The 1619 Project has been controversial since its publication by the New York Times a year ago. While many on the left have praised it, with Oprah Winfrey even announcing plans to adapt the project into a television series, historians and those on the right have noted errors and call the collection of essays and poems revisionist history. Now, U.S. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) has proposed a bill seeking to ban public schools from teaching it as part of their curriculum.

While the project acknowledges the founding of the United States as taking place in 1776, it seeks “to reframe American history by considering what it would mean to regard 1619 as our nation’s birth year.” That year is important because it marks the arrival and enslavement of the first known Africans in the North American colony of Virginia. The project further determines that the American Revolution occurred because the original 13 colonies understood Britain would soon outlaw slavery, thus making war the only pathway to preserving the foul institution on this side of the Atlantic.

When the project was rolled out by the Times, it included K-12 curriculum for schools. The curriculum is being used in several major school districts in cities, including Chicago, across the country. Cotton’s bill would prohibit school districts from using federal funds to teach the project.

On July 30, Cotton told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, “The entire premise of the New York Times’ factually, historically flawed 1619 Project … is that America is at root, a systemically racist country to the core and irredeemable. I reject that root and branch.” Cotton’s bill is called the “Saving American History Act of 2020.”

The bill calls the 1619 Project “an activist movement” that is “gaining momentum to deny or obfuscate this history by claiming that America was not founded on the ideals of the Declaration [of Independence] but rather on slavery and oppression.” It notes that “this distortion of American history is being taught to children in public school classrooms” through curriculum based on the 1619 Project, which “claims ‘nearly everything that has truly made America exceptional’ grew ‘out of slavery.’”

It further states, “The 1619 Project is a racially divisive and revisionist account of history that threatens the integrity of the Union by denying the true principles on which it was founded.”

Of course, Cotton is meeting fierce opposition. The 1619 Project has been so well received by the mainstream media that in the spring of this year, Nikole Hannah-Jones, the journalist responsible for the project, was awarded a Pulitzer Prize.

Jordan Cohen, a spokesperson for the Times, said the project “is based in part on decades of recent scholarship by leading historians of early America that has profoundly expanded our sense of the colonial and Revolutionary period. Much of this scholarship has focused on the central role that slavery played in the nation’s founding.”

The same day Cotton’s bill was introduced, July 27, Hannah-Jones joined a Twitter conversation regarding whether the 1619 Project was about history or memory. She tweeted, “The fight here is about who gets to control the national narrative, and therefore, the nation’s shared memory of itself. One group has monopolized this for too long in order to create this myth of exceptionalism. If their version is true, what do they have to fear of 1619?”

She continued in the next tweet, “I’ve always said that the 1619 Project is not a history. It is a work of journalism that explicitly seeks to challenge the national narrative and, therefore, the national memory. The project has always been as much about the present as it has the past.”

Considering her statements, one wonders how can the 1619 Project be taught as history in public schools.

Even Hannah-Jones tweets later in the thread, “Further, the curriculum is supplementary and cannot and was never intended to supplant U.S. history curriculum (which is pretty terrible but none of these folks seem concerned about that.) Teachers have used it in English, social studies, art, foods classes.” However, reports are the curriculum is being taught as history. Protestors are proclaiming it as history in the streets.

The Illinois Angle

The 1619 Project and Cotton’s bill appear to have had an effect on Illinois State Representative La Shawn Ford (D-Chicago). As you may know, Ford recently called on the Illinois State Board of Education to remove all history books in Illinois schools, and for schools to stop teaching history until new curriculum can be developed. He said current history books and curriculum “unfairly” communicate history.

Ford said, as reported by WGN, “We’re concerned that current school history teachings lead to white privilege and a racist society.”

A few days prior, Ford told Politico’s Illinois Playbook, “What’s being taught is inaccurate,” saying blacks were only depicted as slaves and that other minorities, including women and people of Jewish heritage, were also portrayed unfairly.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to contact your federal lawmakers and urge them to support the Saving American History Act of 2020, a bill that would prohibit the use of federal funds to teach the divisive 1619 Project by K-12 schools or school districts.

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New York Times columnist Ross Douthat says the culture war in America may not be so much about secularism or atheism replacing Christianity but the rise of an old Christian foe – paganism.

