Viral videos on Sydney Sweeney's alternative account have revealed the actress has a passion for restoring classic cars.
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Years ago, my wife and I walked into a Nashville restaurant and found every waiting bench occupied. Young men took up many of the seats.
Gracie was using two canes. Her prosthetic legs were clearly visible. The young men appeared oblivious.
If our manners depend on applause, we have more learning to do ourselves.
“Which of you is going to offer her your seat?” I asked pointedly. Embarrassed, they all jumped up. They recognized what the moment required once someone brought it to their attention. Embarrassment can be a good teacher.
But boys shouldn’t have to wait for a stranger in a restaurant to teach them consideration. Men can teach those lessons much earlier, often through gestures so ordinary that a boy absorbs them before he understands their meaning. Removing a hat is one of them.
In 1 Corinthians 11:4, Paul addresses men praying with their heads covered. For generations, Christian men removed their hats during prayer and in church. Women followed a different tradition, rooted in the same passage. A woman’s Sunday hat and her husband’s uncovered head could both express reverence.
Military and civilian customs also made uncovering a gesture of respect. In 1745, the Coldstream Guards instructed soldiers to salute by bringing their hands to their hats and bowing rather than removing them, helping shape the modern hand salute. The Emily Post Institute still advises men to uncover during worship, meals, and the national anthem.
I learned the gesture before I learned the history. My father wore a Navy captain’s cap adorned with an eagle. When he entered a building, he removed it and cradled it in his hand. He didn’t announce that he was demonstrating respect. I just watched him do it.
I’ve seen men remove their hats as funeral processions passed, honoring people whose names they didn’t know. At gravesides, they stood bareheaded beside grieving families. They didn’t need an introduction to recognize someone else’s sorrow.
From my usual perch at the church piano, I’ve watched younger men arrive for worship or funerals with their hats still on. Some may dismiss the custom. Others may never have been taught.
In a country arguing over what a woman is, perhaps we ought to spend some time teaching boys what a man is. Particularly a gentleman.
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Peter Rosenberger
Holding a door for a woman is another place to start. Any door. Most women respond graciously. Occasionally, one responds derisively or remains absorbed in her phone. Hold it anyway. Her response needn’t dictate your manners.
My father expected that courtesy of me. If our manners depend on applause, we have more learning to do ourselves.
I taught my sons to stand when a woman leaves or returns to the table and to help seat her. When I extend my hand for a handshake, I remove my glove. Even in a Montana winter, though I try to keep the introductions brief.
One of my sons told me how sad he finds it that so many in his generation, and the one following, struggle with basic introductions: shaking a hand, looking someone in the eye, and speaking clearly. Those moments can open a friendship, begin a job interview, or help someone feel welcome. Boys need men willing to practice with them.
Why do these things? Because consideration ought to require something of us. We rise from a comfortable chair. We pause to hold a door. We expose a hand to the cold to greet someone properly. We recognize that “Yeah” is a poor replacement for “Yes, sir” or “Yes, ma’am.”
Sometimes we surrender a restaurant bench to a woman standing on prosthetic legs.
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Karla Ann Cote/NurPhoto/Getty Images
Some boys have no father at home. Some grown men never had one to teach them either. Grandfathers, uncles, pastors, coaches, and neighbors can pass along what someone once taught them. When necessary, a stranger can speak up too.
Keeping males out of women’s sports is only part of the work. Being male doesn’t automatically make someone a gentleman. We have to teach boys what mature manhood requires, and expect it of grown men: consideration, restraint, and a willingness to put someone else’s needs ahead of our own.
Those lessons take shape in small gestures, repeated until they become habits. A seat offered. A door held. A hat removed.
After moving to Montana, we attended our first rodeo in the community. The announcer asked the men to remove their hats. As I remember it, he called them “lids.”
The invocation echoed through the stands, and we remained standing for the national anthem. Beyond the grounds rose the purple, snowcapped Rockies. A woman on horseback carried the American flag as the crowd joined in singing. Cowboy hats and a few ball caps rested over hearts.
That rodeo reminded me these values are still being taught. A little boy stood in boots and jeans with his cowboy hat over his heart. Someone had taught him. Around him stood men modeling the same lesson.
