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The Ball’s in Whose Court?

Earlier this week, in an attempt to recover $2.5 billion in federal funding, Harvard University took the Trump administration to court. This started a few weeks ago when the president called on institutions of higher learning to crack down on antisemitism on their campuses. Harvard was specifically warned that if they did not make changes, they would lose federal funding.  

In a letter to Harvard’s wider community, the school’s president painted the threat as a challenge to academic freedom: 

“No government — regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue. “

Former President Obama inserted himself into the conversation, posting on X: 

Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions—rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking concrete steps to make sure all students at Harvard can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect. Let’s hope other institutions follow suit. 

As Andrew Walker pointed out, it’s odd that someone who attempted to force nuns to pay for contraception would position himself as “a vanguard of the First Amendment.” But the former president also once said that he could always get things done because, “I have a pen, and I have a phone.”  

Well, now, both of those things are in the hands of a different administration. The IRS is even considering revoking Harvard’s tax-exempt status. And it’s not just Harvard on the receiving end. According to Ballotpedia, President Trump has issued some 171 similar executive orders, 45 memoranda, and proclamations on policies ranging from trade, healthcare, immigration, energy, and criminal justice. 

In response to one of President Trump’s posts about Harvard, Constitutional lawyer and First Amendment defender Casey Mattox wisely advised caution.

“The prior Administration and various lefty groups literally tried to do this. They failed. We should not give them the tools to succeed.” 

He’s got a point. For the last few decades, Christians and conservatives barely fought off attempts by progressives to squash all dissent. Thankfully, there are strong legal and traditional protections for conscience grounded in the Constitution. But make no mistake, the next president will be more than happy to use any precedent set by former office holders, whether Obama or Trump. 

Breakpoint contributor Dr. Glenn Sunshine has pointed out that the infamous Machiavelli, a name now shorthand for tyranny, was actually a strong advocate for freedom. His call for an all-powerful Prince was not argued as an ideal, but as political triage. Things were so bad that only an unlimited ruler could make them right. Ideally, the Prince would hand power back over once the crisis passed. But, of course, it never works that way. As Lord Acton said, “Power corrupts and absolute power absolutely.” 

The rule of law is essential for flourishing, but not for keeping one party perpetually out of power. The realities of the human condition in this post-Fall world mean that no one should be trusted with unchecked power. Our nation’s founders understood that if people were angels, government would not be necessary, and if politicians were perfect, neither would restraints. 

None of this means that Harvard deserves tax dollars or tax breaks. Only that there are reasons for our rules and the restraints on power. If you win by executive order, you can die from executive order, four years later. 

Legalization of Same-Sex Marriage Harms Children and Society

As June marked the 10th anniversary of the legal de-sexing of marriage through the landmark U.S. Supreme Court Obergefell v. Hodges decision, all citizens of good will should consider how this ruling has impacted humanity through children.

We must recognize that the case for same-sex marriage was always about the same-sex family. No one who advocated for this radical redefinition of marriage and family ever considered this was just about adults. It was always about the kinds of homes children in same-sex families would grow up in and how redefining marriage would change family itself.

The journal First Things has a very helpful, short essay explaining just how de-sexing marriage and family by removing the essential male/female binary has harmed children. It is authored by John Bursch, vice president of appellate advocacy at Alliance Defending Freedom and argued against Obergefell before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015.

Bursch explains, “Marriage, as I argued, has always served a vital function: binding children to their biological mothers and fathers whenever possible. The government’s interest in marriage has never been about adult companionship.”

This is because “the state’s interest in marriage has always been about creating a stable environment in which children can know and be raised by the two people who co-created them.”

That biological, emotional and societal connection serves as the foundation for all civilizations, as Aristotle long ago explained, is not a private preference, but a public good. Obergefell radically transformed marriage and the family into an adult-centric institution based on peculiar adult sexual desires and feelings, claiming it as a fundamental constitutional right. Bursch holds this “effectively eras[ed] the longstanding understanding of marriage as child-centered.”

