Rep. Haley Stevens ran for the U.S. Senate in Michigan and lost narrowly in the Democratic primary to Abdul El-Sayed. It appears, however, that she may have the last laugh.

In a move that has left her fellow Democrats panicking, Stevens delivered El-Sayed’s Republican opponent Mike Rogers a big gift on Sunday: her endorsement.

‘This is a despicable betrayal.’

In a race where polls show Rogers trailing by several points, this move has prompted praise from Republicans and ugly meltdowns among Democrats, including Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.).

Pollwatch.theblaze.com

The endorsement

Stevens — an establishment Democrat who touted herself earlier this year as “the strongest candidate to beat Mike Rogers and stop the MAGA agenda” — shared a video to social media on Sunday confirming recent reports that El-Sayed’s campaign had told her to stay away from all future campaign events.

“That’s why I am endorsing Mike Rogers for the United States Senate today,” she said in the video. “I don’t belong in Abdul’s campaign. I do not stand with Hasan Piker, who gets trafficked on our college campuses.”

El-Sayed brought Piker to Michigan to campaign with him on multiple occasions, even though Piker is the anti-Israeli multimillionaire son of Muslim immigrants from Turkey who stated that “America deserved 9/11” and called for another attack; said that he has no patriotism in his heart for America; and told viewers who care about Medicaid fraud to “kill” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.).

RELATED: Vance blasts ‘psychopath’ El-Sayed over ‘anti-white’ hatred

JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP/Getty Images

Stevens suggested that El-Sayed’s campaign has been compromised by Piker’s brand of hatred and insinuated that was troubling because the seat pursued both by El-Sayed and Rogers is “the conscience of the Senate.”

“I am still a very proud Democrat,” she claimed. “I still very much believe in everything I voted for and said.”

The congresswoman — who stated shortly after she lost the Democratic primary that she was “proud to support” El-Sayed — reiterated at a press conference featuring Rogers that she is voting for the Republican “because we have to stand with country. We can’t stand with hate. We can’t stand with Hasan Piker.”

Rogers welcomed the endorsement, noting that “Stevens showed courage and bravery in putting Michigan first.”

“The Congresswoman understands that Michigan is a purple state,” continued Rogers. “It is the soul of our nation, and I would be honored to earn support from Democrats across Michigan who believe in saving Michigan — from our education crisis to our sky high prices and depleted housing market.”

Michigan GOP spokesman Greg Manz told Blaze News that Stevens’ “support underscores a growing reality: traditional Democrats who no longer recognize their values in Conman Abdul’s radical Islamic ideology can find common ground with Mike Rogers.”

Among the other Republicans who celebrated the last-minute about-face was President Donald Trump. The president, whom Stevens voted twice to impeach, wrote on Truth Social, “Haley said what few people are willing to say. She showed great and almost unprecedented loyalty to the Great People of Michigan with what she did.”

El-Sayed’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

The meltdowns

El-Sayed did his apparent best to frame Stevens’ endorsement of Rogers as trivial, telling reporters, “I actually don’t think about Haley Stevens,” but other Democrats evidently can’t think about anything else.

“This is a despicable betrayal from Rep. Stevens,” said New York Sen. Chuck Schumer (D) on Sunday afternoon.

Schumer noted further that Senate Democrats remained “united” in their support for El-Sayed and said that “Democrats are equally united in our total revulsion at the racist, Islamophobic, and over-the-top false attacks on Abdul by Republicans.”

RELATED: Senior Michigan Democrats make announcement sure to give El-Sayed an ulcer: ‘Party loyalty is not blind obedience’

Finn Gomez/Getty Images

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called the endorsement “horrific” and accused Stevens of choosing “to dangerously betray Michigan families’ healthcare, freedoms and future.”

Rep. Jim Clyburn, the South Carolina Democrat who was originally set to appear with Stevens and El-Sayed at a Detroit campaign event on Sunday, said he was “absolutely disappointed” and characterized her decision as “a distraction.”

The Michigan Democratic Party effectively declared Stevens persona non grata, and her congressional staffers began jumping ship.

Michigan Democratic Party chair Curtis Hertel stated, “Congresswoman Stevens is not a current member of the Michigan Democratic Party, nor will she be in the future.”

Hours later, Hertel whined, “This is NOT ‘the Michigan way!'”

Stevens’ longtime chief of staff, Justin German, confirmed in a statement on Sunday that “many members of our team have resigned, including myself.”

“We are shocked and heartbroken by Congresswoman Stevens’s decision to support Mike Rogers,” added German.

Liberal media types similarly handled the news of Stevens’ endorsement poorly.

British hand-wringer Piers Morgan, for instance, condemned Stevens, calling her “an absolute charlatan” engaged in “the ultimate political treachery.”

Mehdi Hasan, a liberal talking head known for his “anti-Israel agitprop,” cried, “She’s evil,” and a “complete traitor to their [Democrats’] party.”

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

​Haley stevens, Abdul el-sayed, Mike rogers, Nancy pelosi, Chuck schumer, Jim clyburn, Senate, Michigan, Politics 

We all understand the terrible state of our leftist-run education systems, whose main goal is to turn normal young people into progressive activists.

The good news is that many parents have had enough. Homeschooling is on the rise. Charter schools are booming.

I want the parents of our students to know that this man won’t just teach my son science or literature; he’ll be a role model for my son.

