Undercover: Steven Crowder Infiltrates Socialist Student Protest and It Is Absolutely Terrifying

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So, what exactly does a “Students Against Sweatshops” conference entail? Conservative comedian Steven Crowder went undercover — for science — to find out.

The results? Just … just watch and see for yourself.

Today’s college students don’t identify as socialists, but rather as “anarchist-communists.”

Do not confuse “intersecting identities.” You can be “sexuality queer” but NOT “gender queer” and if you get that wrong, well, you’re naturally a BIGOT.

And, of course, a “conference” is really code for paid union protests where the unions don’t actually show up and just use these college students to promote their far-left agenda and do their dirty work for them.

If this is the best our universities have to offer, we’re doomed. (For more from the author of “Undercover: Steven Crowder Infiltrates Socialist Student Protest and It Is Absolutely Terrifying” please click HERE)

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Linking Hurricane Matthew to Climate Change Is Overblown Hype

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Hurricane Matthew is big, dangerous, and (if it makes landfall) something not seen in the continental United States for a decade. This, of course, means it will be linked to global warming.

There will be a lot of “scientists say we can expect,” but little actual data. That’s because the data show for the last 10 years we have had an unusual drought of landfalling major hurricanes (Category 3 and higher) on the continental U.S. That’s right, no major hurricanes have made landfall for over a decade. This is the longest such drought on record.

A lot of it is luck. There have been major hurricanes in the Atlantic whose paths have not taken them onshore. However, there has not been the steady increase in hurricane activity that the doom-and-gloomers predicted following a swarm of major hurricanes in 2005. Yes, there is a lot of change from year to year, but there is no worrisome trend.

In fact, taking a tally of the scariest hurricanes (Categories 4 and 5) indicates things were worse nearly a century ago. For the 44 years from 1926 to 1969, 14 of these most powerful storms made landfall, while the 46 years since then had only three.

Good luck will almost certainly run out and we will have years with multiple major hurricanes making landfall. If so, that is a return to normalcy, not a harbinger of impending climate doom. Since record-keeping began in the 1800s, the average annual landfall of major hurricanes is about two. However, it is far from constant as recent experience shows.

Further, a return to normalcy very likely will be associated with record levels of financial losses. This is due to the explosion of coastal development of recent decades. Again, it will not be due, as some will assert, to more frequent or more intense hurricanes.

The last decade has been a very mild one regarding major hurricanes hitting American shores. If Hurricane Matthew makes its expected landfall in the U.S. this week, the drought will be broken, but it won’t be a sign that we are headed to a man-made climate catastrophe. (For more from the author of “Linking Hurricane Matthew to Climate Change Is Overblown Hype” please click HERE)

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The Media’s Embarrassing Failure to Bring up Obamacare in the Debates

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Maybe Bill Clinton should moderate Sunday’s presidential debate. Referring to Obamacare this week as “the craziest thing in the world,” he seems to understand that the consequences of the health care law might be of interest to voters.

Indeed, according to a recent Pew Research Center poll, 71 percent of Donald Trump supporters and 77 percent of Hillary Clinton supporters say the issue of health care is “very important” to their vote in 2016.

Which is why it seems odd that not one single question dealing with Obamacare was asked at either the first presidential debate or the only vice presidential debate of the 2016 election. Not one.

Well, perhaps it’s only odd if you don’t know the major broadcast networks have all but ignored the disastrous news stories about Obamacare.

According to the media watchdogs over at the Media Research Center, from Jan. 1 through Aug. 31, ABC’s “World News Tonight” and “NBC Nightly News” have not covered the issue at all. “CBS Evening News” dedicated a whopping 2 minutes and 18 seconds to the subject.

As the Media Research Center notes, “To put that in perspective, these same three evening news shows managed to find 46 minutes and 49 seconds to dedicate to Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte running afoul of Brazilian police.”

Maybe we’ll get a question about Lochte in the next debate.

There are so many questions that could be posited about Obamacare’s failures that perhaps the moderators just haven’t been able to choose which one to ask. For example:

Sir/Madame: The Government Accountability Office just announced last week that its investigation has determined that Health and Human Services has been illegally bailing out insurance companies with taxpayer dollars. What’s your reaction?

