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Jacksonville pastor who tried to evade more than $600K in federal taxes sentenced to 9 months in prison
A prominent Jacksonville pastor who admitted he tried to avoid paying more than half a million dollars in federal taxes was sentenced to 9 months in federal prison on Thursday.
Brian Carn Jr., 37, founder and pastor of Kingdom City Church and leader of Brian Carn Ministries and Healing House Ministries, pleaded guilty to a federal tax charge announced by the U.S. Department of Justice. Prosecutors say Carn attempted to conceal more than $1.3 million in income after learning he owed the IRS more than $600,000.
“I did plead guilty because I’m taking responsibility,” Carn said. “At the end of the day, it’s my taxes, my name. It’s what the Lord entrusted me with, and I’m responsible to handle everything that he’s blessed me with integrity — and I didn’t.”
Court records show Carn initially reported earning about $1.4 million on his 2015 federal tax return. After learning the tax bill would exceed $600,000, investigators say Carn attempted to amend the return by falsely removing approximately $1.3 million in previously reported income.
According to the plea agreement, the IRS later placed liens on Carn’s properties in an effort to collect the unpaid taxes. Prosecutors say Carn then hired a new accountant and falsely reported his annual income as $120,000.
Investigators also allege Carn made several additional false representations, including:
●Failing to disclose a Cash App account used to transfer hundreds of thousands of dollars to his personal bank account
●Omitting an investment account in his name
●Failing to report ownership of two vehicles
●Listing his monthly income as $0 from 2017 through 2020
“This is what God is doing in my life,” Carn said. “Identifying things in my life to make sure I have ministerial integrity, financial integrity, relationship integrity, friendship integrity and physical integrity.”
Carn faced a maximum sentence of three years in federal prison, and prosecutors requested that the judge sentence him to 18 months, saying he did not take the charges seriously.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
The Christian Nationalist Next Door: Meet Joel Webbon
Joel Webbon is a Texas Christian nationalist pastor with 108,000 followers on X. His podcast has made him one of the more visible figures in the movement’s online wing. He runs an annual Right Response Conference that has drawn notable Christian nationalists, including Doug Wilson, Stephen Wolfe, Steve Deace, and Auron MacIntyre, to its stage. Wilson founded the denomination Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth belongs to, and Hegseth invited him to lead a Pentagon prayer service this past February.
Webbon has called for “a Christian Nationalist Caesar” to protect America from what he calls “war Jews” and “gay Jews,” categories he has not defined. The Caesar Webbon wants is one who, in his words, “Constitution be dammed, just rules with an iron fist.” He has argued that God punishes nations by putting women in political office, because, as Webbon explained, “nothing hurts more.”
On whether America has enough racism:
“It’s so clear that America does not have a racist problem. White people in America are, if anything, I think, too trusting, too gullible, toxic empathy. So not only is racism non-existent, if anything, we could probably use a little bit more racism in America.”
On immigration, Webbon proposed a plan: armed guards on a border wall who issue one warning and then open fire on anyone who doesn’t turn back. Webbon called the killing merciful.
On who is and isn’t allowed to run the country:
“It’s not for Hindus. It’s not for Muslims. And it’s not for Jews. It belongs to Christians.”
Webbon’s timeline for the takeover of the Republican Party is 2032: “It’s not if, it’s simply when.”
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
It's a dark day for Christian freedom because priests are not allowed to break the law.
Quote:'Dark day for Christian freedom' as pastor convicted after preaching gospel near hospital
The former President of the Association of Baptist Churches in Ireland was found guilty of two charges under the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act: of “conducting a protest” which could be “influencing a protected person” in a buffer zone; and failing to comply with a direction to leave.
Buffer zones around hospitals in Northern Ireland, and similar laws elsewhere in the UK, are designed to prevent protests or behaviour that could influence people accessing abortion services within a set distance of clinics.
Johnston said he was preaching the gospel and not protesting. Speaking after the verdict, he called it a “dark day for Christian freedom”.
