More than 970 Americans honored our nation’s veterans this Memorial Day by participating in Run for the Wall, an annual 10-day coast-to-coast motorcycle ride from Ontario, California, to Washington, D.C.

RFTW, which started in 1989, was organized by Vietnam veteran Gunnery Sergeant James “Gunny” Gregory and a small group of fellow veterans to raise awareness for prisoners of war and those missing in action. It is the largest and longest-running organized cross-country motorcycle ride.

‘It restores my faith in America and in humanity.’

This year, riders departed from California on May 13 to take one of the RFTW’s three routes across the U.S. — Central, Midway, and Southern Routes — to reach the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in the nation’s capital on May 23, just a couple of days ahead of Memorial Day.

A fourth drive, known as the Sandbox Route, took riders from D.C. to the Middle East Conflicts Wall Memorial in Marseilles, Illinois, to pay respect to younger generations of veterans who served during the Global War on Terror.

As riders stop in cities along their routes, they are greeted by cheering locals who line the streets waving American flags. Gallup, New Mexico, a pitstop on the Central Route, hosts a large motorcycle parade through town, followed by a “Gathering of Veterans” ceremony and a dinner for the riders at Red Rock Park.

RFTW’s motto is “We ride for those who can’t.”

For each leg of the journey, riders honor the memory of a service member who was killed in action, missing, or held as a prisoner of war. They write the person’s name and branch of service in chalk on the ground and display a photo and a biography so others can stop by to pay their respects.

RELATED: A Marine’s Memorial Day message: Don’t forget the price

Image source: Run for the Wall

At the front of the pack, they ride in a Missing Man Formation, which involves five motorcycles with an empty space where a sixth bike should be to symbolize the missing serviceman’s absence. The photos and bios of the service members are brought to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall and placed at the panel where their name is inscribed.

Ted “Boots” Kapner, the director of public relations for RFTW, told Blaze News that Memorial Day has taken on “a whole new meaning” for him since he started participating in the cross-country ride in 2017.

Kapner, who hosts the RFTW podcast, explained that during the show, he will read the biographies of individuals whose names are inscribed on a memorial wall.

“I feel like for every bio that I read on the podcast, I get to know them,” he stated, describing learning about their family and where they grew up. “I carry these bios with me and deliver them to the wall; it’s not just a barbecue and a celebration, it’s really a day of solemn remembrance.”

RELATED: Gold Star grief never ends — remember the fallen this Memorial Day

Image source: Run for the Wall

Kapner described reaching the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., with his fellow riders as “a cascade of emotions.”

“We’re all in tears, and we’re all there, arm in arm, supporting one another,” Kapner told Blaze News. “It’s a family. … It restores my faith in America and in humanity.”

“America is still a great nation, and it is our best hope. There comes a time when we all have to set aside our differences and know that we’re more alike than we are different,” he stated.

Kapner encouraged Americans to take time on Memorial Day to remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom.

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​Memorial day, Veterans, Ride for the wall, Motorcycle, Motorcycles, Politics 

Move over, citronella oils and sound emitters. It’s time to take mosquito repellant into the space age.

When nets, spray, and anti-mosquito pills are just not working, one company says it is almost ready ship a mosquito defense system that seems like it should be fitted on the Death Star.

‘When used as directed, there is no risk to adults, children, babies, or pregnant women.’

Just when technology seemingly couldn’t get any crazier, the Photon Matrix is a new product hoping to ship to consumers worldwide this summer.

Labeled the world’s first portable laser mosquito defense system, the Photon Matrix Lab team says its light detection and ranging system combined with an electromechanical measuring instrument — called a galvanometer — is the answer to ridding one’s back yard, cottage, or camping trip of mosquitoes.

The company promises that its “precision laser striking system” delivers an automated and chemical-free way to zap mosquitoes out of the sky as soon as they are within range.

The product works by shooting its laser at objects within an approximately 19-foot radius that are between 0.08 and 0.8 inches in size.

The device cannot kill houseflies, roaches, wasps, or moths, because they are larger and faster than mosquitoes, the company says. Therefore, it is also allegedly safe for operation around bees or butterflies, which have different flight patterns that the machine does not recognize.

