Scientists have made a discovery that should shake the foundations of modern biology.

When organisms die, some of their cells might not simply shut off like light bulbs. Instead, they reorganize, build new structures, solve problems, and make decisions. These researchers call it a “third state” of existence.

Once you accept that life itself shows signs of intention, you must also acknowledge that there is an Intender.

But to anyone steeped in Christian thought, it sounds less like a new scientific category and more like an old truth, a glimpse of the life that refuses to be reduced to chemicals and chance.

Mind in matter

Consider the strange case of xenobots, tiny clusters of frog cells lifted from their natural role and placed in a lab dish. They were expected to wither.

Instead, they began to move, formed patterns, and worked together in ways that showed clear intention.

Dr. William Miller calls this consciousness. Not the kind of awareness you and I possess, but the raw ability to adapt, to choose, to pursue a purpose. When placed outside their usual role, cells don’t behave like blind molecules colliding at random. They behave like agents. They cooperate. They solve problems. They move toward goals.

That fact alone shatters one of materialism’s deepest dogmas.

The evolution lie

For more than a century, the reigning narrative has been that consciousness is a late arrival on the evolutionary stage. It’s nothing more than an accidental byproduct of brain complexity, born only after countless mutations stumbled into neurons, then into networks, then into awareness.

The atheist worldview depends on this sequence. It argues that life has no inherent meaning because what we call “mind” is simply chemistry scaled up. In this view, free will is an illusion generated by firing synapses.

But these cells expose the lie of that story.

If consciousness exists at the cellular level, then it doesn’t wait for brains. It doesn’t emerge as a lucky accident after billions of years of trial and error. It’s present from the beginning, written into life at its smallest scale.

That flips the entire evolutionary tale on its head. Instead of matter groping toward mind, we see mind animating matter. Instead of dead particles producing life, we see life infused with purpose at the very first step.

The intender revealed

What if mind, not matter, is primary? This is a profoundly important question, one that doesn’t just challenge the materialist narrative but annihilates it. Once you accept that life itself shows signs of intention, you must also acknowledge that there is an Intender.

The real shock is that these cells don’t compete; they collaborate. They don’t claw for survival but sacrifice for a greater whole. Every one of the 30 trillion cells in your body could, in theory, serve itself — yet they don’t. They choose unity. Skin cells shield. Heart cells pump. Brain cells think. All of them working in harmony with no central command.

RELATED: The Dawkins delusion: Why atheism can’t explain the one thing that matters

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Random mutation cannot account for this. Natural selection doesn’t explain why self-interest gives way to selflessness billions of times a day inside your body. Something is directing the orchestra.

And consider the scale of the information problem. DNA contains more information than our minds could possibly fathom. Cellular machinery reads, copies, and executes these instructions with astonishing speed and near-perfect accuracy, millions of times every second. Our best computers look painfully clumsy beside such precision.

Materialists insist that this miracle of information arranged itself over billions of years. But information doesn’t just organize itself. A letter always points back to an author, a painting to a painter, and a symphony to a composer.

God’s living code

The xenobot research confirms this reality. It’s what some scientists call “biological agency.” And where does this awareness come from? Scientists can describe what it does, but not where it begins. They can measure its effects, but not locate its source.

Christianity, on the other hand, has always given the only coherent answer: Consciousness originates in God, the eternal, self-existent Being who imprinted His image on creation, a God who designed life not as machinery but as community.

The Bible says humans are made in God’s image, reflecting His consciousness, His creativity, His moral compass. What Miller and others are now uncovering is that this reflection stretches deeper than we imagined. Every cell of your body participates in it. Right now, as you read these words, trillions of cells are making choices, collaborating without rest, preserving your existence.

Some might view this as a fortunate accident, another curious quirk in the endless lottery of evolution.

But randomness doesn’t yield purpose. Blind collisions don’t generate systems that adapt, collaborate, and surrender for one another with unfailing order. What we see isn’t chaos but choreography, not accident but authorship.

I see it as divine purpose. The God signal has been there all along, humming beneath the fabric of life. And now even the microscopes are beginning to see it: design in the details, direction in the data, destiny in the DNA.

​Christianity, Atheism, Science, Christian, Bible, Jesus, God, Faith 

Vanity Fair once called me “the masculinist health guru,” which is kind of cute, I guess. I suspect the outlet really wanted to call me “the misogynist health guru” and to lump me in with the Andrew Tates of this world, with their rented sports cars, Freudian cigar obsessions, and poorly tailored suits whose trousers end three inches too short above the ankles.

