Spiritual warfare and our “primal identity”

You know you’re getting to a certain age when you are not familiar with a single one of the top Halloween costumes for this year. At the top of the list is Bob, a shrunken-headed ghost from the recent Beetlejuice sequel. Next comes viral breakdancer Raygun with the green and yellow tracksuit worn during the Australian’s controversial Olympics performance. In third place is CatNip, the cat-like monster from the video game series “Poppy Playtime.”’

You have to get to No. 11, “Chipotle burrito,” to find something I recognize. Sadly, Godzilla, one of my childhood favorites, has fallen to No. 25 on the list.

Here’s a Halloween theme with which I am unfortunately very familiar: the subject of spiritual warfare. Halloween always brings questions regarding Satan and the demonic. Long after the candy is consumed and the costumes are forgotten, these issues will be relevant to every heart and soul.

Spiritual battles are an inevitable part of life on this fallen planet. After Jesus defeated Satan in the wilderness, the devil “departed from him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13). Like Jesus, “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12).

If you’re like most of us, you win some of these battles and lose some. All the while, your soul longs for a way to sustain victory in the spiritual battles we face.

I discovered a step in this direction recently in a familiar story that impacted me in a new way.

“He is the living God, enduring forever”

In Daniel 6, the Babylonian king’s corrupt counselors persuaded him to issue a decree that the entire nation must pray only to him (v. 7). Daniel’s response, whereby “he got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously” (v. 10, my emphasis) cost him the lions’ den but led to God’s greater glory and the prophet’s greater service.

Note the words I italicized: Daniel was already in this habit and discipline, so when the test came, he could fall back on what he already knew and did.

Even King Darius knew that Daniel served God “continually” (vv. 16, 20). Daniel’s influence on the king was so profound that while Daniel spent the night in the lions’ den, the king spent it “fasting” as “sleep fled from him” (v. 18).

Of course, Daniel had no idea this was happening. When we are faithful to God, others see our faithfulness even when we are unaware of our influence. Oswald Chambers was right: the river touches shores the source never sees.

The result, as we know, was that Daniel was spared, his enemies were destroyed, and Darius made a new decree that “in all my royal dominion,” people were to pray not to him but to “the God of Daniel” (v. 26). This “pagan” king then testified:

He is the living God, enduring forever; his kingdom shall never be destroyed, and his dominion shall be to the end. He delivers and rescues; he works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth, he who has saved Daniel from the power of the lions (vv. 26–27).

Wouldn’t you love to have Daniels’ faith and spiritual power? Here’s the question: What motivated him to serve God so “continually” that he turned to him at the peril of his life?

“The farther away you are from the devil”

Years ago, I learned from Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline that the various spiritual disciplines do not earn God’s favor—they position us to experience his best. Like Daniel’s prayer life, they are the key to the spiritual power we need to defeat the Enemy.

But keeping these various disciplines can be a real challenge, especially in a culture that not only does not reward such faithfulness—it finds biblical truth and spirituality dangerous and actively opposes it.

The key is being able to say with the psalmist, “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day” (Psalm 119:97). The more we love God’s law, the more we will study it and be transformed by it. The writer could say this because he had come to delight in biblical truth: “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (v. 103). He could therefore pray, “Through your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way” (v. 104).

As we study God’s word, pray, worship, and experience other spiritual disciplines, we come to love the God whose word we study, to whom we pray, and whom we worship. Then our love for God empowers the disciplines by which we know him and make him known.

We act into feeling and, eventually, we experience feelings that empower our actions and godliness that defeats Satan is the result. As Billy Graham noted: “Stay close to Christ—because the closer you are to him the farther away you are from the devil.”

Claiming your “primal identity”

But what do we do when we don’t want to pray, read Scripture, or practice other spiritual disciplines in our daily lives? What do we do when we don’t love God enough to love his word and want to obey his will?

When David was fleeing from King Saul in the wilderness of Judea, he could nonetheless tell God, “My mouth will praise you with joyful lips” (Psalm 63:5). This is because he remembered what God had done for him in the past: “You have been my help” (v. 7a). He thought of what God will do for him in the future: “In the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy” (v. 7b). And he focused on what God was doing for him in the present: “My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me” (v. 8).

When we remember all that God has done, will do, and is doing in our lives, we are encouraged to love him in response to his love.

Henri Nouwen said of us, “You are not what others, or even you, think about yourself. You are not what you do. You are not what you have.” Rather, your “primal identity” is the “beloved daughter or son of a personal Creator.” He therefore encouraged us:

Try to choose to remain true to the truth of who you really are. Look in the mirror each day and claim your true identity. Act ahead of your feelings and trust that one day your feelings will match your convictions. Choose now and continue to choose this incredible truth.

When we know how deeply we are loved, we are empowered to love the One who loves us. This love then empowers our desire to read and obey his word. Reading and obeying his word equips us to resist temptation and defeat the Enemy.

Such a lifestyle offers sustained victory by which we can declare daily,

“We are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).

So here’s the question: Will you “remain true to the truth of who you really are” today?

Denison Forum

“You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”

I seldom encourage readers to avoid particular movies, fearing that the added attention may hurt more than it helps. But I want to urge you not to see Conclave, despite the acclaim and even Oscar “buzz” the film is receiving.

My warning stems from reading the book upon which the movie is based. Robert Harris is one of my favorite novelists; his blending of historical facts and plot twists has made him a bestselling author. But Conclave, which focuses on the event of that name during which a new pope is elected, could not be more disparaging of the Catholic Church (one Catholic reviewer called it “a mockery of our faith”). Or more “woke” in its wildly implausible ending.

But that’s not the main reason I hope you won’t see the film (or read the book).

“Take every thought captive to obey Christ”

Scripture urges us to guard our minds against deception:

• “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things (Philippians 4:8).
• “We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).
• “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:2).
• “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2).

In this context, my primary concern with Conclave is that the book and movie are so well done that they are highly convincing and effectively deceptive. Like Dan Brown’s equally misleading and damaging novels/movies (The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons), we want the stories to be true. We feel compelled to believe the deceptions we are being told.

This is intentional. Edward Berger, who directed Conclave, told the New York Times:

In the end, not everything is known, but that gives you license to interpret and invent, and that’s what I love in filmmaking. It’s not necessarily the truth, but it resembles your interpretation of the truth, and ideally, I can take you on that journey and have you be engaged (my emphasis).

Remember: Christ is “the truth” (John 14:6, my emphasis). God’s word “is truth” (John 17:17; note the present tense). Jesus promised us, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31–32, my emphases).

The most dangerous lies are the ones that seem closest to the truth. Why is this fact so urgent?

Four responses to our broken culture

Today is Halloween, the eve of All Saints Day, and Reformation Day. Let’s consider the spiritual differences between them.

Halloween is one of America’s most popular holidays; retailers expect us to spend more than $12 billion on it this year. It is also a secular holiday with little reference to biblically redemptive themes (as my wife’s latest blog humorously and effectively points out). In fact, while trick-or-treating can be innocent fun, we should also remember that we are prohibited by Scripture from engaging in the occult (Leviticus 19:31) or doing anything that would glorify Satan (John 8:44; 10:10). (For more, I invite you to listen to my podcast with Dr. Mark Turman, “Should Christians celebrate Halloween?”)

