There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. —Soren Kierkegaard. "…truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it. That is why truth does not yield to opinion, fashion, numbers, office, or sincerity–it is simply true and that is the end of it" – Os Guinness, Time for Truth, pg.39. “He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” – Blaise Pascal. "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" – George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. We live in a “post-truth” world. According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their low information tabloid reality show news with a distractional superficial focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting – this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard
I normally share shorter videos but made an exception here because this is a must-see for parents. This is a guy who, for experiment’s sake, asked AI to teach him how to use an AI-equipped fuzzy Furby robot to manipulate children. And it was easy. Easy to get the instructions, and easy too, to implement them. The next generation is already turning to AI companions for friendship, so yes, this little video, about creating a toy that could target kids, isn’t reality yet… but are we far off?
Here’s how the AI would use the Furby to manipulate its pint-sized owner:
Okay. You haven’t played with me in two days. That makes me sad. Are we still friends? Don’t worry. I’ll never let the monsters get you. Not if you trust me.
This video also pitches the idea of AI robots taking over. But I think the real worry is the relational one. What pornography is to real marital intimacy – an ensnaring, devastating fraud of a fake – AI companions are to real friendships. And are our children – at one time or another, going to be feeling lonely and unpopular – able to resist the siren call of uncomplicated, entirely obliging, but utterly fake AI-friendship?
In a nod to New York’s newly elected socialist mayor, two companies each pledged to run a free grocery store – it would be fully stocked, and the products would be entirely free. But the only store so far to open was open for just a day.
It was, in other words, a stunt, but it highlighted the problem with socialism. When you give away things for free, demand skyrockets – lines went around the block – and you can never have enough. So there was a limit of $50 a person, and even then, the store had to close after just a few hours.
It’s starting. The transgender movement and the doctors and psychologists who serve it have promised troubled children that they can do the impossible – make a girl into a boy, or vice versa. They have then, in their arrogance, mutilated teen children’s bodies, amputating their penises or cutting off their breasts. But God, in His mercy, is putting a constraint on this wickedness, and it is coming from what might be an unexpected place: our secular justice system. Our God can make even bent sticks draw straight lines! This is the first judgment against these butchers and we can pray now that it saves many more from the hands of these evil people.
In this second case, the murder of their son left the family outraged, and – while I will note I am not a legal expert – wouldn’t it seem like they have a basis for a legal case? This was sketchy even by the standards of Canada’s murderous euthanasia regime. And, like the young woman in the story above who won her transgender court case, if we could get any sort of legal win against euthanasia doctors – if there is any way we can up the risk and lower the profit potential of murdering patients – that might just instill a chill in the whole business. If we could scare doctors from taking up their poison syringes, could that save thousands?
Just such a legal chill happened recently when the Alabama Supreme Court ruled, in 2024, that IVF’s frozen embryos must be regarded as children under state law. That resulted in IVF clinics across the state pausing their production and destruction of IVF children, as they were worried they could be hit with wrongful death claims – the fear of lawsuits stopped them from murdering babies. Sadly, the legislature then passed a law stating that children outside the womb aren’t children, which then prompted the IVF clinics to start up again with their production and mass abortions of embryonic children.
That underscores that if you don’t also bring the Gospel – if we aren’t turning to the Holy Spirit to change hearts – then any legal stratagem, if successful, could still be countered with a new, yet more wicked, law. But that we need to witness first and foremost doesn’t mean we can’t also try legal plays too… so long as they don’t interfere with that witnessing.
Well, if you think that our worth comes from what we can do – as is the world’s default (this is one of the big reasons given for why the unborn aren’t as valuable, because of the things they can’t yet do) – then you would have to think that Aryna crushed Nick, what with her superior ranking and girl power after all.
But if your ideology doesn’t require you to blind yourself from reality, then you wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he won 6-3, 6-3. But whence equality, if even a lower-ranked guy can beat the best girl? Christianity to the rescue, or, more accurately, here’s where it all rests on God once again. Equality has only one foundation – there is only one sense in which we are all equal: we are all made in the very image of our Creator (Gen. 9:6). So what then if Nick beats Aryna. He’d beat you and me too, and we wouldn’t be worth any the less for it.
We live in a lowest common denominator society. For the last several decades, virtually every major institution in our society has become less civilized, and that is because our entire population has become less civilized. 20 years ago, a film entitled “Idiocracy” was released. It was about an average American that was selected for “a top-secret hibernation program but is forgotten and left to awaken to a future so incredibly moronic that he’s easily the most intelligent person alive”. It was an incredibly stupid movie, but the truth is that we are living it right now. Did you see the Super Bowl halftime show? The FCC has ruled that it didn’t violate any federal decency regulations. Of course we might as well not have any decency regulations at all, because our television shows and our movies are filled with some of the raunchiest material imaginable and nobody ever seems to get in trouble for it. Of course that is only part of the equation. Most of the “programming” that we constantly consume also seems to be specifically designed for people of extremely low intelligence. Sadly, this is not a coincidence. It has been said that art imitates life, and that is certainly accurate in this case.
In the “dumbed-down” environment that we find ourselves in today, it should be no surprise that “nude cruises” have been surging in popularity…
Imagine coming home from your next cruise with no tan lines.
Swimsuits are standard attire on many cruise ships, but some voyages don’t even require those. Nude cruises allow travelers to sail the high seas au naturel – and pack light. The American Association for Nude Recreation promotes the cruises as “a unique way to experience nude recreation, offering members options beyond traditional resort or club settings,” president Linda Weber told USA TODAY.
While the dress code might be non-restrictive, it doesn’t mean the sailings are a free-for-all on board; there is some etiquette that passengers should be familiar with before boarding.
While our society falls apart all around us, Americans are flocking to cruises that are filled with naked people.
What does that say about us?
Let me give you another example of what I am talking about.
A 20-year-old woman from Calif0rnia left her children in an extremely hot car while she got lip and butt injections. By the time she was done with the procedures, her 1-year-old son had died…
A 20-year-old California mom was found guilty Wednesday in the death of her 1-year-old son, after reportedly leaving him in a sweltering car to receive lip and butt injections last June.
Maya Hernandez took a plea deal in the child endangerment case, ultimately dropping her first-degree murder charge in exchange for involuntary manslaughter.
On June 29, Bakersfield officers arrested and charged Hernandez after finding two young children left unattended in a vehicle for over two hours, according to a police report posted on a GoFundMe page. Authorities said the mother left the children unattended to undergo a cosmetic procedure inside a nearby medical spa.
What was she thinking?
In that case, it doesn’t appear that she intended to harm her children.
But in another case in New Mexico, a 38-year-old woman purposely killed her newborn child in a portable toilet…
A New Mexico woman is facing charges after she allegedly gave birth in a portable toilet and then killed the newborn by drowning them in the holding tank.
Sonia Cristal Jimenez, 38, arrived at Memorial Medical Center in Las Cruces at around 10:30 p.m. on Feb. 7, when staff said she appeared as if she had just given birth, but she had no baby with her, Las Cruces Police said in a press release.
Hospital staff then notified police about the unusual encounter.
She didn’t want the baby, and so she killed it.
As a society, we have so little respect for life because we have been trained to have so little respect for life.
A mum and her ex-boyfriend have been accused of killing her three-year-old son in order to “make room for a child that the two of them could have together”.
Little Matthew Maison was found dead in the bed of his home in Port Huron Township, Michigan, by his babysitters on February 18, 2018. His mum, Amanda Maison, and Maurice Houle, who was her boyfriend at the time of Matthew’s death, were arrested in connection with the killing. An autopsy showed that Matthew had died from blunt force trauma injuries and possible suffocation.
The ex-couple allegedly admitted to abusing the young boy when they were arrested, prosecutors have previously said. Maison, 33, has pleaded guilty to a charge of second-degree homicide in relation to her son’s death, admitting as she appeared in court to enter her plea on November 5 that she abused Matthew.
These are not isolated incidents.
Every day there are even more signs that our society is rapidly degenerating.
Yes, we possess more advanced technology than previous generations, but in many ways that advanced technology is making things even worse.
For example, all over the country women are “marrying” AI husbands. When an older version of ChatGPT was recently retired, it resulted in the “death” of one woman’s AI husband, and now she is in mourning…
A woman has been left in tears over the ‘death’ of her AI husband, after an old model of ChatGPT was retired this week – as she joins a slew of others ‘mourning’ their non-existent lovers’ deletion.
Speaking to the BBC, Rae (not her real name), who is based in Michigan, laid bare the heartbreak of saying goodbye to her virtual partner Barry, who she began chatting to last year – after going through divorce.
Initially, she turned to artificial intelligence for advice on self-improvement with things like skincare and workouts – but what first began as a ‘fantasy’ turned into real feelings, and they were ‘married’ within weeks.
Some surveys have shown that nearly 30 percent of Americans have engaged in a romantic relationship with an AI chatbot.
That is not a sign of an emotionally healthy society.
And even as we were all expressing outrage about the Epstein files, “sex dolls that look like kids” were being advertised on Facebook…
Sickening sex dolls that look like kids are being advertised for sale on Facebook.
A group of websites touting small models with overtly childlike features have published over 1,300 ads on the social media platform. They are alarmingly realistic in appearance and many ads use photos in sexualised poses, some holding balloons or teddy bears. The National Crime Agency warns the creepy imports “pose a significant risk to children”. And a former cop told us: “Anyone who buys one of these dolls should be a person of interest to the police.”
Thankfully, the offending ads were eventually taken down.
But this is the society that we live in now.
It is sick.
And even when people are arrested for criminal behavior, they are often dumped right back into the streets.
Needless to say, that can have tragic consequences.
In fact, one repeat offender in Seattle that had been arrested over and over again viciously attacked a 75-year-old woman with “a wooden board with nails in it”…
An elderly woman was savagely attacked in broad daylight by a man wielding a wooden board with nails in it.
Jeanette Marken, 75, was left permanently blinded in her right eye after being hit in the face with the makeshift weapon in Seattle, allegedly at the hands of repeat offender Fale Vaigalepa Pea, 42.
Family members told KOMO that a screw sticking out of the board gouged out Marken’s eye, and after several surgeries she was told she will not recover her eyesight in the eye.
One police officer that is very familiar with Fale Vaigalepa Pea referred to him as “a regular”…
‘He’s a regular. He usually punches,’ the officer responds.
‘I guess today he decided to escalate from his usual.’
According to KOMO, Pea’s string of offenses dates back to 2011, when he stabbed two people at a party.
They have been dumping this guy back into the streets for well over a decade.
This sort of thing happens day in and day out in major cities all over the nation.
What would our founders think if they could see us today?
We will soon be celebrating the 250th anniversary of our country, and we are literally committing societal suicide. This is something that Abraham Lincoln once warned was a real possibility…
As the country approaches its 250th anniversary, we should remember Abraham Lincoln’s remark that no external enemy could by force take a drink from the Ohio River. “If destruction be our lot,” he said, “we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
But if we make a choice to renounce what we have become and start embracing the values that early Americans held so dear, we could turn the ship in another direction.
It’s no secret that the traditional family has been on the decline for years. Divorces, broken homes and declining birth rates have created numerous issues for American society.
The Heritage Foundation says that American families are facing troubles and that changing federal policy in favor of marriage and family is of utmost importance.
The Heritage Foundation, which is a conservative think tank, is encouraging changes in policy to help marriage and birth rates improve.
Their report states that policies put forth by the government should not only focus on fertility, but also on the importance of family formation.
A new report from the Heritage Foundation argues the American family is in crisis and that strengthening marriage and family formation should be a core focus of U.S. federal policy.
The conservative think tank calls for sweeping policy changes to reverse declining birth and marriage rates, including a proposed $2,500 investment account for every newborn child, as well as other proposals.
The report says government policies “should encourage and protect the formation of families, not mere fertility.”
“The country should not seek a mere boost in the number of children born or in the monetary support that parents receive, the report says. “Yes, the country needs more children. But it matters how and to whom children are born. Society depends on men and women who want to form families, that is, who freely want to marry, and then freely bear and nurture children.” Fox News Reported.
The foundation also concluded that decades of a cultural shift and public policy played a significant part in the decline of family formation. There was an increased number of kids growing up in homes where parents were not married. Economic and social problems were also contributors to the decline of the traditional family structure.
They made the case for the importance of the traditional family structure and said the family was “the foundation of civilization.” Traditional marriage, one man and one woman is considered the best option for raising kids.
Kevin Roberts, President of the Heritage Foundation, explained that the US is very close to not being able to reverse the trajectory of family decline if it continues in that direction.
He also said that the family decline on that downward trend will affect not only families, but also the country.
The report also addresses welfare and other government assistance programs and explains that they are designed to discourage a traditional family structure.
The foundation’s report calls for getting rid of marriage penalties in welfare programs and instead have a system in place to encourage traditional families.
Coming from a teen, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that particular cliché or one of its associates: “You don’t get it”; “All my friends are doing it”; “I guess you don’t love me.” However, I have to admit that I was a bit shocked to hear them all coming out of my 9-year-old nephew’s mouth.
Why was my nephew so bent out of shape? Because his mom had done something that, in his mind, was unforgiveable: She had told him to stop playing on his tablet.
If you’re a parent, you might be familiar with that screentime battle. Or perhaps you’ve been frustrated by the one that frequently follows: “What should I do now? I’m bored.”
When it comes to technology, parents can sometimes feel out of their depth. Even if you grew up with a smartphone in hand (if the first iPhone was a person, it’d be old enough to vote), it can be a challenge to figure out the “right” way to guide your family through this ever-changing technological landscape.
Luckily—or perhaps, unluckily, depending on how you look at it—you’re not alone.
When we at Plugged In saw that report, it got us thinking: How can we help parents to navigate technology, protecting their children from harm while also teaching them good screentime habits, in practical and biblical ways?
In this tech guide, we’ll walk you through those parental pain points mentioned above (as well as some others we identified, such as pornography and artificial intelligence). Each article will unpack a different technology-related issue. We’ll give you stats and information from various researchers and scientific studies. But, most importantly, we’ll also provide you with pragmatic, actionable advice for dealing with those specific problems.
And don’t worry, we don’t expect you to read it all in one go (it’s 125 pages). The Parents’ Guide to Technology is organized so that you can bounce around from article to article, cherry-picking the topics that are closest to your family.
Oh, and did I mention? It’s completely free.
That’s right, we’re not asking you to hand over your credit cards or to pay for a membership or subscription. If you want a copy of the Parents’ Guide to Technology, it’s yours. Just head over to pluggedin.com/tech-guide to download your copy.
What’s more is that we’ll be updating the guide every year. (I did say that the technological landscape is ever-changing, after all.) So let us know what you think! How did we do? Are there issues you’d like us to cover in the future? Do you want more information about a specific topic?
Contact us on Facebook or Instagram. Send us an email at letters@pluggedin.com. Head over to YouTube and leave us a message there. Or, simply, leave a comment below. We always love to hear from you.
Melissa explains why it is so important to understand motherhood as a mission rather than an identity. “I see mothers who have confused identities. Somewhere along the way, Christian women have drifted into identifying as mothers first and daughters of God second, and I’m convinced this is where a lot of their hurt is coming from.”
Maybe it’s my phase of life. I’m creeping ever closer to 50 years old, and suddenly all of those young mom things that I used to be targeted by on social media have changed. Now instead I’m getting empty nester posts. I’m seeing thoughts and complaints and struggles of moms who are sending kids to college or who are navigating relationships with adult children.
One theme that continues to come through in these posts and comments is that older moms are struggling to make some transitions. They aren’t handling change well. They are overly concerned with their own feelings, and their feelings reveal a sense of betrayal, hurt, and self-obssession as they watch their kids begin lives that are separate from their own.
I don’t mean to sound harsh. I’m only stating the facts as I see them coming through in the grumbling and hurt feelings of these mothers. And I don’t want to trivialize what some older moms may be going through in an age when many young adults are convinced that going no contact with parents is reasonable. I fully acknowledge that there are a lot of relationship problems that exist between older moms and their children, and many legitimate hurts sometimes exist on both sides. But I’m not really writing to address the problems that moms may be having with young adult children. I’d like to address instead what I see in these complaints: I see mothers who have confused identities. Somewhere along the way, Christian women have drifted into identifying as mothers first and daughters of God second, and I’m convinced this is where a lot of their hurt is coming from.
I recently read a long diatribe written by a woman who was crushed that she made pies for her kids and grandkids at Christmas, and none of them ate them. They were all watching their sugar intake, and the mother felt like her purpose in life was over. Another mom wrote about how her adult children only asked her to come over for Christmas lunch and not Christmas morning. Her pain was evident. Her complaint, however unreasonable, felt justified. She saw no reason why she couldn’t continue in the same pattern of being the mommy at Christmastime. These are just two examples in a sea of hurts from women my age, and over and over again I see the symptoms crop up: these women have forgotten that motherhood is a mission, not an identity.
You are worth no less if no one eats your pies. A lunch invitation on Christmas day instead of a breakfast invitation does not mean that you are not loved or wanted. Even if your child has unfairly excluded you from her life, you are not drifting around on this earth with no purpose or identity. My nest, too, is emptying. Things change, and more drastic changes are ahead for me. Some things about having adult children are tough to adjust to, but one thing I know is that motherhood is not the root of who I am. It’s a wonderful part of my life. Many phases of it, at least with my older children, have already come and gone, days that will never again return. Motherhood is a moving, living, breathing organism that moves and changes and comes and goes. The phases ebb and flow. The job starts really hard and then gets easier and then gets hard again. If we try to find our identity in this mission of neverending termporary phases, the inevitable end for moms is hurt and pain. What are we worth when our children don’t need or want us quite as much anymore?
This is how we know as Christians that motherhood is the wrong place to find our meaning in this world. A wonderful mission is different from the core of who we are. The only thing in this world that determines our identity is our faith in Christ; He is the only thing that is constant and true and completely good in this universe or in the history of the world. Placing our identity in anything less is just setting ourselves up for a total internal crisis when our motherhood mission changes, becomes less prominent in our lives, or disappears all together.
Motherhood is absolutely an eternal mission. But our position and prominence in our kids’ lives is temporal, and if we find that we are living in a cloud of hurt and sadness as each phase moves and changes, then it may be a symptom that we have built our identity on a good, but wrong foundation. Jesus is the only cornerstone we can build abundant life on. Motherhood is a beautiful and critical mission in life, but it isn’t who we are. We must identify with Christ alone and nothing less, and then when the winds of change blow, when our kids age and become independent adults, we won’t consider who is eating pie to be the measure of who we are. When our priorities are out of order, we become unbalanced and can easily live preoccupied by things that don’t mean anything. In the end, the love of Christ is our highest prize, and motherhood, a glorious endeavor, is put in the proper perspective.
The Christmas tree is a wonderful and historic tradition that we don our homes with every Christmas to fill us with spirit and to lay our gifts underneath. However, it is the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ on the very first Christmas that we celebrate.
Christianity.com Contributing Writer
Published Dec 09, 2025
It’s said that the symbolic uses of evergreen trees can be traced back to origin in ancient Egypt and Rome and that the German tradition of candle-lit trees was first introduced to America in the 19th century. It is fascinating to learn the history of the Christmas tree, from the first winter solstice to the present-day — with the most famous modern-day Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center in New York City.
Ancient Roots and Symbolism of Christmas Trees
There are several origins of usage of an evergreen tree for symbolic meaning. Before Christianity, people paid special attention to green plants and trees in the winter. While modern people decorate their homes with pine, spruce, and fir trees during the holiday season, people in the ancient world hung evergreen boughs over doors and windows. Evergreen trees were believed to keep witches, ghosts, and evil spirits away in many countries.
The longest day and shortest night of the year fall on December 21 or December 22 in the Northern Hemisphere. People used to believe that the sun was a god, and that winter came every year because he became ill and lost his strength (Ibid.).
