The Supreme Court is expected to announce major decisions this morning on birthright citizenship, age verification for pornography sites, and several other contentious issues. However, its ruling yesterday is already making headlines: the court handed down a decision that could pave the way for states to defund Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the US.

The Court did not address the organization directly. Rather, the justices ruled that beneficiaries of Medicaid cannot sue if they believe their right to a free choice of healthcare provider has been violated. States are therefore free to stop providing Medicaid taxpayer funds to organizations whose services they do not wish to underwrite. Since nearly half of those treated at Planned Parenthood use Medicaid, this could significantly defund the organization in states that oppose abortion.

Those of us who believe life begins at conception will be grateful for legal rulings that protect the preborn. But we are unwise to base our hopes for our culture on such decisions.

When the Supreme Court overturns the states

For example, yesterday marked the tenth anniversary of Obergefell v. Hodges, the US Supreme Court’s ruling that discovered a right to same-sex marriage in the US Constitution. The ruling legalized so-called “marriage equality” even though, as Axios reports, thirty-two states have constitutional and/or legislative bans against it.

Measures in Idaho, Michigan, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota have been introduced that would reverse the decision. In Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas, lawmakers have introduced bills creating a category called “covenant marriage.”

Obergefell is akin to the Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that discovered a right to abortion in the Constitution. At the time, thirty states had laws prohibiting abortion; twenty others permitted it only under certain circumstances.

The two rulings highlight the tension inherent in our legislative and political system: When should the Supreme Court overrule laws passed by states?

The former is comprised of unelected justices who serve lifetime appointments; the latter are the product of lawmakers elected by the people they represent. In a democratic republic, you would think the latter would prevail over the former. But in rulings such as the 1967 Loving v. Virginia decision legalizing interracial marriage, the Court sometimes overturns state laws in ways that many of us consider to be appropriate.

The “indispensable supports” of democracy

The question points to a topic we have reason to discuss often in this space: How do we best promote the morality that is foundational to democracy?

As I noted yesterday, our nation’s founders believed that, in the words of George Washington, “religion and morality are indispensable supports” to our system of governance. This is because we are ruled not by kings or theocrats but by laws our leaders enact, our courts interpret, and our authorities enforce. Because “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), the leaders we elect are as fallen as the people who elect them, and the laws they produce will often reflect this fact.

From abortion to marriage to euthanasia, we are watching Western society continue to slide down this slippery slope today.

We can and should enact laws that protect society against our fallen natures and worst impulses. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. observed, “Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.” I’m glad we have laws forbidding murder and theft—even though such laws do not transform those who would kill and steal, they make it more difficult for them to act on their desires.

But as the persistence of crime shows, no amount of human effort can change the human heart. And when society as a whole embraces unbiblical immorality, the laws it enacts can reinforce sin rather than restraining sinners.

“Knocking on the door of an empty house”

Here we find a foundational reason the gospel is so necessary and so urgent.

A drowning person can only be saved by someone who is not drowning. Only the Christian faith offers us a sinless Savior whose salvation makes us a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17) as the “children of God” (John 1:12).

Two simple but sanctifying consequences follow.

One: Our greatest service to humanity lies in persuading humans to trust in Jesus. Everything else we can do for our fellow man is done best as a means to this end. We are not to be cultural warriors trying to defeat our ideological enemies but cultural missionaries committed to “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15) wherever and however we can.

As T. J. Green noted, “Words not spoken in love are like knocking on the door of an empty house. You can make a lot of noise, but no one will respond.”

Two: We can best speak the truth in love when we recognize our deep personal need for such love. I am no less a sinner than Ali Khamenei. I am just as tempted by immorality as those who champion elective abortion and same-sex marriage. The transformation begun by the Spirit at my salvation must continue today as I submit to him and seek his will over my own.

Paul advised us, “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). There is no way to experience the latter without choosing the former, but choosing the former always accomplishes the latter.

Oswald Chambers noted, “Sanctification means being made one with Jesus so that the disposition that ruled him will rule us. It will cost everything that is not of God in us.” But this is a price well worth paying.

As the Puritan Thomas Watson observed,

“Till sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet.”

Will Christ “be sweet” to you today?

Note: For practical ways to join God in the transformation of our minds and hearts, please see my latest website article, “Is artificial intelligence ruining our brains?”

Quote for the day:

“Sanctification is the real change in man from the sordidness of sin to the purity of God’s image.” —William Ames (1576–1633)

Our latest website resources:

• Is artificial intelligence ruining our brains?
• Trump bombs Iran, NYC election shocker, Bezos wedding & casual-dining favorites
• Shooter assaulted church filled with children for VBS: Four reasons to trust Jesus at all costs
• What happens when a theoretical physicist finds faith in Christ?
• Israel vs. Iran, MAGA’s divide, AI warnings & the Pentagon Pizza Index

Denison Forum

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the first novel in the Harry Potter series, hit bookshelves in the UK on this day in 1997 after being rejected by twelve publishers. I reference this despite the fact that I have never read one of the novels or seen one of the movies made from them. I am focusing instead on their author, JK Rowling, who has been in the news in recent years for defending her belief that sex is determined by biology. As a result, she has been vociferously castigated as anti-trans and her work has been “cancelled” by many.

