“The 7^th of October is going to be every day for you.” So screamed protesters at two Jewish Columbia University students just outside the campus gates. Others at Columbia called for Hamas to “burn Tel Aviv to the ground,” which would entail the murder of more than four million Jews, and chanted, “Hamas, we love you. We support your rockets too.”

Since Hamas terrorists murdered an estimated 1,200 men, women, and children in Israel last October 7, antisemitism has escalated dramatically in the US and especially on college campuses.

Columbia, an Ivy League school in New York City, became an epicenter when a tent city dubbed the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” was created on the school’s campus. Now pro-Palestinian demonstrations and encampments have spread to more than a dozen schools across the country. Students are calling for an end both to the Israel–Hamas war and to their universities’ investment in companies engaged with Israel.

School administrators at Columbia did report some progress early this morning in negotiations with pro-Palestinian protesters, who agreed to remove a significant number of tents from the lawn, ensure non-students would leave, and bar discriminatory or harassing language among the protesters.

Harvard University has closed its yard until Friday in anticipation of pro-Palestinian protests. Yale’s president is concerned about “reports of egregious behavior such as intimidation and harassment” on his campus. Officials at numerous schools are concerned that pro-Palestinian demonstrators will disrupt graduation ceremonies later this spring.

Jewish students are especially at risk. Some at Columbia have been assaulted and otherwise threatened. Jewish groups have been hiring extra security for Passover events.

What is behind these protests?

How can the answers help us engage our broken culture with redemptive truth?

“The only nation founded on a creed”

The day after the October 7 massacre, Columbia professor Joseph Massad praised the “awesome” scenes of the assault “witnessed by millions of jubilant Arabs.” In 2018, Columbia professor Hamid Dabashi posted on Twitter (now X): “Every dirty treacherous ugly and pernicious act happening in the world” could be traced to “the ugly name of Israel.”

As I noted in my ebook on the conflict between Israel and Hamas, protesters claim that Israel “colonized” its land from the rightful Palestinian owners and that it “occupies” territory that should belong to a free Palestine. As I explain in my book, both claims are absolutely false, both with regard to the history of the land and to current realities there.

However, we no longer live in a culture where truth is determined by what is right and wrong, factual or fallacious. As a result, it is difficult to have a reasoned conversation these days about Israel, abortion, same-sex marriage, transgender rights, or any other contested cultural issue.

G.K. Chesterton famously noted that “America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed.” Ours can be stated in a sentence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

But if these truths are no longer “self-evident,” are we then free to reject them?

• Darwin convinced many that we are not “created” by a “Creator” but the product of naturalistic processes.
• Anti-semitists and other racists, pornographers, and sex traffickers do not believe we are “created equal.”
• Abortion and euthanasia advocates do not believe that the “unalienable Rights” to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” extend to all.

Now we’re seeing a blatant rejection of our founding creed at some of our most elite educational institutions. What does this mean for our future as a democracy?

Beware this “work for God”

Self-governance will fail if people cannot govern themselves. And, as Scripture notes, “There is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins” (Ecclesiastes 7:20). This is why, as we have seen this week, we each need a daily, intimate relationship with the only One who can forgive our sins and transform our hearts.

The good news about human history is that anyone can change history. Paul’s unnamed nephew (Acts 23:16–22) and a Roman officer named Claudius Lysias (Acts 21:31–23:30) were instrumental in saving the apostle from his enemies, enabling his ministry in Rome (Acts 28:30–31) and the last seven of his letters (Acts 23:16–22). Many of the Bible’s greatest heroes came from the unlikeliest of backgrounds.

According to Jesus, you and I are “the light of the world” today (Matthew 5:14). But we must be the change we wish to see. To manifest the love of God, we must experience the love of God (1 John 4:19).

This is why Oswald Chambers warned:

Beware of any work for God which enables you to evade concentration on him.

He explained: “A great many Christian workers worship their work. The one concern of a worker should be concentration on God.” Then he added:

There is no responsibility on you for the work; the only responsibility you have is to keep in living constant touch with God, and to see that you allow nothing to hinder your cooperation with him. . . . God engineers everything; wherever he puts us, our one great aim is to pour out a whole-hearted devotion to him in that particular work.

What is your “one great aim” today?