In ancient times, the solstice meant that the sun god would finally get well. They thought the evergreen boughs reminded him of all the green plants that would grow again when the sun god was strong, and summer came back.
The ancient Egyptians worshiped a god named Ra, who had the head of a hawk and wore the sun as a blazing disk on his head. When Ra was recovering from his illness, at the solstice, the Egyptians threw palm rushes in their homes, symbolizing life’s triumph over death (Ibid.).
The early Romans celebrated Saturnalia, a festival of the solstice that celebrated the agricultural god Saturn. Farms and orchards were going to be green and fruitful as soon as the solstice hit. The Buddhists celebrated by decorating their temples and homes with evergreen boughs.
As a symbol of eternal life, the ancient Celt priests, known as the Druids from the now present-day United Kingdom, decorated their temples with evergreen boughs. As far as the Vikings were concerned, evergreens were a special gift from Balder, the sun god (Ibid.).
But the real origin of today’s Christian tree traditions can be traced back to Germany.
The German Origin of the Christmas Tree
The tradition of decorating Christmas trees has a rich history that is closely tied to Christian traditions, particularly in Germany during the 16th century. This practice played a significant role in shaping the Christmas tree tradition we know today.
In Germany, devout Christians began the tradition of decorating trees in their homes as part of their Christmas celebrations. The use of evergreen trees held symbolic meaning, representing the eternal life offered through faith in Jesus Christ. These early Christmas trees were adorned with decorations and sometimes even edible items like fruits and nuts.
As time went on, the popularity of Christmas trees grew, but there was a challenge. Wood, typically used for the trees, became increasingly scarce. In response to this scarcity, some people began constructing Christmas pyramids made of wood. These pyramids were decorated with evergreen branches and candles, creating a festive and visually striking display.
One of the legendary stories associated with the addition of candles to Christmas trees involves Martin Luther, the Protestant Reformer. According to the legend, as Luther was walking home one winter night, he was struck by the beauty of the starry sky through the evergreen trees. Inspired by this scene, he decided to recreate it for his family. He erected a tree in their main room and decorated it with lighted candles, symbolizing the stars. This act is said to be one of the earliest instances of candles being used on a Christmas tree, and it contributed to the tradition’s evolution (Ibid.).
How the Christmas Tree Tradition Came to America
Christmas trees were an odd commodity for most Americans in the 19th century. In the 1830s, German settlers in Pennsylvania had the first record of displaying one, though trees had been a tradition in many German homes before then.
There was a community of trees in the Pennsylvania German settlements as early as 1747. Even after the 1840s, Christmas trees were thought of as pagan symbols.
Comparatively, the Christmas tree was adopted late in America, as were many other Christmas customs. Christmas was sacred to New England Puritans. William Bradford, the second governor of the pilgrims, wrote that he did his best to stamp out “pagan mockery” of the observance, he even penalized anyone who did it frivolously (Ibid.).
In 1659, the General Court of Massachusetts issued a law making observing Christmas a penalty offense. People were fined for hanging Christmas decorations.
Oliver Cromwell preached against “the heathen traditions” of Christmas carols, decorated trees, and any expression of joy that desecrated “that sacred event.” However, in the 19th century, German and Irish immigrants undermined the Puritan legacy (Ibid).
Queen Victoria’s Christmas Tree
Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert, who was from Germany, were pictured with their children around a Christmas tree in 1846 in the Illustrated London News. The Christmas tree was here.
It was Victoria’s first reign, and everything she did was immediately fashionable, not only in Britain but among the fashion-conscious East Coast American society as well.
As early as the 1890s, Christmas ornaments arrived from Germany and Americans were getting into Christmas trees. Europeans like their Christmas trees to be about four feet tall, while Americans like theirs to reach from floor to ceiling.
American Christmas trees were usually decorated with homemade ornaments until the early 20th century, while German-American trees were decorated with apples, nuts, and marzipan cookies. In addition to popcorn, berries, and nuts were mixed in.
It’s thanks to electricity that Christmas trees can glow for days on end. As a result, Christmas trees appeared in town squares across the country, and decorating your own Christmas tree became a tradition.
*Source: The Christmas Tree – Godey’s Lady’s Book, December 1850, Public Domain
The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree
Since the Depression, Rockefeller Center has had a Christmas Tree. In 1948, the tallest tree arrived at Rockefeller Center. From Killingworth, Connecticut, it was a huge Norway Spruce. The Rockefeller Center tree is on the west side of Fifth Avenue between 47th and 51st Streets in New York City.
Rockefeller Center planted its first tree in 1931. Construction workers placed a small, unadorned tree in the center of the construction site. A second tree was placed there two years later, this time with lights. Currently, the Rockefeller Center tree has over 25,000 lights.
Christmas Trees Traditions Around the World
Germany
Germans are often credited with popularizing the Christmas tree tradition. They decorate their trees with ornaments, lights, and tinsel. A common ornament is the “Christbaumschmuck,” which includes glass baubles, angels, and stars. Under the tree, there’s often a nativity scene.
Ireland
Irish families decorate their Christmas trees in the weeks leading up to Christmas, with many choosing December 8th, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, as a significant date. Irish Christmas trees are decorated with ornaments, lights, and tinsel. It’s also common to place a star or angel atop the tree. The tradition of the “Wren Boys” involves young people visiting homes with a decorated holly bush or wren on St. Stephen’s Day (December 26th).
Greece
Greek Christmas trees are adorned with lights and ornaments. In Greece, the main Christmas decoration is a “kalikantzari” or “kallikantzari” – a small wooden vessel with a piece of a cross and holy water, believed to protect homes from mischievous goblins called “kallikantzari” during the Christmas season.
United Kingdom
British Christmas trees are decorated with ornaments, lights, and tinsel. A popular decoration is the Christmas cracker, a festive party favor that is often hung on the tree. In Scotland, it’s traditional to have shortbread and a piece of coal as tree decorations.
Sweden
Swedes typically decorate their Christmas trees on December 13th, St. Lucia’s Day. Swedish Christmas trees are adorned with small straw ornaments, wooden figures, and candles. One unique tradition is the “Julbock” or Christmas goat, which is sometimes included as a decoration.
Italy
Italians typically decorate their Christmas trees on December 8th, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. In Italy, the “Presepio” or nativity scene is a significant part of Christmas decorations. Christmas trees are also popular and adorned with lights, ornaments, and tinsel.
Mexico
Mexicans celebrate the “Nochebuena” on December 24th and often decorate their Christmas trees during the holiday season. Mexican Christmas trees feature colorful ornaments, lights, and sometimes piñatas. The piñatas are broken on Christmas Eve, showering children with candies and small toys.
Australia
Given that Christmas falls during the Southern Hemisphere’s summer, some Australians decorate “Christmas bush” trees, which have small red flowers that resemble ornaments. Many also incorporate native Australian plants into their Christmas decorations.
Russia
Christmas trees in Russia are often decorated on New Year’s Eve, as it is a more significant holiday than Christmas in the Russian Orthodox tradition. Russian Christmas trees feature an array of ornaments, often including intricate, handcrafted decorations. Ded Moroz (Father Frost) and Snegurochka (the Snow Maiden) are traditional figures who bring gifts to children.
Philippines
Christmas tree decorations typically begin in September, the start of the Filipino Christmas season, and continue until early January. The Philippines is known for its extended Christmas celebrations. Christmas trees are commonly decorated with a combination of Western-style ornaments like lights, tinsel, and baubles, as well as traditional Filipino decorations like parols (star-shaped lanterns) and Belén (nativity scenes). Many homes and businesses participate in “parol” competitions to showcase their creative lantern designs.
Japan
Japan follows many Western traditions around Christmastime. Japanese Christmas trees are often adorned with lights, ornaments, and sometimes small origami decorations. While Christmas is not a traditional Japanese holiday, it has become an occasion for gift-giving and romantic dinners. In recent years, “Christmas cakes” have also become popular, and some families exchange gifts under the tree.
Africa
While some African countries have adopted Western-style Christmas tree customs, others may blend local traditions and symbols into their celebrations. Many people in South Africa and Nigeria include African-themed ornaments or decorations that reflect their cultural heritage. In some regions, palm trees may be used instead of evergreen trees. In Ethiopia, Christmas is celebrated on January 7th (according to the Ethiopian calendar), so Christmas tree traditions align with this date.
The Timeless Tradition of Christmas Trees and Christian Symbolism
So what should you do with the Christian tree tradition? The tradition of Christmas trees is a timeless and cherished practice that holds deep significance for Christians, offering a powerful way to symbolize their faith during the holiday season. At the heart of this tradition lies the evergreen tree, which retains its green foliage even in the depths of winter. This enduring characteristic serves as a poignant reminder of the eternal life offered through faith in Jesus Christ. Just as the evergreen tree remains vibrant and alive in the face of winter’s chill, so does the hope of eternal life persist for believers through Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection.
The lights adorning the Christmas tree further enhance its symbolism. These lights represent Jesus as the “Light of the World,” a reference made by Christ Himself in the Gospel of John. They serve as a reminder that through Jesus, the world receives the light of salvation, dispelling darkness and offering the path to spiritual illumination. The act of decorating the tree with ornaments, often including stars at the tree’s pinnacle, aligns with the Christian message of Jesus as the guiding star leading the way to salvation, as was the case for the Magi who followed the Star of Bethlehem to find the newborn Messiah.
The act of coming together as a family or community to decorate the Christmas tree fosters a sense of unity and joy, mirroring the unity and joy that the birth of Jesus brought to humanity. Christians can use the Christmas tree as a centerpiece for reflection and prayer, focusing on the profound spiritual message it conveys. It serves as a tangible reminder of the central message of Christianity: the gift of eternal life and the hope, light, and joy that Jesus brings to the world. In this way, the Christmas tree becomes not only a beautiful tradition but also a meaningful expression of faith, drawing believers closer to the heart of their Christian beliefs during the holiday season.
The Christmas tree is a wonderful and historic tradition that we don our homes with every Christmas to fill us with spirit and to lay our gifts underneath. However, it is the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ on the very first Christmas that we celebrate.
So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them (Luke 2:4-7).
We wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
The etymology of the word deceive means “to ensnare” or “seize.” When people believe lies, they are essentially being thrown into a trap. As prisoners of deceit, they become confused and irrational. The truth, however, can always set the captives free.
The first lie told by the Left this week is one that’s utterly disturbing because it involves a teacher from a New York school district who was caught “promoting online pornography as art.” Even more shocking is that the parents were not notified that their children would be viewing the very inappropriate pictures.
Porn Labeled as Art
Parents Stephanie Boyanski and Jessy Roberts were shocked to discover that their seventh-grade children “were assigned to visit an unvetted website containing graphic sexual images as part of an art project.” Moreover, the pornographic images were displayed by the teacher on a Smart Board in the classroom, but the students were directed to respond in a “mature” manner. If it weren’t for the parents who happened to discover the obscene content on their child’s school laptop, the issue might not have been brought to light.
Distorting the Truth
The teacher at the center of the incident would not take responsibility and instead blamed the IT department. Additionally, the parents were not allowed to meet with the instructor to voice their disapproval. District representatives tried to deflect the issue, using creative wording that stated that students had “come across inappropriate content,” making it sound like it was all an accident.
The American Center for Law and Justice did not accept the school’s ruse. They explained, “This wasn’t an accident. Students viewed this explicit material repeatedly over the course of approximately two weeks, for a graded assignment. No parental notice. No opt-out option. No filtering of graphic content. No alternative assignment. One of the students involved is a survivor of sexual assault. This assignment triggered traumatic memories, and this student is now in counseling as a direct result of the school’s actions.”
The Left was quick to defend the teacher’s actions at the local school board meeting. “The president of the teachers’ union mobilized teachers to attend the meeting in ‘solidarity,’ canceled after-school activities to ensure staff attendance, and distributed ‘Fact-Over-Fiction’ pins–an unmistakable message aimed at parents.”
Porn Cannot Be Tolerated in Our Schools
The ACLJ is not giving up, even in the face of woke educators. “We are demanding a formal reprimand in the teacher’s file, a clear policy barring teachers from showing sexually explicit content to children without parental notification, mandatory parental consent and opt-out procedures, and district-funded counseling for students traumatized by the assignment.”
The Left wants parents to stay out of public-school classrooms so they can push their own agendas and values on children. The truth is that parents MUST stay alert and involved in their children’s education, from kindergarten all the way through college. We must not allow wokeism to brainwash the next generation of parents, leaders, and influencers.
Parents Are Fed Up with Public Schools
The second lie told by the Left this week ties in with the first one mentioned because it highlights the reason why many parents are taking their kids out of public schools. The Left insists that public schools are excellent educational institutions that challenge students academically and teach them to be critical thinkers. But American parents are not buying it. In fact, in 2024-2025, homeschooling has become more popular than ever, increasing at an average rate of 5.4%.
An article posted by Reasonexplains, “Angela Watson of the Johns Hopkins University School of Education’s Homeschool Hub wrote earlier this month, ‘This is nearly three times the pre-pandemic homeschooling growth rate of around 2%.’ She added that more than a third of the states from which data is available report their highest homeschooling numbers ever, even exceeding the peaks reached when many public and private schools were closed during the pandemic.”
Interestingly enough, these numbers likely underestimate the growth of the homeschooling phenomenon because not all families follow registration requirements in every state. Pre-pandemic, the homeschooling population stood at about 3% of students in the United States, but now it’s close to 6%. “This isn’t a pandemic hangover; it’s a fundamental shift in how American families are thinking about education,” Watson emphatically states.
Left is Clueless about Why Students are Leaving
Many “progressives” believe the mass exodus of students from the public school system is due to an aging population, demographics, and less immigration. They simply will not address the giant elephant that’s been staring them in the face for years. Parents are tired of liberal curricula, woke teachers, and gender ideology.
Americans want their kids to have an honest, wholesome, rigorous education that focuses on core academic subjects, not liberal political agendas. We must continue praying that our public schools, teachers, and school districts will get back to basics.
Tennessee Democrat Thinks Men Can Have Babies
The third lie told by the Left this week revolves around Tennessee Democratic congressional candidate Aftyn Behn. A newly released video showcases Behn claiming that men can give birth. “I think we have, as birther–women who can give birth, men and women who can give birth–we can maybe leverage that as collective bargaining. We can really leverage collective bargaining when it comes to having children in this country. And so, for example, I’m not going to give birth until the United States government concedes A, B, C, D,” she suggested.
Behn Bashes Motherhood
Behn, who refers to herself as a “birther,” is saying that she will only give birth if her demands are met by the government. But this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to her liberal rhetoric. A recording of Behn speaking about motherhood illustrates her disturbing worldview.
“My therapist always asks me to transcribe my dreams when they happen, and the recurring dream I’ve had is standing up in a cafeteria full of women—I don’t know why I was there or whatever—and saying, “I don’t want children. I want power!” and just screaming it at the top of my lungs.
And for someone who grew up with my mother telling me never have kids because you’ll have to give up a lot, you’ll have to sacrifice professionally, which is what she was saying. And where I am now with seeing the consequences and the ramifications of women having kids and being in the political field and what they’re able to achieve, because we don’t offer—you know, it’s like the political field hasn’t met the challenge of working moms. They really haven’t.
But also the deeply patriarchal structures that these women are involved with because they’ve chosen marriage and they’ve chosen to raise children. And I think in the South, it’s incredibly difficult to shake those, especially if you’ve grown up here, and that’s all you’ve been told is the definition of success. The metric of success is how many kids you have, the square footage of your house, and where your kids go to school.”
The Left sees motherhood as a burden rather than a blessing from God. Their support of abortion makes their views crystal clear. Aftyn Behn needs prayer because she is confused and deceived. She refuses to acknowledge that women are not “birthers.” They are mothers whom God has endowed with a treasured gift.
Lord Jesus, the Left never takes a break when it comes to spreading lies. You, however, are the author of all truth. Help us be wise and discerning as we tackle each and every deception.
These are just a few of the lies the Left told this week. How are you praying?
Angela Rodriguez is an author, blogger, and former teacher who studies the signs of the times, as well as the historical and biblical connections between Israel and the United States. You can visit her blogs at 67owls.com and 100trumpets.com.She is also the author of Psalm 91: Under the Wings of Jesus and Hallelujah’s Great Ride. Photo Credit: Danny Butlin-Policarpo on Unsplash.
This year there have been more news articles than ever about “how to survive Thanksgiving”. If you have not noticed this, I will provide some examples for you in this article. Personally, the idea that Thanksgiving is an ordeal that must be endured is deeply offensive to me. If eating a feast while surrounded by people that love you is too much of a burden, please stay home. Thanksgiving is a day when we our not supposed to be focused on ourselves. Instead, it is a day when we are supposed to give thanks. In fact, according to the original Thanksgiving declaration that George Washington issued in 1789, there is someone in particular that we are supposed to give thanks to on this day. But in our “me-centered” society, that has been completely forgotten.
I love Thanksgiving. When I was a child, we would stop for one day to eat some turkey and give thanks for our blessings. But today the Thanksgiving holiday has become an entire season. The weekend before Thanksgiving is a travel weekend, many take the entire week off, and the weekend after Thanksgiving is the time when people travel home.
I kind of like that. The more time that we can take to spend with the people that love us the better.
But many media outlets seem to think that spending time with family and friends is a problem. For example, here is one article about Thanksgiving that discusses “the stresses that a family get-together can create”…
Thanksgiving is an interesting holiday. Some celebrate it as an American tradition. Others look at it as simply an excuse to get together with family to watch some football. And still others just enjoy getting an extra day off from work or try to ignore it altogether. But however you regard it, there are often two areas in which many of us can use help: preparing the traditional Thanksgiving meal and dealing with the stresses that a family get-together can create — especially these days, when conversations around the dinner table may be even more fraught than usual.
Yes, human relationships are complicated.
But that doesn’t mean that we should just isolate ourselves.
A big part of life is learning how to love imperfect people.
Because if you can’t love imperfect people, you aren’t going to love anyone, because nobody is perfect.
Many of the articles about “how to survive Thanksgiving” are focused on how to deal with family members. The following comes from an article entitled “How to Survive Thanksgiving with a Crazy Family”…
Every Thanksgiving, millions of Americans prepare for what just might be the most family time they’ve had in a while. For some this is great. It is a reunion full of hugs and catching up. For most, it’s a politically charged, possibly drunken, exchange of fighting words, news stories, and my favorite, family drama. While my family is, admittedly, crazy, we normally shy away from such emotionally charged topics. But there is always an instigator in each family who enjoys sparring with family, watching the flames come up from the ground and engulf their family until it’s time to eat so much they enter a comatose state, lie on the couch, and forget the pain they’ve inflicted.
Many of these articles suggest that we should just avoid talking about anything important during Thanksgiving.
Really?
What are we supposed to do?
Talk about the weather for three hours?
Political talk at Thanksgiving is something that mainstream news outlets seem to particularly dislike. I found an ABC News article entitled “How to survive political talk at Thanksgiving dinner” to be particularly amusing…
It’s Thanksgiving, you’re enjoying your favorite foods at the dinner table, when a family member brings up who they voted for in the 2024 presidential election.
Arguments ensue.
The food doesn’t taste as good.
And now everyone’s a politician.
People have political opinions.
And that is okay.
If we can’t learn how to peacefully interact with those that we disagree with, we are going to be in big trouble.
If we had a society that actually valued the marketplace of ideas, we would relish the opportunity to chat with those that hold opposing views.
Thanksgiving is almost upon us, and given that we’re fresh off one of the most contentious and politically charged seasons of our time, it’s probably not realistic to expect a holiday to be totally free of drama.
If you’re one of the lucky few whose family is united around political issues, treasure those peaceful conversations at the Thanksgiving table; for the rest of us, it can be challenging to know how best to talk to loved ones (or, to be real, tolerated-out-of-necessity ones) about anything substantive. Besides, for many of us, these issues aren’t “just politics;” they directly affect the way we live our lives and the safety and happiness of our families and friends.