In some cases, brave, intrepid souls are even attempting to build entirely new kinds of schools, from the ground up.

I recently met with one of those brave souls, Warren Steury of Nashville, Tennessee. At age 29, Steury is the founder of Meriwether Academy, a school where “young men have the opportunity to experience a rich and rigorous classical and outdoor education.”

While the school itself is still in the planning stages, Steury has already established himself as a central figure in conservative intellectual circles in Nashville, through his Classic Book Study groups and adult workshops.

Recently, he was part of a four-man team that brought Peter Thiel to Nashville to present his Antichrist lecture series.

I was able to talk to Steury recently about his views on education, his current projects, and the future of Meriwether Academy.

Blake Nelson: What was your own education like?

Warren Steury: I grew up in North Carolina. I was a public school degenerate. I was doing what most boys do, which was rebelling against all forms of order and discipline.

I was sent to a program in the mountains, against my will, at 16 years old, where I lived out of a backpack for three months. I was making fire with rocks and sticks.

Then I was transferred to a disciplinary boarding school that was also in the mountains of North Carolina, on an old Scout camp. It was a boys’ school. It was the mountain of misfits.

BN: Was that an effective way of dealing with a kid like you?

WS: It was certainly better than me sitting in some fluorescently lit institutional room. My whole reason for building these schools was thinking about what periods of my childhood had the most impact on my character.

I saw that year in the woods, hiking, camping, living in the forest as having an instrumental effect on who I was. All the other years in public school were essentially a blur.

BN: What’s the thought process of creating a new kind of school?

WS: One question I work on answering is: Does this school need to exist, or is there another school that’s offering the same thing that you’re thinking of?

Like what is truly going to distinguish this school from others? My answer is that we have a pretty unique program with the classically inclined education, the heavy outdoor model, and then the martial arts.

BN: Are there other schools that have inspired you?

WS: One of my personal favorites is St. Dunstan Academy in Virginia, which is a very cool new Anglican boys’ school.

They got their hands on 200 acres in the mountains. They’re building the campus from scratch. They just put up their Great Hall, which is a 33.5-foot-tall, massive timber-frame structure.

The students are learning how to build. The students are literally building the campus.

BN: What will you look for in your teachers?

WS: Life experience. So much of academia is essentially this pipeline where you go to college, you study something, and then you immediately become a professor in that subject. And then you’re speaking from this vacuum, this fake world that you’ve been in.

A good teacher should be a role model, a mentor, a guide, in ways that expand beyond teaching calculus. I want the parents of our students to know that this man won’t just teach my son science or literature; he’ll be a role model for my son, and even if my son forgets the math, this man will make an impression on my son’s life that will influence him for the better.

BN: I enjoyed attending your Classic Book Study Group (Plutarch’s “Lives”). When did you start doing book study groups?

WS: I was 18, when I started my first book club with some friends. It was the “Celestine Prophecy.” It was like five of us in Boone, North Carolina, when we were in college.

I always enjoyed book clubs and hosting dinners for my friends. And sometimes making it more formal and paying a speaker to come in.

BN: I noticed the Plutarch study group is men only.

WS: We want to do events for guys. It’s a different conversation. It’s nothing against women. You need male spaces, and you need female spaces, and then you need spaces that are shared. A healthy society needs all of those. I think that there is a coordinated attack on male spaces in America for the purpose of weakening or discouraging the culture.

BN: I liked a recent article you had on the Meriwether website, about the role of a father in a boy’s life.

WS: It’s so important to have that masculine guiding force in a young child’s life. We know with the Spartans, the boy was with his mother for the first nine years, and then the man came and took the boy and threw him into training, and that’s where he was made a man. So we shouldn’t expect mothers to be able to raise men on their own.

Fatherlessness is a massive societal issue, and is completely detrimental to the health of the child, but also to the nation as a whole. Whereas the mother provides emotional sustenance, the father has to toughen him up. He has to bring an energy that’s very different from the mother. Aristotle talks about this, how the family should be. It’s important to have both of those.

BN: Meriwether Academy co-hosted the recent Peter Thiel lecture series. What was that like?

WS: We threw it together in two weeks. I think people need to have more faith in themselves and their friends. A group of like three or four guys who are aligned can pull off some really cool stuff.

I feel like we’re quick to assume these things are more complicated than they are, when in reality, four guys who had this idea can go to work on it.

BN: You can just do things!

WS: You can just do things. There aren’t that many laws. The laws of physics. The laws of God. Other than that, it’s all made up.

​Charter schools, Peter thiel, Education, Lifestyle, Meriwether academy, Nashville, Warren steury, Classical education, Young men, Mentorship, Boarding school, Private school, Formation, Christianity, Interview 

The adage that “all politics is local” seems a quaint concept these days. For much of this century, state and local races have been dominated by national political discourse. Gubernatorial candidates, county commissioners, and even would-be school board members have taken up the hyperpartisan mantle of their respective national political parties, injecting wedge and culture war issues into races with little connection to issues affecting their local constituents.

And for the last dozen years, this fixation on national politics has been supercharged by one happily polarizing presence. No matter how local the race, the question increasingly boils down to this: Are you for or against Donald Trump?

Localized politics may be the salve for a democracy in decline.

At first blush, this midterm election season feels like more of the same. Democrats are dominating airwaves with attack ads tying Republican candidates to a deeply unpopular president. Republicans respond with ads linking Democratic candidates to a socialist takeover. Negative ads can be quite effective, and they may have even greater resonance in a cycle where an increasing number of voters detest both national parties.

