by Brian Shilhavy, Health Impact News: It is well known in the Alternative Media that the COVID vaccines have unleashed a dramatic increase in cancer rates throughout the U.S. See: 10,000% Increase in Cancers Following COVID-19 Vaccines as Doctors and Scientists Worldwide Sound the Alarm 7,500% Increase in Recorded Cases of Cancer Following COVID-19 Vaccines […]

With songs for the lost and the lonely, detailing trauma and loss – but hardly ever his own – Bowness’ intensely personal sixth album is another fine addition to his impressive body of work

The below essay was originally published in the City Journal based on a series of videos first published by The Ben Shapiro Show.  — The American Medical Association (AMA) is the largest and most powerful doctors’ organization in the United States. It has also consistently supported pediatric medical transition, or “gender-affirming care,” which includes puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries administered to minors. The AMA has passed a resolution promising to protect these procedures, joined an amicus brief in a lawsuit challenging a state age-restriction law, and written a letter urging state governors to veto similar legislation. The AMA has done all this despite the findings from systematic reviews—the gold standard of evidence-based medicine (EBM)—of weak evidence for these treatments’ mental health benefits, and despite the corresponding health risks. In 2021, AMA board member Michael Suk publicly called pediatric transition “medically-necessary, evidence-based care.” He did so after health authorities in several European countries, including progressive Sweden and Finland, had already begun to change course and prioritize psychotherapy for pediatric gender dysphoria cases. Skeptics of the AMA’s position have wondered how a professional medical organization could have ignored systematic reviews. New videos, one of which was published by the Daily Wire, provide a possible answer. The videos reveal the AMA’s president, the Michigan-based otolaryngologist Bobby Mukkamala, making false claims about pediatric gender medicine and demonstrating ignorance of basic concepts in EBM. Mukkamala appears to believe that only doctors involved in medical practice can be trusted to evaluate the evidence for the treatments they perform. Where EBM sees a potential conflict of interest, the president of the AMA sees a credible source of expertise. In accordance with his belief about expertise, Mukkamala recommended that a legislator consult with one gender doctor in particular, fellow Michigander Jesse Krikorian. The Daily Wire videos also reveal that Krikorian, like Mukkamala, is unfamiliar with basic principles of EBM and with existing research on pediatric gender medicine. Together, therefore, the videos illustrate the broken chain of trust in American medicine: medical group leaders place trust in conflicted “experts,” who—deliberately or out of incompetence—mislead their colleagues. The videos published on Daily Wire were recorded by Representative Brad Paquette, a Republican in the Michigan House of Representatives who has opposed pediatric gender transition. The first video, published Tuesday, August 26, contains a conversation between Paquette and Mukkamala, which took place after the two discussed gender medicine at a Michigan House Subcommittee on Public Health and Food Security hearing on April 15. Paquette also invited Eithan Haim, the surgeon-turned-whistleblower who exposed Texas Children’s Hospital for performing pediatric transition procedures, to join the call. The second and third videos feature conversations between Paquette and Krikorian, whom Mukkamala recommended to Paquette as a credible expert on the evidence for pediatric medical transition. Paquette recorded all three conversations without his interlocutors’ knowledge, which he could do legally because Michigan’s eavesdropping law exempts conversations in which the recorder participates. The AMA president, who knew in advance that Paquette was calling to discuss pediatric gender medicine, made two noteworthy claims on the call. First, he asserted that the suicide rate— not suicidal ideation or attempts, but deaths by suicide—among people who identify as transgender is between “50 and 70 percent.” He was clearly implying that gender-transition procedures for minors are necessary to prevent these tragic outcomes. RELATED: Leaked Footage Exposes Top Med Org’s Support For Trans Procedures On Kids: ‘I’m Not An Expert At All’ This claim is baseless. Indeed, even the most outspoken advocates of pediatric transition refrain from saying that suicide—as opposed to suicidal ideation or attempts—is this high among trans-identifying youth. The truth about suicide in this population is complex, and the research is often mischaracterized