Paul Random

When it comes to the open and unapologetic worshiping of Jesus Christ, most college campuses these days don’t have the best reputation – especially secular schools swimming in woke and politically correct propaganda.

But earlier this month, over 8,000 students at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville defied the norm by gathering at the Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center for a night of prayer, praise and repentance.

Organized by UniteUs, a ministry dedicated to the “movement of college students united to lift the name of Jesus,” over 500 of those in attendance came forward during an altar call, with many more being baptized outside the arena.

The movement is spearheaded by Tonya Prewett whose ministry grew out of her decision to begin praying with girls on the campus of Auburn University. At the time she began her outreach, Tonya’s husband, Chad, was serving as an assistant basketball coach at the university.

Over time, Tonya’s small ministry grew from a gathering of five young women getting together to pray and study the Bible to a gathering of over 5,000 people inside Neville Arena on the Auburn campus on September 12, 2023. Since that first gathering, UniteUS has hosted dozens of similar revival meetings on other college campuses in Florida, Georgia, Arkansas, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas A&M. Well over a hundred thousand students have now participated.

“When God gave me the vision for Unite Auburn, I could have never imagined what was coming,” Tonya Prewett told CBN News.

“I remember standing at [the] baptisms after the Auburn event [in 2023] in the middle of thousands of students just praising God and thinking how can this stop? And it hasn’t. He keeps doing it. Again and again.”

After meeting inside arenas and stadiums, students often retreat to parking lots where pick-up trucks that are filled with water in the bed of the vehicle act as mobile baptismal fonts.

Lest anyone think the gatherings are simply emotional, feel-good events, consider Prewett’s straight-forward message to University of Tennessee students:

“Repent for your sins,” she told them. “Repent for the sins of this campus, for the city, and our nation. And let’s get free from those and we are just going to give it all to Jesus and go all in.”

Earlier this year, Chad Prewett announced his departure from coaching in order to devote his full-time efforts to the UniteUS movement.

“This decision comes with deep reflection, prayer, and peace, knowing it’s time to follow where God is leading me next,” Prewett wrote on X. “I may be stepping away from the court, but I will always bleed orange and blue. Once an Auburn Tiger, always an Auburn Tiger.”

Tonya has just released a book, Roses to Revival: An Unlikely Beginning to an Extraordinary Ending, which details the family’s extraordinary courage and decision to embrace the vision for college ministry that the Lord placed years ago on Tonya’s heart.

Driven by the rising generation’s quest for answers to escalating dissatisfaction, brokenness, addiction and sin, evangelical outreach to college students promises to deliver real hope and ultimate peace. Freedom from sin is possible. Relief from the drudgery and emptiness of modern-day idols is within reach.

Please join us in praying for continued revival!

Image credit: UniteUS

When Charles Preston pitched the idea of a daily cartoon to the editors of the Wall Street Journal back in 1950, he framed the proposal as something that would add some pizzazz and levity to an otherwise dry and sober editorial page.

At the time, “gag cartoons,” as they were known, ran in popular magazines like the Saturday Evening Post, Look and Collier’s. But in a business newspaper?

Preston explained that we needed to “laugh with others in order to laugh at ourselves.”

Editors liked the idea and decided to put Preston in charge of the new feature. Launching on June 6, 1950, they titled it “Pepper…and Salt.”

The witty, gentle, and sometimes pointed cartoon continues its historic run to this day. Whether jabbing good naturedly at entrepreneurial start-ups, office politics, technology or countless other themes, it regularly leaves readers with a smile.

Satirical humor works best when it contains a grain of truth. This is one reason why the Babylon Bee has skyrocketed in popularity since its debut in 2016. Now owned and run by Seth Dillon and his brother, Dan, the site often pokes fun at stupidity and steps on the toes of many of the people behind the nonsensical news.

“Pepper…and Salt” strives to tell an entire story in a single frame and in no more than a sentence. But in this Wednesday’s edition, despite those limitations, the featured cartoon delivers not only a laugh but also a stinging commentary on the root of America’s declining birth rate, family dysfunction and general domestic unhappiness.

That’s not easy to do in a single cartoon frame, but the artist nevertheless deftly pulled it off.

In the cartoon, we see a middle-aged mustached man at a desk with an open laptop computer. A young, pig-tailed girl stands beside him holding a large ball. We assume the man is the girl’s father and the daughter has invited him to join her.

“I can work on my novel and feel guilty, or I can play with you and feel resentful,” the man tells the child.

There, in a nutshell, is why we’ve fallen below the birth replacement rate.

Since 1960, when the U.S. total fertility rate was 3.5 children per woman, down to 1.599 in 2024, couples have shown a declining interest in having a lot of children – or any at all.