Or …

Sir/Madame: What do you say to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have lost the insurance they bought through Obamacare’s public co-ops? So far, 12 of the 23 co-ops have failed and been shut down, costing taxpayers $1.2 billion and forcing 740,000 people in 14 states to scramble to find new health insurance.

Or …

Sir/Madame: Contrary to what President Barack Obama originally promised, many Americans’ premiums did not go down, they’ve gone up. And the evidence suggests they will continue to rise. By 2025, the Congressional Budget Office predicts that employment-based coverage will cost about 60 percent more than it does today because of Obamacare. How will you address that?

Or … (my personal favorite)

Sir/Madame: Former President Bill Clinton referred to Obamacare as “the craziest thing in the world.” Do you agree with his remarks?

So many options but not one single question in either debate on the topic.

And yet, abortion, which fewer than half of voters say is very important to their vote, was a major topic in the vice presidential debate.

And I’m not saying it isn’t important. But why did CBS moderator Elaine Quijano think it was more important to voters than the issue of health care?

If she’d done a little more homework, she might have been able to combine the two issues by asking what the candidates thought about a report from the Government Accountability Office showing that Obamacare forces taxpayers to subsidize bills for abortion services.

One might think that, in the post-debate analysis, some in the media might start asking about what major issues have not been addressed.

The folks over at NBC News apparently did ask that question but got the wrong answer.

An article following the vice presidential debate said the debate “left lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender advocates stunned, after 90 minutes of questioning failed to address a single LGBTQ issue.”

It doesn’t mention that voters rank that issue over 30 percentage points behind health care as important to their vote.

To say the media doesn’t get it lets them off the hook way too easy. They get it all right. Obamacare is a disaster but they’re hoping voters won’t notice. (For more from the author of “The Media’s Embarrassing Failure to Bring up Obamacare in the Debates” please click HERE)

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This Is Not Why Voters Put the GOP in Control of Congress

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Members of Congress are back on the campaign trail, but before they left Washington, Republican congressional leaders released their list of “accomplishments.” See if any of these would make your list.

(For more from the author of “This Is Not Why Voters Put the GOP in Control of Congress” please click HERE)

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Alaska Family Action Endorses Joe Miller for U.S. Senate

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Alaska Family Action, the political arm of Alaska Family Council, announced its endorsement of Joe Miller for U.S. Senate on Wednesday.

In a statement, Alaska Family Action president Jim Minnery said the AFA’s board of directors voted to back Miller because he “has been a consistent and outspoken supporter of religious liberty, protections of the unborn, support of traditional family policies and parental rights.”

The AFA statement went on to point out that incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski received an “F” rating (just 20 percent) from Conservative Review on its Liberty Scorecard and scored 35 percent on the Heritage Action Scorecard for her votes.

The average for Republican senators on the latter is 57 percent, while conservative senators like Mike Lee and Ted Cruz scored 100 and 97 percent, respectively.

Murkowski is the most liberal “Republican” senator up for re-election, having voted with Pres. Obama 72 percent of the time during the last Congress, according to Roll Call.

She received an 80 percent rating from NARAL Pro-Choice America.

Minnery’s statement concluded, “Alaska Family Action is proud to get behind a bold pro-family, pro-life candidate like Joe Miller who can help turn this country around.”

Miller responded, “I am honored to receive the endorsement of Alaska Family Action. If chosen to serve as Alaska’s next United States senator, I pledge that I will promote a culture of life and uphold our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and religion.”

Miller has also been endorsed by Alaska Right to Life and Family Research Council Executive Vice President Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Jerry Boykin.

Joe Miller is a limited government Constitutionalist who believes government exists to protect our liberties, not to take them away. He supports free people, free markets, federalism, the Constitutional right to life, the 2nd Amendment, religious liberty, American sovereignty, and a strong national defense.

