I have written for the Spectator for years. I value it. I read it. I defend it. It remains one of the few places where serious argument is still possible. Which is why Luke Lyman’s recent essay on “Christian nihilism” is so frustrating. It mistakes metaphor for diagnosis — and confusion for insight.Lyman opens with a disturbing scene: a protester in Minneapolis screaming at armed officers to shoot him. From this single episode, he extrapolates a sweeping claim — that America is drifting into a kind of “Christian nihilism,” a pseudo-religion that mimics Christianity’s language of sacrifice while stripping it of meaning.What we are witnessing is not Christianity curdled into violence, but the consequences of a culture in which Christian moral limits have collapsed.As Lyman writes:Violence serves a central role in Christianity: the hinge of history, the Crucifixion, is bloody. Christ endures the Cross to purify mankind, because he knows we crave purity. Revolutionary leaders have stolen this idea, given it a godless twist, and sold it to their followers to encourage them to sacrifice themselves for whatever cause demands it.That conclusion does not follow.A cultural templateThis is because Lyman treats Christianity as a cultural template — a set of symbols and emotional cues — rather than as a moral and metaphysical system with hard limits. Once you do that, anything that resembles sacrifice or martyrdom can be described as “Christian-adjacent.” But resemblance is not inheritance. Borrowed language does not imply borrowed belief.What Lyman is describing is not Christianity emptied of content. It is secular despair borrowing familiar moral imagery. There is nothing Christian about begging for death on camera. Christianity teaches endurance, restraint, and perseverance — not theatrical self-annihilation. It demands self-control and humility. The gospel was not written for livestreams.Lyman gestures toward Christian theology but never quite engages it. He suggests that Christianity centers on violence because the Crucifixion was bloody. That is like saying surgery centers on knives. The cross is not an endorsement of violence; it is a confrontation with it. Rome used crucifixion to terrorize and dominate. Christ faced that machinery of force and answered it with mercy. When Peter reached for the sword, Christ stopped him.RELATED: Why Christians should care about politics Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesInterrupting the cycleChristianity does not command others to die in God’s name. Christ gives Himself. He absorbs hatred rather than unleashing it. He prays for those driving the nails. That distinction matters. It reverses the logic of every revolutionary movement ever devised. One path runs on rage and always demands another victim. The other interrupts the cycle, insisting that no human life is expendable.Lyman claims that revolutionary violence is Christianity drained of belief — that figures like Mao or Frantz Fanon merely stole the cross and removed God. This misstates the relationship entirely. Revolutionary ideology does not distort Christianity; it rejects it outright. Christianity insists that every person bears the image of God. Revolutionary politics insists that some lives are disposable. These views do not occupy the same moral universe.Calling this phenomenon “Christian nihilism” only deepens the confusion. Nihilism denies meaning. Christianity proclaims it. What we are witnessing is not Christianity curdled into violence, but the consequences of a culture in which Christian moral limits have collapsed.Spiritual starvationLyman suggests that Americans secretly want Christianity but refuse the church. There is a grain of truth here. Human beings crave meaning, ritual, belonging, and redemption. But that longing does not turn protests into pseudo-liturgy. It indicates spiritual starvation. What Lyman treats as evidence of Christianity’s corruption is better understood as evidence of its absence.Minneapolis is not a city of warped martyrs. It is a city where public order has broken down and civic leadership has failed. Dressing that disorder in theological language may sound evocative, but it explains very little.When Lyman points to murals of George Floyd or grotesque memes about a murdered CEO and sees religious iconography, what he is really observing is a loss of proportion. To blame Christianity for that is to confuse the absence of moral limits with their cause.American Christianity is not driving mobs into the streets begging for bullets. Churches across the country are feeding families, running recovery programs, rebuilding marriages, and teaching repentance, forgiveness, discipline, and duty. Those are not the ingredients of nihilism. They are the antidote to it.

