In his book The Right Questions: Truth, Meaning & Public Debate, the late American legal scholar Phillip E. Johnson (1940-2019), often referred to as the godfather of the Intelligent Design movement, reminded readers that truth-seeking begins not with having the right answers but with the courage to ask honest questions. As he wrote: “The questions I am asking are the ones they should be asking…their education to this point has prepared them to ask the wrong questions [instead of] the right ones.” Johnson applied this warning to scientific materialism and Darwinism, but his insight extends far beyond them: any field that forbids uncomfortable questions—whether in science, politics, or theology—substitutes dogma for reason. 

Although written more than twenty years ago, his words capture our present cultural predicament, in which both mainstream and alternative media, such as The Daily Wire, together with education systems, mold minds not to seek truth but to parrot ideological positions that serve political agendas. Johnson’s warning feels especially timely after Tucker Carlson’s recent interview with Nick Fuentes, an exchange that has stirred both curiosity and vitriolic denunciation. In my mind, if anything, the exchange exposed how difficult it has become to ask the right questions about faith, power, and war.

Johnson emphasized that by asking the right questions, a society can potentially avoid echoing the wrong answers and, by extension, the mistakes of the past. One can’t help but wonder: When did the political Right, once a defender of open debate, begin to mirror the Left’s allergy to disagreement? Why has inquiry, especially about Israel, become a moral minefield where one misplaced question can end reputations? The Right’s internal policing of thought now rivals the ideological rigidity it claims to resist. If even questions of conscience are off limits, what truth are we defending?

I believe this is due to the fact that the war in Gaza points beyond geopolitics into theology and a deep tribalism. For many, support for Israel has become almost sacramental within American conservatism, a mark of orthodoxy rather than a matter of prudential judgment. To question Israeli policy, or even to ask how it aligns with Christian conscience, is to risk being branded an “anti-Semite,” a charge that in many circles ends discussion before it begins.

The charge of “anti-Semitism” is now wielded so broadly that it often conflates hatred of Jews—a grave moral evil—with legitimate criticism of Israeli policy. This confusion corrodes public debate: real bigotry becomes harder to identify, while honest moral inquiry is treated as heresy. What definition condemns real hatred while allowing moral scrutiny of power?

This does not mean hostility toward Israel, which remains a nation with legitimate security concerns and a remarkable history of survival. But it does mean that Christians are not bound by faith to endorse every action of their government or to sanctify its wars.

On November 3, 2025, Ben Shapiro released a video repudiating the Tucker–Fuentes interview. The piece functions largely as a character assault, relying on selective clips and moral outrage rather than engaging the underlying America First argument—that U.S. foreign policy should serve the concrete interests and moral priorities of its own citizens rather than those of another nation. As inflammatory and obnoxious as Nick Fuentes can be, there was no effort to address the actual substance of his exchange with Carlson, only denunciations, emotive invective, and moral grandstanding. By doing so, the critics have succumbed to the very trap that the interview exposed, demonstrating how reflexive condemnation has supplanted rational engagement and how fear of association now dominates discourse. 

Carlson’s follow-up conversation with comedian and political commentator Dave Smith on November 3, 2025, underscored this same tension. He observed that figures such as Ben Shapiro and other “Israel-first” commentators have come to celebrate violence, openly defending or even rejoicing in the killing of innocents as though such brutality were a sign of virtue. Carlson noted that this impulse, echoed by politicians like Lindsey Graham who boast about “killing the right people,” reveals a deep spiritual sickness. Such sentiments are, of course, antithetical to the Christian Gospel, which commands us to love not only our neighbors but also to uphold the sanctity of life and to show mercy and love even toward our enemies. One must ask: if Western civilization is now defined by its appetite for retribution, does it still deserve to be called civilization at all?

The reaction from certain conservative commentators has been not only disproportionate but also profoundly unserious. Mark Levin’s recent tirade against Nick Fuentes exemplifies this decline. Referring to Fuentes as “prepubescent Little Adolf,” a “cockroach,” and a “psycho bastard,” Levin indulged in the same dehumanizing rhetoric he routinely condemns in the political Left and in Fuentes himself. Is this the conduct of a man of integrity, particularly one who is forty-one years Fuentes’ senior? Such vitriol reveals not moral strength but fragility, a surrender to anger masquerading as virtue. When moral outrage replaces reasoned engagement, age and experience cease to confer wisdom. The following question stands to reason: How can those who claim to defend civilization’s moral fabric speak with such contempt for the very decency they invoke?

This posture is not confined to media voices. The climate of moral outrage surrounding these debates reached an alarming intensity when Congressman Randy Fine called Tucker Carlson “the most dangerous anti-Semite in America,” even comparing him to Hitler. Such inflammatory rhetoric does more than defame; it risks legitimizing hatred and violence against those who dissent. One wonders why such vitriol is tolerated within factions that claim to defend reason, liberty, and moral order.

Such an example reveals a more profound problem within the Right: the substitution of loyalty for thought and the elevation of ideology over one’s conscience. What we need now more than ever is to ask the right questions that follow our moral conscience.

Unfortunately, many dread asking the right questions for fear of reprisal. Nevertheless, Christianity demands such courage: to speak truth without hatred and to love every person, regardless of nation or creed, without partiality. If inquiry itself becomes taboo, we lose not only the freedom to think but also the capacity to discern good from evil. If inquiry itself becomes taboo, we lose not only the freedom to think but also the capacity to discern good from evil. Tweet This

The recent backlash against figures like Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, who merely defended Carlson’s right to ask challenging questions, shows how allergic the conservative movement has become to dissent.

