President Trump renames Lake Ontario as “Lake America”

President Trump recently signed an executive order changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America. The move comes amidst an ongoing trade and tariff conflict between the US and Canada. He said the move to rename the lake, which straddles both countries, was effective immediately.

Can Mr. Trump do this?

The American president has broad discretion over how the US recognizes landmarks. As a result, the executive order gives the US Department of the Interior thirty days to update the name change with the Geographic Names Information Service, which is the official repository of domestic geographic names in the US.

However, other countries are under no obligation to follow America’s decisions regarding such names. This is because there is no universally recognized international body that sets the names of international waters.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney quickly responded to the news: “Things must be called by their name, and this lake is called Lake Ontario—today and forever.” Mr. Carney noted that the name Lake Ontario could be traced back more than four centuries, adding that it preceded the formation of the Canadian Confederation and the US Declaration of Independence.

When Mr. Trump returned to the White House in 2025, he signed a similar order changing the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Mexico has rejected the name change. When the Associated Press refused to adopt the name “Gulf of America” in its coverage, the White House blocked AP reporters from presidential events. A legal battle is ongoing.

Words from a Cuban pastor I have not forgotten

My guess is that you are responding to this news along lines consistent with your partisan beliefs before reading this article, which points to my point today.

The president of the United States is commander-in-chief of the mightiest military the world has ever seen and leads the government of the wealthiest nation in history. President Trump holds tremendous sway with Republican voters as well: 97 percent of his endorsed candidates won their primary races in this election cycle.

And yet, even he cannot force nations outside the US to adhere to his geographical naming decisions. Nor can he force you to support them.

Some countries are far more autocratic than ours, of course. Imagine journalists in Russia, Cuba, or China responding to their dictator’s naming proclamations as caustically as many have in the US. But even in these nations, as I have experienced personally, people exercise the right of personal worship given to them not by their country but by their Creator.

They may be forced to gather for prayer in private, and even in secret, but they still gather. They may have to smuggle Bibles to those who need them, but they still distribute God’s word. In fact, I have found that the more Christians are persecuted, the more courageous and resolute their faith becomes.

On my first visit to Cuba, I had a conversation with a pastor there that I will never forget. 

I shared with him my sorrow over the persecutions his people were facing and my prayers for their relief. He asked me to stop praying in this way, explaining that persecution was purifying and strengthening his people and their faith. Then he told me that he and many others in Cuba were praying for persecution to increase in the US so as to help American Christians become stronger as well.

In my experience, God answers Cuban prayers.

Why NFL players begin the season with training camp

Suffering makes some people bitter and others better. As Viktor Frankl famously noted with regard to the horrors inflicted on him by the Nazis, no one can take from us our right to choose how we will respond to what happens to us.

The best time to make this choice, however, is before it comes.

NFL players are in training camp these days, learning how to run their coaches’ plays before they will be required to run them in games. Soldiers go to boot camp to learn how to wage war before they are sent to wage war.

If we begin each day by submitting that day to God’s Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), we connect our souls to the source of their spiritual power. If we study God’s word in quiet places and times, we can tell the Lord that we have “stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you” (Psalm 119:11). Jesus’ admonition to his first followers is equally relevant to us: “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation” (Matthew 26:41).

Staying “prayed up” is the best way to stay empowered by the Spirit. Choosing not to be “conformed to this world” is vital before the world tries to conform us (Romans 12:2).

“If they had not seen him risen”

All of this is possible for us because the One we worship and serve is just as alive and powerful today as on the day he rose from the dead.

St. John Chrysostom (died AD 407) noted that Jesus’ disciples “in Christ’s lifetime did not stand up to the attacks by the Jews,” but they “set forth to do battle with the whole world once Christ was dead.” He explained what made the difference:

Did they perhaps say to themselves: “What is this? He could not save himself but he will protect us? He did not help himself when he was alive, but now that he is dead he will extend a helping hand to us? In his lifetime he brought no nation under his banner, but by uttering his name we will win the whole world?” Would it not be wholly irrational even to think such thoughts, much less to act upon them?

It is evident, then, that if they had not seen him risen and had proof of his power, they would not have risked so much.

But they did see him risen, and they did experience his power. And so they risked their lives to obey his commission, and the world has never been the same.

Now it’s our turn.