Lakepointe Church senior pastor and host of the “Live Free” podcast, available on BlazeTV, Josh Howerton is calling on his fellow pastors to fight back against “intimidation” efforts from secular activists and to speak forthrightly about the “moral asymmetry” between the two major political parties in America ahead of the upcoming midterms.

Howerton — who discussed the misconceptions about the separation between church and state earlier this year on “Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey” — also implored fellow pastors in Texas and across the nation, via social media, to encourage their congregants to vote and not be afraid of the threat of lawsuits from organizations like the Freedom from Religion Foundation that use IRS complaints to intimidate pastors to remain silent.

‘No church in US History has ever had their tax exempt status removed for a sermon, much less for a separate podcast.’

Howerton claimed in the post that millions of Christians in Texas may not vote in the 2026 midterm elections that could be decided by a few hundred thousand votes. Howerton said, “Pastors, consider encouraging your people to vote real quick in announcements next couple weeks.” He then told those pastors that their congregations were comprised of “salt of the earth” people who want their pastors to do this.

Days after this initial exhortation, Howerton identified Ashley Wooldridge, the senior pastor of Christ’s Church of the Valley in Arizona, as a pastor who has been delivering the goods.

Responding to a video where Wooldridge urges followers of Christ to go vote, Howerton wrote, “People who don’t come from ‘pastor world’ won’t understand this, but Pastor Ashley will get crushed just for doing this (his church is over 50k people). And every member of his church should have his back and be proud he’s their pastor for doing it.”

In the interview earlier this year with Allie Beth Stuckey, Howerton explained what the so-called separation of church and state does not mean.

“Morality is all that gets legislated. Every law that has ever existed legislates a morality,” he continued. “So separation of church and state doesn’t mean a separation of morality and state, and separation of church and state doesn’t mean a separation of politics and religion. That’s actually impossible and clearly not what the founders desired.”

Howerton knows firsthand what backlash awaits those conservative Christians who dare to raise their voices during an election year.

Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, Howerton spoke forcefully about matters of faith, morality, and political agency, emphasizing that “if the church won’t disciple people, the world will.” In particular, one of his sermons evidently got under the skin of the secularists at the Freedom from Religion Foundation, a tax-exempt progressive advocacy group that works zealously to remove all signs and sounds of Christianity from public spaces.

While the secularist group acknowledged that Howerton wasn’t explicitly endorsing a presidential candidate in the sermon, it nevertheless asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate Lakepointe Church and terminate its tax-exempt status.

Drawing on his experience with the FFRF’s 2024 complaint and what he regards as pastor-focused “harassment and intimidation,” Howerton noted last week that “progressives selectively report churches to the FFRF every year and FFRF selectively threatens only one side with (toothless) lawsuits.”

The Internal Revenue Code has long prohibited churches and other tax-exempt nonprofit organizations “from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.”

RELATED: Talarico gets DEMOLISHED after he cites Bible in defense of abortion

Congress has yet to repeal the Johnson Amendment and related legal battles are ongoing, but the IRS said last year that pastors could formally endorse political candidates from the pulpit without jeopardizing their tax-exempt status under the Johnson Amendment.

After suggesting that FFRF turns a blind eye to pro-Democratic messaging in progressive churches, Howerton emphasized that “no church in U.S. History has ever had their tax exempt status removed for a sermon, much less for a separate podcast, and that goes triple for cases in which no candidate has even been endorsed and QUADRUPLE for simply encouraging your people to vote and bringing clarity of moral asymmetry of policy proposals.”

“In the words of a couple knowledgeable guys I consulted with, it’s a harassment and intimidation tactic to silence pastors,” said Howerton.

The FFRF did not immediately respond to Blaze News’ request for comment.

“There is NO threat from this whatsoever, you are 100% free to be clear with your people about the (radical) moral asymmetry between the current proposed policies and ideologies of the parties AND to encourage your people to vote as an application of the command to be ‘the salt of the earth’ (Matt 5:13) and to ‘seek the welfare of the city’ (Jer 29:7) and to ‘love your neighbor’ (Mk 12:31),” continued the pastor. “Stand firm.”