Ironically, it may be this “pox on both their houses” mentality that gives reason for optimism this election season. A toxic Republican president increasingly out of touch with even his own base and a leaderless Democratic Party still reeling from the self-inflicted wounds of the last election have forced more candidates to ignore national narratives and focus instead on intensely local matters of actual importance to voters.

Rob Sand, the Democratic candidate for governor in Iowa, has expressly eschewed partisan talking points in favor of a laser focus on water quality and agricultural runoff in the state’s farmland. Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico has run ads featuring small-town mayors and local football coaches describing the detrimental impact of rural hospital closures in the state and expressing concern over data centers taking over farmland.

Both Senate candidates in Ohio, Democrat Sherrod Brown and Republican Jon Husted, have run similar ads criticizing the presence of data centers and resulting higher electricity prices for Ohioans. And Republican candidates from northern border states with otherwise national brands and name recognition — Susan Collins, John Sununu, and Michele Tafoya — have decried the trade war with Canada as harmful specifically to their geographically proximate constituents.

RELATED: On the ground: Texas voters pack Vance rally, give a clear message ahead of midterms

While affordability, tariffs, and data centers can certainly be described as national political issues, politicians’ focus on their local impact even when it bucks the party line reflects a growing comfort with running more localized campaigns independent of the national political machinery. A Brookings Institution analysis from September confirms that while national political forces remain powerful, state-specific issues are dominating and shaping individual races in ways not seen in recent years.

A return to local politics should be celebrated. Focusing on local issues has intrinsic value because the needs of a Maine lobsterman and an Iowa corn farmer will differ from those of a suburban Atlanta office worker or a Silicon Valley tech employee. We want our politicians to respond to our individual issues, and a local focus is the best way to promote that.

More fundamentally, localized politics may be the salve for a democracy in decline. For years, political scientists have described the nationalization of American politics and its resulting polarization as one of the defining features of our democratic regression. A 2023 study of congressional elections over nearly two centuries described the contemporary era as one of historically high nationalization and, as a result, polarization.

When Americans reflexively identify with one of two political camps as if they were sports teams and consume only national political news, they invariably interpret even local controversies through a national ideological lens. Campaigns know this. A 2026 study showed that campaign ads targeting a national donor audience were more ideologically extreme than locally targeted ads aimed at voters.

RELATED: Independents can bust Washington’s corruption racket

Zimmytws/Getty Images

And as Sand, Talarico, Tafoya, and others have shown, campaigns can refocus attention on nonpartisan, nonpolarizing issues that actually matter to people on the ground. In turn, a Democrat may become the governor of red-state Iowa at the same time a Republican may become the junior senator in blue-state Minnesota, because they successfully connect with the needs of those states and their citizens.

Sure, the case for optimism is a mild one. Politics still offers plenty to be disgusted about. Vivek Ramaswamy’s support for an ad questioning his opponent’s account of being raped as a child by her indicted stepfather sparked bipartisan outrage.

And the Mary Peltola campaign’s actions to prop up a candidate with the same name as her opponent to confuse voters (and then lie about it for months) have breathed unnecessary life into claims of election fraud chicanery.

And, of course, the national stakes — control of the House and Senate — remain front and center, with the outcome of many races undoubtedly to be decided by the singular unpopularity of one man who has been the center of political gravity in America for more than a decade.

But as Kansas Republican Sen. Roger Marshall recently reminded voters, those elected to the Senate this year will serve twice as much of their term with Trump out of office as with him in office. What better time than now to start thinking about how to shape the future of politics?

With any luck, that future will be local.

​Campaign ads, Data centers, Donald trump, Midterm elections, Political polarization, Election fraud, Republicans, Democrats, Sherrod brown, Ohio, Opinion & analysis 

While mermaids, werewolves, and alien abductions sound like the basis of a sci-fi film, in this case, they’re at the center of claims being made by self-proclaimed Christian minister Katie Souza.

And BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey points out that Souza has become “mainstream” in Christian circles and warns that she’s spreading “occultic lies” that are being “pushed in these circles” and “have power to entice Christians.”

In one clip that Stuckey plays from Souza’s podcast, Souza explains that she “was visited” as a young girl by aliens who “implanted an interdimensional device” inside of her that “harvested [her] eggs over [her] lifetime.”

In another clip, Souza discusses mermaids: “So, I don’t know if their wives that they took, their human wives, were part of that experiment of combining them with fish to create these mermaids or not. It’s quite possible ’cause these mermaids are really old. They are ancient. They’re sea hags. They’re witches.”

And in a clip that’s shockingly even more bizarre, Souza claims she has “dealt with shape-shifters.”

“I had a werewolf, who is a shape-shifting person. This is real, guys. This isn’t just the movies. Snap out of it. This is real,” she says.

Souza went from what Stuckey calls “a normal Christian minister” to now “having this very bizarre worldview.”

“When she has teachings that resemble more occult-like mythology than biblical Christianity and anyone like this has a platform in Christian circles, our ears need to perk up,” Stuckey says, explaining that initially, Souza’s ministry was built around her inspiring conversion story.

“She became a Christian while serving a federal prison sentence for drug and weapons charges. After years of addiction, meth dealing, violent behavior, finally culminated in a breaking point in solitary confinement,” Stuckey explains.

