If you still believe you “own” your car, you’re already behind the eight ball. What you actually own is a permission slip on four wheels. A machine that watches you, evaluates you, and decides, in real time, whether you’re allowed to drive it.

Not a police officer. Not a court. Not even common sense. But instead — an algorithm.

Every piece of technology fails at some point. When it does, you’re stuck explaining to a machine why you deserve to drive your own vehicle.

And if that sounds like something ripped out of a dystopian script, it’s because we’ve crossed the line where dystopia gets rebranded as public safety. And our elected officials have voted for it.

View to a kill

Automakers are already moving toward biometric identification, behavior-based safety systems, and deeper integration with external data sources.

The stated goal is reducing drunk driving. The real-world effect is broader: cars that monitor drivers and increasingly act on that data. The trigger for all of this sits inside the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Buried in Section 24220 is a mandate that forces the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to require “advanced impaired-driving technology” in every new car sold in America. That phrase sounds harmless on purpose.

Because if lawmakers called it what it actually is — a federally required driver surveillance system with the power to disable your vehicle — there might have been a real debate. Instead, it slid through.

RELATED: New Minnesota bill could run classic car owners off the road

Education Images/Getty Images

Designated driver

Here’s what is coming. Cameras locked on your face. Sensors tracking your eyes. Software analyzing your behavior, your attention, even your emotional state. The system doesn’t just look for alcohol impairment; it looks for anything it interprets as risk.

Are you tired? Distracted? Stressed? That’s enough for the system to decide you aren’t fit to drive.

And once that threshold is crossed, your car can refuse to move. You can sit there with the keys, with the title, with the payment book in your glove box, and the answer is still no. You’re not going anywhere.

This is the shift nobody voted for in plain English. And it’s already happening.

Driver monitoring systems are in millions of vehicles globally. Europe mandates them. U.S. automakers are embedding them. This isn’t theoretical. It’s slowly being built into new cars, and from 2027, every new car will have it. No exceptions.

I spy

At the same time, automakers are pushing even further. Ford Motor Company has filed patents that read less like safety features and more like surveillance blueprints. We’re talking about biometric identification, behavioral tracking, even the potential to integrate with external databases.

Your vehicle isn’t just transportation anymore. It’s a data collection terminal with wheels. And once that data exists, it doesn’t stay private.

In-cabin monitoring systems are already being used in fleet vehicles. Live feeds. Driver tracking. Behavior analysis. And it’s being sold as valuable data to whoever wants to pay for it.

Now connect the dots. This government mandate meets corporate capability. That’s not an accident. That’s alignment.

And here’s where it gets even more convenient for everyone involved, except you.

DADSS joke

Congress is pouring money into this. About $45 million has already been allocated for research, with over $100 million backing the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety program.

Government and car businesses are not paying to install it in your car. You, the taxpayer, are paying for it.

Automakers will comply, then pass every dollar of cost straight down the line to the buyer. More expensive vehicles. More complex systems. More opportunities for failure. And more profit margins built into something you never asked for.

That’s the quiet part. The loud part? It is about control.

Because once your car has the authority to decide whether you can drive, you’ve handed over something bigger than convenience. You’ve handed over autonomy. And don’t expect a political rescue. Most politicians have bailed on you.

When Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Scott Perry (R-Penn.), and Chip Roy (R-Texas) tried to push back, they exposed a vote showing dozens of Republicans and over 200 Democrats supporting measures tied to this mandate. They passed this into law.

Road to nowhere

That’s not division. That’s consensus. And consensus in Washington usually means one thing: The machine is moving forward, whether you like it or not. This is how permanent change happens. Not with headlines, but with technical language most people will never read. Until it shows up in their driveway.

We’ve seen the warning signs before. In 2017, WikiLeaks revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency had explored the ability to hack vehicle control systems remotely. At the time, people were outraged. Now we’re building systems that make that capability look tame and calling it progress.

Supporters will say this saves lives. And yes, impaired driving is a real issue. But we already have targeted solutions like ignition interlocks for convicted offenders. Which, by the way, there are already over 30 devices that stop drunk driving.