RELATED: This new laser farming technique could free us from pesticides — forever

– YouTube

With obvious safety concerns as the first question, this Chinese company out of Changzhou City, China, says if a large pet or human comes into the target zone, the device will automatically stop shooting.

At the same time, the company claims the laser is very low power with extremely short pulse duration, so it would not cause burns even in the “extremely unlikely” event of direct skin exposure.

The company wrote, “When used as directed, there is no risk to adults, children, babies, or pregnant women.”

RELATED: America’s next-gen weapons face a down-to-earth foe: The elements

Francisco J. Olmo/Europa Press/Getty Images

The product is expected to ship in Q2-Q3 2026, which is listed as approximately July-August, currently priced at around $650 USD.

It does require monthly cleaning; users are instructed to clean the laser’s optical window to prevent dust buildup.

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​China, Lasers, Mosquitoes, Pests, Return, Tech 

For many Americans, Memorial Day is nothing more than a welcome day off of work to kick back and relax and maybe host a backyard barbeque.

But the true meaning of this holiday should stir deep gratitude and empathy in every American citizen. Memorial Day is set aside not for leisure but for reverence. It is about honoring and remembering the men and women of the armed forces who died while serving in the military.

Two years ago, Glenn Beck delivered an unforgettable message that is worth revisiting on this important day.

– YouTube

Glenn starts by telling a common story that only the parents of fallen soldiers will truly understand.

“If you will, try to imagine this in the first person, through the eyes of someone I’m about to describe,” he begins.

“Your son has been in the United States Marine Corps for what seems like forever now. … What begins as extreme worry and then turns to panic, then helplessness, then all time seems to stop. It’s as if you’re stranded in the loneliest cold of winter, with no daylight to help tell you the passage of time. It’s just you, your worry, and no end in sight,” he narrates.

Unbeknownst to you, your beloved son suddenly falls in combat. This immediately sets a precise military protocol in motion.

“This is what’s happening behind the scenes,” says Glenn. “First a death notification. It has to be executed within eight hours. A discreet attempt to locate you, the next of kin, is initiated so the officers chosen to deliver the notification arrive at the right place at the right time.”

“Three individuals are typically chosen to arrive at your home: an officer at least one rank higher than the deceased, a chaplain, and someone capable of delivering medical help should the next of kin pass out or worse,” he continues.

The parent, already sensing the gut-wrenching news, listens in horror as the officer delivers the following message: “The commandant of the Marine Corps has entrusted me to express his deep regret that your son John was killed in action on Friday, March 26. The commandant and the Marine Corps extend their deepest sympathy to you and your family in your loss.”

“This is the nightmare that thousands have had to endure, thousands fear could happen to them at any time,” says Glenn.

“312 parents experienced what I just described in 2003 alone; in 2007, 847 military men and women died in combat; in 2008, 352; in 2009, 346 — and the list and the numbers go on and on,” he recounts.

This Memorial Day, as we gather with friends and family, Glenn hopes that we will take time to remember the true meaning of this somber holiday.

“I’m not trying to be a downer here, but there is a sacredness to Memorial Day that most of us just cannot understand,” he says.

Glenn concludes by reading John 15:13: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

“This weekend, remember the honor, the love of country, the families. Together they represent the absolute best of all of us.”

To hear Glenn deliver this touching monologue, watch the video above.

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​Armed forces, Blaze media, Blazetv, Fallen soldiers, Glenn beck, Gratitude, Love of country, Marine corps, Memorial day, Military protocol, The glenn beck program 

Rev. John Rosbrugh, the first U.S. Army chaplain killed in battle, was bayoneted 239 years ago in the midst of the withdrawal from the Battle of Assunpink Creek in the Revolutionary War.

In a 19th-century biography detailing the “life, labors, and death” of this “Clerical Martyr of the Revolution,” Rev. John Clyde emphasizes at the outset, “Amid all the light thrown upon his career socially, ecclesiastically, and politically — by tradition and historical record — nothing but the good he did lived after him, whilst the evil was interred with his bones — so far as known no blot rests on his fair name.”

‘Sabre slashes were made at his devoted head, three of which penetrated through the horsehair wig which he wore.’

