SIGNS & WONDERS

Pro-Life Setback, McLellan Prize, Joel Webbon

EDITOR’S NOTE: “Signs and Wonders” is a column that shares thoughts on news items that either do not rise to the level of a news story for MinistryWatch or are slightly (perhaps even significantly) outside of our normal charity and philanthropy “beat.” My goal is to be punchy, opinionated, and not to worry much about being slightly off-brand. If that is not for you, no hard feelings. But if it is…read on.

Cracks in the Base. Pro-life groups are strongly opposing a Trump administration decision to approve a new generic version of the mifepristone abortion pill. “This is a wildly disappointing decision. We are extraordinarily disappointed,” said Kristi Hamrick, a spokeswoman for Students for Life of America, in an interview with The Washington Post.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, criticized the decision and the process that produced it. “It’s a total goat rodeo,” she said.

Erin Hawley is senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, and a law professor at Regent University School of Law. Of more interest here: she is the wife of Sen. Josh Hawley, who has been a staunch Trump supporter. An article she wrote for WORLD called the decision an “abdication of responsibility.”

McLellan Prize to Kristen Waggoner. The Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal announced that Kristen Waggoner, CEO, president, and chief counsel of Alliance Defending Freedom, has been named the recipient of the second annual Richard D. McLellan Prize for Advancing Free Speech and Expression. The award comes with $50,000 in prize money.

The press release announcing her award said, “Under her leadership, ADF achieved one of the most significant free speech victories in a generation: the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis (2023), which Waggoner briefed and argued. This ruling protects Americans from being compelled by government officials to express messages contrary to their beliefs. Beyond winning 303 Creative, Waggoner has led ADF’s litigation in five other recent Supreme Court wins for free speech.”

The Free Press. I recently wrote that Canon Press’s offer of $10 million for Christianity Today was a publicity stunt, in part because I think the value of CT is probably closer to $25 million. I got some “push back” for that guess on social media and elsewhere, which is one of many reasons I found the sale of The Free Press for $150 million to be interesting. Insiders say that price is 10 times the organization’s annual revenue. A similar multiple would value Christianity Today at $180 million.

Of course, I know that this is not an apples-to-apples comparison, but it is still an interesting data point. And it further underscores the unseriousness of Canon Press’s offer.

You’ve been Webbon-ized. Joel Webbon is a pastor, self-described Christian nationalist, and podcaster based in Texas. He serves as the senior pastor of Covenant Bible Church in Georgetown, a small Reformed congregation north of Austin. He is also the founder and president of Right Response Ministries, a nonprofit organization he established around 2019 to “cultivate right love for God in people’s hearts by providing right knowledge of God for people’s minds.”

He’s also an agent provocateur, or — as I’m fond of saying — a “conflict entrepreneur.” He generated controversy last weekend by posting on X: “If a woman is truly conservative, you haven’t heard of her.” Folk have noted the hypocrisy of this post, since he has had Megan Basham, Erika Kirk, Rachel Jankovic, and other right-wing women commentators on his podcast. (Webbon has appeared on Allie Beth Stuckey’s program.) Indeed, the celebrity status of these women have played a significant role in the growth of his online platform. I await (though, I suspect, in vain) for an apology from Webbon, or a response from the women he has maligned.

Media Trust Hits New Low. Gallup is out with its annual survey of media trust. The key finding is that trust has hit a new low. Today, just 28% of Americans say they have a great deal or a fair amount of trust in the mass media. In 1972, that number was 68%, and it was at 50% as recently as 2005. The advent of social media in 2007 seems to be a contributing factor in the decline. Dig into the numbers here.

Digital Fentanyl. A remarkable story by the Washington Post examined the TikTok watch histories of 1,100 Post readers. The data, which included more than 15 million individual data points, revealed what we’ve long suspected: TikTok (and probably other social media) are addictive.

Users who spent 32 minutes daily on TikTok in early April were watching 71 minutes by September, more than doubling their time. They opened the app more frequently. They swiped faster. Those already on the app over four hours a day (what? really?) kept scrolling at that level for months at a time.

In 2023, Republican Congressman Mike Gallagher—then chair of the House Committee on the Chinese Communist Party—called TikTok “digital fentanyl.” That might have sounded like partisan hyperbole then. It wasn’t.

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