Sometimes the way back is paying attention to the small things.
Over the summer, an archeological team led by Turkish archaeologist Cenker Atila in partnership with the U.S. group Noah’s Ark Scans began drilling and scanning the long-known boat-shaped Durupınar mound near Mount Ararat in Turkey.
The hundreds of soil samples they collected are still being tested in labs. Thus far, however, there has been no proof it’s Noah’s ark, despite a wave of headlines and social media posts claiming the ark had been found.
Dr. Jeremiah Johnston — a New Testament scholar who has written extensively on biblical artifacts, including the Shroud of Turin, the James Ossuary, and Dead Sea Scrolls — joined BlazeTV host and pastor of Lakepointe Church Josh Howerton.
Howerton begins with a straightforward question: “Why haven't they just dug the thing up yet?”
“I wish they would. If you have a half-million dollars, I'll go there and start excavating today,” Johnston jokes.
One of the main reasons the ark hasn’t been excavated, he explains, is because the nation of Turkey is predominantly Muslim.
“They want you to go to Konya and see the whirling dervishes. They want you to go see Muhammad's beard and cry over that. …So there is a resistance from the government to anything that would confirm the biblical narrative for Christianity and Judaism,” he tells Howerton.
Johnston suspects that the archeological team likely had to resort to “bribery” just to conduct scans and collect samples. “I'm sure they've had to pay a few people off just to get the exceptions to do it,” he says.
But even without a proper excavation, there are several facts Howerton says have people believing that the ark is indeed Noah’s, most notably: The length and width of the Durupınar formation is consistent with biblical measurements for the ark; the location (near Mount Ararat) is consistent with the Bible’s description of where Noah’s ark landed; ancient pottery fragments were discovered near the formation; and the Arzap stones — large upright stones with holes drilled near the top — were found in villages near the Durupınar formation, which some believe to be drogue anchors (weights) from the ark.
Howerton points out that the evidence has been convincing enough for some outlets to report that the Durupınar formation has been “100% confirmed” to be Noah’s Ark.
The following day, the official Noah’s Ark Scans account posted: “We are 100% sure that the Daily Mail will come under fire for this headline. But knowing what we know now, we are also 100% sure that they are not going to have to issue a retraction. We will be releasing more information soon.”
Johnson takes a cautiously hopeful approach.
“I want to see what all of the evidence actually has to say,” he says, “and so I'm all for digging. I'm all for finding it.”
“I hope that we find parts of Noah's ark someday in our lifetime. … I believe we're living in a time, thanks to technology, where there is a controlled revelation based on technology where God is using the stones to cry out that totally authenticate the Word of God. It's the most exciting time ever to be a Christian,” he continues.
However, there are still many questions to be answered.
“We got to have discernment,” says Johnston, citing 1 Thessalonians 5:20’s directive to "Prove all things."
“Durupınar is named after the captain that saw it. He went back in 1960 to Durupınar and studied it with geologists, who concluded that it is a freak of nature. It is a natural geological formation, not Noah's ark,” he says.
Further, the formation, he explains, is in a “valley” of the Ararat Mountains, not on the peaks, as scripture indicates, meaning “there’s an elevation issue.”
Thirdly, the reigning consensus among archeologists, both secular and Christian, is that the Durupınar formation is not Noah’s ark.
“Archaeology is a full-contact sport,” says Johnston.
“To get an archaeologist to agree with another archaeologist is a miracle. The one thing that 100% of credentialed archaeologists agree on is that Durupınar is not the site of Noah's ark.”
To hear all the reasons why the long-standing view among geologists and archaeologists who have studied the site is that the Durupınar formation is a natural geological feature, and not the remains of a wooden vessel or Noah’s ark, watch the episode above.
Join BlazeTV+ and start watching Josh Howerton today at blazetv.com/JOSH. Use promo code JOSH to get $20 off your subscription.
In May 2007, Kirk Cameron went on national television to do something 2,000 years of Christian theology had somehow failed to do: prove the existence of God "100%, absolutely, without the use of faith."