This is universal monitoring.

This is your car assuming you’re guilty before you’ve done anything at all.

Fail safe?

And here’s the question nobody in Washington wants to answer honestly: What happens when the system gets it wrong? Because it will.

False positives. Glitches. Misreads. Software errors. Even placing drivers in dangerous situations. Every piece of technology fails at some point. When it does, you’re stuck explaining to a machine why you deserve to drive your own vehicle.

Good luck with that.

And once the door is open, it doesn’t close.

If your car can stop you for “impairment,” what’s next?

Speed enforcement built into the vehicle?

Geofencing where your car simply won’t go?

Insurance companies tapping into your driving data in real time?

Law enforcement accessing in-cabin feeds?

None of that requires a leap. It’s the next logical step.

And the groundwork is already being laid and can change with no notice.

No way out

Meanwhile, your escape routes are disappearing. Older vehicles are being pushed off the road through regulation, parts shortages, and policy pressure. The market is being engineered so that opting out becomes less realistic every year.

You won’t be forced into this overnight.

You’ll just wake up one day and realize every new car on the lot plays by the same rules. That’s how control scales. Slow, steady, and almost invisible until it’s too late.

To be precise, Section 24220 doesn’t flip a literal kill switch today. But it creates the legal and technological pathway for systems that can absolutely prevent your vehicle from operating based on algorithmic decisions. And this is the law, not just an idea. And it will be in all new vehicles.

Call it whatever makes it easier to swallow.

If your car decides you’re not driving, the outcome is the same.

This isn’t about left or right. It’s about power — who has it, who’s gaining more of it, and who’s quietly losing it.

Right now, drivers are on the losing end. And that is not about to change.

And once this system is fully embedded, reversing it won’t be simple, cheap, or quick. It will be treated as essential infrastructure, too big to remove, too normalized to question.

That’s the real endgame.

Not safety.

Not innovation.

Control, baked into the very machines Americans rely on every single day.

And as of today, only a few officials are fighting on our side.

Who gets to decide when you’re allowed to drive? Because if the answer isn’t you, then you don’t own your car. You never did.

​Automakers, Biometric identification, Driver monitoring systems, Government control, Modern vehicle technology, National highway traffic, Ownership, Software authority, Align cars 

Like most American Jewish kids, I went to a Jewish summer camp. It was a good time: archery, canoeing, crafts, and a first kiss. I forget how many years I went. It was two or three summers in a row, I think.

Aside from the standard Jewish cultural stuff, such as singing, dancing, and Jewish-themed crafting, we did some historical role-playing.

The more they try to incite panic, the more suspicious you should be.

One of these role-playing exercises was when we had to “Escape the Nazis.” The camp counselors played the Nazis, while the kids played European Jews. We had to sneak around to reach the safe area without getting caught.

Looking back with the perspective of a parent, I don’t see the wisdom of this sort of re-enactment. I feel that just learning about the Holocaust was valuable enough. But we all had fun with it, and I don’t think it caused any harm.

But one night, they crossed the line.

In the early morning hours, the camp counselors woke us up. They said it was an emergency and gathered us in the dining hall. One of the lead counselors told us that the Arabs had gotten a nuclear weapon and destroyed Israel.

They told us everyone was dead — vaporized and turned to ash, like the Jews at Auschwitz.

Needless to say, we were pretty freaked out. Some of the kids — the kids who had family in Israel — were crying and wailing, screaming things like, “But what about Auntie Rachel??”

But the counselor calmed us down, and we all stood in a circle, held hands, said prayers, and sang some songs.

But then … they told us (haha) that Israel did not get destroyed tonight and most of the Jews in the world did not, in fact, get vaporized, but it was important to remember that this was something that could happen, and that’s why we — as Jews — need to remain hypervigilant about the people who hate us.

Then they put us back to bed. Good night, kids!

Needless to say, this was pretty traumatizing. Even today, when I see the words “Arab” and “nuclear” in the same sentence, that old anxiety comes roaring back.