An examination of the Latin root of the word matrimony or mātrimōnium establishes this ancient and universal meaning of marriage. Mater-monium is the recognition of and provision for the maternal needs, protection and care of mother and child by the father. This is what marriage has been across human history and diverse cultures for profound reasons.

In contrast, Bursch notes,

Most significantly, children are increasingly being brought into the world through practices that intentionally separate them from one or both biological parents, such as anonymous sperm or egg donation and commercial surrogacy. In other words, the law, influenced by Obergefell’s logic, now often prioritizes the desires of adults over the needs of children to know their mother and father.

Every child that same-sex families include are intentionally, by design, denied the very mother or father whose DNA and maternal or paternal parentage these children share, simply to meet experimental adult wishes. Further, these separations a created through the exchange of money. This is always unjust.

Bursch adds, “A just society must be willing to ask hard questions: not only, ‘What do adults want?’ but, “What do children need?” Modern society frequently focuses on the wrong question. We must confront the reality that children need their mother and father, together, whenever possible.”

Bursch ends his important essay with this essential and prophetic observation: “Obergefell may be the law, but it is not the end of the conversation.”

He compels us “to advocate for an understanding of marriage that serves the common good, one that remembers that every child begins with a mother and a father, and that society has an obligation to support that connection wherever possible.”

This is precisely why Focus on the Family will continue to work hard, and encourage others, to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges – so that marriage and family are returned to the rightful understanding of being about mothers, fathers and their children.

Afterall, there is no tomorrow for humanity without this essential societal good.

Image from Shutterstock.

Two Catholics Acquitted of Blasphemy Charges in Pakistan

Last week, two young Catholics in Pakistan were acquitted of false blasphemy charges in a case that has been ongoing for the past two years.

On July 8, a magistrate in Lahore exonerated 20-year-old Adil Babar and 16-year-old Simon Nadeem of their charges under Pakistan’s harsh blasphemy laws – specifically Section 295-A, which punishes “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feeling” with up to 10 years in prison.

Naseeb Anjum, Pakistan’s Supreme Court Advocate, stated:

The court finally admitted our argument that it could not take cognizance of the offense under Section 295-A without the approval of the federal or provincial governments.

The case was originally filed by Zahid Sohail on May 18, 2023 when the boys were engaged in “light-hearted banter” outside Babar’s home. Sohail passed by and later claimed he overheard the boys laughing and “disrespecting” Muhammad.

According to Babar’s father:

Sohail started beating Simon, and when Adil tried to save him, Sohail attacked him too.

Both boys flatly denied Sohail’s allegation and said they had said nothing that involved a mention of the Muslim prophet. 

When local elders of the neighborhood asked Sohail to substantiate his accusation, he failed to satisfy them and left.

Later that evening, officers from Race Course police station arrested both Babar and Nadeem due to Sohail’s blasphemy accusations. Babar’s father stated:

We were shocked to learn the contents of the First Information Report (FIR) in which Sohail alleged that Simon had called a puppy “Muhammad Ali,” and both boys then joked about it.

No one in our street has dogs, and neither was there a puppy in the street when this incident took place.

Sohail cooked up a false accusation against our children after failing to convince the locals about his earlier allegation.

Naseeb Anjum further commented on the case, stating:

The false accusation of blasphemy against the two boys caused religious tension in the Qurban Lines neighborhood, and their families were forced to relocate to other areas due to security fears.

There’s a dire need to make procedural reforms in cases involving blasphemy to protect the victims, a majority of whom are declared innocent after years of court proceedings and imprisonment.

Accusations and rumors of blasphemy in Pakistan have the potential to provoke riots and killings by Muslim mobs. In 2024 alone, a rights watchdog tallied 344 new blasphemy cases in Pakistan – a record high.

In their annual Human Rights Observer 2025 report, the Center for Social Justice stated:

The blatant weaponization of blasphemy laws continued to enable persecution, religious intolerance and widespread human rights violations.

