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Sadly, self-confessed New Atheists equate Christianity with Roman Catholicism. Imagining that everyone who calls himself a Christian gives blind obedience to the pope and the Roman Catholic Church, they equate Christian fundamentalism with the Crusades and Inquisitions and thus with fanaticism and violence. The truth is that the Crusaders who waved the Cross and conquered in the name of Christ could hardly have been biblical Christians because they violated everything Christ taught, slaughtering His brethren, the Jews, everywhere they went and especially in Jerusalem. The Inquisitors were equally in disobedience of Christ.

Holy Week’s [recent celebration of Easter in April], the week which starts with little children hitting one another with the palm branches they received at church and culminates eight days later as those same angels sit “in their Easter bonnet(s) with all the frills upon it.”

For many Americans, Holy Week is no more than these outward trappings of palm branches, new spring dresses, and chocolate eggs and jelly beans. But indicators show that Easter and its true meaning – Jesus Christ, his death, burial, resurrection, and victory over sin – may be experiencing more of a revival than many of us realize.

Nowhere is this more evident than in a recent Barna poll showing that the last five years have seen a dramatic increase in those who say they have made a personal commitment to follow Jesus….this is particularly true for males in the younger generations, with 67% of Gen Z men and 71% of millennial men affirming this statement, compared to only 52% in both generations in 2019.

What’s driving this massive leap?

The Covid pandemic is one of the most obvious life changes experienced during this timeframe. The isolation, the decline of many social institutions, and even the overreach of government may have caused many men to sit up, take notice, and begin seeking a deeper connection and meaning in their lives than they’d had before.

But for men, the pandemic and its effects were likely just the last straws in a long line of societal changes that negatively affected them, including things like the #MeToo movement and the further alienation and diminishment of the male sex in general thanks to feminism. In other words, is it possible that liberalism and its tenets finally wore men into the ground, causing them to throw in the towel and look for something that offered them hope and encouragement and personal worth as individuals?

If that’s so, then why would they turn to Christianity?

Princeton theologian, the late J. Gresham Machen provides an answer to that question. “Christianity,” Gresham explains in his 1923 work, “Christianity and Liberalism,” “is in conflict at many points with the collectivism of the present day.” Contrary to liberalism, Christianity emphasizes “the worth of the individual soul,” he continues.

“It provides for the individual a refuge from all the fluctuating currents of human opinion, a secret place of meditation where a man can come alone into the presence of God. It does give a man courage to stand, if need be, against the world; it resolutely refuses to make of the individual a mere means to an end, a mere element in the composition of society. It rejects altogether any means of salvation which deals with men in a mass; it brings the individual face to face with his God.”

These components are the exact opposite of what many men have experienced in recent years. They’re bombarded by people telling them what they can and can’t say – even if it’s just their own opinion. They’re forbidden to think their own thoughts, blackballed if they dare to swim against the current. They are told that they as men are worthless, no longer needed to provide, protect or lead the women and children in their lives. When we sit back and realize that society has taken all these things away from men, is it any wonder that they’re more open and willing to seek things above and accept the redemption of the Savior?

But what about the opposite sex? Why is it that numbers of men seem to be turning to Christianity, but not so the women – at least not in the same dramatic numbers?

I wonder if the same issue isn’t in play. Unlike men, women have been propped up, encouraged, and given a front and center role in just about everything in recent years as the underprivileged sex that must break glass ceilings. But that status may not last much longer. In fact, the last several years have seen that pro-women trend disappearing rapidly as men invade women’s spaces and sports by claiming the female identity.

Such actions toward women, of course, are never a good thing … but there is often a silver lining in even the worst of situations.

It seems plausible that the malignment of men has caused them to seek hope in Christianity. Is it possible that women will eventually follow the same path as they find the harms and hazards of human nature and suffering bear down upon their sex as well?

After all, as Machen says elsewhere, “Christianity is the religion of the broken heart,” going on to clarify, however, that although it “begin[s] with the broken heart,” it “does not end with the broken heart.” Would that the broken hearts, dreams, and desires of humanity lead both sexes to the foot of the cross this Holy Week to find healing, courage, and hope for the future.

https://intellectualtakeout.org/2025/04/why-is-christianity-increasingly-attractive-to-men/

Unquestionably, some who have called themselves Christians (Roman Catholic popes, Eastern Orthodox leaders, the Crusaders, and not a few modern televangelists, for example) have been guilty of all manner of evil. In the process, they have violated the teachings and example of Christ. The fundamentals of true Christianity, however, promote love, freedom of choice, and forgiveness.

