Reflections on the state of our union and our best future

President Trump delivered his annual “State of the Union” address to Congress and the nation last night. The speech was the longest ever, lasting 108 minutes, and covered a range of topics designed to buttress his party’s chances in the upcoming midterms.

A highlight for me and for many was the entrance of the US men’s hockey team into the House chamber. The president announced that he would be awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom, our nation’s highest civilian honor, to the team’s goaltender, Connor Hellebuyck.

Their story in winning the Olympic gold medal is inspirational on so many levels, among them the tribute paid by Jack Hughes, who scored the winning goal in overtime and later exulted, “This is all about our country right now. I love the USA. I love my teammates. It’s unbelievable. The US are a hockey brotherhood. It’s so strong and we had so much support from ex-players. I’m so proud to be an American today.”

Hughes made his remarks while missing two front teeth knocked out earlier in the game, which made images of him grinning while wrapped in the American flag especially iconic. The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote, “There isn’t much that unifies all of America today, but the Olympic overtime victories by the US men’s and women’s hockey teams ought to qualify for anyone with a modicum of patriotic feeling.”

They titled their editorial, “Jack Hughes for President.”

When the other side is “immoral”

Judging from partisan reactions to Mr. Trump’s speech, the Journal board is right in their assessment of America’s unity or lack thereof. We should be saddened but unsurprised; in a Pew Research Center survey, 72 percent of Republicans said Democrats are “immoral,” while 63 percent of Democrats said the same of Republicans.

It is difficult to find common ground and make common cause with people whose character we find “dishonest,” “unintelligent,” and “close-minded” (other accusations the parties made against each other in the survey). When the other “side” is not just wrong but evil, how are we to forge a collective future with them?

In a now-iconic 1858 speech, Abraham Lincoln cited Jesus’ statement, “A house divided against itself cannot stand” (paraphrasing Luke 11:17). Mr. Lincoln was referring to slavery, but I wonder if he would issue the same warning with regard to our divisive time.

What is the way forward for our “United” States?

“Our country, right or wrong!”

The esteemed moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre once delivered a lecture that has outlived its context and its author. Titled “Is Patriotism A Virtue?”, it is one of the most thoughtful expositions of patriotism ever offered to our secularized society.

Dr. MacIntyre stated, “Patriotism is not to be confused with a mindless loyalty to one’s own particular nation which has no regard at all for the characteristics of that particular nation.” Conversely, he noted, “The morality for which patriotism is a virtue offers a form of rational justification for moral rules and precepts whose structure is clear and rationally defensible.”

He showed that morality, defined as adherence to objective ethical truths and principles, cannot be “patriotic” if the term is defined as unquestioned loyalty to one’s country. This version of patriotism was captured by US naval commander Stephen Decatur’s famous 1816 proclamation, “Our country, right or wrong!”

In this sense, the apostles were unpatriotic to the Jewish nation when they refused its leaders’ demand that they cease preaching the gospel (Acts 5:27–32). Christians today are similarly unpatriotic when we stand against unbiblical immorality such as elective abortion and same-sex marriage, despite their protected status in law.

I would counter that allegiance to biblical morality when it conflicts with our nation’s values is the most patriotic way to serve our nation. This is because obedience to God’s word leads us into our greatest flourishing and out of immorality that is destructive to our lives and country. If the apostles had ceased preaching the gospel when the authorities demanded that they do so, they would have deprived these leaders and the nation they served of the only path to salvation in this world and the world to come (cf. Acts 4:12).

Accordingly, we are at our most patriotic when we offer our nation what it most needs. And what it most needs is a personal relationship with our only Savior and the biblical truths that empower and enliven that relationship.

“To make us love our country”

Fifty-five years after Commodore Decatur’s proclamation, a German-born US general and US senator named Carl Schurz offered this clarification: “Our country right or wrong. When right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be put right.” The great British political philosopher Edmund Burke similarly stated, “To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.”