Cameron, long removed from "Growing Pains" and working as an evangelical apologist, was appearing with evangelist Ray Comfort on ABC's "Nightline." Facing them were Brian Sapient and a woman identified as Kelly from the Rational Response Squad, an atheist group best known for encouraging people to post videos denying the Holy Spirit.
An easier opponent might accept the task of defending moral relativism. Kagan didn't; he simply denied that atheism required him to do any such thing.
"Proving the existence of God is actually a lot easier than you think," Cameron announced, with the confidence of someone about to produce the Holy Grail from his carry-on luggage.
Christians have been arguing with unbelievers since Paul encountered the Epicureans and Stoics in Athens. And ever since Paul's preaching made a guy doze off and fall three stories from a window, the results have been mixed.
That doesn't make atheism true. It doesn't even necessarily mean the atheist had the better argument. A Christian can be defending something true and still lose badly — by promising too much, preparing for the wrong opponent, losing his temper, putting words in the other man's mouth, or asking evidence to prove more than it can.
Here are five examples worth studying.
1. Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort: Don't overpromise
At least nobody could accuse Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort of hiding their lamps under a bushel — even if they could have used a little more oil.
After seeing an ABC report on the Rational Response Squad, Comfort contacted "Nightline" and proposed a public debate. "We cannot only prove that God exists," he wrote, "but we can prove that the atheist doesn't."
By the time Cameron delivered his opening statement, the undertaking had become even more ambitious. "We'd like to show you that the existence of God can be proven, 100%, absolutely, without the use of faith."
Cameron then promised to expose evolution as a "fairy tale for grownups."
Even if Cameron and Comfort had somehow demolished Darwinian evolution that night, God would not automatically follow. And even a successful argument for a creator still leaves some distance between "something caused the universe" and "Jesus Christ rose from the dead."
Comfort proceeded with arguments familiar to anyone who has encountered his evangelistic ministry: A painting implies a painter; a building implies a builder; creation implies a Creator.
Those arguments can be debated. What Comfort could not plausibly do in 90 minutes was deliver what Cameron had promised: absolute scientific proof of God without faith. Unless adding "100%, absolutely" to your assertions counts as science.
Christian reaction afterward was not uniformly charitable. Contemporary Christian reporting quoted believers who thought Cameron and Comfort had arrived badly underprepared. Pastor Marty Duren's verdict was especially concise: The duo had gotten "completely shellacked."
At least they didn't bring a banana.
2. Dinesh D'Souza: Don't debate an opponent who isn't there
By the time Dinesh D'Souza faced New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman at the University of North Carolina in 2009, he had developed a solid playbook for sparring with "New Atheists" like Christopher Hitchens.
And that was the problem. Ehrman wasn't Hitchens or Richard Dawkins. He wasn't even, strictly speaking, an atheist. He was an agnostic who had once been an evangelical Christian and gradually lost his faith. The problem of suffering played an especially important role in that journey.
Jason Staples, a Christian biblical scholar who attended the debate, described what followed as a "beatdown."
D'Souza, Staples wrote immediately afterward, seemed to be working from material meant for "an atheist such as Hitchens" and appeared "entirely unfamiliar with the perspective Ehrman would present." "After an adequate opening," Staples said, D'Souza struggled badly during the questions, while Ehrman remained comfortably within the case he had come to make.
The mismatch produced awkward moments. D'Souza attacked atheistic explanations of morality and treated Ehrman as though he were asserting that God did not exist.
"You keep referring to atheists, which I would consider myself to be an agnostic," Ehrman reminded him, as D'Souza's canned responses failed to engage with Ehrman's case about the sheer amount of apparently pointless suffering in the world.
3. William Lane Craig: Don’t smuggle in a premise you still have to prove
William Lane Craig is no Kirk Cameron. The philosopher and Christian apologist has spent decades debating prominent atheists and is widely regarded — including by many opponents — as exceptionally good at it.
Which makes his 2009 encounter with Yale philosopher Shelly Kagan all the more interesting.
The subject was whether God is necessary for morality. Craig's argument begins with a proposition many Christians find intuitively powerful: If God does not exist, what makes moral values and duties objectively true? Why is torturing a child actually wrong rather than merely something human beings strongly dislike?