However, that old anxiety is immediately followed by anger and resentment over what they did to us. Because this is what brainwashing is.

In the 1980s, when I was a kid at summer camp, no Arab state was even close to getting a bomb. And no Arab state is close now.

In recent memory, I have been told numerous times by authoritative sources that Iran is “two weeks away from a bomb!” so we must “act now!” But several years have gone by, and it doesn’t seem like Iran has a bomb yet.

For what it’s worth, I was also told — by the same authoritative sources — that we needed to remain in our home for “two weeks to stop the spread.” So I’m starting to think “two weeks” is a standard BS timeline. Just like when my wife says she’ll be home in “five minutes.”

And yes, some Arab states had (and have) secret weapons programs. But every competently governed country in the world (including Israel) has a secret weapons program, because they would be stupid not to have a secret weapons program.

But from a rational standpoint, Israel was safe that night. At least as safe as it can be, considering that it is surrounded by hostile neighbors who would, in fact, like to destroy it.

So yes, the threat to Israel is a very real thing. Any Israeli will tell you this. But it’s a complicated issue. Anyone who has delved into the geopolitics of the Middle East knows that it is a complicated issue.

The messy Middle East

For what it’s worth, I like Israel. I want to see Israel and the people who live there thrive. And Israeli children shouldn’t have to hide in bomb shelters while Iranian ballistic missiles are bombarding their cities. And they certainly shouldn’t be slaughtered or kidnapped like they were on October 7. Just like I don’t think anyone should be slaughtered or kidnapped.

Sometimes force is needed — as I believe it was in Gaza — but sometimes not. And often, it is just plain messy.

I believe we can calmly and rationally parse these complex issues. But the point of waking us up in the middle of the night was to remove calm rationality from the calculation and replace it with visceral fear.

They tried to break our little brains. And it probably worked on most of the kids.

Looking back, I suspect there were complaints from parents, because I don’t recall this happening in subsequent years. But my revulsion remains.

This was a counterproductive way to educate us about very real issues. Instead of illuminating the very real danger of anti-Semitism, the experience gave me a deep skepticism of Zionist propaganda and a distrust of Jewish-American cultural institutions.

Today, over 35 years later, I’m a fairly secular Jew. And while we celebrate holidays at home, I have never let my kids set foot inside a synagogue or Jewish Community Center.

Now, I’m sure most people in these institutions are, in fact, earnest and kind and would never intentionally traumatize a child. But the risk remains.

Because there are self-righteous zealots in this world — and it’s not just limited to Jews. They tend to congregate wherever there’s some sort of political cause. Environmentalists, socialists, trans/gay activists — they’re everywhere.

These people are dangerous, and I don’t want them anywhere near my children.

Many years later — long after summer camp, when I was a professional adult — I met a woman at a party. It turned out that she worked for the parent organization of my childhood summer camp.

I told her I went to one of her camps, as did she, and we had a nice conversation.

Then she asked me if I wanted to “get involved,” which really meant “would you like to donate?” I politely declined, and she asked me why.

So I told her. I told her what happened that night in the dining hall, that I don’t approve of those methods, that it’s counterproductive, and that I would hate for this to happen to other children.

She turned white. Just stark white.

Because I had broached a topic that was not to be discussed, she knew this had happened before. But it wasn’t something to be discussed. Awkward and sheepish, she stammered, “Uh, no. We don’t do ‘Experiential Learning’ any more.”

The thing they did to us had a name. It was called “Experiential Learning,” and it’s quite the euphemism. I’m sure there are many research papers on the topic. But I’ll take her at her word. Maybe, as she said, they don’t do “Experiential Learning” any more.

They probably don’t do it because those types — the self-righteous zealots — found something better. They discovered the media hoax.

Media malcontents

I’ve been around media for most of my adult life, and I knew this sort of thing happened, but the recent federal indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center laid it bare.

It would seem, like a shady tire repair shop scattering nails on the street to cause flats, that the SPLC was allegedly paying neo-Nazis, the KKK, and other hate groups to hold rallies and commit crimes to raise funds and justify the SPLC’s mission of combatting “hate.”