Howerton is not alone in asking Christian faith leaders to step up.

In an interview on Fox News earlier this month, Southern Baptist Convention President Willy Rice similarly urged pastors to engage in the political process “because there are many political issues that are, at their heart, theological issues and moral issues that strike at the very center of what we believe to be true and what we believe people need to know in order to flourish personally and as a culture.”

“I think throughout American history, pastors have had a strong voice at key moments in American political history,” added Rice.

Rice also observed that theologically conservative pastors retreated from public political fights in recent years, leaving a “vacuum” that was exploited by “those on the theological and political left.”

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​Faith, Josh howerton, Blazetv, Freedom from religion foundation, Texas, Politics 

A beloved former Texas school janitor — who spent nearly four decades cleaning classrooms and helping students — burst into tears after receiving an unexpected honor from the school district.

Marilyn Hampton retired as a custodian in 2022 after working for the Aubrey Independent School District for 39 years. Hampton told WFAA-TV that she continued to work by caring for infants and toddlers in the Aubrey Independent School District’s Early Bird Learning Center.

‘God put you where you are supposed to be.’

During a school board meeting last Wednesday, Aubrey ISD Superintendent Dr. Shannon Saylor asked Hampton if she could perform one last task.

Saylor asked Hampton to roll out a red carpet in front of the speaker’s podium in the room.

Hampton, 76, unrolled the red carpet but did not initially realize what had been written on it. It read: “Marilyn Hampton Elementary School.”

Saylor announced that a new school would officially be named the Marilyn Hampton Elementary School.

Hampton broke down in tears upon hearing that the new school would be named in her honor. “You’re too good. I wasn’t expecting this. Thank y’all. I can’t speak,” Hampton said through tears, according to the New York Post.

“Oh my goodness. Oh God. You all are the best,” the elated Hampton said.

Hampton told the room, “I didn’t bring my phone.”

Then Saylor quipped, “That’s OK, it’ll be everywhere.”

Saylor said Hampton is “truly Aubrey ISD.”

“She may not have the official title of an educator, but she was in every meaningful sense a teacher and an educator at heart,” Saylor said of Hampton.

“Her teaching legacy that she left behind about being kind, work hard, continue to persevere, and overcome,” Saylor added.

Saylor said the school board takes “great pride in honoring those who have really contributed to the lives of our kids.”

The Aubrey Independent School District said the surprise announcement was done to “publicly put a stamp” on Hampton’s legacy.

RELATED: Hero fishermen save 38 dogs on the verge of drowning in Mississippi lake

Hampton told WFAA on Friday, “I still can’t believe it. I haven’t stopped crying.”

The school board presented her with a Marilyn Hampton Elementary School T-shirt.

Hampton remarked, “Can you believe it? I can’t. I cannot. All I can say is God is good.”

Hampton proclaimed that her “heart is full.”

Hampton said she once felt like a failure because she never attended college but later found that being a custodian brought her satisfaction. Hampton said, “I just thought, ‘You know, Marilyn? God put you where you are supposed to be.’ And I’m very happy with the way things turned out.”

During her time as a custodian, Hampton not only cleaned the school, but also bought school supplies and helped struggling students study for tests.

“When I could help a kid and turn their smile up instead of down, that’s what I wanted to do,” Hampton said.

Hampton said, “Whoever thought a janitor would have a school named after them?”

“My goodness. What an honor. It’s an honor that I never thought in my lifetime I would have seen,” Hampton continued. “It’s not anything I could have even imagined.”

The Marilyn Hampton Elementary School, which will be located in Aubrey, Texas, is set to open in August 2027.

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​Good news, News, Texas, Public schools 

For 15 years, Amazon’s Fire tablets served as affordable options for anyone who liked to read books, surf the web, watch videos, and shop for products on Amazon. That’s why it’s a surprise that Amazon just killed off Fire tablets for a new, more expensive option that you’ll either love or hate.

Amazon Fire tablets were cheap, both in quality and affordability. They were made of plastic, they ran a forked version of Android that cut out the Google Play Store in favor of the Amazon App Store, and they cost anywhere between $50 and $200, depending on the model. This made them easy to give to kids, throw in a bag, or keep around the house without much concern.