When she was released, she published a book about her conversion, began a prison ministry in 2006, and went on to have her own television program on Christian networks.

“So, how did she go from her prison ministry and that incredible testimony to talking about very strange supernatural things? The transition from that to this is kind of mysterious, a little strange. We don’t really know,” Stuckey says.

And while Christians do believe in the “supernatural realm,” Souza is pulling from places other than the Bible to create her understanding of it.

Stuckey explains that in Souza’s recent teachings, she “has veered heavily into reinterpreting creatures and concepts originating in mythology, folklore, occultism, paranormal culture as actually existing in the biblical supernatural world.”

In another extremely strange clip, Souza discusses mermaids again.

“We’re talking about the marine kingdom, most specifically mermaids and how these spirits actually will come — I’m sorry to say this — and SA you in your sleep. And sometimes those encounters are more than dreams,” she said.

Souza goes on to claim that these spirits “actually siphon off your youth.”

“This is real. This happens. They can make you sick. They can make you nauseous. They can have your vitality cause you to age,” she added.

“Oh my gosh,” Stuckey comments. “The marine kingdom has taken away your youth. That’s a new one.”

“In all seriousness,” she warns, “there are some things that are true that she says. And that’s why I actually think some Christians, maybe with too much time on their hands, … could actually be attracted to this kind of message.”

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.

​Katie souza, Mermaids, Aliens, Supernatural, Christianity, Occult, Blazetv show 

When I was in high school, I began attending Paradise Valley Community College in Phoenix. This was before dual enrollment became commonplace. Yes, I’m that old.

Why did I go to community college while still in high school? I wanted to study philosophy. I also enrolled in literature, political science, and English composition, eager to learn from professors who had devoted their lives to teaching.

A good education should answer two questions: How will I make a living? And what makes life worth living?

I’ll never forget the first day of my first philosophy class. The professor asked a simple question: What is the good for human beings?

Not merely one good among many, or what makes you happy this afternoon. What is the highest good for human beings?

We offered answers. A Socratic dialogue followed. The professor challenged our assumptions, pressed us to defend our reasoning, and showed us weaknesses in our arguments. I left with more questions than answers, but I had discovered something extraordinary: I wanted to know the truth about the good life.

That was my introduction to community college: dedicated teachers, serious questions, and an education that awakened the mind.

About 25 years into my career as a university professor, I now have two sons taking community college classes. I want them to have the same opportunity. But community colleges face serious challenges. Enrollment fell 22% between 2010 and 2023 — about 1.7 million students — according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. Recent gains have not erased that decline.

That brings me to an election many voters overlook: the community college governing board.

In Maricopa County, three candidates are running together as Change4Maricopa: business executive John David Crow for an at-large seat, entrepreneur Ryan Caracciolo in District 4, and Susan Winder, an educator and administrator with 35 years of experience, in District 3. Their campaign emphasizes affordability, workforce and health care training, and restoring community college football. Not all three races appear on every voter’s ballot.

Their candidacies draw attention to four problems that governing boards nationwide should confront.

RELATED: Is ASU going to fire a Christian professor for being too Christian?

Kevin Abele/Icon Sportswire/Getty Images

Financial accountability

Community colleges exist to offer affordable education. That requires something universities are not always known for: careful spending.

An August 2026 California state audit found inadequate reserve policies at several community college districts. Four of the six districts reviewed held reserves above their own limits or the statewide median, yet none of those with high reserves had formal plans to use the money to improve student outcomes.

Governing boards should be able to explain how expenditures improve instruction, student success, or career preparation. Ideological programs deserve the same scrutiny as every other expenditure. DEI initiatives should not get a free pass because administrators regard their objectives as virtuous.

Fiscal responsibility means remembering whose money is being spent and why.

Build a pipeline from classroom to career

For too many students, the familiar college story is four years of study, a mountain of debt, and a diploma that leaves them wondering where the jobs went. Community colleges can offer another path.

A student interested in becoming an electrician, nurse, welder, medical technician, or semiconductor specialist should be able to identify the qualifications, complete an affordable program, and enter the workforce. Employers know what skills they need and can help colleges design the training.

But I do not want community colleges to become mere job-training centers. A good education should answer two questions: How will I make a living? And what makes life worth living?

We should not sacrifice either question to answer the other.

Confront the myth of educational neutrality

Another question governing boards cannot escape: What values guide education?

For decades, Americans have been assured that public education can set Christianity aside and remain neutral. I call that the myth of neutrality. Christianity was pushed out, but competing ideologies did not stay at the door. Marxist assumptions and political activism filled the supposed vacuum.

Christians should not have to abandon their convictions to participate in public education. We should reject the claim that education can be separated from questions of truth, goodness, and, ultimately, God.

RELATED: The champagne communists who sold Millennials a bill of goods

BRO Vector/Getty Images

Restore educational hope for young men

Consider the persistent gap between young men and women in higher education. According to research published in July 2026 by the American Institute for Boys and Men, 43% of women ages 18-24 were enrolled in college in 2024, compared with 34% of men.

The causes are complex. But I doubt that lectures depicting young men as the problem make them eager to enroll. Some may simply vote with their feet.

A young man interested in advanced manufacturing should see a route from education to employment. So should one who wants to work in health care. Colleges should invite young men to develop their abilities, not treat them as presumptive offenders.