Among other things, the SPLC allegedly funded the organizers of the 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

How many brains were broken by a bunch of chuds carrying tiki torches in Charlottesville? Was it in the hundreds of millions? More?

It almost broke my brain. Because I watched the mainstream media coverage, and what I saw was blood in the streets. American blood. In American streets.

And I don’t like blood in the streets. Just like I don’t like Israeli blood in Israeli streets. Just like I don’t like to see any blood in any street.

But something didn’t add up. Something was off. Because Charlottesville was portrayed in the media as a morality play, as a simple story of good vs evil. But, as with Middle East geopolitics, nothing is that simple.

The so-called “organizers,” who were cast as the villains, were too cartoonish. There was something fake. The tone was off. It was inauthentic.

Just like the camp counselors were inauthentic that night in the dining hall.

I think about Charlottesville, Russiagate, January 6, COVID, and all the other media hoaxes. It’s all the same thing — with the same pathology. The camp counselors are all grown up now, but the self-righteous zealotry remains — as does their goal. They want you to feel fear. And they don’t want you to think for yourself.

So when you see something in the media that makes you afraid, stop and think. Not that you shouldn’t be concerned, but think it through first. Think about who’s trying to manipulate you and why.

The more they try to incite panic, the more suspicious you should be. Because what you’re probably seeing is just “Experiential Learning” for the rest of us. And it’s best to ignore it.

A version of this article was originally published as an X post.

​Brainwashing, Israel, Manipulation, Media hoax, Middle east, Southern poverty law center, Opinion & analysis 

The resurrection of the body and the true meaning of eternity is one of the most misunderstood ideas in Christianity, as many believe that the goal of being a Christian is to “go to heaven” after we die.

And BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey and theologian Wes Huff are setting the record straight.

“It’s a sign of restoration, Allie,” Wes says of the “resurrection of the body.”

“It’s a sign that when Jesus says, you know, ‘I’m making all things new’ in the book of Revelation, that that’s a promise. That we understand that the world was not created to be the way that it is. That it was created good,” he tells Stuckey.

Huff points out that the phrase “it’s good” is repeated throughout the Bible as a reminder that the world is “marred by sin, but it was meant for so much more.”

“And that’s going to be restored. We’re going to see how God makes all things new,” he says.

As for going to heaven, Huff begins by noting “we often have this understanding that our end goal is to get to heaven.”

“We leave this mortal coil and that’s it, and we’re trying to escape. That’s actually an ancient pagan idea. The ancient platonic philosophers and the gnostics believed that the physical was bad and the spiritual was good and that our spirits are really trapped in these meat prisons. And the goal is to get away from this all,” he explains.

“And I think we swallow something that’s false when we think of heaven as the final goal. What we read about and what you see within the Old Testament in the hope of the resurrection is that all of the created order is going to be aligned and made new and restored and that’s going to be beautiful,” he continues.

God’s creations — the sunrise, the mountains, the ocean — will be restored to what they were meant to be.

“We’re going to be in awe once again at mountains, at stars, at oceans, at valleys, at, you know, forests, at deserts. These things are going to continue to bring us into awe in eternity because God is going to resurrect us in a body that is, I think … probably analogous to something that we have here on earth, but much, much better,” Huff explains.

“Heaven is the layover. It’s going to be a great layover. It’s going to be an amazing layover,” he says, adding, “but it’s not going to be the end goal.”

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, Ancient pagan idea, Awe in eternity, Blazetv host, Christianity goal, Created good, Created order, Final goal, Going to heaven, Hope of resurrection, Layover in heaven, Making all things new, Marred by sin, Meat prisons, Misunderstood ideas, Mountains ocean, Physical vs spiritual, Promise of restoration, Restored creations, Resurrected body, Resurrection of body, Sign of restoration, Theologian wes huff, True meaning of eternity, End goal, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Blazetv, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Relatable with allie beth stuckey 

Whenever someone criticizes in vitro fertilization, the same response tends to come quickly: pictures of smiling toddlers, grateful parents, and testimonies from couples who spent years praying for a child.