This ancient religion differs from atheism in that it allows for a spiritual dimension to life and creation, but not an omnipotent, benevolent God.  The power is in the creation itself, which is why so many New Age adherents find divinity when they look at a sunset, a flower, or in some cases, their own mirror image.

Mr. Douthat explains the clash of worldviews presented in a new book by Steven D. Smith, “Pagans and Christians in the City: Culture Wars from the Tiber to the Potomac”:

“What is that conception? Simply this: that divinity is fundamentally inside the world rather than outside it, that God or the gods or Being are ultimately part of nature rather than an external creator, and that meaning and morality and metaphysical experience are to be sought in a fuller communion with the immanent world rather than a leap toward the transcendent.”

This is quite different from, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1) and “All things were made through Him” (John 1:3).

Increasingly, “the universe” is replacing references to God in current TV shows and movies.  On the flip side, some of this year’s new Hallmark holiday flicks lean the other way, featuring sacred carols such as “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.”

The pagan worldview is promoted by leading figures such as Oprah Winfrey, with her New Age version of “can’t we all just get along?” and the prolific writer Sally Quinn, widow of longtime Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee.

Ms. Quinn writes on religious topics for the Post, and used to edit the Post’s religion page, which is a smorgasbord of modern heresies, the wilder the better.   The Left favors almost any religious expression other than orthodox Christianity, which is why it’s soft on paganism and even Islam.

The latter’s militants are inflicting terror all over the world, most recently when a gunman yelled “Allahu Akbar” before gunning down 16 people, killing at least two, at a Christmas market in Strasbourg, France on Dec. 11.  The Post, like the rest of the media, downplayed it, ignoring the religious motivation and playing up the shooter’s criminal past.

Ms. Quinn chronicles her own plunge into witchly pursuits in her 2017 memoir “Finding Magic” in which she describes dabbling with the paranormal and hexing people she didn’t like.

She says she left behind the dark arts following three deaths that occurred shockingly soon after her hexing.  But she’s not done with the occult.  In a Washingtonian magazine profile in August 2017, Michelle Cottle wrote, “Ouija boards, astrological charts, palm reading, talismans—Quinn embraces it all. And yes, she has been in contact with her husband since his passing. Through a medium. Repeatedly.”

A week ago Monday, Ms. Quinn moderated a bookstore appearance by porn star and Trump accuser Stormy Daniels.  She said, with her son looking on, that she planned to attend Daniels’ strip show that evening, and that “I’ve watched Stormy’s porn, and it’s good. She knows what she’s doing.”

If you wonder why the Post gives short shrift to the biblical view that sex is a God-given gift to be enjoyed only in marriage, well, it shouldn’t be a mystery.

Elsewhere in the Post’s Style section, columnist Monica Hesse admits an addiction to the classic movie “White Christmas,” but makes sure to point out its politically incorrect flaws, such as a song about minstrel shows.  The movie is redeemed when Danny Kaye rebuffs a kiss from the beautiful Vera Ellen.  Mr. Kaye “demures so vehemently that the ‘White Christmas’ message boards have speculated that the character might be gay. Well, if so, kudos to that subversive choice, too.”

Kudos for subversion of romance between a man and a woman?  This is liberal virtue-signaling at its purest.   In the progressive worldview, everything is political, including sex.

Ms. Quinn says that friends have repeatedly asked her to place a hex on President Trump, an idea which, to her credit, she’s rejected. But think about that. Sally’s lefty pals hate Mr. Trump so much they want him magically killed, not just removed from office.

Pre-and-Post Christian pagan societies are not known for their qualities of mercy.

Robert Knight is a Townhall contributor. His latest book is “A Nation Worth Saving:   10 Steps to Restore Freedom” (djkm.org/nation, 2018).

This article was originally published at Townhall.com

Written by L. Brent Bozell III

Over the years, Oprah Winfrey has seemingly evolved into America’s mom. After her TV career, she sounds like an evangelist preaching a feminist substitute to replace religion in her monthly Oprah Magazine. Her August issue carries this motivational nugget of Oprah wisdom on the cover: “We all want to feel radiant, joyful, and alive. It starts with choosing love — in any form.” No mention of faith, but no surprise there.