The election near the bottom of your ballot

What are community colleges ultimately supposed to accomplish?

I return to the professor who asked us about the highest good. He helped me imagine an intellectual future I had never considered, and that experience helped lead me to a career teaching philosophy.

Other students find their calling in nursing, engineering, construction, business, or technology. The paths differ, but education should give them hope by helping them discover and develop their abilities.

The people elected to governing boards now will shape those opportunities for years. Their races seldom command headlines or millions in campaign advertising. They still deserve your attention.

Community colleges can be great again. Do not stop at the top of the ballot. Keep going — and vote for conservatives who understand what these colleges can be.

​American education, Conservative voters, Dei initiatives, Federal reserve, Gender gap, High school, Higher education, Political science, Young men, Political activism, Community college, Philosophy, Affordable education, Students, Opinion & analysis 

You don’t have to be a Christian to know John 3:16.

You may not know exactly what the verse says. But if you’ve watched enough American sports, you’ve probably seen the citation: on a sign behind the goal posts, beneath Tim Tebow’s eyes, or this summer, written on the Pride caps of three San Francisco Giants pitchers.

Convinced that the rapture was imminent, he wanted to warn the world before it was too late.

For decades, six characters and a colon have served as American sports’ unofficial Bible verse.

Why this one? The answer begins long before television and eventually involves Martin Luther, D.L. Moody, a rainbow-wigged publicity seeker, Google, a hostage crisis, and a controversy this summer over Bible verses written on baseball caps.

The gospel in miniature

John 3:16 appears during Jesus’ nighttime conversation with Nicodemus in the Gospel of John:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Christians noticed early that the verse managed to pack an extraordinary amount of Christianity into a single sentence. Around the turn of the fifth century, John Chrysostom marveled that although John wrote concisely, “each word had much significance.” From the verse, he drew God’s love for sinful humanity, the giving of the Son, faith, salvation from destruction, and the promise of eternal life.

Martin Luther later became famous for calling John 3:16 “the gospel in miniature.” By the 19th century, the verse had become especially important to evangelical preaching. The English evangelist Henry Moorhouse preached on God’s love from John 3:16 repeatedly during a visit to D.L. Moody’s church in Chicago. Moody later described the experience as transforming his understanding of God’s love.

It was hard to compress the Christian message much further than John 3:16.

Then came the perfect way to distribute this message: live television.

Enter the Rainbow Man

Rollen Stewart initially had nothing to say about Jesus. He wanted to be famous.

According to Sam Green’s 1997 documentary, “The Rainbow Man/John 3:16,” Stewart discovered the power of television during the 1977 NBA Finals in Portland. Wearing a rainbow-colored Afro wig, he danced for a cameraman filming the crowd and managed to get himself onto the broadcast.

During the 1977 NBA Finals, Stewart discovered that television offered a shortcut to celebrity. There was no need to get cast in anything if he simply went where the cameras were already going and made himself difficult to ignore.

So he put on a rainbow-colored Afro wig and started showing up at major sporting events. He danced for the cameras and learned to anticipate where they would point next.

“Once I saw the red light, I was hooked,” he later recalled.

Soon the Rainbow Man was everywhere, and Stewart became surprisingly sophisticated about getting himself into the picture. At football games, he positioned himself between the goal posts, where the field-goal camera would find him. At baseball games, he appeared behind home plate. At the Masters, he maneuvered himself over Jack Nicklaus’ shoulder as Nicklaus prepared to tee off.

Best of all, he carried a small battery-powered television. Stewart could stand inside a stadium, watch the broadcast he was attempting to infiltrate, and adjust his position according to what the director was putting on the screen.

He wasn’t even much of a sports fan. “I despised sports,” he admitted years later. The games were useful because television covered them live.

After the 1980 Super Bowl, Stewart returned to his hotel room depressed. He had spent years trying to become famous and discovered that being famous wasn’t doing much for him. He turned on the television, encountered Bible prophecy teacher Charles Taylor, and subsequently became a born-again Christian.

The rainbow wig stayed. But Stewart now had something besides himself to advertise.

John 3:16.

6 characters and a colon

The choice was unusually well suited to what Stewart was doing. Christians had spent centuries treating John 3:16 as the gospel in miniature: In the King James Bible, the verse takes 25 words to move from God’s love for the world to the promise of everlasting life. Stewart figured out how to shrink it even further. Forget the verse itself. All he needed were six characters and a colon, large enough to read on television. The viewer could look up the rest.

In 1984, Christianity Today reported that Stewart had displayed his banner at eight football stadiums in five days. He appeared at professional golf tournaments, championship basketball games, the World Series, football bowls, and even the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana.

The fact that many viewers had no idea what John 3:16 meant didn’t bother him. It was part of the idea.

“If they don’t know what John 3:16 means, most people will eventually try to find out,” Stewart told the magazine. “And some will pick up their Bibles and begin reading it.”

Television networks charged advertisers enormous sums to reach the audiences watching America’s biggest sporting events. Stewart had figured out how to place his message inside the same broadcasts without buying airtime at all.

Live sports made the scheme possible. A network could edit an entertainment program before broadcasting it. It couldn’t edit a field goal before showing it. If Stewart got himself behind the goal posts before the kick, by the time the director realized what was happening, John 3:16 was already in America’s living rooms.

