The old cliché that something went “the way of the dodo” could soon have a very different meaning.

As Antonio Regaldo writes for the MIT Technology Review, scientists at Colossal Biosciences in Austin, Texas, are currently working to resurrect the bird that has become synonymous with extinction. If your mind is trending toward Jurassic Park flashbacks as you read, you’re not too far off base.

Is the dodo bird coming back?

Colossal’s process works by genetically altering the Nicobar pigeon—the dodo’s closest living relative—to gradually turn it into its long-dead ancestor. This process is made possible by the research of Beth Shapiro and her team at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who recently recovered the extinct bird’s DNA from the five-hundred-year-old remains of a dodo at a museum in Denmark.

However, the dodo is not the only creature that Colossal is trying to bring back to life. By 2029, Ben Lamm, Colossal’s CEO, estimates that they will have successfully turned an elephant into a wooly mammoth, with the Tasmanian tiger also on their list of current projects.

Still, with any of the experiments it remains unclear just how many changes will be needed before one could actually say the extinct creature exists once more.

As Mike McGrew, an avian biologist at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, noted, “That is one of the big questions. At what point is your editing done? Is it hitting a hundred genes or one thousand genes?”

Whatever the answer may be, the possibilities of what such incremental changes could bring about have piqued the interest of an interesting assortment of people. Billionaires like Thomas Tull and Robert Nelson, as well as the CIA’s venture capital arm, have all decided to back Colossal’s efforts.

I bring this story up today, however, not because I’m overly excited about the possibility of seeing a dodo anytime soon—though a wooly mammoth may be a different story—but rather because the technique of relying on small changes rather than large leaps to accomplish something extraordinary offers some important parallels for Christians today.

“The best way to address social problems”

In a recent article for Persuasion, Greg Berman and Aubrey Fox approached this conversation from a more philosophical point of view.

The pair discussed the idea of incrementalism, claiming that it represents “the best way to address social problems in a climate where it is difficult to agree on basic facts, let alone expensive, large-scale government interventions.”

The foundation of their argument is that big plans often fail because they require “access to high-quality information, agreement about underlying values, and effective decision-making on the part of government planners” at a time when none of those conditions tend to exist in the real world. By focusing instead on small changes that build on one another, over time we can actually accomplish more than by trying to do everything at once.

They allow that “we still need dreamers and visionaries and rabble-rousers who want to pursue moon-shot goals like curing cancer and ending hunger. But our default setting should be to admit the obvious: our problems are big and our brains are small,” so our solutions to those big problems should start small as well.

What if small changes are the most lasting changes?

What would it look like if we took a similar approach to trying to change our culture for Christ?

Granted, it would be great if we could set forth a plan that would result in a sweeping spiritual awakening and see our culture turn back to God. But that’s not likely to happen, and we can’t afford to wait for such an opportunity to arrive.

By contrast, an incrementalist approach to sharing our faith and shaping society means each of us must take advantage of the opportunities the Lord brings our way to help people know him better. It means making sure that our lives match up with the message we’re sharing. And it means being satisfied with the knowledge that we’ve done our part even if it doesn’t always appear to make an immediate difference.

Such an approach may lack the appeal of big changes and historic impact, but history shows it’s actually more likely to make the kind of difference we’d really like to see.

None of the spiritual awakenings in modern times began with Christians making a five-step plan to change the world, and they certainly did not include any reliance on government intervention to save the day. Rather, they started with believers who felt a burden for their culture and that burden led them to pray. Those prayers resulted in Christians starting to take their faith more seriously, and only then did non-Christians begin to take notice.

The same pattern holds true today as well.

From ordinary to extraordinary

While history may highlight the big movements and leaders that made an outsized difference, the most important work was often done by those who remain anonymous to everyone but the Lord.

If we can learn to be content with that fact, not allowing our ambition to grow larger than our calling, then we can begin to make the incremental changes that could eventually result in the kind of spiritual awakening and cultural renewal that often seems out of reach today.

Christianity is never going to go the way of the dodo and God will always have his remnant. But you and I can begin to make a difference simply by taking advantage of the incremental opportunities the Lord provides to share both his love and his truth with those around us.

As Oswald Chambers once remarked, “All of God’s people are ordinary people who have been made extraordinary by the purpose he has given them.”