Tomorrow is All Saints Day, observed each year on November 1. (The term Halloween is derived from “All-Saints Eve.”) Catholics and other Christian traditions will use the day to remember the saints of Christian history and learn from their examples. Hebrews 11, with its famous “hall of faith,” is a biblical example of such inspiration.

October 31 is also Reformation Day, marking the day in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Chapel in Germany. As Dr. Ryan Denison notes, Luther did not intend to lead a movement out of the church, but rather to help correct its abuses and faults. Only when the authorities rejected his call for reform was he forced into the movement that became the Protestant Reformation.

Our conversation to this point offers four ways to respond to our anti-Christian culture:

1. We can oppose the church and its message as persuasively and deceptively as possible.
2. We can ignore its teachings, focusing on secular traditions instead.
3. We can celebrate the best of the church without considering its weaknesses and faults.
4. We can seek to correct and reform the church—and ourselves—so that we are what God wants us to be.

The five “solas” of our faith

My wife and I attend a Bible study each Sunday morning at our church. Last Sunday, our teacher reminded the class of the five solas central to Luther’s Reformation:

• Sola Scriptura: The Bible is our sole authority.
• Sola Fide: Salvation is found by faith in Christ alone.
• Solus Christus: Salvation is found in Christ alone.
• Sola Gratia: Salvation is the gift of God’s grace, not the result of human merit.
• Soli Deo Gloria: Salvation is the work of God for his glory.

Reformation Day is a good day to measure ourselves by these vital tenets of our faith. Are we thinking and living biblically at all personal costs? Are we claiming our status as God’s beloved solely on the basis of his grace and not our merits? Are we seeking his glory over our own?

If so, God will use us to continue reforming his church and proclaiming his truth to our deceived and deceiving culture. And we can claim the promise of Isaiah’s prayer:

“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you” (Isaiah 26:3).

Will you experience God’s “perfect peace” today?

NOTE: For more on today’s theme, I invite you to read my latest website article, “What are the top Halloween costumes this year? Spiritual warfare and our ‘primal identity.’”

Thursday news to know:

• Supreme Court allows Virginia to purge voter rolls ahead of the election
• US economy grew at a 2.8% pace in the third quarter, less than expected
• Job openings plunge to lowest level since 2021 as US labor market loses steam
• How the Houthis went from ragtag rebels to global threat
• On this day in 1776: King George gives first parliamentary address after the Declaration of Independence

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

Quote for the day:

“The providence of God is the way in which he governs everything wisely, first for the glory of his own name, and second for the ultimate blessing of his children.” —Sinclair Ferguson

Denison Forum

How and why to trust God when we don’t understand him

More than 69 percent of Americans say they are stressed over next week’s presidential election. Here are five reasons:

1. Our elections are longer and more expensive than ever before, causing many to tire of all the ads and worry about the influence of donors on politicians.
2. Over 70 percent of Americans are concerned about election violence and the future of democracy.
3. Trust in the media to report election news fairly and accurately has fallen to an all-time low; the recent furor over newspaper endorsements illustrates the controversy in which many in the media find themselves.
4. Three-fourths of Americans are worried about the future of our nation and the economy.
5. Nearly half of all voters are skeptical that self-governance is working in America today.

Yesterday we distinguished between the secularist ambition to create a humanistic utopia that does not exist and the biblical ambition to advance a spiritual eutopia (meaning “the good place”) that improves the present while preparing for the eternal. Today we are faced with a third option: a dystopia in which “people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives.”

How do we pray effectively in times like these?

“A door slammed in your face”

If you’re like me, there have been times when you prayed in the midst of pain and adversity, but God did not give the answers for which you pled. It seems that sometimes, as C. S. Lewis felt in grieving the death of his wife, there is “a door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence.”

Why is this?

Paul wrote, “We do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26). Commenting on this text, St. Augustine noted that Paul suffered a “thorn in the flesh” that led him to pray three times for God to remove it (2 Corinthians 12:7–8). However, God did not answer Paul’s prayer as he asked, but instead taught him, “My power is made perfect in weakness” (v. 9).

According to Augustine, this episode shows that “when we are suffering afflictions that might be doing us either good or harm, we do not know how to pray as we ought.” As a result, we should pray and trust God for what is best, since “it might be that what we have been asking for could have brought us some still greater affliction, or it could have brought us the kind of good fortune that brings corruption and ruin.”

His wise words remind me of the time Billy Graham asked a young woman to marry him. She accepted his proposal but later rejected him. He was heartbroken and could not understand why God allowed this. Then he met Ruth.

One day in heaven, and perhaps long before then, you and I will be able to understand why God answered our prayers in the ways he did (cf. 1 Corinthians 13:12). In the meantime, we can bank on the fact that “God is love” (1 John 4:8) and that his character does not change (Malachi 3:6). His nature therefore requires him to answer us in whatever ways are best, whether we understand his answers on this side of paradise or not.

What are some practical ways this conversation can help us in hard times?

Two facts to remember for “unanswered” prayers

One: God loves us even when it seems he does not.

No one blames me when they contract cancer. But imagine I had an antidote that would heal any malignancy but refused to give it to anyone who asked for it. Isn’t this how we sometimes feel about God when he doesn’t seem to meet our needs? At such times, remembering that our Father’s character requires him to act only and always for our best can be the assurance that sustains us. The fault is neither with him nor with us.

One day Charles Spurgeon was walking with a friend through the English countryside when they came upon a barn with a weather vane on its roof. At the top of the vane were the words, “GOD IS LOVE.” Spurgeon remarked that this was inappropriate, stating, “Weather vanes are changeable, but God’s love is constant.”

His friend replied, “You misunderstood the meaning. The sign is indicating a truth: regardless of which way the wind blows, God is love.”

Two: God gives us what we ask or whatever is best.

A corollary question arises in challenging times: What if I don’t know how best to pray? What if I’m asking for the wrong things or not asking for the right things?

John Wesley claimed, “God does nothing except in response to believing prayer.” I’m not sure this is always true—Jesus healed a demoniac before the man had the capacity to pray, for example (Mark 5:1–20). But to the degree it is, we worry that prayers that are seemingly unanswered are therefore wrongly prayed (cf. James 4:2–3).

However, as Augustine noted, we can know that God’s answers are always for our best. If what we ask could have brought us “some still greater affliction” or “the kind of good fortune that brings corruption and ruin,” we can be grateful that he did not give us what we asked.

“Though he slay me, yet will I trust him”

But, there’s a but: What about horrible, heinous things that happen to God’s people? Surely the Christians who were beheaded by ISIS prayed for deliverance, as did their families. What about believers who similarly prayed to be spared the wrath of recent hurricanes but lost everything?