If you’ve actually followed my work for any length of time, you’ll know that large amounts of the advice I give to men apply equally to women. I take pains to say this.

Researchers recently showed that hormonal contraceptive use shrinks the brain. Yes, that’s right: The brain gets smaller.

With regard to the harmful effects of hormone-disrupting chemicals, which are simply everywhere today, I say, “The end of men is the end of women.”

Estro-gentleman

We might like to think all those estrogenic chemicals are only a danger to men — because estrogen is the female hormone, right? — but actually they’re just as large a danger to women. Women can have too much estrogen in their bodies as well, and overexposure has a range of very nasty effects, from menstrual disruption, endometriosis, and polycystic ovarian syndrome to cancers of the breast, vagina, and uterus.

I also give advice specifically to women too. For example, I’ve written about the dangers of sanitary products, which have been found to contain massive doses of harmful chemicals and heavy metals. What’s worse, because sanitary products are in contact with sensitive vaginal tissue, greater quantities of these chemicals are absorbed by the body.

Vaginal and scrotal tissue is many times more absorbent than the skin on your stomach or hands, which is why the vagina and scrotum are often used as routes for drug delivery. Substances that enter our bodies through the vagina or scrotum also evade a process called “first-pass metabolism” in the gut and go directly into the bloodstream. Not good.

So while you won’t find me proudly sporting an “I’m with her” T-shirt or one that says, “The future is female,” nor will you ever find me donning a pink p***y hat or reading E. Jean Carroll’s autobiography, I do care about women.

Haphazard endocrinology

And it’s in that spirit of love for the fairer sex that I offer this week’s tidbit of advice for women only. It’s also unusual because it’s not a recommendation for a beautiful organic-wool pillow or the finest Mangalitsa pork or a red-light machine to tan your undercarriage.

I want you, ladies, to read a book.

Endocrinology — the science of hormones — has a deep history. Man has been fiddling around with hormones for many thousands, probably tens of thousands, of years, even if he had no idea what a hormone was until the beginning of last century.

The first castration was the first hormonal therapy, the first bloody flash of awareness that certain tissues within the body hold the key to sexual development and expression. A bull without testicles is no longer dangerously aggressive and uncontrollable — and the same goes for a poor unfortunate slave. A castrato’s voice remains angelic, like a child’s, until his death.

A kind of haphazard endocrinology went on for thousands of years. In some places, like Imperial China, where eunuchs had important roles to play in the imperial court and bureaucracy, castration took place on an almost industrial scale. During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), there may have been as many as 100,000 eunuchs in the imperial service at any one time.

But it wasn’t until the 20th century that endocrinology emerged as an actual science, with the discovery of hormones and experimentation with new forms of therapy at a far less crude level than hacking off the testicles with a sharp piece of rock or a knife. Particular kinds of hormonal intervention could now create a whole new way of life.

Tough pill to swallow

Of course I’m talking about hormonal contraception, the invention of which, to my mind, constitutes the most significant hormonal intervention in human history. No hormonal contraception, no sexual revolution — with everything that counterfactual movement entails.

The scale of this intervention in the hormonal lives of women is staggering. It’s estimated that 39% of female contraceptive users in the U.S., or almost 18.5 million women in 2018, were using hormonal methods (pills, intrauterine devices, implants, injections, rings, or patches). A 2013 study claimed that 80% of all sexually active young women ages 25-34 in the U.S. would try hormonal contraception at some point.

When hormonal contraception was invented, nobody fully understood the biological consequences, let alone the social or political consequences, of fixing tens of millions of women in the luteal phase of menstruation for as long as they choose.

The truth is that we still don’t — not really. While we’ve got a better idea of some of the social outcomes, much of the biology remains a mystery, and there are powerful vested interests that prevent an honest investigation or discussion of them. Pharmaceutical companies make no money from abstinence or the rhythm method, and attacks on hormonal contraception are also perceived as a threat to women’s freedom and sexual choice, which, in an obvious sense, they are.

Ick trick

In recent years, with the advent of social media, there’s been growing backlash against hormonal contraception, as women — especially young women — share their experiences of weight gain, mood problems, and even falling out of love with their boyfriends and husbands when they stop taking it.