by both sides of the debate. Suicide does appear to be higher among youth with gender dysphoria than in the general population, but existing data from the U.K. suggest that it is below one-tenth of 1 percent, and no studies suggest that it is higher in the United States or elsewhere. Last December, ACLU lawyer and LGBTQ & HIV Project co-director Chase Strangio admitted in a Supreme Court hearing that “suicide, thankfully and admittedly, is rare” among trans-identifying youth. The best available research also suggests that co-occurring mental-health conditions, common in youth diagnosed with gender dysphoria, likely explain the elevated risk. No credible evidence shows that medical transition resolves or lowers the rate of suicidal behavior, and some evidence suggests that suicide risk remains significantly elevated—though still nowhere near the figures cited by Mukkamala—following medical transition. Mukkamala’s assertion about suicide is troubling not only because it is false but also because it defies evidence-based recommendations for preventing suicide, which is known to be a socially contagious behavior. Finland’s leading gender clinician has called the suicide narrative—the notion that absent pediatric transition, gender-distressed youths will escalate to suicide—“disinformation” and those who use it “irresponsible.” Last year, the U.K.’s Labour government asked Louis Appleby, a professor of psychiatry with expertise in suicide research and prevention, to examine claims that the country’s restrictions on access to puberty blockers have led to increase suicides. Appleby reported that the available data “do not support the claim” and added that “[t]he way that this issue has been discussed on social media has been insensitive, distressing and dangerous, and goes against guidance on safe reporting of suicide.” Mukkamala’s second claim on the call is possibly even more troubling, given that it came from the president of America’s largest and most powerful doctors’ lobby. When Haim asked Mukkamala why the AMA continues to make claims about “gender-affirming care” that are negated by systematic reviews of evidence, Mukkamala refused to discuss the matter. He even seemed annoyed that Haim felt entitled to review the evidence himself. In a later email exchange, Mukkamala said that “we should defer to the people that take care of patients with these issues,” as “no one else is an expert.” READ MORE: Leaked Footage Exposes Top Med Org’s Support For Trans Procedures On Kids: ‘I’m Not An Expert At All’ Mukkamala’s admonition runs counter to two foundational principles of evidence-based medicine: that systematic reviews sit at the top of the hierarchy of evidence, while individual clinicians’ opinions sit at the bottom; and that experts who are personally invested—professionally, intellectually, or financially—in a given treatment are unlikely to evaluate the evidence for it impartially. As a leading textbook in EBM emphasizes, financial interests are only one potential conflict. Nonfinancial conflicts, including intellectual conflicts arising from, say, advocacy or publication, can bias an expert’s assessment of the evidence and recommendations at least as much as financial ones. Health organizations have embraced these principles in the context of developing clinical recommendations—a process that, in EBM, requires a systematic appraisal of evidence. The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) recommends having “unconflicted methodologists” lead the development of clinical practice guidelines “in collaboration with clinical experts who may be conflicted to a degree that would not preclude them from panel participation.” The World Health Organization counsels that experts personally involved in a particular treatment should not constitute a majority of the panel that develops official guidelines for the use of that treatment. In 2022, the Endocrine Society embraced NAM’s preference for reducing conflicts of interest, “even if doing so means that fewer well-recognized experts will be on its [guideline development panels].” By Mukkamala’s logic, none of this makes sense. But the field of EBM was conceived in large part to address the cognitive biases that impair the judgment of even the best doctors. An entire body of academic literature discusses medical authorities’ failure to follow or even acknowledge the best available evidence when doing so threatens doctors’ or professional organizations’ interests. As one group of authors observes, “the coalition for evidence-based medicine is weak” because it “includes too few doctors and attracts too little energy and political entrepreneurship from policymakers.” And medical associations are known to buck evidence review when they perceive a threat to their own interests or those of