President Donald Trump told reporters yesterday that he is ready to order federal law enforcement intervention to combat crime in Chicago and Baltimore. “I have an obligation,” he said. “This isn’t a political thing.” He stated, “We’re going in,” but added, “I didn’t say when.”

Officials in both cities are opposed to such moves.

The president’s announcement followed police reports that at least fifty-eight people were shot in Chicago over the Labor Day weekend, eight fatally.

The violence in the city brought to mind a personal experience there many years ago. When I was in college, I led a ministry team that spent a week in Chicago working with inner-city churches. I was deeply impressed by the commitment of these leaders to making a transformational difference. They could easily have left their community for safer environs, but they felt called by God to be his light in their darkness.

Such efforts are continuing in Chicago today. Churches and ministries are supporting mothers who lose children to violence, offering events and strategies for pairing younger and older generations, providing after-school programs and safe party events on Friday nights to keep children out of harm’s way, and hosting feeding and mentoring programs.

I have personally witnessed similar ministries at work in other major cities around the world. Philip Yancey famously asserted that “God goes where he’s wanted.” The evidence of Scripture, Jesus’ earthly ministry, and church history also shows that “God goes where he’s needed.”

Trusting the church when the church hurts us

Yesterday, we reflected on the challenge of trusting God when he disappoints us. Today, let’s take up a related question: How do we trust the church when the church hurts us?

You probably have personal examples here, as do I. So did Jeremiah, who was beaten and imprisoned by Pashhur the priest (Jeremiah 20:1–2). So did Stephen, who was martyred by the high priest and other religious leaders (Acts 7). So did the apostles, who were arrested and beaten by the religious authorities (Acts 5:17–40). So did Paul, who was repeatedly persecuted by religious leaders. So did Jesus most of all, who was condemned in illegal trials staged by the high priest and then crucified under pressure from religious leaders.

What was true of Jewish religious authorities in early Christianity has been true of Christian authorities across the centuries since. From the millions who died in Crusades championed by the Church, to Southern clergy support for slavery and Jim Crow discrimination, to clergy abuse scandals of recent years, the church of Jesus Christ has often failed to be the body of Jesus Christ.

We can respond with the truism, “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven,” which is true. We can note that our faith is to be in a holy God, not fallen people. We know not to be surprised when the sins of sinners harm the innocent as well.

But Christianity claims that followers of Jesus will become like Jesus by following him. The New Testament teaches that Christians are a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17) in whom the Spirit of God actually lives (1 Corinthians 3:16) and that the Father is working to mold us into the character of his Son (Romans 8:29). No other religion makes such transformative claims.

So, when the church fails us, it is understandable to feel that God has failed us as well.

Church attendance and health outcomes

However, if we are measuring the relevance and value of church attendance by its results in those who attend, there is good news here as well.

According to research, participation in a religious community correlates with better health outcomes and longer life, higher financial generosity, and more stable families. The more we participate, the greater the positive effects:

• Sixty-two percent of those who ranked high in church engagement also ranked high in human flourishing.
• Only 40 percent of those with average church engagement scores ranked high in human flourishing.
• And only 23 percent of those who ranked low in church engagement scored high in human flourishing.

These findings make sense. “Going to church” on occasion is not the same thing as encountering Jesus personally. And only Jesus, working by his Spirit, can change our lives and transform our character. Listening to sermons and Bible studies, singing hymns and choruses, and otherwise attending church activities is no more transformative apart from the Spirit than watching a football game is transformative apart from participation on the field.

But Satan does not want us to know this. If he cannot keep us from church attendance, he will tempt us to believe that attending church checks the “spirituality box” and constitutes all we need to do in our relationship with God. Then, when our lives are no different, we can erroneously but easily conclude that the church makes no difference in the world. And skeptics who see our unchanged lives can conclude the same as well.

“Pinholes through which I see the face of God”

In Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Ethics, the philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote: “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” In other words, we should ask of everything we consider doing, “What if everyone did that?”

Missionaries sent around the globe, universities and hospitals begun and operated by churches and denominations, and ministries to human needs wherever needs are found—each shows the wisdom of God’s call not to “give up the habit of meeting together” (Hebrews 10:25). If everyone stopped going to church, all of this would stop as well.

On an individual level: What if everyone experienced the risen Lord Jesus personally every day and corporately every week? What if every Christian sought his voice when we study his word, listened for his Spirit when we pray, worshiped him as our “Audience of One” when we sing at church, and made him known through our words and works in our congregation and our community?

Such a lifestyle is not reserved for the few but is God’s intention for us all. This is what Watchman Nee called “the normal Christian life.”

Oswald Chambers observed,

“If I obey Jesus Christ in the seemingly random circumstances of life, they become pinholes through which I see the face of God.”

Will you “see the face of God” today?

Quote for the day:

“Obedience is the road to freedom, humility the road to pleasure, unity the road to personality.” —C. S. Lewis

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Denison Forum

The bestselling Christian author and speaker Jen Hatmaker headlined women’s events and conferences and was profiled in Christianity Today. She and her husband founded a church in Austin; their family was featured in an HGTV series.