When Allie Beth Stuckey took on 20 liberal Christians for a recent Jubilee debate, one question stuck with the BlazeTV host of “Relatable.”“This might seem a little silly, but a lot of people actually have this question: Is our spirit gendered?” Stuckey says.“No. Nothing in Scripture points to this idea of our soul and spirit possibly having a separate gender from our biological sex,” she explains, recalling her response in the debate.“I said, ‘Oh I don’t think that we see that in Scripture at all. That’s not a Christian belief.’ And she said, ‘Well, I’m a part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.’ And so, I don’t know if this is a tenet of Mormonism,” she says.“There is definitely a different belief about the spirit and what it is. Different belief about eternity, different belief about Jesus, different belief about time past, different belief about heaven, all different kinds of things that are so far out of the orthodoxy of any denomination of Christianity,” she continues.“I thought that that was an interesting assertion that I have not heard other Mormons, by the way, believe,” she adds, noting that those who have New Age beliefs or secular people often make points like this to justify transgenderism.“We see in Genesis 1 that God made us male and female. Sex is a biological reality,” Stuckey responds.Stuckey explains that in a book titled “Love Thy Body,” author Nancy Pearcey homes in on the philosophy of dualism and how it’s led many people astray in order to separate the spirit from the body and to say the spirit has authority over the body.“That’s not true. God cares about the body. It’s a temple of the Holy Spirit,” Stuckey adds.Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

In the days following a brutal street beating by Antifa members outside a left-wing event, the incident has taken a tragic turn. On February 12, a 23-year-old man, identified as Quentin, was involved in a violent clash outside an event connected to the French left-wing party La France Insoumise's MEP Rima Hassan at Sciences Po Lyon, the European Conservative reported. 'To the unfathomable pain of losing a child must not follow the unbearable impunity of the barbarians responsible for this lynching.'The incident occurred between anti-fascist groups and the right-wing feminist group Némésis, according to the collective's director, Alice Cordier. RELATED: Antifa, women's clothing, and Church of Satan: Thug who allegedly threatened ICE agents is a proud degenerate Photo by Henrique Campos / Hans Lucas / AFP via Getty ImagesThe clash began when members of the Némésis group unfurled a banner criticizing "Islamo-fascists," after which they were physically confronted by antifascist members. One 19-year-old woman was reportedly strangled and dragged prior to Quentin's serious beating. Quentin, who was serving as an informal security detail for Némésis, attempted to protect the female members of the group during the incident. However, he was subsequently ambushed and beaten unconscious as he and a friend were leaving the scene of the incident. He was later taken to the local hospital in Lyons. Quentin remained in a coma with a critical brain hemorrhage until Saturday in a condition his family described as "between life and death." The European Conservative reported on Saturday that Quentin succumbed to his injuries. French president Emmanuel Macron declared Quentin "the victim of an unprecedented outburst of violence," adding that he was sending his "thoughts," to his family and loved ones."In the Republic, no cause, no ideology will ever justify killing. On the contrary, the very purpose of our institutions is to civilize debates and protect the free expression of arguments. Pursuing, bringing to justice and convicting the perpetrators of this infamy is essential. The hatred that kills has no place among us. I call for calm, restraint and respect," Macron added. French conservative leader Marine Le Pen also issued a statement upon news of Quentin's death: "After clinging to life, Quentin breathed his last. To his family and loved ones shattered by this terrible ordeal, I send my heartfelt thoughts and my deepest compassion. To the unfathomable pain of losing a child must not follow the unbearable impunity of the barbarians responsible for this lynching. It will be for justice to judge and condemn with the utmost severity this criminal act of unprecedented violence."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

One year ago, President Trump signed an executive order directing his administration to develop policy recommendations to protect access to in-vitro fertilization, expand its availability, and lower its cost to patients.In October, the administration announced additional measures to lower costs for IVF and common fertility drugs and explore pathways like expanded employer benefits or excepted benefit categories for assisted reproductive technologies. While this included joint efforts across federal agencies to make this costly intervention more affordable, the administration stopped short of imposing broad new federal mandates for insurance coverage or direct government funding of IVF.The more than $20,000 invested in each IVF cycle, only to achieve a 25%-30% success rate, would be better spent on other economic incentives to encourage family formation.The problem of below-replacement fertility rates in the United States — which poses serious demographic, social, and economic challenges — has gained some political attention since the last election.As of 2024, the fertility rate in the U.S. stands at a record low of 1.6 births per woman of childbearing age, well below the replacement rate of 2.1. This drop continues a downward trend that began in the early 2000s and accelerated after the 2008 recession.Trump frames his support for IVF as a way for the government to support couples who desire to start or grow families. While this administration has not yet enacted universal “free” IVF, the policies show clear support for making IVF accessible to more Americans.Why IVF won’t fix the birth dearthThe notion that expanding access to IVF will measurably alleviate our fertility crisis is pure fantasy.First, the goal of achieving a significant number of additional births using government-supported IVF will prove cost-prohibitive. The procedure typically runs $15,000 per cycle plus $5,000 for medications.Second, the success rates tend to be low. A typical IVF cycle achieves pregnancy in about 20%-35% of cases for women under 35, and that number drops further with age.IVF is usually employed for infertile women who have been unable to conceive naturally. But infertility, while far from a trivial issue, is not a significant driver of our low birth rates.A 2013 Gallup poll found that, on average, American adults want to have between two and three children, a