Card Surcharge Ban: Will Your Coffee Really Get Cheaper?

Card Surcharge Ban: Will Your Coffee Really Get Cheaper?

Few public figures divide Christian and conservative audiences like Candace Owens. To her fans, she is a fearless truth-teller who asks the questions everyone else is afraid of. To her critics, including many on the right, she has drifted into conspiracy thinking and rhetoric that leans on old antisemitic tropes.

A recent column on The Daily Declaration by Dr Tim Orr takes a different angle from the usual shouting match. Rather than arguing about Israel policy, he asks how Owens reasons, and whether the pattern looks like the warning in Romans 1:28 about a “reprobate mind.” That’s a serious claim, and it deserves a careful look, including the places where we should slow down.

This post goes through the background, what historians say about one of the most-discussed claims, what Romans 1 does and doesn’t teach, and what we think Christians should take from it.

Who Is Candace Owens?

Candace Owens was born in 1989 and rose to prominence as a conservative commentator. She served as communications director for Turning Point USA between 2017 and 2019, co-founded the Blexit movement in 2018, and was known for her criticism of Black Lives Matter. She hosted a show on PragerU’s channel before joining The Daily Wire, where her show Candace premiered in March 2021.

So for several years she was one of the most visible voices on the mainstream right. That’s part of why her later direction has caused such strong reactions. It’s not an outsider being criticised, but someone who was once inside the movement.

The Split With The Daily Wire

In March 2024, Daily Wire chief executive Jeremy Boreing announced that the company and Owens had “ended their relationship.” Owens confirmed it on X, saying she was finally free.

The split came after months of public tension with co-founder Ben Shapiro, an Orthodox Jew and strong defender of Israel, over her comments on Israel and the war in Gaza. Shapiro called some of her remarks “absolutely disgraceful.” He later said the departure wasn’t only about disagreements over Israel, but that there was an “Overton window” at the company and she had moved outside it. The David Horowitz Freedom Center, which had helped launch her career, also cut ties, citing her remarks about Israel and Jews. The Anti-Defamation League has described her rhetoric as antisemitic.

Owens has rejected the label. She has said she has Jewish friends and that opposing US financial aid to Israel is not antisemitism. That last point is worth saying clearly: criticising a government’s policies, including Israel’s, is not the same thing as hostility to Jewish people, and plenty of Christians disagree with each other about Zionism, Gaza and American foreign policy.

The real question, then, is not whether you can criticise Israel. It’s what happens when the explanation for many unrelated events keeps returning to the same group of people.

The Frankism Claim: What Does History Actually Say?

One of the claims Dr Orr focuses on involves Frankism, so it’s worth looking at what historians have written.

Who were the Frankists? Jacob Frank (1726–1791) was a Polish-Jewish religious leader who claimed to be the heir of the self-proclaimed messiah Sabbatai Zevi. The movement he started blurred the line between Judaism and Christianity, and its followers eventually presented themselves as aligned with the Church. Scholars describe the movement as having practices that horrified many contemporaries. In the 1750s, a leading German rabbi, Jacob Emden, was so alarmed by the “erotic antinomianism” of Sabbatean circles that he argued Christian authorities should burn them at the stake. After Frank died, his daughter Eva led the movement until 1816, and Frankist communities were present in Warsaw and Prague in the early nineteenth century.

What about Louis Brandeis? Brandeis, who became the first Jewish justice of the US Supreme Court, came from an assimilated family in Louisville, Kentucky. Historians note that some of his ancestors had roots in the Frankist movement in Prague, and scholars have speculated about whether this heritage influenced his later turn to Zionism. But he had very little exposure to Judaism for much of his life, and nothing in the mainstream scholarship suggests he belonged to a living Frankist cult.

Where does the claim break down? There is a large gap between “had Frankist ancestors” and “was part of a secret sect that still practises abuse today.” One critic writing in The Christian Post pointed out that by Brandeis’s time, Frankists had largely merged into the Catholic Church, with no continuing link to the earlier rites. Another problem is surnames. Critics noted that sharing the name “Frank” with Jacob Frank is not evidence of descent or belief.