Yes, that’s a well-attested effect of taking hormonal contraception. Women’s sexual preferences change during their menstrual cycle. Women find classically masculine men — men whose appearance and bodily cues scream “TESTOSTERONE!” — more attractive when they’re ovulating and ready to make babies, for reasons that aren’t hard to imagine. And so if you meet your boyfriend or husband when you’re on hormonal contraception and your brain is telling you to find Timothee Chalamet types attractive, going cold turkey might cause you to stop finding your boyfriend or husband attractive. You might even find him disgusting.

This really happens, and people really do get divorced because of this.

An open book

I’m not going to read you the litany of negative health effects or roll out dozens of studies to convince you to think very carefully about the benefits and deficits of using hormonal birth control. Instead I’m going to tell you to buy the book “This Is Your Brain on Birth Control: How the Pill Changes Everything,” by Sarah E. Hill. This is the most comprehensive look at the biological changes that happen as a result of taking hormonal birth control, the changes you or your sister or your daughter won’t be told about when you go to the doctor to get a prescription. The changes that won’t be on the medication’s insert either. It’s a readable, accessible book, but that makes it no less shocking.

RELATED: Hormonal birth control: As bad for you as smoking

Brain drain

I will talk about one worrying recent study, though. Researchers recently showed that hormonal contraceptive use shrinks the brain. Yes, that’s right: The brain gets smaller. Scientists used MRI imaging to look at the brains of users and non-users, as well as men, and they found that a key region of the brain, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, was noticeably thinner in women on hormonal birth control.

This could have far-reaching implications for women’s behavior, and that includes their political behavior. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex is involved in fear regulation and emotional processing. As I suggest in my forthcoming book, “The Last Men: Liberalism and the Death of Masculinity,” the thinning of nearly 20 million women’s brains in the U.S. could be helping to drive political polarization in the U.S., as women veer ever farther off toward the radical left and policies that endanger their own safety and well-being, while men cleave desperately to the center-right. I’m not joking. There needs to be more research, pronto.

Thankfully, the changes to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex appear to be reversible: The brain returns to normal thickness once women stop using.

Depression risk

However, other studies suggest that some alterations to the brain might not be reversible. While on hormonal birth control, women have a higher risk of depression. If a woman starts taking it in her mid-20s and then stops, the risk returns to normal levels. If, however, a woman starts taking it in her teens, she retains an elevated risk for the rest of her life. This is clear evidence that hormonal contraception causes permanent changes to the developing teenage brain. If you know anything about hormones and the kind of changes they can make in the body, this should come as no surprise.

Ultimately, it’s up to you. Your body, your choice — as the old feminist mantra has it. But the best thing you can do, the thing you owe to yourself as a (semi-)rational creature, is to be in possession of the right information so that you can make a fully informed choice.

So do yourself a favor: If you are using hormonal contraception or thinking about it, or if you have a daughter or other female member of your family who is or might, buy that book.

Expand your brain before you decide to shrink it.

​Hormones, Maha, Hormonal birth control, Lifestyle, Sex, Health, Men and women 

Can you feel it? Do you sense that something big is about to happen? And by big, I mean an event or events affecting people on a global scale.

I am convinced that Spirit-filled believers are detecting what the Puritans called the “quickening.” To quicken is to bring to life, accelerate, or incite. Pregnant women experience quickening with a baby’s first movements, and more importantly, the term also describes an advanced stage of pregnancy that alerts the mother that her long-awaited day is near — even imminent.

Christian, you and I have the greatest motivator ever — we have an appointment with the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Bible says that people are spiritually quickened or made alive when they are born again and will be physically quickened at the resurrection.

Now, ask yourself: Are there signs that events are accelerating before us, moving us toward the end of the age? Is there a tension that seems to indicate that God is about to intervene in our lives?

I would say: Yes! This quickening is a reminder to the church of what is soon to come. And it is a tremendous time to be alive. It is true that anti-Christian sentiment is rising — as we should expect — because believing in Jesus Christ divides. I can say any name at any given time, anywhere, and it’s not a problem. Yet division is guaranteed when anyone mentions the name of Jesus Christ outside the walls of a church. If believing in Jesus is divisive, believing in the rapture and its imminency creates an even greater divide.

How so? It was Jesus Himself who introduced the doctrine of the rapture in John 14:1-3.