their members. Medical associations are trade unions whose “primary function . . . [is] to protect the autonomy and advance the interests of their members.” Put another way, Mukkamala confuses two distinct types of expertise. Clinical expertise involves applying a standard of care to a particular patient, taking account of that patient’s unique needs, wants, and vulnerabilities. When the standard of care itself is in question, a different form of expertise—that of the methodologist—is needed. To be clear, none of this means that researchers or physicians with conflicts of interest will always reach incorrect conclusions. But it does mean that their judgment should not be taken on trust. Had Mukkamala understood how EBM works, he might have indulged Haim’s questions—or found another reason not to engage. After Mukkamala recommended that Paquette speak with Jesse Krikorian, the latter two met virtually over two hour-long sessions. The recordings leave no doubt that Krikorian is badly misinformed about gender medicine research and, like Mukkamala, seems unfamiliar with how EBM works. In their second call, Paquette asked Krikorian about systematic reviews of evidence and the umbrella review in the Department of Health and Human Service’s report on pediatric gender dysphoria, which they had agreed in advance to discuss. Regarding umbrella reviews, which are systematic reviews of systematic reviews, Krikorian said, “Honestly, it’s not a term that I come across very often . . . . It’s not a term I was taught in medical school.” Paquette wanted to understand how systematic reviews of evidence “fit in” to EBM, especially because “the AMA points to gender-affirming care as evidence-based medicine” despite systematic reviews finding the opposite. Systematic reviews are considered the gold standard in EBM because, properly done, they use a transparent and reproducible methodology that minimizes author bias, and because they not only summarize the research on a particular question but also evaluate it for quality. Krikorian, by contrast, explained that systematic reviews are essentially reading lists, which doctors can consult before using their own subjective judgment to evaluate individual studies. Paquette pushed further. “But isn’t the whole point of a systematic review to assess the quality of studies—all of them?” “There should be some attention paid to the quality of studies . . .” Krikorian conceded. “But in general, the goal of a systematic review is to get a bird’s eyes view of the landscape of research on that particular topic.” Paquette wanted to know if Krikorian was familiar with the systematic reviews on pediatric gender medicine. “I am sure I could find some, but systematic reviews are not my go-to. I go to the individual [studies] where I can assess the quality individually.” This inverts the pyramid of evidence in EBM. After Jack Turban, a “gender-affirming” psychiatrist at the University of California, San Francisco, made a similar comment in a deposition, Gordon Guyatt, a founder of the field of EBM, said that “anybody who doesn’t recognize that a crucial part of a systematic review is judging the quality or certainty of the evidence does not understand what it’s all about.” Guyatt’s judgment would seem to apply with even greater force to Krikorian. The consequences of Krikorian’s approach were readily apparent. Krikorian, for instance, cited a cross-sectional survey as “valuable” evidence for the mental-health benefits of hormones, and in response to Paquette’s office’s request for “long-term studies and literature that is used to inform practice” ahead of their conversation, provided citations for three studies—Tordoff et al. (2022), Chen et al. (2023), and Turban et al. (2020)—that have been found to have serious methodological problems that render their self-reported conclusions unreliable. Since Turban et. al (2020) is a cross-sectional survey, it is inherently incapable of discerning cause and effect; it has other problems, too. Nevertheless, according to Krikorian, the three studies provide compelling evidence that “gender affirming hormone therapy . . . really improves mental health. It improves social functioning. It improves suicide rates.” Krikorian expressed other bizarre views on the calls. For instance: “When you’re doing a literature review, you look back maybe 10 years. You don’t look back farther than that.” While changing social or cultural context can be relevant in assessing research findings, when a study was conducted is far less important than how it was conducted. A 15-year-old, double-blinded randomized controlled trial will give you far more reliable information about a drug than a five-year-old, uncontrolled observational study of the same drug. When discussing the risks of cross-sex hormones, Krikorian minimized