Bill Clinton Dogged by Protester Reminding Voters of Rape Accusation

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For yet another day, protesters reminded American voters that former President Bill Clinton stands accused of a rape that the alleged victim claims Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton helped cover up.

“Bill Clinton has harmed women!” a woman shouted Tuesday during a rally in Canton, Ohio, at which the former president spoke.

The woman got the attention of TV cameras by holding up a hand-lettered T-shirt reading “Bill Clinton a Rapist.”

“Bill Clinton is a rapist!” she yelled as she walked through the crowd, holding the shirt aloft before being taken out by security at the Ohio event.

Clinton appeared unconcerned with the protest.

“I love it when people come into my rallies, and it’s a dead giveaway when they don’t want to have a conversation because they know they’ll lose the conversation,” he said.

However, the allegation concerns somebody. At Ohio University, where Clinton spoke on Tuesday, someone used the college’s so-called free speech wall to paint a slogan reading, “Bill Clinton Rapes.”

The comment was later painted over before Clinton’s arrival later in the day.

On Wednesday, a young man being interviewed outside a Donald Trump rally near Las Vegas slipped in the phrase “Bill Clinton is a rapist” into his interview with KVVU-TV.

The uptick in actions to remind voters of Clinton’s past kicked off last Friday, when Infowars host Alex Jones kicked off the “Nationwide Campaign to Expose Clinton Sex Crimes.”

The rules of the contest, which are not being followed by those playing, require participants to wear a T-shirt adorned with Bill Clinton’s face and the word “rape.”

“Anyone that gets on national TV with the shirt clearly, for more than five seconds, gets $1,000. That means behind cameras, you name it,” Jones said Friday. “Anyone that gets it on air on national TV and gets the words out ‘Bill Clinton is a rapist,’ or things along that line, with a bullhorn — I could go to this right now, $5,000.”

On Saturday, a man wearing the shirt and chanting the slogan interrupted a Fox and Friends live broadcast in New York City.

On Monday, a man in Loveland Colo., made sure the comment was slipped into his interview with MSNBC.

The rape claim against Clinton stems from an accusation against him made in 1999 by Juanita Broaddrick, who claimed that she was raped by Bill Clinton in April 1978. Clinton was never prosecuted on the charge.

Broaddrick has said that Hillary Clinton was aware of the incident and helped to cover it up. (For more from the author of “Bill Clinton Dogged by Protester Reminding Voters of Rape Accusation” please click HERE)

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ISIS in Huge Trouble at Site of ‘Apocalyptic Battle’ After Blitz by American-Syrian Alliance

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Dabiq should have been the preordained site of an apocalyptic battle between a Muslim army and a Christian legion,, according to Islamic mythology.

That battle would be the harbinger of a new world order in which Islam will be the only religion.

Dabiq is of such great significance to Islamic State that it named its English-language online magazine after the town in northern Syria and believes the battle will bring the end of the world.

This is based on what the Prophet Mohammad foretold 1,400 years ago.

“The last hour will not come” until an Islamic army will defeat the “Romans” there, the Prophet said about Dabiq.

“The spark has been lit in Iraq, and its heat will continue to intensify — by Allah’s permission — until it burns the Crusader armies in Dabiq,” Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the liquidated founder of ISIS was quoted as saying by Dabiq Magazine last year.

In Islamic State’s version of this prophecy, the U.S.-led coalition is playing the role of the Romans while ISIS will represent the Muslim army.

However, despite Islamic State’s frantic preparations for the battle — the jihadist organization sent hundreds of its best fighters to Dabiq recently — the town is close to collapse and could spell the end of ISIS in Syria, British media reported on Wednesday.

The U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army supported by 300 U.S. Special Forces and coalition warplanes is making rapid gains on the battlefield and the town could even fall within hours, according to the British news site Express.

Mostafa Sejari, a commander of the Free Syrian Army, however, warned he expected the battle for Dabiq would be “the fiercest ever” but nevertheless expected that FSA control over the city was a matter of time.

In Islamic State’s version of this prophecy, the U.S.-led coalition is playing the role of the Romans while ISIS will represent the Muslim army.