The Bible tells us that the rapture will separate believers from non-believers. Suddenly, without notice or any prerequisite, believers will instantly vanish, being transformed and translated into the spirit realm.

Though believers are awaiting that day, many others are not. Sadly, husbands, wives, family, and friends who do not know the Lord will not experience this blessed hope. Many even mock the rapture as a fairy tale, the proverbial pie in the sky, or escapism. But being raptured is not without precedent. It has happened before.

Christians believe in the rapture because it is clearly taught in the Bible. It is a biblical doctrine. Some challenge that statement because the word “rapture” doesn’t appear in our English Bibles, but it does appear in the Latin Bible as rapturo. To be raptured is to be “caught up or pulled up suddenly.”

Remember, Jesus introduced the doctrine of the rapture in John 14:1-3, when He said: “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.”

RELATED: Is the rapture actually coming soon?

alessandro0770/iStock/Getty Images Plus

To skeptics who doubt the veracity of the rapture, I have a couple of questions. Following His resurrection, did Jesus ascend to heaven?

Yes, He did. According to Acts 1:9, the disciples watched as He was taken up. So is Jesus in heaven right now? Yes, He is. And did Jesus say He was going to prepare a place for us and come back just long enough to pick us up and take us back to where He is? Yes, He did, in John 14:2-3. I submit to you that the way Jesus will accomplish this is through the rapture.

Every Bible-believing Christian familiar with scripture understands that the rapture is a fact. They may disagree on the timing of it — before, during, or after the seven-year tribulation period — and that is OK with me. Believers can disagree on timing, but we cannot say, “There is no rapture.” To say that would mean deleting John 14:1-3 and numerous other passages right out of the Bible.

When God’s word speaks of the coming separation of the righteous from the unrighteous, it doesn’t leave us in the dark as to how it will happen. Paul wrote to the Corinthian believers, “Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15:51-53).

God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:9). Paul understood the rapture to be imminent, meaning there is nothing more that needs to be fulfilled in biblical prophecy before this event occurs. This exciting news would have thrilled the hearts of the Thessalonians, as it should for us today.

Wherever you are right now, can you take a moment to say, “Thank You, God, for this ever-present blessed hope!”

God’s great gift to mankind was manifested in Jesus because God the Father “so loved the world that He gave” — gifted the world — “His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). A gift is meant to be received, but it cannot be received unless the recipient chooses to accept it.

‘Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.’

It is tragic when gifts are rejected with the words “return to sender.” Refusing an extravagant gift from someone who cares deeply about you is a heartbreaking form of rejection. Yet people do that with the gospel. The gospel goes out, and they say, “I don’t want or need it.”

But believe me, when the day of separation comes, you will want to have received the gift of salvation through Christ. He is your passport to heaven.

I cannot stress this enough: No one will want to be an earth-dweller when Jesus Christ returns at His second coming!

The Lord knows who you are and how to deliver you, dear saint. In this age of facial-recognition technology, air travelers can now move through international customs by facing a screen and allowing it to scan their faces, which it does instantly. If a green light appears, the customs door opens. No identification or passport is needed.

If we, through technology, can identify others, how much more can God identify us who are marked by His Holy Spirit? We will not be forgotten or left behind when Christ comes for His own! “Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man” (Luke 21:36).

What stimulates, encourages, provokes, and compels you to do what you do? In other words, what motivates you in life?

I don’t know about you, but when there is a special appointment or a long-awaited event I’m looking forward to, I am motivated to get ready for that day. Christian, you and I have the greatest motivator ever — we have an appointment with the Lord Jesus Christ.

How do we get ready for such an important date?

“Do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light” (Romans 13:11-12).

Excerpted from “Called to Take a Bold Stand.” Copyright © 2025, Jack Hibbs. Published by Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, Oregon. www.harvesthousepublishers.com

​End times, Christianity, Bible, Jesus, Jesus christ, Ratpure, Faith 

In 1989, Justice Antonin Scalia cast the deciding vote to overturn the conviction of Gregory Lee Johnson, who was arrested and found guilty of violating a Texas statute after he burned the American flag outside the Republican National Convention.

The author of the 5-4 opinion was Justice William Brennan, the leading liberal and advocate for the “living Constitution” on the Supreme Court. For conservatives, it was one of the two most widely criticized votes of Justice Scalia’s illustrious career (the other being his vote refusing to recognize that parents have a natural, constitutionally protected right to direct the upbringing of their children).

