from Revolver News: Another day, another DEI disaster. The same academic system that preaches “equity” and “inclusion” from the rooftops is quietly rotting from within. These so-called “diversity champions” are almost always hired for optics instead of skill, excellence, or merit. And as a result, one by one they’re being exposed for everything from plagiarism […]

AD-X2: When US Politics Take on Science JamesHoare Thu, 10/09/2025 - 09:01

At 25 years old, Ali Truwit is already a Yale graduate and a two-time Paralympic medalist. But seeing someone after they’ve gone through so many struggles can make it easy to forget they ever had them in the first place. Perhaps this is partially what inspired Ali to get so personal in a recent social media post. For those who aren’t aware, Ali is a survivor of a shark attack. This is how she lost one of her legs. While this is widely known, the same can’t be said of all the struggles she faced in the aftermath. That’s why she decided to start her post with these words: “People know I got attacked by a shark and lost my leg, but they don’t know that…” TikTok After losing her leg, Ali felt like a stranger in her very own body. Everything that used to come so naturally to her, like a simple walk around her home, was something she needed to learn how to do all over again. Plus, she struggled with the changes to her physical appearance. “I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror,” Ali admitted. “I didn’t know how to love the reflection staring back at me.” TikTok Shark Attack Survivor Reveals the Struggles She Has Faced in Her Recovery Journey It wasn’t guaranteed that Ali would reach the point she’s at today. But between support from loved ones and her own determination, she slowly but surely learned how to work with her new body. It wasn’t easy, but her journey proves what is possible. In fact, she’s helping inspire others through her own charity, Stronger Than You Think! TikTok The goal of this charity? To change lives. According to the official website, one way Ali does this is by helping others get access to their own prosthetics. In a world where access to disability aids is far too limited, the positive impact this will have can’t be overstated. “Sometimes your biggest obstacles can turn into your greatest comeback,” Ali wrote, concluding her post. You can find the source of this story’s featured image here! The post “People Know That I Got Attacked By A Shark And Lost My Leg But They Don’t Know That…” appeared first on InspireMore.