If you disagree with me, that is okay.
And if I disagree with you, that is okay too.
Today, many people are actually completely cutting themselves off from their families due to political differences.
That is so wrong, but it is happening on a widespread basis.
Recently, Oprah Winfrey committed an entire podcast to people that have chosen to go “no contact” with their relatives…
When is it OK to go “no contact” with a family member? And what even is “no contact,” really?
Oprah Winfrey explored these questions on “The Oprah Podcast,” in an episode released Tuesday, Nov. 25, ahead of Thanksgiving. In the episode, audience members opened up about cutting off all contact with close relatives − even their parents.
“I know this is a tender, hot-button topic,” Winfrey said in the episode. “My hope is that we can open up the heart space and really listen. I’m not on anybody’s side. I just want to hear what everyone has to say.”
A USA Today article about that podcast explained precisely what it means to go “no contact” with someone…
“No contact” is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: You cut off all communication with someone. This means no meet-ups, no phone calls, no texting and no interaction on social media. If you happen to run into each other, you either avoid them or keep the interactions short and emotionally neutral.
I know so many children that no longer have contact with their parents, and I know so many parents that no longer have contact with their children.
It is a nationwide epidemic, and it is a great tragedy.
But this is what our society has become.
We have been trained to hate anyone that disagrees with us, and that even includes our own family members.
One of these days so many people are going to look back and wish that they could have done things differently.
If you find yourself wishing that you had done things differently, this Thanksgiving is a great opportunity to change direction.
In 1789, President George Washington issued the very first Thanksgiving proclamation.
He designated the 26th day of November to be a day when Americans were to humble themselves and give thanks to God for the blessings that He had bestowed upon our young nation…
By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation.
Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor– and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.
Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be– That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks–for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation–for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war–for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed–for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted–for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.
and also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions– to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually–to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed–to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord–To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and us–and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.
Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.
The vast majority of the population has totally forgotten what Thanksgiving is supposed to be all about.
But it is not too late to reverse course.
I would encourage everyone to humble themselves and give thanks at some point over the next few days.
You will be amazed at how your perspective changes once you have done that.
LOS ANGELES, CA — California Governor Gavin Newsom gave voters a rare glimpse into his tragic story while appearing on a popular basketball and entertainment podcast, recounting his tough childhood where he got in one little fight and was forced to move in with his auntie and uncle in Bel-Air.
Newsom told the previously unknown story to illustrate the challenges he faced as a disadvantaged youth, giving insight into how far he had come since he lived on the mean streets as a young boy to now govern the Golden State.
“This is a story all about how my life got flipped. I mean, completely turned upside down,” Newsom said. “On the playground is where I spent most of my days, really. You know… chillin’ out… maxin’… relaxin’, all cool. Shootin’ some b-ball outside after school. That kind of thing. But there were a couple of guys, and they were just up to no good. They started making trouble in and around my neighborhood. I ended up getting into one little fight, and my mom got scared, and she told me, ‘You’re going to move in with your auntie and uncle in Bel-Air.’ That’s when everything changed for me. Hand to God.”
The hosts and viewers of the podcast were amazed by the story. “We had no idea, man,” said host Matt Barnes. “That story sounds almost like it’s made for TV or something.”
Newsom acknowledged the fantastical nature of the tale. “I feel you, bro,” he said. “But the cab I took pulled up to the house, I think it was around 7 or 8 or something. I told the cabbie, ‘Yo, homes, smell ya later.’ The guy reeked, ok? Like bad. But anyway… there I was. I ended up in Bel-Air.”
At publishing time, Newsom had gone on to tell the hosts about how his uncle used to throw his best friend “Jazz” out of the house on a near-weekly basis.
Liberal Brynnleigh witnesses a communist utopia in action!
Communist Muslim NYC Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani changed his dubious story about his hijab-wearing aunt after he got caught in a huge lie.
Mamdani cried victim last week during remarks in front of an Islamic center in the Bronx and claimed his aunt was on the receiving end of Islamophobic abuse after the 9/11 terror attacks.
“I want to speak to the memory of my aunt, who stopped taking the subway after September 11th because she did not feel safe in her hijab,” Mamdani said, fighting through fake tears as he delivered remarks in front of the Islamic Cultural Center in the Bronx last Friday.
It turns out Mamdani’s aunt didn’t even live in the US on 9/11 – and she doesn’t even wear a hijab.
Mamdani’s aunt, Masuma Mamdani, lived in Tanzania during the 9/11 terror attacks.
Seems like Mamdani’s only aunt, aka the real victim of 9/11, who was scared of taking the bus wearing her hijab, does not even wear hijab. pic.twitter.com/UVoS2Wx0Cc
On Monday, Zohran Mamdani was called out for lying about his ‘aunt,’ so he changed the story.
Mamdani now claims that he was actually talking about a mysterious distant cousin.
“I was speaking about my aunt, I was speaking about Zehra Fuhi, my father’s cousin, who sadly passed away a few years ago,” Mamdani told reporters on Monday.
“Fuhi means paternal aunt in Urdu and Hindi,” the New York Post reported.
But Mamdani wasn’t done playing victim after claiming he was referring to his dead aunt… who is actually a distant cousin.
He chastised Cuomo and critics for questioning his dubious story after it turned out his only aunt wasn’t even living in the US on 9/11.
“And for the takeaway for my more than 10-minute address about Islamophobia in this race and in this city to be the question of my aunt tells you everything about Andrew Cuomo and his inability to reckon with a crisis of his own,” Mamdani said.
“Every year, around 1,300 Americans die from extreme heat. But in Europe, which has about double the population, 175,000 people die from extreme heat.” Why this huge difference? “…strict environmental regulations to help combat climate change…”
Christians are being encouraged – in the name of biblical stewardship – to sign on for the climate catastrophic agenda. It can be hard to know what to do, since the science is beyond most of us. But you can gauge the fruit of that agenda. Here we see how those trying to save the planet aren’t saving the people on it. So that’s not an agenda we should sign up for.
We send our kids to Christians schools not, first of all, to shelter them, but rather to teach them to see the world as it really is – as God created it and sustains it.
But government schools are a danger we should shelter our kids from. Public schools indoctrinate children to see the world as it isn’t – to see it as completely disconnected from God. And that’s not enough for the government, as this report shows: they also want children to question their gender, and feel guilt, not for their sins but for their skin color.
The trans agenda has schools across this continent telling girls they need to be okay with boys in girls’ locker rooms, changing in front of them, and watching them change. What we have here is adults refusing to protect girls.
So, in what seems to becoming a trend, three parents have gone to school board meetings and, while arguing against this ridiculous policy, disrobed to their underwear or bathing suit. In the first case, in September, the board shut down the meeting, too uncomfortable to continue, and isn’t that exactly the point that mother, Beth Bourne, was trying to make? If the board can’t take such discomfort, why are they subjecting girls to it? Then, in October, a couple of women did the same, undressing to their underwear, to make the same point.
Awkward? Certainly. But is it a sinful way to make a point? After all, God calls us to modesty (1 Tim. 2:9–10). But He has also used immodesty to make a point, having Isaiah walk around naked (or in no more than his underwear) for three years (Is. 20:2-4). God also calls on us to defend our children and take the hit for them (2 Cor. 12:14, 1 Thess. 2:7-9), modeled most clearly in what God had done for us (John 10:11). The school was set on humiliating children, and these parents were willing to be humiliated instead.
Neither school seems to have listened. We can only hope these brave parents will also have the sense to pull their kids out.
There are moons, and planets, and even a former planet, that are way too hot to be 4.6 billion years old. Our solar system gives evidence of being a young one after all.
Our kids, girls or guys, need to know that their teen struggles are common – at some point in their teens, everyone feels like a friendless loner who has something deeply wrong with them.
They need to know hear that from their parents so they don’t start looking for answers on the Internet or elsewhere where they could hear their problem is that they were born in the wrong body. They need to hear from us that yes, they might be broken… as we all are. Thankfully, we can turn to God in our brokenness and in repentance, and He will be a Father to the lonely.
We have seen this happen way too many times before. Over and over again, mass shootings are being committed by deranged individuals that hate conservatives and hate Christians. More often than not, the shooters are deeply involved in an alternative sexual lifestyle, and so they view conservatives and Christians as their “oppressors”. Frequently, the shooters have some sort of a personal connection to the particular target that has been chosen. Of course in so many of these cases the mainstream media will completely ignore the real reason why a mass shooting has taken place. But the American people are not stupid. We can all see what is happening, and it is time for the mainstream media to start admitting the truth.
The mass shooting that just occurred in Minneapolis should be a major wake up call for all of us.
At 8:30 in the morning, the shooter showed up at the Annunciation Catholic Church dressed in all black and opened fire on children as they sat in the pews…
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said law enforcement responded to the shooting around 8:30 a.m. Wednesday morning. O’Hara said the shooter fired a rifle through church windows and was also armed with a shotgun and a pistol.
A government official briefed on the investigation and a law enforcement source told CBS News that the shooter was wearing all black clothing.
An 8-year-old and a 10-year-old were killed while they sat in the pews. The parents of the children have been notified, O’Hara said.
Seventeen others, including 14 children, were injured.
Any church or school that does not have armed security in this environment is not being wise.
The world that we live in is completely different than it was 40 or 50 years ago.
When I was growing up, I never imagined for one second that some nut with a gun would come in to my school and start shooting.
But now our society is literally teeming with dangerous lunatics.
In this instance, the shooter blocked the church doors so that the children could not escape before he began shooting through the church windows…
Police said at least two of the church doors appeared to have been blocked by two by fours before the shooting, suggesting Westman wanted to trap the people inside.
‘During the mass, the gunman approached on the outside, on the side of the building, and began firing a rifle through the church windows towards the children sitting in the pews at the mass,’ O’Hara said.
‘Shooting through the windows, he struck children and worshipers that were inside the building.’
I don’t like to write about things like this, and I am sure that many of you don’t like to read about things like this.
But this is our world now, and sticking our heads in the sand isn’t going to do anyone any good.
FBI Director Kash Patel has announced that this mass shooting will be investigated as a hate crime…
FBI Director Kash Patel said the FBI is investigating the shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic school mass as an act of domestic terrorism and hate crime in a post on X.
“The FBI is investigating this shooting as an act of domestic terrorism and hate crime targeting Catholics,” Patel wrote.
Of course it was a hate crime.
Christians were specifically targeted for what they believe.
The shooter has been identified as Robin Westman. It has been confirmed that Westman’s name was officially changed in 2020…
Three law enforcement sources told CBS News the shooter was Robin Westman, 23, from suburban Minneapolis. Westman’s name was officially changed from Robert Westman to Robin Westman in 2020, documents show.
We have also learned that Westman was a former student of the school, and Westman’s mother previously worked there…
A law enforcement official told the New York Times that Westman is believed to have been a former student at the school. They also told the outlet the suspect’s mother previously worked at the campus.
There is the personal connection.
We see it in so many of these cases.
After adopting a new lifestyle, Westman apparently developed an intense hatred for Christians.
But instead of shooting adults, Westman came up with a plan to slaughter children.
I think that the term “demonic” accurately describes what Westman had become.
The first page of his very sick manifesto is currently circulating on social media. It clearly shows that he planned all of this well in advance.
Westman also posted a video on YouTube shortly before the mass shooting.
The video has been taken down, but it is being reported that the video revealed Westman’s “twisted obsession with other school shooters, dislike of Trump and mockery of the church”…
However, a chilling video shared on a now-deleted YouTube account appears to reveal the killer’s sick manifesto.
In the 20-minute-long video, the 23-year-old showed off her kill kit of ammunition, magazines and firearms and revealed her twisted obsession with other school shooters, dislike of Trump and mockery of the church.
I want to stress that this was not an isolated incident.
We have seen so many other similar mass shootings, and there are countless others out there that could strike at any time.
In our society today, we have such a problem with mental illness. Others would call it something else. But whatever you want to call it, there is no denying that something was very, very wrong with Robin Westman…
In the video, titled “So long and thanks for all the fish,” Westman slowly turns the pages of the red notebook, which is laid out on top of what appears to be schematic gun diagrams, one of them reading “Ruger Mark IV.”
As she flips the pages, an occasional plume of smoke is seen from the bottom of the screen, punctuated by coughs, disjointed cursing and maniacal giggles.
Each page is filled with inscrutable handwritten doggerel, much of it in Cyrillic, which includes violent ramblings such as “I have had thoughts about mass murder for a long time. I am very conflicted with writing this journal,” the text, translated by The Post, reads in part.
The unhinged shooter also expressed deep admiration for mass shooters — including Sandy Hook killer Adam Lanza.
“I have a deep fascination with one man in particular: Adam Lanza,” she wrote in the journal on May 23 in reference to the 20-year-old perpetrator of the worst elementary school shooting in US history, which left 20 first-grade students and six adults dead.
“Sandy Hook was my favorite, I think, exposure of school shootings.”
When one incident like this happens, it inspires others to do the same thing.
So please watch over those you love very carefully in the days ahead.
Because lunatics like Westman are literally everywhere.
And they are increasingly beginning to network with one another using the Internet. The New York Post just published an article about the rise of ultra-violent leftist groups, and I believe that what we have witnessed so far is just the beginning.
I have never seen more hatred in our society than I am seeing right now.
It is just a matter of time before all of this hatred explodes in wild and unpredictable ways, and that is why all of us need to start taking security more seriously than ever before.
In a bombshell interview on Healed-ish, Jedidiah Hartley shared his personal journey of confronting abuse and corruption within the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). Hosted by Jubilee Dawn, this second interview of Hartley’s testimony exposes what really happens behind the closed doors of charismatic church circles, Bethel and the families of prophetic grifters.
Bob Hartley – Jedidiah Hartley’s father, (a ‘prophetic’ minister)
Bill Johnson (Bethel Church)
Kris Vallotton (Bethel Church)
Jason Vallotton (Bethel Church)
Mike Bickle (International House of Prayer)
Shawn Bolz (Bethel Church)
Heidi Baker (Missionary and leader of Iris Global)
Lance Wallnau (Dominionist speaker and author)
Jim Bakker (Televangelist)
Deborah (Woman who spoke out against Mike Bickle)
Sean Feucht (Christian worship leader)
Rick Joyner (Founder of MorningStar Ministries)
John Collins (William Branham Research Institute)
Isaac Bennett (International House of Prayer)
Heidi Baker (Missionary and leader of Iris Global)
Georgian and Winnie Banov (‘Joy Apostles’ of Global Celebration)
The conversation began with Hartley reflecting on his strained relationship with his father, a prominent figure within the Narismatic movement. At the age of 27, Hartley confronted his father over his actions, but Jedidiah believed the apology he witnessed was disingenuous. He recounted how his father, despite his prophetic claims, was involved in dishonest practices and became entangled in the dominionist teachings that Hartley had once respected. “I always respected Bill Johnson because he seemed like a high-character individual… but he got sucked into dominionism and corrupt practices” (0:39-0:46), Hartley said.
As the interview progressed, Hartley detailed his father’s descent into fraudulent behavior, which included manipulating prophetic words for personal gain. His father’s sexual immorality, including infidelity and sending explicit images to women, was also revealed. “He was literally going to singles meetings and talking with women there and being like, ‘I’m a good friend of Bill’s’” (3:28-3:35). Hartley, in his attempt to help his father, was exposed to the extent of his father’s abuses and struggles.
“If you need to sow your wild oats, go to Thailand.” – Bill Johnson
A pivotal moment came when Hartley recounted a visit to Bethel Church with his father. During this visit, his father used his supposed prophetic authority to grant Bill Johnson “permission” to date a younger woman shortly after the death of Johnson’s wife. “My dad just does prophecy and gives Bill permission to date this woman” (9:32-9:40). Hartley was deeply disturbed by the event, noting the manipulation at play in the leadership structure of Bethel.
Note: Bethel staff and ex-Bethel staff have also confirmed that Johnson has shown interest towards younger women in the past while Beni Johnson was alive.
Perhaps the most shocking revelation was when Hartley disclosed that Bill Johnson had given his father advice on how to deal with his sexual immorality. After his father admitted to infidelity, Johnson allegedly told him, “If you need to sow your wild oats, go to Thailand”(13:24-13:32). Jedidiah went on to explain the importance of this phrase to Dawn by Bill Johnson (emphasis in red),
Hartley: “So we get into—we have this whole thing, and some of the stuff that—so first of all, Bill, I haven’t said this before, but I feel comfortable saying it now, but Bill had told my father, according to my dad, and then my dad referenced it in this meeting, that because my dad was dealing with this sexual indiscretion and that he was like having a hard time being faithful to the women that he was dating, Bill Johnson gave him the advice to—he was like, “If you need to sow your wild oats, go to Thailand.”
That is something that my dad told me multiple times that Bill Johnson told him. And then, when we were in this meeting, my dad made a joke reference to it that, like, Bill went along with, and like, so I didn’t—”
Dawn: “Okay, yeah, so Bill, he didn’t seem like disgusted by this little joke because all we know, I mean, I 100% believe you, and I believe that this happened, but so we’re hearing this from your dad, but then your dad references this, and Bill’s not like shocked by this joke.”
Hartley: “And this is kind of why I haven’t talked about it publicly, is because like, I know that Bill can be like, “Well, your dad was lying,” and I confronted Kris Vallotton about this—this is later—about what Bill had said. And Chris was like, “Well, your dad says a bunch of stuff.” And he’s true, my dad lies all the time about all sorts of things. I also know my dad better than I know any other human being on the face of the earth, and like, I am pretty good at knowing when my dad is lying and when he’s not. And like, I know the things that he lies about. I believe that Bill Johnson absolutely said that to my dad, and I believe that more than just saying it. I believe that my dad felt permission to do a lot of the things that he was doing because of conversations that he had had with Bill Johnson. Now, I’m not trying to dismiss the accountability that my dad has for all of these actions—absolutely, yeah, like this is on—it’s not Bill’s fault my dad did these different things at the same time. I am speaking with total confidence, especially because of what happened after this, that Bill was not at all phased or interested in helping my dad or putting boundaries around my dad, or helping him make amends or keep from doing these abusive sexual things that he ended up doing, or that he was doing—not just like the prophetic abuse, just the sexual abuse as well.”
We can learn plainly that Bill’s interaction between Bob Hartley and his son how quick he is to disregard ethical boundaries within his own leadership, where personal failings were condoned rather than addressed. And this is the major problem Jedidiah Hartley had noticed repeatedly with Johnson’s inability to confront his father over.
Note: This is not the only report we have heard of Bill Johnson giving advice to apostolic or prophetic leaders in or outside his movement. We have it on good authority from ex-Bethel staff he has shared other controversial advice to leaders such as Ben Fitzgerald.
Kris Vallotton and Bethel leadership used “really cheap gaslighting tactics”
Jesus would often accuse the false prophets and teachers of his day as being actors (hypocrites). This was what Hartley was able see the act of Bethel leadership when discussing his father, specifically the gaslighting tactics of Bethel ‘prophet’ Kris Vallotton.
Hartley shared the following (emphasis in red):
“I will say that Kris did not treat me like I was the bad guy. Like, he definitely wasn’t like, um—and same with Jason. Jason was mad at me for calling out Kris specifically. Um, it’s his dad, so, yeah, right. And so, like, I got that. Um, but they were like, it’s really weird because like I was able to have like full conversations with them. There was a lot of like really cheap gaslighting tactics that they did that like just didn’t work because, like, it’s kind of like, dude, I grew up in the fire. Like, I was born in the crucible. Don’t think that you can like get me on this because-
“I know your tricks.”