In other words, there are real historical fragments here. Jacob Frank was real, the movement was real, and some families did have Frankist ancestry. The problem is the leap from those facts to a claim about a present-day hidden network, which the evidence doesn’t support.

What Does Romans 1:28 Actually Say?

Paul writes in Romans 1:28 that because people did not think it worth retaining God in their knowledge, God gave them over to an adokimos nous, which the King James Version renders “a reprobate mind.”

It helps to look at the words. Adokimos describes something that has been tested and failed, something unfit for its purpose. Nous refers to the mind, the capacity for judgment and moral perception. So the phrase describes a mind that no longer works as it was designed to.

A few things stand out in the passage:

• It’s about a process, not a label. Paul describes people suppressing the truth (v. 18), becoming futile in their thinking (v. 21), professing to be wise but becoming fools (v. 22), and exchanging the truth of God for a lie (v. 25).
• “God gave them over” is the key phrase. The judgment in view isn’t lightning from heaven. It’s God allowing people to follow where their choices lead.
• It’s a warning for all of us. Paul’s target in the chapter is humanity in general, not one person or one political camp.

Which brings us to the most important point of all.

Romans 2:1 and the Danger of Using Scripture as a Weapon

Immediately after Romans 1, Paul turns the spotlight on the reader. Romans 2:1 says that anyone who passes judgment on others has no excuse, because in judging others they condemn themselves.

That matters here. Dr Orr is careful to say he does not claim Owens has been given over to a reprobate mind, and that only God can judge that. That restraint is right, and Christians would do well to hold to it. Slapping a Romans 1 label on someone we disagree with is easy and tempting, and it usually says more about us than about them. We can’t see into a person’s heart, and we have no business pronouncing on someone’s standing before God.

What we can do is evaluate arguments, claims and habits of thought. That’s a very different task, and it’s both fair and necessary.

The Real Issue: Can a Claim Be Proved Wrong?

This is where Dr Orr’s piece is most useful, and it applies far beyond one commentator.

A healthy belief responds to evidence. If new information contradicts it, the belief changes. A conspiracy-style belief tends to work the opposite way. Every fact gets reinterpreted so the theory survives:

• If scholars disagree, they must be compromised.
• If there’s no documentation, the cover-up must have been thorough.
• If journalists push back, they must be controlled.
• If critics get angry, you must be close to the truth.

When criticism becomes proof of the theory, the claim can no longer be tested. Philosophers sometimes call this being unfalsifiable. It feels powerful because nothing can ever count against it, but that is precisely why it’s unreliable.

Importantly, this is a pattern we can see in all kinds of people, left, right, religious and secular. It’s not unique to any one figure, and none of us is immune.

Why Christians Should Care

This isn’t just a question for media commentators. Christians have particular reasons to take it seriously:

• Truth is a Christian concern. Jesus said he came to bear witness to the truth, and the Bible repeatedly praises those who test claims. Paul tells believers to test everything and hold on to what is good. The Bereans in Acts 17 are commended for examining the Scriptures daily to see whether what they heard was so.
• Conspiracy theories often target groups of people. When a theory assigns hidden malicious power to an ethnic or religious group, it has a long and ugly history, and Christians should be among the first to notice the warning signs.
• Wise people ask both questions. Proverbs says the first person to state a case seems right until someone else examines it. Healthy scepticism cuts both ways. It applies to official narratives and to alternative ones.

Our Take

Here’s where we’d like to add some commentary.

1. Criticising a government is not the same as targeting a people.

Christians can argue in good faith about Israel’s policies, American aid, the war in Gaza and the theology of Zionism. These are legitimate debates. Pretending that every critic is an antisemite is unfair and shuts down needed conversations. But it’s equally important that critics of Israel don’t slide into explanations that blame Jewish people collectively. The line between those two things is the one worth guarding.