Add Pedro Pascal to the list. One of the most popular actors working today, his profile in the latest Vanity Fair is compelling. Pascal was nine months old when his parents fled Chile as political refugees. He struggled financially as a young actor and was twenty-four when his mother died by suicide. The article lauds his “emotional depth onscreen and exuberance everywhere else” and calls him “a star unlike any other.”

But here’s the part that is making headlines: In support of his transgender sibling, Pascal said of Rowling in the interview, “Bullies make me [expletive deleted] sick.” He has also called her a “heinous loser.”

It’s been said that “a candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.” However, as the pastor and author Nate Pickowicz noted, “John the Baptist lost his head for having a biblical view of marriage.”

Our founding “moral principles” may surprise you

Clemson political science professor C. Bradley Thompson has been a visiting scholar at Harvard, Princeton, and the University of London. In a recent blog, he writes, “The United States of America is the first nation in history to be founded explicitly on moral principles.”

However, he shows that these are not the moral principles you and I might assume them to be.

As his extensive research and writing in the area demonstrates, many of America’s founders were deeply influenced by the European Enlightenment and its emphasis on the natural rights of individuals. Accordingly, their Declaration of Independence embraced the equality of all people and our unalienable Rights to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

According to Thompson, the founders sought “a new kind of society that affirmed the individual’s right to pursue a flourishing life.” This was because they believed that pursuing rational self-interest “was moral and produced a virtuous and civil society.”

To be sure, they emphasized the role of religion in helping people be virtuous. John Adams was adamant that “our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people” and “is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” George Washington similarly attested, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.”

But as Thompson shows, many found “religion and morality” to be a means of producing people whose self-interest and self-reliance could then flourish in the new nation founded to provide such freedom.

Now that our post-Christian, “post-truth” culture has largely abandoned both Christian religion and objective morality, all we have left are self-interest and self-reliance. And those who stand for “religion and morality” can expect to be labeled intolerant, bigoted, and worse.

When “neutrality is movement”

Truthless “spirituality” that capitulates to the culture is one way to respond. William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, saw this day coming: “I consider that the chief dangers which confront the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.”

Our secularized society subtly but incessantly insists that we join them in separating faith from life. Joel Berry is right: “We’re all in a culture in a leftward-flowing river. Neutrality is movement.”

The good news is that the gospel has thrived most fully across Christian history when the culture has been most antagonistic to its truth. For example, even though the religious authorities rejected Jesus’ resurrection and viewed Christianity as heresy (Acts 5:27–28), the apostles chose to “obey God rather than men” (v. 29) and “a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith” (Acts 6:7).

The fastest growing church in the world is in Iran. Christianity is growing exponentially in the Muslim world. Over my many trips to Cuba, I have witnessed personally the joyful courage God gives his faithful people when they face persecution.

“This willing conversion of ink back to blood”

Now it’s our turn.

Barbara Brown Taylor said, “The whole purpose of the Bible, it seems to me, is to convince people to set the written word down in order to become living words in the world for God’s sake. For me, this willing conversion of ink back to blood is the full substance of faith.”

What God did at Pentecost in enabling early Christians to speak languages they did not know, he can do today by enabling us to live with miraculous joy and courageous faith. St. Antony of Padua (1195–1231) observed:

The man who is filled with the Holy Spirit speaks different languages. These different languages are different ways of witnessing to Christ, such as humility, poverty, patience, and obedience; we speak in those languages when we reveal in ourselves these virtues to others. Actions speak louder than words; let your words teach and your actions speak.

As a result, “Our humble and sincere request to the Spirit for ourselves should be that we may bring the day of Pentecost to fulfillment, insofar as he infuses us with his grace, by using our bodily senses in a perfect manner and by keeping the commandments.”

Charles Spurgeon testified:

“We shall not adjust our Bible to the age; but before we have done with it, by God’s grace, we shall adjust the age to the Bible.”

Do you agree?

Quote for the day:

“Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.” —St. Augustine

Our latest website resources:

• Trump bombs Iran, NYC election shocker, Bezos wedding & casual-dining favorites
• Shooter assaulted church filled with children for VBS: Four reasons to trust Jesus at all costs
• What happens when a theoretical physicist finds faith in Christ?
• An update from Israel: Let my people sleep
• Israel vs. Iran, MAGA’s divide, AI warnings & the Pentagon Pizza Index

Denison Forum

Let’s take a break from conflict in the Middle East to have a conversation about events closer to home. Andrew Cuomo conceded in yesterday’s New York City mayoral Democratic primary to Muslim socialist Zohran Mamdani. A Democratic strategist called the former governor’s loss the “biggest upset in modern New York City history.” Mamdani made headlines with his strong support for Palestinians and criticism of Israel.

With five likely candidates, including incumbent mayor Eric Adams running as an independent, the general election in November could be “the strangest local election in at least half a century.”