Rosbrugh belonged to a Scottish family that migrated in the early 18th century to Northern Ireland. With his older brother William, Rosbrugh eventually moved to the American Colonies, settling in New Jersey, where at the age of 19, he married a woman named Sarah, who would tragically perish along with their baby during childbirth.

Although unable himself decades later to afford “that thorough education which was required of those who would enter the sacred office in his day,” the aspiring Presbyterian minister studied theology at the College of New Jersey — now Princeton University — with the help of financial aid and graduated in 1761.

Rosbrugh was ordained as a minister in 1764 at Greenwich Presbyterian Church in New Jersey.

The minister, whose recognition and responsibilities exploded in subsequent years, married again, this time to Jane Ralston of the Allen Township Presbyterian Church. Rosbrugh and Jane ultimately had five children — the eldest, James, would later serve as a militia captain in the War of 1812.

Long before his son would take up arms in defense of his country, Rosbrugh — “filled with the spirit of freedom” — decided to lead his congregants out of church and toward the battlefield.

According to Clyde, Rosbrugh assembled his congregation, urged them to satisfy the Continental Army’s request for reinforcements, quoted them Judges 5:23, and proposed that he join them as chaplain. The congregation was apparently keen to go — but only if he would be their commander. After some deliberation and receiving consent from his wife, Rosbrugh agreed.

RELATED: The crown laughed at our Declaration — but America got the last word

Gen. George Washington at the first Battle of Trenton. Hulton Archive/Getty Images

After penning his last will and testament, the minister “put a musket to his shoulder and marched out to the highway, and all fell into line and followed” Rosbrugh to join General George Washington in Philadelphia.

“The little boy James, rode the gray horse by his father’s side till they passed over the brow of the hill, just east of their home, as we suppose,” wrote Clyde. “Then the father took him from the horse, kissed him, and bade him go home to his mother, and be a good boy till he should return — he never saw his father’s face again.”

In Philadelphia, Rosbrugh assumed, as he intended from the start, the role of company chaplain and was replaced as commander by Capt. John Hays. The previous year, the Continental Congress authorized one chaplain for each regiment of the Continental Army with pay equaling that of a captain.

Rosbrugh’s tenure as a chaplain in Washington’s army was short-lived. Just days after the Battle of Trenton, where Washington — having just crossed the Delaware River — led a momentous victory against Hessian auxiliaries, the chaplain breathed his last.

Clyde noted that there are varying accounts of how the chaplain perished but held that the most trustworthy version has that the chaplain — whose company partook in the Battle of Assunpink Creek — unwittingly lingered behind at the eponymous site of the Second Battle of Trenton while the patriot army withdrew.

On Jan. 2, 1777, Rosbrugh tied up his horse outside a pub, then went inside for refreshments only to hear someone cry, “The Hessians are coming.”

The 63-year-old chaplain rushed outside to find that his horse had been stolen, then attempted to make his escape on foot, only to run into a small group of Hessians under the command of a British officer.

Clyde explained what reportedly happened next:

Seeing that further attempt at escape was useless, he surrendered himself a prisoner of war. Having done so, he offered to his captors his gold watch and money if they would spare his life for his family’s sake. Notwithstanding these were taken, they immediately prepared to put him to death. Seeing this, he knelt down at the foot of a tree and, it is said, prayed for his enemies. Now seventeen bayonet thrusts were made at his body, and one bayonet was left broken off in his quivering frame. Sabre slashes were made at his devoted head, three of which penetrated through the horsehair wig which he wore.

The stone monument erected in Rosburgh’s memory at Hanover Academy in Trenton states, “Clerical Martyr of the Revolution[.] Moderator of the Presbytery of New Brunswick 1776[.] Chaplain 3d Battalion Northampton County PA Militia December 25, 1776[.] Bayoneted to death by Hessians in Trenton January 2, 1777.”

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​History, Hessians, Rosbrugh, Presbyerian, Chaplain, Chaplaincy, Religion, Christian, Faith, Revolution, Revolutionary war, War of american independence, George washington, Memorial day, Politics 

Before he became one of the 20th century’s most influential Christian writers, C.S. Lewis was a committed atheist who regarded religion with suspicion, irritation, and eventually contempt.