For many people, that response feels decisive. How can something that produced such a beautiful little boy or girl be spoken of as morally troubling or wrong?

The public image of IVF — one happy baby — hides an unseen reality: other babies who never made it out of the laboratory.

On the surface, that reaction makes sense. Infertility can be a deep heartache. It is the repeated pain of empty nurseries, unanswered prayers, and hopes that seem to die month after month. People who have walked through that kind of grief are understandably drawn toward anything that promises relief.

My wife and I understand that heartache more than we wish we do.

We have lost multiple children through miscarriage. We have walked through a decade of infertility. We know what it is to ask God for life and hear silence. We understand the deep inward pull toward anything that might finally bring hope into reality.

This conversation is difficult. No decent person wants to speak carelessly into someone else’s suffering.

But moral questions do not disappear because suffering is involved. Pain can explain why a person reaches for something, but it cannot, by itself, make the solution righteous.

That is where the public conversation about IVF has gone extremely wrong.

RELATED: IVF CEO says conceiving naturally is for those with ‘genetic privilege’

Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile/Getty Images

IVF is almost always presented to Americans as a compassionate medical service. The happy nursery photos become the public face of the debate, and because those photos are emotionally powerful, very few people ever stop to ask what the IVF process itself actually entails.

Modern IVF does not only involve the creation of one embryonic child who is then implanted in the womb; it involves the creation of several embryonic children at once.

Some are chosen for transfer, some fail in the process and are discarded, and some are intentionally destroyed during testing. And more than a million embryonic children are now estimated to remain frozen in cryogenic storage facilities across the United States, suspended indefinitely because they were the extras in someone’s attempt to have a baby.

That means the public image of IVF — one happy baby — hides an unseen reality: other babies who never made it out of the laboratory.

This is not a rare malfunction of an otherwise innocent process. In 2024, when Alabama courts recognized frozen embryos destroyed at a fertility clinic as children under wrongful death law, the fertility industry immediately panicked, and lawmakers rushed to shield IVF providers from liability.

The death of embryonic children is not an unusual accident hovering at the edges of IVF. It is the standard practice.

We should be willing to say clearly what that means.

When embryonic children are intentionally destroyed because they are unwanted or medically inconvenient, that is murder. When embryonic children are frozen indefinitely because they were not selected, that is not a harmless pause in treatment. It is human beings placed in suspended imprisonment.

At this point, defenders of IVF usually return to the same emotional appeal: “Yes, but look at the children it has produced.” Some will even say, “Look at my child.”

And this is where the deepest confusion is found. Because the children produced through IVF are not the issue under dispute. Of course those children bear the image of God. Of course they are worthy of every ounce of love their parents can give them.

RELATED: Fertility doctors are bullying women into IVF

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Their value is not diminished in the slightest by the means of their conception. But the value of the child is not the same thing as the morality of the process. We understand this distinction instinctively in other tragic circumstances.

A child conceived in rape is no less human because of the violence surrounding his conception. His life may be full of joy, dignity, and meaning. And he certainly has the image of God stamped upon him.

Yet no one would argue that the beauty of that child makes rape morally acceptable, because we know that a precious child does not retroactively justify wicked circumstances.

That same principle must be applied to IVF.

Yes, IVF has produced children who are deeply loved, but those children do not morally absolve a process that routinely murders some embryonic children, freezes others, and treats human life as laboratory surplus in order to obtain a successful outcome.

In fact, those surviving children prove the very point many people are trying to avoid.

If the child in the nursery photo is an image-bearer now, then the embryonic siblings destroyed, discarded, or frozen in the same process were image-bearers then.

The question is not whether children conceived through IVF have value. The question is whether the existence of those loved children gives us permission to ignore the murdered and imprisoned children involved in producing them.

A good gift does not justify an evil method. And gratitude for one surviving child cannot erase the moral guilt of the children that modern fertility medicine leaves frozen, discarded, and dead.