Watching the various pollsters attempt to assess where culture is headed religiously is interesting. Is culture trending away from the biblical faith or toward it? The answer seems to be, yes. Confused? So are many pollsters and churches. Is Christianity losing ground? Are more moving to atheism or just becoming "nones", however that is defined? It doesn't seem to be any one thing. It seems culture is on a search for meaning.  Landon Schnabel suggests the answer is "America isn't becoming less spiritual. It's becoming differently spiritual": 

“What’s emerging from this sorting is a religiously polarized landscape. At one pole stand those committed to traditional religious authority and institutions. At the other are those embracing what sociologist Robert Bellah and colleagues called “the sacredness of the individual” — prioritizing personal authenticity over institutional directives.”

Many who are rejecting "institutional directives" essentially view doctrine, which is essentially a teaching, creed, or belief, as rigid and reject it. Others find the clarity helpful. What we have often seen, as we have spent time talking to many who have left the church, is that they cannot really articulate what it is they are rejecting. When we ask them to describe the god they are rejecting, we often have to point out that we, too, would reject that god. Others are rejecting the morals and ethics they find interfere with the way they desire to live and act. In their case they are looking to design a spirituality that conforms to and celebrates their desired behavior. Biblical Christianity would not accommodate them well. 

https://mailchi.mp/666ea849fd72/review-of-the-psychology-of-christian-nationalism-why-people-are-drawn-in-and-how-to-talk-across-the-divide-by-pamela-cooper-white?e=169825fd77

It’s not uncommon for me to listen to sermons, podcasts, or music while I work around the house. It keeps me working on my mundane tasks while using my mind for things far more satisfying than folding laundry or cleaning a kitchen. Engaging my mind in worship feels like redeeming the time while I work at the seemingly futile tasks of cleaning and organizing.  

It was just another mundane day of housecleaning when I listened in on what I remember being a talk from [a pastor’s conference in] California. I can’t remember which year the conference took place and I can’t find it online, but I’ll never forget the impact it had on me. During one of the general sessions the pastor presenting simply opened his Bible and spent an entire general session reading Psalm 119, word for word, as hundreds of men sat listening. It brought me to tears. What a beautiful and humble witness to the sufficiency of the word of God!

As I thought about what to write about this week I remembered his witness. While I may feel that I have nothing new to say, the repeated word of God never grows old! For believers, truth proclaimed stirs the heart to worship, and for unbelievers it can stir the heart to repentance and belief. 

—Nicole Stevenson (Cohost, Former Adventist Podcast).

Hatred of fundamentalism is either ill-informed or part of a deliberate smear campaign against biblical Christianity. There is nothing wrong with fundamentalism in itself. It all depends on the fundamentals one believes. Every mathematician is a fundamentalist. Two plus two is four, always was, and always will be. It would be absurd to say, “You fundamentalist mathematicians are unreasonable. Why can’t we let two plus two be five every Thursday?” Of course, if that were the case, thereafter, bridges, buildings, etc., built on Thursdays would collapse, all of the airplanes in flight would crash, etc., etc. It is not “dogmatic fundamentalism” to be unwilling to compromise the laws of physics and chemistry or the rules of mathematics. Then why is Christian fundamentalism maligned? Only if the Bible on which it is founded is proved to be wrong. What is certainly wrong is to lump all “faiths” together, ignoring the vast differences between. To do so betrays a deep bias that is disappointing when found in those who claim to speak for science and for rationality.

As the Hamas-Israel war continues in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has resumed its false claim – first propagated in 1929 by Adolf Hitler's subsequent ally, the Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini, and again and again after that -- that that Jews are violently "storming" the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and planning to divide it in time and space between Jewish and Muslim worshipers.

Such claims were also used by the Iran-backed Hamas terrorist group to justify the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, in which Gazan terrorists murdered 1,200 Israelis and wounded of thousands. On that day, another 251 Israelis were kidnapped to the Gaza Strip, where 59 -alive and dead – remain in captivity. It is worth noting that Hamas called its invasion of Israel "Operation Al-Aqsa Flood."