the side-effects, or even cast them as desirable. “Most of the side effects are things people are looking for. They’re looking for beard growth . . . deepening voice, softer skin, more feminine distribution of fat.” Testosterone gives girls acne, “but acne is normal during puberty anyway.” For estrogen, “you may cry more during commercials, but for some that’s desirable.” Most disturbingly, Krikorian assured Paquette that “these are chemicals that half the population is making naturally . . . . These are chemicals that occur in 50 percent of bodies.” This is dangerously misleading. The Endocrine Society recommends using drugs to achieve testosterone levels in females undergoing “gender affirmation” between 320 and 1000 ng/dL—at least six times higher than the normal range for pre-menopausal women (15-46 ng/dL). Side-effects of these treatments include vaginal atrophy, clitoral growth (which can lead to painful chafing), pelvic floor dysfunction, and mood disorders. Males who take estrogen face heightened risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and infertility. The evidence for these harms is growing. In effect, “hormone replacement therapy” in the context of “gender-affirming care” is a way to induce endocrine disorders. Krikorian did not seem bothered by the risk of infertility, because “at 13 or 14,” adolescents “have some insight into the seriousness of whether or not [they’re] going to be able to have children.” (Last year, videos published as part of the “WPATH Files” revealed Dan Metzger, an endocrinologist, saying that talking to 14-year-olds about fertility is like talking to “a blank wall.”) Krikorian also insisted that 12-year-olds can anticipate what going through puberty will be like, falsely asserted that the regret rate for hormone use is between 0.5 percent and 2 percent (Mukkamala also repeated this unsubstantiated statistic), and assured Paquette that “most of Europe is moving toward easier access to intervention.” When Paquette asked about the World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s suppressing evidence, failing to manage conflicts of interest, and eliminating age minimums under pressure when drafting its current “standards of care”—facts reported variously in the New York Times, the Economist, the Atlantic, and other major outlets—Krikorian responded, “I don’t have a New York Times subscription. They’ve had some pretty off-the-wall stuff on trans issues in general, so they’re not my go-to.” Particularly jarring was Krikorian’s repeated use of “folks” when referring to children and young teens. This is standard practice in pediatric gender medicine and quite obviously is intended to obscure minors’ immaturity and inability to make autonomous choices. In no other context do adults carefully avoid using “children” or “teenagers” and instead refer to 11-year-olds as “folks.” I don’t think that Mukkamala is an ideologue, though his lack of collegiality toward Haim, himself an AMA member, was unbefitting of a medical professional. Mukkamala’s motives are likely more prosaic. He is the newly elected president of the nation’s largest medical association, whose reputation he does not want to compromise at the outset of his tenure. He likely has career ambitions and does not want to be called “transphobic.” Above all, Mukkamala seems sincerely to believe that doctors are the most trustworthy assessors of the evidence for their own practices. This belief, I have come to understand, is characteristic of many American doctors. It is also colored by self-interest. If Mukkamala defers to “experts” like Krikorian on gender medicine, then Mukkamala can expect similar deference from colleagues when questions arise concerning otolaryngology. But whatever his motives, Mukkamala has a duty to ensure his organization does not support harmful treatments that lack basis in science and medical ethics—something, so far, he’s failed to do. Leor Sapir is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Boston College and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Program on Constitutional Government at Harvard University. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

