Paul Random

According to a new report from the Gates Foundation, more children under the age of five are expected to die this year than last – a tragic milestone that marks the first time the child death rate has increased in decades.

Officials at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation project that 243,000 more children will die by the end of 2025 than who died in 2024.

The bulk of the deaths are in African countries – Madagascar, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia and Eritrea. These are war-torn areas historically plagued by civil unrest, corrupt governments and fragile if not altogether broken healthcare systems.

The Gates “2025 Goalkeepers Report” recognizes these realities but also makes a full court press for restoring and increasing funding from other countries to help pay for lifesaving care. Gates writes, “If funding for health decreases by 20 percent – the scale of cuts some major donor countries are currently considering – 12 million more children could die by 2045.”

In the report released Thursday, Gates makes a declarative statement:

“The death of a child is always a tragedy.”

Both fans and critics of Bill Gates should be able to agree that the tech titan is right to say so. And he’s certainly put his money where his mouth is when it comes to his personal convictions on what to do about it. Over the years, the Microsoft founder and philanthropist has donated over $100 billion to global health initiatives and has pledged to give $100 billion more in the years to come.

But has the money been spent on truly helping children and adults – or has it often been used to advance a dark and detrimental agenda? Tragically, evidence points to the latter.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has contributed over $80 million to Planned Parenthood. Last year, Melinda Gates announced plans to give $2.5 billion to support “women’s health initiatives” – an umbrella term that includes the protection and expansion of so-called “abortion rights.”

Over the years, despite his claims to want to save children’s lives, Bill Gates has championed the right to kill them in the womb. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe in 2022, Gates tweeted,

“This is a sad day. Reversing Roe v. Wade is an unjust and unacceptable setback. And it puts women’s lives at risk, especially the most disadvantaged.”

Such a claim is a bold-faced lie. In fact, legal abortion puts tens of millions of innocent children at risk every year. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Guttmacher Institute, over 73 million babies are aborted around the globe each year – nearly a million right here in the United States.

When calculating child mortality rates, why aren’t the pre-born included in the statistics? To claim that progress has been made up until this year regarding childhood death ignores the dignity and reality of those innocent pre-born souls snuffed out inside their mothers’ wombs.

Bill Gates is right that the death of every child is a tragedy, but that also includes children in the womb. If he is sincere and serious about using his massive wealth to help save innocent young lives, he’ll recognize their existence, their right to live – and expand his sights on trying to lower the abortion rate around the world.

Image from Getty.

To borrow the words of Ronald Reagan, “There they go again.”

The Lake Street Church in Evanston, Illinois, which dates to 1873, is featuring a creche on its front lawn with a zip-tied baby Jesus and Mary and Joseph figurines wearing gas masks.

According to the church, the manger “reimagines the nativity as a scene of forced family separation, drawing direct parallels between the Holy Family’s refugee experience and contemporary immigration detention practices.”

The church further explains:

“By placing the Christmas story (Christianity’s central narrative of refuge, sanctuary, and sacred family) within the visual language of immigration enforcement and detention, this work asks viewers to confront the disconnect between professed religious or moral values and immigration policies.”

A “disconnect” is right – but it’s the Evanston church’s leadership who have appeared to decouple the commemoration of Jesus’ birth with the truth of Scripture.

Those in the Lake Street Church aren’t the first to demonstrate sloppy theology by trying to imply Jesus was a refugee. They were following the law when they came to Bethlehem for the Census. When Joseph and Mary escaped to Egypt with Jesus after His birth, they were still living within the Roman Empire.

The church went on to refer to the “enforcement terror” allegedly perpetrated by Immigration officials.

One has to wonder if either those with the Lake Street Church or the broader society are aware that during the Clinton Administration, over 12 million illegal aliens were deported across eight years compared to the 4 million deported during the five years of Donald Trump.

Based on the media narrative repeated ad nauseum, most would assume it’s conservative presidents who are more likely to deport those here illegally – but is it true?

Well, if you crunch the number of deportations between 1892 and 2018, you discover that while Republican presidents were in office for 67 years compared to 60 for Democrats, the GOP chief executives averaged fewer each year than their counterparts and a million less overall.

We see a similar drumbeat surrounding attention and blame regarding homelessness depending upon which party is in the White House. While a bipartisan concern, the narrative of heartless or unempathetic conservatives regularly spins up when the GOP is in power.

While the politicization of Christmas is not entirely new, the escalation of the demonization of law enforcement is a dangerous tragedy. The death last week of Sarah Beckstrom, age 20, of the National Guard can be traced to a terrorist who reportedly yelled, “Allahu Akbar!” and was preparing to keep firing his gun before being tackled.

Late last month, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reported a more than 1,150% increase in violence against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel compared with the same period in 2024.

“After months of Democrat politicians comparing ICE to Nazis, the gestapo, slave patrols, and even encouraging illegal aliens to resist arrest, our brave ICE law enforcement have been assaulted 238 times,” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. 

“Our law enforcement officers have had Molotov cocktails and rocks thrown at them, been shot at, had cars used as weapons against them, and been physically assaulted. Sanctuary politicians need to tone the rhetoric down before a law enforcement officer is killed. They should be thanking these brave law enforcement officers who risk their lives every single day to arrest pedophiles, rapists, murderers, gang members, and terrorists from our neighborhoods.”

As Christians, we sing each year of the “Silent night, holy night” of Jesus’ sacred birth, and that “All is calm, all is bright.” Sadly, radicals are encouraging the exact opposite. The weaponization of the Nativity is not only heretical but also hazardous and gives license to the unhinged to act out in the worst possible way.

