Elizabeth Elyce Fatoma’s middle name is a story worth knowing.

Her mother was driving herself to the hospital to deliver her but found she was going into labor in her car. Her 911 call was answered by dispatcher Elyce Rivera, who talked her through the delivery of a healthy baby girl. Fatoma then named her baby in honor of the operator. The two women met for the first time Tuesday on the Today show.

Carl Sandberg was right: “A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.”

“LA Schools Hold LGBT Club For 4-Year-Olds”

Children are a “heritage from the Lᴏʀᴅ” (Psalm 127:3) of whom Jesus said, “To such belongs the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:14). I am grateful every day to be a father of two amazing sons and the grandfather of four perfect (at least in my opinion!) grandchildren.

That’s why these headlines grieve my heart today:

• “LA Schools Host LGBT Club for 4-Year-Olds“
• “School District of Philadelphia Allowing Students to Identify as ‘Non-Binary’ Without Parental Consent“
• “Billie Eilish Says She Started Watching Porn at Age 11: ‘It Really Destroyed My Brain‘”

We are living in a day when “tolerance” has been weaponized, and our children are its victims.

In The Intolerance of Tolerance, biblical scholar D. A. Carson identifies a “subtle” shift in the way our society defines tolerance. He writes: “This shift from ‘accepting the existence of different views’ to ‘acceptance of different views,’ from recognizing other people’s rights to have different beliefs or practices to accepting the differing views of other people, is subtle in form, but massive in substance.”

Sliding “from the old tolerance to the new”

Carson explains: “To accept that a different or opposing position exists and deserves the right to exist is one thing; to accept the position itself means that one is no longer opposing it. The new tolerance suggests that actually accepting another’s position means believing that position to be true, or at least as true as your own.”

With this result: “We move from allowing the free expression of contrary opinions to the acceptance of all opinions; we move from permitting the articulation of beliefs and claims with which we do not agree to asserting that all beliefs and claims are equally valid. Thus we slide from the old tolerance to the new.”

In the “old tolerance,” various religions were free to believe that their beliefs were uniquely true and to share them with others. In the “new tolerance,” no beliefs are more valid than others, and sharing them is imposing our views on others.

Carson notes that Voltaire exemplified the “old tolerance” with his famous maxim: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” I would add that the “new tolerance” illogically counters: “I consider what you say to be intolerant, so I will not tolerate your saying it.”

Percentage of self-identified Christians falls 12 points

I am addressing this theme today in light of a story from the Pew Research Center that is dominating headlines: “About Three-in-Ten US Adults Are Now Religiously Unaffiliated.” The subhead adds: “Self-identified Christians make up 63 percent of the US population in 2021, down from 75 percent a decade ago.”

The study also reports that fewer than half of US adults (45 percent) say they pray on a daily basis, down from 58 percent in 2007 and 55 percent in 2014. Roughly one-third of US adults (32 percent) now say they seldom or never pray, up from 18 percent in 2007.

This despite Harvard University research documenting that regular worship attendance corresponds to a 47 percent lower risk of divorce, 33 percent lower risk of mortality, and 29 percent lower risk of depression. Gallup is reporting that Americans’ mental health declined 9 percent from 2019 to 2020, with only one exception: those who attend religious services weekly, whose mental health improved 4 percent in that time. Another study showed that highly religious individuals and evangelicals in America suffered less distress last year than other groups.

Why would the tolerance of unbiblical morality and the intolerance of biblical morality be skyrocketing when the latter has such positive, proven outcomes? Why would more people than ever claim no religious affiliation when such affiliation brings such significant benefits?

“The surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord”

The answer is both simple and profound: Our secular society has exchanged Christ for Christianity. It has traded a personal, transformational, very real experience with the very real Jesus for a religion about him.

The Bible calls us to “know” Jesus (John 17:3); the Greek word means to know personally through experience. Paul testified, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8), a personal encounter that changed his life and changed history as a result (cf. Acts 9:1–31).

However, rather than knowing Christ in a concrete but deeply intimate way, many think the Christian faith is about rules and regulations, clergy and church buildings, doctrines and traditions. Such a religion was always destined to falter, because Christianity without the living Christ is a car without fuel, a laptop computer without batteries, an airplane without wings. As a house built on sand, it will always fall in the storm (Matthew 7:24–27).

Here’s my point today: If you and I want our culture to value biblical morality, we must demonstrate personally the liberating power of biblical morality through a transforming, daily encounter with the person of Jesus. If we want more people to identify as Christians, we must exhibit the real and living Christ in us. If we want more Americans to pray, we must show them what happens when we connect personally and powerfully with Christ in prayer.

I recently found this hymn and invite you to join me in praying its words as our daily commitment:

Lord God and Maker of all things,
Creation is upheld by you.
While all must change and know decay,
You are unchanging, always new.