An election with thirty-nine parties

In America, anyone meeting legal qualifications can run for political office. The same is true in Israel, where any Israeli citizen over the age of twenty-one (with a few exceptions) can form a political party and run for the Knesset, their parliament. In their latest elections, thirty-nine parties participated and fifteen won enough votes for their candidate to be seated.

Contrast these open elections with politics in Iran. Their Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei recently named three senior clerics as candidates to replace him if he were to die in the conflict with Israel. In that event, he instructed his nation’s Assembly of Experts, the clerical body responsible for appointing the supreme leader, to choose his successor from these names.

The country regularly holds elections for president and other offices, but they have far less power than the Supreme Leader, who rules essentially as an autocratic dictator. In addition, their elections are especially influenced by the Guardian Council, an unelected body that disqualifies any candidate it deems insufficiently loyal to the clerical establishment.

The Assembly of Experts empowered to appoint the Supreme Leader is chosen through elections, but its candidates must also be approved by the Guardian Council. And the Guardian Council’s members are appointed directly or indirectly by the Supreme Leader.

“Iran is not important. Islam is important.”

Iran’s theocracy is built on the belief that the nation should be governed by Sharia law. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, postulated that as the clergy have the greatest understanding of Islamic law, they should be the guardians of state power until the return of the Mahdi, their messiah.

Accordingly, the Supreme Leader holds final religious and political authority over all affairs of the state, ruling essentially by divine right. He can oppress his own people and lie to the world about his intentions in the service of advancing Islam as he understands it, or so he thinks. In Khamenei’s view, “Iran is not important. Islam is important.”

This concept is not new.

The Divine Right of Kings doctrine states that a monarch’s authority is derived from God rather than the people or their elected representatives. It developed during the Middle Ages but accelerated when, as a result of the Protestant Reformation, many religious reformers rejected the authority of the Pope and the Catholic church.

For example, England’s King James I (ruled 1603–25), the monarch to whom the King James Version was dedicated, asserted that “the State of MONARCHIE is the supremest thing upon earth” and stated that kings are “GOD’S Lieutenants upon earth.”

The American Declaration of Independence was therefore revolutionary in claiming that “all men are created equal” with “certain unalienable Rights” to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Its words catalyzed the American Revolution to institute a government “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Why do you believe in democracy?

Perhaps you believe people are innately good and capable of solving our greatest problems. As President Clinton asserted in his first inaugural address, “There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.”

In this view, democracy is the best form of governance since, in contrast to the “divine right of kings” or Iran’s theocracy, we deserve the right to govern ourselves.

Or perhaps you believe that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). We sin by commission and by omission: “Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” (James 4:17). To deny our sinfulness is itself a sin: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8).

In this view, we are not good people who sometimes do bad things but fallen people who sometimes do good things. Accordingly, democracy is valuable because none of us can be trusted with autonomous power over others. We cannot discern the mind and will of God so perfectly that we should be empowered to enforce our theocratic beliefs on others. And we cannot rule so justly that we should not be accountable to the voters who elect us and the laws and jurisprudence of the nation we serve.

But maybe not today

Let’s close by making our conversation confessional.

You will not be surprised to learn that I agree with the Bible and therefore see the value of democracy in holding sinful leaders accountable to the people they are intended to serve. I don’t want theocrats or kings to rule over me, since I know them to be as fallen as I am.

Now comes the confession: I do, however, believe all too often that I am capable of governing myself. I want to live in my own personal democracy where I get to vote for what I want and then empower myself to do it. I don’t want others to rule my life because I want to rule it myself.

I know that such self-enthronement is just as foolish as enthroning kings and theocrats—if all other humans are too sinful to rule me, as a human I am too sinful to rule myself.

But maybe not today, I tell myself. Maybe I can handle this temptation, overcome this obstacle, seize this moment, be my own god just this once. And today becomes tomorrow, and how I spend my days is how I spend my life, as Annie Dillard noticed.

So, today is a good day for a dethronement. A. W. Tozer was right:

In every Christian’s heart there is a cross and a throne, and the Christian is on the throne till he puts himself on the cross; if he refuses the cross, he remains on the throne. Perhaps this is at the bottom of the backsliding and worldliness among gospel believers today. We want to be saved, but we insist that Christ do all the dying. No cross for us, no dethronement, no dying. We remain king within the little kingdom of [ourselves] and wear our tinsel crown with all the pride of a Caesar; but we doom ourselves to shadows and weakness and spiritual sterility.

Now we can see why Jesus declared,

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).

Will you “come after” Jesus today?

Quote for the day:

“Jesus is not our life coach—he is our Lord.” —Michael Koulianos

Our latest website resources:

• Shooter assaulted church filled with children for VBS: Four reasons to trust Jesus at all costs
• What happens when a theoretical physicist finds faith in Christ?
• An update from Israel: Let my people sleep
• Israel vs. Iran, MAGA’s divide, AI warnings & the Pentagon Pizza Index
• Five questions pastors should be asking

Denison Forum