Inbox: The Buice Scandal

I was asked to comment about Josh Buice and the scandal surrounding him. G3 Ministries is one of the big names in New Calvinism - even though I think Buice would want to distance himself from that label.

Family Life's Latest News Farce

I caught a few minutes of the Family Life Network's (FLN) news segment the other day and I was struck by how fuzzy the line gets between mis- and disinformation. It's also noteworthy how much the network has shifted to the Right in recent years - though it's nowhere near American Family Radio (AFR) or even local stations like WDCX out of Buffalo, New York - other stations I pick up at times when I'm out and about.

Evangelical Activity in the Roman Catholic Heartland

https://cne.news/article/4508-rene-breuel-bringing-the-gospel-and-pizza-to-post-catholic-italy

I all but immediately shut down when I see this now standard Evangelical image - the pop culture guy with the headset and backlighting with a drum kit and other instruments. It's something that could be put in a history book as a typical of the period. For my part, it's something I intuitively reject and even recoil from.

Trump Tariffs and the Ethics of Capitalism

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-tells-walmart-eat-tariffs-instead-raising-prices-2025-05-17/

Trump wants Wal-Mart to 'eat' the costs of tariffs and not pass the prices on to consumers. He knows this will cost him politically as the working poor (many of whom support his movement) will be hit the hardest by the price hikes.

Historical Revisionism and a Romanian Pastor

While reading coverage of the Romanian election (with the second round slated to take place on 18 May), I was absolutely floored reading this from a pastor in Romania:

The Russian invasion of 80 years ago is not forgotten. "They distorted everything; they raped our mothers, wives, and daughters. They are less than 200 km from my home. Do I, myself, have to kill somebody? Or to watch how my family is destroyed? Will I be able to preach again from the pulpit ever in my life? Or to run away? To leave everything behind? To leave my flock behind? I am not ready for this, I don't have the strength. I am not Dietrich Bonhoeffer... I am just a simple Christian pastor who serves his Lord in Eastern Europe."

How many times in recent weeks and months have I heard BBC programmes covering the election warning about the lessons of history being forgotten and the threat of Right-wing revisionism? And then to find this?

Napolitano on Easter and Liberty

https://www.creators.com/read/judge-napolitano/04/25/taking-easter-seriously-78f98

Napolitano would have us take Easter seriously and then proceeds to make a mockery of it. I found this to be in keeping with most of his commentaries. We would do well to identify these errors and reflect on them. Have they influenced our own thinking? To what degree do they shape the thinking of Christians around us?

The Uighurs in Post-Assad Syria

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/syria-assad-hts-china-future/

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3291393/syria-xinjiang-link-china-warns-leaders-damascus-not-threaten-security-elsewhere

Foreign Policy magazine and The Economist have articles on this topic but due to firewalls there's little point in linking them.

Instead I'm linking this piece from (of all places) The Atlantic Council. It's biased to be sure (and even misleading at points) but given that it's readership is a little more high-brow, it's intelligent and touches on things that an AP story, let alone something from CNN or CBS wouldn't even address.

A Neanderthal Commenting on Cavemen

It's been more than a month since the Signal Group Chat scandal broke. This Politico piece from the end of March is dated but still relevant. Waltz has now been shifted over to UN Ambassador and Hegseth has invited further scandal. Some believe his days are numbered.

Motherhood Through a Materialist Lens

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/MqvIddYMMEk

This video 'short' appeared on the NPR website promoting a podcast. The clip is only about a minute long but the implications are sweeping and eternal. Materialism is a religion and its becoming pervasive in society as its implications are being worked out and applied. It is creating a new world and a new kind of person.

Surveillance Revisionism

I happened to catch some Newsmax on a recent night and couldn't help but grin listening to the commentators drone on about the surveillance state and how the citizenry shouldn't have to give up so much of its personal data.

Many will have no problem with giving up their data to corporations - who in turn affect and shape state policy and effectively lobby the government.

Erik Prince and Trump's Deportation Shortfall

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/16/erik-prince-trump-immigration-enforcement

I suppose this article got little attention in Christian circles because few would find it newsworthy. They support Trump's anti-immigrant agenda and the fact that so-called Christians like Erik Prince would want to promote and profit from it - is not worth talking about. Undoubtedly most of them would do the same if they had the means to do so.

The Weapons that Keep Killing Long After the Battlefield Falls Silent

https://theworld.org/segments/2025/03/28/study-high-levels-of-uranium-and-lead-found-in-bones-of-iraqis-linked-to-conflict

As expected PRI's The World didn't go very deep in covering this story but to be honest I was surprised it was mentioned at all. The programme is informative but not exactly adversarial. The story of Depleted Uranium and its connections to cancer occasionally pops up in the media but the Establishment has made every effort to discount and dismiss the question.

Indonesia, BRICS, and the Demand for Nickel

https://consortiumnews.com/2025/04/21/vijay-prashad-brics-industrial-development/

I found Prashad's comments which suggested a comparison between BRICS and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to be timely and worth serious consideration. Western opponents of the NAM always considered it to be unofficially more friendly toward the Eastern Bloc - itself something of a fiction. In this case, the foes of Western Atlanticism are in BRICS and so one could say everyone's cards are on the table. However, it's important to understand why the USSR and China were happy to deal with NAM nations and the West was not. Unlike the United States they did not assume that everyone who wasn't fully on board with them was an enemy. The US has a tendency to cast geopolitics in such terms - stated so bluntly by GW Bush. "You're either with us or against us." - a stance which may or may not drive nations away in the immediate but in the long term it's a position that destroys trust and respect.