The president’s executive order is not only much needed and long overdue, but is also very likely to be upheld by the Supreme Court when the inevitable challenges arise.

But the opinion by Brennan, which Scalia joined, is not as absolute as it has subsequently been portrayed.

The historical context

It specifically held that Texas violated the First Amendment by prosecuting Johnson “in these circumstances” — that is, expressive conduct or symbolic speech as part of a political protest that was not designed to incite a crowd (nor did it have that effect). It also held that the “government generally has a freer hand in restricting expressive conduct than it has in restricting the written or spoken word.” Only laws directed at restricting the communicative nature of expressive conduct implicate the First Amendment, and even then they can be upheld for a valid governmental interest.

Texas offered two governmental interests in defense of its flag-burning statute: 1) preventing breaches of the peace and 2) preserving the flag as a symbol of national unity. The court rejected the second because it was related to the suppression of expression, and it rejected the first because “it was not implicated” in the case.

That is the important caveat in Texas v. Johnson that President Donald Trump’s executive order, “Prosecuting Burning of the American Flag,” seeks to capitalize on.

A needed change

After articulating why the flag is such a cherished symbol, one for which “many thousands of American patriots have fought, bled, and died to keep … waving,” the order asserts, “Desecrating it is uniquely offensive and provocative,” and is “a statement of contempt, hostility, and violence against our Nation.”

It then invokes the Texas v. Johnson caveat: “Burning this representation of America may incite violence and riot. American Flag burning is also used by groups of foreign nationals as a calculated act to intimidate and threaten violence against Americans because of their nationality and place of birth.”

The order correctly points out that the Supreme Court “has never held that American Flag desecration conducted in a manner that is likely to incite imminent lawless action or that is an action amounting to ‘fighting words’ is constitutionally protected.” And it laudably directs the attorney general to prioritize the enforcement of civil and criminal laws against flag desecration, quite correctly limiting it to flag-burning conduct that causes harm “unrelated to expression” in order to be consistent with the First Amendment as interpreted by the Supreme Court in Texas v. Johnson.

RELATED: College students say American flag symbolizes ‘genocide,’ ‘extremism,’ ‘injustice,’ and ‘sins’ we’ve committed against others

Photo by BRANDONJ74 via Getty Images

Maintaining precedent

After 35 years of timid responses to the flag-burning case, in which elected officials and law enforcement at every level thought flag-burning was constitutionally protected no matter the circumstances (an erroneous view repeated ad nauseam by many critics of the president’s order), President Trump has taken a long-overdue stand to protect the flag. He is seeking to safeguard it from those who would burn it to incite violence, provoke with “fighting words,” or more broadly, seek to intimidate Americans from expressing patriotism and applauding American exceptionalism.

The incitement, fighting words, and intimidation exceptions have sometimes themselves been limited to acts targeting particular individuals rather than groups. But as the Supreme Court recognized in Virginia v. Black, a cross-burning case that was decided 14 years after Texas v. Johnson, the First Amendment doesn’t necessarily protect such conduct when targeting groups rather than specific individuals.

The aggressive use of American flag-burning as a tactic of incitement and intimidation, which has been on display in cities across the country in response to President Trump’s efforts to enforce our nation’s immigration laws, demonstrates that “in these circumstances” (as distinct from the milquetoast circumstances at issue in Texas v. Johnson), the president’s executive order is not only much needed and long overdue, but is also very likely to be upheld by the Supreme Court when the inevitable challenges arise.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published on the American Mind.

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Flag burning, Flag, Flag burning executive order, Supreme court, First amendment, Texas v. johnson, Antonin scalia, Donald trump, Fighting words 

Dr. James Dobson left a 14-year career on faculty at the University of Southern California Medical School to embark on a far more speculative quest to combat progressive influences on family formation and the rearing of children.

It was an unusual choice for a man born to a generation that prized security and institutional membership. After decades of successful organization, audience building, book sales, and political influence, Dobson accurately perceived the opportunity before him when he made the leap.

Of all the evangelical attempts to participate in America’s mass media culture, Dobson’s projects may have been the most successful.

But it was more than an opportunity to be successful that Dobson grasped. It was the chance to contribute to the common good, to demonstrate obedience to God, and to speak prophetically to the nation and the world.

