Wrestling with complicated truths and simple lies

The civil war in Syria began in 2011, however, the conflict has remained largely frozen since Turkey and Russia agreed to a ceasefire in 2020. That all changed when rebel forces—now led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)—attacked and took control of the pivotal city of Aleppo last week.

At the time, the speed and success with which they regained their former stronghold surprised most, and it was generally unknown whether they would seek to consolidate their power there or continue to press further south.

That question was answered Thursday when HTS took the nation’s fourth-largest city, Hama, with similar ease.

The Syrian government’s official line was that their forces withdrew in order to “preserve the lives of civilians,” but it was relatively clear that the armies that had controlled the region since the start of the conflict were simply overwhelmed by the rebel forces. And their victory at Hama could prove even more important than taking Aleppo.

While Aleppo was a significant loss for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and meant a great deal symbolically to the rebel forces who lost the city in 2016, controlling Hama will make it much more difficult for the Syrian forces to retake any of the lands they’ve ceded over the last week. Moreover, Hama is also where Assad’s father killed tens of thousands who sought to enact a similar regime change in 1982, and where the current war began in 2011 after Assad was similarly forceful in putting an end to the protests against his reign.

For all his recent losses, Assad remains in a fairly secure position for the time being. Much would have to change for HTS to have a chance at taking Damascus, the Syrian capital.

However, should the rebels gain control of Homs—a major city roughly 25 miles south of Hama—that picture would look much different. And the reason why is relevant beyond the Syrian borders.

The most important battle is yet to come

HTS leadership has already pledged to continue their advance, so it would appear we won’t have to wait long to find out just how fragile Assad’s defenses truly are. But the primary reason the fate of Homs will be instructive for where the war goes from here has little to do with the Syrian army.

The civil war stopped being a fight primarily between Assad’s armies and those of the rebels fairly early on in the conflict. Rather, it served more as a proxy war with Russia and Iran on the Syrian side and Turkey on the other. That’s why the ceasefire between Russia and Turkey in 2020 was able to put a stop to the fighting between the other armies.

While Aleppo and, to an extent, Hama were important cities for Turkey’s plans, Homs is crucial to the way Russia operates within Syria. Should HTS take control of that region, they will potentially cut Damascus off from the Russian naval and air bases located near the Mediterranean Sea. Though such a loss would make it more difficult for the Syrian army to continue the fight, the message it would send regarding Russia’s commitment—or lack thereof—to Assad’s regime would be far more significant.

What happens at Homs is likely to offer the clearest indication yet as to whether the civil war in Syria is just heating back up or possibly coming to a close.

However, which of those outcomes would be preferable is not as apparent as you might think.

The problem with good vs. evil

On the one hand, the civil war has already resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and the displacement of millions of people. From that perspective, an end to the conflict would obviously be better than the perpetuation of violence and destruction.

Yet, at least from the perspective of America and its closest ally, Israel, a Syrian government led by either Assad or HTS would appear to be problematic for the prospect of peace in the region.

It’s easy to recognize the issues posed by the Syrian side remaining in power, considering that they’ve used chemical weapons on civilians and are propped up by Russia and Iran. But assuming that automatically makes their opponents worth supporting is how you find yourself overlooking a history of “arbitrary detentions, executions of opponents and other human rights violations in HTS-controlled areas.”

While HTS has endeavored to change its global image in recent years, the group is still designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and the UN. There is some reason to hope they would rule Syria differently than the Taliban is currently governing Afghanistan, but there’s perhaps more to indicate that the results would be similar.

All of that is why US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan recently said of HTS, “We have real concerns about the designs and objectives of that organization,” though he went on to add that “we don’t cry over the fact that the Assad government, backed by Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, are facing certain kinds of pressure.”

Many in Israel share that assessment. While they delight in seeing Iran and, to a lesser extent, Russia stretched thin, they also fear that HTS would stand against them should they gain power. At the moment, both share common enemies, but that is rarely the basis for a long-term alliance.

Ultimately, the situation is complicated, and, as is often the case in war, the sides don’t fit neatly into our preferred boxes of good vs. evil. And learning to accept that reality is important for reasons that extend far beyond the conflict in Syria.

Complex truths or simple lies

Attempting to fit complicated issues into simple boxes is one of the most common reasons people stumble into error. After all, life often seems easier when it’s simple. However, settling for anything less than the truth will always leave you worse off in the end.

The need to see all wars as a battle between good and evil is among the most apparent ways people have made that mistake in our culture today. Whether it’s the fight between Russia and Ukraine, Syria and HTS, or many other global conflicts, war tends to bring out the worst in people, and that often plays out in how it’s waged.

But the need to accept complicated truths over simple lies is also essential when it comes to our personal beliefs.

The vast majority of heresies that have plagued the church throughout its history stem from the desire to fit our infinite God into boxes that our finite minds can fully comprehend. Yet the reality is that there are a number of truths we simply have to take on faith.

Now, God has revealed more than enough of himself to conclude that it is reasonable to take his truths on faith—he’s not looking for blind or unthinking faith. But there will still be some areas where we have to accept that our understanding will fall short of where we might like it to be. When that happens, how we choose to proceed will often determine how close we can walk with the Lord.