In 2020, she announced that she and her husband were divorcing. In May 2021, she stopped attending church services. She has now written a memoir of her experience titled Awake and has been interviewed by the New York Times and Time.

In the latter, she said,

I’m out of the church right now. I don’t know that I will ever go back, and I don’t know that I will never go back. I grew up under the steeples. My dad was a pastor. I married one at the ripe age of nineteen, and I have always been a part of the machine. I was a leader. I was an organizer. I was a pastor. I don’t even know what church could or would be for me just as a person. My lifelong exposure has left me in a place where I know too much. I have been a part of the problem. So I need a break from the machine.

Christians far from the character of Christ

I have never met Jen Hatmaker and cannot imagine her pain of recent years. But if I had a relationship by which to speak to her about it, I would think with her about her statement, “I don’t even know what church could or would be for me just as a person.”

As empathetically as possible, I would suggest that the only way to find out is to try. If she chooses to stay away from the church, she obviously will not experience how Jesus can work through his “body” to heal and redeem her suffering (1 Corinthians 12:27).

This issue is much larger than Jen Hatmaker’s story. Clergy abuse has damaged untold numbers of victims, many of them children. Many churches in the South were complicit in slavery and Jim Crow racism. Many of us have stories of pain resulting from Christians who were far from the character of Christ.

And even if the church does not disappoint us, God often does.

My father was very active in his church before he served in World War II and experienced such atrocities that he never attended church again. I am praying and grieving right now for the family of a dear friend who died recently of cancer after I and multitudes of others prayed fervently for his healing. I am praying and grieving for another dear friend whose cancer has come back despite my fervent intercession for him.

I wrote yesterday that trusting God in such times positions us to experience his best in response. But there’s more to say here.

“So this is what God’s really like”

As I noted in my first response to the Minneapolis church shooting, circumstances cannot change the character of an unchanging God (cf. Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 13:8). He is today what he was before the tragedy.

But this does not resolve the issue. C. S. Lewis wrote after his wife died of cancer:

Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about him. The conclusion I dread is not “So there’s no God after all,” but “So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.”

Perhaps the Greeks got it right with their capricious deities atop Mt. Olympus. Perhaps God sometimes disappoints us because that’s just who he is.

Or perhaps my doubts say more about me than they do about him.

It makes sense for me to question the character of someone only if I know enough about them for my doubts to be fair to them and accurate to the facts. But I cannot see the future consequences of God’s present actions. I cannot know how he will redeem present suffering for a greater future good, as with Joseph’s imprisonment in Egypt, which led to his saving Egypt and his own family from starvation.

Nor can I know how he is redeeming present suffering in my life, as with Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” that led the apostle to trust God on a deeper level than ever before and then testify, “When I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).

And doubting God when he disappoints me can only lead to further disappointment and further doubt, because I refuse to allow him to work in my life and then blame him when he does not.

When we trust God with our pain

Conversely, trusting God even when he disappoints us moves our faith from a transactional religion to a transformational relationship.

We all want the latter and would probably say this is how we relate to God. But if we turn from him when he does not do what we want, we discover that the former was actually the case. Choosing to trust him when we don’t understand him shows that our trust is not based on our circumstances. And this positions us to experience him on a level that changes our lives.

I can offer three ways this has been true for me personally.

First, when we trust God with our pain, we can experience his presence and comfort on a level we could not before the suffering came. When I was a summer missionary in East Malaysia many years ago, I experienced a deeper loneliness than I have ever felt before or since. But when I turned to God in my darkest hours, I felt his presence at a depth that marked my soul.

Second, when we trust God with our pain, he can use us in ways he could not before the suffering came. When our son and grandson were diagnosed with cancer, cancer survivors ministered to us as others could not. As Henri Nouwen noted, wounded people can be “wounded healers.”

Third, when we trust God with our pain, he can use our suffering to guide us into his purpose in ways he could not before the suffering came. My back challenges of recent years have led me to focus more on writing than ever before, a season of my work in which I am finding great fulfillment and joy. As Michel Quoist notes, God often leads us through our limitations.

When Satan’s “cause is never in more danger”

None of this makes pain less painful. But if you’re in such a season, perhaps I can encourage you to believe that there is more to your story with God than you can know today.

The greater the pain, the more we need a physician. The harder it is to trust our Father, the more we need to trust our Father. And a relationship with God that transcends feelings and circumstances shows the world that such faith is real and relevant, displaying the light of Christ in the darkest of days.

In The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis notes that Satan’s “cause is never in more danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do [God’s] will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”

Will you endanger Satan’s cause today?

Quote for the day:

“Afflictions are but the shadow of his wings.” —George MacDonald

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Brand promises and the power of personal transformation

If you haven’t eaten the “comfort food” at Cracker Barrel, enjoyed the antique country paraphernalia decorating the walls, and shopped in their “country store,” you probably won’t care that they changed their logo and are modernizing their restaurants. Even if you have, you may not consider their corporate re-do an existential crisis.