Premium devices require premium price tags, and Alexa Tablets deliver in spades.

Amazon Fire tablets were useful in their category, but compared to Apple’s iPad or the Samsung Galaxy Tab series, they weren’t nearly as capable. For this reason, Amazon officially killed the Fire tablet in early October in favor of something else — a new product crafted for the personal intelligence era of society.

Dubbed Alexa Tablets, these new devices come in three distinct sizes: the largest 12-inch Amazon Alexa Tablet 12 Pro, the middle 11-inch Amazon Alexa Tablet 11, and the smallest 8.7-inch Amazon Alexa Tablet 8.

They’re premium in both look and feel, featuring aluminum frames, 60Hz-120Hz refresh rate displays for smooth performance, and refined designs.

Unlike the Fire tablets of the past, Alexa Tablets run a full version of Android 16. That means users can access the Google Play Store and download all their favorite apps, including Google services like YouTube, video games like Genshin Impact and Roblox, and Amazon apps, including Kindle, Amazon store, and Prime Video.

As their names suggest, Alexa Tablets are built around the premium version of Amazon’s personal assistant, Alexa+. Although it may not generate as much buzz as ChatGPT, Claude, or even the new Siri, Alexa+ is a generative AI chatbot that can field questions, make reservations, and more.

Under the hood, some of Alexa Tablets’ appeal starts to wane. The 8-inch version comes with 4GB of RAM (upgradable to 8GB) and up to 128GB of storage — pretty small metrics by today’s standards, and the RAM shortage over AI isn’t helping. As for the 11-inch Pro tablet, it comes with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, upgradable to 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.

All three tablets feature MediaTek chips in lieu of Qualcomm — 8189 8-core on the smaller versions and Dimensity 8400 on the larger Pro. MediaTek is usually considered the cheaper and less performant option than the Qualcomm Snapdragon series found in most flagship Android devices today. These were likely chosen to cut costs.

RELATED: Google is killing its popular Chromebook. Here’s what’s next — and how to prepare.

John Moore/Staff/Getty Images

As a whole, Alexa Tablets seem like decent devices — not groundbreaking but not bad either. They look good, they should feel premium in the hand, and the overall quality exceeds anything that Fire tablets delivered in a decade and a half.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Amazon’s device division is headed up by Senior Vice President Panos Panay. Panay, who joined Amazon in 2023, previously worked as the chief product officer at Microsoft, meticulously building and refining the Surface product series for 15 years.

If you’ve never listened to Panay wax poetic over new hardware, it’s something to watch. His adoration for tech is infectious. He clearly loves what he does. Any of us would be lucky to have a spouse that fawns over us like Panay does his tech. But I digress.

The biggest problem with Alexa Tablets is the price.

Premium devices require premium price tags, and Alexa Tablets deliver in spades. The cheapest Alexa Tablet 8 starts at $279.99, a far cry from the $50 Fire tablet days. Continuing the climb up the price chart, Alexa Tablet 11 clocks in at $379.99. Then at the top, reigning as the most premium option on the list, the Alexa Tablet 12 Pro can be yours for $499.99.

Now, it’s important to look at these prices in context. While they’re worlds more expensive than the Fire tablets of yesteryear, and while these new versions may be too pricey to hand off to a child or throw around like their predecessors, Alexa tablets are still surprisingly affordable compared to iPad and Galaxy Tab.

The base model iPad Mini and iPad start at $599 and $449, respectively, while the high-end iPad Pro will cost you $1,199 or more. At the same time, Samsung will sell you the cheapest Galaxy Tab S10 Lite for $399.99, up to the Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra for $1,399.99. This makes Alexa Tablets one of the most affordable “Pro” tablets money can buy, even if they are a sticker shock compared to the outgoing Fire series.

Alexa Tablets are available for purchase now from Amazon, Target, Best Buy, and other retailers.

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​Amazon, Tablet, Tech 

A 42-year-old member of the Hells Angels biker gang was sentenced after pleading guilty to numerous charges related to child pornography, according to the Fontana Police Department.