Here I must fall back on what I know of God’s character: He is omniscient, knowing our every need (Matthew 6:8); he is omnipotent, able to meet our every need (Philippians 4:19); and he is omnibenevolent, wanting only our best (1 John 4:8; Psalm 86:15). I also know that his thoughts are higher than my thoughts (Isaiah 55:9), so that there are many times when I am unable to understand his providence.

And I believe that God redeems for a greater good all he allows. I must therefore believe that our Father redeems even horrible grief and tragedy, whether we can understand his redemption in this life or not. In the meantime, I know that he grieves as we grieve (John 11:35) and walks with us through the hardest places of life (Isaiah 43:1–3).

It comes to this: When God does not do what we want him to do, we can reject him in pain and doubt, or we can bring our pain and doubt to him, trusting his heart when we do not see his hand (cf. Mark 9:24). If we choose the former, we forfeit what his omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent grace can do for us. If we choose the latter, saying with Job, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him” (Job 13:15 NKJV), we experience his best within his eternal providence.

St. Augustine advised us:

“Trust the past to God’s mercy, the present to God’s love, and the future to God’s providence.”

Will you do all three today?

Wednesday news to know:

• Hezbollah announces Naim Qassem as new leader
• Astronauts on the ISS warned of urgent evacuation as NASA monitors 50 “areas of concern” including 5-year leak
• Historic Biltmore Estate, “largest home in America,” will reopen in time for holidays post-Hurricane Helen impact
• North Korea and Russia send political shockwaves with Ukraine war moves
• On this day in 1938: Orson Welles’s “War of the Worlds” radio play is broadcast

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

Quote for the day:

“More secret than diplomacy, deeper than the investigations of the wise, and mightier than all the kingly power, is the providence of God.” —John Broadus

Denison Forum

What George Washington can teach us about reliance on Providence

For ninety-eight years, Neiman Marcus published a gift catalog they’ve called the “Christmas Book.” This year, for the first time, it will be known as the “Holiday Book.”

The Dallas Morning News reports that the book’s name was changed “in the spirit of inclusivity as it welcomes customers of all backgrounds, religions, and traditions to celebrate the season.”

To which we might ask: Without Christmas, what “season”?

Imagine publishing a wedding or baby gift book without acknowledging the existence of weddings or babies. But such is the logic of secularism: it “frees” us as creatures to deny the existence or relevance of our Creator, to imagine ourselves as the masters of our lives even though we did not bring ourselves into this world and cannot prevent the day we leave it.

Despite our obvious and painful finitude, we somehow believe we have the freedom and power to assess the past, control the present, and imagine the future according to our personal beliefs. From those who are reinterpreting American history through their critical theory lenses to those who feel free to define marriage as they wish, end the lives of preborn babies as they choose, and reject faith in “God as described in the Bible,” we are increasingly a post-Christian and even post-Christmas culture.

How did we get here?

What can we do about it today?

“Utopia” or “eutopia”?

Cultural commentator Jonah Goldberg recently wrote that the Judeo-Christian worldview bequeathed to Western culture a number of foundational tenets, including science (from the belief that a single creator made a universe that is predictable and rule-driven) and universal brotherhood (from the belief that we are “all sons of God”). However, there’s an unpopular side to the biblical worldview: It also claims that humans are finite and fallen, a perspective that Goldberg calls the “tragic” vision.

In his telling, we need “custom, tradition, experience, history, religion, and social hierarchy” (a list he borrows from Edmund Burke) to improve our state in this broken world. Nor does human nature change for the better over time. As Goldberg notes, “We can get better—or worse—at making cathedrals and skyscrapers, but the bricks never stop being bricks.” The social and cultural progress we have made is “not stored in our genes, but in institutions and traditions.”

By contrast, what Goldberg calls the “utopian” vision claims that humans using unaided reason and the tools of science can improve themselves and their world without relying upon the institutions and traditions they insist are holding us back. Many point to damage caused by these institutions and traditions (Jim Crow laws, clergy abuse, etc.) as evidence for their position.

Many secularists think they can invent new rituals to do what religion used to do. Like Aristotle, they believe they can locate the transcendent in the imminent, using what is human to do what was once thought to be divine.

But take the “Holiday Book” as an example. Are materialistic gifts really the deepest meaning of Christmas? Can presents that perish give the gift of eternal life? And who, by using unaided human reason, would have conceived of a God who became one of us that we might be one with him? Of a Creator of the universe who chose to be born as a helpless baby and die on a cruel cross for your sins and mine?

According to Goldberg, we must choose between striving for utopia (which literally means “no place” because it cannot exist) and eutopia (which means “the good place”). The eutopian “looks at the world as it is in front of his or her face and says, ‘I can make this better.’”

The question, of course, is how.

“When I fall, I shall rise”

The graphic designer and illustrator Seymour Chwast noted: “If you dig a hole and it’s in the wrong place, digging it deeper isn’t going to help.”

In a time of grave immorality (Micah 6:16–7:6), when it seemed that “there is no one upright among mankind” (v. 2), the prophet responded: “As for me, I will look to the Lᴏʀᴅ; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me” (Micah 7:7). He then boldly declared:

“Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lᴏʀᴅ will be a light to me” (v. 8).

No matter how deep your darkness, you can make Micah’s declaration yours today.

If you forsake self-reliance for Spirit-dependence, turning from “holidays” to “Christmas” and from Santa Claus to Jesus Christ, asking your Father to sustain you in your challenges and redeem your trials for his glory and your good, he will “supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

And you’ll help build eutopia in this world, leading to utopia in the next.

When George Washington was “wearied almost to death”

I’ll close with an example.

According to historian Douglas Bradburn, the British army fighting in the American War for Independence grew to 190,000 soldiers toward the end of the conflict. The British also had the largest navy in the world, with over five hundred ships.

By contrast, the Americans had no navy at all. George Washington never commanded more than sixteen thousand healthy troops at one time. He was typically outnumbered at least two-to-one in every battle he contested. While he fought seventeen different battles during the war, he won only six.

At one point at the end of 1776, when his army had dwindled to about three thousand men and he was being chased by the British across New Jersey, he wrote a letter to his brother in which he despaired of the future, saying, “I am wearied almost to death with the retrograde motion of things.”

As a result, Washington regularly invoked divine authority for help because he thought the war effort was otherwise impossible. He wrote, “I look upon every dispensation of Providence as designed to answer some valuable purpose.” And he sought to “inculcate a due sense of the dependence we ought to place in that all-wise and powerful Being, on whom alone our success depends.”

On whom does your “success” depend today?

NOTE: For more on the urgency of depending fully on God, please read my latest website article, “Trading the ‘American Dream’ for the ‘heavenly vision’: The antidote to financial stress.”

Tuesday news to know:

• US approves $2 billion in arms sales to Taiwan including advanced missile defense system
• Fires set in drop boxes destroy hundreds of ballots in Washington and damage 3 in Oregon
• Israel wants more peace deals with Arab countries after war, Netanyahu says
• On a hurricane-ravaged Appalachian Trail, vast damage and uncertainty
• On this day in 1998: John Glenn returns to space

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

Quote for the day:

“I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.” —Martin Luther

Denison Forum

When Johanna Olson-Kennedy and her team began their research into the effects of puberty blockers on children in 2015, the research was supposed to last for two years. Yet, as Azeen Ghorayshi of The New York Times reports, neither she nor her team have published their findings nearly a decade later.

