Free Republic

It wasn’t long ago when most comedians shared the same game plan as Nate Bargatze. The 45-year-old stand-up veteran—whose latest Netflix special arrives on Christmas Eve, and has a holiday variety show airing tonight on CBS—has dutifully steered clear of every pressure point currently mangling American society. Unlike so many other comedians his age, Bargatze is fundamentally disengaged with the curdled rage over the trans debate, racial justice, or “wokeness” writ large. Nor has he adopted the surly demeanor of the lefties who dominated the scene in the 2000s—guys like Patton Oswalt and David Cross, who managed to shape every...

Last Sunday we drove up to Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in Orange County, a collection of affluent, politically conservative suburbs south of LA. The model of a modern megachurch, Saddleback boasts over 112,000 "unchurched occasional attenders" as ...