According to the report, at least 2,793 people have been accused of blasphemy in Pakistan between 1987 and 2024. It also recorded the killings of at least 104 people due to blasphemy allegations from 1994 to 2024.

As of 2025, Pakistan is ranked the eighth most difficult place to be a Christian on Open Doors International’s World Watch List.

While we may rejoice that two young Christians, Babar and Naseem, were acquitted of their charges, let us pray for others who are continually persecuted for their faith around the world.

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To Be Silent is to Be Complicit

In recent days (and within days), the British Parliament rushed through legislation to legalize medically assisted death for terminally ill adults and passed a bill to “decriminalize” late-term abortion. Led by the increasingly extremist Labour party who are enabled by the moral confusion of a supposedly Conservative opposition, Britain is, as C.S. Lewis warned, progressing in the wrong direction. In response, Peter Hitchens asked, “Parliament votes for the abortion of the old, shortly after voting for the even more ruthless abortion of the unborn. Are we now ruled by a death cult?” 

Speaking against bills like this is a bare minimum requirement of following Christ today. As Stanley Hauerwas has often challenged, “In a hundred years, if Christians are people identified as those who do not kill their children or their elderly, we will have been doing something right.” In the U.K. however, with few qualified exceptions, there’s been mainly silence. As Andrew Walker quipped, “The Church of England: proudly offering chaplaincy services to a culture it lost, a Parliament it is cravenly established to, and sermons to laws it won’t challenge.” 

The Church of England is not alone in this guilt. In 2008, with important exceptions, efforts to equip and mobilize Colorado pastors to oppose doctor assisted suicide failed. Those of us working on the issue were told it was too political for the pulpit. The bill passed overwhelmingly. Now, of course, the state of Colorado is pushing legislation that would not only allow children to be permanently harmed by puberty blockers and hormone treatments without parental consent but force citizens to participate in various ways. Fifteen years ago, I doubt many pastors would have said that state-sponsored sexual abuse of children was “too political” to speak out on, but many of the same voices remain quiet today. 

In fact, in the years between 2008 and today, some pastors and Christian leaders did take more of a stand on the issue of same-sex marriage. Many said that they would never be coerced by the government to officiate same-sex weddings or to hold ceremonies in their church. Unfortunately, many never made the connection that if pastors shouldn’t be forced to participate in a same-sex “wedding,” then neither should parishioners be forced to bake a cake, arrange flowers, or design a website for one.

But, as it turned out, it was the parishioners who were asked, and then harassed, and then threatened, to participate. Tragically, some were abandoned by their church families while their pastors stayed away from the mess. Missed along the way was the revolutionary idea recaptured during the Protestant Reformation that our work belongs to God, whether considered sacred or ordinary. This is the idea of vocation, that all callings are sacred. If true, then pastors should speak up for those working outside of church walls as much as inside.  

On the most recent culturally divisive issue, there were loud and courageous voices. J.K. Rowling advocated for women on social media. Chloe Cole told her own story of deception and abuse, speaking up as a detransitioner harmed by progressive medical interventions as a minor. Riley Gaines loudly protested not only how she and other women swimmers were treated unfairly but also how they were subjected to privacy violations by the NCAA.  

There were others, and the story has yet to be fully told. But did enough pastors and Christian leaders speak out? More importantly, how many parents were abandoned because the topic was “too political”? How many Christian voices spoke out but then were told to stay out of it? 

In addition to a theology of getting fired, perhaps it’s time for a theology of saying what’s unpopular. Rather than allowing everything we say to turn on the hypothetical risk that it will “turn people away,” perhaps we should ask what it will mean to not live by lies? Perhaps we need to consider where the good intention of not offending people devolves into accommodating what “itching ears” want to hear. 

In James 3, the Apostle wrote that “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” Most of the time, this means what not to say. But there’s also the reality that such leaders have been called to a particular time and place, “for such a time as this,” to speak God’s truth to God’s world.  