The retired pastor said: “We held a small, open air Sunday service near a hospital. We made no reference whatsoever to the issue of abortion. And yet the buffer zones law is so broad that holding a Sunday service has been found to be a criminal offence. And at 78 years of age I find myself, for the first time, convicted of a crime.
“If someone is out there causing trouble, stirring up violence, harassing or verbally attacking people, then, absolutely, go ahead and prosecute them. But I wasn’t doing any of those things as the police video shows and as everyone involved in this case accepts.”
The court was told Johnston “was motivated by two reasons: to test the legislation and to influence anyone who heard him towards the Bible and the Christian message generally”.
A £450 fine has been imposed, covering both counts.
The Christian Institute, who have supported Johnston, has suggested there may be an appeal.
Ciarán Kelly, institute director, described the conviction as “creeping censorship”.
Oh, he was only holding mass and not disrupting peace or harassing anyone. Well, imagine if an imam held a Muslim mass in front of a church or if a Satanic priest held a mass in the buffer zone around his church; he certainly wouldn't just dismiss it but would cry persecution and harassment.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
Federal employees accuse USDA of illegal Christian proselytizing
The National Federation of Federal Employees, which represents more than 100,000 federal workers across various agencies, along with several individual USDA employees, accused USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins of “(adopting) a practice of sending increasingly proselytizing communications to the entire USDA workforce, promoting her own preferred brand of Christian beliefs and theology to the captive audience of employees that report to her,” according to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
The complaint alleged Rollins has sent numerous religious emails to USDA employees since becoming secretary in February 2025, including an Independence Day email calling for God’s protection of and favor toward the United States. It also referenced a Christmas email in which Rollins purportedly said in part that “God gave us the greatest gift possible, the gift of his Son and our Savior Jesus Christ, who came to free us from our sins and open the door to eternal life.”
The issue “reached a crescendo” with an email Rollins sent on Easter Sunday in early April that characterized the religious holiday as “the greatest story ever told, the foundation of our faith and the abiding hope of all mankind,” according to the complaint.
The email referenced “the very real trials and hardships we face” but said “fear and sin and death do not get the last word,” the complaint said.
“And so like the very first disciples to encounter our risen Lord in the Upper Room almost two thousand years ago, this Easter let us too be alive with hope, full of Paschal joy and confident in the mission each of us has been called for,” Rollins’ email said, according to the complaint.
The complaint argued that the alleged emails violate the First Amendment, which bars the government from "respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," and the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how federal agencies develop their regulations and procedures.
Plaintiff and USDA employee Ethan Roberts said the alleged messaging makes him feel “unwelcome,” according to Americans United for Separation of Church and States’ May 13 news release on the matter.
“We work for the federal government, not a church,” Roberts said. “I just want to go to work and make my country better – I shouldn’t have to suffer through sermons and other religious messages forced upon me by the head of a federal agency.”
“Every agency feels like it’s the epicenter for a new outbreak of Christian Nationalism,” Erwin, the union’s national president, said. “We just want to do our jobs without having to fend off proselytizing and preaching. That’s a basic American freedom, not something we should have to go to court to secure.”
Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, accused the Trump administration of “waging a relentless and increasingly brazen crusade against church-state separation and the religious freedom of federal workers.”
“Trump is not Jesus, federal agencies are not churches, and cabinet secretaries are not government preachers,” Laser said.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
On Sunday, May 17, the White House will kick off the celebrations of the nation’s 250th anniversary with an alarming event: Rededicate 250: A National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving, an all-day prayer festival featuring administration officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, as well as House Speaker Mike Johnson.
The founders would not doubt be appalled, as there is nothing to rededicate; they explicitly wrote the Constitution to reflect their belief that the U.S. is a secular nation. But Trump’s second term has been dominated by a single-minded determination to erase real history and replace it with self-flattering fantasies of the MAGA movement. As Jason Kyle Howard recently wrote in Salon, Trump’s efforts to inflict his grotesque architectural tastes on the nation’s capital cannot be separated from the administration’s schemes “to undermine the living history of Black and brown Americans, women and the LGBTQ+ community, and to paper over the legacy of the post-World War II liberal order.”