Christianity seemed to him a relic of humanity’s intellectual childhood — a comforting story for people unable to face reality without divine reassurance.

‘Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about “man’s search for God.” … To me, as I then was, they might as well have talked about the mouse’s search for the cat.’

Return to sender

Lewis’ loss of faith began early. Though raised in a nominally Christian household in Belfast, his childhood belief collapsed after the death of his mother from cancer when he was just 9 years old.

“With my mother’s death,” he later wrote in his memoir, “Surprised by Joy,” “all settled happiness, all that was tranquil and reliable, disappeared from my life.”

Prayer seemed useless. God, if He existed at all, appeared absent and indifferent. Lewis later compared the experience to writing letters to someone who never replied.

As he grew older, his atheism hardened. Immersed in classical literature, philosophy, and modern rationalism, Lewis came to regard Christianity as one mythology among many — no more objectively true than the pagan stories he admired in ancient texts.

At Oxford, he became known among friends as a “foul-mouthed and riotously amusing atheist.” The horrors of the First World War only deepened his disbelief. After surviving trench warfare and seeing death at close range, Lewis later remarked with grim pride: “I never sank so low as to pray.”

Yet even at the height of his atheism, cracks had begun to appear.

Deeper longing

Lewis found himself haunted by experiences that materialism could not easily explain: sudden moments of longing triggered by music, poetry, memory, or beauty. Reading certain books or encountering particular images awakened in him what he later described as an intense, almost painful desire for something beyond ordinary experience.

“An unsatisfied desire,” he wrote, “which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. I call it Joy.”

If human beings consistently longed for something no earthly experience could fully satisfy, what did that suggest? Hunger points to food. Thirst points to water. Why should this deeper longing exist at all if reality were ultimately meaningless?

Lewis slowly began to suspect that the longing was not accidental. Just as hunger points to food and thirst to water, this deeper want revealed something essential about human beings. As he would write in “Mere Christianity,” “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

He also found that his outrage at injustice itself suggested a moral framework that preceded humanity.

“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust?”

RELATED: Chuck Colson: Nixon loyalist who found hope in true obedience

Washington Post/Getty Images

Kicking and screaming

Lewis did not move suddenly from atheism to Christianity. He resisted all the way, considering himself “the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.”

“Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about ‘man’s search for God,’” he wrote. “To me, as I then was, they might as well have talked about the mouse’s search for the cat.”

Eventually, the chase ended. But having acknowledged God’s existence, Christianity itself remained a stumbling block.

Lewis loved mythology deeply and still regarded the Gospels as one myth among many. The breakthrough came largely through conversations with friends, including J.R.R. Tolkien, who challenged his assumption that myth and truth were opposites.

Christianity, Tolkien argued, was the “true myth”: the story toward which humanity’s myths and legends had always pointed, but one that had entered actual history.

The truth of myth

The idea struck Lewis with enormous force.

Themes that echoed through pagan mythology — sacrifice, death, resurrection, redemption — were not evidence that Christianity was fabricated, Lewis came to believe. They were signs that humanity had been reaching toward the same truth all along.

Soon afterward, while riding in the sidecar of his brother’s motorcycle on the way to a zoo, Lewis realized the final barrier had fallen. “When we set out,” he wrote in “Surprised by Joy,” “I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did.”

That belief shaped the rest of his life, which he would devote to helping make Christianity intellectually serious and imaginatively alive for millions of readers.

​Faith, Christianity, Lifestyle, Conversion, Cs lewis 

AI is infiltrating the church, and most Christians have no idea.

A recent Barna study found that while only 1 in 10 pastors (12%) were comfortable using AI to write sermons, 2 in 5 (43%) believed it was OK to use AI to research and prepare for a sermon.

The study also found that 3 in 4 U.S. pastors (77%) agree that “God can work through AI,” and 58% said they “are comfortable using AI to assist in some form of communication.”

BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey is horrified.

“Spiritual maturity is not going to happen through telling ChatGPT, ‘Write me a three-part sermon on gratitude,’ and then reading that off to the congregation,” she comments.