Wednesday news to know:

• Cable news coverage of Trump trial reflects a US divided
• Senate passes Ukraine, Israel aid package after monthslong fight
• US Congress approves bill banning TikTok unless Chinese owner ByteDance sells platform
• Israelis fled these towns after Hamas attacked. Now they’re coming home
• On this day in 1800: Library of Congress established

Quote for the day:

“To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement.” —St. Augustine

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The power of Christian character to change the culture

Let’s meet a couple whose commitment to Christ and to godliness is making headlines. Rebekah Hurford and Kirk Peter plan to get married one day, but they’ve never shared a passionate kiss and are waiting until marriage to do so. When the Christian couple began dating, they chose not to become intimate. They never sleep at the same place. They have had sexual relationships with others in the past which led to “broken trust” and “a lot of wounds,” so this time they’re choosing to live biblically.

How’s this working for them?

“The result of strong boundaries and saving ourselves until marriage has been the most joyful and stress-free relationship of my thirty-one years,” Hurford says. She added: “Don’t compromise in dating, ladies, the man who will honor you is out there.”

You might think I read their story in a Christian publication, but it’s actually a headline in the New York Post. So was this: “Scottie Scheffler has become golf’s unassuming megastar.” The article was published even before Scheffler won the Masters and then won again yesterday.

Though he is always quick to give the glory to God, as I noted after his triumph at Augusta, the secular world doesn’t seem to make the connection. One golf commentator went on and on Saturday describing what a “good person” Scheffler is with no mention of the real reason why.

It’s a fact: The darker the room, the more obvious and attractive the light.

A quick way to improve your health

Yesterday we focused on research indicating that perhaps as few as 5 percent of Americans attend religious services weekly. What are they missing?

A friend recently pointed out this article: “Why public health should attend to the spiritual side of life.” The subheading answers the question: “Research suggests weekly service attendance is associated with better health.”

The writer points to extensive evidence that “weekly religious service attendance is longitudinally associated with lower mortality risk, lower depression, less suicide, better cardiovascular disease survival, better health behaviors, and greater marital stability, happiness, and purpose in life,” linking to research for each outcome.

He also notes that about 40 percent of the increasing suicide rate in the United States from 1999 to 2014 could be attributed to declines in attendance at religious services during this period. According to another study, declining attendance from 1991 to 2019 accounted for 28 percent of the increase in depression among adolescents.

Again, you might think I’m quoting from Christianity Today or a similar publication, but this article was written by Tyler VanderWeele, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, and published by Harvard.

The darker the room, the more obvious and attractive the light.

Benjamin Franklin on the power of faith

Our spiritual enemy has a strategy for combatting stories like the ones we’re discussing today. If he cannot get us to reject Christ, he’ll tempt us to adopt religion. That’s because he knows that religion cannot save anyone’s soul—only a personal relationship with Jesus can do that. Religion cannot transform the human heart—only the indwelling Holy Spirit can do that.

St. Basil the Great (AD 330–379) observed:

Through the Holy Spirit comes our restoration to paradise, our ascension into the kingdom of heaven, our return to the status of adopted sons, our liberty to call God our Father, our being made partakers of the grace of Christ, our being called children of light, our sharing in eternal glory—in a word, our being brought into a state of all fullness of blessing both in this world and in the world to come, of all the good gifts that are in store for us.

When you and I experience the risen Christ each day, our lives cannot be same. Nor can our culture. Even Benjamin Franklin, not known for evangelical piety, recognized this fact:

“He who shall introduce into public affairs the principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world.”

“Christ in you” is “the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27), not just for your soul but for everyone you influence.

The darker the room, the more obvious and attractive the light.

“Long eagerly for what heaven has in store”

Pope St. Gregory the Great (AD 540–604) encouraged us:

Let us stir up our hearts, rekindle our faith, and long eagerly for what heaven has in store for us. To love thus is to be already on our way. No matter what obstacles we encounter, we must not allow them to turn us aside from the joy of that heavenly feast. Anyone who is determined to reach his destination is not deterred by the roughness of the road that leads to it. Nor must we allow the charm of success to seduce us, or we shall be like a foolish traveler who is so distracted by the pleasant meadows through which he is passing that he forgets where he is going.

Are you “determined” to reach your “destination” today?

Tuesday news to know:

• NY vs. Trump: First witness takes the stand in Manhattan court
• Columbia cancels in-person classes amid pro-Palestinian protests
• Supreme Court divided over homeless ban and rights of the unhoused
• Lyrid meteor shower 2024: How to see a stunning fireball tonight
• On this day in 1564: William Shakespeare was born

Quote for the day:

“In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.” —Francis Bacon

Denison Forum

Cultural Christianity and the power to change culture

How many Americans say they attend religious services each week?