Trump’s plans of erasure fit in well with the Christian right’s efforts, stretching back decades, to replace real history with a false, sanitized tale of an America founded not to be a secular democracy but something closer to a right-wing Christian theocracy. This includes making phony claims that Thomas Jefferson and George Washington didn’t really mean what they clearly did with their talk of “freedom of religion” and “separation of church and state.” The decision to kick off months devoted to celebrating the nation’s semiquincentennial sends a blatant message of support for this alternate reality in which the nation’s founders were all right-wing Christians who wanted a nation ruled not by reason and the rule of law, but by a fundamentalist interpretation of scripture.
The speaker list, though, reveals what’s really going on. Rededicate 250 is not just about imposing a Christian identity on the United States; it promotes something more specific — an evangelical, far-right flavor of the faith. According to Pew Research, only 23% of Americans are evangelical Christians, but the event’s program implies that the only truly legitimate Americans are the ones who spend their weekends waving their hands to ear-splitting worship music inside a stadium-sized megachurch. Worse, most of the religious leaders speaking at this event are committed to pushing a political agenda opposed to the basic rights and freedoms of everyone outside their right-wing tribe.
Franklin Graham, who has built his entire career piggybacking on the fame of his famous father, the late evangelist Billy Graham, was rewarded with a plum spot on Sunday’s roster. At the most recent Conservative Political Action Conference, he argued that Trump is singularly equipped to fight the “godless anti-American agenda,” which he described as legal abortion, “woke culture, critical race theory [and] transgender ideology.” He even invoked a bizarre conspiracy theory accusing progressives of wanting to rename Christmas to hide the word “Christ.”
Also on the program is Dr. Robert Jeffress, the pastor of First Baptist Dallas, which boasts “a new 178,000-square-foot Worship Center and a three-story structure with a 3,000-seat sanctuary with a full production and broadcast studio.” From his pulpit there, Jeffress teaches that women should submit to their husbands because the Bible says a woman is “man’s helper,” provided by God to support a man in his life’s purpose. He is also famous for his 2008 “Gay Is Not Okay” sermon, in which he condemned “their filthy behavior that explains why they are so much more prone to disease.” Three years later, Jeffress declared that Catholicism was a “counterfeit religion” inspired by “the genius of Satan.” (It’s unsurprising, then, that Jeffress told Fox News on Saturday that “President Trump has a better understanding of what the Bible teaches than the Pope” — a message that Trump, who keeps insulting Pope Leo XIV, would surely enjoy.)
Then there’s Paula White, a charismatic preacher who has long been close to Trump. The thrice-married evangelist opposes same-sex marriage and has equated the Black Lives Matter movement with the Ku Klux Klan. While blamed “demonic confederacies” for the president’s 2020 election loss and spoke at his Jan. 6 rally, praying that the crowd’s adversaries “be overturned right now in the name of Jesus.” More recently, days before Trump compared himself to Jesus, White herself did so at an Easter luncheon, equating the president’s various criminal trials with Christ’s crucifixion.
The Christian commentator and Trump superfan Eric Metaxes is another prominent speaker; he has repeated variations of the argument “There is no America, period, without Christian faith.” On a recent episode of his self-titled podcast, he and his guest James Howard Kunstler argued that Trump should outlaw the Democratic Party.
There are many more: the minister who rose to fame by telling his congregation to refuse Covid-19 vaccinations, another who suggested Christians may be banned from speaking if Joe Biden won in 2020, one who vowed to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision legalizing same-sex marriage. Hating LGBTQ people is a common theme among the invited speakers. And of course, so many of them eagerly preach that it’s a wife’s duty to submit to her husband.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
The courtroom smells of wood polish and old carpet. The judge sits high. The jury sits attentive. You sit alone. And behind the defense table, there’s a collar.