So whether it’s nations, people, or ideas, remember that the boxes through which we try to understand our world are often far too small to reflect reality. And while it won’t always be that way (1 Corinthians 13:12), learning to rely on God’s understanding to fill the gaps in our own is one of the best ways to draw closer to him.

Where do you need his understanding today?

Friday news to know:

• Authorities release image of United Health Care CEO’s alleged shooter
• A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck off the California coast
• British police recover a stolen van with 2,500 pies worth an estimated $32,000
• The Roman Colosseum and Airbnb are partnering to let 32 people spend two days training to be gladiators
• On this day in 1884: The Washington Monument is completed

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote of the day:

“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.” —Winston Churchill

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Celebrating Advent in four tenses

Three stories are dominating the news this morning: yesterday’s Supreme Court hearing on transgender hormone regiments for adolescents, the continued fallout in South Korea over its president’s brief martial law declaration, and the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson yesterday morning outside a hotel in Midtown Manhattan.

Each, in its own way, illustrates the unpredictability of the future, whether in cultural, political, or personally tragic ways.

After psychologist Philip Tetlock evaluated several decades of predictions about political and economic events, he found that “the average expert was roughly as accurate as a dart-throwing chimpanzee.” The recently-deceased Lance Morrow, one of my favorite journalists, said it this way:

As mankind penetrates further into the twenty-first century, the future becomes ever more difficult to manage or even to imagine—politically, biologically, electronically, environmentally, existentially. No one knows what lies ahead, or what it will mean, or where it will wind up. The possibilities are extreme. At the far edge of the moral imagination, we hear the future’s sucking sound, pulling the world toward God knows what.

Morrow’s closing colloquialism is actually good theology for these unpredictable days.

“God knows what,” indeed.

The four “comings” of Christ

Jesus rode into Jerusalem the first time on a humble donkey (Matthew 21:1–11); he will return on a conqueror’s white horse (Revelation 19:11–16). St. Cyril of Jerusalem (313–86) observed:

At the first coming he was wrapped in swaddling clothes in a manger. At his second coming he will be clothed in light as in a garment. In the first coming he endured the cross, despising the shame; in the second coming he will be in glory, escorted by an army of angels.

We look then beyond the first coming and await the second.

However, with all due respect to the great theologian and everyone who refers to Jesus’ return as the “second coming,” I’d like to suggest that his ongoing engagement with our world should actually be understood in four “comings.”

• At his first, he entered the world for the purpose of purchasing our salvation by his death on the cross (1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 2:2; Revelation 13:8 NKJV).
• At his second, he enters humans individually when he becomes our Savior (John 1:13) and his Spirit takes up residence in our lives (1 Corinthians 3:16).
• At his third, he comes for humans individually when he takes us to heaven (John 14:3).
• At his fourth, he will return to the world as the King of kings and Lord of lords (Revelation 19:16).

Let’s think about these monumental events for a moment. Would you agree:

• That Jesus’ first coming and his atoning death for our sins is a transforming gift to the fallen human race?
• That his third coming, his transportation of humans through death to heaven, is a transforming gift to us personally?
• That his fourth coming, his ultimate redemption of our fallen planet (Revelation 21:1–5), is a transforming gift to our world?

Why, then, would we not equally celebrate his second coming for our personal salvation and its present-tense, transforming significance for our souls?

Why Easter predates Christmas

Many people are surprised to learn that Christmas did not become a Christian holiday until the fourth century. The date when Jesus was physically born was less consequential than the fact of his atoning death and triumphant resurrection, which is why Easter predated Christmas as a holiday by centuries.

The abiding relevance of Christmas is not just that Jesus was born into a human family, but that because of Christmas each human can be “born again” into the family of God (John 1:12–13, 3:5). As St. Irenaeus famously noted, he became one of us that we might be one with him.

As a result, each of us can—and should—experience the living Lord Jesus as personally as those who were present at the Bethlehem manger. He longs for us to encounter him every day in prayer, Bible study, and worship, practicing his presence with transforming intentionality.

When we do, predicting the future becomes less important because the One who holds tomorrow also holds us (John 10:28). And we know that whatever comes to us in this life, our Lord’s third “coming” will one day take us to the eternal reward he is preparing for us now. Or his fourth “coming” will turn this world into “a new heaven and a new earth” where “death shall be no more” as he makes “all things new” (Revelation 21:1, 4–5).

Either future should fill us with present joy and transforming hope.

“A mind through which Christ thinks”

In the meantime, our lives are Jesus’ manger, our worship his shepherds, and our witness his angels as the Child of Christmas continues his transforming work in the world through us. St. Augustine observed,

“A Christian is: a mind through which Christ thinks, a heart through which Christ loves, a voice through which Christ speaks, and a hand through which Christ helps.”

Will you be such a “Christian” today?