​In vitro fertilization, Ivf, Ivf debate, Moral questions, Infertility pain, Image of god, Infertility, Embryos, Opinion & analysis 

Imagine you’re traveling down a road in a bus, and your driver suddenly passes out. What emotions would you and other passengers feel in that moment? Surely it’s a terrifying situation.

Now imagine that scenario taking place aboard a bus filled with middle schoolers — and the only adult around is the one who just went limp behind the wheel.

‘It started gaining speed. I didn’t know it had air brakes, so whenever I clicked the brakes, it about threw me out the windshield.’

Well, that’s exactly what happened aboard a Mississippi school bus recently, WLOX-TV reported.

Driver Leah Taylor experienced a medical emergency while operating a Hancock Middle School bus on the afternoon of April 22, and she suddenly passed out, the station said.

The terrifying scene was captured on bus surveillance video.

“She kind of fell over, like flopped over, and everyone started standing up,” McKenzy Finch, a sixth grader, told WLOX.

Amazingly, the middle schoolers took fast action and worked together.

RELATED: Heroic HS football players rush to wrecked car as smoke pours from hood — and rescue woman trapped inside: ‘These kids really did run right into danger’

Jackson Casnave, a sixth grader, grabbed the steering wheel, the station said.

“I saw that the bus was veering off to the side. Then I grabbed the wheel,” Jackson told WLOX.

“It was just adrenaline pumping,” he added.

Darrius Clark, also a sixth grader, hit the brakes as the bus started going faster, the station added.

“So she passed out again, and then the bus started rolling forward. And, I mean, it started gaining speed,” Darrius told WLOX. “I didn’t know it had air brakes, so whenever I clicked the brakes, it about threw me out the windshield.”

Kayleigh Clark, an eighth grader, called 911, the station said, and Destiny Cornelius, also an eighth grader, gave the bus driver her medicine.

“I saw her medication in her hand, and I saw her reaching for it,” Destiny noted to WLOX. “I knew that’s what she needed.”

Video soon shows the bus having finally come to a stop as the students continue to shout instructions and rally around Taylor, their driver.

RELATED: Kindergartners on hijacked school bus asked armed intruder so many questions that he got ‘frustrated’ and let them off, hero bus driver recalls

Melissa Saucier, principal of Hancock Middle School, told the station that her students handled the emergency correctly.

“I’m not surprised to hear that our kids remained calm and acted swiftly,” Saucier added to WLOX. “This emergency situation could have definitely been detrimental. And they handled it exactly how they should have, and we’re extremely proud of them.”

In fact, the students later were recognized for their actions at a school pep rally, the station said.

As for Taylor, she told WLOX she’s back to normal, feeling better, and naturally very grateful and thankful for her young passengers.

“I’m very proud of them,” she told the station. “I couldn’t ask for any better students than my students on my bus. I love every single one of them.”

“I’m gonna think of how they saved my life,” she added.

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​Good news, Hancock middle school, Heroic kids, Middle school students, Mississippi, Runaway bus, School bus driver passes out, Video, Human interest 

Speculation is mounting that comedian and podcaster Theo Von is on the path to becoming a true Christian. Recent clips of him getting emotional about Jesus, attending Bible study with country music star Morgan Wallen, and asking God for a “new story” have gone viral, sparking Christian commentary and reactions about his faith journey. Von has even described himself as searching for the Lord and spiritual healing.

But is he really on the path to salvation in Christ?

BlazeTV host Rick Burgess asked this question and evaluated the evidence on a recent episode of “The Rick Burgess Show.”

“We know a pretty good friend of Theo Von … I reached out to that brother yesterday,” says Rick, noting that this person is “a man of God.”

He inquired about Von’s faith journey, and the message he received back was surprising: “I think sometimes people like Theo Von … has more trust in what Jesus can do than many people who already profess their faith in Him.”

Rick is encouraged by this message.

“Theo Von seems to know that Jesus Christ is going to transform his life,” he says.

The costliness of this transformation, Rick notes, is one of the more painful parts of the Christian walk.