How many actually do?

According to Gallup polling, 21 percent of us say we attend religious services every week; 41 percent say they attend at least monthly.

However, the data says otherwise.

Devin Pope, a business school professor at the University of Chicago, studied cell phone geodata from over two million Americans to examine their behavior with respect to religion. He found that only 5 percent attended services weekly, and only 21 percent attended monthly. As an article reporting Pope’s study headlined, “People who say they go to religious services weekly are probably lying.”

The story raises a cultural question: Why would so many people claim to attend religious services so much more often than they actually do?

Religion is twice as popular as sports

According to Gallup, about three in four Americans identify with a specific religious faith. Religious commitment therefore outranks a number of other significant identifiers in our culture:

• 28 percent of Americans identify as Democrats, 28 percent as Republicans, and 41 percent as independents.
• 60 percent of us are employed.
• 66 percent of us own a home.
• 37 percent of us say we follow sports extremely or somewhat closely.

In an ever more secularized society, why is it still appealing for so many Americans to claim a religious identity and even to say that they often attend religious services?

British atheist Richard Dawkins made headlines recently by claiming to be a “cultural Christian.” He meant that he appreciates the contribution of Christianity to his country’s history and cultural heritage and prefers the Christian tradition to Islam or other options.

I think Dawkins speaks for many. Religiosity still equates to cultural, moral, and traditional values in our society.

But religiosity is not enough to meet the challenges we face today.

“A hedge against bad things”

In his brilliant exposition, Why Politics Fails, Oxford professor Ben Ansell identifies one of the greatest values of democratic governance: “There’s nothing . . . that guarantees democracies get good politicians. But at least ‘the people’ will be able to throw them out if they’re terrible.”

Cultural commentator Jonah Goldberg agrees:

Democracy’s greatness lies in the fact it is a hedge against bad things. (Its record in assuring good things is decidedly more mixed and contestable.) The ability to fire people is essential to political competition. If a politician or a party screws up or starts looking out for its own interests more than the interests of the voters, the ability to kick them out is essential. This was among the greatest innovations in human history. Monarchs and aristocracies can get selfish and self-absorbed. Indeed, they always do eventually. Politicians are prone to the same tendencies. But in a democracy, you can get rid of them without swords or guns.

While we can be grateful for democracy’s ability to remove bad leaders, Ansell is right: democracy cannot guarantee good leaders. The people we vote into office next will be just as fallen and flawed as the ones they replace.

And religiosity cannot make up the difference.

Only one of the 469 members of the current US Congress admits to being religiously “unaffiliated,” while 87 percent claim to be Christian and another 6 percent say they are Jewish. America has never elected an avowed atheist as president.

How is the religiosity of our leaders working out for us?

Cultural Christianity is a contradiction in terms

We experience the transforming power of Christianity not by identifying with it as a religion but by experiencing the living Christ personally. Saul of Tarsus was changed not by changing his religious identity from Jewish to Christian but by meeting the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. He would later explain this reality to the rest of us: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

This is how all relationships work. Marriage changes your life not because you are “married” but because you commit your life to your spouse and they to you. The same is true with parenthood, education, or employment—it is not identifying with the institution but experiencing the relationship it offers that matters.

However, this is especially true with Christianity. Unlike your spouse or parents, your Lord lives in you by his Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:16). Unlike your employer or professor, Jesus has the divine power to forgive your every sin (1 John 1:9) and to transform your character into his (Romans 8:29).

Here’s the bottom line:

Cultural Christianity is a contradiction in terms, but biblical Christianity transforms culture.

When last did the living Lord Jesus change your life?

NOTE: Did you know that Denison Forum is a nonprofit ministry fully supported by readers like you? So, when you request one of our books—like our just-released and updated edition of Between Compromise and Courage—you’re supporting our calling “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Eph 4:12). Get your copy of our new book today; impact believers across the world tomorrow.

Monday news to know:

• House approves $95 billion aid bill for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan
• US-China internet war intensifies as House passes TikTok ban
• Israeli military intelligence chief resigns over his role in failing to prevent Oct. 7 attack
• Nelly Korda wins fifth consecutive title at the Chevron Championship
• On this day in 1994: Former President Richard Nixon dies

Quote for the day:

“Christians are supposed not merely to endure change, nor even to profit by it, but to cause it.” —Harry Emerson Fosdick

Denison Forum