“Plus, using ChatGPT or any AI to write your sermon is dishonest because everyone is assuming that that’s something that you wrote that God revealed to you through his word and through prayer,” she says. “But it’s not. It’s not revelation from God, a special revelation that we find in Scripture.”

“It is something that was summarized by a computer, and it is also taking someone else’s work. Again, all of these artificial intelligence machines are just taking ideas that have already been iterated by someone else,” she continues.

“It also bypasses the pastor’s own engagement with Scripture and the work of preparing the sermon himself. You want your pastor to be sanctified and washed in the word. You want him to be engaging with Scripture. … You want him to be further ahead spiritually than you are,” she adds. “And that cannot happen if he is outsourcing that sanctifying act to AI.”

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​Allie beth stuckey, Pastor, The bible, Artificial intelligence, Scripture, Christianity, Relatable with allie beth stuckey 

Cities are starting to reject the idea of having surveillance cameras that promise to curb crime, but there’s a long way to go.

In fact, the largest surveillance company in the United States says it’s under attack from activists who want to defund the police.

‘Flock, and the law enforcement agencies we partner with, are under coordinated attack.’

Citizens can now view a comprehensive map of Automated License Plate Recognition cameras that are popping up in cities all along the coastline and the Great Lakes region.

As it stands, there are almost 100,000 of these cameras in place in the United States. According to DeFlock Maps, the exact number is just north of 97,000, with a vast majority of them (80,000+) coming from one company: Flock Safety.

This tech and surveillance company out of Atlanta has about 1,500 employees and has been steadily building its network that promises a decrease in crime in communities that implement its systems.

On its website, Flock cites that it is trusted by more than 5,000 law enforcement agencies, providing examples like a 56% reduction in year-over-year crime in one California city and a 52% reduction in robberies in Cobb County, Georgia.

These solar-powered, AI-backed cameras are meant to operate as part of a complex grid of connected devices that allow police agencies to tap into surveillance inside stores, parking lots, and city streets to identify suspects and the cars they are driving; all to allegedly solve crimes.

However, some cities have rejected the service on grounds of citizen privacy.

RELATED: Meta’s Ray-Bans allegedly record your private moments — as contractors watch it all

Hyoung Chang/Denver Post

In addition to Bend, Oregon, where a comprehensive report about the surveillance capabilities appeared on CNet, Charlottesville and Staunton, Virginia, both ended their contracts with Flock and both received an email from the company that was described as “pouting.”

“That email was sent to every client that they had, including us,” Charlottesville Police Chief Michael Kochis said. “I looked at it and just, honestly, chalked it up to an unprofessional email from a venting CEO. I just ignored it, I’ll be honest,” he told Cville Right Now.

Staunton Police Chief Jim Williams shared the email he received from Flock CEO Garrett Langley, which claimed the company was under “attack” from activists.

“Flock, and the law enforcement agencies we partner with, are under coordinated attack. The attacks aren’t new. You’ve been dealing with this for forever, and we’ve been dealing with this since our founding,” Langley wrote.

The CEO continued, saying the same activist groups “who want to defund the police, weaken public safety, and normalize lawlessness” were behind critical YouTube videos and misleading headlines.

The letter, dated December 8, 2025, received a response from Williams four days later, which read:

“As far as your assertion that we are current[y under attack, I do not believe that this is so. … What we are seeing here is a group of local citizens who are raising concerns that we could be potentially surveilling private citizens, residents, and visitors and using the data for nefarious purposes.”

Just a week later, Staunton announced it was terminating its contract with Flock.

RELATED: ‘Everything on the internet is fake’: Social media marketers reveal that most online trends are fabricated

One of the organizations Langley may be referring to is the ACLU, which said last August that Flock was building a “dangerous nationwide mass-surveillance infrastructure.”

However, the ACLU’s main concern was that the resources were being used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement against illegal immigrants.

Still, Langley is consistently stating that voting Flock out of jurisdictions will hinder the prevention of gun crime. The CEO cited a Mississippi city that allegedly saw violent crime decrease by 79% and homicide by 90% in one year.