When asked why, Olson-Kennedy stated, “I do not want our work to be weaponized.” Those concerns stem from the fact that the study found the 95 children recruited to participate did not show signs of improved well-being as a result of the puberty blockers.

In response, Olson-Kennedy argued that the lack of impact was due to the children being well-adjusted before beginning the trial. In 2020, however, she stated that roughly a quarter of the kids were depressed with significant anxiety and suicidal tendencies.

The negative response toward the decision to withhold the results of “the largest grant that’s ever been awarded in the US on the subject” isn’t sitting well with the scientific community, including those who are generally supportive of transgender rights.

Erica Anderson, a clinical psychologist and transgender youth expert, noted that Olson-Kennedy’s refusal to publish her findings is “contrary to the scientific method. You do research, and then you disclose what the results are. You don’t change them, you don’t distort them, and you don’t reveal or not reveal them based on the reactions of others.”

And that is especially the case when negative reactions to the research appear to be justified. After all, Olson-Kennedy’s research is not the first to point to puberty blockers being a poor way to address gender dysphoria in kids.

The US trails the world

Similar research was conducted in England a little more than a decade ago, and both were attempts to mirror the findings of a study from the Netherlands in the 1990s and 2000s. That study, released in 2011, found that children with persistent gender dysphoria experienced fewer depressive symptoms and improved behavioral and emotional states after receiving puberty blockers.

As Ghoravshi describes, “The findings were highly influential even before they were published, and clinics around the world opened to treat transgender adolescents with puberty blockers and hormones.”

The problem is that no other study has been able to replicate those results. In fact, the only consistent findings are that puberty blockers can negatively impact bone growth and result in fertility loss in the children who take them.

As a result, the National Health Service in England has stopped prescribing them outside of clinical trials, and several other European countries have done the same.

In fact, the United States is one of the few countries left where puberty blockers are still used to treat children who claim to have gender dysphoria. And, at this point, it seems clear the decision to do so is motivated by politics more than science or a genuine desire to help hurting kids.

The line between confidence and conceit

I bring this story up today because I believe it’s important, particularly on politically and culturally charged issues, to remember that there are empirical reasons to believe that the Bible is correct. Whether it’s transgenderism, abortion, homosexuality, or a number of other topics about which Scripture disagrees with the views of modern America, we don’t simply have to take God’s Word on faith. And that should give us the confidence necessary to hold fast to his Word, regardless of what those around us may think.

That said, the line between confidence and conceit can become awfully fine when we get defensive in the face of attacks from those who disagree. And staying on the right side of that line is crucial to maintaining our witness in the world around us.

After all, as important as these issues are—and I do believe they are very important—they are not essential to salvation, and we err when elevating them to a higher level of significance than God does.

Scripture clearly states that the only beliefs necessary for salvation are that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9). And keeping that list of essentials as short as Scripture does is important for two primary reasons.

Unessential does not mean unimportant

First, only God gets to decide what’s essential to the gospel. His word is quite clear that any attempts—regardless of how well-intentioned they may be—to add to it places us in opposition to the Lord. For proof, we need look no further than the Judaizers, who genuinely believed that they were helping Gentile believers by elevating some of the most historic and widely agreed upon elements of the Law to the gospel that Paul taught (Galatians 2).

When we add a particular belief about transgenderism, abortion, social justice, or any of the other hot-button issues of our day to the core teachings of the gospel, we make a similar mistake. And, ironically, we often diminish their importance in the process.

Second, only what God’s Word deems essential should be central to our beliefs. You see, we need to keep the list of essentials as small as Scripture does because if we elevate beliefs beyond where the Bible places them, it reduces the significance of any topic that does not make our list.

Unessential does not mean unimportant, yet that is how it often seems when every issue that is important to us is deemed a key determinant of who is saved and who is not. The truth is that every false belief we have about God lowers the ceiling on how close we can be in our walk with him. As such, there is no unimportant belief when it comes to who he is or how he calls us to see the world around us.

Even though Christians can disagree on these issues without having to question the other’s salvation, getting them right is still crucial to a thriving relationship with God. That’s why it’s part of our calling to not only hold to a biblical view on these subjects but also to help others do the same (Matthew 28:20).

We just need to be careful not to confuse those subjects with the gospel in the process.

NOTE: In just a few days, your opportunity to receive the Respectfully, I Disagree and How Does God See America? political resource bundle will be gone. And while the election will soon be over, the noise and chaos won’t stop — no matter who wins the White House. Receive these impactful resources as our gift to thank you for your donation of $25 or more. Don’t miss out — get your political bundle today.

Friday news to know:

• North Korean soldiers have joined the fight against Ukraine
• Former President Trump to appear on Joe Rogan’s podcast
• Billy Joel is selling his $49.9 million mansion on Long Island
• Russell Moore on the dangers of “cheap hope”
• On this day in 1400: Geoffrey Chaucer—author of The Canterbury Tales—dies in England

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

Quote for the day:

“Christians have to discern between the bad traditions we must change and the inconvenient truths that must change us. Scripture is our guide, not the world and our individual ‘truths.’” — Justin Giboney

Denison Forum

The downside of legislating morality and God’s path to joyful transformation

A new analysis shows that abortions have increased in nearly every state that banned abortion, as women responded to these bans by traveling to clinics in states where abortions were legal or ordering abortion pills online.

Legislating morality is essential to a functioning society, or we cannot have speed limits and prohibitions against murder. But it doesn’t necessarily make us more moral. For example, despite laws against sex trafficking, prostitution, and abusing the elderly and those with disabilities:

• Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO has been arrested on sex trafficking and interstate prostitution charges.
• Popular culture is continuing to normalize prostitution, euphemistically calling it “sex work.”
• Elderly dementia patients are unknowingly fueling political campaigns.
• American Airlines has been fined $50 million for mistreating passengers with disabilities.

If laws are not enough, how do we change a broken culture?

Why we don’t know what we don’t know

One approach is called the “October Theory.” The Wall Street Journal explains that “people are using the beginning of fall as the best time to reset their goals and values.”

Another approach is to treat politics like religion. New York Times columnist David Brooks observes: “In an increasingly secular age, political parties are better seen as religious organizations that exist to provide believers with meaning, membership, and moral sanctification.” Many invest in political parties and candidates in the belief that they will make the world that is into the world they wish to see.

Yet another approach is to define ourselves by what we do and then work hard at it. Psychologists call this “enmeshment.” In this view, our value lies in what we achieve, so the more we achieve, the more valuable we become. And the more we engage with the world, the better the world becomes.

Each of these approaches centers on the belief that humans can improve humanity if we only try hard enough for long enough. One source of this belief goes back to Plato, who saw the human soul as comprised of a white horse, a black horse, and a man as the “charioteer” driving himself through life. As a rational “lover of wisdom,” he controls the darker self (motivated by desires such as greed, vanity, and short-term gain) and the lighter self (representing honor and nobility).

