Australia’s Largest Christian News Site

Fox News suddenly let go of conservative commentator Tucker Carlson last week, despite him bringing consistently high ratings to the network.

There may not be an explicit reason for this move, but considering the nature of Carlson’s monologues, it offers another recent example of corporate media cracking down on discourse on ‘unpopular’ topics that may actually be of public interest – from civil liberties and indoctrination-education to the depravity of abortion and Big Pharma.

Many reports and commentaries have already surfaced since the news broke out on April 24. But let’s take a deep dive into Carlson’s last address before his split with Fox News – an honest, hopeful speech at the Heritage Foundation’s 50th anniversary gala on April 22 – and particularly his remarks on the culture war, the importance of prayer and his Christian faith.

“The Truth is Contagious”

Carlson began his speech by recalling his first job as a fact-checker and copy editor at the Heritage Foundation’s magazine Policy Review, which paid only $14,000 a year but “absolutely changed my life”.

The job helped put Carlson on a “trajectory” to become one of America’s most eminent and brilliant conservative commentators, but it all starts with telling the truth.

“Once you say one true thing and stick with it, all kinds of other true things occur to you. The truth is contagious. Lying is, but the truth is as well. And the second you decide to tell the truth about something, you are filled with this – I don’t want to get supernatural on you – but you are filled with this power from somewhere else.

Try it. Tell the truth about something. You feel it every day. The more you tell the truth, the stronger you become. That’s completely real. It’s measurable in the way that you feel.

And of course, the opposite is also true. The more you lie, the weaker and more terrified you become. We all know that feeling. You lie about something, and all of a sudden, you’re a prisoner of that lie. You are diminished by it. You are weak and afraid.”

But oftentimes, to tell the truth means to stand alone – to stand up courageously when everyone else is sitting down in comfort or fear.

“Every man is trained from birth to fantasise about what he would do when the building catches fire, and you hear a baby crying. You run inside.

No one is trained to stand up in the middle of a [diversity, equity and inclusion] meeting at Citibank and say, “This is nonsense.” And the people who do that, oh, they have my deepest admiration.”

Good Versus Evil

Subsequently, telling and standing up for the truth often requires discussing contentious topics – such as transgenderism and abortion – and pushing back against Western culture’s rampant promotion of these ideologies at every institutional level.

Carlson notes that this promotion of a corrupt creed – one that directly violates established biological and moral truth and hides under the guise of ‘compassion’ and ‘progression’ – is ultimately advocating for humanity’s destruction.

“If you have people who are saying, ‘I have an idea. Let’s castrate the next generation. Let’s sexually mutilate children.’ I’m sorry, that’s not a political debate. What? That’s nothing to do with politics. What’s the outcome we’re desiring here? An androgynous population? Are we arguing for that? I don’t think anyone could defend that as a positive outcome, but the weight of the government and a lot of corporate interests are behind that…

If you’re telling me that abortion is a positive good, what are you saying? Well, you’re arguing for child sacrifice, obviously. It’s not about, oh, a teen girl gets pregnant, and what do we do about that and victims of rape. I get it. Of course, I understand that, and I have compassion for everyone involved.

But when the Treasury secretary stands up and says, “You know what you can do to help the economy? Get an abortion.” Well, that’s like an Aztec principle, actually. There’s not a society in history that didn’t practice human sacrifice…

And that’s kind of the point I’m making. None of this makes sense in conventional political terms. When people, or crowds of people, or the largest crowd of people at all, which is the federal government, the largest human organisation in human history decide that the goal is to destroy things, destruction for its own sake, ‘Hey, let’s tear it down,’ what you’re watching is not a political movement. It’s evil.”

One aspect that keeps the culture war raging is the increasing ambiguity of what is good and what is evil as understood by modern society – the mere ignorance or indifference to what constitutes one or the other, to the point where the lines seem so irreversibly blurred. The prophet Isaiah wrote in the Old Testament:

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20 RSVCE)

But the concept of good and evil is so simple, so dichotomous that the difference should be inherently understood. If one’s conscience was not so corrupted, it is goodness that is ingrained in our deepest desires. Carlson said:

“Good is characterised by order, calmness, tranquility, peace – whatever you want to call it – lack of conflict, cleanliness. Cleanliness is next to godliness. It’s true. It is.

And evil is characterised by their opposites. Violence, hate, disorder, division, disorganisation, and filth. So, if you are all-in on the things that produce the latter basket of outcomes, what you’re really advocating for is evil.”

The Power of Prayer

Perhaps, Carlson suggests, the best way to respond to the destructive state of society or to navigate through endless political debates is to switch off the noise for a moment and turn to prayer.

“I don’t pray enough for the country, and I should, but the answer is to include the country in your prayers…

Maybe we should all take just 10 minutes a day to say a prayer about it. I’m serious. Why not?

And I’m saying that to you not as some kind of evangelist, I’m literally saying that to you as an Episcopalian, the Samaritans of our time. I’m coming to you from the most humble and lowly theological position you can. I’m literally an Episcopalian. And even I have concluded it might be worth taking just 10 minutes out of your busy schedule to say a prayer for the future, and I hope you will.”

Let’s do just that.

The Canberra Declaration is participating in the GO 2023 global outreach movement during the month of May. Sign up to receive daily devotions and join the team in prayer every night on Zoom at 8pm from May 1 to 31.

Let’s pray that today’s secular and evil-glorifying culture will be converted to the light, love and truth of Jesus Christ. Let’s pray for our own continued conversion, for our families and loved ones, for future generations, for the conversion of the whole world and especially for the renewal of Australia.

___

Photo: Screenshot via Heritage Foundation/YouTube.