Well, yeah. Like—’cause he tried—Kris, at several points, tried to push it back on me, like, “Why didn’t you speak up earlier?” And I’m like, well, one, I’m his son. But I—at several points, I was like, I wish I had. I wish I had, and I’m doing it now. Like, and it requires me to like speak up against my own dad. Like, if I’m doing it, if I have the courage to do it, why don’t you have the courage to do it? And, and he tried to be like, “Well, we didn’t ever want to speak up about your dad because we didn’t want that to reflect on your family, and it really was for you and your family’s sake.” And I was like, “Never once did any of you guys ever contact me or my mom or our family.” Like, I know for a fact it wasn’t about our family because you didn’t—you didn’t even let us know.“
With the lack of care and response to his family, Jedidiah Hartley started to see the bigger picture as he was able to see “behind the scenes” actions and behaviours of Bill Johnson and Kris Vallotton: they didn’t care about Bob Hartley’s predatorial grift and were in fact encouraging that culture.
“The whole thing has been predicated on the prophetic grift… Bill Johnson’s not alone in this.
When they were confronted about issues like this, they did not care…”
Here is what Jedidiah Hartley learnt firsthand when peeking behind the curtain of Bethel’s senior leadership (emphasis in red):
“I didn’t realize that, like, I knew behind the scenes because I had seen it with my dad, but like, I didn’t realize that, oh, so to back up, in 2017, right when my dad was—this was right after my dad did his thing with me and tried to do his prophetic grift on me, he got outed to the Bethel community for cheating, and he got in trouble for it. And Kris Vallotton basically was like, “Okay, Bob can never have a platform here at Bethel.” That, according to Kris, during that story, and like, I don’t think that my dad spoke at many conferences during that time. But at the same time, like, again, I was in the leadership meetings. Like, I saw my dad in leadership meetings. I saw him behind the scenes. He still was operating in the role of a prophet. He might not have been a public minister, but like he had already built a lot of his ministry, and he was going and speaking at different places. Like, the damage was already done.
And so, basically, I just was like, you guys have to say something, and you have to say something publicly. Like, you can’t just, like, tell a couple pastors behind the scenes that we need to—you know, like, and they were like, “We’re going to tell our security team that he’s not allowed there.” And I was like, “It doesn’t matter unless—I mean, that’s a step, but I was like, because he’s going to all of these—if he’s still in the community and people in the community still think he’s this celebrity, he’s going to use that to his advantage.” And then, eventually, it basically what happened is they ended up sending out an email to like all of Bethel’s staff about my dad and warning him and like officially banned him. And I so I took that as like a success.
I, you know, was it what needed to happen? No, like they needed to publicly address it. Like Bill Johnson needs to publicly address not just my dad, but Mike Bickle, and all of these different—and, and Shawn Bolz, and all of these different individuals because of people like you and people like me and all of the people listening who have had and experienced the prophetic grift.
Just the whole prophetic grift, like Bethel—and they don’t do it because they know they would lose a following. Like, Bethel would not be what it is had they not habitually established and used prophetic grifters. The whole thing has been predicated on the prophetic grift. And this is the same thing when people are like, “Well, he might have cheated in these little areas, but still the heart of it was good.” I know. I’ve seen—whether people believe me or not, I know that that’s not true. The heart of it is not a miracle. The heart of it is not miraculous. The heart of it is fraud, and like anything else is coincidental. Like, the heart of it is about deceiving people, and I saw my dad do that, and I’ve seen, uh, Shawn Bolz, and I saw that when Bill Johnson was confronted with this, and when Kris Vallotton was confronted with this, and when, you know, other individuals—like, Bill Johnson’s not alone in this. When they were confronted about issues like this, they did not care, and that was what was so heartbreaking and disorienting.“
Jubilee Dawn interviewing Jedidiah Hartley
Jedidiah Hartley also criticized the culture of “spiritual covering” in the narismatic movement, which allowed leaders to protect one another, even when they were involved in unethical behavior. “It’s like just covering for these people too… it’s both, but it’s spiritualized so it feels good and holy” (10:16-10:22). What appears to be a reaction against what he saw behind the scenes, Jedidiah articulated that the last last two years have been like, “I’m going to talk about this as much as I can because, like, the leaders of the community do not care that they are letting frauds run their community” (45:00).
On Church Watch Central with our coverage of NAR cults like:
Hillsong (Brian Houston, Frank Houston, Carl Lentz)
Christian City Church (Phil Pringle, Dean Sweetman)
City Harvest Church (Kong Hee)
Yoido Full Gospel Church (David Yonggi Cho)
Embassy of the Blessed Kingdom of God (Sunday Adelajah)
Bethany Indonesian Church (Aswin Tanuseputra)
Voice of Evangelism (Perry Stone)
IHPOKC (Mike Bickle)
Gateway Church (Robert Morris)
It is clear – the church has been overrun with the kingdom of dangerous and abusive cults that have no problem platforming predators and abusers in or lack any form of accountability to create a massive grifting network. Jedidiah Hartley and Jubilee Dawn only confirm how dangerous this culture really is imbedded in the New Apostolic Reformation cult (emphasis in red) from their experiences. Their insights are helpful here:
Hartley: It’s why I’ve, like, for the last two years been like, “I’m going to talk about this as much as I can because, like, the leaders of the community do not care that they are letting frauds run their community.”
Dawn: No, they don’t, which I think at some point, maybe I thought, “Okay, they’re like good people, and they don’t know how to handle conflict.” That entire illusion is so gone for me at this point, because it’s like—especially just hearing your story, I mean, that was like the nail in the coffin, you know? But when it came out that Kris and Bill had been warned about Shawn and that they silently distanced, and Kris’s text messages came out about, um, what did he say? That it would hurt the prophetic movement, and he’s like, “Well, I have—I have nothing to do with him. I don’t want anything to do with him.” And it’s—it’s always this, “Well, they’re not really in our house,” but what people don’t realize who are not familiar with these circles is, if you’re being invited to all of these conferences and you’re co-leading all these conferences together, even if they’re not technically in your house, I guess if you want to say that, I mean, they’re still embedded in this culture and you all have the same followers. I mean, it’s all the same. What is it? The New Apostolic Reformation? You know, it’s the whole thing, you know?
So, if you want to say, “Well, it’s not our responsibility,” well, it is. Because people in your church and your worldwide church—because you have Bethel TV, and you have all this stuff—are following these people. I mean, I can’t tell you the amount of people who have no idea that Shawn is a fraud. I mean, he still has over 200,000 followers on Instagram, and people, that- they still think he’s great because he’s posting his little thumbnails, you know, like, “God’s going to give you something good this year,” you know? And it’s, I mean, Bethel needs to put out a statement, but they’re not going to because now that—I mean, this is my belief—it’s all corrupt. All of it, you know? So they’re dropping like flies. It’s like IHOP and Sean, and then now this Sean Feucht stuff is coming out, and it’s just, it is disorienting to realize.
I think like naively growing up, I always just wanted to believe that people are good, you know? People are doing their best, like, people do make mistakes, but I think really diving into this world and hearing all of these stories, it’s like, actually, there are people who—the heart of it, like you’re saying, is deception. Yeah, and it’s crazy,
Hartley: And I think that my—I’ve maintained, because I’m so with you of the like, I don’t want to just paint with a broad brush and be like they’re all evil, and I—I still hold a lot of that, like, um, kind of mentality about people in general is that there’s a lot of like kind, good, compassionate people who are in the charismatic or non-denominational world. Um, they’re just not in leadership, and I know that not everyone’s going to agree with me who’s listening.
Dawn: No, I agree, but like, that’s the best way to phrase it.
Hartley: The leadership is situated and structured so that frauds and narcissists and abusers, um, and people gunning for wealth, like, can be pushed to the surface, and it’s a boy’s club. Like, they all take care of each other, and like, they all have dirt on each other, and that’s why like it hasn’t come out. A lot of this stuff hasn’t come out, and now it’s starting to because people like me and people like you and people who were in the community—like, all of this information about Sean Feucht is coming out, um, and it’s from people who like worked with him and were in the same organization with him and who were Christians with him and believed the same mission.
And I think Sean Feucht tweeted something about—he said something about like, ‘When the woke mob or the whoever, you know, whoever he thinks the Soros or whatever, like, is this like the left is coming for, or the’—I don’t know, some—whatever he thinks.
Dawn: And that it’s also like warfare, like this attack on us,
Hartley: Which is like, that’s just not true. And why it’s—why this is what has been happening over the last couple of years is happening is because all the people from within the community—like people know my name, people know, um, uh, Deborah who spoke out against Mike Bickle. Like, they know her because she was a part of the community. Like, these—your—you yourself, like, mhm, it’s people from within the communities who have been like, “This is terrible for us.”
Not just like the dominionists—like, it’s dangerous to other religions and other groups and communities, which it absolutely is. It is dangerous for the people who are within the community.
Imagine having the audacity to be a Seven Mountains, to be a Heaven Invade Earth, to be someone who is like with Bethel, where it’s like, “We are going to change all of the United States to look exactly like us.” And the leader of your organization doesn’t give a s–t whether or not one of the main prophets is sexually abusing his own flock. Like, that’s where it’s like, what? You can’t—you can’t protect the people within your own circle, and now you’re trying to be this expansionist dominionist individual who wants to make all of politics and religion look exactly like this in your sort of format, in your image?
Um, so, it’s—it—that’s where it’s just like, no, the people that we’re dealing with here are really, really fraught. Um, and each one of them, they made decisions to do that, like, at different points. Like, the Banovs are like this. Like, there’s many instances where they had opportunities where they saw really terrible things going on and could have spoken up for goodness, and they didn’t. And not only that, that actually worked to their advantage. That, like, elevated them more. Um, and I’ve seen it so many different times, and I would say this: If Bill Johnson was right in front of me, I would say this to his face, and I would love to have the opportunity to do that, but-
Dawn: Let’s chat! But it feels like they all just have dirt on each other.
I can’t tell you, like, I don’t want to give away people’s stories, you know, if I don’t have permission, but vaguely, they’ve said I can reference it. But I mean, the amount of stories I’ve heard about the Bakers— it’s blowing my mind. And I actually, I think that that was actually a little heartbreaking for me because that’s how I entered this world. I entered it through a Heidi Baker conference, and I always thought, “Well, she is just this childlike type of figure, like so innocent,” and I think when we talk about your dad and the performance, the way he would talk in this kind of, you know, I’m like, they’re all kind of performances, you know? Because Bill, I think we would look at Bill, and we would say, “Well, he’s not like a performer,” but maybe his performance is that he’s humble, he’s, you know, like.
I think they all have their persona that feeds really well into these different sectors, like even the Banovs, like the joy, the whatever. And I don’t know much about the Banovs, actually, ’cause I barely saw them. Um, when I did my internship, they always showed up late and never really said hi to me, but, um, yeah, I think that they all just have dirt on each other, and it’s like, well, if I turn on you, what are you going to say about me, you know?
Hartley: Well, and it’s, it’s sort of the hamburger helper doctrine, or I guess it’s not really a doctrine, but the hamburger helper perspective. I think for people who are really hesitant to accept the things that I’m saying, um, that way that people condoned what was clearly wrong and just eased into it. I think it can give—because it’s hard to accept that all of these different leaders in all of your communities, like, are just evil people and like that they’re sinister, trying to make money. It’s easier for people like, um, um, Lance Wallnau, who it’s like, this person’s clearly just trying to get your money. Or like Jimmy Baker’s of the world. Like, there are clear frauds where it’s like it’s easier to be like, “Yeah, this person’s quite unapologetically a shyster, you know?”
And, but people with like, like Bill, it’s harder because they seem like they have these really high characters, and maybe they have-even do have some high character patience and virtue in certain areas. Yeah, but like, it’s the pot- the frog in boiling water of like the system itself is so built on fraud and corruption and deception that to survive in that world, you have to become fraudulent yourself. Like, you have to be okay with all of it, and that transforms your character.“
“Don’t let my dad prey on people in your community…”
Jedidiah Hartley also shared how Bill Johnson dismissed his concerns in a private email, showing a lack of accountability in the movement (emphasis in red):
“… And I hear stories about how he is actively praying on people in both the IHOP community and the Bethel community. And this is when I—because literally earlier in the year, I had just met with Bill Johnson, so like, I knew he would know who I am more than just like know who I am. Like, he would—we had like just met face to face and had like long conversations. And so I got a hold of his email, and I got a hold of him and Kris Vallotton, and was basically like really blunt about it. Like, my dad is, uh, fraudulent. He is fraudulent with his prophecies, and he is using these fraudulent prophecies to abuse women in your community, and he’s using the authority that he garnered from you to do this. Like, he literally—my dad during this time was literally going to singles meetings and talking with women there and being like, inviting them to prayer meetings at his house and saying that he was a friend of Bill’s. Like, he’s like, “I’m a good friend of Bill’s” during that time. Um, and I confront Bill, Bill responds to the email, he’s kind of defensive. He’s like—’cause in it, I was like, “Look, I know that you’ve been covering for my dad for a lot of—” and I meant in the like covering in the spiritual, not just like the spiritual covering that they like—Bethel gives a covering, but it’s also just like covering his ass, and like letting him get away with—that’s a phrase that’s used in these circles…
… So I like told Bill, I was like, “Because you’ve been covering him, and covering this, he is like using that like—not as—”
Like, I wasn’t trying to be accusational in that email. And then Bill responds, he’s like, “You got that wrong. I haven’t been covering for your father.” And I was like, “I’m not asking—like, I’m not, I’m not, that’s not me saying, ‘Hey, have you been covering for him?’ That was me being like, ‘I know my father. I know what he talks about. I know that he feels this covering. This is what I’m describing. I’m describing like I literally showed up- and there was a parking spot for us. We were able to, like, go in and speak to the leadership. Like, I know that he’s a part of this, like Bethel celebrity community…
… Yeah, and in my follow-up email, I did say that. I was like, “You literally said that he was one of the two prophets,” and he never responded to this email. But I was like, I basically, I was pretty pragmatic about it. I wasn’t like, “Hey, I don’t like your politics. I don’t like what you’re doing.” Like, I wasn’t doing any personal beef. I was like, “Don’t let my dad prey on people in your community, and if you don’t do anything about this, if you’re lazy or [inaudible] about it, he will continue to do this.” And that’s on you. And me now, like too. I mean, it’s on him, but like, I am now warning you.
That Sunday—I think it was like a Wednesday I emailed him—that Sunday, there’s another prophetic conference, and Bill Johnson saves my dad a seat right next to him. Right next to him.” (28:12-32:30)
The conversation closed with Hartley reflecting on his personal healing journey and his continued efforts to raise awareness about the abusive practices he witnessed:
“I can truly say that I gave my dad every chance possible… no one has cared more about the outcome of my dad’s life than me” (25:10-25:18).
While he has distanced himself from his father and the NAR, Jedidiah Hartley states that he remains committed to helping others escape the toxic environment he once lived in, his testimony serving as a stark warning about the dangers of no accountability within Bethel, IHOPKC and the charismatic/narismatic church movements. By sharing his story, Hartley said hoped to expose the truth behind the façade of spiritual authority, offering a voice for those who have been manipulated and mutilated by church leaders. His willingness to speak out against the abusive cult-like systems that harmed him underscores the importance of accountability and transparency in religious leadership.
As we have repeatedly stated on Church Watch Central, the New Apostolic Reformation is a doomsday cult governed by infallible, authoritarian and regime-like Apostles and Prophets. This interview served to reinforce again the disturbing picture of the inner workings of the NAR and the deep-rooted corruption within the charismatic movement. It highlights the personal and systemic damage caused by leaders who prioritize influence and power over integrity, leaving behind a wake of emotional, physical and spiritual destruction.
VIDEO AND TRANSCRIPT
In this special two-part interview, I sit down with Jedidiah Hartley, a former insider in the charismatic prophetic movement and the son of Bob Hartley, a once-renowned “prophet” within IHOP, Bethel, and broader New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) circles. Jedidiah grew up watching his father gain global acclaim for prophetic insights , but behind the stage lights was a man faking words, using conference registration lists to look people up, and abusing his power to manipulate, control, and harm. Jedidiah opens up about the painful tension of loving someone who has caused harm, someone he still hoped would turn things around, while also feeling a deep responsibility to protect others by telling the truth. This is a powerful look at what happens when charisma is platformed over character, and why Jedidiah is now speaking out against spiritual manipulation within the NAR. We also talk about how his story helped me process my own (including a false prophecy I received from his father).
Source: Jubilee Dawn (@JubileeDawn), Healed-ish: Ep. 11 Raised By A False Prophet, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saNdO-qepuU, YouTube, Uploaded June 30, 2025. (Accessed July 2, 2025.)
HEALED-ISH EPISODE 11 TRANSCRIPT.
Welcome back to Healed-ish. This is part two of my conversation with Jedi Hartley. If you haven’t listened to part one, I highly recommend starting there. We covered so much groundwork that is going to lead into what we are going to talk about today. So, with all of that being said, let’s dive into part two.
And I wanted to get into Bethel. Oh my gosh, you’re amazing because you were like, “Bill Johnson, this is a problem,” because at that point, didn’t you still have faith in Bill Johnson? Well, I say having faith is definitely probably not how I would put it, but like I always respected Bill Johnson because he seemed like a high-character individual. He seemed less political and less like a dominionist than others, like flashy, yeah. And now I look back and I’m like, “Oh, I just was listening over a lot of the dominionist and just corrupt stuff.” But he, you know, it was about hearing the heart of God, and he seemed to have wisdom, compassion, and empathy.
So, um, this, and this was not long ago. Like, so after I—so after I confronted my dad—this, that was back when I was like 27, so that’s, um, five, six years ago. Again, he didn’t ever say it, he never, he never said it, but he did apologize. He never specified what he was apologizing for, but he was like, “Okay, I’m sorry.” And he granted it to me, and it felt like a big win for him and my relationship. I know that sounds weird, but it was a turn of like, he tried to con me and it didn’t work, and I’m not going to stand for that. It was like I set a clear boundary, and I didn’t—for like two years, I didn’t speak with him. And then, slowly, we kind of built up a relationship again, to the point where I was still really being his primary confidant. Well, I thought, um, it turns out he was not telling me 90% of what was going on in his life, but like, I was really trying to help him with addiction issues. I was really trying to help him with just the decisions that he was making with his businesses and stuff like that. He was getting sucked into some like dominionist stuff in Bethel where he was like investing in these people who were clearly con artists, and I was like, “Okay, don’t do that,” you know? There was a lot of stuff that I was trying to help him with. And he was still my dad, like I just was like, “Even though you have been corrupt throughout all of these years, I want you to have a final chapter of your story that is somewhat redemptive.” And I would talk with him all the time about that.
So about two years ago—yeah, two years exactly—um, wait, what? Yeah, two years, almost exactly to the day, I traveled with my dad to Redding, California. And I didn’t realize this was this recently—Is this when you first warned Bill? Yeah, yeah, oh my gosh, I thought this was in 2017 or something like that. I did not realize this was so recent. No, this was, this was right after the—oh, sorry, this was right before the Mike Bickle scandal. Oh my gosh, so I’m trying to think if this is three years ago or two? No, yeah, 2023, um, so two years ago, almost exactly. Um, I am living in Los Angeles, but I go to Kansas City to meet with my dad, where he’s living. He has houses in both Kansas City and Redding. He’s accrued a decent amount of wealth over his years, so he has several different houses that he lives in. And so, he would kind of bounce between these two communities. He wanted to show me he had a new house in Redding, so he was like, “Let’s fly out there and let’s see it.” And I have been out of the charismatic world for, I don’t know, probably a good six years since then. I mean, especially since that whole thing with my dad, where he did the prophetic thing—that was a good severing of me being like, “I wash my hands of this world entirely, I want nothing to do with it.” Um, so like, it’d been a while since I had seen manifestations of the Holy Spirit, you know? Like, people doing—or manifestations of the, yeah, whatever that is—the twitching, yelling, and someone told me recently, it was so funny.