Langley wrote on X, “When the loudest voices tell you to vote Flock out of your community, ask yourself: are they also the ones outraged by gun violence when a shooting occurs, or in this case 12?”

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​Ai, Charlottesville, Return, Surveillance, Tech, Immigration and customs enforcement 

As we approach the 250th anniversary of the American founding, it’s important to point out that the Declaration of Independence does not begin with politics. Before it speaks of rights, consent, or government, it makes a claim about the structure of reality itself.

The rights it asserts are not the product of historical circumstance or collective will. They are grounded in a prior truth: that human beings are created by God.

The Declaration’s appeal to “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” is not ornamental or rhetorical — it is the foundation on which its entire argument rests. The founders believed they were obligated to explain to mankind the reasons for their separation, and those reasons started with God and His law.

The Declaration of Independence is precisely that: a declaration of independence. It is not a confession of faith, a catechism, or a constitution.

With this foundation, we can then proceed to the Declaration’s most famous sentence — “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” Though it is often treated as a moral flourish or a proto-democratic slogan, it is in fact a tightly ordered philosophical claim that proceeds in three stages, each dependent on the one before it.

First, it makes an epistemological assertion: These truths are “self-evident.” They are not established by deduction, tradition, or positive law, but are known by reflecting on the observable world. Truths about God, human beings, and the good must be knowable if human beings are to be responsible for ordering their lives and laws accordingly.

To deny that such truths can be known is not merely to revise political theory, but to undermine moral accountability itself.

Second, the Declaration makes a metaphysical claim: Human beings are created and therefore possess a given nature. Equality is not asserted as a political preference but affirmed as a consequence of creation. It follows from the reality of a shared human nature, which exists because God created it. Human equality is intelligible only if there is something real that human beings equally are.

Third, the Declaration draws an ethical conclusion: Because human beings are created in this way, they are endowed with rights (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) that no just government may rightly violate. To say that human beings are created by God is to say that they possess a given nature grounded in divine intention, not in change, appetite, or contingency.

This sequence is as decisive as it is brilliant. Remove any part of it and the argument collapses. Without a grounding in self-evident truths, claims about rights become matters of opinion or will. Without creation, equality loses its grounding in nature and becomes a political assertion to be enforced rather than an a priori truth. Without both, liberty ceases to be a moral claim and becomes a grant of the state for licentiousness. What remains is a thinner conception of freedom — one incapable of sustaining either justice or joy.

The assumptions that creation is intelligible, that God is knowable, and that human beings are responsible for acknowledging both stand at the foundation of the American experiment. They are the stress points at which its coherence either holds or fails.

RELATED: Trump’s Supreme Court keeps finding ways to fail his voters

OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP/Getty Images

At this point, the Christian reader may be tempted to object that the Declaration does not go far enough. It speaks of God as Creator but says nothing of Christ. It appeals to natural theology but makes no reference to revealed religion. Does it leave us stranded with a Deistic account of God or a thin moralism that cannot sustain the claims it makes?

The concern is understandable, especially when the Declaration is contrasted with documents such as the Solemn League and Covenant that explicitly confessed allegiance to Christ the King. Yet this objection rests on a misunderstanding of both the Declaration’s purpose and the relation between natural and revealed religion.

The Declaration of Independence is precisely that: a declaration of independence. It is not a confession of faith, a catechism, or a constitution.

It has a specific and limited purpose: to justify political separation from Great Britain by appealing to truths binding on all human beings as such. The absence of explicit Christological language does not indicate theological indifference, but a focus on the specific political question at hand.

It is also worth remembering that many of the founders likely assumed that explicitly Christian commitments would find expression elsewhere. Nearly every state constitution in the founding era contained explicit Christian language, often including affirmations of Christianity or requirements that officeholders affirm specific Protestant beliefs.

The Declaration was never intended to bear the full theological weight of American public life on its own. It establishes a common foundation; it does not exhaust the moral or religious commitments of the people who affirmed it.

Just as Romans 1 demonstrates there is a clear general revelation that shows the reality of universal sin and then explains our need for Christ, the Declaration’s three-fold assertion of knowability, God, and what is good provides a basis for the path to salvation.