Here’s the problem: Our secular republic does not possess the inherent resources to be such a country. Our founding creed endows us with the rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” but it does not and cannot define them.

What is “happiness” to you may not be to me. So long as the pursuit of our versions of happiness (theoretically) does not harm others, our jurisprudence permits and even defends it. Thus, as I noted yesterday, much that is immoral in America is not illegal. And the freedom to be immoral cannot unify a nation or sustain its future.

So, once again, we find that the gospel is the answer to the question, whatever the question is.

“The duty of all Nations”

Jesus alone can sanctify sinful hearts and infuse us with a love for our neighbor that promotes our highest patriotism. He alone can empower us to forgive our fellow Americans, past and present, for injustices of the past and the present. He alone can enable us to serve our country and people with sacrificial, selfless humility.

Abraham Lincoln was therefore right to assert in his First Inaugural Address:

Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on him, who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty.

Our greatest president echoed the wisdom of our first president when he began his 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation:

It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favors.

To be at our patriotic best, let us perform all four duties today and every day, to the glory of God.

Quote for the day:

“To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian.” —George Washington

Our latest website resources:

• Who was “El Mencho” and why should his death matter to you?
• When I wish I were doing something else: An Easter word of encouragement for weary souls
• A Christian response to the age of selective outrage
• Is the American dream dead? Plus: James Van Der Beek, Robert Duvall, Jesse Jackson & Winter Olympics
• What does “I Can Only Imagine 2” teach us about faith and suffering?

Denison Forum

A reflection on geopolitics, morality, and our best future

On this day four years ago, Russia invaded Ukraine.

What became the largest ground war in Europe since World War II has reshaped global security, energy markets, and geopolitical alliances. Russian forces now occupy roughly one-fifth of Ukraine, with the front lines largely unchanged for months.

Attacks on Ukrainian energy, water, and railway infrastructure are continuing. The number of troops from both countries who have been killed, wounded, or missing is nearing two million. The war is forcing Russia to cannibalize its non-military economy to feed its war machine, with dire consequences for its future. By the end of last year, its army was losing more men than it could recruit.

Russia’s illegal and immoral attack on Ukraine continues to devastate Ukrainians as well. Millions have been uprooted from their homes, creating the largest and fastest displacement crisis in Europe since World War II. More than twelve million people have required humanitarian assistance.

Nor is this conflict likely to be limited to Ukraine.

After the war eventually ends, according to Finland’s 2025 military intelligence review, Moscow is expected to more than double the number of troops it stations along NATO’s northern frontiers. Last November, Germany’s defense minister said Russia would be ready to attack by 2029 and quoted “certain military historians” who said the continent had already lived through its “last peaceful summer.”

In December, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte announced that Russia could attack a NATO country in the next five years and warned that member states “should be prepared for the scale of war our grandparents or great-grandparents endured.”

I’m certain that you believe Vladimir Putin’s criminal invasion of Ukraine and his ongoing threats to the future of Europe to be morally wrong.

My question is, Why?

Would you save your dog or a stranger?

I’m not asking if you agree or disagree with Putin’s supposed justifications for his actions. Or whether you can marshal geopolitical arguments for or against his regime. I’m asking why you believe there are such categories as right and wrong.

Your answer is crucial, not just to wars and politics but to the way you live your life today.

Public intellectual and author Dennis Prager’s latest book, If There Is No God: The Battle Over Who Defines Good and Evil, is being published today. I will read it as soon as possible, but I am grateful for the excerpt he shared with the Free Press. In it, he notes that humans can live by their feelings or their values, but not both.

He illustrates: If you would rather rescue your drowning dog than a drowning stranger, you are operating on feelings. If you prioritize the man you don’t know over the dog you love, you are operating on biblical values that identify humans as made in the image of God.

Unfortunately, as Prager writes, “The great moral tragedy of our time is that feelings have replaced values.” From abortion and euthanasia to the “sexual revolution” and all it has fostered, Americans are doing what feels right to them with no consideration for objective truths or moral standards.

