love isn’t just for the apostles – it’s for you, here and now, ready to inspire and uplift every moment of your Catholic journey. 

This article originally appeared in Hollywood Catholic and was modified for ChurchPOP.

Looking at you, Joe R.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Mendelsohn (63) was an amazing genius and focused disability activist who worked tirelessly to oppose assisted suicide as a member of Second Thoughts Connecticut and as a member of the EPC - USA board has died.

Leavenworth wrote:

Renowned New Testament scholar N.T. Wright has sparked controversy among Christians with recent comments defending killing babies in abortion in limited cases. His comments are drawing sharp criticism from pro-life advocates who argue his stance undermines the sanctity of life from conception.

In a June 1 episode of his podcast “Ask N.T. Wright Anything,” Wright responded to a question from a German college student asking why Christians should defend life from conception. While affirming that late-term abortions and infanticide are “not only wrong but repulsive,” Wright suggested that killing a baby in an abortion earlier in pregnancy might be “the best thing to do” in cases involving the mother’s health or if the baby is disabled.

He admitted uncertainty about when life begins despite decades of scientific proof that it begins at conception, stating, “I’m not a scientist,” and emphasized that abortion is a complex issue, particularly for men to address.

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Wright’s comments have ignited a firestorm of backlash within pro-life circles. Critics argue that his position opens the door to moral compromise, contradicting the biblical principle that all human life is sacred from conception.

“N.T. Wright’s defense of abortion, even in ‘exceptional cases,’ is a betrayal of the Gospel’s clarity on the value of every human life,” said Stephen DeCesare, a Christian commentator, in a post on X. “Sin doesn’t come in half-measures.”

Others echoed this sentiment, expressing heartbreak over Wright’s stance. “He called late-term abortion murder but early abortions ‘termination.’ This distinction is meaningless to the unborn child,” wrote X user @Savedbygra62721

The Gospel Coalition Canada also published a response, stating, “While we can sympathize with Wright’s sensitivity to difficult cases, we cannot reach the same conclusions. Every life matters—no exceptions.”

Pro-life advocates argue that Wright’s nuanced position risks weakening the Christian witness on abortion. Scripture is clear: life begins at conception. To suggest otherwise, even in tough cases, undermines the church’s moral authority and the inherent dignity of the unborn.

The post Christian Scholar N.T. Wright Defends Killing Babies in Abortions appeared first on LifeNews.com.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Florian Willet with Philip Nitschke
Florian Willet, who was the co-chair of the last-resort suicide organization, reportedly died by suicide last month in Cologne Germany “with the help of a specialised organisation”.

The suicide death of Willet is tragic, but I recognize that Willet was not terminally ill or physically suffering, but rather it was stated that: “Florian’s spirit was broken.” after serving 70 days in jail after being arrested in the "suicide pod" death of a 64-year-old unnamed American woman.

On September 24, 2024 I published an article stating that the Swiss police had made arrests related to the Sarco suicide pod. Willet was one of the participants who was arrested and held in jail in the Sarco suicide pod death, while Swiss police investigated.

The investigation related to the strangulation marks ended when the strangulation marks were attributed to the jerking of the victims muscles and her arms while she was dying of asphyxiation.

An article by Adam Sage that was published by the Times on June 3, 2025 stated that:

Official reports from the Arkansas Department of Health’s Vital Statistics show no abortions occurred in the state during 2024.

Arkansas law generally prohibits abortion, but it contains exceptions for situations in which the mother’s life is at risk.

The state publishes annual reports every June documenting the number of abortions performed during the previous year. The Health Department recently released three different reports showing the number of abortions performed last year, the number of women who experienced complications from abortion, and the number of abortions necessary to save the life of the mother. All three reports show 0 abortions during 2024.

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In the past, Arkansas has averaged around 3,200 abortions per year. All in all, our team estimates Arkansas’ pro-life laws are protecting thousands of women and unborn children from abortion each year.

These reports are great news. Arkansas has successfully prohibited abortion except to save the life of the mother. Arkansas’ pro-life laws are protecting women, and they are saving unborn children.

Last year a flawed measure that would have repealed Arkansas’ pro-life laws and written abortion into the state constitution nearly made the ballot. If passed, the Arkansas Abortion Amendment would have allowed thousands of elective abortions in Arkansas every year.

The amendment did not contain any medical licensing or health and safety standards for abortion. It contained sweeping health exceptions that would permit abortion on demand through all nine months of pregnancy in many cases. The amendment also would have paved the way for publicly funded abortion in Arkansas by changing Amendment 68 to the Arkansas Constitution that currently prohibits taxpayer funded abortion in the state.

Fortunately, the Arkansas Supreme Court disqualified the measure from the ballot after recognizing its sponsors failed to comply with state laws governing the initiative process.

This year Arkansas’ legislators also rejected measures that would have weakened the state’s pro-life laws.

The State of Arkansas has invested millions of dollars to help support women with unplanned pregnancies.

That is something to celebrate.

LifeNews Note: Jerry Cox is the president of the Arkansas Family Council.

The post Arkansas Goes From 3,200 Abortions Per Year to 0 as Abortion Ban Saves Babies appeared first on LifeNews.com.