statistic that has remained unchanged since the 1970s. The 5% of adults who do not want to have children has not changed much since 1990.RELATED: Who really controls behavioral health care — and why it matters now Douglas Rissing/Getty ImagesFor the most part, medical problems do not explain why so many Americans are not realizing their desire for children. The main source of our birth dearth is not biological but economic. More than three-quarters of those who want more children but do not have them cite financial considerations as the main reason.If that’s the problem, then the more than $20,000 invested in each IVF cycle, only to achieve a 25%-30% success rate, would be better spent on other economic incentives to encourage family formation for those who believe they cannot afford children.We can and should argue over the details of specific proposals — whether child tax credits, support for stay-at-home moms, or other measures — but these approaches promise to deliver far more per dollar than IVF.If you want more babies, simply creating them in a petri dish will not do. We need to make it more affordable for Americans to raise these children after they are born.The ethical costs IVF can’t escapeEven when it helps couples to have a child, IVF comes with serious ethical costs.Clinics compete in the market based on success rates. Because egg harvesting is an invasive and sometimes risky procedure, IVF cycles typically aim to create as many embryos as possible — usually more than the couple intends to bring to birth.Unused embryos go into frozen storage but can later be thawed and implanted. In one 2022 experiment, run by its very nature without consent, twins were born after 30 years in cold storage. Their adoptive father was five years old when they were first conceived.No one knows precisely how many embryos now sit in cryopreservation, because clinics are not required to report these numbers. Estimates range from 500,000 to millions.Research supports the common-sense notion that, whenever possible, it would be preferable to make babies in the bedroom rather than the laboratory.Many end up abandoned by parents who stop paying the $500-$1,000 yearly storage fees and fail to respond to repeated outreach from clinics. Most parents remain reluctant to allow clinics to destroy their spare embryos, suggesting at least moral ambivalence.Other options exist, but they rarely satisfy. Parents can adopt out embryos to another infertile couple or donate them to embryo-destructive research. Parents rarely consent to either, likely out of similar moral reticence.These parents know well what happens when those “clumps of cells” are placed in a mother’s womb.Thus, parents who do not want to raise additional children are stuck in an insoluble ethical conundrum; their embryos are left in a cryogenic nursery limbo.It’s hard to entirely blame IVF clients for this when all available choices seem morally problematic. Even when informed of these options before starting IVF, most couples admit they were singularly focused on achieving a pregnancy and rarely considered what would happen to excess embryos until later.In creating countless human embryos that will never be placed in a uterus — the only conducive environment for embryonic life — we have created a problem for which there is no morally just solution. This should invite us to re-evaluate the practice that created this insoluble quandary in the first place.RELATED: Women’s infertility is Big Pharma’s cash cow miodrag ignjatovic via iStock/Getty ImagesBetter answers for infertilityWe need to acknowledge the anguish of infertility for couples trying unsuccessfully to conceive. There are better solutions than IVF to offer them, however.The egg-harvesting phase of IVF introduces nontrivial medical risks. Although we need more longitudinal data, current evidence suggests significant risks also for the child conceived by this procedure.Those risks include elevated risks for birth defects and chronic illness later in life, such as cardiovascular problems and metabolic dysregulation, cognitive impairment, and perhaps even cancer, possibly due to epigenetic changes introduced by the procedure.This research supports the common-sense notion that, whenever possible, it would be preferable to make babies in the bedroom rather than the laboratory.Nevertheless, the focus on IVF as the solution to infertility — and often the first solution offered to infertile couples — has dampened research and clinical efforts aimed at treating the underlying causes of infertility.Instead of focusing on IVF, the Trump administration should support medical interventions that help previously infertile couples to conceive a child in the womb.As in many other areas of contemporary medicine, we reach immediately for medically invasive, lab-based procedures. We offer couples a work-around, instead of assessing and attempting to correct the underlying cause.Interventions under the umbrella of restorative reproductive medicine range from dietary changes or hormone balancing to, in some cases, medications or surgery.This approach accords with the push to “Make America Healthy Again” by addressing root causes of our epidemic of chronic illness, rather than applying superficial, expensive, and suboptimal quick fixes.RELATED: IVF CEO says conceiving naturally is for those with ‘genetic privilege’ Rasi Bhadramani via iStock/Getty ImagesWhat policy can doSeveral challenges stand in the way of making these interventions available and accessible to more couples, which sensible policies can begin to address.Research is inadequately funded. We also currently lack sufficient training for physicians in assessing and treating the root causes of infertility.Among the most common causes of infertility is endometriosis — a condition that not only makes it difficult or impossible to maintain a pregnancy but also, if uncorrected, causes intense pain and other troublesome symptoms.However, many physician specialists are not trained in the complex surgical approach required to adequately treat endometriosis to allow for pregnancy. Other such examples abound.A better path forwardWe should applaud the administration’s laudable goal of helping infertile couples to bear children. But IVF is not the right solution.Instead of putting all our eggs in one basket, we need a capacious approach to supporting fertility that does more to address the root causes of infertility and, whenever possible, restores reproductive function the way nature intended.This strategy respects human life at all stages and avoids insoluble ethical quandaries. It also offers a recipe for happier parents and healthier children.Surely this is a proposal for addressing our fertility crisis that all Americans can endorse.Editor’s note: A version of this article was published originally at the American Mind.