Blog - Hugh Hewitt

Sunday, December 28, 2025

My wife and I found ourselves in a discussion over the incredible variety of expressions of Christian faith.  To my mind, I have been a Christian for decades, practically my entire lifetime.  But I have friends who, for one quirky reason or another, still try to evangelize me because of some “error” they see in my theology or opinion.  And while years ago I figured out that I have no way of knowing who really is in God’s hands and who isn’t, I know many people claiming Christian faith about which I carry deep doubt.  I am glad God has to make these decisions, not me.  What I can say, positively, is that there have been some people I have observed, whose faith and expression thereof inspired me.  One just got added to the list.. . .

Saturday, December 27, 2025

Monday past we looked at an anecdotal piece from the NYTimes about how young people unrealistically think life is unaffordable. But it took a piece in The Free Press for me to understand just how wide and deep the ingratitude and expectation gap is between the youth and our seniors, the title – “Total Boomer Luxury Communism Is Bankrupting America.”  Nothing like starting a piece with an insult.. . .

Friday, December 26, 2025

Defending Christianity around Christmas has, unfortunately, become commonplace.  But defending it with military force is new.  Yesterday President Trump ordered airstrikes on ISIS targets in northern Nigeria where those same ISIS forces have been wiping out entire Christian villages.  Because everyone is still in a food coma the commentary has yet to begin to flow, but watch for it soon.. . .

Thursday, December 25, 2025

For two decades now I have written on a blog somewhere.  I always write on Christmas day, and almost no one reads.  Consumed with family and friends, presents and meals, and faith – Christmas is just not a day that most people read, and especially not the internet.  They’ll read “The Night Before Christmas” or Dickens, or the Bible, but blogs, rightfully, just are not Christmas fodder.  But sometimes they read on Boxing Day (the day after Christmas for those not attuned to British tradition.)  It is always hard to know what to write on Christmas.. . .

Wednesday, December 24, 2025

Finally in this Christmas week of dark stories comes a ray of light.  Josh Code at The Free Press on “What Drives Gen Z to Church?”  The stories of a revival of faith among younger people are quite wonderful.  They give hope in a time when humanity seems hopeless.  This little video piece reflects the few young people that are showing up at my church  and it is fascinating.  There are a couple of things worthy of note.. . .

Tuesday, December 23, 2025

This is the week of Christmas – usually a very slow news week, but my stack of stuff is much deeper than usual after only a day.  Sadly most of it is negative news.  I wanted to write good, uplifting stuff this week.  Part of the reason the stack is so big is I am purposefully ignoring stuff to try and find that positive story.  Then I ran across this local headline, “East TN charities seek end-of-year contributions amid national drop in donations,” followed the link trail a little bit and discovered this, “Most US adults aren’t making year-end charitable contributions, new AP-NORC poll finds.”  Things are not quite as bleak as those headlines indicate, but a less charitable Christmas was not something I can set aside for later.. . .

Monday, December 22, 2025

On Saturday the NYTimes carried a piece headlined, “These Young Adults Make Good Money. But Life, They Say, Is Unaffordable.”  Before I read a word I thought, “New York, DUH, it is unaffordable.”  And interestingly this story of anecdotes does not mention the location of its interviewees at all.  Very blue places, New York and Los Angeles among them, are in fact unaffordable.  In some ways the piece is about perception and location more than actually being about affordability.  It is also quite clearly a Trump hit piece.  But deep within its bowels there was gold.. . .

Sunday, December 21, 2025

It’s the Fourth Sunday of Advent, “Love” Sunday, Christmas Sunday.  There is a standard sermon for this occasion I have heard countless time in my life – that Christmas is about Jesus, not presents – that Christmas is a spiritual event, not a temporal one.  It’s a prescription against materialism.  So common is this sermon that it defined my knee-jerk reaction to this piece about the return of Christmas time tourism to Nazareth in Israel after the cease fire.  “How crass,” I thought, “that’s a very holy place – it should be about something more uplifting at Christmas than mere commerce.”  But then, as I sat here preparing to roll out the standard Christmas message, I thought again.. . .

Saturday, December 20, 2025

I grew up on comic books written by WWII veterans.  Many of those comics, especially Captain America, used Nazi sleeper cells as enemies.  The premise was simple, the Third Reich had planted cells of agents in the Allied world that then activated decades later and using the wonderous and futuristic tech of Nazi Germany threatened the world.  The tech made the whole thing seem preposterous and childish, but someone was reading those comics with a strategic eye and asking themselves if the war might have gone differently if the Axis had in fact infiltrated to the extent those comics made it appear.  The antisemitism that is so obviously on the rise and growing increasingly violent has been, in fact, exported to the western world, and we have welcomed it.. . .

Friday, December 19, 2025

I worked in the People’s Republic of China in the late 1980’s, just as they were attempting to liberalize their economy.  It seemed a time of great promise.  The Soviet Union was falling and China seemed determined to avoid the same fate and so sought a soft landing away from communism.  It seemed to be working for a while.  Sure the government remained quite centralized, but the economy was liberalizing rapidly.  But it was a shell game, three-card monte, a trick.  A way to worm their way towards major power status without direct conflict.  President Trump understands this and is fighting back.  Democrats, unfortunately, don’t get it just yet.  And so China is trying the same game in Trumpian terms. . . .