“By controlling Dabiq, we break the myth of Daesh and open a road to reach Marea (in Turkey). Controlling Dabiq is just a matter of time, God willing,” Sejari told Express while using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

The progress of the American-Syria alliance is hindered by hundreds of mines that have been planted by ISIS ahead of the battle and the expectation is that the jihadist group will use many suicide bombers to block the entrance to Dabiq.

The Obama administration believes the fall of Dabiq will deliver a devastating blow to the morale of Islamic State’s fighters and would make the recapture of more important cities such as Raqqa (ISIS’ capital in Syria) and Mosul (the second-largest city in Iraq) easier.

But the fall of Dabiq will also harm ISIS’ abilities to recruit new fighters, Kyle Orton, a Middle East analyst and research fellow with the Henry Jackson Society, told Express.

“The coming loss of the town — probably in the next fortnight — will be a blow to ISIS’s ability to recruit, and the Turkish intervention, which has closed the border and driven a wedge between the opposition and al-Qaeda by giving the rebels a realistic alternative, jihadist recruitment in general, seems set to suffer in Syria,” Orton said.

The situation in the self-declared Caliphate has become so difficult that it has caused ISIS to declare the state of emergency.

The U.K. Daily Star reported Tuesday that ISIS leaders who gathered for a crisis meeting in the Iraqi town of Mutaibija ”turned on each other with weapons after arguments broke out.”

A commander of the Shiite al-Hashd al-Shaabi militia told the British paper that “the meeting turned into a bloody massacre after exacerbated disputes between the ISIS leaders that led them to use weapons against each other.”

The Shiite rebel commander added that spies had told him that there are growing disputes among Islamic State leaders. (For more from the author of “ISIS in Huge Trouble at Site of ‘Apocalyptic Battle’ After Blitz by American-Syrian Alliance” please click HERE)

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Reminder: Our National Debt Grew $540 Billion Last Year

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With all of the attention given to the presidential elections, it’s easy to forget that the U.S. just ended the 2016 fiscal year. This means it’s time for the annual examination of how much more debt we have!

According to the newest Treasury Department figures (H/T to The Washington Examiner and CNS News), total U.S. debt held by the federal government was $19.573 trillion on October 1. That’s an astronomical amount of debt, quite a bit larger than our current Gross National Product.

As the Examiner and CNS pointed out, and the Treasury numbers confirmed, U.S. debt technically jumped more than $1.4 trillion in the last 12 months. That’s thanks to the Treasury Department temporarily not taking on more debt via use of “extraordinary measures.” Those measures staved off a debt increase from March 2015 through early November — and then the debt jumped hundreds of billions of dollars within a month.

Looking at the Fiscal Year 2016 debt in context to our larger debt picture, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected in August that the annual deficit would be about $540 billion. That’s larger than immediate prior years, but lower than what we’ll see over the next decade. (The deficit and an increase in the national debt are two different things, thanks to how the federal government does its accounting.)

Contrary to liberal tripe about the feds needing more taxes, CBO projects that government revenues via taxes, fees, etc. will rise over the next decade as a percentage of GDP and continue to be above the 50-year average. The real culprit for our growing debt, spending, will go up even more — well beyond the 50-year norm — putting the U.S. at an even worse fiscal position than we’re at now. CBO projects we will add nearly $8.6 trillion to our debt by 2026.

But even this scary scenario, which would likely impact our economy’s growth, doesn’t tally up the worst of it all. The big-picture analysis most often cited by media outlets is the “baseline” projection by CBO — the optimistic one. In the August projections, CBO gave a list of alternative fiscal scenarios that could play out, depending on the decisions politicians make. A quick tally of those scenarios shows that the debt could be as much as $2.755 trillion higher than the positive projections, or $792 billion lower.