Eventually, the networks and sports organizations became less cooperative. Camera operators tried to frame Stewart out, while stadiums restricted his banners. By 1986, Christianity Today reported that all but one of the NFL’s 28 teams had prohibited them.

At Washington’s RFK Stadium, the fight became a federal lawsuit after security prevented Stewart and an associate from displaying John 3:16 banners. Elsewhere, Stewart devised Scripture banners that could be worn like ponchos and exposed by spreading his arms.

“They’d have to undress us to take away our gospel signs,” he said.

By then, however, the mysterious citation was becoming part of the scenery of American sports.

Did anybody actually look it up?

There was an obvious question about Stewart’s entire enterprise: Did anybody sitting at home actually do what he hoped?

Mike Kerrigan did.

The Charlotte attorney was about 11 when he kept noticing the Rainbow Man during football games. Eventually, he asked his father what John 3:16 meant.

His father didn’t know either.

“Let’s look,” he said. They opened a Bible.

Kerrigan still remembered the moment decades later, when he wrote about it in the Wall Street Journal in 2024. Stewart had predicted that an obscure biblical citation on television might make someone curious enough to find a Bible. In at least one living room, that is exactly what happened.

Unfortunately, Stewart’s own story didn’t end nearly as happily.

Rainbow’s end

His life began to unravel toward the end of the 1980s. His marriage collapsed. His money disappeared. His religious beliefs became increasingly preoccupied with elaborate predictions of an imminent apocalypse.

Television remained his constant companion. Living in cheap Los Angeles hotels, Stewart later described watching as much as 18 hours a day: Christian broadcasters, daytime talk shows, news magazines, reality television, and more preachers at night. He called it being “fed by the media.”

Eventually, appearing on television was no longer enough. Stewart began trying to create events that would force television to cover him.

In 1991, authorities accused him of setting off foul-smelling devices at several Southern California locations, including the Crystal Cathedral, Trinity Broadcasting Network studios, and a Christian bookstore.

Then, on Sept. 22, 1992, he took over a room at a Hyatt hotel near Los Angeles International Airport with a gun. Two day laborers escaped. A hotel maid locked herself in the bathroom. Stewart covered the windows with religious messages and demanded a lengthy live press conference. Convinced that the rapture was imminent, he wanted to warn the world before it was too late.

Green’s documentary includes an audio recording of Stewart speaking with a police negotiator during the standoff.

“I’ve watched the cops, you know, cop shows and tried to get a handle on what’s going on,” Stewart explains.

“Maybe you look at a little bit too much TV,” the negotiator replies.

“I watch a lot of it.”

After roughly nine hours, police stormed the room and arrested him. Stewart was sentenced in 1993 to three life terms with the possibility of parole.

From the family Bible to Google

Once the Rainbow Man was gone from sports television, the signs persisted.

On Jan. 8, 2009, Florida played Oklahoma for the national championship. Gators quarterback Tim Tebow had spent the season wearing Philippians 4:13 — “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” — on the eye black beneath his eyes.

For the championship game, however, he decided to switch to John 3:16. Coach Urban Meyer was horrified. A superstitious man, Meyer wasn’t about to tamper with a winning formula. “That verse got us here!” he protested, according to Tebow’s later recollection.

Tebow explained that John 3:16 expressed the essence of his Christian faith. Meyer relented.

Florida won the national championship, and Tebow had an advantage Rollen Stewart could only have dreamed of: The cameras were trying to find him.

During the game, viewers began searching the citation online. By the following morning, “John 3:16” had become Google’s hottest search term.

Twenty-five years earlier, Stewart had imagined people seeing the citation and going to find a Bible. Well, now they had Google.

The story subsequently acquired an almost suspiciously neat postscript. On Jan. 8, 2012 — exactly three years after the national championship — Tebow led the Denver Broncos against the Pittsburgh Steelers in an NFL playoff game. Denver won on an 80-yard touchdown pass on the first play of overtime.

Tebow had thrown for exactly 316 yards. Because he completed 10 passes, he averaged 31.6 yards per completion.

RELATED: What Fulton Sheen understood about fame that today’s Christian influencers don’t

Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

The verse that wouldn’t leave sports

By 2011, the connection between John 3:16 and televised sports was so familiar that a proposed Super Bowl commercial was built around it.

The ad showed football fans watching a game on television. The broadcast zoomed in on a quarterback with John 3:16 written beneath his eyes.

“I’ll look it up,” one of the fans says, reaching for his smartphone.

Fox declined to air the commercial under its policy against advertisements from religious organizations intended to advance particular beliefs or practices.

The citation continued turning up elsewhere. In 2012, a Texas school district became embroiled in a legal fight over cheerleaders putting Bible verses on the banners through which their high school football team ran onto the field.

And this summer, San Francisco Giants pitcher Landen Roupp employed a version of Stewart’s old tactic — with a different Bible verse.

During the team’s June 12 Pride Night, Roupp wore a special rainbow-logo cap but wrote “Gen. 9:12-16” across it, partially covering the logo.

Two other Giants pitchers, JT Brubaker and Ryan Walker, also added biblical citations to their caps.

Roupp had chosen the passage in which God establishes the rainbow as the sign of His covenant with Noah, promising never again to destroy the earth with a flood.

The Giants’ rainbow logo had acquired an unexpected biblical footnote.

MLB warned the three pitchers not to repeat the inscriptions, explaining that its uniform regulations prohibit unauthorized messages of any kind. The league emphasized that its warning “had absolutely nothing to do with the content of the message.”