How do you feel “radiant, joyful, and alive”? Winfrey has the answer. In this very issue, she devotes a full-page ad to promote — ready? — the hashtag ShoutYourAbortion. According to Oprah Winfrey, a good way to show you’re “choosing love” is to murder your unborn baby.

This is a major reason most women don’t accept the term “feminist.” A new poll by the feminist site Refinery29 and CBS News found 54 percent of millennial women do not describe themselves as “feminists.” Of women over 36, only 34 percent identify as feminist. If you’re not a radical leftist, you decline the term. Only someone truly evil feels joy about an abortion, regardless of her (or his) position or predicament.

But Oprah Magazine editors put this under the category of “Inspiration.” Amelia Bonow was so horrified at the prospect of taking taxpayer funding away from the Democratic Party underwriters at Planned Parenthood that she touted and shouted her abortion, and now the hashtag has been “tweeted more than 300,000 times.” Ironically, that’s about a tweet for every life ended before it began in an average year of Planned Parenthood business.

This is not just a hashtag but an entire Twitter account and a website with video testimonials. One video is headlined “My abortion was gentle, irreverent, and empowering.” Gentle … for whom? Gentle, irreverent … for whom?

A woman from Seattle with badly overdone makeup and green hair discusses her three-day pharmaceutical abortion as not just “gentle” and “spiritually empowering” but “loving” and “joyful,” and, of course, “badass.” She explains how during this drawn-out procedure, she got drunk and had “brutal, metal sex,” which “you’re not supposed to do.” Somehow it wasn’t in the headline that she summarized it all as “female power-witchy s—-.”

The viewer is also treated to 10 gallons of the usual “pro-choice” boilerplate. It’s “like going to the dentist.” It’s not a difficult decision when a woman is “very single,” so she avoids ever getting “emotionally complicated.” When you’re “very spiritual, but … not religious,” an abortion is “something of a sacred act” of “taking one’s power,” a “sacred taking of agency.”

It’s sacred. Ponder that.

After these vague declarations of feminist dogma, the woman documents the entire abortion process. She shoves her urine sample into the camera but doesn’t show her ultrasound. “I didn’t look at it. … I didn’t look at the little speck,” she declares. They told her the pregnancy wasn’t far along — four weeks, six days. “I caught it really early,” she says. “I say it like a disease!”

At the end of the video, you hear the woman humming, and this text comes on screen: “I never did think of the cell cluster as ‘my baby,’ nor the sperm donor as ‘the father.’ … My whole view on the thing was quite neutral. Scientific.” Somehow it’s “neutral” and “scientific” to deny the humanity of “the thing.”

But behind this “science,” emotion dribbled out — and a sense of gravity. The video ended with this text: “It was a full moon, and I’m a sentimental, spiritual type. … So I sang a song to the spark.” She whispered, “I let go of you with love tomorrow.”

George Orwell, call your office. An abortion is letting go of the baby “with love.” That inspirational message of “female empowerment” is brought to you by Oprah Winfrey and her magazine.

We cannot avoid this truth: It is satanic. And if you think it’s not, then please tell us what is.

L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. 

This article was originally published by Creators Syndicate.

Last time we covered two recent articles from Public Discourse — here are brief excerpts from three more.

The first is from Ryan T. Anderson — note the important introduction following the title:

How to Think About Discrimination: Race, Sex, and SOGI
Sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) antidiscrimination laws are unjustified, but if other policies are adopted to address the mistreatment of people who identify as LGBT, they must leave people free to engage in legitimate actions based on the conviction that we are created male and female and that male and female are created for each other.

Here is Anderson’s first paragraph:

In a new report for the Heritage Foundation, “How to Think About Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) Policies and Religious Freedom,” I argue that current proposals to create new LGBT protections with varying types of religious exemptions will not result in what advocates claim is “Fairness for All.” Instead, they will penalize many Americans who believe that we are created male and female and that male and female are created for each other—convictions that the Supreme Court of the United States, in Obergefell v. Hodges, recognized are held “in good faith by reasonable and sincere people here and throughout the world.”

Mr. Anderson is a talent and conservatives benefit greatly from his work. However, like Victor Davis Hanson yesterday, I’m not sure he grasps how far “identity politics” goes. This series shows that it extends far beyond the relatively narrow “LGBT.” In fact, there is almost no end to the number of letters that can follow the “T.”