Investigators of the Fontana Police Department Internet Crimes Against Children Unit opened an investigation into Ryan Van De Car on November 16, 2023.

He will remain on federal probation for the rest of his life and will be prohibited from associating with any member of the Hells Angels.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted an undercover operation and found Van De Car was utilizing “multiple online chat and social media platforms” in order to “obtain illicit photographs and videos involving children.”

Law enforcement officers “seized and examined multiple electronic devices” with evidence that Van De Car was using social media platforms to “exploit juvenile victims,” as well as obtain and distribute child sex abuse media.

Prosecutors also said he had produced and distributed “adapted child pornography and obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children.”

Investigators identified Van De Car’s accounts on the Kik platform that included “littlelove14369,” “familylustfun,” “30 Days on Kik,” “Ryan Nice,” and “Not new account was taken 42 m USA bi married dad.”

In April 2025, he was indicted by a federal grand jury in California on one count of distribution of child pornography, one count of possession of child pornography, and production of adapted child pornography.

In September, he was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison, according to the Fontana police. He will remain on federal probation for the rest of his life and will be prohibited from associating with any member of the Hells Angels Outlaw Motorcycle Gang after his release.

RELATED: Bikers beat down man who shot and killed victim at bar during fight over ex-wife, Washington state police say

Fontana Police Dept. social media release

“The Fontana Police Department recognizes the investigative efforts of the participating law enforcement agencies, forensic personnel, investigators, and prosecutors whose combined efforts contributed to the successful prosecution of this case,” the police department said.

The Hells Angels Motorcycle Club was founded in 1948 in the city of Fontana.

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​Child pornography, Hells angels, Biker gang, Child abuse, Crime 

I was put into contact with a Springfield, Ohio, man named Quinn Ferrell, who showed me pictures of the complete destruction of his detached garage by a Haitian driver. Quinn is an exotic pet owner, and the Haitian annihilation resulted in a horrific scene of gore and splatter.

Quinn wrote:

At [3:00 a.m.] me and my wife were jolted awake after hearing what can only be described as an explosion right outside of our bedroom. When I got up I ran outside to hear the noise of a car hitting the rev [limiter], drowsy and still sleepy, I had no idea what I was looking at until I went to the front of my garage. When I saw the door was lodged into the back of my (now-destroyed) Jetta, I knew someone had crashed into my garage from the back of the building. Meaning he ramped my rear neighbor[’]s yard went airborne, slammed through my privacy fence, then crashed [completely] through my entire garage knocking 3 of the four walls off of its foundation.

Stories like Quinn’s are depressingly easy to find. … You’ll quickly notice something: The race and nationality of the offending driver are rarely reported.

When I walked around back I was helping the man “Joanne Francois” out of his vehicle because the garage was falling in. As soon as he hopped out all he kept saying was “[I’m OK, I’m OK]!” He was heavily intoxicated. So I yell to my wife to call the cops and then he takes off running. I tackled him at the fence and he started assaulting me so I returned the favor.

In the midst of the fight I was able to grab him into the front yard and he persisted on fighting. So I continued to fight back to keep him there. When the police finally arrived a few officers drew weapons at me and told me to get off the man. I explained what had happened and that he was drunk and they acted as if I was lying. So I demanded the officer in charge to come with me to assess the situation. I was threatened with arrest on multiple occasions because of how loud I was being. When state troopers arrived (for some reason they had to be the ones to administer the breathalyzer) he blew twice the legal limit.

After all was said and done he was refused at the jail, got to go home that night, and got a failure to maintain ticket. He had no insurance, no license, and from my understanding the car wasn’t in his name. So I am STILL to this day repairing my building slowly. My insurance only covered some of the items inside. And a small amount for the building ($6,000 of the $60,000 dollars of quoted damages) because of the lack of insurance on his end.

I had fish and reptiles in that building that were dead scattered all over my property. None were covered. …

I was called racist for speaking out about it. Being a Haitian [isn’t] a race[, it’s] a nationality. [That’s] like me saying [I’m] Ohionese.