An easier opponent might accept the task of defending moral relativism. Kagan didn't; he simply denied that atheism required him to do any such thing. Maybe objective morality existed and could be understood in terms of principles perfectly rational agents would agree upon, Kagan suggested. Whatever the ultimate account, he wasn't willing to concede that removing God from the equation removed objective morality with him.
Craig could no longer spend much time showing that relativism produced unacceptable consequences.
Kagan also pressed Craig on another argument: that without God, our actions ultimately come to nothing. Humanity disappears; the universe dies; none of it lasts. Kagan's rebuttal was wonderfully ordinary. His relationship with his wife doesn't become meaningless because both of them will someday be dead. A thing needn't last forever to matter.
Even Catholic apologist Trent Horn has singled Kagan out as an unusually formidable opponent, praising how thoroughly he had prepared and how effectively he was able to pin Craig down.
Craig later qualified his loss by explaining that Veritas Forum organizers had specifically asked for a friendly dialogue rather than a "knock-down debate," and he continued to reject Kagan's proposed foundations for morality.
Fair enough. But he still let Kagan expose a flaw common to many practiced debaters: becoming so good at defeating familiar positions that you stop noticing when the person across the table doesn't hold them.
4. Jonathan McLatchie: Don’t let anger lose the debate
Christian apologist Jonathan McLatchie debated prominent atheist Matt Dillahunty in 2020 over the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Unfortunately, he couldn't quite summon the Christ-like patience necessary to resist Dillahunty's Philistine-level baiting.
Dillahunty is an aggressive interlocutor who interrupts, challenges premises, and is not especially concerned with making his opponent comfortable. McLatchie became increasingly frustrated as Dillahunty rejected evidence McLatchie thought deserved serious consideration.
Finally, McLatchie had enough. "If you're just going to keep dismissing the evidence, then we're done," he said. Then he disappeared from the call.
Dillahunty looked momentarily surprised. "Oh, did he just leave?"
McLatchie eventually returned and apologized, explaining that he had become frustrated by Dillahunty's interruptions. Catholic apologist Trent Horn later replayed the incident as an object lesson for Christians considering public debate: With very few exceptions, quitting because you're angry makes you look bad.
What's interesting is that McLatchie didn't necessarily need rescuing on the substance. Christian writer James Bishop, reviewing the exchange from McLatchie's side, thought Dillahunty had behaved badly and believed McLatchie had the stronger arguments.
Once McLatchie walked out, none of that mattered very much.
5. William Lane Craig: Don’t ask evidence to prove too much
Craig's 2014 debate with Sean Carroll was a much more formidable affair.
The subject was "The Existence of God in Light of Contemporary Cosmology." Carroll wasn't a professional atheist who happened to have read some popular physics. He was a theoretical physicist and cosmologist at Caltech.
Craig knew this, of course. And unlike Cameron and Comfort, he was hardly wandering into unfamiliar intellectual territory. Craig had long appealed to evidence from modern physics in defense of the Kalam cosmological argument: Whatever begins to exist has a cause; the universe began to exist; therefore, the universe has a cause.
Among the evidence Craig invoked was the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem, which concerns the past incompleteness of certain expanding space-time models.
Carroll objected that Craig was making it carry too much weight. Where Craig treated BGV as important evidence that the universe had a beginning, Carroll emphasized that the theorem operates under particular assumptions and describes the limits of certain classical space-time models. It does not by itself establish that all physical reality came into existence at a first moment.
You don't have to take Carroll's word for it. Physicist Aron Wall later examined the debate in detail. Wall is a Christian, and Craig had invoked Wall's own work during the exchange. On BGV, however, Wall agreed with Carroll's crucial point.
The theorem's assumptions need not hold in every cosmological model, he wrote. There are models that contract and then expand. His conclusion was unusually clear: BGV "is not by itself particularly strong evidence for a beginning."
Craig didn't lose because Christians have no business discussing cosmology. The problem was simpler. A theorem can be correct and still establish less than the person citing it wants.
Christians believe truth is not merely useful but sacred. We therefore have less excuse than anyone for stretching an argument until it points in a direction we happen to like.
The atheist who catches us doing this hasn't disproved God — but he has done us a favor.