Rod Dreher Answers, “Isn’t the Benedict Option a Retreat?”
By Laurie Higgins   |   01.30.20
In Part 3 of Pastor Derek Buikema’s compelling interview with author Rod Dreher, they discuss the difference between a cowardly retreat from culture and a “strategic retreat” intended to strengthen the faithful for the persecution that is coming to an increasingly anti-Christian world, including America.
Are Politically Engaged Conservative Christians Idolaters?
By Laurie Higgins   |   01.29.20
In his recent Christianity Today (CT) blog post, New Testament scholar Scot McKnight defends recently retired CT president Mark Galli’s hubristic diktat about the necessity—in Galli’s view—of Trump’s removal from office: Whether Mr. Trump should be removed from office...
Media Misrepresents the Story of Christian School That Expelled Student
By Laurie Higgins   |   01.24.20
The story of an innocent birthday cake that wasn’t and the expulsion of 15-year-old Kayla Kenney from Whitefield Academy, a private Christian school in Louisville, Kentucky, has been covered in multiple news outlets. Kenney’s mother, Kimberly Alford, took a photo...
Rod Dreher: What is the Benedict Option?
By Laurie Higgins   |   01.23.20
In Part 2 of Pastor Derek Buikema’s interview with author Rod Dreher, they discuss his book, The Benedict Option... Rod describes what the Benedict Option is and, equally important, what it isn’t.
Chicago Tribune: Shill for Human Slaughter
By Laurie Higgins   |   01.18.20
In an 804-word news article appearing in the Chicago Tribune on Friday, Jan. 10, the day before the March for Life, “reporter” Angie Leventis Lourgos provided these scant details about the event...
Pastor Derek Buikema Interviews Rod Dreher on Christian WorldView
By Laurie Higgins   |   01.16.20
IFI has a special treat for our readers. Recently, Derek Buikema, senior pastor of Orland Park Christian Reformed Church, interviewed Rod Dreher, senior editor at the American Conservative and author of The Benedict Option, when Rod spoke at the Touchstone ...
Chicago “Trans” Power Couple Birth New Illinois Birth Certificates
By Laurie Higgins   |   01.16.20
Precious and Myles Brady Davis are LGBTQ activists, writers, speakers. Myles is the director of communications at Equality Illinois; Precious works at the Sierra Club but has worked at the Center on Halsted in the past. Now, they are also parents who learned that the Illinois Department of Public Health’s birth certificate system automatically lists the parent who gives birth as “Mother/Co-Parent.”
Christians, the Church, and the State
By Laurie Higgins   |   01.08.20
I’d like to offer a few words about the separation of church and state—a concept long abused by “progressives.” The religion clauses of the First Amendment were intended to protect religion from the intrusive power of the state, not the reverse. The Establishment Clause states that “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.” That does not mean religious convictions are prohibited from informing political values and decisions...
Military Honors Pederast Harvey Milk
By Laurie Higgins   |   12.31.19
On Friday, December 13, 2019, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that construction had just begun on a Navy ship named the United States Naval Ship Harvey Milk (USNS Harvey Milk) after the pederast Harvey Milk. You read that right. The...
Holiday Depravity and Arrogance from Theater Community
By Laurie Higgins   |   12.30.19
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. has a special holiday treat for the kiddies this year: My Fair Lady. Austin Ruse, president of the Center for Family & Human Rights and contributing editor to Crisis Magazine, and his wife Cathy Ruse, senior fellow for legal studies at the Family Research Council, took their 14- and 11-year-old daughters to see it, and here is an excerpt from his review  published in the Washington Examiner:..
Chicago Public Schools Promote  Hindu Religious Practice of Transcendental Meditation
By Laurie Higgins   |   12.02.19
Next time you hear some arch-defender of the a-constitutional “wall” of separation between the church and state whose knickers are in a twist because a school allows ten seconds of silence during which students may pray, remember this story, reported...
Christians Caving to “Trans”-Cultists’ Language Rules
By Laurie Higgins   |   11.26.19
While theologians Dr. Denny Burk, Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon, Dr. John Piper, and Pastor Douglas Wilson say Christians should not use incorrect pronouns when referring to people who pretend to be the sex they aren’t, increasing numbers of purportedly...
If This Can Happen in a Wheaton, Illinois Elementary School…
By Laurie Higgins   |   11.11.19
A lesbian activist who promotes cultural approval of both the “LGBT” ideology and the legalized slaughter of the unborn was invited to speak to 8-11-year-olds at Longfellow Elementary School  in Wheaton, Illinois, home of America’s most prestigious evangelical college, Wheaton College; evangelical Christian publishing company Crossway Books; and approximately 45 churches. If this could happen in Wheaton, Illinois, it could happen anywhere.
LGBTyranny Spreading in Purportedly Free Countries
By Laurie Higgins   |   11.07.19
Several months ago, Paivi Räsänen, a Finnish lawmaker, physician, mother of five, and wife of a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland was investigated by the police for her posting on Twitter and Facebook of Romans 1: 24-27...
Professor Anthony Esolen: “Reviving the Chest”
By Laurie Higgins   |   11.05.19
Professor Anthony Esolen is one of America’s cultural treasures. He writes about moral decline in America with insight, boldness, and eloquence—no timid, hesitant, evasive speech from Professor Esolen. Professor Esolen writes and speaks about the pernicious lies with which leftists...
Laurie Higgins
Cultural Affairs Writer
Laurie Higgins

Laurie Higgins was the Illinois Family Institute’s Cultural Affairs Writer in the fall of 2008 through early 2023. Prior to working for the IFI, Laurie worked full-time for eight years in Deerfield High School’s writing center in Deerfield, Illinois.

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