Pastoral leadership is always needed, but especially now. In the U.K., little else can keep the current British parliament from going down in history as the “Death Parliament.” Everywhere else, it’s a matter of God’s people testifying to what is true. We ought always speak the truth in love, but that can never be done unless we actually speak the Truth.

Baylor University Rescinds LGBT Inclusion Grant, But Problems Remain

Daily Citizen received a note from the Baylor’s Assistant Vice President of Media and Public Relations late Wednesday afternoon informing us “that Baylor University has rescinded the grant on which you reported.”

We explained,

On June 30, Baylor University announced its Center for Church and Community Impact (C3I) in its School of Social Work was awarded a substantial $643,401 grant from the Eula Mae and John Baugh Foundation to help “better understand the disenfranchisement and exclusion of LGBTQIA+ individuals and women within congregations to nurture institutional courage and foster change.”

Baylor’s Media and Public Relations office also sent Daily Citizen a link to Baylor President Linda A. Livingstone’s “message to the Baylor family” on the decision to return “all associated funds to the granting foundation.”

President Livingstone helpfully notes the funded research project was “for perspectives on human sexuality that are inconsistent with Baylor’s institutional policies, including our Statement on Human Sexuality.”

She adds,

We recognize that this situation has caused concern and confusion for many within the Baylor Family and among our broader community of churches, partner organizations, and supporters. This has been a learning opportunity for many involved in this situation, and we aim to work alongside our college and school leaders, faculty, and research community, particularly during these challenging times for higher education.

She adds, “We affirm the biblical understanding of human sexuality as a gift from God, expressed through purity in singleness and fidelity in marriage between a man and a woman.”

But at the same time, earlier in the letter, President Livingstone asserts,

We remain committed to providing a loving and caring community for all – including our LGBTQIA+ students – because it is part and parcel of our University’s mission that calls us to educate our students within a caring Christian community.

Loving and caring for all students who come to a university to study and grow is critical. No one should ever be mistreated while an institution seeks to hold fast to the biblical norm of human sexuality. Nor should a Christian institution casually adopt the specific language of an ideology that is directly opposed to what a university says it stands for on sexuality and marriage.

 Baylor, nor any other university in the world, has any “LGBTQIA+ students.” “LGBT” people do not exist. It is logically impossible for anyone to be all of those letters.

What exists are individual people who have various struggles with their sexual understanding of themselves and each of their stories are different. Unfortunately, this is the human condition after the Fall and prior to God’s complete restoration of all things. Individuals should be thoughtfully addressed as such, rather than lumped under an incoherent and meaningless political construct that describes no one. Those letters don’t and cannot represent any real person or group because most of them are mutually exclusive and represent radically conflicting concepts.

Baylor Lit Professor Misapplies Jesus’ Words to Defend LGBT Inclusion

A Baylor professor, Dr. Greg Garrett, who holds the Carole Hanks Chair of Literature and Culture recently took to social media to defend the very research grant Baylor has now wisely rejected.

Garrett stated, “I can only say: I serve the Jesus who said ‘If you’ve loved the least of these, you’ve loved me.’ Grateful for this grant that will help us love better.”

His university has now thankfully expressed a very different and proper view on what is loving. And as a literature professor, Garrett should certainly understand the necessity of proper textual interpretation.

Jesus’ statement of “What you did to the least of these, you did to me” which professor Garrett employs is from Matthew 25. This is Jesus’ discourse on the Final Judgement and His separating the sheep from the goats.

It is anything but an “inclusive” text. Jesus is referring approvingly to those who meet the basic survival needs of others, things like food, water, and clothing. Sexual and gender experimentation are certainly not basic human needs that Christians are commanded by our Lord to meet and satisfy. Quite the opposite.

Baylor’s grant rescission indicates they agree.

The celebrated Yale moral theologian, H. Richard Niebuhr, famously denounced professor Garrett’s elastic theology in his book The Kingdom of God in America (1937) as “naively optimistic” liberalism proclaiming, “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgement through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross… all fulfillment of promise without judgement.”

Daily Citizen has updated our original story on Baylor’s foundation gift to note their praiseworthy rescission.

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