RELATED: Haiti suddenly went from ‘GREAT ALREADY’ to ‘hell’ now that Trump is sending back its people

Guerinault Louis/Anadolu via Getty Images

I could not believe his story, which is exactly why I did. Quinn was treated by Springfield police as the assailant, the criminal, the instigator. Why? I can only guess. (He’s white.)

Stories like Quinn’s are depressingly easy to find on search engines with long-trail keywords like “Springfield Ohio crash.” You’ll quickly notice something: The race and nationality of the offending driver are rarely reported. “Car crashes into garage in Springfield.” Yes, I’m sure it did. All by itself.

It’s more than residences too. I was contacted by Brian Cox, who showed me photos and videos of “the aftermath of a Haitian who ran her car all the way through the wall of our business.” Here’s what he told me:

[The Haitian woman] got in the parked car, put it in drive, and went right through. Wasn’t cited because the cops said it was on private property. We had to find a new home for the business.

We’re in the process of suing our own insurance company. They tried to deny the claim for moving expenses and loss of income. And I have had all my insurance with them since 1979.

She was on [Temporary Protected Status].

The male Haitian [who was with the woman] tried to stare down (you know, mean-mug) my son while he was talking to the police. Didn’t work. The Haitians have some sort of money-transfer business there. Now that TPS is done, we’ll be reporting the business to ICE. …

The way I see it, Springfield has been having a really hard time for at least the last 35 years. … It seems to me that those who want to profit from unfettered third world immigration pick on these types of communities because the people generally are slow to fight back. Many of them are so busy trying to survive they don’t have the extra energy to protect themselves from being overrun by hordes of refugees who will only make the area suffer more. Worse, they take advantage of the better nature of the poor white population that doesn’t want to appear racist. There’s something really evil about that, using the best in people to harm them.

There truly is, Brian.

RELATED: Pets of Springfield, rejoice! DHS is coming for suspended-status Haitians after Biden judge takes ‘the L’

REBECCA NOBLE/AFP via Getty Images

Of course, the most grievous traffic lack-of-safety demonstration of the Haitian situation was the school bus accident that made headlines beyond Springfield. None other than Walter Curt broke that story, but the worst part was, he shouldn’t have had to. This wasn’t an inevitable tragedy, and it didn’t need to happen.

On August 22, 2023, the first day of school, Hermanio Joseph, a 35-year-old Haitian immigrant, crossed the center line of the road in a 2010 Honda Odyssey minivan and collided with a Northwestern Local Schools bus carrying 52 elementary school students, forcing it off the road down an embankment where it flipped. Approximately half the students were injured, and Aiden Clark, 11, was ejected from the bus and killed.

Hermanio Joseph was later found to be an illegal alien, having come up through Mexico, who was detained at the southern border but then released into the United States in 2022 while given a notice to appear before an immigration court. ICE officials blamed President Biden’s “catch and release” policy for Joseph being let free. He also didn’t have a valid U.S. driver’s license, only a Mexican driver’s license, as confirmed by Breitbart News.

Joseph was convicted of multiple felonies on May 1, 2024, in a one-day trial. The jury deliberated for an hour before delivering its verdict. His defense was that the sun was in his eyes at the time.

But what made news was not the conviction, but the response of Aiden Clark’s father.

“I wish that my son, Aiden Clark, was killed by a 60-year-old white man. I bet you never thought anyone would say something so blunt.”

What an odd thing to say. I wish young Aiden hadn’t been killed at all.

“Parent’s worst nightmare,” Brittany Fisher told a local news outlet. Two of her children were on the bus when Joseph slammed into it. “The kids are gonna remember this for the rest of their lives. They’re never going to forget this.”

Fisher reached out to me when she learned I was writing a book. We spoke, and here is what she wants you to know:

My two kids … were on that bus that day. … [My husband] passed away in 2023. It was about six months later that I put my kids on the bus. So I was trying to navigate life being a single mom of three to very small children, a two-year-old, a five-year-old, and a ten-year-old.