Here is the next article from Public Discourse — this one is by Scott Beauchamp. For the sake of space I’ll only list the title and its introductory sentence which says a lot:

The Kids Aren’t All Right: What the Gender-Identity Revolution Has in Common with 1960s’ Drug Culture
The LSD consciousness-expansion movement of the late sixties and today’s gender-identity fixation are both counterfeit revolutions. The two might initially appear very different, but they share similar intellectual assumptions and make analogous mistakes.

And lastly, from Emily Zinos:

Biology Isn’t Bigotry: Christians, Lesbians, and Radical Feminists Unite to Fight Gender Ideology
Public schools have a duty to serve all children, but a school cannot serve children and a totalitarian ideology all at once. For the sake of children’s well-being, Christian mothers are uniting with their radical feminist and lesbian sisters to reject the idea of “gender identity.”

Just three sentences from the article:

The belief that one’s internal sense of self determines maleness or femaleness and that subjective feelings take precedence over an objective physical reality constitutes a severing of mind from body. Our sex is who we are: it can’t be amputated from our body like a limb. But the true believers in gender ideology are hard at work, pulling in converts to this gnostic worldview that shuns the material that we humans are made of: the body.

I realize many readers are terribly anxious to learn about today’s paraphilia so let’s get to it. (Oh, and I’m sorry, TheOnion.com, you can’t have this one since it’s real and not satire.)

Once again we’re going to rely on trusty Wikipedia. As an aside, just so you know, I am fully aware of the problems with Wikipedia. If you’re not sure what I’m referring to, check out here how they duplicate the Oprah Winfrey “pregnant man” lunacy (spoiler alert: “Thomas,” formerly Tracey, was born a girl).(Would it be disrespectful at this point to include the letters ‘LOL’?)

So…here’s Wikipedia:

Autassassinophilia is a paraphilia in which a person is sexually aroused by the risk of being killed. The fetish may overlap with some other fetishes that risk one’s life, such as those involving drowning or choking. This does not necessarily mean the person must actually be in a life-threatening situation, for many are aroused from dreams and fantasies of such.

Be sure to click on this link to learn more — because you need to be ready when Nintendo bows to pressure and creates a video game which includes autassassinophilias. Your kids might need it explained — that is, if they haven’t gotten to that chapter in the diversity textbook at school.

Up next we’ll take a look at another example of the ways people experience “intense sexual arousal to atypical objects, situations, or individuals.” If America is to be truly free, shouldn’t all sexcentric-identified individuals be treated equally under the law?

Articles in this series, from oldest to newest:

Identity Politics and Paraphilias: Introducing a Series

Identity Politics and Paraphilias: Incest

Identity Politics and Paraphilias: Body Integrity Identity Disorder

Identity Politics and Paraphilias: Impact & Transgenders

Transgenderism a Choice or Disorder?

Why the Term “Sexual Orientation” is Nonsense

Identity Politics and Paraphilias: Man’s Search for Meaning

Identity Politics and Paraphilias: LGBT Is Not a Color & Fetishism

Identity Politics and Paraphilias: ‘Public Discourse’ Weighs In & Bisexuality

When most Americans hear the term “New Age” they might think of a little boutique that sells cotton caftans, CDs of sitar music, and multicolored assortments of crystals. It all seems to point to dubious fashion sense and outdated home decor, but nothing ominous, nothing harmful. Yet, in reality, the New Age movement has had a serious negative impact on many unsuspecting people.

People who have never set foot inside a New Age store, people who would laugh at the thought of pretty rocks containing healing powers — these same people are enthusiastically and blindly embracing dangerous New Age philosophies, all because of their admiration and devotion to the powerful and popular woman who is advancing these beliefs.

Who has become the High Priestess of the New Age Movement? Who is this woman who commands the respect of millions, whose stamp of approval can make or break a book, movie, or political candidate? She is the host of the highest rated talk show in television history, a magazine publisher, and an Academy Award nominated actress. She is Chicago’s very own, Oprah Winfrey.

Oprah Winfrey has been described as the richest African-American of the 20th century, the most philanthropic African-American of all time, the world’s only black billionaire — and perhaps most tellingly — the most influential woman in the world.