The problem comes when the charioteer cannot control both horses. In our “post-truth” culture, we have an even greater problem when we cannot distinguish one from the other.

The Dunning-Kruger effect states that people who lack expertise in something will necessarily lack the knowledge needed to recognize their own limits. In other words, we don’t know what we don’t know. Now research is demonstrating a corollary fact: People have a strong tendency to believe that they already have enough data to make an informed decision, whether they actually have that information or not.

In other words, we don’t know what we don’t know, but we think we do.

“The hungry soul he fills with good things”

David offered a better charioteer reference than Plato’s famous analogy: “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lᴏʀᴅ our God” (Psalm 20:7). Why should we join him?

The Bible proclaims that “the Lord God Omnipotent reigns!” (Revelation 19:6 NKJV) and that his “kingdom is an everlasting kingdom” (Psalm 145:13). Because he can “do all things” (Job 42:2), “what is impossible with man is possible with God” (Luke 18:27).

This is good news because “the Lᴏʀᴅ is good to all” (Psalm 145:9) since his “steadfast love endures forever” (Psalm 107:1). We are therefore assured that “he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things” (v. 9).

Even when “some were fools through their sinful ways, and because of their iniquities suffered affliction” (v. 17), “they cried to the Lᴏʀᴅ in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction” (vv. 19–20). Accordingly, you and I can “be strong and courageous” since we know that “with us is the Lᴏʀᴅ our God, to help us and to fight our battles” (2 Chronicles 32:7, 8).

“No other explanation for our joy”

We have focused this week on the transformation only the living Lord Jesus can make in our lives. When we yield every day to God’s Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), asking Jesus to continue his earthly ministry through us, he changes us and he changes the world through us (cf. Colossians 1:27).

One telltale result is the joy that the Spirit produces in us (Galatians 5:22), whatever our circumstances might be. In First15, our ministry’s daily devotional resource, we read:

We are not designed to have joy in ourselves. Rather, such joy comes by the dwelling of the Holy Spirit within us. As the disciples began to be filled with the Holy Spirit, their lives changed dramatically. They went from fearful, fair-weathered followers of Jesus to joy-filled, sacrificial, and empowered world changers. They had joy in the midst of intense persecution because they had the Holy Spirit filling them with the fruit of his indwelling.

We have the same Holy Spirit the disciples had, and he longs to do the same kind of works in you and me today as he did in them thousands of years ago. He longs to fill us with joy in the midst of any trial or pain. He longs to heal and transform our hearts into greater reflections of God’s goodness. He longs to make us a people so joyful that there is no other explanation for our joy other than God is with us.

When Jesus is living his joyful life in us, we are able to testify to the world,

“The joy of the Lᴏʀᴅ is your strength.”

What—or Who—is your “strength” today?

NOTE: For more on transforming power to worship and trust God in even the worst of days, please see my new website article, “The deep-sea service that keeps your internet running.”

Thursday news to know:

• McDonald’s Quarter Pounder linked to severe E. coli outbreak in US
• Terrorist attack hits major defense facility in Turkey
• LeBron, Bronny James play together in Lakers season opener; first father-son duo to share court in NBA history
• Shohei Ohtani’s 50^th home run ball sells for record-setting $4.392 million in auction
• On this day in 1945: the United Nations is born

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

Quote for the day:

“Upon a life I did not live, upon a death I did not die, I risk my whole eternity on the resurrection.” —Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Denison Forum

Choosing what we want most over what we want now

Nearly six thousand students recently gathered for a mass worship event at Mississippi State University this month. In September 2023, five thousand students attended a mass worship service at Auburn University’s Neville Arena, and two hundred were spontaneously baptized. The event sparked a movement called “Unite US.” Over two thousand salvations and more than eight hundred baptisms have taken place at its events on American campuses over the last year.

We should rejoice at such good news at a time when pro-Palestinian protests and “woke” ideology continue to embroil many schools.

“We have such a need for love”

Charles Dickens famously wrote, “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” He could have been reading today’s news:

• Yahya Sinwar’s death was “a good day for Israel, for the United States, and for the world,” but Hezbollah and Iran vowed to escalate their war against Israel.
• Migrant crossings have plunged at the US–Mexico border, but the border crisis has led to an explosion in forced prostitution of immigrants in the US.
• The Economist calls America’s economy “bigger and better than ever,” but an aging population, the rise of artificial intelligence, and the “rewiring of the global economy” threaten our future.

The juxtaposition of good news and bad, of pleasure and pain, illustrates C. S. Lewis’s observation: “Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.”

Here’s our cultural dilemma: since secularized people see these “inns” as, in the words of George Clooney, “the only thing I know to exist,” they “mistake them for home.” According to Henri Nouwen, this fallacy is “the source of much of the suffering in our contemporary society”:

We have such a need for love that we often expect from our fellow human beings something that only God can give, and then we quickly end up being angry, resentful, lustful, and sometimes even violent. As soon as the first commandment is no longer truly the first, our society moves to the edge of self-destruction.

The way off this “edge” is both countercultural and deeply transformative.

“Walk by faith, not by sight”

God uses suffering to show us that this world is neither our home nor a reliable source of happiness. He does this because, as C. S. Lewis noted in The Problem of Pain, “God, who has made us, knows what we are and that our happiness lies in him.” He therefore must remove false sources of happiness so we will turn to the only one that is true.

I have experienced this principle personally. So long as I can trust in any source of happiness but God, I tend to do so. This is because I want to be my own god (Genesis 3:5), to exercise my “will to power” to attain the happiness I long to experience. I don’t want to give up control of my life to a God whose idea of happiness may be different than mine. Nor do I want to pay a price for happiness that seems greater than the reward it brings.

But this is only because I so often forget who I am and who God is. I forget that my mind is finite while his is omniscient and that my desires are sinful while his are holy. I forget that the God who “is” love (1 John 4:8) loves me more than I can love myself and that he can only want what is my absolute best. And I forget that the cost of trusting and serving him is always less than the benefit to me and to his kingdom.

In such times, I must choose what I want most—to love and please my Father—over what I want now. I must choose to “walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7).

“Rebels who must lay down our arms”

Such obedience is not only vital to our happiness—it is also the only path to knowing God fully and making him known to the world. One of my mentors encouraged me to “stay faithful to the last word you heard from God and open to the next.” Scripture illustrates the wisdom of his words:

• Abraham followed God’s call “not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8), and God used him to establish the Jewish nation.
• The disciples obeyed Jesus’ command to “stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49), and they soon experienced the Pentecost miracle that sparked the Church and changed the world (Acts 2).
• Paul followed God’s “Macedonian call” (Acts 16:6–10) and brought the gospel to the Western world.
• John was “in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day” (Revelation 1:10), and he met the risen Christ and received the book of Revelation.

If you and I want to experience the abundant life of Christ in this world (John 10:10) and the praise and reward of God in the next (Matthew 25:23), if we would know Christ and make him known in ways that transform our souls and our society, we must agree with Lewis:

“We are not merely imperfect creatures who must be improved; we are, as Newman said, rebels who must lay down our arms.”