It was my five-year-old’s first day of kindergarten and my ten-year-old’s first day of fifth grade. Anyway, I put them on the bus. I see all these police cruisers go by shortly after. … [M]y house [was] right down the road from the school. … I immediately get in my car. I’m thinking it’s a bomb threat. I go up the road. I parked my car to see the bus that I had just put my kids on completely destroyed. I ran over there. An officer tried to stop me, but I just blew past him. And I thought that Aiden Clark was one of my kids for like 30 seconds. I found one of my children, but I couldn’t find my older child.

I started screaming because I thought he was deceased. And then the principal had already made it down, and he knew me, and he told me that [my older son] was in an ambulance and headed to Children’s and to take my younger son and just go.

I put my younger son in the car — this is all in the middle of the chaos. Police officers are crying. Everybody’s wailing. There’s blood everywhere. It’s the worst thing imaginable as a parent.

RELATED: Washington’s new favorite lie: ‘Most migrants are safe’

SETH HERALD/AFP via Getty Images

My long story short, my older son needed months of physical therapy. He missed months of school. He was wearing high-top sneakers, and they blew off his feet.

At the scene, I was told that the driver was 90% over in the wrong lane.

Even though I have health insurance, I was left with bills from co-pays that added up from all this physical therapy. So I go to the attorney general’s victim of crime fund; they told me to do that. I fill out everything. I’m thinking it’s no problem, you know, I shouldn’t have to pay anything for this. They denied my claim.

The day after the accident, I got to meet with [Governor Mike DeWine], and I looked him in the eyes and I was like, “Please, if there’s anything you can do with seat belts. … Aiden flew. I was there. Aiden flew out of the bus window, and all those children were … very injured. And it flipped! So, seat belts … can you do something? Because Aiden would still be here had he not flown out of that window.”

A little bit after that, he started a panel of people to decide whether or not to put seat belts in school buses. And they decided not to. So I was completely filled with righteous anger [and have been] ever since.

I decided to move.

Northwestern, the community, got together and raised a little bit of money at the beginning, and I was told that they gave Aiden’s family [a specific amount] and they gave all of us other people like $1,200 per child, which is sweet. Nobody had to do that. That’s great. But that is not gonna cut it. … Come on now.

So my three things going forward from this accident have been compensation for Aiden’s family and all those kids; an investigation into how all of this was even allowed to happen; and seat belts on school buses. Any parent is like, “Of course! Who would not want seat belts on school buses?”

I can’t believe I have to fight so hard to get the right things done. And the very people who are supposed to help us, our politicians, I have called everybody, every senator, every [congressional representative], trying to get meetings with people.

Somebody, somewhere, is orchestrating all of this. And this is all about greed and corruption. The Haitian people have been exploited so they can work at Amazon and places like that and get government benefits so these corporations don’t have to pay Americans a living wage. …

As far as an investigation into all the fraud and corruption and as far as compensation … eventually somebody is probably going to file a lawsuit against the federal government for letting this guy in with TPS with a fake ID, which is a crime and should have never happened. So someday, hopefully, the federal government will get sued and all those kids will get compensated. But nobody’s helping me … figure that out. … Who do I go to who can help us? … Who can group someone together and help us get this lawsuit going? Because in a normal accident situation … Aiden’s family would get … half a million or a million-plus dollars.

Obviously, DeWine doesn’t want to meet with me. I’ve tried. I’ve called his office several [times]. They know me. I’ve called his office trying to get a meeting with this guy. I’ve tried to fill out everything online. He’s not interested. He doesn’t want to meet with me. I’m just begging him. If I could just look him in the eyes, I think we could start moving in the right direction.

But instead, he is saying things like, “The Haitians have been good for the economy even though innocent Americans have been killed.” Like Aiden Clark and that poor woman who got hit by a car just getting her trash can. And all of that never needed to happen if our government was doing its job protecting American citizens first.

I ended up leaving and moving to Kentucky. My daughter started kindergarten this past year, and there is a child in her class named Aiden Clark, first name and last name.

God is in control. I’m going to do my part. I can’t rest anyway knowing what all those kids have been through and seeing buses around and the first day of school every year I cry because I think about Aiden’s family and all those kids [who are] forever traumatized. That’s forever with them, and we can’t even get seat belts.

If there’s any way you could help me, I would greatly appreciate it. And I know those kids would too.