The priest who showed up for the man who beat his wife. The pastor writing a letter for the youth leader who molested a kid. The minister with his hand on the shoulder of the father who broke his children. They always come. They never sit behind you.
“Your Honor, he’s a faithful member. He serves the community. He leads Bible study. He’s a good father.” The letter never mentions what he did. It never mentions your name. It’s about his character, not his crime. It’s about the church’s character, not your suffering. A 2019 study found that character witnesses, especially clergy, significantly influence sentencing outcomes. The pastor speaks for God. You speak for yourself. God wins.
You watch the judge read the letter. You watch the judge’s face soften. You watch the man who hurt you get called a good man by the man who’s supposed to represent God. And you sit there, alone, with the memory of what he did and the silence of everyone who should have shown up for you.
Why they come isn’t a mystery. It’s a machine.
The church needs sin. Without it, there’s no salvation, no church. The perpetrator who “found God” is the best advertisement they have. The sinner who repents proves the system works. The prodigal son returns and they throw a party. But you, the victim who demands justice, who won’t forgive, who wants accountability? You threaten the system. You threaten the bottom line. Forgiveness is given freely to the abuser. It’s demanded from you. The asymmetry isn’t accidental. It’s the theology.
The clergy are authority figures. They recognize their own. The father who ruls his household. The pastor who ruls his congregation. The abuser is an authority figure whose authority was challenged by your complaint. They see themselves in him. They protect their own. The church needs the family unit. The father is the head. The wife submits. The children obey. The abuser is the head who was defied. You’re the subordinate who rebelled. The church can’t side with the rebellion without undermining the hierarchy it depends on. Divorce is sin. Accountability is disruption. You leaving is the problem. Him staying is the project.
The weapons they use are old. First Peter 3:1. “Wives, be submissive.” Ephesians 5. The theology of headship that makes abuse a theological right. Matthew 18. The process that requires you to confront your abuser, that requires “witnesses,” that protects the institution. And the Christian counseling industry backs it all up. The licensed professionals who tell you to submit more, pray harder, have more sex. The counselors who treat the marriage as the patient instead of you. You go to counseling and you’re told you’re not meeting his needs. He goes and he’s told he needs grace. The counselor doesn’t ask about the bruises. The counselor asks about your prayer life. The counselor doesn’t ask about the rape. The counselor asks about your willingness to forgive.
Then there’s the institutional protection. Pennsylvania, 2018. Over 1,000 children identified. Over 300 priests. The church knew. The church moved them. The church let them do it again. A bishop transfers a priest to a new parish with a new flock and no warning. The same priest rapes again. The bishop transfers him again. This is the mechanism. Protect the institution. Move the problem. Create a new victim. Over $4 billion spent on settlements and legal fees. Not because they were helping you. Because they were caught. And when they pay you, they gag you. The NDA…
The abuser gets to keep preaching. You can’t even warn the next victim. The church buys your silence with your own money. The legal agreement that protects the institution endangers the next child. The priest who raped you stays in the pulpit. You stay in the silence. The church counts it as a win.
And after they protect him, they “restore” him. A process. A prayer. A promise. Then he’s back in the pulpit. Back in the home. Back in power. The restored abuser gets a second chance. You get a lecture on grace. The restoration is the reinstallation. The second chance is the second access. The pastor “restored” after abuse. The youth leader “restored” after molesting kids. The husband “restored” after beating his wife. Back in the pulpit. Back in the home. Back in power. And you’re told to celebrate his redemption while you’re still bleeding from what he did.