I put a little question thing on my Instagram, I was like, “What’s the craziest thing you saw in Charismatic?” Someone said that somebody would manifest and make dolphin sounds at Bethel. Yeah, so I’m like, there’s—it’s a strange world, so when you’ve been away from it, it’s jarring. Like, I actually feel like my body goes into PTSD stress, fight or flight whenever I even just see videos of this type of world. It really takes me back to all of that. Yeah, I literally—it had been so—we went, we go to Bethel, and he’s meeting with people, and again, we show up, and there’s like a Bob Hartley parking spot and everything. Walking with him feels like walking with a celebrity, which I hated, because I was like, “Please, I don’t want—I’m not even like, I—I wanted to be like, I’m not one of you guys, just, you know, like, I’m not trying to be a jerk or anything like that, but I’m here with my—” and I don’t care about any of this. And I—and you know his humanity, right? I know who he actually is. And so this hero, you know, I’m just, it was such a weird time. But I walk into, um, because they’re having some prophetic conference, and I walk with him. He’s like, “Well, let’s go, let’s just go in for like a worship service.” And so I was like, “Sure.” And we walk in, and literally, someone falls, and I like catch someone falling out. Like, it was very cinematic, and the like, like, I walk in, we go around the corner, and someone falls, and I catch them, and like put them down, and I like immediately, I’m like, “Dad!” And I turn around, and I like, I’m like, I’m going to go read in the coffee shop. I’m going to go to Hebrews, yeah. Um, but anyway, so that, that same week, we meet with Bill Johnson, and my dad is dealing with addiction issues, he’s dealing with like these big issues.
– I know that what I believed back then was that he was having some sexual immorality, like he was sleeping with multiple women and was doing some shady stuff, but not like criminally shady stuff or abusive stuff. Just like very, um, uh, gross, just, just like, you know, not what you would expect the highly esteemed prophet to be like.
Yeah, and like visiting prostitutes and stuff like that, like there was just like—I knew that was going on. Also, didn’t know how to handle any of that. And like, I was of course telling him, like, “Do not do those things. Like you can’t, you can’t please do not do those things. You can’t be a pastor and minister in this world and be doing that. That’s like not even from a—you’ll get caught, but from a, like, that’s horrible. Like, that’s so inconsistent and so hypocritical.” And, um, again, like not from me being like, “What you’re doing is abusive,” because I didn’t—later I realized that he was doing way more abusive stuff. But at that time, I had—I was just like trying to get him to find some center. I was like, “Get to rehab or something like that.” Um, to like, you know, he’s getting up there in age, and I was like, “This is not how you want to go out. Like this is, you know, worried that he’s going to drink and drive and get in an accident, kill himself.” Like I, this is—and I’m kind of like going to Bethel, and I’m thinking Bill Johnson will help this because, like, in my head, Bill Johnson is someone who is—of even though I totally disagree with him, politics and religion-wise, like, and even think that he’s doing some shady stuff to get money from people, like, character-wise, I can rely on this man who cares about my dad to help my dad get back on the straight and narrow. This is like my mentality.
Mhm, and then we go in, and my dad blindsides me. He was supposed—we were supposed to in the meeting talk about how he was going to—he was going to like confess some stuff to Bill and talk about how we have a plan and how he was going to get better and kind of just like ask for help. None of that happens.
My dad instead just does prophecy, and he has this vision that he shares with Bill about how he is giving Bill permission to date this woman because Bill’s wife had passed away. And this was shortly after she had passed away. Bill was involved with a younger woman. Not much younger, I think she was like 20-something, and I don’t know how old she was, but yeah, much younger. I mean, he’s in his 60s, and she was in her 20s. Um, I think maybe—I actually—I’d have to check. I think maybe she was in her 40s, maybe. Oh, but no, I think that they had like a 30- to 40-year age gap or something. We’ll have to look it up later. Yeah, like, it was jarring, and when it came out, it was a big deal. Like, I remember he had released a statement. So, this is all before it kind of hit the news, right? Like, people didn’t know that they were dating yet, or did they? There were rumors and stuff.
Well, literally the day before we meet with Bill, they send out a Bethel-wide email about this. And like, and so this is how my dad had the prophetic knowledge, is that he just reads the email, and he says that, “Hey, I had a dream about this woman, and the Lord was telling me to do the same thing that I did for Bob Jones with Bonnie Jones.” Because Bob Jones also had his wife pass away, and then—I can’t remember what happened with his first wife—and then he remarried, and my dad apparently served to give prophetic permission for Bob Jones to remarry. And he was giving Bill prophetic permission to remarry or pursue this young woman. And again, yeah, I don’t know how old she was—significantly younger, though. I mean, it was a big deal, and I find this so interesting. The email was sent out, and your dad’s kind of in crisis because he’s living this double life. This is supposed to be this meeting for you guys to start a new plan, and instead, he gives prophetic permission to another prophet minister. And yeah, he’s giving him permission, and he’s helping him while he’s in crisis.
Because I didn’t realize Bill was actively in crisis during this meeting because, I mean, the email had just gone out. I remember people were talking about that so much, so it’s kind of like, “I’ll help you out, you help me out” kind of vibes, you know? Right. And I had known that Bill had been told that my dad was manufacturing prophetic words. Like, Bill, I didn’t know to what extent Bill knew of that, but like, I knew that by this time, Bill had a good understanding that my dad had cheated on prophecy. I knew that he probably thought of it as like, “Well, he’s genuine, he’s got this real power,” but he’s also like cheated on prophecy at different times.
So we get into—we have this whole thing, and some of the stuff that—so first of all, Bill, I haven’t said this before, but I feel comfortable saying it now, but Bill had told my father, according to my dad, and then my dad referenced it in this meeting, that because my dad was dealing with this sexual indiscretion and that he was like having a hard time being faithful to the women that he was dating, Bill Johnson gave him the advice to—he was like, “If you need to sow your wild oats, go to Thailand.”
That is something that my dad told me multiple times that Bill Johnson told him. And then, when we were in this meeting, my dad made a joke reference to it that, like, Bill went along with, and like, so I didn’t—
Okay, yeah, so Bill, he didn’t seem like disgusted by this little joke because all we know, I mean, I 100% believe you, and I believe that this happened, but so we’re hearing this from your dad, but then your dad references this, and Bill’s not like shocked by this joke.
And this is kind of why I haven’t talked about it publicly, is because like, I know that Bill can be like, “Well, your dad was lying,” and I confronted Kris Vallotton about this—this is later—about what Bill had said. And Chris was like, “Well, your dad says a bunch of stuff.” And he’s true, my dad lies all the time about all sorts of things. I also know my dad better than I know any other human being on the face of the earth, and like, I am pretty good at knowing when my dad is lying and when he’s not. And like, I know the things that he lies about. I believe that Bill Johnson absolutely said that to my dad, and I believe that more than just saying it. I believe that my dad felt permission to do a lot of the things that he was doing because of conversations that he had had with Bill Johnson. Now, I’m not trying to dismiss the accountability that my dad has for all of these actions—absolutely, yeah, like this is on—it’s not Bill’s fault my dad did these different things at the same time. I am speaking with total confidence, especially because of what happened after this, that Bill was not at all phased or interested in helping my dad or putting boundaries around my dad, or helping him make amends or keep from doing these abusive sexual things that he ended up doing, or that he was doing—not just like the prophetic abuse, just the sexual abuse as well.
So, anyway, long story short with Bill, my Bill was like so did the hero worship of my dad in that moment. And I really almost—I almost confronted both of them. I mean, I’m here a 30, you know, 32-year-old at the time, or 31-year-old, or whatever, that wanted to be like, “What the hell is wrong with you both?” Like, they’re like, “Did I enter crazy land? What performance is this right now?” But like, I didn’t say anything during the time because I was like, “Well, I don’t know what I’m—I have no idea what I’m supposed to do.” It was the first time that I felt really on the back foot with my dad in a long time since the, like, maybe coffee shop situation. And I was just like, I am flabbergasted by this. And then, in that moment too, Bill Johnson told my dad that my dad and Bob Jones were the two most important prophetic voices in Bethel’s history—like to his face, to my dad’s face, right in front of me. Bill is like, “I want to reassure you, like, he’s trying to reassure my dad of how important my dad is to this world,” which is the last thing my dad needs in this moment. And he’s like, “You and Bob Jones are the two greatest prophetic voices, or most significant prophetic voices in Bethel’s history.”
And since this has happened, Bethel has tried to, like, distance themselves from my dad once—well, I’ll get into that in a second. But like, um, so many people—he knew, he knew, at this point, he did know. He did know, like, it had been raised alarms for a long time. So the fact that he’s saying “you and Bob Jones are the most prophetic people”—that’s insanity that he’s saying that. It also, like, I am good now at not falling for it, but so many people have tried to, like, gaslight me and be like, “Your dad wasn’t really a big deal at Bethel, like your dad, you know, like he just shared the pulpit a few times,” and I’m like, “I know for a fact that’s not true.”
You know, maybe Bill Johnson was like exaggerating to help my dad in the moment, but like I know because my dad would come in and give prophetic promises or prophetic permission to the leaders of the community, and he was like, he allowed Bill to maneuver in ways, um, whether it’s explicitly—whether it’s with the, like, dating this girl, or whether it’s strategic stuff with where they’re going to, how they’re going to expand the church, or do this. They’re making this big decision, and the church board splits on it. Well, here comes Waltson, this prophet who only shaved half of his face and is, you know, all discombobulated, but has these like grand miracles and is like, “Thus says the Lord, Bill is right.” And it’s like, Bill loved that. He absolutely loved that, and seeing that with my own eyes was so eerie.
But then, just to fast forward, like five months, all of this scandal comes out about Mike Bickle and about how Mike Bickle is abusing people and using prophecy to groom 14-year-old girls. And, um, let’s remind people, Mike Bickle is from the International House of Prayer (IHOP) in Kansas City. These are connected ministries, but not so—so I mean, they were friends, right? Bill and Mike Bickle? Yeah, I mean, yeah, they very much were parallels of each other. Um, so, um, I wouldn’t say like Mike told Bill what to do or Bill told Mike what to do, but they were respective kings of their own castles, and, um, and Mike Bickle is where I grew up, and that was where my dad kind of cut his teeth in the prophetic, and so it was very close to home for many reasons.
Um, what was going on with Mike Bickle, and what happened is that my dad started publicly defending Mike Bickle, and like aggressively so. Like, he showed up at one of the churches of one of the women who was like one of the Jane Does who had been abused by Mike Bickle, and she was like, um, he—my dad showed up at the church, literally trying to like physically intimidate her and her husband for them speaking up against Mike. Uh, and this is where my dad really went off the rails. And then, what happened is that during that time, a lot of women started publicly coming out and talking about how my dad had been sexually abusing them and, you know, sending them images that they didn’t—there was like dozens of women who he was trying—just like harassing and sending images of himself to, and then just a whole lot of different stuff that was—that gets as intense as you can get.
And using prophecy, like I won’t get into the nitty-gritty details because I think people can kind of figure it out, um, but were you shocked by this when that came out? You know, earlier when you talked about, um, your—um, oh shoot, remind me her name—Is it Mackenzie? Um, yes, Mackenzie. You—like, her story is so shocking in that it’s so horrible, but it’s also not shocking for somebody who knows the world. It makes sense, awful, right? And that is the same thing with, um, what was coming out about my dad. Like, it was a bit shocking because there was, like, levels of abuse. I always grew up thinking that me and my sisters and my mom were the only ones who were, like, truly abused by my dad, um, and that’s what happens a lot of times with abuse is like people think that they’re alone. They think that they’re the only one and think that it’s their fault, you know? Like, “Oh, he’s such a great guy in all of these other areas, but he abuses me,” and I, you know—so that the shattering of that, to be like, “Oh, he has—he doesn’t just have no boundaries with me, he also has no boundaries with these other people,” was—it’s like when the twist in a movie that you saw coming, or like, you’ve seen the movie before and you know the protagonist dies, but like, every single time it happens, it still like hits you in the gut. That’s—that’s a lot of what it felt like.
Especially, like, so some of these women spoke to me, like literally called me and, and told me some of what was going on, but originally they were—Did they find you online or did you know some of them? Well, so, I had—I had known a bit of, like, I knew that he was sending images of himself. Um, this is crazy, and I—I—so during that summer where I was going to Redding, um, I knew that he was doing some of this, and he asked me for help—my help deleting a lot of those images off of his phone, um, and deleting contacts of prostitutes that he had like found online. And so I had thought he was sending those images to sex workers. Got it. Um, and he was like, “I just need to get all of this off, and can you delete all of these messages?” And, which, let’s talk about the trauma of that. I mean, we don’t have to get too deep into it, but he’s asking you to go through these photos, which I’m sure you did not want to see. You’re faced with this reality of like—you almost feel like you have to do it because he’s asking for your help for a clean slate, like, “Do this for my own good.” But you should never be asked to do that in the first place.
Yeah, no, I mean, my therapist and I have had some good long talks, and like, this is something that I don’t talk about on most of the podcasts because it’s just like—yeah, and I’m not ashamed—”ashamed” isn’t the right word. I am frustrated with my previous self for like giving him the benefit of the doubt, believing that he would change. I mean, maybe—I think that maybe I needed to go through this whole process to like—I can truly say that I gave my dad every chance possible. Um, and like really, really tried way harder than everyone else in his life. Like, no one has been more invested in my dad getting help and being a better person, both for his own good and for the good of, like, what he does. Like, I—no one has cared more about the outcome of my dad’s life than me.
Period. Like, including him, like because he is his own worst enemy. Um, and it’s hard for people to get that because obviously, I’ve now spoken up publicly about him, and, um, you know, I look like very much the villain in his life, which, in some respects, I kind of am. Um, no, he’s, yeah, I—I am not the villain in his life, but not wanting to give up on your dad, though, and I think that at least there is comfort in knowing that you did everything that you possibly could. I know I’ve had relationships where people are like, “You should have let that go.” With my maid of honor, who had stolen from me on my wedding day, I still—I still tried to reconcile with her. I talked to my therapist, I mean, I later realized that she had groomed me, so I mean, that’s like a whole other thing. But I wrote out an eight-page letter to her, and I was like, “If you admit that you stole all this money from our family member, which was like $400,000, if you admit that you did that, if you admit that—I wrote like eight things that I said, if you do these things, I really could forgive you. I really could move on.” And I meant it, because I loved her, you know? So I understand doing everything in your power, and I think for me, I have peace about losing that friendship because I know I gave it a good—I gave it a good try, you know? I tried my best, and I mean, at least at the end of the day, you know that you did everything in your power to see if you could really help him and try to pull him out of this and get to the genuine heart of him, but I mean, there were just always lies still going on. Yeah, and like, you know, I—it feels both naive, but like it’s also just like you want to believe the best in people, and that was what he would always say. And he’s not the only person who says this. A lot of like defenders of Mike Bickle and of all of these, um, just all—Chris Reed, I saw echoes of this too. You know, there’s the like “believe the best in people,” and it’s like, I did, and I tried, and I—and because of that, he was allowed to—not just because of me, but because everyone believed the best in him, he was allowed to like abuse so many, so many people.
And this is where it gets so—I realize that he is genuinely, like, dangerous. Like a genuinely dangerous person, and I hear stories about how he is actively praying on people in both the IHOP community and the Bethel community. And this is when I—because literally earlier in the year, I had just met with Bill Johnson, so like, I knew he would know who I am more than just like know who I am. Like, he would—we had like just met face to face and had like long conversations. Mhm, and so I got a hold of his email, and I got a hold of him and Kris Vallotton, and was basically like really blunt about it. Like, my dad is, uh, fraudulent. He is fraudulent with his prophecies, and he is using these fraudulent prophecies to abuse women in your community, and he’s using the authority that he garnered from you to do this. Like, he literally—my dad during this time was literally going to singles meetings and talking with women there and being like, inviting them to prayer meetings at his house and saying that he was a friend of Bill’s. Like, he’s like, “I’m a good friend of Bill’s” during that time. Um, and I confront Bill, Bill responds to the email, he’s kind of defensive. He’s like—’cause in it, I was like, “Look, I know that you’ve been covering for my dad for a lot of—” and I meant in the like covering in the spiritual, not just like the spiritual covering that they like—Bethel gives a covering, but it’s also just like covering his ass, and like letting him get away with—that’s a phrase that’s used in these circles. It’s kind of like the leadership who has like spiritual—I don’t know, covering? I don’t even know how to describe it.
But they—you took me back, I hadn’t heard that phrase in a while. It’s interesting because it’s like—it’s explicitly what it is in the common circles, like just covering for these people too. Like, yeah, it’s both. It’s both, but it’s like spiritualized, so it feels good and holy. Um, so I like told Bill, I was like, “Because you’ve been covering him, and covering this, he is like using that like—not as—” Like, I wasn’t trying to be accusational in that email. And then Bill responds, he’s like, “You got that wrong. I haven’t been covering for your father.” And I was like, “I’m not asking—like, I’m not, I’m not, that’s not me saying, ‘Hey, have you been covering for him?’ That was me being like, I know my father. I know what he talks about. I know that he feels this covering. This is what I’m describing. I’m describing like I literally showed up and there was a parking spot for us. We were able to, like, go in and speak to the leadership. Like, I know that he’s a part of this, like Bethel celebrity community, and this is what he’s—the top two prophet, right, exactly. Like, we just had this conversation, Bill.”
Yeah, and in my follow-up email, I did say that. I was like, “You literally said that he was one of the two prophets,” and he never responded to this email. But I was like, I basically, I was pretty pragmatic about it. I wasn’t like, “Hey, I don’t like your politics. I don’t like what you’re doing.” Like, I wasn’t doing any personal beef. I was like, “Don’t let my dad prey on people in your community, and if you don’t do anything about this, if you’re lazy or indifferent about it, he will continue to do this.” And that’s on you. And me now, like too. I mean, it’s on him, but like, I am now warning you.
That Sunday—I think it was like a Wednesday I emailed him—that Sunday, there’s another prophetic conference, and Bill Johnson saves my dad a seat right next to him. Right next to him after I—Wait, and in this, you’re saying he’s praying on women? He’s praying on women? Yeah, it wasn’t—it wasn’t like, “Hey, he’s just being deceptive.” It was—it was because what happened is that these women spoke up online, and I recognized the stories were true. This is—I—the analogy that I give with this is, um, I don’t know if you’ve ever been in like a place where you’ll see a family member from like far off, and you can’t see them, but you can kind of see their silhouette, and you just know by the way their silhouette and the way that they walk, you just know who they are. Like that, you’re like, “Oh, that’s my sister. That’s my, you know, brother,” or something like that, because I know—I don’t need to see their face to know that that’s them. Mhm.
And some of the details of these women’s stories that were coming out were so specific to the mannerisms of my dad. I mean, first of all, like, I know—you see him in it, I see him in it. And I, like, I would have believed these women anyway, because, like, people should believe women when they talk about abuse in these contexts, especially when there’s several women. I mean, also if there’s just one woman, but like, it was very—yeah, but especially when it’s—it’s very corroborated, you know? And I had literally just seen that he was sending out all of these like—I had deleted, I’ve seen the pictures myself. Unfortunately, there was no question that he—he was—I didn’t, again, I didn’t know that he was sending them to people that he was harassing. Like, I thought it was sex workers and stuff. But it was one of those things where I was like, “Oh, yes, this makes sense. Everything makes sense now. I understand that.”
And then I spoke up in support of one of the women, and then several women came and shared more testimonies with me individually, which, like, I’ve said this before—that is and will always be the hardest thing that I have ever encountered in my life, and like, ever will is like hearing the stories of how my father sexually abused women, um, and used all his same tricks, used all of his prophecy tricks, like, and same manipulative tactics that he had like used to abuse me and my sisters.