2. Evaluate the argument, not the soul.

The Romans 1 angle is thought-provoking, but we’d urge caution about how widely it’s applied. It’s far better to say “this claim isn’t supported by the evidence” than to say “this person has been given over by God.” The first can be checked. The second is above our pay grade.

3. Start with real facts, then ask what they can bear.

The Frankism example is instructive. Jacob Frank was real. The movement was real. Brandeis’s ancestry was real. Each fact, taken alone, is a reasonable thing to research. The trouble is building a large structure on a small foundation. A good habit is to ask of any claim: what exactly is the evidence, and does it support the size of the conclusion?

4. Beware of audience incentives.

Online, being the person who knows “what they’re hiding” is rewarded with attention. That’s true across the political spectrum. It doesn’t mean every contrarian is wrong, since governments do mislead and experts do get things wrong. But it’s a reason to ask whether a source would still say this if it cost them followers.

5. Hold your own side to the same test.

It’s easy to nod along when a piece criticises someone we already dislike. A better test is whether we apply the same standards to commentators we like. If we’d reject a claim from one person for lacking evidence, we should reject it from another.

The Other Side of the Argument

In fairness, here’s how supporters and sceptics of Owens might push back:

• Her supporters say she is asking legitimate questions about powerful lobbies, foreign influence and US policy, and that she’s being smeared as an antisemite to shut down debate. They point to her statements that she is not targeting Jewish people as such.
• Some critics of the Romans 1 framing say that applying that passage to a specific living person is inappropriate, however carefully it’s hedged, and that it risks turning a disagreement over evidence into a spiritual accusation.
• Others point out that the Daily Wire’s own leadership disputed that her departure was simply about Israel, so the story of her exit has more than one version.

These objections deserve to be heard. The strongest version of Dr Orr’s argument doesn’t depend on any one claim about Owens. It depends on the principle that beliefs should be testable.

A Simple Checklist for Readers

When you meet a bold claim, from anyone, try these questions:

1. What is the primary evidence, and can I read it myself?
2. Do mainstream historians or specialists in the field agree? If not, why not?
3. Is the claim about a specific action, or does it blame a whole group?
4. What would change this person’s mind? Have they ever changed it?
5. Does the theory explain too much? A theory that explains everything often proves nothing.
6. Would I accept this standard of evidence if it came from someone I disagreed with?

What to Watch Next

• Whether commentators on both sides of the Israel debate keep their arguments focused on policy and evidence
• How churches handle the conversation, with grace and discernment rather than slogans
• Whether public figures are willing to correct themselves when shown to be wrong, which is a good sign of intellectual honesty

A Closing Thought

Romans 1 is a sobering chapter, but it’s meant to produce humility, not pride. The danger Paul describes isn’t limited to one person or party. Any of us can get attached to a story so firmly that we stop letting the truth correct us. The best response is to pray for discernment, keep testing what we hear, and speak about people with the same care we’d want for ourselves.

Further Reading

For the column that prompted this discussion, read Dr Tim Orr’s article, published by The Daily Declaration.

Suggested tags: Candace Owens, Romans 1, Frankism, conspiracy theories, discernment, antisemitism, Christian commentary

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Sources used for background (check before publishing):

• Jeremy Boreing’s announcement and Candace Owens’ response (22 March 2024), as reported by The Jewish Chronicle and others
• New York Post / Yahoo News, “Daily Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro denies Candace Owens was axed over Israel comments”
• Anti-Defamation League, “Candace Owens” backgrounder
• Wikipedia, “Candace Owens” (career timeline)
• Pawel Maciejko, The Mixed Multitude: Jacob Frank and the Frankist Movement, 1755–1816 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011)
• Project MUSE review of Maciejko and Rapoport-Albert on Frankism
• Brandeis University, Jonathan Sarna, review of The Family Letters of Louis D. Brandeis
• ReformJudaism.org, “Brandeis and Jacob: Struggle and Change”
• The Christian Post, “The Antisemitic Unraveling of Candace Owens”