Editor’s note: This article has been excerpted from Joshua Lisec’s new book, “Haitians of Springfield: An Oral History” (Regnery Publishing).

​Springfield ohio, Haitians, Temporary protected status, Traffic accidents, Immigration, Ice, Opinion & analysis 

I believe Arizona State University has taken the first step toward terminating me, a tenured Christian professor, for being too Christian.

You might think tenure would protect a professor from religious discrimination by state university administrators. You would be mistaken. What I am experiencing at ASU demonstrates how university administrators can use the annual review process to punish professors for their beliefs and potentially build a case for terminating them.

This is harassment, and I believe it amounts to religious discrimination. It also sends a warning to every Christian professor at a public university.

Here is what is happening.

I am currently engaged in a lawsuit against ASU over its DEI training requirements. After more than two years of litigation, my attorneys argued before the Arizona Supreme Court on September 1. We are awaiting the court’s decision.

This week, ASU’s provost has officially upheld a decision penalizing me for allegedly being too Christian in my classes.

In May, the dean of my college deducted points from my annual performance review and reduced merit pay because he claimed my teaching in 2025 was too Christian. What evidence did he offer for this remarkable accusation? Five quiz questions out of more than 80, along with two negative student evaluations.

That’s it.

This is no longer merely one dean’s judgment. ASU’s senior administration has now endorsed the decision to penalize me for allegedly teaching classes that are too Christian. I have no further avenue of appeal within that process.

I have spent my career teaching students how to think. My administrators now seem determined to teach me what not to think. One wonders which of us has misunderstood the purpose of a university.

And the evidence? Let’s examine it.

One question asks, “Why is knowing God the highest good?”

Is that uniquely Christian? Plato and Aristotle, neither of whom were Christians last I checked, explored the relationship between the divine, knowledge, and the highest good. Eastern philosophers have done the same. These questions have occupied philosophers for thousands of years.

Another asks, “What is the relationship between God and morality?”

Again, this is a foundational question in the history of philosophy. Plato raised it in the “Euthyphro.” Aristotle connected ethics with his account of the highest good and the divine. Are we now supposed to eliminate questions about God and morality from philosophy courses?

RELATED: A Christian guide to trolling without sinning

Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images

A third question states, “True or False: Death should not make us think about the meaning of life.” This is a question from my class on the philosophical aspects of death and dying. It is a course I developed with ASU’s online specialists as part of master teacher training. ASU signed off on the class and then penalized me for teaching it!

The relationship between death and life’s meaning is central to existential philosophy, including the writings of Viktor Frankl (not a Christian). Surely students studying philosophy should be allowed to consider how death relates to meaning in life.

These are philosophical questions, not evidence that I am improperly promoting Christianity.

One student wrote: “If I were a Hindu or Buddhist, and truly believed in reincarnation, I would be offended if I were asked to denounce it.”

But I never asked that student, or anyone else, to denounce reincarnation, and the student gave no evidence that I did. Notice the hypothetical nature of the complaint: If I were a Hindu or Buddhist, and if I were asked to denounce my beliefs, I would be offended.

The student did not report that this actually happened.

The second student wrote: “Although I agree with what Owen Anderson teaches, I completely understand if people feel offended after taking his class.”

Read that again. The student agrees with what I teach but imagines that someone else might be offended.

Apparently, at ASU, hypothetical offense by hypothetical students is sufficient grounds to penalize an actual professor. And this brings us to the larger problem.

Annual performance reviews are recurring evaluations. Once administrators officially determine that a professor’s teaching is deficient because it is too Christian, what happens at the next review? I will be asked what steps I took to stop being so Christian? If administrators decide I have not adequately corrected the alleged problem, they can penalize me again. Repeated negative evaluations could then become the foundation for escalating disciplinary action.

That is how ASU could build a case for terminating a tenured professor.

RELATED: Campus free speech is alive — barely

Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

And consider the burden this imposes. Rather than spending my time exclusively on teaching, research, and serving students, I must defend myself against accusations supported by a handful of philosophical questions and speculative complaints. Are the non-Christian professors put through this same scrutiny and additional burden?

