Iran said this morning that it had targeted a US air base in response to recent US military attacks. According to Forbes, a deal over the Strait of Hormuz now “hangs in [the] balance.”

The US shot down four Iranian drones and struck a ground control station near the Strait of Hormuz that its military assessed as presenting a direct threat to American forces and commercial shipping. Iran’s announcement today came as US ally Kuwait reported its air defenses were responding to “hostile missile and drone threats.”

Hours earlier, President Trump signaled that an agreement between the two sides wasn’t close. The global oil benchmark soared above $98 per barrel early this morning after reports of the attacks emerged.

When Americans were captured at the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979, ABC News covered the ongoing crisis under the title, “America Held Hostage.” It seems we have been held hostage to Iran ever since.

Our country is six times larger than theirs; our population is nearly four times larger. Our economy is over sixty times larger than theirs. They are some six thousand miles from us. And yet, for my entire adult life, Iran has been in our headlines, nearly always for nefarious reasons.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Hormuz deal “hangs in balance” as Iran targets US air base →

One of the founding distinctives of Denison Ministries is that we are stridently nonpartisan. However, there are days when my Daily Article is criticized by those who thought I was too supportive of a particular politician or party and by those who thought I was too negative toward them—and both were responding to the same article.

Today may be one of those days.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth has condemned a Memorial Day social media post by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) that featured the images and names of thirteen soldiers killed during the military conflict with Iran. The reason: the images were displayed under the words, “Remembering the Americans who have died in Trump’s war with Iran.”

Sen. Duckworth is a Purple Heart recipient who lost her legs and partial use of her right arm when the helicopter she was piloting was hit by an RPG in Iraq. She said of the post, “It is incredibly distasteful to use our heroic dead for a political attack on Memorial Day. I’m a Democrat and I condemn this post by the DNC.”

After similar criticism on both sides of the aisle, the DNC deleted the post.

A “reign of terror created by false alarms”

If you’re a Democrat, right now you want me to cite examples of Republicans committing similar acts of partisan politicization. If you’re a Republican, you want me to offer more examples of Democrats doing the same. If you’re neither, you’re shrugging your shoulders, condemning both sides, and hoping I’ll move on.

If only I could.

It would be one thing if the bitter partisanship of our day were limited to contemporary politicians and political parties, but such rancor is as old as contested elections in American history.

In 1796, supporters of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson lambasted the other side in editorials and other campaign tactics. In 1800, the rhetoric got even worse. One of Jefferson’s supporters warned that if Adams were reelected, the nation would be “divided without a cause” under a “reign of terror created by false alarms to promote domestic feud and foreign war.” Ministers supporting Adams, in turn, accused Jefferson of being an atheist and warned that his views would lead to unchecked vice in the infant nation and the judgment of God.

From then until now, politics in America have often been practiced on a level approaching religious fervor. Our next election season begins as soon as the last election is over. Our era of 24/7 news coverage, social media, and narrated algorithms turns up the heat even further.

But there’s another factor at work, one that transcends politics and is vital to us all.

“Compromise begins to resemble betrayal”

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal is titled “The Gospel According to Karl Marx.” Author and filmmaker Robert Orlando writes: “Marx argued that modern economic life had produced alienation—workers estranged from the products of their labor, from one another, and ultimately from themselves,” creating what The Communist Manifesto calls “the history of class struggles.”

Orlando, therefore, notes:

When politics adopts the structure of salvation history, it inherits the moral intensity of religion while losing its restraints. Opponents are no longer merely mistaken but obstacles to history’s inevitable future. Compromise begins to resemble betrayal.

This mindset explains why Marxist critical theory has so inflamed its adherents against Israel, evangelicals, and anyone perceived to be “oppressing” the “oppressed.” Politics becomes the means of secular “salvation” and a zero-sum game in which any means are justified by the ends.

However, such secularization of salvation predates Marx in America by generations.

“He it is that bears much fruit”

Our founding declaration famously claimed that all people are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights” to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Note the next sentence: “To secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The Founders believed that the government they were creating could “secure” rights endowed by our Lord.

Can any secular system fulfill this promise?

The Founders knew their secular government could flourish only if its practitioners possessed character that their system could not produce. John Adams spoke for many with his observation, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Absent godly character, our politics have been and will always be ungodly. The same is true of business, law, and any other relational vocation. What Robert Orlando observed regarding Karl Marx’s worldview is true of all secularism: its concepts “can’t produce justice on their own, because justice depends on the moral character of the persons who act within those systems.”

Here we find yet another reason we need the intimate, transformational relationship with the living Christ we’ve been discussing this week. Our Lord was clear: “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5, my italics).

Which outcome do you choose for yourself today?