Spiritual guide

Dobson was known primarily as an expert on family and the raising of children. His early work made an impact as a kind of counternarrative to the tradition-busting, more permissive views of Dr. Benjamin Spock (not the one from “Star Trek”).

His influence, however, grew far beyond the realm of family even as the umbrella organization of the work was and still is called Focus on the Family.

Dobson was also a true spiritual guide and encourager for Americans of all ages. Young people listened to stories encouraging virtue and Christian faithfulness on Focus on the Family’s outstanding “Adventures in Odyssey” series.

Millions of adults listened to the radio broadcast Dobson did with a series of co-hosts. While his broadcasts often focused on advice for raising children or for building a flourishing marriage, he also platformed Christian testimonies and effective Christian advocates and ministries. Being featured on his broadcast could lead to an explosion of interest and support for an organization such as the still-flourishing Summit Ministries.

Of all the evangelical attempts to participate in America’s mass media culture, Dobson’s projects may have been the most successful.

Faith in motion

Someone who preceded Dobson in changing evangelical thought was the missionary turned author and filmmaker Francis Schaeffer.

There is a kind of narrative some Christian academics promote about Schaeffer, which is that he was on the right path until he began to engage in political activism. It is certainly the case that, as Schaeffer aged and experienced more influence, he felt the need to use it for political ends.

A similar narrative is applied to Dobson. After his death, many people demonized him. But others argue that he had the right ideas early on, only later succumbing to the temptation to get involved in politics and the culture war. But I think those narratives about Schaeffer and Dobson are wrong.

Schaeffer wrote mostly about Christian theology and worldview more broadly until 1979, when he made the film and wrote the book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” in conjunction with C. Everett Koop.

Schaeffer and Koop — a pediatric surgeon who would eventually become the most famous surgeon general in United States history — toured together to promote the film, answering questions from audiences in an effort to appeal to American consciences and stop the killing of unborn children by the millions unleashed by the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision.

There is little question that taking on abortion drew Schaeffer more deeply into American politics and into alliance with Republicans.

Turning point

It certainly didn’t have to be that way.

Schaeffer was hardly a libertarian or someone predominantly concerned with limited government. Instead, he had natural sympathies with workers and was a kind of environmentalist. The life issue drew him further to the right because that was the way the issue evolved. Early on, politicians such as Al Gore, Teddy Kennedy, and Jesse Jackson had pro-life sympathies. At the same time, there were plenty of pro-choice Republicans.

But over time, the American political binary did its work.

Ronald Reagan declared forcefully for the pro-life cause even though his own advisers often tried to tamp down his support. Nevertheless, the life issue became a Republican issue. As it did so, it gained purchase with figures like Schaeffer and the previously progressive Richard John Neuhaus, who found himself surprised that commitments to civil rights and opposition to war violence in Vietnam did not translate into determination to protect the unborn.

Dobson also found himself powerfully committed to protecting the child in the womb. That issue, more compellingly and powerfully than any other, drew him into the political fray. Early on, he would make noise about liberal sympathies exhibited at the White House Conference on the Family. But it would be abortion that really pulled Dobson into the political limelight.

Dobson’s threat

There was a time when many Republicans considered the pro-life issue to be a liability, as, for example, various Reagan handlers pushed hard to prevent him from centering the life issue in his speeches.

And after hoping desperately that Republican nominees to the Supreme Court in the 1980s and early 1990s would lead to the overturning of Roe, pro-lifers were badly stung by the Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision — co-authored by three Republican appointees — that cemented Roe’s status.

The dealmaker knew this was one deal he had to make.

GOP pro-choicers likely hoped that would be the end of the matter. It wasn’t. Battles over Supreme Court nominations continued with ferocity, including the bizarre debacles we witnessed in confirmation hearings for nominees from Robert Bork to Clarence Thomas to Brett Kavanaugh.

Dobson was one of the major reasons the Republican Party did not abandon pro-lifers and relegate the issue to the margins. In the late 1990s, Dobson proved just how serious he was when he threatened to leave the Republican Party and to take as many people with him as possible.

The threat was impossible to ignore and resulted in a decisive shift in political gravity.