And if you’re poor, if you’re a woman of color, if you’re an immigrant, it’s worse. The Black woman told to “keep the family together.” The Latina woman told to “honor her husband.” The immigrant who doesn’t report because she fears deportation. The poor woman who doesn’t leave because she has no money. The woman of color who isn’t believed because she’s not the “right kind” of victim. The white church protects its own. It doesn’t protect you.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
Evangelist David Herzog reveals that pastors were invited to attend a private briefing with House Speaker Mike Johnson before the recent prayer event on the National Mall where they were encouraged to mobilize their congregations for the midterms.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
Texas’ curriculum overhaul would add Christian history lessons and Bible readings across all grades
The Republican-led State Board of Education is weighing plans to weave Christianity into classroom instruction more directly than ever before, asking teachers across nearly every grade level to teach and test students on a broad swath of Christian history and biblical figures.
Conservative proponents of the proposed overhaul say the changes are designed to help students better understand how religion has shaped the country’s culture and foundations. But experts say the lessons are at odds with the historical record or inflate the role of Christianity in major events.
The new standards, which the SBOE initially approved in April, would require students to read more than a dozen passages directly from the Bible and make connections between Christianity and major historical events.
Building that understanding would begin as early as kindergarten, where students’ lessons about the Pilgrims would now include that their motivation for coming to the U.S. was “to advance the Christian faith.” High school lessons would ask students to identify religious influences on the American banking and economic system.
In the third grade, the proposal calls for Texas students to identify the Bible’s Abraham and Moses as historical figures, though scholars generally view them as legendary or mythical figures without direct archeological evidence of their existence. Presenting them as on par with Benjamin Franklin or George Washington could complicate students’ historical reasoning skills.
In other cases, the standards leave out important context, the historians said. In the sixth grade, students would be required to learn about connections between Christianity and the abolitionist movement, but not that slave owners used the Bible to justify their position.
Second graders and high schoolers would learn about the so-called Black Robe Regiment, which the board proposal describes as a group of colonial pastors who preached about freedom and served in the revolutionary forces.
Carté, who published a book about religion and the American Revolution, said the concept is “completely bogus.” There is no historical evidence to suggest the existence of any such group, and clergy at the time were profoundly split on whether to support the revolution, she said.
“It’s certainly not a term used by historians,” Carté said. “They are making it up.”
The term appears to have been popularized by David Barton, an evangelical activist and former vice chair of the Texas Republican Party who served as an advisor on the board's social studies overhaul. It has been primarily used in some modern-day evangelical circles as a rallying cry for pastors to become politically involved, Gillis said.
His WallBuilders organization, along with other conservative organizations, has argued against the separation between church and state, emphasizing that faith can and should be integrated into public institutions.
There really should be a blog called "History for Christians" to teach Christians about how wrong they are about history.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
How the US Christian right built an interfaith coalition against LGBTQ rights in Africa
Slater is a Mormon whose organisation has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. In a release on the academy's website, Slater described the mission of her organisation as protecting “the family institution in accordance with what all divine laws called for”, and praised the partnership as a vehicle for rallying religious institutions across faiths to that cause.
This week, Slater's organisation will co-convene the 4th African Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Family and Sovereignty in Accra, Ghana, a gathering that rights organisations have warned serves as a platform for advancing anti-LGBTQ legislation across the continent.
It comes as no surprise then that Ghana’s parliament hurriedly passed an anti-LGBTQ bill on 29 May, one that stipulates an up-to-10-year jail term for “promoting” LGBTQ activities and includes an extradition clause for queer Ghanaians abroad. The bill, which now awaits presidential assent, enjoys the support of the Ghana Catholic Bishops' Conference, the Christian Council of Ghana, and the Office of the National Chief Imam.
Over the years, the coalition between Christians and Muslims became one of the most influential anti-LGBTQ forces in Ghana, helping mobilise support for the closure of an EU-backed LGBTQ community centre in Accra, organising national prayer events against homosexuality and camps to cure homosexuality, and eventually backing the legislation that passed last week.
The same rhetoric has been used in a related pushback on women’s rights more broadly, and sexual and reproductive health rights specifically.
This week's conference in Accra, then, should not be understood as just another event in the well-documented pipeline of US-exported homophobia. It represents the culmination of an inter-faith coalition model that is, remarkably, more advanced in Africa than anywhere else in the world, including the United States.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