The more holistic our submission to our Lord, the more we become like our holy Lord (Romans 8:29) as he continues his earthly ministry through us. Then, no matter the challenges we face, we discover that “we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (v. 37).

“The work for which I am best fitted”

Let’s close with an example.

Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky (1831–1906) was born in Lithuania. He went to Germany for rabbinic studies, where he became a Christian. He then emigrated to America, trained for the priesthood, and in 1859 was sent by the Episcopal Church to China. He spent 1862 to 1875 translating the Bible into Mandarin. Two years later, he began translating the Scriptures into Wenli (the classical Chinese style of writing).

He developed Parkinson’s disease, became largely paralyzed, and spent the rest of his life completing his Wenli Bible, the last two thousand pages of which he typed with the one finger that he could still move. Four years before his death he said, “I have sat in this chair for over twenty years. It seemed very hard at first. But God knew best. He kept me for the work for which I am best fitted.”

Will you do the work for which you are “best fitted” today?

Monday news to know:

• Netanyahu says he is undeterred after reported drone attack on his home
• 3 killed and 8 injured by gunfire following a Mississippi school’s football game
• Multiple people killed after helicopter crashes into radio tower in Houston
• Cuba restores power to one-fifth of population after nationwide blackouts
• On this day in 1959: Guggenheim Museum opens in New York City

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

Quote for the day:

“Use me, God. Show me how to take who I am, who I want to be, and what I can do, and use it for a purpose greater than myself.” —Martin Luther King Jr.

Denison Forum

Last year, the FDA approved the first nonprescription daily oral contraceptive. Now the Biden administration is proposing a rule that would make over-the-counter birth control and condoms free for the first time.

In 1960, the FDA approved the first birth control pill, enabling women to have sex with less fear of an unwanted pregnancy. This was an early step in the so-called “sexual revolution.” Others followed:

• In 1962, Helen Gurley Brown’s book Sex and the Single Girl encouraged single women to be sexually active.
• Betty Friedan’s book The Feminine Mystique (1963) argued that women should find identity and meaning in their lives apart from their husbands and children.
• The legalization of abortion in 1973 further enabled women to have sex without having to raise unwanted children.
• Abortion pills are now widely available as well and are used in more than 60 percent of all abortions.

The first sexual revolution separated sex from marriage. The second sexual revolution is now separating sex from people. The plague of pornography and virtual reality porn is making it easier than ever for people to divorce sex from a physical relationship with others.

As we noted yesterday, medical and technological innovations continue to lower barriers to immorality that have existed for generations. We could try to erect new barriers, such as enacting laws that limit the availability of abortion and installing pornography blockers on our devices. These would be helpful, of course, but human efforts cannot truly change human hearts.

Rick Warren was right: “I want to change my circumstances. God wants to change me.”

How?

“The first godless culture in human history”

English writer Paul Kingsnorth recently published a brilliant analysis explaining how “modernity has descended into a spiritual void.” After charting the path that led us here, he writes that we now “live in a culture without faith.” He explains:

We believe in nothing. Most significantly, we are now even ceasing to believe in the ideas which arose to replace all the religions in the age of “Enlightenment.” Reason, progress, liberalism, freedom of speech, democracy, the enlightened rational individual, the scientific process as a means of determining truth: everywhere, these “secular” beliefs which were supposed to replace religion worldwide are either under fire or have already fallen too.

Accordingly, he notes, “We are perhaps the first godless culture in human history.” He adds, “Religious cosmologies have differed vastly across time and space, but no society has ever existed without one.”

Nonetheless, Kingsnorth offers hope:

Despite it all, we should be of good cheer. For the Void is, by its nature, a time-limited phenomenon. Precisely because it is empty, it cannot last. The Void is a phase; it is the place you come to after the end of a culture, and after the end of a theology. The challenge now is not to mourn, to cling or to look back. We are not in charge of this thing, after all. The challenge is for us to think about what comes next—and how to live in, through, and with it.

I agree that our “post-truth” culture cannot sustain itself. It is contradictory at its core: to claim there is no such thing as absolute truth is to make an absolute truth claim. And humans cannot live without truth and truths. We need speed limits and laws against murder and encouragement to treasure children and the aged. We need a compass to navigate by; the darker the storm, the more urgent the guidance.

“God will change us because he loves us”

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. claimed, “Only through an inner spiritual transformation do we gain the strength to fight vigorously the evils of the world in a humble and loving spirit.” He was right: humans are both frail and finite. “As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more” (Psalm 103:15–16)

It is therefore only logical to submit to God’s divine authority in every dimension of life:

• If God is our Creator, we must be his creatures, subject to his lordship.
• If he is omnipotent and we are not, his power must exceed ours.
• If he is omniscient and we are not, his wisdom must exceed ours.
• If he is omnibenevolent and we are not, his love and compassion must exceed ours.

As a result, the “inner spiritual transformation” we require is found not in anything we can do but in the living Lord Jesus who alone can save our souls and transform our lives. Tullian Tchividjian observed, “Legalism says God will love us if we change. The gospel says God will change us because he loves us.”

When we submit our lives to the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:18) and spend meaningful time in worship, prayer, Bible study, solitude, meditation, and other spiritual disciplines, we position ourselves to meet Jesus. He then changes us to be like himself (Romans 8:29) and we bear “much fruit” (John 15:5) as he works in us as his body in the world (1 Corinthians 12:27). (For more on God’s transforming and empowering grace, please see my new website article, “Why the Boston Celtics are under ‘zero pressure’ to repeat.”)

“To love God and live for him is heaven”

Paul testified: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). If we make his choice, we can have his experience. And when Jesus is living in us as fully as he lived in his earthly body, we experience his presence in ways that transform our lives and our world.

Frederick Buechner wrote:

“You do not love God and live for him so that you will go to heaven. Whichever side of the grave you happen to be talking about, to love God and live for him is heaven.”

Will you be in “heaven” today?

Wednesday news to know:

• Five family members shot to death in home outside Seattle
• Blinken in Israel in last big ceasefire push before US election
• Israel says it killed Nasrallah’s heir apparent
• Arkansas may have vast lithium reserves, researchers say
• On this day in 1983: Beirut barracks blown up

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

Quote for the day:

“Without absolutes revealed from without by God himself, we are left rudderless in a sea of conflicting ideas about matters, justice, and right and wrong, issued from a multitude of self-opinionated thinkers.” —John Owen

Denison Forum

Our broken moral compass and the path to inner transformation

American startup company Heliospect Genomics is offering to help wealthy couples screen their embryos for IQ, marketing their services at up to $50,000. While scientists warn that such genetic screenings are currently inconsistent and not technologically reliable, the story raises the question: If you could use genetic testing to select a baby based on IQ or other traits, would you?

Should you?

“Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis” is currently being used in conjunction with in vitro fertilization (IVF) to reduce the risk of passing on inherited conditions. Embryos created through IVF are tested for single-gene disorders such as cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, or polycystic kidney disease. The healthiest embryos are implanted in the mother; the others are frozen or discarded.