The same caution applies to America and to my own home country of Canada. “America First,” or its equivalent elsewhere, need not mean isolation or indifference to suffering abroad. Properly understood, it calls for moral coherence before ideological crusades and prompts to recognize that no nation can defend liberty abroad while abandoning truth, freedom, and prosperity at home. Here, in Canada, even as record numbers rely on food banks and many families struggle to afford basic necessities, the federal government has pledged nearly $22 billion in aid to Ukraine, including $12.4 billion in direct financial support, which is the largest per-capita contribution among the G7 nations.

Many of our leaders have allowed global bodies such as the WEF, WHO, IMF, and U.N. to shape policy at the expense of the common good. When prudence is recast as selfishness and questions about foreign entanglements are branded disloyal, reasoned debate gives way to deference. But who truly benefits when global agendas overshadow local needs? The real question is this: How do we serve our country’s common good while remaining faithful to the universal demands of charity and justice?

We can love our nation without worshipping it. The prophets held justice and mercy together as the twin pillars of a rightly ordered people. The same holds true today. To pray for Israel and Palestine alike, to seek peace without propaganda, is not cowardice. It is the difficult work of conscience. Are we still capable of disagreement without denunciation?

What the Carlson–Fuentes exchange ultimately exposes is the poverty of our moral imagination. We have lost the habit of seeing political questions through the lens of theological truth. Instead, our discourse moves between sentimentalism and tribal anger. The Christian must resist both. To ask how faith informs politics is not extremism. It is the task of every believer who refuses to let ideology define what it means to love God and neighbor.

The Silence of Conscience

History rarely remembers those who stayed silent in the face of falsehood. History has a tendency to honor those who fought for truth against censorship and comfort. The temptation to conform is as old as humanity itself, and yet every age finds new ways to baptize it. Today, conformity disguises itself as loyalty, unity, and “true conservatism.” However, the real fear rears its ugly head—namely, the dread of being censored, demonetized, shunned, and labeled an “anti-Semite” or some other expletive.  

To raise questions about Israel, Gaza, or the direction of the conservative movement is now to risk such exile. Accusations of “anti-Semitism,” “extremism,” or “disloyalty” function as modern anathemas. Once they are spoken, dialogue ends. Even those who privately sense that something is wrong often choose silence rather than scrutiny. They fear losing friends, donors, or platforms. 

Yet, the Christian conscience, when properly formed, cannot thrive in such an atmosphere. Truth, by its nature, is liberating not performative. Charlie Kirk, for instance, and to his credit, did not succumb to such fears. In his final weeks, he began to question many of the same assumptions that continue to be challenged by Tucker Carlson and others, a clear demonstration that moral inquiry, however costly, still stirs within the conservative conscience.

Tucker Carlson’s interview with Nick Fuentes, whatever one thinks of Fuentes’ views, offered a glimpse of this tension. Carlson’s willingness to listen, to probe, and to let uncomfortable words surface is increasingly rare in media or politics. It recalled something of the ancient discipline of dialectic, where conversation served as a path to truth rather than as a weapon. His critics, meanwhile, seemed less disturbed by what Fuentes said than by the fact that he was allowed to say it at all. 

That instinct to silence rather than engage is always a sign of obfuscation and, ultimately, insecurity. Fear of losing one’s place or one’s livelihood can lead to a slow suffocation of the soul. The Christian tradition has always warned against this spiritual timidity. “The truth will set you free,” Christ said, not acceptance and comfort. To follow Him means to endure misunderstanding and sometimes rejection, even from one’s own side. The saints understood this better than anyone, and so did the prophets. They loved their people enough to wound them with the truth.

What the current climate reveals is not simply a political divide but a crisis of moral confidence. We have grown suspicious of conscience itself, as though it were an unreliable guide or an inconvenience to power. Our moral conscience, as Aquinas demonstrates, is the voice of practical reason judging our actions in light of the good. Although not infallible, ignoring our internal voice when stifled by fear is the beginning of complacency to great evils. Seeking comfort itself is servitude to ideology, a gradual but inevitable death of the intellect and the soul.

If Carlson’s conversation and the reactions it provoked have any enduring value, it may be that genuine inquiry, however unsettling, is an act of love. To ask what is true is to honor the God who is Truth Himself.

The Courage to Seek Truth

Phillip Johnson understood that faith and reason rise or fall together and that silencing reason for the sake of ideology wounds faith itself. The pursuit of truth, even when uncomfortable, is a form of obedience to the Creator. Every honest question asked in good conscience honors Him more than the repetition of safe and hollow certainties.

Across the religious and political spectrum, a few voices have risked reputation to defend conscience over ideology, a small but necessary sign that truth can still transcend tribe. Progressive commentator Ana Kasparian, once sharply critical of the political Right, joined conservatives like Candace Owens in condemning the slaughter of civilians in Gaza and the moral evasions used to justify it. Tucker Carlson has done likewise, not from hostility toward Israel but from the conviction that moral truth must never yield to political interest. Their willingness to endure public scorn rather than betray conscience shows that integrity is still possible in an age ruled by fear. 

Norman Finkelstein’s exchange with Candace Owens likewise reminded viewers that character matters more than ideology—a lesson he traced to the historian Raul Hilberg, who stood by him despite occupying the opposite end of the political spectrum. The moral law that is written on every human heart gives people the courage to seek the truth and the compassion to protect the innocent.

The path forward is to love truth over reputation and profit. We must possess the courage to stand up for truth, charity, and justice, even in the face of disagreement, enabling us to all become agents of good. Truth does not fear being questioned. It is we who fear what truth may ask of us.