In 1534, Henry VIII—whom the Pope dubbed “Defender of the Faith” because of his work opposing Luther’s teaching—broke from Rome and established himself as the head of the newly formed Church of England. What caused the change? Henry wanted to retain his grip on power, and to do that, he needed the male heir his wife couldn’t provide him—yet the Vatican wouldn’t grant his divorce. Henry didn’t break from Rome because he held to the doctrine of justification by faith alone but because he held political power as his ultimate good. Politics, not religion, motivated his nefarious deeds. That’s why he put to death both Catholics like Thomas More and Protestants like Thomas Cromwell. Esteem power and control above personal piety, and you’ll invariably follow a similar course. That’s exactly what happens in 1 Kings 12 to the first king of Samaria. Jeroboam’s Sin After Solomon’s death, his kingdom is split. Solomon’s son and heir, Rehoboam, listens to the foolish advice of his young friends instead of heeding the wisdom of his father’s faithful counselors. So Jeroboam leads 10 tribes to secede from David’s house. That northern kingdom, Samaria, persists in rebellion until Assyria annihilates it centuries later. Jeroboam knows his new dynasty rests on precarious foundations, for the temple of the God who made him king now sits in enemy territory. What will happen when his people make their annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem—the rival capital—to worship in the temple? He anxiously frets, The kingdom will now likely revert to the house of David. If these people go up to offer sacrifices at the temple of the LORD in Jerusalem, they will again give their allegiance to their lord, Rehoboam king of Judah. They will kill me and return to King Rehoboam. (1 Kings 12:26–27, NIV) What is Jeroboam to do? Like the man against whom he rebelled, Jeroboam listens to foolish advice and constructs new cultic centers. Like Aaron, whom he quotes, he fashions golden calves his people can worship in place of God, and tells the Israelites, “Here are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt” (v. 28). Are these meant to be the visible bulls on which the invisible God rides, instead of false gods? Perhaps—but that does little to mitigate the unpardonable idolatry he leads his people into. Idol Beneath the Idols What’s the real motivation behind Jeroboam’s idols? What’s the idol beneath the idols? Jeroboam tips his hand by placing one statue in Dan and the other in Beersheba, using them to mark the boundaries of his new kingdom. What Jeroboam does would be like an American politician setting up matching temples in New York and L.A., or one on the 49th Parallel and the other on the Rio Grande. The implication is clear: This is a national religion meant to serve a political purpose. What Jeroboam did would be like an American politician setting up matching temples in New York and L.A., or one on the 49th Parallel and the other on the Rio Grande. That’s the problem. Pure religion has now been made to serve petty political interests. It’s first and foremost an idolatry of power. The king’s needs and wants outweigh the proper worship of the one true God. Thus, Jeroboam breaks the first commandment as much as or more than he breaks the second. And once he breaks the first—once he rates his desires above God’s glory—all the rest fall in rapid succession. Jeroboam soon appoints priests who aren’t from Levi’s tribe (never mind Aaron’s line), and he establishes festivals to rival those God had commanded to help his people remember his wondrous works. Jeroboam flaunts God’s decrees with impunity. Christopher Wright sums up this sad story: “Religion was co-opted to serve the national interest.” Politics perverted pure religion. As it still does even today. Power Plays Big and Small But it’s not just about politics. This isn’t just a question of our highly polarized political culture—Team Red and Team Blue locked in an epic struggle for control of the nation. This is about power big and small, and that’s a pressing question even for the local church, which has struggled with factionalism since its inception (1 Cor. 3:3–4). Can power corrupt pure religion even among God’s holy people? Whenever we put our personal interests above the right and zealous worship of God, we’ve fallen into Jeroboam’s error. We’ve fallen into an idolatry of power. How many churches have suffered because factionalism has fractured the unity of the Spirit? Even in small matters, the desire to “win”—to be the one selecting song styles or carpet patterns or discipleship approaches—often leads us astray. We give in to “bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice” to ensure our victory, forgetting the kindness, compassion, and forgiveness to which Jesus calls us (Eph. 4:31–32, NIV). Entrenched “pillar” families might ignore Hebrews 13:17 and run a Timothy or Titus out of town, refusing to share power with some young upstart who will do things differently. And young upstart pastors might forget Proverbs 16:31 and condescendingly dismiss their elders’ wisdom in their arrogant assumption that they know better because they’ve got letters after their name. We mar the beauty of God’s Bride when we place our petty interests ahead of God’s kingdom purposes. Whenever we put our personal interests above the right and zealous worship of God, we’ve fallen into Jeroboam’s error. And, yes, this temptation also applies to national politics, too. The Christian ethic certainly has political implications. But if we put party politics above pure religion, we’ll inevitably flaunt God’s good decrees like Jeroboam. Insist our party must win at all costs, and we’ll soon face mounting moral debts. We’re regularly tempted to excuse obvious immorality because we’re thrilled with policy wins. We face the uneasy conscience of the post-churched mind as we celebrate in “our team” what we’d condemn in the other. We might refuse to turn the other cheek because the time requires a fighter, not a doormat—never mind the Sermon on the Mount, never mind that we follow a crucified Savior who triumphed in his defeat (and so might we). Your ‘God’ or Your King That’s the only truth that will pry any person’s fingers from his or her grip on worldly power. Each one of us has a choice. Like Jeroboam, we can push God (and his good commands) to the margins, elevating our personal and political interests above his pure worship. Or, like Jesus, we can “lose” some petty political conflict to gain all God has to offer. Like Jeroboam, we can point to lesser ends and lesser means and lesser divinities and brazenly claim, “Here are your gods.” Or, like Jesus, we can humble ourselves, “lose” by every worldly standard, yet trust in the ultimate, unrelenting victory of the Father. What Pilate intends ironically, we accept as the supreme truth and unqualified example: “Here is your king” (John 19:14, NIV). May we follow him above all earthly kings.