This practice raises enormous ethical issues of its own, especially for those of us who believe life begins at conception. However, in my work as an ethics consultant with a major healthcare system, I have also been anticipating the day when such testing could be used to select embryos based on IQ and a variety of other attributes. Such eugenic practices would clearly be attractive to many who could afford them.

This issue points to an even more fundamental cultural question that affects every one of us, regardless of our age or station in life.

“We no longer worship anything”

There was a day when couples could know little about their babies prior to birth. Ultrasound scanners were not widely available until the 1970s; the same was true for prenatal screening for Down syndrome.

Prior to this time, sex-selective abortions were obviously not possible; today, millions of babies (usually females) have been aborted on the basis of their gender. Down syndrome babies were not detectable in utero and thus not aborted; today, 90 percent of women whose unborn babies are diagnosed with Down choose to abort them.

We could have a similar discussion of nearly any ethical issue of our time. For example:

• There was a day when parents could more easily protect their children from pornography distributed by magazines and movies. Today, hard-core porn is available to anyone with internet access. And virtual reality is making porn more immersive and addictive than ever.
• Euthanasia was once illegal and difficult to obtain; now, “suicide pods” are making it easier than ever for people to take their own lives.
• Mass media was once distributed through platforms and networks that enforced editorial standards and ethical accountability. Today, anyone can broadcast and consume nearly any message through nearly any digital device, enabling “fake news” and “deep fake videos” to proliferate.

While we are facing unprecedented ethical challenges, our culture at the same time is jettisoning the resources it needs to face them. Richard Rorty, heralded on his death in 2007 by the New York Times as “one of the world’s most influential contemporary thinkers,” summarized our cultural worldview:

Once upon a time, we felt a need to worship something which lay beyond the visible world. Beginning in the seventeenth century, we tried to substitute a love of truth for a love of God, treating the world described by science as a quasi-divinity. Beginning at the end of the eighteenth century, we tried to substitute a love of ourselves for a love of scientific truth, a worship of our own deep spiritual or poetic nature, treated as one more quasi-divinity.

Now, according to Rorty, we have come to a place “where we no longer worship anything, where we treat nothing as a quasi-divinity, where we treat everything—our language, our conscience, our community—as products of time and chance.”

How’s that working for us?

“Jesus Christ rehabilitated the human race”

My obvious response is to urge you to love your Lord with all of your being and to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:37–39). The first returns God to his rightful place on the throne of our lives and world; the second causes us to venerate life from natural conception to natural death.

But for flawed and fallen people like you and me, both are easier said than done. Otherwise, why would abortion and pornography (as examples) be so prevalent among Christians? To this end, let’s close by pointing to a source of hope that transcends all our aspirations and efforts.

Oswald Chambers noted, “Sin is a fundamental relationship; it is not wrong doing, it is wrong being, deliberate and emphatic independence of God” (his emphasis). He added that, unlike other religions that deal with various sins, Christianity uniquely deals with our sin nature at the cross.

We often say that Jesus died for our sins, but Chambers explains that in fact “he took upon himself the heredity of sin which no man can touch. God made his own Son to be sin that he might make the sinner a saint.” Scripture agrees:

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Note that the text does not say that God made Jesus “to bear sins” but “to be sin.”

According to Chambers, “In so doing he put the whole human race on the basis of redemption. Jesus Christ rehabilitated the human race; he put it back to where God designed it to be, and anyone can enter into union with God on the ground of what our Lord has done on the cross.”

Now the choice is with us. Will we submit our lives this day to God’s Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), asking him to recreate the character of Christ in us (Romans 8:29), empower us to defeat any temptation (1 Corinthians 10:13), and transform us to be “more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37)?

Will you?

NOTE: Feeling disheartened by the state of our nation’s discourse? Respectfully, I Disagree and How Does God See America? are two timely resources designed to help you navigate these turbulent times with a heart aligned with God’s truth. These books are our gift to thank you for your donation of $25 or more. Secure your political bundle today.

Tuesday news to know:

• The US is investigating an unauthorized release of classified documents on Israel’s Iran attack plan
• Georgia authorities investigating a dock gangway collapse that killed 7 on a historic island
• Total 2024 election spending projected to exceed previous record
• Cuba grid collapses again raising doubts about a quick fix
• On this day in 1962: JFK’s address on Cuban Missile Crisis shocks the nation

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

Quote for the day:

“The Bible was not given for our information but for our transformation.” —Dwight L. Moody

Denison Forum

News broke Thursday that the Israeli military has killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in a southern Gaza raid. Sinwar was the mastermind of the October 7 attacks and had served as the driver of Hamas’ position in the largely fruitless cease-fire talks that followed.

Israeli and American officials had been hunting for Sinwar since those attacks and had gotten close to capturing or killing him on multiple occasions prior to this week. In January, they missed him by a matter of days after raiding a tunnel where he’d been hiding. Though he escaped, they still came away with key documents and roughly $1 million worth of Israeli shekels that Sinwar was forced to leave behind.

Given the magnitude of Sinwar’s death, Israeli officials took quite a while to confirm that the Hamas leader had, in fact, been killed. They took his body back to a laboratory in Israel to compare DNA samples, along with fingerprints and dental records, with their records from when Sinwar was their prisoner for more than two decades. He’d previously been released while serving four life sentences as part of a prisoner exchange in 2011.

Given that Sinwar had largely insisted upon conditions that were beyond the pale of Israeli consideration in any cease-fire negotiations, his death has raised hopes among some that an end to the war could be possible. Most seem skeptical of that outcome—and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israelies, “The war, my dear ones, is not over yet”—but there are fewer obstacles to peace now than at the start of the week. And, given the reports of rapidly deteriorating conditions in Gaza, a quick end could indeed prove to be a blessing.

Will the US continue to support Israel?

Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken sent a letter to Yoav Gallant—Israel’s Minister of Defense—in which they threatened to cut off future military aid unless Israel allowed more humanitarian aid into Gaza in the next thirty days. They defined “more aid” as:

• At least 350 aid trucks per day through all four major crossings.
• The opening of a fifth additional crossing.
• Allowing people in the humanitarian zone on the coast to move inland before winter.
• Humanitarian pauses across Gaza to allow for greater access to vaccinations and medical treatments.
• A new channel of communication between Israel and the US to “raise and discuss civilian harm incidents.”

While aid shipments improved earlier this year, the latest reports claim that they have fallen by more than 50 percent from their peak. The UN humanitarian office claims that only one of its 54 efforts to get into Northern Gaza were approved earlier this month, and current projections are that nine in ten Gazans will face “acute food scarcity” in the coming months unless something changes.

For their part, COGAT—Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities and Territories task force—denied that any border crossings in the north have been closed and countered by noting that they have allowed the international community to bring 1,064,820 tons of humanitarian aid through its crossings since the start of the war, including roughly 824,078 tons of food. And much of that aid has been seized by Hamas rather than going to the Palestinian people.