In our comfortable age, we often avoid affliction at any cost. But I’ve learned that Christian suffering isn’t without hope and that God often uses our pain to bring about redemption. In sixth grade, I joined the 12 percent of children who had a parent addicted to drugs. Before I knew what was going on, a pastor had discovered my mother’s addiction to opioids and confronted her. For her son’s sake, he said, she needed to become sober. If she didn’t give up her addiction, he would force her to go to rehab. She tried to detox on her own but couldn’t. I watched as she writhed on our couch in pain, convinced she was dying as a result of her withdrawal. A good friend of the family, and our roommate at the time, called 911 and my grandparents. I was sent to live with my grandparents “temporarily,” and an ambulance came to pick up my mom. The next day, she was taken to a rehab center, where she committed to getting sober. Little did I know, this was the beginning of the rest of our lives. Inexplicable Suffering Over the following years, I stopped viewing my mom as my mother. How I felt toward her depended on the day, but it mostly ranged from anger to sorrow. Band concerts and academic milestones continued on, but she wasn’t there. I saw other kids with their “normal” moms and was jealous. My jealousy bred anger, and I made up my mind that I wouldn’t care enough about my own mom to let her hurt me by her absence. When she was fresh out of her first round of recovery, she lived about an hour and a half away on the Oregon coast, where I’d visit. Halfway through a hike we took together, she wanted to take pictures with me at one particularly gorgeous viewpoint. As she explained that she wanted to have memories with her son, I immediately thought, I’m not your son. My genuine frustration and teenage rebellion resulted in my outright refusal of her request. I cried and screamed at her that I was tired of pictures and wanted to go home, refusing to make clear my true feelings. This interaction characterized our relationship for the next five years. In 2020, the world shut down. My mom moved in with my grandparents and me, and we spent six months together, barely leaving the house except to go to work. After a brief relapse, my mom had been sober for a few years, but her health was beginning to decline. Bedridden, with an IV and feeding tube, she was in immense and constant pain. Yet, in the middle of her disease and the COVID-19 lockdowns, I witnessed something extraordinary. My mom was given the strongest faith I’ve seen. No matter when I saw her, she was continuously worshiping—reading Scripture, singing, and praying. Unable to work, she took to online ministry and developed a modest following. She used her story of suffering to encourage others and share the gospel. As she read God’s words to Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:9—“My power is made perfect in weakness”—she stopped praying for healing and instead prayed for God to glorify himself in her weakness. Inexplicable Grace In those days, I often went to bed later than I should have because I’d go to her room and check on her. We’d talk for hours about everything from YouTubers to eschatology. I witnessed something extraordinary. My mom was given the strongest faith I’ve seen. God transformed her in her suffering and used this to peel away the bitterness in my heart. With each passing day, God’s love was poured into my heart through the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5), leading me to forgive my mom as Christ had forgiven me—and as he’d forgiven her (Eph. 4:31–32). Because of our circumstances, my relationship with her grew deeper than it could have otherwise. I had no father in my life to teach me the ways of Christ, but she taught me much about him in those six months. My faith is indebted to her. After about six months, I went to college. Soon after, she headed to the ICU. A few weeks later, I flew home to be there when she was taken off life support. She was supposed to go quickly, but instead, she fought on for eight long hours. She barely had enough energy to look around. Unable to speak because of the ventilator, she opened her eyes at the sound of my voice. She began to scan the room, her head moving slowly and weakly. I quickly tried to get into her vision. Her eyes met mine, and her entire face and body softened immediately. I almost made out a smile. Where there had once been hatred toward her, only love remained. I choked out the words “I love you,” and as I did, her eyes closed. She would spend the rest of her life unconscious. That was our last late night together. In the middle of the night, she finally beheld Christ in the way she longed for. All Suffering Will End The truth is, we won’t always see good from our suffering on this side of eternity. Look to Hebrews 11 for a wonderful list of people who suffered greatly and didn’t see their reward in this life. Where there had once been hatred toward her, only love remained. Yet Christians will surely see their eventual glorification in heaven (Rom. 8). We’ll see the redemption of the universe and God’s glory triumph over every evil in this world. On that long-anticipated final day, we’ll stand as God wipes every tear from our eyes, just as Revelation 21 promises. Our hope is that our God is greater than any suffering, and he who wrought our redemption through Christ’s suffering can also bring redemption through our suffering.