Short version: We don’t need more taxation. We need more economic growth and less spending. However, neither party wants to effectively reform the entitlements (Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, food stamps, and other parts of the budget that don’t get annually approved by Congress) that are the major cause of our budget increases in recent years, and are projected to, for the most part, rise in cost. And effective tax reform is nowhere to be seen. (For more from the author of “Reminder: Our National Debt Grew $540 Billion Last Year” please click HERE)

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Abortion Separates Tim Kaine and Mike Pence, as Does the Way They Understand Their Faith

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Last night’s vice-presidential debate may not matter much to Americans when they vote in November for the next resident of the White House, but the two candidates starkly separated themselves from each other on the issue of abortion — and on the understanding of life their views express. GOP nominee Mike Pence’s defense of the unborn mattered to pro-lifers and to many Christians.

Abortion entered the debate in its waning moments, as moderator Elaine Quijano asked Democrat Senator Tim Kaine and Republican governor Mike Pence “about a time when you struggled to balance your personal faith and a public policy position?” (A full transcript can be found here.)

Personal Faith and Abortion

According to Kaine, who is Roman Catholic, “I try to practice my religion in a very devout way and follow the teachings of my church in my own personal life. But I don’t believe in this nation, a First Amendment nation, where we don’t raise any religion over the other, and we allow people to worship as they please, that the doctrines of any one religion should be mandated for everyone.”

He said that “the hardest struggle in my faith life was the Catholic Church is against the death penalty and so am I. But I was governor of a state, and the state law said that there was a death penalty for crimes if the jury determined them to be heinous.”

Kaine, who misrepresented the Catholic Church’s teaching on the death penalty, said, “It was very, very difficult to allow executions to go forward, but in circumstances where I didn’t feel like there was a case for clemency, I told Virginia voters I would uphold the law, and I did.”

According to Pence, who was raised Catholic but is now Evangelical, “the sanctity of life proceeds out of the belief that — that ancient principle that — where God says before you were formed in the womb, I knew you, and so for my first time in public life, I sought to stand with great compassion for the sanctity of life.”

Indiana, he continued, “has also sought to make sure that we expand alternatives in health care counseling for women, non-abortion alternatives. I’m also very pleased at the fact we’re well on our way in Indiana to becoming the most pro-adoption state in America. I think if you’re going to be pro-life, you should — you should be pro-adoption.”

Pence v. Kaine

It was then that Pence attacked Clinton and Kaine on their abortion positions. Clinton has said she will repeal the Hyde Amendment, and supports partial-birth and late-term abortions. Kaine, who also supports late-term abortions, formally supports Hyde, which limits federal funding for abortions, but has said he will subordinate his beliefs to Clinton’s if they win in November.

“But what I can’t understand,” Pence said, “is with Hillary Clinton and now Senator Kaine at her side is to support a practice like partial-birth abortion. I mean, to hold to the view — and I know Senator Kaine, you hold pro-life views personally — but the very idea that a child that is almost born into the world could still have their life taken from them is just anathema to me.”

“I know you’ve historically opposed taxpayer funding of abortion,” Pence then told Kaine. “But Hillary Clinton wants to — wants to repeal the longstanding provision in the law where we said we wouldn’t use taxpayer dollars to fund abortion. So for me, my faith informs my life. I try and spend a little time on my knees every day. But it all for me begins with cherishing the dignity, the worth, the value of every human life.”

Kaine v. Pence (and Trump)

Kaine responded that while he and Clinton “really feel like you should live fully and with enthusiasm the commands of your faith,” they also believe “it is not the role of the public servant to mandate that for everybody else.”

“So let’s talk about abortion and choice,” he continued. “We support Roe v. Wade. We support the constitutional right of American women to consult their own conscience, their own supportive partner, their own minister, but then make their own decision about pregnancy. That’s something we trust American women to do that. And we don’t think that women should be punished, as Donald Trump said they should, for making the decision to have an abortion.”

Trump said in March that women who get abortions should be punished. He walked that statement back the next day after pro-life leaders hammered the comments. He supports abortion in the cases of rape, incest, and life of the mother, and has changed positions on several key abortion issues since launching his presidential bid last year. Last month he promised to make the Hyde Amendment permanent law, sign a ban on most late-term abortions and defund Planned Parenthood.