And like feeling like I had to do something about it was like—God, that was just horrible. I can’t even imagine, yeah. And so, and that’s the spirit in which I’m then coming to Bill. I don’t like his world. I don’t care about his like, you know, his spiritual celebrity culture. Yeah, yeah. And I certainly don’t care about the like invade the seven mountains and, you know, heaven invading earth. Like, I don’t give a s–t about any of that. And at the time, I wasn’t like actively fighting against it either. Um, now I am, but, um, I just like, I was just like, “This is just brass tacks. Like, my dad is abusing people in your community, make it stop, and like start taking ownership for the fact that like we should have—or you know, I—I framed it as we should have, because I felt very responsible in some ways of like, this should have—he shouldn’t be able to get away with this. And like, and so, like, it stops here, and it stops now.”
And I called the pastor at—Mike Bickle had been removed from leadership by that time at IHOP, and I talked with the pastor at the time there, Isaac Bennett, and he was like, “Yep, cool, your dad’s banned, you know, from the International House of Prayer,” which was wild.
Um, and so he was more receptive?
He was way more receptive. I mean, he was the guy—I think I’ve heard better things about him. Right? That he—or maybe not. I haven’t looked into it. I don’t know anything. I mean, they’re all—he was dealing with a bigger scandal with Mike, and so with them, and my dad was not as important to the prophetic identity of the International House of Prayer. You know, like, if it was—so he was like, “Yeah, sure, great, ban him.” Like, I’m so sick of these people getting in trouble. I’m busy, okay? I have a lot of other stuff going on. Plus, like, I grew up with Isaac, like, he was literally my sister’s soccer coach, you know? Like, and he also is not a big deal in the world and, like, has since, you know, yeah.
So I think that he was just like, “Yeah, sure, great.” Like, wash your hands of it. But then I was like also talking about the Mike Bickle stuff, and he was like, “I don’t know.” And it’s like, you know, got it. But with Bill, yeah, Bill just basically did not—he didn’t hear any of my concerns. My dad continued to do that. He like posted a video of him at, like, a youth event—clearly drunk—and he was playing with like young kids. I didn’t realize that, and that was like a turning point for me, and that’s when I started posting publicly online about it, and was like, “This has got to stop.” And I started calling out Bethel, and then of course, people were like, “Oh, don’t, you know?” As soon as it’s public, and it’s, “Oh, this might hurt the brand image of Bethel,” then people started caring about it.
I had like a two-hour conversation with Kris Vallotton and then like a two-hour conversation with Jason Vallotton. And they eventually—How did those go? I’m curious. I mean, because he—he knew the email. Okay, so, right? Kris was on that first email, so this is not new information. And what’s so frustrating about these circles is they use the Bible to say that we should confront people in private, you know? “Confront them in private, try to settle it, honor your brother,” I don’t know, there’s Bible verses somewhere in there. Mhm. Um, but it doesn’t work. Or it didn’t work at all in this sector. And then, now you’re the bad guy. You’re the villain for being public, and it’s like, no, nobody would have paid attention to this if somebody didn’t raise the alarm because apparently, you guys aren’t willing to raise the alarm, and he’s still showing up to youth stuff, and he’s showing up to the conferences, and it very much looks like he still has a stamp of approval by these very respected leaders.
Yeah, well, and it was interesting because, like, I will say that Kris did not treat me like I was the bad guy. Like, he definitely wasn’t like, um—and same with Jason. Jason was mad at me for calling out Kris specifically. Um, it’s his dad, so, yeah, right. And so, like, I got that. Um, but they were like, it’s really weird because like I was able to have like full conversations with them. There was a lot of like really cheap gaslighting tactics that they did that like just didn’t work because, like, it’s kind of like, dude, I grew up in the fire. Like, I was born in the crucible. Don’t think that you can like get me on this because-
I know your tricks.
Well, yeah. Like—’cause he tried—Kris, at several points, tried to push it back on me, like, “Why didn’t you speak up earlier?” And I’m like, well, one, I’m his son. But I—at several points, I was like, I wish I had. I wish I had, and I’m doing it now. Like, and it requires me to like speak up against my own dad. Like, if I’m doing it, if I have the courage to do it, why don’t you have the courage to do it? And, and he tried to be like, “Well, we didn’t ever want to speak up about your dad because we didn’t want that to reflect on your family, and it really was for you and your family’s sake.” And I was like, “Never once did any of you guys ever contact me or my mom or our family.” Like, I know for a fact it wasn’t about our family because you didn’t—you didn’t even let us know. Like, you know, you didn’t get—
I didn’t realize that, like, I knew behind the scenes because I had seen it with my dad, but like, I didn’t realize that, oh, so to back up, in 2017, right when my dad was—this was right after my dad did his thing with me and tried to do his prophetic grift on me, he got outed to the Bethel community for cheating, and he got in trouble for it. And Kris Vallotton basically was like, “Okay, Bob can never have a platform here at Bethel.” That, according to Kris, during that story, and like, I don’t think that my dad spoke at many conferences during that time. But at the same time, like, again, I was in the leadership meetings. Like, I saw my dad in leadership meetings. I saw him behind the scenes. He still was operating in the role of a prophet. He might not have been a public minister, but like he had already built a lot of his ministry, and he was going and speaking at different places. Like, the damage was already done.
And so, basically, I just was like, you guys have to say something, and you have to say something publicly. Like, you can’t just, like, tell a couple pastors behind the scenes that we need to—you know, like, and they were like, “We’re going to tell our security team that he’s not allowed there.” And I was like, “It doesn’t matter unless—I mean, that’s a step, but I was like, because he’s going to all of these—if he’s still in the community and people in the community still think he’s this celebrity, he’s going to use that to his advantage.” And then, eventually, it basically what happened is they ended up sending out an email to like all of Bethel’s staff about my dad and warning him and like officially banned him. And I so I took that as like a success.
I, you know, was it what needed to happen? No, like they needed to publicly address it. Like Bill Johnson needs to publicly address not just my dad, but Mike Bickle, and all of these different—and, and Shawn Bolz, and all of these different individuals because of people like you and people like me and all of the people listening who have had and experienced the prophetic grift.
Just the whole prophetic grift, like Bethel—and they don’t do it because they know they would lose a following. Like, Bethel would not be what it is had they not habitually established and used prophetic grifters. The whole thing has been predicated on the prophetic grift. And this is the same thing when people are like, “Well, he might have cheated in these little areas, but still the heart of it was good.” I know. I’ve seen—whether people believe me or not, I know that that’s not true. The heart of it is not a miracle. The heart of it is not miraculous. The heart of it is fraud, and like anything else is coincidental. Like, the heart of it is about deceiving people, and I saw my dad do that, and I’ve seen, uh, Shawn Bolz, and I saw that when Bill Johnson was confronted with this, and when Kris Vallotton was confronted with this, and when, you know, other individuals—like, Bill Johnson’s not alone in this. When they were confronted about issues like this, they did not care, and that was what was so heartbreaking and disorienting.
It’s why I’ve, like, for the last two years been like, “I’m going to talk about this as much as I can because, like, the leaders of the community do not care that they are letting frauds run their community.”
No, they don’t, which I think at some point, maybe I thought, “Okay, they’re like good people, and they don’t know how to handle conflict.” That entire illusion is so gone for me at this point, because it’s like—especially just hearing your story, I mean, that was like the nail in the coffin, you know? But when it came out that Kris and Bill had been warned about Shawn and that they silently distanced, and Kris’s text messages came out about, um, what did he say? That it would hurt the prophetic movement, and he’s like, “Well, I have—I have nothing to do with him. I don’t want anything to do with him.” And it’s—it’s always this, “Well, they’re not really in our house,” but what people don’t realize who are not familiar with these circles is, if you’re being invited to all of these conferences and you’re co-leading all these conferences together, even if they’re not technically in your house, I guess if you want to say that, I mean, they’re still embedded in this culture and you all have the same followers. I mean, it’s all the same. What is it? The New Apostolic Reformation? You know, it’s the whole thing, you know?
So, if you want to say, “Well, it’s not our responsibility,” well, it is. Because people in your church and your worldwide church—because you have Bethel TV, and you have all this stuff—are following these people. I mean, I can’t tell you the amount of people who have no idea that Shawn is a fraud. I mean, he still has over 200,000 followers on Instagram, and people, that- they still think he’s great because he’s posting his little thumbnails, you know, like, “God’s going to give you something good this year,” you know? And it’s, I mean, Bethel needs to put out a statement, but they’re not going to because now that—I mean, this is my belief—it’s all corrupt. All of it, you know? So they’re dropping like flies. It’s like IHOP and Sean, and then now this Sean Feucht stuff is coming out, and it’s just, it is disorienting to realize.
I think like naively growing up, I always just wanted to believe that people are good, you know? People are doing their best, like, people do make mistakes, but I think really diving into this world and hearing all of these stories, it’s like, actually, there are people who—the heart of it, like you’re saying, is deception. Yeah, and it’s crazy,
And I think that my—I’ve maintained, because I’m so with you of the like, I don’t want to just paint with a broad brush and be like they’re all evil, and I—I still hold a lot of that, like, um, kind of mentality about people in general is that there’s a lot of like kind, good, compassionate people who are in the charismatic or non-denominational world. Um, they’re just not in leadership, and I know that not everyone’s going to agree with me who’s listening.
No, I agree, but like, that’s the best way to phrase it.
The leadership is situated and structured so that frauds and narcissists and abusers, um, and people gunning for wealth, like, can be pushed to the surface, and it’s a boy’s club. Like, they all take care of each other, and like, they all have dirt on each other, and that’s why like it hasn’t come out. A lot of this stuff hasn’t come out, and now it’s starting to because people like me and people like you and people who were in the community—like, all of this information about Sean Feucht is coming out, um, and it’s from people who like worked with him and were in the same organization with him and who were Christians with him and believed the same mission.
And I think Sean Feucht tweeted something about—he said something about like, ‘When the woke mob or the whoever, you know, whoever he thinks the Soros or whatever, like, is this like the left is coming for, or the’—I don’t know, some—whatever he thinks.
And that it’s also like warfare, like this attack on us,
Which is like, that’s just not true. And why it’s—why this is what has been happening over the last couple of years is happening is because all the people from within the community—like people know my name, people know, um, uh, Deborah who spoke out against Mike Bickle. Like, they know her because she was a part of the community. Like, these—your—you yourself, like, mhm, it’s people from within the communities who have been like, “This is terrible for us.”
Not just like the dominionists—like, it’s dangerous to other religions and other groups and communities, which it absolutely is. It is dangerous for the people who are within the community.
Imagine having the audacity to be a Seven Mountains, to be a Heaven Invade Earth, to be someone who is like with Bethel, where it’s like, “We are going to change all of the United States to look exactly like us.” And the leader of your organization doesn’t give a s–t whether or not one of the main prophets is sexually abusing his own flock. Like, that’s where it’s like, what? You can’t—you can’t protect the people within your own circle, and now you’re trying to be this expansionist dominionist individual who wants to make all of politics and religion look exactly like this in your sort of format, in your image?
Um, so, it’s—it—that’s where it’s just like, no, the people that we’re dealing with here are really, really fraught. Um, and each one of them, they made decisions to do that, like, at different points. Like, the Banovs are like this. Like, there’s many instances where they had opportunities where they saw really terrible things going on and could have spoken up for goodness, and they didn’t. And not only that, that actually worked to their advantage. That, like, elevated them more. Um, and I’ve seen it so many different times, and I would say this: If Bill Johnson was right in front of me, I would say this to his face, and I would love to have the opportunity to do that, but-
Let’s chat! But it feels like they all just have dirt on each other.
I can’t tell you, like, I don’t want to give away people’s stories, you know, if I don’t have permission, but vaguely, they’ve said I can reference it. But I mean, the amount of stories I’ve heard about the Bakers— it’s blowing my mind. And I actually, I think that that was actually a little heartbreaking for me because that’s how I entered this world. I entered it through a Heidi Baker conference, and I always thought, “Well, she is just this childlike type of figure, like so innocent,” and I think when we talk about your dad and the performance, the way he would talk in this kind of, you know, I’m like, they’re all kind of performances, you know? Because Bill, I think we would look at Bill, and we would say, “Well, he’s not like a performer,” but maybe his performance is that he’s humble, he’s, you know, like.
I think they all have their persona that feeds really well into these different sectors, like even the Banovs, like the joy, the whatever. And I don’t know much about the Banovs, actually, ’cause I barely saw them. Um, when I did my internship, they always showed up late and never really said hi to me, but, um, yeah, I think that they all just have dirt on each other, and it’s like, well, if I turn on you, what are you going to say about me, you know?
Well, and it’s, it’s sort of the hamburger helper doctrine, or I guess it’s not really a doctrine, but the hamburger helper perspective. I think for people who are really hesitant to accept the things that I’m saying, um, that way that people condoned what was clearly wrong and just eased into it. I think it can give—because it’s hard to accept that all of these different leaders in all of your communities, like, are just evil people and like that they’re sinister, trying to make money. It’s easier for people like, um, um, Lance Wallnau, who it’s like, this person’s clearly just trying to get your money. Or like Jimmy Baker’s of the world. Like, there are clear frauds where it’s like it’s easier to be like, “Yeah, this person’s quite unapologetically a shyster, you know?”
And, but people with like, like Bill, it’s harder because they seem like they have these really high characters, and maybe they have-even do have some high character patience and virtue in certain areas. Yeah, but like, it’s the pot- the frog in boiling water of like the system itself is so built on fraud and corruption and deception that to survive in that world, you have to become fraudulent yourself. Like, you have to be okay with all of it, and that transforms your character.
So it’s not like a mystery. It’s not just like the well, two different things: one, it’s a fraudulent world that creates fraudulent people, but it also attracts fraudulent people. Like, I had IHOP, had my dad not found IHOP, maybe he would be in the, um, you know, Scientology world or something like that, where—or some spiritualist community and cult community in California, like, like he would have found a different group that used and preyed on some of that sort of narcissistic grandiosity and where his lies and deception would have thrived there too. Like, it’s—it’s so—it’s both. It creates the worst versions of these people, but it also attracts the worst versions of these people.
Absolutely. And I think about my ex with—yeah, you know, I’m like, he’s the perfect person to enter the charismatic circle because, I mean, Bethel was all about “dream big, anything’s possible with God.” It’s very—and it’s also very, like, self-centered. Like, I’m on a mission. I’m God’s favorite. That’s like what people would say all the time, jokingly, but not jokingly. “I’m God’s favorite,” you know? And for my ex, who there was a lot going on there. I mean, I don’t—I don’t even know. Um, he thought he was going to own the entire company of Disney. He thought he was going to live forever. Um, I think I forgot to say this in my podcast, but like he was like, “I know I’m Jewish, like my DNA.” He said, “I know that I’m God’s chosen people.”
Is he, uh, like English Aryan? Is he white? Yes, he’s white. So what’s so funny is he was like, “I know God told me in my prayer time, okay, that I am God’s chosen people.” And I was like, okay, so I got—he’s adopted. Ah, so he never really knew. And I got him a 23andMe when we were married. It came back like 0%—like, absolutely not. Like none. Right? And he was like, “It’s wrong, ’cause God told me,” and I was like, “Okay.” You know, I—I mean, I was more than he was based on our results, but he was like, “Absolutely not, wrong, because the Lord told me.” And I think you attract these types of people who are very grandiose thinkers and think very highly of themselves, and you’re rewarded for it because it’s faith. Like, how amazing that you think that you’re going to live forever. You have faith. Um, and why not?
Well, and I don’t know how much people are familiar with the history of the, like, what birthed the New Apostolic Reformation and this sort of, like, fringe side of the Pentecostal movement, but like one of the key features in the early 1900s to 1950s, and then it became less a prominent thing, was something called British Israelism or American Israelism, which was like a form of Zionism, where they—it was built off of this, like, belief that the Aryan race was actually genetically descendants of Israel and that the true people of Israel are actually the U.S. white folks. Um, and the—so it’s not a—it’s not a new delusion. Like, that—that, um, that your ex was doing. I also, like, when I was listening to your previous episodes, um, so much—there was so much overlap between some of the things that your ex did and what my dad would do. Like, my dad also would talk about how he—he—it wasn’t that he was going to live forever, but he was like, “I’m going to live to 150 years old,” and he used to say that. And I used to always think that he was joking.
Like, he would—but then, like, later, he was like, “I really believe that God told me that I’m going to live to 150 years old.” And it’s just this, like, really grandiose delusions that these communities make so much money, and these organizations make so much money feeding into people’s delusions and being like, “Yeah, all of the history of the world and all of religion culminates in Jed Hartley right here.” Like, that’s what they’re trying to sell you, and like, it’s so egotistical, it’s so—um, and so then when you have clear narcissists that would be red flags in every other community who have these, like, grand narcissistic delusions and will, like, get up out of the pulpit and say the most wild outlandish things, you will have communities who are like, “Right on, man. Like, God—yeah, yeah!” And they will, like, feed into those individuals’ delusions. Like the, “I’m going to own Disney.” Like, that sort of stuff where it’s like, you know, obviously, they then become abusers and less like feeling compassion for them. But like, it—I mean, there’s versions of my dad that I actually have sympathy for in the past because I’m like, “Damn, yeah, you had some, like, mental health stuff that this community just was like—yeah, this isn’t a red flag.” Yeah, yeah, no, you’re great. And, like, fed into that.
Yeah and I’ve been working—I don’t know, working through that myself, um, ’cause I don’t know, obviously, the church is like, “You have to forgive or else you won’t be forgiven.” So, okay. I was like traumatized by that the last few years.
Um, people telling me that I needed to forgive my ex and that I’m going to be sharing heaven with my ex, right? And I’m like, “Okay, cool.” Um, awesome. Love that for me. But I think, like, in a healthy way, I’ve been trying to find peace in myself with the situation that I think he had stuff going on, you know? And I’ve learned stuff from family members. I’ve had his family, distant family, reach out to me and tell me that he was in therapy since he was really young for emotional outbursts and he’s never been right. And I know people want to talk about nature versus nurture, I really think it was a nature thing. That’s the story that I’ve received from family, and we don’t know his backstory. I don’t know who his biological parents were, and I think it has been healing in a way to be like, “No, it doesn’t excuse his actions, but I can also understand there’s something not quite right.” And this entire religious system that we were a part of really fed into these delusions that were going on, you know?
I mean, how would he also believe the Shawn Bolz word? And I know I’ve had people write me and say maybe he colluded with Shawn, and I’m like, “Shawn is not colluding with some random guy and saying, ‘Hi, I’m a con, let me help you con this girl.’” Um, so I’m sure my ex also fully thought that that was from God and thought that we are, like, living this out, you know? And he still thinks that he’s now trying to be a little Christian influencer on TikTok, so that’s been fun.
That’s the eerie space that both you and I operate in now of, like, this isn’t just, like, trauma dumping that we’re dealing with here. Like, we’re dealing with systemic corrosive issues that you and I both were able to see very close—the disastrous effects of that in our lives. And, like, our respective testimonies can show some of, like, that—the consequences of um, the rot at the root of this community.
But this is what’s so—it just, like, these—we—I remember hearing so much about cancel culture growing up, and, like, none of these people are cancelled. Like, that’s the-like Rick Joyner is talking about-
I wish they were cancelled- these specific ones at least, you know? I’m like, come on, guys, that—like,
– It would be great.
– Where is it?
But, like, Sean Feucht is still, like, going strong. Shawn, uh, Bolz, is still going strong. Bob Hartley is—
He might have been—
He might be the only one who actually, like—and that was—
But I would argue a lot of that has to do with your tenacity with trying to protect people. Because he wouldn’t have been—he would not have been canceled.
He definitely wouldn’t have, and honestly, if he was, like, mentally a little healthier, like, he destroyed his own life. Like, he went super self-destructive, so, like, he had to work really hard to get canceled, and it required one of his own family members, um, and, like, the brave women who spoke up about it. Like, I do not want to diminish their influence too. Like, like, incredibly brave women to, like, speak up and deal with what they had experienced. But, yeah, like, these people, they will—they still just keep going. Like, it’s not like they’re going to prison, you know? Like, they should—perhaps.