But there’s more to the story than the fact that the company lost nearly $100 million in market value when its stock plunged after releasing its new logo. According to a creative director specializing in brand development, what Cracker Barrel has done is a textbook case of how not to rebrand.

Jeff Rifkin says the company’s core message is, “We don’t care about our core audience. We’re too busy trying to appeal to everyone and satisfying no one.” In his view, despite corporate explanations, Cracker Barrel erased the quirks and history that made people love their brand and thus lost touch with what it did best.

By contrast, the restaurant chain Chili’s is undergoing what Slate calls a “renaissance.” Three years after a new CEO and a team of executives were brought in to oversee a corporate revival, same-store sales were up 31 percent in the first quarter of this year. This marks the fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth, which the article describes as a “corporate turnaround for the ages.”

Their secret? Streamlining operations, simplifying their menu, emphasizing food quality and customer service, and focusing on what the restaurant is most known for—burgers, fajitas, appetizers, margaritas, and ribs. They’re not trying to compete with non-chain restaurants, fast-casual concepts, or quick trends. Instead, they’re innovating for what their chief marketing officer calls the “population that’s right down the middle.”

Why are the Dallas Cowboys so profitable?

One more brand in the news: the Dallas Cowboys are again the most valuable sports franchise in the world. The Dallas Morning News (DMN) reports that since 1996, the team has increased in value forty-seven times over, to a world-record $12.8 billion. However, the team has also failed to reach the NFC championship game even once over the same time frame, the longest such drought in the NFL.

How is this juxtaposition possible?

As the title of the eight-part Netflix docuseries that dropped this month shows, the Cowboys are still “America’s Team.” They boast the most followers of any NFL team on social media; their merchandise tops the league’s ranks and generates the most Google search interest. By the end of the upcoming season, they will have played in twenty-eight primetime games since 2021 (including Thursday night’s game with the world champion Philadelphia Eagles). That’s tied with the Kansas City Chiefs for the most over that span, though the Chiefs have played in the Super Bowl each of the last three years, winning twice.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has clearly mastered what Nobel Prize-winning economist Herbert A. Simon called the “attention economy.” As the DMN article explains, “In an information- and entertainment-abundant world, people’s attention acts as a scarce commodity, like oil or diamonds, and producers of content become valuable by commanding and controlling large amounts of that commodity.”

In this sense, the team’s thirty-year record of playoff futility works in their financial favor. As longtime Cowboys announcer Brad Sham noted, “There is no sports hate in America that comes close to Dallas Cowboys hate,” but those who hate the team “will never stop talking about them.” As a result, Sham said, “If someone in Massachusetts or Nevada turns on a Cowboys game hoping they’ll lose, that doesn’t matter to the ratings. All that matters is that they’re watching.”

Jesus “never asks us to decide for him”

Unlike the Dallas Cowboys, for whom “there’s no such thing as bad publicity,” the Christian “brand” is undermined every time Christians are in the news for the wrong thing. Our clergy abuse scandals call into question the trustworthiness of our leaders. Our political entanglements alienate those who disagree with our politics.

But there’s a deeper issue here, one illustrated by the contrast between Cracker Barrel and Chili’s.

Methodist evangelistic camp meetings of the early nineteenth century issued public invitations for people to come forward to trust in Christ. Revivalist Charles Finney popularized the practice; D. L. Moody and Billy Graham used what came to be known as the “altar call” in their evangelistic meetings as well.

There is nothing inherently wrong with making public our faith in this way, of course. The Bible calls us to acknowledge Christ “before men” (Matthew 10:32) as we “confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord” (Romans 10:9). However, as I’m certain Revs. Finney, Moody, and Graham would agree, “deciding for Christ” is not enough.

Oswald Chambers put it this way: “[Jesus] never asks us to decide for him, but to yield to him, a very different thing.”

Jesus called us to “take my yoke upon you,” which means to submit our lives to his authority (Matthew 11:28). We are to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1), to be “crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20), to take up our cross and follow Christ “daily” (Luke 9:23). The reason is simple: Jesus can change only what he can touch. He can transform our lives to the degree that he is Lord of our lives.

And transformed lives are the Christian “brand promise,” nothing less.

“If man is not fit to govern himself”

Like many churches and denominations today, we can change our theology to adapt to the popularity of LGBTQ and abortion ideologies. Like some in the evangelical world (and despite the clear teachings of Acts 4:12, 1 Corinthians 3:11, and John 3:18), we can jettison our culturally unpopular belief that Jesus is the only way to salvation.

But if we abandon the core tenets of biblical Christianity, we lose touch with what we do best: offering the gospel, which is the only “power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16). By contrast, if we yield our lives daily to Christ as Lord and lead everyone we know to join us, we can never be the same. Nor can they.

Such moral and spiritual transformation is crucial to the future of our democracy. As James Madison asked, “If man is not fit to govern himself, how can he be fit to govern someone else?” And it is crucial to the future of our souls. As Paul noted, “Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable” (1 Corinthians 9:25).

Which type of wreath will you seek today?

Quote for the day:

“We are all servants. The only question is whom we will serve.” —R. C. Sproul

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Denison Forum