While just a cartoon, the suggestion that an increasing number of couples resent being pulled away from their careers or hobbies for the sake of caring for another human being bears out in interviews, studies – and the factual annual data.

To be sure, children can be challenging, exhausting and even exasperating at times, but after the promise of our personal salvation, they’re God’s greatest gift to wives and husbands.

But the first part of the father’s reply reveals another unhealthy understanding of parenting in America. Why would the dad feel guilty working in lieu of playing ball?

Once again, it’s just a fictional cartoon, so any deep analysis risks over analysis. But a belief in child centric parenting is suggested. The idea that mothers and fathers must wait on every whim of a child is not healthy. No parent should feel guilty about earning a living, though every parent must balance working too much with working too little.

Wise and healthy mothers and fathers don’t resent laying a project aside to play with a son or daughter. Instead, they consider it a privilege, recognizing that the child won’t be a little child for long and won’t be asking to play ball in the blink of an eye.

Don’t resent children – but rejoice in them.

Image credit: Wall Street Journal

It was King Solomon who observed, “The glory of young men is their strength, but the splendor of old men is their gray hair” (Proverbs 20:29).

Culture has long celebrated and championed youth, but we ignore seasoned citizens at our peril. Not only do the years and gray hairs often bring wisdom, but they also provide us with wonderful examples of pathways to emulate.

I was recently thinking about three conservative giants who once filled headlines, halls – and mailboxes. All three are now in their 90s. In varying degrees, they’ve understandably stepped back from the spotlight – but all are worth noting, remembering, and thanking before they head off to eternity and into history.

At one time, Dr. Thomas Sowell, age 95, Harvey Mansfield, age 93, and Richard Viguerie, age 92, all held prominent positions of significant influence in the conservative world. In fact, the current generation of leaders are standing on their shoulders.

Dr. Sowell, long considered one of the nation’s most influential thinkers, was born into a sharecropping family in North Carolina. He was orphaned and raised by a great aunt in Harlem. Learning to read by the age of 4, he grew up in the golden age of New York City despite the Great Depression.

“I cannot recall ever hearing a gunshot or even having to think about gunshots when I slept out on the fire escape on hot summer nights,” he reflected.

Sowell joined the Marines, went to Harvard, Columbia University, and then earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. After all that liberal indoctrination he became a Marxist, but eventually saw the light.

“The vision of the left — and I think many conservatives underestimate this — is really a more attractive vision,” he said. “The only reason for not believing in it, is that it doesn’t work … I stopped being a Marxist after the facts stopped adding up.”

Before making his mark at Stanford’s Hoover Institution for over four decades, Dr. Sowell taught at Cornell University, Rutgers University, Amherst College, Brandeis University and UCLA.

As an academic and nationally syndicated columnist, Sowell influenced legions of politicians and citizens. He has regularly stressed the importance of prioritizing outcomes over intentions. Whether decrying Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal or Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society,” he points out the old adage: the pathway to hell is paved with good intentions.

Dr. Harvey Mansfield began teaching at Harvard in 1963 and only recently retired in 2023. Best known for teaching political philosophy, his conservatism was a rarity on the left-leaning campus.

Born into an academic family, Dr. Mansfield’s father taught political science at Yale and Ohio State. The young Mansfield was a liberal when he arrived at Harvard as a student but began his journey to a conservative perspective after reading the work of the political philosopher Leo Strauss. As a professor, Mansfield taught extensively about Machiavelli, Tocqueville, and Edmund Burke, and how their philosophies helped shape American political thought.

Dr. Mansfield’s “Masculinity” book advanced the biblical concept that the two genders are unique and healthy. He believes manly men take risks and take charge. Real men pursue greatness.

At 92, Richard Viguerie, best known for pioneering direct mail fundraising in conservative circles, is still working. Chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, the talented writer remains committed to educating and mobilizing citizens in a lifelong quest to advance pro-family and pro-freedom ideals.

Considered a modern-day Thomas Paine, Viguerie began his consulting and conservative strategy career in the early 1960s. His early clients included the Anti‐Communist Book Club, the National Rifle Association’s Legal Foundation and countless conservative politicians.

All told, it’s been estimated that Richard Viguerie mailed over four billion fundraising letters for clients. His techniques helped inspire grassroots activism and propelled like-minded candidates into office. Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House, has said, “Richard understands the values that help our government and economy serve the interests of the people.  And he knows how to put those values into action.”

Life moves quickly and figures and personalities can pass even more rapidly from the public square. But never forget that everything affects everything else. Yesterday shaped today – and today will shape tomorrow. We give thanks for the long lives of Drs. Sowell and Mansfield, as well as the creativity and ingenuity of Richard Viguerie.

Image credit: Hoover Institute