The Death of Evil Men

In April of 2025, former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage died. Given that his was not a household name his death didn't receive a lot of coverage though most major outlets picked up the story. He had played an important role in the Bush administration serving as Colin Powell's #2. Previously he had held other second tier positions within Republican politics. He was probably best known for his connections to the Vietnam War. Armitage played a prominent role in the 2014 PBS film Last Days in Vietnam, as well as the 2025 Netflix Turning Point series on the war.

Charlie Kirk is not a Christian Martyr

It's hardly surprising to watch the Right turn Kirk into a martyr. It's also obvious the White House is hoping to gain traction from this death. It's turning the conversation away from the Epstein scandal and Trump's sordid connections to that evil. Hegseth is using Kirk's death to clamp down on dissent in the military. Federal workers that have been justifiably outraged over Trump's order to lower flags and said so in social media posts have led to their firings. The Right-wing media machine is in full swing - the legend is already being created and history is being re-written. The already violent political campaign and ongoing cultural purge is set to increase. A weaponized justice system is ready. In good Orwellian fashion, the destruction of Cancel Culture will be pursued by its own Right-wing version of the same.

20 July 1944, Franklin Graham, and the Manipulation of Providence

Eighty years ago today a bomb exploded at the Wolf's Lair in East Prussia killing four men. The intended target, Adolf Hitler survived by a hair's breadth - as by a miracle. Operation Valkyrie, the plot to assassinate the Führer and overthrow his regime had failed.

A Dominionist-Evangelical Distortion of Haiti's Sad History

https://www.breakpoint.org/helping-haiti-with-our-heads-and-hearts/

Haiti has been in the news more than once in 2021. Unrest, assassination, an earthquake, and now the kidnapping of US-based missionaries, Haiti is all but associated with chaos, turmoil, grinding poverty, and corruption. The cultural commentators want to weigh in and John Stonestreet of BreakPoint and The Colson Center recently offered his own Evangelical assessment, his own take on the Haitian situation.

Afghanistan and the Fall of Saigon

In recent days while reflecting on Afghanistan and the US withdrawal, I have thought more and more of Vietnam and what happened there in 1975. I was prompted to revisit the 2014 PBS film Last Days in Vietnam which was aired at the end of April 2015 – the fortieth anniversary of the fall of Saigon.

The Evangelical Worldview and the Legend of GHW Bush

At work I will often turn on the ostensibly Christian radio station at noon to hear the news reported from a Christian worldview. Of course in keeping with the tone and tenor of American Evangelicalism it's often anything but and often engaged in not only a twisting and spinning of current events but of the Scriptures themselves.

But this week was over the top. With the death of Bush, it seemed the whole of American media was obsessed in memorialising the ex-president. The Mainstream wished and even overtly laboured to juxtapose his 'dignified' manner with that of the barbarism displayed by the current White House occupant.

Deep State Conspiracies: Not in the Anglo-American West

A couple of weeks ago I finished listening to Owen Bennett-Jones' BBC series on the Benazir Bhutto assassination. I enjoyed it and learned a few things. In typical fashion, it ignored certain aspects of the context and larger story but that is to be expected.