Shortly after the October 7 massacre, Hamas published a report highlighting the motives behind the cross-border attack on Israel. According to Turkey's Anadolu Agency, the report, titled "Our Narrative, Operation Al-Aqsa Flood," said that: "Operation Al-Aqsa Flood was a necessary step and a natural reaction against Israel's plans to eliminate the Palestinian cause, seize lands, Judaize the Palestinian lands, and establish complete control over Al-Aqsa Mosque and holy sites."

Needless to say, Israel has not established complete control over Al-Aqsa Mosque. In 1967, after the Six-Day War, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan gave total control and management of the mosque to the Jerusalem Waqf and Al-Aqsa Mosque Affairs Department, an organization of the Jordanian Ministry of Islamic Affairs and Holy Places. An agreement signed in 2013 between the Palestinian Authority and Jordan recognized Jordan's role in managing the holy sites in Jerusalem, including the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Last month, tens of thousands of Muslim worshipers converged on the mosque to attend special prayers for the end of the holy month of Ramadan and the Eid al-Fitr feast. In previous years, similar numbers of Muslim worshipers enjoyed unlimited access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque. This, however, did not stop the PA and Hamas from peddling Husseini's useful lie that Jews are imposing restrictions on Muslims' freedom of worship and plotting to control the mosque.

On April 12, the PA's Ministry of Foreign Affairs inaccurately claimed in a statement that Jews were planning "to storm the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque during the Jewish holidays." According to the ministry, the Jews' goal is to "divide the mosque in time and space [between Jews and Muslims] and Judaize the Christian and Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem."

The Palestinian campaign of anti-Israel incitement reached its peak in 2015, when PA President Mahmoud Abbas joined the club of falsely accusing Jews of desecrating the mosque:

"We salute every drop of blood spilled for the sake of Jerusalem. This blood is clean, pure blood, shed for the sake of Allah... Every martyr will be placed in Paradise, and all the wounded will be rewarded by Allah.... The Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher are ours. They are all ours, and they [Jews] have no right to defile them with their filthy feet. We shall not allow them to do so..."

Shortly after Abbas's threat, Palestinians launched the Knife Intifada, a wave of stabbings and car-ramming attacks that resulted in the murder of 38 Israelis between October 2015 and March 2016.

This was not the first time that Palestinian leaders used a purported threat to the Al-Aqsa Mosque as an excuse to slaughter Jews.

In 2000, the Palestinians launched the Al-Aqsa Intifada also under the false pretext that Israel was planning to seize control of the mosque. The intifada, which mainly consisted of a massive wave of suicide bombings against Israelis, came shortly after a brief and peaceful visit by Israeli politician Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount compound.

The Palestinian Authority and Hamas might disagree on many issues, but when it comes to spreading defamation against Israel and Jews, the two parties are invariably in full agreement. Over the past few decades, the claim that Jews are plotting to seize control of the Al-Aqsa Mosque has resulted in the death of thousands of Israelis and Palestinians. PA and Hamas leaders bear full responsibility for the violence and bloodshed.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21549/palestinians-slaughtering-jews-al-aqsa-pretext

Fundamentalism has gotten a bad rap. The “fundamentalism” that requires a Muslim terrorist to blow himself up in order to kill others and thereby reach Islam’s paradise is not the “fundamentalism” that causes a Christian to obey the teachings of Jesus Christ and stand upon biblical principles. The issue is truth. Anyone is free to disagree with biblical Christianity, but it is unreasonable to dismiss it as “fundamentalism.” One would have to prove that the fundamentals taught by Jesus Christ and throughout the Bible are erroneous before they could be dismissed.

Surely the New Atheists’ writers cannot be ignorant of the fact, which Sam Harris documents very well in his writings, that the fundamentals of Islam teach that it must be forced upon the entire world by eliminating all who refuse to submit to Allah. Clearly, Christ taught and lived entirely otherwise. Yet the New Atheists persist in equating Islam and Christianity simply because each is considered to be a “faith.” Such perverse reasoning is sprinkled throughout the atheists’ best arguments.