In fact, many do not believe that such standards exist. They are absolutely certain that there are no absolute truths, despite the oxymoronic illogic of such a belief.

Then a horrific moral tragedy such as Putin’s invasion of Ukraine comes along, itself a consequence of such subjective immorality. And we are forced to grapple with the fact that if all morality is a matter of preference, we have no way to disagree with even the most monstrous evils in our world.

How to be moral people in a moral world

Of course, you and I know better.

We believe that our God is holy (Isaiah 6:3; Revelation 4:8) and that he has given us a book by which we can live according to the moral standards he requires (2 Timothy 3:16–17). We therefore have solid rational ground for branding Vladimir Putin’s atrocities as atrocities and his immorality as immoral. We can do the same with other “culture war” issues of our time.

Until, that is, we are forced to choose between feelings and values for ourselves.

I cannot think of the last time I faced a temptation in which I genuinely did not know right from wrong. In the moment, the conflict between what I want to do and what I know to do is the heart of the issue (cf. Romans 7:15–24). The same is true of omissions as well as commissions: “Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” (James 4:17).

There is no legal way out of this moral quagmire. All the laws in the world cannot force us to change our feelings about what we want; only the methods by which we seek to obtain it.

This is why, if we want to be moral people in a moral world, we need the transformation only Jesus can bring.

When Jesus is making us like himself

One day, “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb” and “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lᴏʀᴅ as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:6, 9). Until then, wars and conflicts, crimes and immorality will only cease to the degree that the Messiah, who will one day change the world, first changes us.

The path to our best future lies through our hearts.

This is why “preaching the word,” which was the core purpose of Jesus, must be ours as well (Mark 2:2). It is why sharing Christ with our neighbor is the most significant way we can love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:39).

And it is why we need to know our Savior so intimately that we become the change we need to see.

You and I can know that Jesus is making us like himself when we no longer want to do the wrong things we used to do, and we want to do the right things we used to avoid.

By this measure, how close to him are you today?

Quote for the day:

“You change your life by changing your heart.” —Max Lucado

Our latest website resources:

• When I wish I were doing something else: An Easter word of encouragement for weary souls
• A Christian response to the age of selective outrage
• The Focus: Why are the new voter ID laws so controversial?
• Is the American dream dead? Plus: James Van Der Beek, Robert Duvall, Jesse Jackson & Winter Olympics
• What does “I Can Only Imagine 2” teach us about faith and suffering?

Denison Forum

Any of these stories could be the focus of today’s Daily Article:

• The Winter Olympics concluded yesterday, with Norway winning forty-one medals and the US in second place with thirty-three. The US men’s hockey team won the gold medal in overtime, its first since the “Miracle on Ice” forty-six years earlier.
• A historic winter storm has placed fifty-nine million people in the Northeast under weather warnings today.
• At least fourteen people were killed yesterday, including seven National Guard troops, as violence erupted across Mexico after the army killed the country’s most-wanted drug lord.
• With US forces in place across the Middle East, President Trump is said to be considering his options for Iran.
• Authorities in Arizona are continuing their search for Nancy Guthrie more than three weeks after she disappeared.

But today, I’m focusing on Friday’s Supreme Court decision striking down President Trump’s global tariffs. I consider it an even more foundational story, though not for reasons you might think.

As you know, I lead a nonprofit ministry committed to neutrality with regard to partisan politics. It may therefore surprise you that I am writing this morning to claim that the Court’s decision is good news for every American.

The reason I can do so and remain missional is that my assertion has nothing to do with partisan politics or tariffs and everything to do with our national and cultural future.

 “If men were angels, no government would be necessary”

In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, historian Gordon Wood writes that our revolution “did not just eliminate monarchy and create republics; it actually reconstituted what Americans meant by public or state power and brought about an entirely new kind of popular politics and a new kind of democratic officeholder.” As political scholar Yuval Levin has written, “The Constitution establishes a politics in which no one is in charge and, therefore, in some sense, everyone is in charge.”