Roupp was unapologetic. “That’s just kind of something I believe in, and I stand firm in that,” he told reporters.

There was no indication that Roupp had taken inspiration from Stewart. But the resemblance was striking. Nearly half a century after the Rainbow Man first appeared on television, a baseball player had put another biblical citation in front of the cameras, leaving viewers to discover the verse for themselves.

​National championship, Urban meyer, Nfl playoff, Rollen stewart, John 3:16, Christian living, Tim tebow, Evangelists, Sports, Lifestyle, Culture, Christianity, Anti-christian bias, Faith 

Anakin Skywalker was supposed to be the chosen one. Instead, he became Darth Vader.

And yet his journey to becoming one of film’s most infamous villains is one that BlazeTV host John Doyle says many young white men relate to — and with good reason.

Doyle explains that Skywalker, who was “born into slavery, rescued by this ancient religious order,” and “told that he’s the most gifted person to ever walk among them,” would then spend his life “being lectured and distrusted and held back by the very people who were supposed to help him fulfill this destiny of his.”

“He wanted to bring order to this corrupt and dysfunctional society. He wanted to have it all, right? A beautiful wife, a family, the power to actually protect the people he loved who were being harmed,” he says.

“But instead, he’s surrounded by incompetent politicians, hypocritical religious authorities, and this disgusting, decaying republic that can’t actually accomplish anything,” he continues. “And so eventually, yeah, he decided that he’s had enough.”

This path would lead him to becoming the “bad guy” who helps a “dictator rule the galaxy with an iron fist.”

And Doyle says that despite the label of “bad guy,” there’s a great reason why so many young men relate to him.

“If you’re telling a story about a naturally gifted young man who is prevented from reaching his potential by old people who are lecturing him but ultimately refusing to answer his questions or address the problems he’s facing, yeah, it’s called being a young white guy,” he says.

Doyle notes that “the actual story” is about “an evil empire ran by white men with British accents representing authority, class, tradition, hierarchy” who are “being fought back against” by “diverse rebels fighting for democracy and equality.”

“Young white guys really just aren’t so interested in a story about a bunch of leftists teaming up with aliens to destroy this homogenous, hierarchical society,” he says.

“This is a story of a young guy who grows up to be, you know, disillusioned by the things around him. He’s withheld from positions which he has actually earned by merit. He’s told that he can’t have things that he looks for, such as, you know, a girlfriend, for these vague and silly reasons,” he explains.

“He’s tortured and harmed by weird alien freaks that society doesn’t actually bother with meaningfully dealing with,” he continues.

“And finally, he decides to turn to what he was told was evil and forbidden,” he adds.

Want more from John Doyle?

To enjoy more of the truth about America and join the fight to restore a country that has been betrayed by its own leaders, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Star wars, Anakin skywalker, Darth vader, Gen z, Young white men, Blazetv show 

Public school or homeschool?

BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey warns that parents are asking the wrong question.

“These are not the only two options. It’s not public school or homeschool. It’s public school versus Christ-centered education. That can be homeschool. That can be a co-op. That can be a hybrid,” she explains, noting that a “hybrid” is a “Christian school.”

And while there are traditional Christian schools, college prep-type Christian schools, and classical Christian schools, Stuckey says that “they’re not all created equal.”

“You really have to go into these schools if you’re looking for Christian private education, hybrid academy, classical, whatever. You have to go into these schools. You have to tour. You have to look at if they rely on technology or not, which is a no-go for me,” she says.

“You have to look at their statement of belief, their statement of faith. You have to really understand if they are infusing Christ into all of their curriculum. No matter what you do, education is not an opportunity for you to outsource discipleship to the teacher,” she explains.

“The education should be seen as coming alongside you as the parent and helping form your child as a disciple of Christ,” she continues.

Stuckey believes that this is the “point of education,” and public school cannot accomplish this.

“Even the most wonderful Christian teacher cannot shape your child as a disciple of Christ because she’s not allowed to teach the Bible,” she says.

“She’s not allowed to share the gospel. She is not allowed to talk about history and English and math and science, which God all created, in light of the fact that God is the author of all of those things. She’s not allowed to do that,” she explains.

“She is barred by the law from doing that,” she continues. “And so, the question is Christ-centered versus public, secular education. Maybe not even just public secular, but all kinds of secular, private or public. Do you want your child to be discipled by a secular, sometimes anti-God worldview for 40-plus hours a week? Or do you want them discipled by a Christ-centered, biblical worldview for 40-plus hours a week?”

If parents choose public school, Stuckey argues, they’re choosing “thousands of hours over your child’s life from kindergarten to 12th grade” where “they will be taught from an anti-God perspective.”

“To me, it’s a no-brainer,” she says. “I’m not going to send my 6-year-old into the mission field as a missionary to a public kindergarten.”

“And if you say, ‘Well, I live in South Lake, Texas’ or, ‘I live on the outskirts of Birmingham, Alabama, and I know all of our public school teachers. They go to our church. I know that they’re all great. They’re not teaching the woke stuff. They’re not teaching gender,’” she continues. “But are they teaching John 3:16?”

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.