Quote for the day:

“Holiness, as taught in the Scriptures, is not based upon knowledge on our part. Rather, it is based upon the resurrected Christ indwelling us and changing us into his likeness.” —A. W. Tozer

Our latest website resources:

• Does the anti-weaponization fund grant justice or subvert it?
• The altars of our culture’s excess: How gambling, drugs, and lust became our modern idols
• A choice between life or death
• Rise of antisemitism, America’s AI backlash & the heart problem underneath it all
• How to disagree better on the role of women in ministry

Denison Forum

When I read this story this morning, I knew I needed to write on it, but not for the reasons you might think.

Last Saturday, a paraglider in Austria was floating along when a Cessna 172 flew overhead and shredded her sail to pieces. The woman, identified on social media only as Sabrina, began spinning and plummeted to the earth. Somehow, she was able to pull her emergency chute and landed relatively unharmed.

In the caption of her now-viral selfie video, Sabrina writes that May 23 will always be like a second birthday to her, since she knows how lucky she is to be alive.

I have no way to connect personally with her experience, since heights and I are not friends. (When I fly, I read the entire time and pretend we’re on the ground.) Nor have I had the privilege of visiting Austria. And the next selfie video I record that goes viral will be my first.

But like Sabrina, I have had a second birthday. If you are a born-again believer, the same is true for you.

The key to the Christian life is to experience every day what we experienced on that day.

Why I won’t celebrate Rosh Hashanah

My editor makes the Daily Article possible, not only with her excellent editorial work each morning but also by handling the technology that posts the article to the website and distributes it via email. Yesterday, she and I were discussing my Memorial Day article and the fact that so many Americans seem to have lost the purpose of the day.

She and her husband have a theory: Much less of the population today knows someone who died for our country. Between World War II and Vietnam, there was a day when nearly everyone knew someone who had served, and many knew someone who had died in the service. Today, both are much less common experiences, and it’s harder to commemorate something with which we don’t have a personal relationship.

I think she’s right, and not just with regard to Memorial Day.

• Eid al-Adha is a major Islamic holiday, honoring Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son. However, I will not take part when it begins tomorrow, because I am not a Muslim.
• Saga Dawa Düchen is the holiest day of the year for Tibetan Buddhists. However, I will not take part when it is observed this Friday, because I am not a Buddhist.
• Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year. However, I will not take part when it is observed this September, because I am not Jewish.

If I lived in a nation that celebrated these holidays, I would want to find ways to participate that align with my Christian worldview. It is therefore unsurprising that secular Americans would find secular ways to celebrate Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. And it is unsurprising that Americans with no personal connection to those who died in military service to our nation would be less motivated to honor their memory in personal ways.

This principle is highly relevant not just to our culture but to our souls.

“Remember what you are saved for”

The purpose of Christianity is nothing less than reversing the Fall and restoring us to the image of God in Christ. Oswald Chambers noted, “Remember what you are saved for—that the Son of God might be manifested in your mortal flesh.” C. S. Lewis likewise noted in Mere Christianity:

The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons… are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose.

Being “born again” is therefore only the beginning of the Christian life (John 3:7). Like a spiritual baby, we are intended to grow in Christ (2 Peter 3:18) until we become like Christ (Romans 8:29). And we become like Christ by walking with Christ, living in intimate fellowship with our Savior every day, abiding in him as branches abide in the vine (John 15:5).

Being religious is not enough. Paul warned Timothy about “having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power” (2 Timothy 3:5). The “appearance of godliness” changes nothing; the power of God changes everything (cf. Zechariah 4:6).

We can expect secular Americans to reject Christianity unless they see Christ in us (Colossians 1:27). If we offer only one more religion among many, why would irreligious people be interested? If our faith does not change our lives, why would they expect it to change theirs?

But if we walk in intimate fellowship with the living Lord Jesus every day, others will see Christ in us. We will demonstrate his character and compassion, speaking his truth and manifesting his love, and they cannot be the same. Some will reject us as they rejected him, but multitudes will be drawn to our Lord (cf. Matthew 8:1; 15:30).

And our lives will be restored to the purpose for which they are intended, with the abundant joy known only to those who are “more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).

“There is only one relationship that matters”

I’ll close with my favorite paragraph from My Utmost for His Highest, where Oswald Chambers noted:

There is only one relationship that matters, and that is your personal relationship to a personal Redeemer and Lord. Let everything else go, but maintain that at all costs, and God will fulfill his purpose through your life.

Then he added, “One individual life may be of priceless value to God’s purposes, and yours may be that life.” While I appreciate his wisdom, I would change “may be” to “is.”

Do you agree?

Quote for the day:

“The secret is Christ in me, not me in a different set of circumstances.” —Elisabeth Elliot

Our latest website resources:

• A choice between life or death
• Rise of antisemitism, America’s AI backlash & the heart problem underneath it all
• Why are Americans turning against AI?
• How to disagree better on the role of women in ministry
• Three purposes behind America’s founding

Denison Forum