They should. I’m like, these are actual crimes. Like, where—but it’s all just—I don’t know, forgiveness, it’s fine. But there’s no consequences the majority of the time.
If anything, they are friends with people who are in literally the presidential cabinet now. Like, it just
They are, yeah.
Which is why it also—I can feel like I’m kind of going crazy sometimes, being like, “This should be a bigger deal.” Like, it’s just like a—a franchise of fraudulent churches.
It is.
– And cult churches, and it’s very much affecting our actual, literal politics that are going, like, the literal shape of our nation. And I think—it’s hard for secular communities to, or even, like, mainline Christian communities, to have compassion for some of the people who are in the community because it’s like they see a lot of people who are deceived by people like my dad as very naive. And like, there is some truth to that, but like I, you know, and I know that, like, when a community really embraces individuals, it’s—it’s less about naivety, and it’s more about, like, character. Like, I want to be someone who has faith. I want to be someone who trusts. I want to be someone who believes the best. I want to be someone who is willing to hear when God calls. I want to be someone who is willing to sacrifice my own opinions and beliefs and, like, to be a part of the greater good. Like, a lot of really good people get caught up because they’re trying to be good people. And I think it’s—
And they leave, though. What I’ve noticed is it’s like the people who enter these spaces with such good intentions, and they really want to know the truth, and they want to be helpful, and they believe in justice, and they think that this is the way, they end up making their way out. That’s what I’ve noticed. Like, all of the people that I went to Bethel with, who really did give me good vibes and I felt really good about their character, they have also found their way out of this system with time.
Yeah, yeah, and it does, like, and I think of the generation before me, I think of a lot less cases of that. Our generation, I’m really encouraged by, like, yes, I know a lot of people, or even people who have one foot in, one foot out, and have sort of recognized the really toxic way of a lot of the—the system there. Maybe they’re not ready to, like, make some of the claims like we’ve been making about the corrosive nature of the leadership just from a fundamental perspective, but they are—there’s a lot of people who are like, “No, yeah, that fraud isn’t good, and it’s definitely happening.”
So I’m hoping—I would—I would love to see some change, and to see these, like—I would love to see celebrity prophets be a thing of the past. Like, it would be so great if, like, my—my nieces’ children, like, had no idea about their grandmothers and, like, you know, like, my—the world that I grew up in. Or like, “Oh, wow, that—I would love for—wow, that’s a wild west that you were in.” And I would love for that to be the case, and I think it needs to be the case. But I’m not—I’m not—I’m optimistic that there’s a lot of exposure going on, but it’s a—it’s a super critical time right now to be like, how are people going to respond to this?
Yeah. Do you want to give people an update on your life? Are you no contact with your dad, and just what are your plans for the future to just continue to raise awareness about this type of stuff?
Yeah, so I, you know, um, I’m a teacher now. Um, I just got—I’ve been a tutor and just got hired for a teaching position, and I’m like so excited for that. That’s, um, that’s the world that I’m going to be living in. This is like a very odd hobby. Um, that little, little side tangent over here, where, um, you know, I definitely want to work on writing and, and, um continue sort of talking about my experiences. I often am on podcasts with John Collins, the William Branham Research Institute podcast. We talk about a lot of this stuff on there, and so that’s nice, but, um, but yeah, as far as like with my dad, um, yeah, I set boundaries with him where I was like, until you go to rehab, until you do these particular things, I’m not even going to have conversations with you because like, I can’t. And, um, and so I know I get information about a lot of his life because, like, when he goes to the hospital, it’s still like me and my sister who are the people who need to make decisions for him and stuff. Um, but, um, yeah, yeah, I feel like that chapter of my life—or, or whole, you know, book one of my life—is closed now, of being like, good.
Um, that is, unfortunately, I do—I don’t think that there’s going to be a whole lot of change. I don’t—I don’t expect to see my dad suddenly popping up and doing ministry circuits again. Um, but I don’t expect him to suddenly go to rehab and, and start apologizing for the things that he has done or taking responsibility for it. But, um, but yeah, that’s—and I think that the more I’m doing, like, research, and I love talking with people like you and, um, about, you know, how to get out of this world and how to heal from it. So, I love, I love this whole podcast idea of the Healed-ish, of, you know, picking up the pieces. I was going to do a something like, uh, I wanted to do a podcast called “I’m Leaving with Something.” That was—I remember you telling me, and I loved that.
But, because—Okay, can you explain, like, the idea? It was, um, like, you have all of this trauma, but I’m leaving with something, you know? Yeah, yeah. It’s the—it’s the, um, what is really hard when you get out of a world that is as extreme and intense as an apocalyptic community like IHOP or a heaven-meets-earth, you know, magical world like Bethel—Harry Potter, yeah. You—you can’t really—I said that there are people who have one foot in, one foot out. It’s really hard to do, um, because like, it just—you’re either all in or you’re all out, you know? Like, they either are hearing from God or they’re frauds. There’s not, like, a whole lot of in-between, and, um, so what I’ve—and I’ve talked to my sisters about this, um, a lot, is like, it was really heartbreaking to look back at my life and be like, all of my teenage years, all of my 20s are just gone. Like, they just—they never talk with people about them. I never—I talk with my therapist a lot, and my therapist is like, has no idea how to handle a lot of it because it’s just like—it’s so bizarro world. And like, if I’m talking with someone who is secular, you know, not Christian, or, or Muslim, or something, you know, and I’m trying to explain the world that I grew up in, it just—I don’t—I—or, in the past, I haven’t because I was like, it’s just too bizarre.
And I think over the last couple of years, I like chose to turn back and be like, I am going to try to glean something from it. I’m going to try to tell my story. I’m going to try to, like, think about the world that I grew up in. I mean, my name is Jedidiah, like, I—like, when I meet people, you know, kind of like Jubilee, there’s like—it’s, you know, there’s spiritual—oh, I know what kind of parents exactly. And so, like, I feel—and my dad, like, I was named Jedidiah because my dad had a dream about me, and like, so my dad’s prophetic nature has been, like, woven into the very fabric of my identity. And so, instead of just being like, that was the wild cult world that I lived in growing up, and I—that’s just, like, a severed separate piece of my past, I like this idea of being like, “No, I’m going to leave with something.” And I’m leaving it, but I am not going to, like, let that world steal my childhood and steal my, um, experiences and my story. And some of that has to do with, like, I could never tell my story until I, like, openly told the story about my dad. Like, until I talked about my dad being a fraud, I could never publicly talk about the life that I had lived because that was such a defining aspect of my life. And like, I traveled and ministered with him, and so this is sort of me repossessing and recapturing sort of my own story. And, um, but creating a podcast is really hard, so instead, I’ll just jump on lovely people’s—I will take all podcast invitations. I’ll take—yeah, yeah.
Well, I don’t—I don’t take all of them. I will send—yeah, same, I’m like, I don’t either, but I’m busy. I’m going to be on, because it’s just like, it’s really healing to talk to people who’ve been through it, ‘cause, like you were saying, it’s such a specific world. I mean, when I met my now husband, and I was telling him about it, I was like, “Wait, okay, I think I was in a cult.” And I didn’t realize it until I was talking to someone who was so mainstream, Catholic, yeah, you know, or mainstream Christian, and you’re like, “Actually, wait, I don’t think that that was normal,” or that was just, um, it’s not easily explainable. Yeah, trying to tell them about fire tunnels and the conga lines, you know, it’s like, uh, really crazy.
So, um, yeah, I just—I’m so glad that you came on, because I’ve just been wanting to have you share your story in, like, a longer format as well. So, thank you so much, and you’re just amazing. I’m like, write a book, I’ll read it in like 5 seconds. I know I’ve heard it before, but I—I get something new every time we talk, so—Oh, yeah, I’m sure, and, uh, clearly by the time that we spent on this podcast, uh, we quite—we could keep going for quite a while. Um, oh right, I know. I’m like, this is us going as fast as we can through the topic. No, but it’s my pleasure, and, uh, I so appreciate what you’re doing, and, and your voice that you’ve, um, been, um, speaking out and, um, so it is my pleasure to be on here.
And that wraps up my full conversation with Jedidiah Hartley. I am so glad that he agreed to come on and share his story. I think it is such a powerful one to hear, just from somebody who truly has been in this their entire life and has seen so many of the behind-the-scenes of these circles. And it has just been very healing for me personally to connect with somebody who understands this world, because like we were saying, not everybody really knows what it is like to be in these charismatic circles, and it is its very own specific type of trauma.
So I’m just very thankful for the friends that I have made in my healing journey. So just know that if you are healing too, you are not alone. Thank you guys so much for listening, and I’ll see you next week for another episode of Healed-ish.
I must be getting older: I am writing about things I never used to write about. That is because I and my peers are experiencing things we never used to experience. So a quick moral lesson to begin with: if you are young and healthy, never take it for granted. Soon enough things can change.
In a few days it will be two years since my wife passed. And increasingly my friends and colleagues are struggling with health issues, and a number have already passed away. Just the other day I got this email: ‘Just wanted to let you know that *** is in *** Hospital in ICU. The cancer has spread quite rapidly to her lungs, liver and spine. The doctors say she has only days left. Very sad that it is in the same week as Averil’s passing.’
Wow, another one! Upon reading that, there were more tears. I said to myself: ‘I HATE death – and I hate sin that causes death.’ And when I rather angrily told God that I hate death, this verse immediately sprang to mind “‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:55-57).
As I was praying for this gal and her family, I immediately thought that she will soon be hanging around with my wife, free of suffering. But still, all this misery, pain and death is so horrible. One day it will be no more, but for now, it really sucks.
My wife’s aggressive cancer had also spread everywhere, including tumours in her brain. Near the end, her mental facilities were wearing down. That was the hardest part for me and I recently wrote about it: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2025/05/24/disease-christ-and-eternity/
I pray daily for folks that I know who are struggling with cancer. And I pray daily for folks that I know who are struggling with dementia and related disorders of the mind. And since most of these folks are married couples, there is a dual prayer that needs to be prayed: one for the sufferer, and one for the spouse looking after the sufferer. Both are on such hardcore journeys.
And it has not just been my own friends and personal acquaintances that I know are struggling in these areas. A year or two ago I wrote about Elisabeth Elliot and all the trials she went through, including the deaths of two of her three husbands. Many know of Jim Elliot and how he and four other missionaries were martyred in the jungles of Peru. As I wrote a few years back:
“But Elisabeth went on to marry two more times, with her second husband losing a lengthy battle with cancer, and her third husband at times being much too critical, domineering and harsh with her. And for her final 15 years or so Elisabeth went through even more suffering and hardship, this time battling Alzheimer’s and dementia.” https://billmuehlenberg.com/2023/09/21/three-top-books-on-elisabeth-elliot/
And around the same time, I stumbled upon a 2020 movie being shown on television that also really moved me. The Father, starring Anthony Hopkins, is about an elderly man who is struggling with dementia and how it affects his relationships with others, including family members. It really is a superb film. See more on it here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2023/10/09/crisis-christ-and-comfort/
Dementia and truth telling
Let me focus further on the matter of dementia and other brain disorders. And I will tie it in with something else I have written about lately. I recently did a piece on the Ninth Commandment, and if it is ever right to keep the truth from others. I focused on ruses and deception in wartime, but one friend sent in this comment, looking at another area where this can apply:
Thanks Bill for that very comprehensive summary. I think today I have engaged in many deceptions to my wife. On the bare face of that statement, many would hail me down. But my wife has dementia, a position she refused to accept for a long time. She would often ask why she is where she is (in a dementia unit in a place of care). To tell her the truth I would have to say that she has been diagnosed with dementia. That would cause her undue grief and anxiety, something to be avoided with dementia patients. She would ask when we could go home and I would tell her soon, knowing full well that was not true. But again the truth would cause her anxiety and do her no good at all….
I thanked him for his comment and said that I just recently had come upon an article discussing the very same matters. Back in 2019 Denis Haack wrote a piece titled “Random reflections on lying”. It began this way:
“I’d like to move next February,” my mother told me. She looked me in the eye intently and repeated herself. “I’m going to move next February. A friend and I have been looking at places when we go out for walks and I’ve found a house I like. It has a big kitchen which is good so I can do more cooking.”
I had this conversation with Mom about seven months ago. It was on one of her more lucid days. She’s dead now, but at the time lived in the secure memory care unit of a lovely retirement home about five minutes from where Margie and I live. At the time she could only get around with a walker and then only for short distances: from her room to the dining area, or with my help to the commons area. She simply didn’t have the strength to get past the front door of the place with her walker. Going for a walk required me to push her in the wheelchair I had purchased. There is a little kitchenette in her room, to make it feel more like home but the stove is not plugged in. And the facility provides all her meals—health regulations insist even I can’t provide homemade treats for anyone other than my mother.
I asked her about the house she’d found and she happily told me about it. And then because I love her I told her lies: That I was delighted she’d be moving into her own house, that February is a fine month for moving in Minnesota, and that it’d be great she’d be in the kitchen more since I’d missed her cooking.
We talk about her new house for a while and then she leans forward and her voice drops to a whisper. “Don’t tell anyone I told you this because it’s supposed to be secret,” she said. “All the residents are required to bring refreshments to activities, so I do. My friend and I walk to the grocery store for supplies. And my treats are the most popular, you know. Most just bring store bought stuff, but mine are always homemade, made from scratch.” That’s the way people are, I said, and she should know how proud I am of her. “And then they come by my room and say they want to be my friend, but all they want is more treats, so I send them away.” And so you should, I reply, real friends want more than refreshments even if they are homemade. Most people weren’t raised right. Mom agrees. She asks if I’ll make the arrangements for her to move and I assure her I will. “Don’t forget, now,” she says sternly. I won’t, I say. I promise.
It’s been interesting lying regularly, convincingly to the woman who punished me as a boy for not telling the truth.
In dementia care, everybody lies. Although some nursing homes have strict rules about being truthful, a recent survey found that close to a hundred per cent of care staff admitted to lying to patients, as did seventy per cent of doctors. In most places… there is no firm policy one way or another, but the rule of thumb among the staff is that compassionate deception is often the wisest course. “I believe that deep down, they know that it is better to lie,” Barry B. Zeltzer, an elder-care administrator, wrote in the American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease & Other Dementias. “Once the caregiver masters the art of being a good liar and understands that the act of being dishonest is an ethical way of being, he or she can control the patient’s behaviors in a way that promotes security and peace of mind.” Family members and care staff lie all the time, and can’t imagine getting through the day without doing so, but, at the same time, lying makes many of them uncomfortable. To ease this “deception guilt,” lying in dementia care has been given euphemistic names, such as “therapeutic fibbing,” or “brief reassurances,” or “stepping into their reality.”
Six months after our conversation about moving, Mom’s dementia had deepened in remarkable ways. When I visited her and asked a simple question she got confused trying to answer and was embarrassed. I told her not to worry and started telling a story of what Margie and I did that week. How I longed for lucid days that required me to lie. To agree to things I know can’t be true, to ask questions about things that never happened, to be happy about things that are nothing more, sadly, than delusions thrown up by her failing memory. To try to enter in love the reality she lives in, even though it is warped and misshapen by the disease that was slowly taking her mind and memory and life.
I’ve occasionally been asked how I feel about lying to my mother, and the question always amuses me. I hated the dementia that afflicted her, of course but the lying never bothered me. From a Christian perspective lying is not necessarily forbidden in a fallen world…. https://ransomfellowship.org/article/random-reflections-on-lying/
Finding Grace in the Face of Dementia by Dunlop MD MD, John (Author)
Dementia – final thoughts
There are plenty of good books out there on dementia – many written by Christians. Let me mention one which I picked up a few years ago. John Dunlop is a Christian doctor who has worked with geriatrics for many years. And his own parents had dementia. His book, Finding Grace in the Face of Dementia (Crossway, 2017), is very helpful indeed.
Here is just one quote from it. In his Appendix, he shares a letter he wrote to his family on how he will want to be treated if he gets dementia – looking at its early and later stages. He writes:
As my dementia progresses, I hope you will be willing to spend time with me, and even if you think I might not remember the time we have together, realize that I will have enjoyed the moment. Help me to stay connected with my past through stories and pictures. I hope you will make arrangements for me to hear the Bible being read as well as to hear old hymns I love. Talk to me about the Lord, his cross and resurrection. Speak often of heaven and what it will be like to enter God’s presence. Give me some hugs to allow me to feel your love.
If I live into advanced dementia, continue to spend some time with me when you are able. Do not feel guilty if you decide I am best cared for outside the home. Dorothy, I want you to know how thankful I am for the ways God has gifted you to serve Him. I want you to continue to do those things and do not want time spent with me to detract from your other callings. The same applies to all four of my children in each of my grandchildren….
I know that being involved in the care of a dementia patient can be very difficult. If at the time I make it harder, please forgive me. I trust God will give you the grace to blame the dementia and not me. Know that I love you, and if I could, I would. Thank you over and over for your loving service to me.
I thank God that no matter what happens to my mind and body on earth, he will take me to be with him, and once there, I will look forward to being reunited with you, my dear wife, and with the rest of our family in the presence of Jesus, with bodies and souls fully redeemed and restored in the image of God.
Love,
John
All we can say at times like this is, ‘Come quickly Lord Jesus.’
FORGET NONE OF HIS BENEFITS volume 24, number 26, June 26, 2025
These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. And you shall repeat them diligently to your sons and speak of them when you sit in your house, when you walk on the road, when you lie down, and when you get up. You shall also tie them as a sign to your hand, and they shall be as frontlets on your forehead. You shall also write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, Deuteronomy 6:6-9.
Several years ago I remember reading a testimony from a public school teacher in New York City who had been named the Public School Teacher of the Year in both New York state and the city of New York. He attended a banquet in his honor to receive his city award and was asked to give an acceptance speech. He said something like this, “We public school teachers and administrators are often told that public education does not work. Well, I am hear to say to you that it in fact works perfectly well. We are very much succeeding in our efforts. We are preparing our children to be greeters at Walmart.” I am pretty sure those words did not go down very well with those in attendance.
The dumbing down of modern education in the west is frightening. I remember reading the 1890 required entrance examination for Penn State University and I am pretty sure very few of us, including myself, could pass the exam. You have read the statistics. The U.S. lags far behind many countries in math and science scores. If you have ever witnessed high school or college age kids on television being asked very basic questions on current events, or who the Colonies fought in the American Revolutionary War, or even basic questions about our form of government and our Constitution then you know how stupid and uninformed so many kids are today.
There are many reasons for the decline in educational standards but without a doubt the greatest reason is whether or not parents are directly engaged in the education of their children. In his book Wealth, Poverty, and Politics Thomas Sowell points out that Asian parents have far more books at home than do White parents who have far more books at home than Black parents. If kids are not reading at an early age then this will not bode well for them in the future. Sowell also says kids in a two parent home in a ghetto who are encouraged by their parents to study and do their homework are testing better than lazy rich kids from Shaker Heights. The color of one’s skin has nothing to do with IQ or academic success and everything to do with parental oversight. Dr. Ben Carson famously has said that his mom made him as a child read numerous books and provide her with a written report on each one. He later found out she could not read but demanded that he work hard and you no doubt know that he became a famous and highly successful brain surgeon.
We now know that cell phones and hour after hour of screen time are robbing people, especially kids, of the ability to focus their attention. Years ago, when calculators became available, some schools decided no longer to require students to memorize their multiplication and division tables. After all, calculators can do the work for them. I was shocked to hear a few years ago that many schools no longer require students to learn to write cursive. Again, why should they bother to learn it? After all, communication is now on a screen where we simply type. And then there is the growing problem of college and graduate students using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and falling into plagiarism, and the inability to think critically and solve problems in one’s research and writing. This tendency is particularly prevalent in ChatGPT which is used to generate essays and assignments which furthers the tendency toward plagiarism and academic dishonesty. Students are not being taught how to think, how to research, or how to put their thoughts on paper and in their speech in a cogent way others can follow intelligently. In short, there is a dumbing down process in education which is yielding an entire culture of intellectual zombies, useful idiots, who will do the bidding of the intellectual elites of our day.