“When Jesus says count the cost, usually what we think of are the martyrs. Nothing wrong with that. Or we think of I might lose my job, I might lose friends … I might have family members who abandon me. That’s all true,” he says, “but what Jesus is talking about that I think sometimes the most difficult for us is it’s going to cost us our sin. He is going to call us to a new life.”

To Rick, it seems like Von is “being honest” about this reality of the Christian faith.

“Theo Von seems to be fully aware of what is at stake here, and he’s being honest. He’s not sure that he wants it,” he speculates.

Rick then plays a recent clip of Von that he says captures this authentic wrestle he believes Von is currently caught up in.

In the video, an emotional Von recaps the story of Jesus healing a chronically ill man in Bethesda.

“Jesus asks him, ‘Do you want to be healed?’ … and that’s a crazy question because, you know, if I get healed then I’m different. You know, if somebody gets healed, they have a new story,” he said.

“So that’s just been something that I’ve been having to ask myself. It’s like, yeah, do I want to be healed? Do I really want something different? And sometimes, a lot of the answer is no, I don’t,” he continued, fighting tears.

“I don’t know if I’m scared of it. I don’t know what I am. I don’t know if I don’t want to do what it takes to get, I can’t even tell what it is. And it’s hard for me. Some of this stuff’s a little bit hard for me to say. I think I don’t even know why, but I think I want a new story.”

Rick is blown away by Von’s willingness to be so authentically vulnerable about his wrestle.

“That’s honest right there, folks,” he says, emphasizing that Von’s use of the word “hard” reflects a genuine understanding of Jesus’ warning in Matthew 7 about the two paths — an easy one that leads to death and an incredibly difficult one that leads to life.

It is clear to Rick that Von is aware choosing the path of life will prove costly to him.

He hopes, however, that someone who knows the Lord is teaching Von that if he chooses life, he won’t be walking the costly path alone.

“Theo knows something’s going to change, but I hope he understands that Jesus will do the changing,” he says, citing John 15:4: “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.”

While he doesn’t know what decision Von will ultimately make, one thing is clear to Rick: “The Holy Spirit is working on Theo.”

To hear more and see the clip of Von vulnerably admitting his wrestle with the gospel, watch the episode above.

Want more from Rick Burgess?

To enjoy more bold talk and big laughs, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Blaze media, Blazetv, Christ, Christian, Comedian, Faith journey, Matthew 7, New life, Podcaster, Rick burgess, The rick burgess show, Theo von 

Spend enough time around atheists, and you’ll hear a familiar refrain: the Bible as a bundle of fairy tales about a “sky god,” stitched together long after the fact and taken seriously only out of habit.

That tone has filtered down into the culture more broadly, where it is not always argued so much as assumed. The biblical world is treated as distant and half-imagined — useful for moral lessons, perhaps, but not something you would expect to intersect with recoverable history.

In 2004, work in Jerusalem uncovered a stepped pool that matched the description of the Pool of Siloam — where Jesus sends a blind man to wash.

Archaeology doesn’t answer the larger questions of faith. It doesn’t attempt to. But it does something more modest and, in its own way, more disruptive: It keeps turning up evidence that biblical events actually happened.

RELATED: 5 reasons this ‘Noah’s ark’ discovery is harder to dismiss than skeptics admit

Heritage Images/Getty Images

1. The Tel Dan Stele

It was once common to hear that King David belonged more to tradition than to history — a useful founding figure whose existence could not be confirmed.

That position became harder to hold after fragments of a ninth-century B.C. inscription were found at Tel Dan. Written by a neighboring kingdom, it refers to the “House of David,” using the standard language of dynasties.

It doesn’t tell us everything about David. It does show that, within a couple of generations, surrounding nations recognized a ruling line traced back to him. That’s not how ancient peoples spoke about fictional ancestors.

2. The Pontius Pilate Inscription

The Gospels place Jesus within a very specific Roman context, under a prefect named Pontius Pilate. Historians had references to Pilate in written sources, but for years nothing material.

A stone inscription found in Caesarea in 1961 supplied that missing piece, naming Pilate and identifying his office.