We tend to focus on the Founders’ positive view of humanity that counters centuries of European monarchical thinking with “all men are created equal.” In such a worldview, anyone can be elected president, sit on the Supreme Court, or serve in Congress.

But the Founders also understood the negative side of humanity. In Federalist No. 51, James Madison wrote:

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

Accordingly, Madison and the other framers of our Constitution created checks and balances to ensure no individual or group would possess unaccountable power. In our system, the Supreme Court can overturn the actions of the president, the president can veto laws made by Congress, and Congress can overturn court decisions through legislation (cf. the horrific Supreme Court Dred Scott decision of 1857 vs. the Civil Rights Act of 1965).

Laws can replace laws, as can constitutional amendments. Presidents and members of Congress can be replaced by voters, and they and justices can be impeached.

A foundational fact for our national future

This system is intended to prevail even in the face of partisan pressure.

For example, in his response to Friday’s ruling, President Trump said he was “absolutely ashamed” of some justices who ruled six-to-three against him. Vice President JD Vance similarly called the high court decision “lawlessness” in a post on X.

The Wall Street Journal headlined that the ruling “rips open Trump’s relationship with the Roberts Court.” The president especially singled out Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch, whom he nominated in his first term, as a “disgrace to our nation.”

But he is abiding by the ruling and adopting other means of imposing tariffs. This outcome shows that our democratic republic continues to function 250 years after it was created. This is a foundational fact for which all Americans should be grateful.

I thought Christianity was a system of morality

However, a “government of laws, not of men,” as John Adams famously described our system, can only take us so far. Legality is a poor substitute for morality.

In our system, we can do whatever we want so long as we are not caught doing it. Much that is immoral and damaging to our lives and culture is nonetheless legal, from abortion and euthanasia to adultery, pornography, and same-sex marriage.

The only path to our best lives is one that changes not just what we do but the essence of who we are. This is an offer made by no legal system, worldview, or religion—except Christianity.

Only Jesus says we can be “born again” (John 3:3). Only he can make us a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Only he can change our hearts.

Our culture does not understand this. I didn’t know it for many years before I became a Christian.

And, to my point today, I overlooked it for many years after I did.

I thought Christianity was a system of morality by which I could please God and receive his blessing in return. Reading the Bible, praying, attending church, sharing my faith, and so on were the expected ways for Christians to behave. I believed the credo, “What you are is God’s gift to you; what you make of yourself is your gift to God.”

But what I could “make of myself” was not enough. Somehow in my soul I knew there was more than this. My “God-shaped emptiness” was not yet filled. To cite St. Augustine, my heart was still “restless” because it had not yet come to “rest in him.”

“Rejoicing for weariness and radiance for dreariness”

It was a spiritual formation course in seminary where I first became acquainted with the idea that God’s Spirit could make me like God’s Son, that if I would surrender my life to him every day, he would then transform me in ways I could neither imagine nor produce.

This is what famed missionary J. Hudson Taylor called the “exchanged life.” In They Found The Secret: 20 Transformed Lives That Reveal a Touch of Eternity, the late Wheaton College President V. Raymond Edman wrote:

It is new life for old. It is rejoicing for weariness and radiance for dreariness. It is strength for weakness and steadiness for uncertainty. It is triumph even through tears and tenderness of heart instead of touchiness. It is lowliness of spirit instead of self-exaltation and loveliness of life because of the presence of the altogether Lovely One.

Would you like to make such an exchange today?

Quote for the day:

“I used to ask God to help me. Then I asked if I might help him. I ended up by asking him to do his work through me.” —J. Hudson Taylor

Our latest website resources:

• A Christian response to the age of selective outrage
• The Focus: Why are the new voter ID laws so controversial?
• Is the American dream dead? Plus: James Van Der Beek, Robert Duvall, Jesse Jackson & Winter Olympics
• What does “I Can Only Imagine 2” teach us about faith and suffering?
• George Washington and the future of the “United” States

Denison Forum