In an iconic scene from the 1987 film Wall Street, Gordon Gekko, a ruthless businessman played by Michael Douglas, claims that greed is good. Most supporters of capitalism see Gekko as a caricature. Yet in Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand’s 1957 procapitalist novel, greed is presented as the essence of capitalism. For Rand, greed is an objective moral good. Christians should universally affirm that greed is a moral evil. Still, working hard, investing wisely, and enjoying the increase from our efforts are depicted positively in Scripture. Is there a moral approach to seeking profit through business and investing? Robin John, CEO of asset management group Eventide, says there is. In The Good Investor: How Your Work Can Confront Injustice, Love Your Neighbor, and Bring Healing to the World, John argues that “investing can help us address our own genuine financial needs while at the same time . . . loving our neighbors and healing some of the world’s crushing pain” (17). In other words, running a business for profit isn’t inherently about greed. It should be about making the world a better place. Mixed Blessing of Markets John’s approach to investing is rooted in experience. He rose from childhood in a small village in India to become an investment company CEO demonstrates the potential of capitalism. So does the drastic reduction of the number of people living in abject poverty over the past century. Yet neither his personal success nor the positive aggregate data has blinded John to the limitations of impersonal markets. He also recognizes, as he shows through the story of Amal and Kamal, that contracts and corporate strategies can be used to ignore abuse. Contracts and corporate strategies can be used to ignore abuse. When John returned to India on business travel for a Fortune 500 company, he lived in “a house full of vacant rooms” that were air-conditioned; meanwhile, the two servants, Amal and Kamal, were “crammed into a furnace of a pantry without even rudimentary bedding” (25). When he raised concerns to his superiors, he was told nothing could be done. His company contracted for the house and the help. They felt they had no moral responsibility to treat the servants better. John resigned and found work he could do with a clear conscience. His experience taught him that capital “can create immense value and solve some of the world’s deepest needs. Or, when disconnected from its true purpose, it can extract value and cause extensive damage” (33). The answer isn’t to abandon the good of capitalism but to use it redemptively. The idea for his values-based investment strategy was born. Invest for Good According to Gallup, 62 percent of Americans are invested in the stock market. Some are invested through direct ownership of stock shares. But many more Americans own shares of mutual funds through company-sponsored 401(k)s, personal IRAs, or other retirement plans. Even workers with pensions are usually indirectly invested in the stock market. Most of us look at target dates, historic returns, and fees when we’re choosing our mutual funds. But mutual funds buy shares of many companies, which makes knowing what we’re investing in difficult. Thus, Christians can wind up indirectly owning shares of companies that have unjust labor practices, produce pornography, or provide abortions. These investments raise obvious ethical questions for believers. Exclusive focus on returns and fees also undermines the purpose of investment. According to John, “The purpose of investing is to provide capital to businesses creating goods that are actually good for the world and services that actually serve the world’s needs” (66). That goal is often subverted by investments like mutual funds and exchange traded funds that seek diversification with return on investment as the primary goal. Like any other investment company, Eventide buys shares of companies that hold a “competitive edge and [anticipate] making stellar returns.” But they also create investment portfolios that “pursue this better world we’re all longing to see” (68–69). The book is a long-form argument for a values-based approach to investing that offers real-world examples of the difference Eventide is making. Rehumanize Investing Eventide’s values-based approach substantially differs from the investment advice the internet commonly serves up. It especially subverts the adoption of passive index investing. The first passive index fund was launched in 1976. Now, as much as a third of all stock may be held in funds that try to replicate common market indices, like the S&P 500 or the NASDAQ. In the passive index strategy, the only metric that determines whether to buy a stock is whether it’s included in a given index. Fund portfolios are often rebalanced automatically by algorithms that execute the human-designed strategy. The answer isn’t to abandon the good of capitalism but to use it redemptively. The passive index approach significantly reduces the administrative costs of investment, because there’s no need to individually vet each company. However, lower costs come with trade-offs. According to John, “The collective voice of investors played a significant role in the ending of the inhumanity of South African apartheid” (129). Passive index funds make that sort of influence impossible. As John sees it, investment should be about “people banding together to address the needs of their neighbors,” not just a means to maximize returns (182). The challenge with an active, values-based investment approach is that it costs more to monitor companies to ensure their goals are directed toward the common good. The higher fees on many values-based investments will reduce investor returns over the long term. Yet it was Jesus who asked, “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” (Matt. 16:26). As many increasingly defer to AI, a values-based investment strategy stands out by keeping humans in the mix. However, many individuals—especially those investing in workplace retirement plans—don’t have easy access to values-based funds. Not all of John’s suggestions are actionable by all potential readers. Additionally, we have to be careful about overestimating individual culpability for others’ sins. There are limits to human knowledge and control. For example, I don’t become culpable for a man’s abuse of his wife if I fill up at his gas station. If applied rigidly, the moral framework John lays out could make ordinary economic activity difficult, if not impossible. Nevertheless, John offers an important reminder to look beyond the annual return when considering where to invest. In the end, The Good Investor is an important reminder to Christians that our work is good, that markets can benefit the world, and that the way we invest matters to God.