​Homeschool, Public school, Secular, Christian school, Allie beth stuckey, Blazetv show 

I was a little shocked by my own reaction to hearing Bill Gates, the famous face of the unelected world elite, push yet another omnicrisis on a prominent podcast. Especially for someone in the informal guild of prognosticators, the temptation is always strong to get caught up in what techies call “hyperstition” — and the rest of us call self-fulfilling prophecies. The urge to get swept up in the current wave of “futurist” forecasting can become almost irresistible when the tenor of the times tilts toward the apocalyptic.

But as most Americans know, we have been living under a state of elite-induced crisis for decades on end. Nuclear annihilation. Deadly pandemics. Ruinous climate change. The plot of “The Terminator” come to life. A catastrophic flip of the planet’s magnetic poles. It’s always something. And whatever it is, if you’re not running down the street clawing your face off, you’re not paying attention.

And what is a crisis, anyway? It is whatever authorizes the people with the most power to exert that power over you, personally, and ultimately anyone else, as they see fit. It’s genius!

Furthermore, if you’re not paying attention, you’re contributing to the real crisis, the one that somehow maps on top of whatever freak-of-the-week existential horror show is on the menu. Try to drop out of the apocalypse, and you’ll be deemed a moral criminal. People are suffering. It will get worse. What makes you think you’re special? How can you shirk your responsibility to the greater good? And after all, don’t forget, if you don’t cast the right votes, display the right signs, post the right expressions of solidarity, don’t be surprised when the angry mob — online and off — shows up at your door.

Because, well, we’re gonna send them. Because this is a crisis, and the only way we can ensure that it affects everyone is for everyone to believe they’re affected.

This, I think, is the principle hidden at the heart of the COVID-19 era’s inescapable hectoring that you must “believe the science.” We’re never told we have to believe anything when normal, healthy life is possible. We’re only told we must believe when the belief in question is absolutely essential to the propagation of a mass sense of total, all-consuming crisis.

And what is a crisis, anyway? Well, it is whatever authorizes the people with the most power to exert that power over you, personally, and ultimately anyone else, as they see fit. It’s genius!

Did I feel these feelings as my eyes glazed over at Gates’ all-too-convenient claims, the cure for which must surely somehow involve Gates flexing his unaccountable muscle over the Earth? No — I’m actually pretty sure I speedran that emotional experience five or six years ago.

This time, my reaction oddly made me laugh. Yes, I thought for a moment about those believe-the-science signs. But I quickly flashed on a form letter the management of my apartment building once posted in the elevators in the weird little era just before lockdowns.

It was, for its time, highly tech-saturated, but in a way that still had a lot of fluffy-bunny feelings attached to it. Founders were twee, logos were playful — the general attitude was: What could go wrong? But at ground level, where the streets had begun brimming over with abandoned scooters and bikes, the collective mood was already beginning to sour, and corporations adversely affected by all the “permissionless innovation” unfolding in tech-forward cities had begun to get wise.

RELATED: A tech-fueled Antichrist would be bad. Obsessing over the Antichrist is worse.

Gremlin/Getty Images

And so THE MANAGEMENT of my apartment building — a megacorp in its own right — posted a toneless memo in our elevators about its current policies regarding short-term rental apps. With all the low-effort audacity of what is now called the Gen Z stare, the memo explained that, per corporate policy, the apartment building, like all THE MANAGEMENT’s properties, did “not participate in Airbnb.”

I remember standing there with the feeling of having in fact to hand it to them. It was true — there were a lot of units in that brand-new building that were being flagrantly Airbnb’d, a scheme that especially seemed to benefit the many Chinese tenants. No hate, of course; that whole five-block radius of freshly risen high-rises was fueled by Chinese money and Chinese developers, and American locals such as myself reaped the benefits in the form of shut-up-and-take-my-money rental deals and round-the-corner access to some of the city’s most coveted reservations.

But I didn’t particularly want a revolving door of randos as my neighbors, and THE MANAGEMENT surely did not want tenants of any nationality cashing in on those move-in deals only to arbitrage their residence for big sublease cash. The corporation therefore decided simply that its buildings were just not participating in that reality any more.

RELATED: Marco Rubio’s spicy Greece speech left out the most crucial ingredient

Mark Schiefelbein/POOL/AFP/Getty Images

And like Gates’ onetime buddy and rival Steve Jobs, the corporation acquired what Jobs fans called a reality-distortion field.

Wow, I thought. I want a reality-distortion field …

Returning to 2026 reality, I noticed Gates also actually countersignaled himself on that podcast. “Let’s be like the Amish, and let’s only use AI for certain things,” he imagined certain future Americans agreeing. Later, he spoke of what people get from “helping each other or coming up with unique ideas.” What a concept — faithful families working together to strengthen one another in freeing ways?! It sounded like some sort of big old reality-distortion field.

Except instead of keeping out our given human reality, it was keeping it alive.

A little more clicking around the internet quickly revealed that many people, none Amish, are already choosing not to participate in crisis culture. “Constant warnings of collapse desensitize us,” Bruce Gilley writes in the Wall Street Journal. We “overestimate the likelihood of very salient threats,” according to the Financial Times. “Perhaps collapse is not, actually, a thing,” one can read in the New York Times magazine.

For once, it seems, the elites are becoming aware that overhyping crisis has led above all to a great populist longing, as the kids say, to “just not.”

​Artificial intelligence, Bill gates, Climate change, Americans, Crisis, Terminator, Covid, Tech, Chinese, Management, Wall street journal, Financial times, Nuclear annihilation, Opinion & analysis