Kaine noted that Pence, who has long been praised by pro-life advocates for his desire to protect the unborn “wants to repeal Roe v. Wade. He said he wants to put it on the ash heap of history. And we have some young people in the audience who weren’t even born when Roe was decided. This is pretty important. Before Roe v. Wade, states could pass criminal laws to do just that, to punish women if they made the choice to terminate a pregnancy.”

“I think you should live your moral values,” concluded Kaine. “But the last thing, the very last thing that government should do is have laws that would punish women who make reproductive choices. And that is the fundamental difference between a Clinton-Kaine ticket and a Trump-Pence ticket that wants to punish women who make that choice.”

Pence responded that “Donald Trump and I would never support legislation that punished women who made the heartbreaking choice to end a pregnancy.” Pressed by Kaine on Trump’s comment, Pence said, “he’s not a polished politician like you and Hillary Clinton,” and declared, “I’m telling you what the policy of our administration would be.”

“[T]here is a choice,” he continued, “and it is a choice on life. I couldn’t be more proud to be standing with Donald Trump, who’s standing for the right to life.” He appreciated Kaine’s previous support for the Hyde Amendment, but pointed out that Clinton opposed it.

People need to understand, we can come together as a nation. We can create a culture of life. More and more young people today are embracing life because we know we are — we’re better for it. We can — like Mother Teresa said at that famous national prayer breakfast, bring the — let’s welcome the children into our world. There are so many families around the country who can’t have children. We could improve adoption so that families that can’t have children can adopt more readily those children from crisis pregnancies.

“Trust Women” Versus “Most Vulnerable” of Society

Kaine responded by turning the issue into women’s rights. “Governor, why don’t you trust women to make this choice for themselves? We can encourage people to support life. Of course we can. But why don’t you trust women? Why doesn’t Donald Trump trust women to make this choice for themselves?”

That’s what we ought to be doing in public life. Living our lives of faith or motivation with enthusiasm and excitement, convincing other, dialoguing with each other about important moral issues of the day, but on fundamental issues of morality, we should let women make their own decisions.

Pence replied: “Because a society can be judged by how it deals with its most vulnerable, the aged, the infirm, the disabled, and the unborn. I believe it with all my heart. And I couldn’t be more proud to be standing with a pro-life candidate in Donald Trump.” (For more from the author of “Abortion Separates Tim Kaine and Mike Pence, as Does the Way They Understand Their Faith” please click HERE)

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If We Reject Trump, We May Be Inviting Persecution

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Should Christians get behind Donald Trump?

As I’ve demonstrated here, on every criterion of politics, it seems to me that electing Donald Trump is less dangerous to the preaching of the gospel, the safety of Christian institutions from colleges down to the family, and the lives of unborn children. We don’t have to believe the claim that he’s even a “baby Christian” to recognize that this is true. Winston Churchill wasn’t any kind of Christian, but he defended our institutions and our freedoms, and that was all we needed. It is all the church ever needs. Given our own failure to evangelize the culture, it may be more than we deserve.

But aren’t Christians all about asking God for exactly that — more than we deserve? If it sounds like I’m saying that the election of Donald Trump might be a moment of unmerited grace for the United States of America. … Yes, given the only live alternative, that is exactly what I mean.

I think that some Christian resistance to backing this candidate comes down to simple distaste — some of it justified. This is a man with multiple divorces, a flashy and hedonistic lifestyle, a penchant for juvenile insults — the list could go on and on. It can wear down the soul just to think about it, and that’s for a simple reason: It’s gossip. The sins of other people aren’t meant to be fodder for our spiritual reflection, though the devil tells us otherwise. The flaws that matter in a political leader are those that connect to his likely performance in office, compared to the real-world alternatives. When we say we prefer the hard-drinking, foul-mouthed, racist agnostic Winston Churchill, we mean compared to Adolf Hitler. It’s nonsense to line up every leader next to Jesus or even our ideal politician. I promise you, they will all fall far short.