You are man’s solace and his shield,
His Rock on which to build.
You are the spirit’s tranquil home,
In you alone is hope fulfilled.

To God the Father and God the Son
And Holy Spirit render praise:
Blest Trinity, from age to age
The strength of all our living days.

Who or what is your “strength” today?

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Denzel Washington stars in The Tragedy of Macbeth, which opens widely on Christmas Day. In an interview with New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, this son of a Pentecostal minister said he asks himself this question: “What I do, what I make, what I made—all of that—is that going to help me on the last day of my life? It’s about, Who have you lifted up? Who have you made better?”

He explained: “This is spiritual warfare. So, I’m not looking at it from an earthly perspective. If you don’t have a spiritual anchor, you’ll be easily blown by the wind and you’ll be led to depression.”

He’s right on both counts.

9-year-old girl photographed before storm killed her

Last Friday night, nine-year-old Annistyn Rackley was sheltering in the bathtub with her two sisters as storms raged near their southeast Missouri home. She was photographed clutching her favorite doll just minutes before a tornado ripped her home to shreds and killed her.

Victims in Kentucky ranged from two months to eighty-six years old and came from at least eight counties. Among them were eight night-shift workers at a candle factory in Mayfield, a city of about ten thousand in western Kentucky. There were 110 employees inside the facility when a tornado closed in late Friday night. One of the survivors said, “I definitely had the fear that I wasn’t gonna make it. It’s a miracle any of us got out of there.”

In other news, omicron has now been reported in seventy-seven countries and is spreading at a faster rate than previous coronavirus variants. According to Washington Post figures, the US has surpassed fifty million coronavirus infections and is nearing eight hundred thousand fatalities at this writing.

As omicron spreads, the New York Times headlines: “Across the world, covid anxiety and depression take hold.” The article quotes a French epidemiologist who said, “We no longer know when we will get back to normal.”

Meanwhile, Oxford Economics reports that the “misery index,” an economic indicator used to measure the average person’s economic well-being, has grown to recession-like levels.

The anniversary of my father’s death

Are we being “blown by the wind” and “led to depression” today? If so, what does this say about our “spiritual anchor” or lack thereof?

One reason many struggle to make God their anchor in the storm is that they blame him for the storm. If he is all-knowing, all-loving, and all-powerful, why are tornadoes allowed to kill little girls clutching their dolls? Why are pandemics allowed to ravage the planet?

I have struggled with this question personally.

My father died on this day in 1979 at the age of fifty-five. He did nothing to cause the heart disease that took his life. Over the years since, I have known many people to experience what the factory survivor in Kentucky called a “miracle.”

Why did God not perform a miracle for my dad?

If he spared anyone in the storms last Friday night, why not Annistyn Rackley?

“The uncompromised mastery of YHWH”

In Creation and the Persistence of Evil, Jewish theologian Jon D. Levenson writes: “We can capture the essence of the idea of creation in the Hebrew Bible with the word ‘mastery.’ The creation narratives, whatever their length, form, or context, are best seen as dramatic visualizations of the uncompromised mastery of YHWH, God of Israel, over all else.”

And yet, as the psalmist complains, this God permits unspeakable tragedy to afflict his people: “You have cast off and rejected; you are full of wrath against your anointed. You have renounced the covenant with your servant; you have defiled his crown in the dust” (Psalm 89:38–39).

The biblical response is two-fold. With regard to the future, Levenson notes that the Hebrew Scriptures look forward to a day when “the Lord Gᴏᴅ will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from the earth” (Isaiah 25:8).

In the meantime, with regard to the present, we are to join God in the stewardship of his creation as we “work it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15). Levinson writes: “The creative ordering of the world has become something that humanity can not only witness and celebrate, but something in which it can take part.”

Jail officer led inmates to safety before dying in tornado

I do not know all the reasons why God allows innocent suffering. But I do know one way he redeems tragedy: by calling us to join him in responding to it with courageous compassion. As Adam partnered with God to cultivate the garden before the Fall, so we are to work with him in repairing it after the Fall.

John asked, “If anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” (1 John 3:17).

This Christmas season, may I ask you how you plan to serve your “brother in need”?

In my community, Unite DFW is inviting Christians and churches to help every school, staff member, student, and family in our area receive the support they need. (For more, I urge you to read Rebecca Walls’ informative and moving article on our website.) In your community, there are undoubtedly ways you and your congregation can make a practical difference in the lives of hurting children and families. If you do not know of such partnerships, why not do what you can to create one?

Robert Daniel, a veteran corrections officer at the county jail in Mayfield, Kentucky, led seven inmates to safety when warning sirens went off Friday night. He then went back to look for others who might need help. After the storm passed, his body was found under the shattered building. The workers he had ushered to safety survived.