What just happened? On October 7, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Chiles v. Salazar, a First Amendment challenge to Colorado’s law that prohibits “conversion therapy” for minors. What is the case about? In 2019, Colorado passed the Minor Conversion Therapy Law (MCTL), which makes it professional misconduct for licensed mental health practitioners to engage in therapy with minors with the goal to “change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.” However, the statute does allow counselors to provide “acceptance, support, and understanding” to help minors undergoing gender transition (i.e., transgenderism). According to the court documents, Kaley Chiles, a licensed counselor and Christian, believes that “people flourish when they live consistently with God’s design, including their biological sex.” Chiles says many of her clients seek her counsel precisely because they believe that their faith and their relationship with God establish the foundation on which to understand their identity and desires. She contends that when clients voluntarily ask for help aligning their sexual desires or gender identity with Christian convictions, talk therapy should be legally protected. Colorado is defending the law as a permissible regulation of professional conduct, pointing to what it claims is a medical consensus condemning “conversion therapy” as harmful. What is the legal question before the court? The Supreme Court must decide whether Colorado’s law impermissibly censors speech by banning certain therapeutic conversations or whether the law is a valid regulation of professional conduct that only incidentally restricts speech. The central issue is whether the statute is viewpoint-based or content-based, which triggers the strict scrutiny standard, or whether it can survive under a more deferential framework. The question also to be considered is how NIFLA v. Becerra (2018)—which ruled that speech can still be protected even when uttered by “professionals.” What was the reaction of the justices during the oral arguments? During the oral arguments, several key lines of questioning emerged. Several justices confronted the law’s unequal treatment, noting that it prohibits counseling aimed at reducing same-sex attraction while allowing counseling supporting identity exploration or assisting gender transition. That differential treatment of viewpoints is precisely what First Amendment doctrine typically disallows. Justice Alito said, “It seems to me . . . your statute dictates opposite results in those two situations” based on “the viewpoint expressed.” “Looks like blatant viewpoint discrimination,” he added. When Colorado defended its law as a regulation of professional conduct, the justices asked whether talk therapy is speech, which would require the state to pass stricter constitutional constraints before banning it. Justice Gorsuch also questioned Colorado’s reliance on medical consensus by using a historical analogy. He asked whether reasoning that bans dissenting talk therapies now could justify suppressing views in the past when medical consensus was out of sync with views held today. He gave the example of how “homosexuality in the 1970s was professionally considered to be a mental health disorder.” Some justices suggested malpractice, licensing discipline, and informed consent regimes as less restrictive means to address harm claims, rather than categorical bans on certain therapeutic speech. Why is this case important? At its core, Chiles v. Salazar is a case about free speech and professional regulation. If the court allows states to ban particular therapies because they disfavor the message, many Christian counselors and their clients—especially young people wanting guidance consistent with their faith—may become silenced by the government. Speech doesn’t become less protected by the Constitution, though, simply because it’s offered in a therapeutic setting. The reality is that Colorado (and almost two dozen other states) are indeed trying to silence speech they disagree with. That’s why they continually use terms such as “conversion therapy.” This is an umbrella term for treatments based on a school of psychology known as behaviorism, which claims all observable behavior is learned through conditioning rather than internal mental states. This type of secular therapy—which, unfortunately, has been adopted by some Christian groups—often relies on aversion techniques, such as pairing same-sex erotic images with aversive stimuli, electric shocks, ice baths, or nausea-inducing drugs. That isn’t at all what Christians today are promoting. Chiles and many modern Christian counselors apply a more rightly considered “change-allowing” therapy. This voluntary, collaborative talk therapy is common for a wide array of behavioral struggles, such as pornography, promiscuity, and addictions. Yet in many jurisdictions, same-sex attraction and gender confusion are now the only topics therapists may not help clients reshape or resist. The counselor is required by law to affirm the identity the client brings, even if that’s what is causing the client distress. These treatments are being banned even though many people find them beneficial to their mental and spiritual health. As Paul Sullins points out, advocates of change-allowing therapy claim high rates of therapeutic benefit: More than 85 percent of youth with gender confusion reportedly choose to remain in their biological sex after therapy, and about two-thirds of same-sex attracted individuals report reduced same-sex attraction. Bans on such therapy not only constrict the free speech of the therapists, but they also burden the free exercise of religion for clients and counselors. Many who seek change-allowing therapy identify first and foremost with faith commitments, not their sexual attractions, and to prohibit such therapy is to violate their conscience and deny their right to determine how they’ll live out their religious beliefs. More than 20 states and the District of Columbia have laws banning or limiting “conversion therapy” for minors. A ruling in favor of Chiles could invalidate many of those laws, opening protected space for religiously grounded counseling. In contrast, a ruling for Colorado would further empower states to regulate therapeutic speech. This could ultimately have implications for other forms of moral or faith-based counseling, such as treatments for addiction. What outcome should we expect? While the court’s decision is far from certain, the tenor of the questions suggests the justices may treat Colorado’s law as a viewpoint-based speech restriction rather than a permissible health regulation. That would likely require applying the standard of strict scrutiny, which many legal experts believe the Colorado law couldn’t pass. However, if the court rules against Chiles, it could approve broad regulatory authority over the speech of therapists. Either way, the ruling will reshape how states may treat speech in clinical, pastoral, or religiously informed counseling. What’s next, and when will we hear a decision? Because Chiles v. Salazar is an October Term 2025 case, the decision is expected by June 2026.

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