Image credit: Lake Street Church of Evanston

If you woke up a billionaire tomorrow, what’s the first, second, or third thing you would do?

Katy Faust, president and founder of Them Before Us, an organization dedicated to preserving and protecting children’s rights, recently answered this very question.

Katy and Focus on the Family are partnering on a forthcoming documentary, This Is a Child.

How and what we spend our money on is an indication of our priorities – as well as a “tell” on the condition of our heart. This is what Jesus was getting at when He gave the “Sermon on the Mount” and taught:

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19-21).

Katy’s response to the billion-dollar question is a reflection and magnifier of the heart she has for children who are regularly exploited by adults who are far more concerned with fulfilling their own selfish desires rather than serving and shaping the next generation.

Here’s how she answered and how she would spend the money:

1. Train advocates so children’s interests are represented in every state and federal marriage and family policy.
   
   
2. Hire lawyers to take on #BigFertility and defend children in courts.
   
   
3. Equip churches nationwide to become bold defenders of children’s rights.
   
   
4. Fund artists and storytellers who help the next generation behold joyful, married mothers and fathers so they know what they want to become.
   
   
5. Support policymakers working to secure divorce justice for innocent spouses and their children.
   
   
6. Build platforms where children deprived of a mother or father can share their stories as warning to future parents.
   
   
7. Invest in restorative reproductive medicine that heals women and men suffering infertility.
   

Thankfully, Katy isn’t waiting for a billion dollars to get started. Her organization is already tackling many of these tasks – but every nonprofit can only do so much given the reality of its financial constraints.

On this “Giving Tuesday,” an annual event started to try and counterbalance the dollars expended on “Black Friday,” Christians have an opportunity to support and partner with groups like Katy’s – and Focus on the Family.

Since 1977, Focus has served hundreds of millions of individuals and families. Our daily Radio Hall of Fame broadcast, which was launched by Dr. James Dobson and now hosted by Jim Daly, has been literally beamed across the world. We receive testimonies on a regular basis of individuals who see it as a lifeline.

A few years ago, we received word from a woman who was contemplating suicide. Homeless, she was dumpster-diving and found an old radio. She plugged it in – and she just so happened to turn on the Focus on the Family show. The guest was talking about depression and how all things are possible with God and that life is a gift worth living. The distraught woman decided not to try and commit suicide.

That’s the high yield return on donating to this ministry. We encourage friends of Focus to first meet the financial needs of their local church. If they’re then in a position to give out of their abundance, we would be honored and humbled if they would prayerfully consider supporting and partnering with our efforts.

Image credit: Them Before Us

The University of Notre Dame’s Jeremiyah Love is a strong contender for this year’s Heisman Trophy, the annual award for college football’s top player. The junior, who grew up in a tough neighborhood in St. Louis, is likely to be a first round NFL draft pick when the time comes.

Yet when thinking and talking about his future this past Saturday after the Irish demolished Syracuse 70-7, Love went where few players in his situation may go these days – marriage.

At the post-game press conference inside Notre Dame Stadium, Love was asked about how he gets along with teammate Eli Raridon. A senior, the 6’ 7” tight end is from Iowa and earned a starting role this fall after three years as a backup.

“I love Eli,” Jeremiyah said. “You know, he’s married and sets the standard outside of football. I want to get married in a couple of years or so.”

Eli Raridon married Anna Bernhard, his high school sweetheart, this past May.

Another reason Jeremiyah Love may be marriage-minded is because of the loving (no pun intended) union he saw growing up with his parents – Jason and L’Tyona Love.

Both St. Louis police officers, the Loves were careful and deliberate in protecting and shielding their son from the challenging culture that was all around them. Both are now retired.

“It’s going on outside, right on my street,” Jeremiyah told NBC. “It’s a bunch of bad stuff. My parents did a great job sheltering me away from all that.”

“We kept him always busy,” said Jason. “Tutors, activities, sports.”

With two busy working parents, though, Jeremiyah struggled with how infrequently he saw them at his games.

“It wasn’t until high school where I wrote a note to my mom, telling her, basically, that I wanted her to be there more,” he reflected.

“It was heartbreaking,” acknowledged L’Tyona. “I was ashamed, feeling like, hey, I had no idea that he felt like I wasn’t there. So I decided to make more room for that. It’s probably the most important letter I ever received.”

From that day forward, Jeremiyah’s mother made almost every game.

The star football player’s closeness to his mother and father continues to this day, including a pregame ritual that father and son do prior to kickoff.

“Jeremiyah was a shy kid, quiet, and not very confident,” says L’Tyona. “Jason saw something that Jeremiyah needed different.”

Since he was 6-years-old, before each game, Jeremiyah finds his father in the stands. His father grabs his son by the helmet and speaks affirming and encouraging words to him.

“When we share that moment with each other, it’s just me and him,” says the Notre Dame junior.

“When I see the look in his eye, I know that he’s there and he’s focused,” shared Jason. “Once I see the sparkle in his eyes, I know that he’s ready to go out there and make it happen.”

It’s long been understood that values and standards aren’t just taught – but also caught. That’s especially true when it comes to the atmosphere inside the home. Our children are watching. They’re absorbing what they see – and it influences how they think and dream about the future.

Culture is also important inside a football program. Eli Raridon is modeling for Jeremiyah and other teammates what a healthy and loving relationship can look like – and how wonderful marriage can be when you prayerfully seek out and marry the right person.

Image from Getty.