Israel bombed Lebanon’s Hezbollah targets and a weapons storage facility in southern Lebanon this morning. Yesterday, the terrorist group was hit by a second wave of exploding devices as walkie-talkies blew up in homes, cars, and operatives’ hands across Lebanon. The explosions came a day after thousands of pagers carried by Hezbollah members blew up at roughly the same time, killing twelve and injuring more than 2,800 people.
Reports indicate that Israel intended to explode these devices just before a full-scale war but chose to proceed due to concerns that Hezbollah might have discovered their plan. The use of exploding personal devices is apparently intended to show Hezbollah leaders that they are personally vulnerable in a war with the Jewish nation.
Such intent frames my point today.
Why “we must hang together”
Reading the news through the lens of personal relevance is an understandable way to filter the cataract of content that would otherwise overwhelm us daily. For instance, you and I would obviously care more about the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah if we lived in Lebanon or northern Israel.
Consider Instagram’s new Teen Accounts safety feature, California’s new laws protecting actors against unauthorized use of AI, political developments in Canada, new deep-sea footage of the doomed Titan submersible wreckage, and a new study revealing changes in the human brain throughout pregnancy—such stories impact us to the degree to which they affect us personally.
There was a day when American culture focused more on the collective than the individual. At the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin reportedly quipped, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” As Yuval Levin reminds us, the first words of the US Constitution are: “We the People of the United States . . .”
In those days, colonial Americans needed each other if their infant nation was to win its war for independence against the mightiest military power the world had ever seen. Participatory governance and an agrarian economy also required the engagement of all thirteen colonies. That’s why our Constitution created three co-equal branches of governance with foundational checks and balances to ensure the participation and representation of all citizens, a fact Levin demonstrates powerfully in his new book American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation—and Could Again.
But our collectivism ran even deeper than these pragmatic necessities.
How’s this working for us?
The prevailing moral worldview in Europe at the time was deontological, a rules-based ethical framework especially promoted by the philosopher Immanuel Kant. “Duty for duty’s sake” was his maxim. If you knew the right thing to do, it was only right to attempt to do it.
It was conventional wisdom for many—and especially for America’s founders—that such duties are most fully expressed in biblical morality. This is why so many of them insisted that religion and morality are “indispensable supports” of democracy (to quote George Washington’s famed Farewell Address).
That was then—this is now. Some signposts along the way:
- Darwinian evolution persuaded many that the Bible is more myth than science.
- Freud popularized the notion that faith in God is a neurotic attempt to control the external world.
- Wilhelm Reich claimed that humans should be free to express themselves sexually however they wish.
- Herbert Marcuse argued that speech must be censored if it contradicts society’s new norms.
The result is a culture that has jettisoned objective truth and biblical morality for a “post-truth” subjectivism that embraces sexual and personal “freedom” at all costs. Anyone who disagrees is considered dangerous to society.
We have therefore replaced deontological morality (based on objective rules) with teleological ethics (the desired ends justify the means). In this world, your society exists to enable your personal desires and happiness, however you define them.
In light of our escalating suicide rate and ongoing epidemic of loneliness, depression, and anxiety, we might ask: How’s this working for us?
“Sir, we would see Jesus”
You and I were made for the One who made us. This is why embracing and sharing biblical truth is so vital to our souls and our society. It is why, on the pulpit of every church I pastored, I inscribed the words,
“Sir, we would see Jesus” (John 12:21 KJV).
And it is why Denison Ministries exists—to give God’s word to the world by speaking biblical truth to the vital issues of our day. It is also why your financial support on North Texas Giving Day and across the year is so vital—so we can offer biblical truth free of charge.
God is blessing our work because he always blesses his word (Isaiah 55:10–11). Last year, our biblical content was read, heard, or seen more than ninety-two million times. We are excited about new ways of reaching even more people in the months and years to come.
In his personal journal, UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld (1905–61) noted:
God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason.
Will this Source illumine your life today?
NOTE: Today is North Texas Giving Day — the most important day of the year for Denison Forum. This is our BIGGEST opportunity to make a lasting impact, and we need your help to seize it. By giving today, you’ll support the creation of biblically grounded, civil content that inspires, informs, and transforms lives for Christ. Great news as well: We’ve just received an additional $25,000 Matching Grant! That means your gift will be DOUBLED. So don’t wait. Take advantage of this opportunity to double your impact to guide more Christians through these challenging times with a steady, nonpartisan voice.
Thursday news to know:
*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.
Quote for the day:
“Christ is the key which unlocks the golden doors into the temple of divine truth.” —A. W. Pink
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