“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

What price will you pay to offer someone the “spiritual anchor” they need today?

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Is it true that Santa Claus’ red costume was created by the Coca-Cola Company for publicity?

Italian Bishop Antonio Stagliano reportedly made this comment during a recent religious festival at which he also said Santa does not exist. Now his diocese in Sicily is apologizing to outraged parents. Apparently, the bishop was trying to underline the true meaning of Christmas and the story of St. Nicholas, a Christian leader who gave gifts to the poor and was persecuted by a Roman emperor.

While I would never want to be on the wrong side of Santa Claus, I also appreciate the bishop’s desire to ground the hope of Christmas in truth and history. We clearly need such hope today.

Pastor and wife shot at vigil

The Kentucky governor stated yesterday afternoon that Friday night’s tornado outbreak killed at least seventy-four people in his state. With around eight hundred thousand deaths from the coronavirus pandemic in the US, the New York Times reports that one in one hundred older Americans have died from the virus.

Britain is battling an Omicron “tidal wave” as infections double every two or three days and the first death from the variant was recorded. And CNN reports that cities across the US are breaking all-time homicide records this year.

One example stands for the rest: a pastor and his wife were shot while attending a vigil in the Houston area being held by a mother for her son, who was killed at his home a couple of weeks ago. The drive-by shooting Sunday evening killed one person and injured at least thirteen others.

Napoleon Bonaparte observed, “Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment.” Psychologists tell us that hope is essential to managing stress and anxiety as we cope with adversity.

In these difficult days, where can we turn to find the hope our hearts need most?

The 4 “comings” of Jesus

I was privileged to talk with Chris Brooks on his national radio show yesterday. We discussed the tornado outbreak and the recent high school shooting in Michigan that occurred not far from the church where he serves as pastor.

Chris made the profound point that God uses suffering to point us beyond this world to the next and to call us from our finitude to his omnipotence. I agreed and noted that “Advent” (from the Latin adventus, “coming”) is a season when the church has historically focused not just on Jesus’ first coming but on his Second Coming as well.

In fact, as I noted with Chris, there are four “comings” of Jesus in our world:

• The first was at Christmas when God “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).
• The second is when Christ comes into believers’ lives by his Spirit at salvation (Ephesians 1:13–14).
• The third is when, if his return to earth tarries, he comes for us at death to bring us with him to heaven (John 14:3).
• The fourth is when he comes back to this fallen planet (Acts 1:11) as our King of kings and Lord of lords (Revelation 19:16).

If you are a Christian, you are living between Jesus’ second coming and his third or the fourth. Every day that passes is one day closer to that day when we go to him or he comes for us. In the meantime, it is vital that we share the compassionate grace of our suffering Savior wherever and whenever we can. Each day’s news proves again that “you do not know what tomorrow will bring” (James 4:14), which is why “now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2).

Every day is God’s invitation to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), remembering with Mark Dever that “today is what the Lord has prepared you for.”

A daughter’s tribute to her fallen father

To prove that God can empower us to share his love in the most painful of circumstances, I’ll close with a tribute I will never forget.

My community has been grieving the death of Richard Houston II, a twenty-one-year veteran of the police department in Mesquite, a suburb of Dallas. He was fatally shot December 3 while responding to a domestic dispute.

Officer Houston received forty-eight letters of commendation during his career, two Life Saving Awards, and one police commendation bar. But his greatest achievement was the way he lived for Jesus. The married father of three “walked with God each day,” as Mesquite Assistant Police Chief Doug Yates stated at his funeral.

His eighteen-year-old daughter Shelby exemplified her father’s faith with a tribute I urge you to watch. At one point she stated:

“I remember having conversations with my dad about him losing friends and officers in the line of duty. I have heard all the stories you can think of, but I’ve always had such a hard time with how the suspect is dealt with. Not that I didn’t think there should be justice served, but my heart always ached for those who don’t know Jesus—their actions being a reflection of that.

“I was always told that I would feel differently if it happened to me. But as it’s happened to my own father, I think I still feel the same. There has been anger, sadness, grief, and confusion. And part of me wishes I could despise the man who did this to my father. But I can’t get any part of my heart to hate him.

“All that I can find is myself hoping and praying for this man to truly know Jesus. I thought this might change if the man continued to live. But when I heard the news that he was in stable condition, part of me was relieved. My prayer is that someday down the road, I’d get to spend some time with the man who shot my father, not to scream at him, not to yell at him, not to scold him. Simply to tell him about Jesus.”

The same Spirit who empowered Shelby to speak these miraculous words lives in you as well. Would you ask him to give you the compassion and the courage to share the hope of Jesus with someone today?

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