“For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?” (2 Corinthians 2:15-16)

It’s remarkable how the very same testimony can have such dramatically opposite effects on its recipients. A lecture on the scientific evidences of creation, for example, or on the inspiration of the Bible will be received with great joy and understanding by some, provoke furious hostility in some, and generate utter indifference in others. This seems to be true of any message—written, or verbal, or simply demonstrated in behavior—that has any kind of biblically spiritual dimension to it. It’s like the pillar of cloud in the wilderness, which “came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these: so that the one came not near the other all the night” (Exodus 14:20). A Christian testimony draws and wins the one, repels and condemns the other. Some there are who “loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19).

Thus, the wonderful message of the gospel yields two diametrically opposite results. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36). Christ came to bring both unity and division. “Behold I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious....Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient....a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the word” (1 Peter 2:6-8).

But the wonderful thing is this: Whether a true testimony generates life or condemns to death, it is still “unto God a sweet savor of Christ.”

https://www.icr.org/article/savor-life-or-death/

Laurent Brillard knows who France’s new overlords are, and is behaving accordingly.

When honoring the Righteous becomes complicated in France,” translated from “Quand honorer les Justes devient compliqué en France,” by François-Guillaume Lorrain, Le Point, April 12, 2025 (thanks to Medforth):

“I’m disappointed, unhappy, and beside myself. I wasn’t born in Paris in 1933, I was born in Vendôme in 1942, when the Philippeaus hid me in their home, at 71 rue de la Mare, with my sister…” On April 7, Arlette Testyler-Reimann, president of the Union of Auschwitz Deportees, learned that the Righteous Among the Nations medal ceremony in tribute to Jean and Jeanne Philippeau, cobblers in Vendôme, would not take place in that city.

With due formality—”it is with deep regret”—the city’s chief of staff, Jean-Philippe Boutaric, announced to Paul Sebaoun, the regional delegate of the French Committee for Yad Vashem (CFYV), the organization that co-organizes the ceremonies for the Righteous, “the decision taken jointly by the city’s elected officials not to host the ceremony for the awarding of the Righteous Medal.” A first in France.

First step: the postponement
On March 18, Paul Sebaoun was received at Vendôme town hall by the UDI mayor, Laurent Brillard, and his chief of staff, Jean-Philippe Boutaric: “There was a good reception,” Paul Sebaoun recalls. “We agreed on a date to be confirmed, May 28; the mayor had no objection to that date.” We had discussed two possible municipal halls, one with a capacity of around 100 people, the other 300.”

The mayor then promised to get back to him because he had to refer the matter to his majority. On March 23, the CFYV delegate received an email from Jean-Philippe Boutaric informing him that the mayor had therefore consulted with elected officials from his party, an LR-UDI-DVD alliance, and that they had expressed the wish to postpone the ceremony until after the municipal elections, i.e., after March 2026. Two reasons were then given: “The proximity of the local elections, which risks limiting the full mobilization of the municipality and the local population around this major event… The current geopolitical context, marked by the conflict between the State of Israel and Hamas, which is arousing particular sensitivities within our various communities.”

Second step: discussion
After consulting Patrick Klugman, president of the French Committee for Yad Vashem, and its vice-president, François Guggenheim, Paul Sebaoun sent a response on March 30th to urge the Vendôme town hall to reconsider its decision. His first argument: “For Arlette Testyler-Reimann, aged 92, time is running out and her testimony, which is very rewarding for Vendôme, is precious…” “It should have been an honor for Vendôme,” she confirmed. “I wanted to organize a big celebration and also thank this town.”

Paul Sebaoun’s second obvious argument: “We are a long way from the local elections, which will be held in a year. Moreover, a ceremony that honors the Vendôme population in all its diversity can only be unifying.” » Faced with the city hall’s reasoning, which emphasizes the existence of different communities, undoubtedly alluding to the city’s Turkish community or to the “F**k Israel” slogans spray-painted in a neighborhood, the CFYV, on the contrary, speaks of an opportunity to bring together Jews and non-Jews, as happens every year in France during these medal ceremonies….

https://jihadwatch.org/2025/04/france-vendome-mayor-refuses-to-honor-those-who-saved-jewish-children-from-holocaust-for-fear-of-offending-muslims