This points to a second consideration: The Declaration’s appeal to natural theology is not compatible with every religious or philosophical system. The Declaration’s affirmation of God the Creator excludes belief systems that deny God the Creator.

It presupposes that God is distinct from the world, that the world is created rather than eternal, and that human beings possess a knowable nature grounded in that act of creation. Natural theology, in this view, is neither trivial nor thin; it is full and clear. It tells us a great deal about God, about ourselves, and about the moral order.

RELATED: How to fix the woke teacher problem

H. Rick Bamman/Pioneer Press/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service/Getty Images

At the same time, natural theology is not redemptive revelation. Scripture does not merely restate natural truths more clearly or add moral instruction where reason falters. It answers a question that natural theology cannot answer on its own: how a just and holy God redeems sinners who suppress the truth they ought to know.

The founders were well aware of this distinction. The Bible was the most frequently cited book in their writings, and most took for granted that Christianity answered the question of redemption. Yet they also recognized that this answer could not be imposed by civil authority without corrupting both church and state.

They had no interest in adjudicating disputes among Protestants, much less between Protestants and Roman Catholics. The Declaration’s silence on these matters reflects not skepticism about Christian truth, but a judgment about political competence.

In this light, the Declaration’s appeal to natural theology appears not as a theological retreat, but as a principled boundary. It affirms all that reason can and must know about God and human nature, while leaving the work of redemption where it belongs: in the proclamation of the gospel and the ministry of the church.

The coherence of the American experiment depends on honoring both truths. Confuse them, and politics becomes a counterfeit religion. Separate them rightly, and both church and state are free to pursue their proper ends. This can serve as a call back to American Christians to remember the need for evangelical work if they hope for lasting positive change in America.

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

​Declaration of independence, Human nature, Natural theology, America 250, Founding fathers, American founding, Constitution, Opinion & analysis 

BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey grew up listening to the Christian music group Avalon, whose song “Testify to Love” had become an anthem for Christians all over the country.

However, not even religious music is safe from the LGBTQ community.

“Here’s some bad news. Now, we are being told retroactively that ‘Testify to Love’ by the CCM band Avalon is actually an anthem of queer love,” Stuckey explains.

“I am not joking that this is now an LGBTQ-affirming anthem,” she says.

Former member Melissa Greene wrote in a substack post on the topic: “’Testify to Love’ drops today, originally recorded by Avalon, re-recorded by Michael Passons, Ty Herndon, and me. On Wednesday, we shot the music video. At the end of it, the three of us looked at each other, proud, and ultimately saying LOVE is for everyone.”

“She went on to talk about, in her Substack, her collaborator on the track, Passons, another former Avalon member who was removed from the group after he identified as gay many years ago,” Stuckey explains.

“In 2020, Passons appeared on an episode of a podcast and said that his bandmates visited his home and told him he was no longer allowed to be in the group because he was homosexual,” she continues.

While Greene now regrets viewing “some love as acceptable” and others as not acceptable, Stuckey explains that actually, some love is unacceptable.

“If you are talking about a grown-up loving a child in a way that is inappropriate, that kind of love is unacceptable. I’m not even making the comparison of pedophilia to LGBTQ right now. That’s not the point. I’m just saying that in principle, like you understand, the logic that some love isn’t acceptable actually does hold water,” she says.

Greene also wrote that Passons “never needed to be redeemed.”

“Uh-oh,” Stuckey comments.

“This phenomenon of believing that we are actually nicer than God, that we’re wiser than God, that we’re more compassionate than Him, that Romans 1 is too mean, that Genesis 1:27 is too cruel, that 1 Corinthians 6 is just too harsh, that passages that positively affirm the holiness of marriage between one man and one woman and the exclusive holiness of sexual activity within that marriage between one man and one woman,” she says, “it’s just too much to bear.”

“The truth is that we are not nicer than God. We don’t know better than Him. We’re not more compassionate than Him. And if something to us seems wrong or seems cruel or seems confusing when we go to the word of God, the problem is not with God,” she continues.

“It’s not with His word. It’s with us,” she adds.

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​Relatable with allie beth stuckey, Avalon, Testify to love, Michael passons, Ty herndon, Melissa greene, Christianity, Lgbtq