Christ made our purpose clear in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:16–20).

How will you fulfill it today?

Denison Forum

NFL quarterback Tom Brady announced his retirement from the sport yesterday. (For an excellent analysis of his decision and its life lessons for us, see Dr. Ryan Denison’s article, “Tom Brady retires again: The cost of holding on to success for too long.”)

Brady’s decision is unusual on three levels.

First, it comes a year to the day after he retired last year only to change his mind and return for his twenty-third season. Not many people retire twice from the same job.

Second, most players retire because they can no longer play the game well enough to compete as they once did. Not so with Brady: Even though he was the oldest active player in the NFL this season, he threw for 4,694 yards, the third most in the league, while completing 66.8 percent of his passes.

Third, it would seem that Brady was no longer satisfied with the direction of his life and career. This makes him an outlier in our society.

According to Gallup, 85 percent of Americans are satisfied with their personal lives. This contrasts with only 17 percent who are satisfied with the direction of their country (the number has recently risen to 23 percent).

What explains this wide disparity between the way we view our country and the way we view our personal lives?

The “big thing” a society must get right

David Brooks responds to our question in The Atlantic: “My basic take is that life in America today is objectively better than it was before but subjectively worse. We have much higher standards of living and many conveniences, but when it comes to how we relate to one another—whether in the realm of politics, across social divides, or in the intimacies of family and community life—distrust is rife, bonds are fraying, and judgments are harsh.”

However, Brooks believes that, despite all the gloom about our nation at present, “a society can get a lot wrong as long as it gets the big thing right. And that big thing is this: If a society is good at unlocking creativity, at nurturing the abilities of its people, then its ills can be surmounted.”

Next he surveys the ways America has been “unlocking creativity” in her people, from raising productivity and living standards to investing in education, helping people live healthier, longer, and more energetic lives, and creating an excellent innovation infrastructure.

Brooks notes: “If there is one lesson from the events of the past year, it is that open societies such as ours have an ability to adapt in a way that closed societies simply do not. Russia has turned violent and malevolent. China has grown more authoritarian and inept. Meanwhile, free democratic societies have united around the Ukrainians as they battle to preserve the liberal world order.”

“Pushed from the public square”

Brooks’ claim that humans are satisfied with our lives if we have an opportunity to unlock our creativity is both reasoned and biblical. You and I were created in the image and likeness of our Creator (Genesis 1:27) and called to “work” and “keep” his creation (Genesis 2:15). While work became more difficult as a result of the fall (Genesis 3:17–19), partnering with our Creator by advancing his creation was always part of his plan for us.

The problem comes when we decouple this partnership. Satan tempts us every day to “be like God” (Genesis 3:5) by taking over God’s creation as if it were our own and doing with it what we wish, all the while refusing to acknowledge the One who owns all that exists.

As one example, the London School of Economics will remove Christian words from its calendar next year. Christmas break will be “winter break,” Lent term will be “winter term,” and Easter break will be “spring break.”

Simon Calvert, deputy director at The Christian Institute, responded: “We have been warning for years that Christians are being pushed from the public square, yet the problem is getting worse.” He added, “Christians and those with traditional views often find themselves silenced or bullied. It’s particularly ironic when this happens at institutions that were originally founded on Christian principles and with endowments from Christian benefactors.”

“When he appears we shall be like him”

How can you and I resist this Satanic and secular pressure to fulfill our creative desires apart from our Creator? One key is to recognize that we are still being created.

If you have trusted in Christ as your Lord, his Spirit dwells in you as God’s temple (1 Corinthians 3:16) so that “Christ is in you” (Romans 8:10). Now your Father wants Christ to be “formed in you” (Galatians 4:19, my emphasis) so that you are “conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29, my emphasis).

We are not complete until we are completely like Christ. This will not happen until Jesus comes for us: “When he appears we shall be like him” (1 John 3:2). On that day, “just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven” (1 Corinthians 15:49).

In the meantime, “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). If you want to be more like Christ today than you were yesterday, spend time worshiping Christ today. Then ask the Holy Spirit to make you like Jesus. He will reveal sins to be confessed, steps to be taken, and service to be rendered. And he will empower you to do all he leads you to do.

A binary choice

Every day, you and I face a binary choice with eternal consequences: we can seek to be like God’s Son, or we can seek to be our own God. As fallen human beings, if we are not intentionally seeking the former, we are by default choosing the latter.