When faith leads

The Republican Party became a pro-life party virtually full-stop. Notably, the one Republican star who thought he could safely stay pro-choice was Rudy Giuliani. But he failed, as his 2008 presidential campaign proved. In 2012, Mitt Romney ran as a pro-life candidate, which he didn’t do in 1994. And in 2016, even Donald Trump, who had never pronounced himself to be pro-life, made the turn and subsequently won the nomination. The dealmaker knew this was one deal he had to make.

Dobson’s eventual support of Trump in 2016 and beyond is often used as proof that Trump forced conservative evangelicals into a position of deep and unjustifiable compromise. After all, they repeatedly criticized the philandering of then-President Bill Clinton in the 1990s only to look past the alleged same behavior by Trump.

But I think we’re telling the wrong story.

The simple truth is that Dobson helped bend the will of the Republican Party in the direction of opposing abortion reliably and consistently. And when Trump finally declared himself pro-life, it was he — not Dobson — who found himself in a new substantive policy position.

We all know how the story ended. Roe was finally overruled. Abortion returned to the moral and democratic consideration of the American people. And I would argue that Dobson got far more than he gave and with the highest stakes on the line.

People mocked Dobson’s hope that Trump had become a kind of “baby Christian,” but it reflected his own desire to believe in the possibility of redemption and a changed life.

​Abortion, Christian, Christianity, Focus on the family, James dobson, Pro-life, Republican party, Faith 

Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk’s suspected assassin, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, lived with a transgender-identifying roommate, several reports have confirmed. The findings could point to a potential motive.

‘This had to have been a motivation for Tyler Robinson.’

The two, who resided in an apartment in Saint George, Utah, had a “romantic relationship,” Fox News Digital first reported.

The roommate is a biological male who claims he is transitioning to a female. The FBI stated that he has been “extremely cooperative” with the agency’s investigation. He allegedly “had no idea” Robinson had planned the fatal shooting and has not been accused of any criminal activity in connection with the assassination.

Several sources told Axios that investigators initially did not want the roommate’s so-called gender identity to be leaked to the public since he was cooperating with investigators.

One of those sources claimed that the roommate was “aghast” to learn about the assassination and provided authorities with message exchanges he had with Robinson.

“That’s what happened? Oh my God, no,” the roommate allegedly said. “Here are all the messages.”

RELATED: Officials file affidavit with intended charges against Charlie Kirk’s suspected assassin: Report

Photo by ROMAIN FONSEGRIVES/AFP via Getty Images

Robinson had wrapped the rifle in a towel and hidden it in some bushes near Utah Valley University, according to the messages.

“It’s pretty clear that Robinson’s roommate knew a lot and didn’t say anything after the killing, so they’re a person of interest officially and are cooperating,” a second official told Axios. “We want to keep it that way.”

Utah Governor Spencer Cox (R) confirmed that Robinson’s roommate identified as transgender, indicating that this information may assist investigators in determining a motive, although he noted that Robinson’s motive remains unclear.

“It’s very clear to us and to the investigators that this was a person who was deeply indoctrinated with leftist ideology,” Cox told the Wall Street Journal.

RELATED: VIDEO: Erika Kirk makes first public remarks since the death of her husband, Charlie Kirk

Photo by Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune/Getty Images

Cox also noted that Robinson has not confessed to authorities that he committed the assassination.

“He is not cooperating,” Cox said. “All the people around him are cooperating.”

“The FBI is investigating a record number of tips,” an FBI spokesperson told Fox News Digital. “Every connection, every group, every link will be investigated and anyone involved in this matter, anywhere in the world they might be, will be brought to justice.”

Terry Schilling with American Principles Project told Blaze News that there is “a serious mental health crisis that America needs to address.”

“Transgenderism is obviously a mental illness. It was classified as a mental illness for decades, and then the science on this and the medicine got politicized,” he continued. “Now, with Charlie getting shot, it’s clear that this is causing serious problems. This had to have been a motivation for Tyler Robinson. Even though he doesn’t identify as trans, he’s directly related to it.”

Schilling blamed legacy media for lying to the American public about transgenderism.

“They tell these people that there is a trans-genocide going on, simply because there’s a large group of Americans who don’t want to give sex change procedures to children, or don’t want boys in their daughters’ sports or boys in their daughters’ showers and locker rooms,” he added. “[Transgender-identifying people] think their lives are at stake because they’ve been lied to, and they’ve been whipped up in hysteria.”

“We need to get these people the proper help they need,” Schilling concluded.

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