Besides, there’s a long history of Christians humbly setting aside their craving for a fully admirable leader, in recognition of a stark reality: In a fallen world, we are subject to violence. Those we are called to protect, from our own children to those in the wombs of desperate strangers, demand that we find a way to defend them. If we look at the sword which God has left in our path, and sniff that it isn’t shiny enough or might be caked with mud, and leave the innocents to suffer — make no mistake, we will answer for it.

Do Not Put God to the Test

The early Church is a good guide for this. For centuries, Christians had suffered hideously — being hunted like animals by the Roman secret police, then rounded up and killed in gruesome ways in the Colosseum as public entertainment. Many thousands were skinned alive, hanged, burned, or torn apart by animals, to the cheers and jeers of the crowd. Many more renounced their faith to save their lives, then eked out stolen decades haunted by guilt — to face an uncertain fate on the day of judgment. We might like to pretend that we would act like heroes or martyrs, but most people don’t. It’s our job to avoid and help others avoid occasions of sin, such as this one. Jesus himself warned us not to put the Lord our God to the test.

As Philip Jenkins documented in his powerful, tragic The Lost History of Christianity, by the year 1000 the majority of Christians on earth lived in the Middle East and Asia. Yet within 200 years those churches had virtually disappeared, ground down by persecution. All that’s left of most of them are a few scattered ruins in deserts, and scraps of bibles found in the lavatories of mosques.

It can happen here. Hillary Clinton and the worldview she represents have promised to make it happen here. What else can you make of her speech to the United Nations, where she said that for women to enjoy their fundamental rights, guaranteed by the government, Christian beliefs on abortion would have to change?

Is that any different from Diocletian decreeing that we must worship the emperor? Obama’s number two lawyer already told the Supreme Court that churches which don’t perform same-sex marriages will have to face crippling taxes. We can’t say we haven’t been warned.

Constantine

When the pagan warlord Constantine came to power in 312, he rallied support from Christians by revoking their persecution. For the first time in hundreds of years, the church could operate in the open. Constantine himself remained religiously ambiguous, only accepting baptism on his deathbed — once he’d already committed the many sins he thought he would need to, to keep his throne. He saw one of his sons, Crispus, as a political rival and had him cruelly executed. He did not move to create an ideal Christian society; slavery remained perfectly legal. So did the exposure of unwanted infants. Constantine let passersby who rescued such infants claim them and sell them as slaves. The poor were taxed cruelly, and the sons of army veterans were forcibly conscripted as soldiers themselves.

Perfectionist Christians, who demanded the kingdom of heaven on earth, or felt a profound distaste for this ruthless autocrat, might have held themselves aloof and refused to work with Constantine — as one sect, the Donatists did. They scorned the prayers of “imperfect” Christians, and removed themselves to live in “pure” communities. But the vast majority of Christians, including the hundreds of bishops who had remained faithful under persecution, looked instead to Constantine with gratitude as a gift from a loving God. The early Christian poet Lactantius wrote this hymn of praise:

We should now give thanks to the Lord, Who has gathered together the flock that was devastated by ravening wolves, Who has exterminated the wild beasts which drove it from the pasture. Where is now the swarming multitude of our enemies, where the hangmen of Diocletian and Maximian? God has swept them from the earth; let us therefore celebrate His triumph with joy; let us observe the victory of the Lord with songs of praise, and honor Him with prayer day and night. …

Constantine’s Council Gave Us the Creed

The bishops were more than grateful. They were downright cooperative, allowing Constantine to summon a church council to resolve controversies over the divinity of Christ. He paid for the bishops’ travel and gave the keynote speech at the council’s opening — then used the force of law to enact its decisions. It was this council, held in Nicaea, that gave us the formula still recited by well over a billion Christians: the Nicene Creed.

Since the church is the means of salvation, its first duty, after faithfulness, is self-preservation. I cannot think of a less loving or less Christian thing to do than to willfully raise the risk of a persecution that might lead souls to hell. If we do that out of distaste, to keep our hands “clean,” or to keep up the federal funding for our favorite government program, we are failing as Christians. I for one don’t wish to hear on the Last Day these words: “I was persecuted, since you did not protect me.” (For more from the author of “If We Reject Trump, We May Be Inviting Persecution” please click HERE)

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