It is the sort of detail that rarely makes headlines. But it reinforces something the Gospels assume throughout: They are describing events within a functioning Roman administration, not an abstract or symbolic setting.

3. The Dead Sea Scrolls

Before the mid-20th century, the gap between the oldest surviving Hebrew manuscripts and the time of their composition left room for speculation. Some assumed the text had shifted substantially over the centuries.

The 1947 discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls changed the terms of that discussion. Dating back more than a thousand years earlier than previously known manuscripts, they preserve large portions of the Old Testament.

What stands out is not perfect uniformity, but consistency. Variants exist, as they do in any manuscript tradition. Yet the overall stability of the text across such a long span is difficult to ignore.

For anyone concerned about how Scripture was transmitted, this matters more than any abstract argument.

4. The Pool of Siloam

The Gospel of John has often been treated as more theological in tone, with less confidence placed in its geographical detail.

Then, in 2004, work in Jerusalem uncovered a stepped pool that matched the description of the Pool of Siloam — where Jesus sends a blind man to wash.

What began as a partial discovery has gradually expanded. Last year, ongoing excavations revealed more of the pool’s full extent — confirming that it was not a small ritual basin, but a prominent landmark used by pilgrims making their way up to the Temple.

The discovery wasn’t driven by an attempt to confirm the Gospel. It emerged from routine excavation and has been clarified piece by piece since. Its alignment with John’s account has led even cautious scholars to acknowledge the text’s familiarity with pre-A.D. 70 Jerusalem.

5. Hezekiah’s Tunnel

Biblical accounts of kings often face skepticism, especially when they describe large-scale projects under pressure.

In 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles, King Hezekiah prepares Jerusalem for an Assyrian invasion by securing the city’s water supply — redirecting the Gihon Spring so that it can’t be used by enemy forces outside the walls. It’s described briefly in Scripture, almost in passing, but the implication is significant: a major engineering effort carried out under the pressure of an approaching army.

In Jerusalem, the tunnel itself has long been known and even traversed — an ancient water channel cutting through bedrock. What wasn’t clear for centuries was whether this was the tunnel described in Scripture or simply one of several.

Significant doubt was removed in 1880, when two boys exploring the passage discovered an inscription a few meters from the southern exit. Carved into the wall, it describes workers digging from opposite ends and hearing each other’s voices as they broke through. Jerusalem was part of Ottoman-ruled Palestine at the time, and the inscription was taken to Turkey, where it remains today.

The tone is practical, even understated. It reads like the kind of record people leave when they have completed something difficult — not the kind they invent later.

6. The Cyrus Cylinder

The Book of Ezra depicts Persia’s Cyrus the Great permitting the exiled Jews of Judah — the southern kingdom centered on Jerusalem — to return and rebuild their temple.

Some skeptics have regarded this account as suspiciously convenient — exaggerated to fit a theological narrative presenting Cyrus as a kind of divinely appointed liberator for Judah.

A clay cylinder discovered in Babylon in 1879 complicates this view. It describes Cyrus restoring displaced peoples and supporting their religious practices across the empire — not as a one-off gesture, but as a governing approach.

It doesn’t mention Judah directly, but it does place the return from exile within a broader, historically plausible imperial pattern.

7. The Ketef Hinnom Scrolls

Debates over when parts of the Old Testament were composed often turn on how early we can place recognizable text.

Two small silver scrolls found in a burial site near Jerusalem in 1979 contain a version of the priestly blessing from Numbers: “The Lord bless you and keep you …”

They date to the seventh century B.C., before the Babylonian exile.

Delicate and tightly rolled, they show that passages still read in churches today were already in use centuries earlier than some theories allowed.

None of this proves the claims that matter most to Christians. It doesn’t attempt to weigh miracles or settle theology.

It does, however, narrow the distance between the biblical text and the world it describes. Enough, at least, to make the old habit of dismissing it as a collection of late-arriving myths seem a little less secure than it once did.

​Apologetics, Christianity, Cyrus cylinder, Hezekiahs tunnel, Ketef hinnom scrolls, Pontius pilate inscription, Pool of siloam, Tel dan stele, Faith