This is harassment, and I believe it amounts to religious discrimination. It also sends a warning to every Christian professor at a public university.

If you discuss God, morality, eternity, or the meaning of life, administrators can apparently decide your teaching is too Christian. Can they then deduct points from your annual review? Deny you merit pay? Can they begin documenting supposed deficiencies that might eventually threaten your employment?

The chilling effect is obvious. Christian professors may decide that silence is safer than risking administrative punishment.

I have spent more than two decades teaching philosophy at ASU. I believe students deserve to encounter the great questions of philosophy, including the questions about God that philosophers have discussed since antiquity.

A public university should encourage those questions, not punish professors for asking them. ASU receives public funding, including federal money. It should not be permitted to use its administrative power to discriminate against Christian faculty.

Today, the accusation is that my classes are too Christian. Tomorrow, the question may be whether I am allowed to remain a professor at all. And if ASU can do this to me, what prevents other public universities from doing the same to Christian professors across America?

​Arizona state university, Free speech, College campuses, Students, Tenure, Faculty, Christian, Philosophy, Truth, God, Aristotle, Plato, Religion, Leftists, Conservatives, Morality, Ethics, Opinion & analysis 

From Target’s 2023 Pride Month merchandise, to Bud Light’s disastrous collaboration with Dylan Mulvaney, to Cracker Barrel’s 2025 logo modernization, “go woke, go broke” has repeatedly been proven true.

But does that mean the progressive propaganda failed?

According to BlazeTV host Auron MacIntyre, it’s not that simple.

“Even though much of the woke content was very cringe and often failed financially, what if it had a bigger impact on us socially?” he asks.

On a recent episode of “The Auron MacIntyre Show,” Auron and his guest, social scientist and online political commentator Aydin Paladin, discussed this query.

Auron explains that many conservatives dismissed the woke movement on the premise that “the marketplace wins.”

“People will vote with their dollars; they’ll vote with their attention, and companies will be forced to respond to financial incentives. And so, even if there’s some kooky message getting cooked up by the progressive left in Hollywood, ultimately, once that fails, they’ll have to come back to good old-fashioned, slightly less subversive media narratives,” he says, explaining the thinking of people who assumed that wokeness had a short shelf life.

While wokeness did largely fail in a financial sense, it succeeded in other ways, Paladin says.

In her recent video “The Disturbing Psychology of Hollywood’s Moral Collapse,” she argued that Hollywood and related entertainment spent over a decade pushing progressive messaging and produced many commercial failures, and that audiences rejected a lot of the most overtly “woke” films and games — yet many of the underlying ideas still became normalized in the broader culture through narrative persuasion.

“When you talk about funding from big companies like Disney, from companies like Black Rock that back up these media entertainment companies, well, at the end of the day, it didn’t really matter whether or not it succeeded financially,” she tells Auron. “Little nuggets of information could have ended up in people’s minds permanently anyway. It’s way harder to forget something that you’ve already learned.”

“People want the world explained to them. They can’t experience everything around them,” Auron says.

When it comes to topics like sexuality, race, and even history, “whoever gets to set the frame of the discussion … gets to define it going forward,” he explains.

Hollywood, he and Paladin argue, filled that role of being the first to introduce certain topics. Its decade-long push of progressive messaging in entertainment succeeded in making certain ideas feel like ordinary background assumptions, even when the individual films and shows flopped commercially.

Paladin gives the example of the late-90s/early-2000s sitcom “Will and Grace.”

“There’s been significant research that’s been done on people’s attitudes towards homosexuals and lesbians and their exposure to ‘Will and Grace’ because that was kind of the first big show where there was gay representation on TV where it wasn’t supposed to be inherently negative,” she says.

“If that’s your first exposure [to homosexuality] and it’s a positive exposure, well, then you’re going to be more likely to maintain that positive attitude towards [homosexuals], and the same thing happens with information.”

To hear the full conversation, watch the episode above.

Want more from Auron MacIntyre?

To enjoy more of this YouTuber and recovering journalist’s commentary on culture and politics, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Auron macintyre, Woke culture, Hollywood, Blazetv show