Brent Faiyaz, whose real name is Christopher Brent Wood, is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer from Columbia, Maryland. He started uploading music online at the age of twelve, first releasing his experimental music on SoundCloud. In 2014, Faiyaz released his debut EP titled Sunset Avenue. He relocated to Charlotte, North Carolina, before moving to Los Angeles, California in pursuit of further opportunities in music. In 2016, Brent Faiyaz released the single “Invite Me,” which appeared on his debut EP A.M. Paradox released in September 2016. That same year, he formed the group Sonder with producers Dpat and Atu. The post Complete List Of Brent Faiyaz Songs From A to Z appeared first on ClassicRockHistory.com.

“KPop Demon Hunters” is the latest Netflix hit to hypnotize a generation of children — and it’s one that BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey of “Relatable” will not be letting her own children watch.The animated movie is about a KPop girl group, HUNTR/X, who double as magical fighters that battle demons with their music.“I don’t know if I would say it’s part of, like, the very dark trend of trying to get kids into the demonic. You could maybe argue that. I’m not totally sure that I would say that when it comes to this particular movie,” Stuckey says.While Stuckey notes that there are “no explicit LGBTQ themes,” she does point out that there are very androgynous-looking characters and that a young child would not be able to understand the characters and story.“A teenager might be able to decipher, okay, fiction, nonfiction, obviously not biblical. But honestly, before the age of, like, 13, 14, I do not think so. I think that it is very spiritually, theologically confusing,” Stuckey says.She also believes it would be confusing to a young Christian as the film “draws heavily on shamanism,” which is a folk religion.“It is based on this idea that shamans can connect with the spiritual world through ceremonies. They can foresee people’s futures using the Chinese calendar. They can assist with tasks like naming children, arranging marriages, or choosing lucky dates for events like weddings, moving homes, starting businesses,” Stuckey explains.“Korea has a long cultural history of female shamans who use music and rituals to drive away evil spirits, which the movie mirrors in HUNTR/X’s demon-hunting song,” she continues. “So there is explicitly a religious motivation and pagan ideology that undergirds this.”“It’s not just, ‘Oh, Christians are looking for things, and they’re taking things too seriously.’ No, the film is actually based on this pagan idea of shamanism that there are these mediums that can communicate with the other side and that can fight off evil spirits and really encourage this kind of paranoid superstition that so many people of all different kinds of religions fall into,” she adds.Stuckey also takes issue with the way the demons are portrayed.“They’re scary-looking, but they’re also bumbling idiots. ... And so, on the one hand, you get the impression that these are very scary individuals carrying out the task of trying to steal your soul, but also that they are harmless, that they are powerless, and that there is some kind of human figure with the power to stop these demons if we worship them,” she says.“But the people that are demanding our worship, these HUNTR/X people, are obviously human beings with supernatural powers, not the only person who does have the power to defeat demonic activity and Satan himself—Jesus Christ,” she continues.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.