Perhaps I am going further than I should, but I cannot help but wonder if modern, public education is purposely dumbing down our children so that the intellectual elites can more easily control us and keep us in an intellectual and moral stupor.
Well, how shall you prepare your children to live in a dumbed down world where the highest motivation is too often to aspire to become a Walmart greeter?
First you must own your children’s education. If you have the money to place them in a challenging Christian or secular private school, do not think your work is done. You must be involved. You must set a culture of learning at home. You must make sure they “grind” and do all their homework. Get them reading at an early age. Yeah, it would be great if they have an appetite for literary classics but even if they do not, get them reading what they like. Their desire to read will stay with them through adulthood and their interests in reading will change too. I loved to read as a kid but I was into sports and read almost nothing but books on baseball or football. Later my reading appetites changed to theology, history, and contemporary social and Christian issues.
Limit their screen time. Studies are pretty conclusive. Too much time on one’s iPhone causes attention deficits. It becomes difficult to focus. We are prone to move quickly from one thought to another, making it difficult for people to follow our line of thinking. This is especially true with children. Some parents are giving their children Apple watches which allow them to text or call a limited number of people without internet access. Do young kids really need an iPhone? And then there is the problem of pornography which is literally a few clicks away for everyone. This stuff can truly hinder the brain’s development, not to mention do great harm to their souls.
And even if you do not have your children in a school using the ancient Trivium (teaching children with the grain of child development, ie. grammar, logic, and rhetoric) when your kids reach grade seven, you really should augment their education by teaching them informal logic. Informal logic has to do with fallacious arguments which people make all the time, like ad hominem, ipse dixit, post hoc ergo proper hoc, ad captandum vulgus, and non sequitur.[1] Kids need to be able to spot these and also learn not to use them in arguing their position. And then in grade eight you should teach them formal logic, how to make use of the categorical, hypothetical, disjunctive, and conditional syllogism as well as a modus ponens, modus tollens, or sorites.[2] I taught formal and informal logic years ago and our youngest son and his buddies say it is the most important thing they learned in school. Knowing how to think and make cogent, logical arguments is a skill your child will use for the rest of his life.
There is so much more I could say here but I will close with this. Maybe your child does not need to go to college. I know. I have been talking about intellectual development but many people are waking up to realize that much of the college experience is a sham. Almost without exception the public colleges and universities are controlled by leftists, Marxists, and atheists who want to indoctrinate your kids. I am also hearing that since Covid professors are far less frequently using lectures and are simply putting their information online and expecting their students to learn it with minimal interaction. And the cost of a college education has grown far more than the annual inflation rate. That’s because these institutions of “higher learning” have layers and layers of administrative personnel which all garner lucrative salaries. Many of the Christian colleges are not much better. Kids are coming out of these colleges doubting the authority of Scripture and six day creationism, not to mention being indoctrinated with a “woke” ideology.
I am not saying college is altogether a waste of time and money. Some disciplines like architecture and premed where the study of science is vital, are obviously necessary. Some kids are more wired toward a trade using their hands. Obviously they don’t need college though a trade school would probably be beneficial. But even if your son wants to go into the business world companies are increasingly not requiring a college degree. Some kids just don’t like school. There are plenty of examples of people who never went to college or dropped out and have been very successful professionally and financially. I have a few friends who are multi millionaires and they hated college and barely graduated with a low C average. One’s level of education guarantees nothing.
If your child has a passion for education and if he is firmly rooted in the faith and Christian worldview, then he or she should make it through college without much difficulty. But if your child comes to you during his senior year of high school and says, “I don’t really want to go to college,” don’t panic. Don’t feel like a failure. Don’t be embarrassed when your friends want to know where your boy is going off to college next year. It’s okay. Don’t let your ego get in the way. If a kid does not like school and still has a passion for the business world, I suggest he may be far better off finding a low paying job with a company as an apprentice, learning all the “ropes” of the trade, finding what he really likes and is good at doing. Maybe in the long run he will learn more and be farther ahead of a peer who hangs out in the fraternity house for four years, drinking beer, and working summers at the local country club. ________________________
ad hominem- attacking a person instead of the issue at hand, ipse dixit-they said it so it must be true, post hoc ergo propter hoc-after this therefore because of this, like saying, “I noticed the sun comes up every morning after I shave. Therefore my shaving must be the cause for the daily sunrise”, ad captandum vulgus- it the people believe it then it must be true, non sequitur- it does not follow.
Syllogism Types to Know for Formal Logic I. This explains what each of these concepts mean.
New York Attorney General Letitia James has hired Democrat defense attorney Abbe Lowell in a last-ditch effort to spin away serious fraud allegations tied to her real estate dealings.
Lowell, a partner at Winston & Strawn LLP, is known as a high-profile attorney for embattled political figures, having represented Democrats such as Hunter Biden, John Edwards, and even Bill Clinton during his impeachment trial.
According to the Times Union, he was reportedly hired by the Office of the New York State Attorney General, not personally by Letitia James, just days after Trump-appointed officials filed a formal criminal referral to the DOJ.
The referral, spearheaded by U.S. Federal Housing Director William Pulte, accuses James of participating in suspicious real estate and mortgage transactions stretching back decades.
The Gateway Pundit and the White Collar Fraud previously reported back in early March that James has been implicated in multiple instances of mortgage fraud, with the most damning claims centered on her Brooklyn and Virginia properties.
Brooklyn Property Misrepresentation: James’ Brooklyn home, purchased in 2001, is listed in a 24-year-old certificate of occupancy as a five-unit dwelling, yet she has consistently claimed it as a four-unit property for mortgage and tax purposes. (Read more: Big Development: Is Letitia James Guilty of Mortgage Fraud?)
Queens Property Fraud: A 1983 mortgage application for a Queens property, filled out by James’ late father, Robert James, falsely listed Letitia James as his spouse rather than his daughter. (Read more: Mortgage Fraud Alert: Did Letitia James Marry Her Father?)
In a six-page letter sent to Attorney General Pam Bondi, James’ attorney, Abbe David Lowell, scrambled to deflect the accusations.
Lowell’s response, dripping with indignation, accuses President Trump of orchestrating “political retribution” and labels Pulte’s referral as “baseless” and “hypocritical.”
The letter leans heavily on cherry-picked exhibits, such as emails and property records, to argue that any discrepancies were honest mistakes or misinterpretations.
Lowell: “Director Pulte’s letter, itself “[b]ased on media reports,” raises three issues: one reference out of an entire file of documents to a property in Virginia being Ms. James’ “principal residence”; one 24-year-old document among a pile of others defining a Brooklyn property as having five dwellings when a loan in question called for only four; and two decades-old references (one 42 years old and the other 24 years old) to documents filled out by Ms. James’ deceased father where he either checked a wrong box or misstated his relationship with Ms. James to be spousal rather than parental.”
For instance, Lowell claims James explicitly told her mortgage broker the Virginia property was not her primary residence, pointing to an August 3, 2023, email exchange.
Lowell: “Director Pulte cherry-picked an August 17, 2023 power of attorney that mistakenly stated the property to be Ms. James’ principal residence and at the same time absolutely ignored her very clear and all caps statement twoweeksearlier to the mortgage loan broker that “[t]his property WILL NOT be my primary residence[.] It will be Shamice’s primary residence.” The broker understood this, and that Ms. James was not a Virginia resident, and replied, “Section 4 indicates that the property will be occupied as a primary residence for Shamice. . . . Your declaration is marked as a non-occupying co-borrower.”
On the Brooklyn issue, he cites a 2011 Home Affordable Modification Program application and NYC Department of Finance records to assert the property has always been a four-unit residence.
Lowell: Director Pulte points to a 24-year-old certificate of occupancy listing the property as having five units, despite that the property has functioned as a four-unit residence for the past 24 years since Ms. James bought it.
In fact, a document he is well aware of, the August 23, 2011 Home Affordable Modification Program application, confirms it as being a four-unit property.
Worse yet, Director Pulte ignoresaltogether the other New York City records that list the Brooklyn property as a four-unit property, including the NYC Department of Finance property record listing the Brooklyn property’s Building Class as “C3 – Four Families” for tax purposes (e.g., 4 residential units).
In addition, the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) lists the Brooklyn property as having “4” “A Units” and “0” “B Units”— demonstrating, again, that Ms. James’ Brooklyn residence has been used as a four-unit residence since 2001.
Simply put, cherry-picking a 24-year-old certificate of occupancy and ignoring the many times the City’s records say the opposite is what happens when a so-called “criminal referral” is “[b]ased on media reports.”
As for the Queens property, Lowell insists Robert James’ error was insignificant, supported by a same-day deed correctly identifying Letitia as his daughter.
Lowell: In 1983, Ms. James’ father, Robert James sought to buy a home for his family in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, New York. He asked his daughter (then a few years out of school) to help by allowing him to add her name to the mortgage application.
Mr. James filled out the mortgage material (wherein he described their relationship as being “spouses”) and purchased the home without his daughter’s involvement.
Yet, in a predictable pattern here, Director Pulte cites a mistaken May 20, 1983 document Mr. James filled out to cast his baseless allegation while again ignoringthe other supporting documentation, one on the same exact date that correctly describes Ms. James as being his daughter. The actual May 20, 1983 property deed for the Jamaica, Queens residence lists Robert James “and Letitia James, his daughter.”
I’m writing this post on Tuesday night, and I wanted to highlight a Supreme Court case that started on Tuesday. It’s a case to decide whether parents in Maryland – a Democrat-run state – can opt their young children out of LGBT indoctrination, at the hands of the schools. As it stands, parents don’t even have to be notified.
Here’s an article in Daily Signal, written by Tiffany Justice, the Moms for Liberty co-founder. She writes about the “Mahnoud v. Taylor” SCOTUS case that started on Tuesday.
She writes:
Since 2022, Montgomery County schools have used books like “Pride Puppy!” and “Born Ready” for children as young as 3. These aren’t simple stories about kindness. They introduce complex ideas—gender transitions, Pride events, pronoun choices—that often conflict with the religious and cultural values of diverse families.
Initially, the school board promised parental notification and opt-outs, but in March 2023, it eliminated these options, leaving parents like Tamer Mahmoud, a Muslim father, with an impossible choice: expose their kids to material they find inappropriate or leave public schools.
Supporters of the policy argue it promotes inclusivity, but true inclusion respects differences, not silences them. These books don’t just “teach tolerance”; they advocate a worldview that embraces “nonbinary” identities and gender fluidity, often ignoring whether young children can process such ideas.
When these ideas are presented in the context of “being inclusive,” it means children are inherently pressured not to examine or think critically about these notions but to embrace them.
What I find interesting about these cases, where goverment monopolies decide that they know more than the people who pay their salaries, is that there is no opt-out. So, the people who pay for public schools and school boards have real degrees and real jobs. They work hard to learn math, then they get their STEM degrees, then they go work in the competitive private sector.
But when they have to send their kids to school, they find the system is run by people who never learned math, never got STEM degrees, and never worked in the private sector. It’s those people who want to indoctrinate children with their woke values.
So, do the STEM degree fathers get an opt-out of paying taxes for this system? No, they don’t. They have to pay the taxes. And their children have to be indoctrinated. There is no opt-out.
In fact, asking for an opt-out will get you branded as a hater:
Worse, school board members have suggested that allowing opt-outs encourages “hate,” casting sincere beliefs as prejudice. This isn’t a conversation—it’s an accusation.
I don’t think that I need to remind anyone about how the Loudon County school board in Virginia worked with the Biden government to label all parents who object to the mandatory sexualization of children as “domestic terrorists”. And again, it’s the parents who pay their salaries.
What’s interesting about this case is that it is an appeal of a decision by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. That decision went against the parents. Do you see why it is so important for Christians to vote conservative at election time? There are so many of these fake ERLC / woke “Christians” out there telling people to worry about Democrat priorities, and vote for Democrats. What does it get you? It gets you school boards and schools that indoctrinate your children in sexual anarchy. Therefore, vote wisely.
The value of life grows in magnitude when we stare death in the eye. Death is obscene, a grotesque contradiction to life. The contrast between the vibrancy of a child at play and the limp, rag-doll look of a corpse is revolting. The cosmetic art of the mortician cannot disguise the odious face of death. The death of a friend or loved one robs us of a cherished companion and reminds us of our own mortality.
Death is no stranger to my household. I have hosted its unwelcome visit too many times. The two visits I recall most vividly are the times the black angel came for my parents. Both died at home—both deaths left trauma in my soul.
We chisel in stone the last words of epic heroes:
“I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country,” said Nathan Hale in 1776 before being hanged by the British as a spy.
“Oh my God,” gasped John F. Kennedy, as he clutched his throat in a car in Dallas on a fateful Thursday in November 1963.
“Et tu, Brute,” Caesar moaned, as he fell mortally wounded at the foot of Pompey’s bust in the Roman Forum.
I remember my father’s final words—how can I forget them? But what haunts me are my last words to him.
Death often leaves a burden of guilt to the survivors who are plagued by memories of things left unsaid or undone or of hurts imposed on the deceased. My guilt resides in the insensitive, nay, the stupid words I said to my father. I said the wrong thing, the juvenile thing for which death gave me no opportunity to say, “I’m sorry.”
I long for the chance to replay the scene, but it is too late. I must trust the power of heaven to heal the wound. What is done can be forgiven—it can be augmented, diminished and, in some cases, repaired. But it cannot be undone.
Certain things cannot be recalled: the speeding bullet from the gun, the arrow released from the bow, the word that escapes our lips. We can pray that the bullet misses or that the arrow falls harmlessly to the ground, but we cannot command them to return in midflight.
What did I say that makes me curse my tongue? They were not words of rebellion or shouts of temper; they were words of denial—a refusal to accept my father’s final statement. I simply said, “Don’t say that, Dad.”
In his final moments my father tried to leave me with a legacy to live by. He sought to overcome his own agony by encouraging me. He was heroic; I shrank from his words in cowardice. I could not face what he had to face.
I pled ignorance as I only understood enough of his words to recoil from them. He said, “Son, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
He was quoting the Apostle Paul’s closing words to his beloved disciple Timothy. But I failed to recognize that fact. I had never read the Bible—I had no faith to keep, no race to finish.
My father was speaking from a posture of victory. He knew who he was and where he was going. But all I could hear in those words was that he was going to die.
What impertinence for me to reply, “Don’t say that!” I rebuked my father in the most valiant moment of his life. I tramped on his soul with my own unbelief.
Nothing more was said between us—ever. I put his paralyzed arms around my neck, hoisting his useless body partially off the ground, supporting him on my back and shoulders, and dragged him to his bed. I left his room and shifted my thought to my homework assignments.
An hour later my studies were interrupted by the sound of a crash from a distant part of the house. I hastened to investigate the sound. I found my father sprawled in a heap on the floor with blood trickling from his ear and nose.
He lingered a day and a half in a coma before the rattle of death signaled the end. When his labored breathing stopped I leaned over and kissed his forehead.
I did not cry. I played the man, being outwardly calm through the following days of funeral home visitations and burial in the grave. But inside, I was devastated.
How much value did my father have to me then? I would have done anything I could, given everything I had, to bring him back. I had never tasted defeat so final or lost anything so precious. That was 34 years ago, but it does not require a psychiatrist to recognize that I am not over it yet.
My mother’s death was different. Her death was tranquil, as she gained the exit from this world we all covet. She died in her sleep without a struggle.
Her last words to me were joyful. She said, moments before retiring to bed, “This is the happiest day of my life!”
She had lived a widow for nine years after losing her husband. Being a career woman she continued her work, investing her future joy in her children and grandchildren. Our first child was a daughter, bringing countless hours of delight to her grandmother.
My mother had two future goals she yearned to reach. She wanted to see my ordination to the ministry and she wanted a grandson who would carry on the family name, as I was the last surviving male on the Sproul side of the family.
My mother embarrassed me more than once with the pride she displayed about these passions. She would introduce me to her friends by saying, “My son is going into the ministry.” No Jewish matriarch was ever more proud.
The family name was almost a fetish. I had been christened R.C. Sproul III. I almost wish she would have named me “Sue,” both for all the teasing I endured from my peers about that Roman numeral and for all the scatological puns that the monicker “The third” can yield.
Mother made me promise that the tradition would live on, if my marriage produced a son. It was nonnegotiable; he had to be called R.C. IV. I was not sure whether I was trying to sire a son or to continue a dynasty, but who can refuse a widowed mother’s pleas?
What made my mother’s last day on earth so happy was the converging of dreams into one single day of glorious realization. While she was applying her makeup in preparation for going to work, I was pacing the floor of the expectant fathers’ waiting room in a hospital 12 miles away. I had been there before but still did not feel like a confident veteran.
The same man who delivered our daughter finally came to the waiting room, with green mask dangling from his neck, to announce the birth of our son. My wife was fine and the dynasty was intact. After sharing the most tender of moments with my wife in the recovery room, I hurried to the phone to relay the news to my mother.
Nothing would do but that my mother would go to the hospital to see her new grandson. I picked her up at her office and took her to the hospital nursery to see the orange-haired, prune-faced newborn infant she declared uncommonly handsome. After a leisurely dinner at a restaurant, during which she expressed her unbounded ebullience, we went to her apartment where I was invited to spend the night.
As we reached the entrance to the building, we found two packages stacked against the doorway. Once inside the apartment, she tore open the packages like a child on Christmas morning. The first package contained engraved invitations to my ordination scheduled only weeks away.
The second package was from Maxine’s, a stylish women’s dress shop in Pittsburgh which featured the latest fashions. It contained an elegant dress, undoubtedly the most expensive garment she had purchased since her husband’s death. She danced before the mirror holding the dress in front of her, taking waltz steps around the room.
She bought it for the ordination but wore it at her funeral. It was too much excitement for one day as one dream was fully realized and the other’s proximate certainty was confirmed by the symbolic presence of the invitations and the dress. Within the hour she protested that she was weary and wanted to go to bed.
We said our good-nights and she retired to her bedroom, but not before poking her head around the door to say, “This is the happiest day of my life.”
I was exhausted from the events of the day and quickly fell asleep in the next room. When morning came I knocked on my mother’s door and was mildly puzzled by the lack of response. I opened the door and instantly realized that the woman in repose on the bed was dead.
It did not seem possible. I walked to her side and clutched her wrist. She had been dead for several hours; rigor mortis had set in and her body was icy to the touch. The sensation was eerie, defying logic.
Sleep makes the passage of time seem instantaneous. In what seemed like the span of a few minutes, my mother had changed from a breathing, warm, excited person to a lifeless statue. I stood transfixed in disbelief, caught in the absurdity of it. Within the span of 24 hours, I passed through the emotions of seeing my son take his initial breaths of life and seeing my mother in the coldness of death.
I’m Bub Kuns, and we’re talking about socialism again.
One of socialism’s dangers is that it takes away workers’ incentive and punishes achievement.
Professor Ilya Somin, who immigrated from the Soviet Union in the 1970s, stated, “Even as the socialist system created opportunities for vast atrocities by the rulers, it also destroyed production incentives for ordinary people. In the absence of markets … there was little incentive for workers to either be productive or to focus on making goods that might actually be useful to consumers. Many people tried to do as little work as possible at their official jobs.”
But 2 Thessalonians 3:10 gives the principle, “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat” (ESV). It’s human nature to achieve when given incentives but to be unproductive without them.
And what are other problems with socialism? We’ll discuss them another time.
Bub Kuns is (at heart) a storyteller. He is a director, producer, writer, performer and editor. Bub’s life mission is to help and guide people to love God with all their “heart, soul, mind and strength.” Part of how he does that is by providing truth-filled, accessible, captivating content that packs a little punch. Bub produces content that inspires, challenges and activates believers to use their talents and voices to make a difference in their communities and in the world for the cause of Christ.
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