J. Nick Pitts serves as the director of cultural engagement at the Denison Forum on Truth and Culture.

He came to the Denison Forum in 2014. He contributes to the Forum in the areas of geopolitics and popular culture, as well as serving as the editor of the Daily Briefing. He continues work on his doctorate and serves as an adjunct professor at DBU, teaching a master’s level course in the philosophy of leadership.

His Ph.D. research centers upon John F. Kennedy’s engagement of the religious community in the 1960 presidential campaign. He presented a paper on the topic at Calvin College’s 2015 symposium on religion and public life.

He is an editor at large for The Liberty Project, an online magazine, and his op-eds have been published by The Philadelphia Inquirer, Religion News Service and Townhall.com.

He received a bachelor’s degree in 2007 from Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee, and a master’s degree in 2009 from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.

Chelsey Youman, Esq., is Chief of Staff & Counsel for First Liberty Institute, concentrating on religious liberty matters and First Amendment rights.

She joined First Liberty Institute after working for a law firm in private practice, where she successfully litigated corporate fraud matters, complex commercial litigation, and consumer rights issues in both federal and state jurisdictions.

Youman received her Juris Doctor from Southern Methodist University, where she was a Dean’s Scholarship Recipient. She was also a member of the Board of Advocates, where she successfully argued in off-campus mock trial competitions, and was a member of the Aggie Law Society and SMU Christian Legal Society. During law school, she clerked for the Consumer Protection Division in the Office of the Attorney General of Texas and Liberty Institute.

The best argument against Obamacare may be lying quietly in a London hospital. Not even a year old, tiny Charlie Gard rests peacefully, completely unaware of the global crusade to keep him alive. The hum of the room's machines is nothing compared to the commotion outside, where doctors, lawyers, judges, and world leaders all fight for the right to decide Charlie's fate.

At the center of the storm are Connie Yates and Chris Gard, the 11-month-old's parents, who can't understand why the hospital is demanding that they let him die instead of taking him to the U.S. for potentially life-saving treatment. It isn't a matter of money; the couple has raised more than $1.6 million for the trip. It isn't a matter of care; doctors at the Vatican and neurologists in America have already offered their services. It isn't even a matter of transport; the parents can make all of the necessary arrangements. This is about a hospital, under a system of socialized medicine, determined to decide who deserves care. And according to the bureaucracy at Great Ormond Street Hospital, Charlie doesn't. But if their son is still fighting, Charlie's parents said, "we're still fighting." Thursday, the family will take as much evidence as they can to the High Court to plead for his release.

President Trump has been assailed by the left for acclaiming “Western values.” Good for him.

Western values do not include racism, anti-Semitism, imperialism, conquest of weaker peoples, exploitation of natural resources, or religious oppression.

These are aberrations of the sources from which Western civilization has arisen.

Yes, the above things have been perpetrated by Western peoples and governments over time. In doing so, however, they have betrayed their own heritage.

First, what is the Western tradition?

Last week, The Atlantic rendered a great service to those of us who contend that America is in the midst of a civil war between the right and the left. It provided a smoking gun -- actually, the gunshot itself -- to those of us who contend that the left (never to be confused with liberals) is intent on dismantling Western civilization.

It published articles by two left-wing writers, one by Peter Beinart titled "The Racial and Religious Paranoia of Trump's Warsaw Speech," and one by its national correspondent, James Fallows, written on the same theme as Beinart's.

Just hours ago, Donald Trump Jr. released one of the more astounding e-mail chains of the entire Russia controversy.

The end result is that Americans may now be introduced to the term “attempted collusion.” Or, perhaps more accurately (based on present information), “failed collusion.” In other words, there now exists evidence that senior members of the Trump campaign tried unsuccessfully to facilitate Russian government efforts to defeat Hillary Clinton.

First, some background. On July 8, the New York Times reported that Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner had a previously undisclosed meeting with a Russian lawyer with alleged “connections with the Kremlin.” In an initial response to the story, Trump Jr. said the meeting was “primarily about an adoption program.”