Thursday news to know:

• French government falls after national assembly approves no-confidence vote
• 2 kindergarteners in “extremely critical condition” after Christian school shooting
• Saudi Arabia is losing its iron grip on global oil markets
• Millions in Cuba remain in dark after nationwide blackout
• On this day in 2013: South African president Nelson Mandela dies at 95

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote for the day:

“The same Jesus who turned water into wine can transform your home, your life, your family, and your future. He is still in the miracle-working business, and his business is the business of transformation.” —Adrian Rogers

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“Only God satisfies, he infinitely exceeds all other pleasures”

Bible sales are up 22 percent in the US through the end of October compared with the same period last year. By contrast, total US print book sales were up less than 1 percent in the same period.

What accounts for the rising popularity of God’s word?

According to Jeff Crosby, president of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, “People are experiencing anxiety themselves, or they’re worried for their children and grandchildren. It’s related to artificial intelligence, election cycles … and all of that feeds a desire for assurance that we’re going to be OK.”

Cely Vasquez, a twenty-eight-year-old artist and influencer, recently bought her first Bible, explaining: “I felt something was missing. It’s a combination of where we are in the world, general anxiety, and the sense that meaning and comfort can be found in the Bible.”

Much of what worries us in the world hasn’t changed. As Paul Powell observed, “It’s not that people are worse—the news coverage is just better.”

At the same time, a world facing the threats of nuclear annihilation, global war, and runaway artificial intelligence is objectively more dangerous. And American society possesses fewer tools for dealing with such crises than ever before.

“Its peripheries were ready to peel away”

Journalist Timothy Burke notes that the Soviet Union was an empire rather than a nation, meaning that “the Soviets did not aim to integrate the country’s diverse peoples and cultures into a single unified national identity” (his emphasis). As a result, once Russia itself was visibly weakened, “its peripheries were ready to peel away,” leading to the collapse of the USSR.

By contrast, Yuval Levin observed that America’s founders united our disparate states and cultures around a constitutional system rather than autocratic rulers. As John Adams stated, America is “a government of laws, not of men.”

However, the founders knew that no nation could construct enough laws or employ enough police officers to legislate morality. Human laws cannot change human hearts, which is why, despite enacting some three hundred thousand federal statutes across our history (there are so many that no one knows the precise number), crime still persists.

It was the same in the biblical era. The Ten Commandments led to 613 recognized laws in Judaism. Written laws were later interpreted by oral laws that were eventually compiled into the sixty-three tractates of the Babylonian Talmud; the English version fills a shelf and a half in my library.

And yet it remained (and remains) true that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). This is why America’s founders were so adamant that, in the famous words of John Adams, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Now that postmodern relativism has jettisoned objective truth and biblical morality, like the Soviet empire of old, our “peripheries” have “peeled away,” leaving us with a broken culture that has no means of repairing itself and no inherent hope of a better future than the chaotic present.

“More than they wanted or hoped for”

However, my purpose today is not to discourage you but to encourage you, and in the most paradoxical way.

Paul noted, “Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20). Because this world is not our home, nothing that happens to Christians in this life can keep us from the paradise that awaits us in the next.

To the contrary, as the third-century bishop St. Cyprian wrote:

When the day of our homecoming puts an end to our exile, frees us from the bonds of the world, and restores us to paradise and to a kingdom, we should welcome it. What man, stationed in a foreign land, would not want to return to his own country as soon as possible?

St. Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225–74) explained that on that day,

The blessed will be given more than they wanted or hoped for. The reason is that in this life no one can fulfil his longing, nor can any creature satisfy man’s desire. Only God satisfies, he infinitely exceeds all other pleasures. That is why man can rest in nothing but God. As Augustine says: “You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our heart can find no rest until it rests in you.”

How can we be sure? Because of Christmas.

“What wondrous love is this”

Is it less a miracle for a Savior to save us when we die (John 14:3) or for a King to return in triumph to our planet (Revelation 19:16) than for the omnipotent God to become a fetus? If the Creator of the universe would be born as a helpless baby and die on a Roman cross, what won’t he do for you? What temptation won’t he defeat? What sin won’t he forgive? What need won’t he meet? What grief won’t he lift? What pain won’t he heal?

To see the love of Christ at Christmas, turn from the cradle to the cross and remember Jesus’ anguished cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). Quoting this text, Max Lucado asks,

“Why did Jesus scream these words? Simple—so that you’ll never have to.”

If Christ is your Lord, the beloved hymn is your story:

What wondrous love is this,
O my soul! O my soul!
What wondrous love is this!
O my soul!
What wondrous love is this!
That caused the Lord of bliss!
To send this precious peace,
To my soul, to my soul!
To send this precious peace
To my soul!

Then, one day you will testify:

And while from death I’m free,
I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on,
And while from death I’m free,
I’ll sing on.
I’ll sing and joyful be,
And through eternity
I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on,
And through eternity
I’ll sing on.

This is the Christmas promise of God.

Wednesday news to know:

• South Korea lawmakers defy president and block martial law as crowds protest
• Zelensky signals he’s open to negotiating a peace deal
• Transgender medicine comes to the Supreme Court
• Agricultural giant Cargill to lay off thousands of workers
• On this day in 1991: hostage Terry Anderson freed in Lebanon

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote for the day:

“God proved his love on the cross. When Christ hung, and bled, and died, it was God saying to the world, ‘I love you.’” —Billy Graham

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