Oprah definitely has influence. Her television talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, is seen weekly by an audience of 49 million viewers in the United States. Additionally, millions more worldwide watch Oprah in the 117 countries in which her show is broadcast. With apologies to Madison Avenue and E. F. Hutton, when Oprah talks, people listen. And what Oprah’s audience is hearing now is her ringing endorsement of Eckhart Tolle’s book, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose.

Virtually everyone in America knows Oprah’s name, and most are familiar with her daily television program. But many are unaware of the depth of the spiritual lies she is promoting, and how many needy people are buying this false hope through Oprah’s celebrity. Please watch the following video to get a better idea of the lies she is selling her audience (you can also click this link):

While Oprah has professed to be a Christian, the principles in Tolle’s book are definitely not based on the teachings of Jesus Christ. In keeping with the subtitle of the book, the reader is encouraged to be “focused on the purpose of your Being here on earth.” Not surprisingly, nowhere does Tolle’s vision of one’s life purpose have anything in common with man’s purpose in relationship to God, certainly not as it is expressed in the Westminster Shorter Catechism. The very first question of the catechism asks: “What is the chief end of man?” and the answer is: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” Revelation 4:11 and 1 Peter 2:9 beautifully support the veracity of this historic church document. Nothing in Scripture even remotely supports Tolle’s contentions.

Tolle asserts that there is no death; that in fact man does not have a life, but he is life. Clearly this statement completely denies the truth of God’s Word found in John 14:6, as Jesus tells Thomas, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.” As Christians we know that “he who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” 1 John 5:12

In light of Scriptural Truth, what kind of life can Tolle claim?

A New Earth does acknowledge the existence of God/god, but not God as any Christian would recognize Him. Tolle envisions his god, not as an entity in a particular place, but as “the essence, the intelligence, the animating life essence behind all life forms.” This essence does not appear to include a Son, for again, there is no mention of Jesus, the Son of God.

As a self-proclaimed Christian, how can Oprah countenance this false teaching? Even more troubling, how can she continue to promote such false teaching, knowing that millions of people look to her and are influenced by her words and viewpoints? Sadly, Oprah seems to have left the narrow path that leads to righteousness and, instead, she has started down the broad road that leads to destruction.

Oprah has publicly denied on her television program that Jesus, as the Son of God, is the only way to God (John 14:6). In her mind, there couldn’t possibly be just one way, but rather many diverse ways to God. In taking this position, she has rejected the authority of the Word of the Living God and embraced the distortions and lies of New Age charlatans and false teachers. Rather than Lord and Savior, Christ has become for Oprah “a stone that will make men stumble, a rock that will make them fall.” (1 Peter 8a) These New Age lies she promotes are deadly!

Oprah believes that God does not govern the affairs of mankind, nor does she believe in sin, the devil — but rather that “we are our own saviors” (directly contradicting Luke 9:23, which Jesus says; “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” [emphsis added]). On her hit talk show, she has openly expressed her opposition to Jesus as being the true savior.

Earlier this year, her friend Marianne Williamson began teaching the 365 lessons from the New Age Bible, A Course in Miracles, on Oprah’s XM Satellite Radio. Page 147 of the Course Text teaches that we are “God”: “The recognition of God is the recognition of yourself.”

Oprah has also promoted the New Age book The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. Page 164 in The Secret states: “You are God in a physical body.”

And now, Oprah is launching an online course with metaphysical teacher Eckhart Tolle based on his book The New Earth: Awakening to Your Soul’s Purpose. In Tolle’s earlier book, The Power of Now, he teaches blasphemy — claiming that we are “God.”

While Oprah is free to believe whatever she wants, it is horrifying that so many souls are being led astray as they follow her lead. This incredibly influential woman could be a powerful ambassador for Christ, but instead, she is being used by Satan to peddle the “spiritual crack” of New Age teaching that leads to addiction, death, and eternal damnation.

As Christ’s return draws closer, we must stand firm in our faith, sure in what we believe and know to be true. Paul’s charge to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:2-5 is a charge to Christ followers today as well:

“preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths. As for you, always be steady, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we are called to bear witness to the Truth of the Gospel in our circles of influence. Unlike Oprah, we may not be able to reach millions, but by the power and grace of God, we can reach out in obedience, confidence, and faith to the people who He places in our lives.