Max Lucado noted, “Our highest pursuit is the pursuit of our Maker.”

How passionately will you pursue your Maker today?

Denison Forum

A Georgia police officer named Jacob Kersey made this post to his personal Facebook account earlier this month: “God designed marriage. Marriage refers to Christ and the church. That’s why there is no such thing as homosexual marriage.” The next day, his supervisor informed him that someone had complained about the post and instructed him to take it down.

When Kersey refused, the supervisor warned him that failure to delete the Facebook post could result in his termination. He was placed on paid administrative leave for a week, then told he could not share personal opinions on social media that someone might find offensive.

Next, Kersey received a letter explaining that “if any post on any of your social media platforms, or any other statement or action, renders you unable to perform, and to be seen as [unable] to perform, your job in a fair and equitable manner, you could be terminated.” By this logic, any statement made by any person on any subject that another person deems not to be “fair and equitable” is grounds for dismissal.

Realizing that he could continue his career with the department only if “I compromise my values, morals, and deeply held religious beliefs,” Kersey resigned his position.

“The core of who I am”

You and I cannot control what secular authorities do about our biblical beliefs. But we can control how we respond to what they do.

One option is to pay any price to serve Christ as our Lord. After he chose this approach, Jacob Kersey explained his response: “I am grateful for the opportunity that I was given to be a police officer. I do not take that honor and responsibility lightly. However, my integrity and Christian beliefs are at the core of who I am, and I will not abandon them.”

The other option is to succumb to cultural pressure to privatize our faith, treating Jesus less as our Lord and more as a means to our ends.

This temptation is more subtle and attractive than we may think.

“Honest but reluctant taxpayers”

C. S. Lewis likened Christians who engage in religious activities to “honest but reluctant taxpayers. We approve of an income tax in principle. We make our returns truthfully. But we dread a rise in the tax. We are very careful to pay no more than is necessary. And we hope—we very ardently hope—that after we have paid it there will still be enough left to live on.”

His analogy seems especially appropriate these days as tax preparation companies inundate the airwaves with ads seeking our business. However, I think an even better analogy for religious engagement in our culture is paying for insurance.

We buy a policy to obtain the benefits we wish to receive. We make our payments each month to keep these benefits available to us. We then draw on them as needed—medical bills, house expenses, etc.

But few people have a personal relationship with their insurance providers. I have no idea the names of those who insure our family, for example. We pay what is required (and hopefully no more) to receive the benefits we seek.

“Only pay for what you need”

I have written often over the years about this transactional religion so common to our culture. From the ancient Greeks and Romans to today, our society thinks we can give God (or the gods) what they want (going to church on Sunday, praying, reading the Bible, donating money, and so on) so that God (or the gods) will give us in turn what we want.

But I think there’s something even more foundational behind our impulse to treat God like an insurer whose benefits we procure by our religious “payments.”

You may have seen the insurance commercials on television these days with the pitch, “Only pay for what you need.” This is a tempting way to relate to God in that it limits his activity in our lives to what we want him to do in our lives. When we need forgiveness for our sins or direction for our decisions, he’s waiting on the other side of our prayers, or so we think. But if he wants to point out sins we don’t want to stop committing or lead us in directions we don’t want to go, that’s another matter.

Here’s the problem: God knows our needs far better than we do. Limiting his benevolence to our ignorance is unwise for us and grieves our Father.

“The deepest desires of your heart will be fulfilled”

To return to our insurance analogy, imagine that your insurers know the future better than you know the present. Consequently, they know about the storms that will damage your roof next spring, the leaking water heater that will flood your garage next fall, and the broken water pipes that will ruin your carpet the following winter. They therefore offer you insurance you don’t know you need.

Now, to extend the analogy further, suppose that they are willing to pay the premiums themselves. All you need to do is to ask for their best and trust their answers.

Would you make that decision?

If so, I invite you to make Henri Nouwen’s prayer your own:

I so much want to be in control.
I want to be the master of my own destiny.
Still I know that you are saying:
“Let me take you by the hand and lead you.
Accept my love
and trust that where I will bring you,
the deepest desires of your heart will be fulfilled.”
Lord, open my hands to receive your gift of love.

Amen?

Denison Forum