Still, the present food crisis in Gaza is less about what Israel has done than what it is doing at the moment. And, in that regard, there is a dire need for improvement.

After all, no matter how you feel about the Gazan people, their response to Hamas, or the litany of other lenses through which this war can be seen, we must never forget that God loves them and calls us to do the same.

Serving Christ by serving others

In one of Christ’s final teachings before the crucifixion, he told his followers a parable about sheep, goats, and the final judgment (Matthew 25:31–46). His primary point in the story is that when God gathers all nations before his throne, how he will see us will hinge—at least in part—on how we had treated the “least of these.” Jesus goes so far as to say that the care we rendered to the poor, sick, and strangers in our midst was rendered to him as well.

As Russell Moore recently pointed out, our job in responding to this passage is not to parse out who belongs to the least of these but, rather, to simply serve the people God puts in our lives to serve. That responsibility should impact not only how we treat people but also how we see them.

While few of us will likely have the chance to serve those suffering in Gaza, knowing that Jesus would want us to care for them if we did should inform the way we see their suffering.

That doesn’t mean we should justify the actions of those who have sided with Hamas in their atrocities or that we should forget why this war started in the first place. But it does mean that we should not allow any such questions to block out the fact that every single individual fighting over bread or wondering if their home will be the next one destroyed as collateral damage is made in the image of God and loved by our heavenly Father.

And the same is true for the least of these whom the Lord has given you an opportunity to help.

So, when those chances come, what will you do?

How you answer will reveal quite a bit about where you stand with God today.

Friday news to know:

• US plans to target Iranian ghost fleets used to avoid sanctions
• Liam Payne, former member of One Direction, dies after falling from his third-story hotel room
• US Sanctions two Chinese companies for supplying weapons to Russia
• Robot vacuums in multiple cities hacked, start shouting obscenities and racial slurs
• On this day in 1867: US purchases Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million

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

Quote of the day:

“Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” — Jesus (Matthew 25:40)

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Embracing four often-overlooked biblical principles

Last night’s Hunter Moon was the brightest supermoon we’ll see all year. It comes at the same time a comet discovered only last year is visible after sunset. Meanwhile, strong storms on our Sun may temporarily disrupt power and communications on our planet and spacecraft in orbit.

From above us to below us: Scientists have discovered animals beneath the ocean floor. Since only 26.1 percent of the global seafloor has been mapped, who knows what else lies down there?

For those with eyes to see and minds to think, every dimension of our universe demonstrates our Creator’s magnificence and humanity’s finitude. Consider a few examples:

• Around ten billion trillion people could fit inside the Earth.
• Around 1,300,000 Earths could fit inside the Sun. (Our planet is about the size of an average sunspot.)
• Our Sun is just one of two hundred billion trillion stars in the observable universe.
• End to end, the blood vessels in your body would stretch more than twice the distance around the world.
• One trillion atoms could fit into the period at the end of this sentence.

I could go on. And our God made all of that.

As we’re exploring the significance and urgency of biblical truth this week, consider this amazing fact: The omnipotent Creator of the universe wrote a book. And just as amazing: He wants us to be empowered and transformed by its truth.

What does this mean in practical terms? Consider four often-overlooked, interrelated principles.

The word leads to the Word

When I taught biblical interpretation as a seminary professor, I emphasized the “Christocentric” principle: The word of God ultimately exists to lead us to the Son of God. For example, John wrote his Gospel “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31).

If we read, teach, and preach the Bible as an end rather than as a means, we frustrate the Spirit’s purpose behind its inspiration, illumination, and application today. St. Ignatius, the second-century bishop of Antioch, wrote a letter in which he warned: “Be deaf when anyone preaches to you without mentioning Jesus Christ. … Flee from these preachers, these wicked offshoots that bear deadly fruit, one taste of which is fatal.”

If you do not experience Christ whenever you read the Bible, you have not fully read the Bible.

What happens to us must happen through us

For a variety of reasons, I believe the Bible to be the true, trustworthy, and authoritative word, as I explain here. But there’s a caveat: You and I must act biblically for the Bible to fulfill its transforming purpose in our lives.

The fifth-century Gallic monk Vincent of Lérins compared our spiritual growth to our physical growth: as our bodies mature, they are still our bodies. If they become something else, “the whole body would necessarily perish or become grotesque or at least be enfeebled.”

In the same way, he urged, “We should reap true doctrine from the growth of true teaching.” When we do, this doctrine changes our lives and our world.

The Bible is unique among the world’s books in that its intended purpose is only fully accomplished in us if it is accomplished through us. The person who hears God’s word “and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing” (James 1:25).

Will you be blessed in your “doing” today?

Breathe out to breathe in

A vital way to obey God’s word is by leading others to obey God’s word.

St. Gregory the Great, who served as pope from 590 to his death in 604, lamented that “compelled by the urgency of these barbarous times,” he and other Christian leaders “accept the duties of office, but by our actions, we show that we are attentive to other things.” For example, “Those who have been entrusted to us abandon God, and we are silent. They fall into sin, and we do not extend a hand of rebuke.”

Gregory then asks, “How can we who neglect ourselves be able to correct someone else? We are wrapped up in worldly concerns, and the more we devote ourselves to external things, the more insensitive we become in spirit.”

Obedience to Scripture requires us to help others obey Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16–17). We must breathe out to breathe in.

Light a candle that “shall never be put out”

In unbiblical times, biblical fidelity is dangerous (cf. John 15:20). In our post-Christian and even anti-Christian culture, we can measure the depth of our obedience to Scripture by its cost in our personal and public lives.

Yesterday marked the anniversary of the martyrdoms of Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer. The Church of England bishops were burned at the stake in 1555 for refusing to renounce their commitment to the absolute authority of the Bible.

A third Protestant leader, Thomas Cranmer, recanted his faith, only to disavow his recantation and reaffirm his belief in the supremacy of Scripture. When he went to his death in 1556, he first held the hand with which he signed his false recantations into the flame until it was consumed.

I will always remember my first visit to the Martyrs’ Memorial at Oxford University, where its three statues depict Ridley, Latimer, and Cranmer near the place of their deaths. Here I recalled Bishop Latimer’s last words:

“Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.”

When last did it cost you something significant to “light such a candle”?

What price will you pay to light another today?

Thursday news to know:

• Harris’ interview with Fox News is marked by testy exchanges over immigration and more
• US warns Israel of military aid cut if Gazans don’t get more supplies
• US B-2 bombers strike Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen
• Archdiocese of Los Angeles agrees to pay $880 million to settle sex abuse claims
• On this day in 1989: Oakland–San Francisco World Series game postponed because of earthquake

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

Quote for the day:

“Many people do not want absolutes in doctrine and ethics, simply because absolute truths and standards demand absolute acceptance and obedience.” —John MacArthur

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Why this issue is foundational to our cultural future

In what Reuters is calling “a highly unusual development,” the US is sending an advanced anti-missile system to Israel along with American troops to operate it. Meanwhile, a man arrested near a Donald Trump rally is facing gun charges. The county sheriff said, “If you’re asking me right now, I probably did have deputies that prevented the third assassination attempt.” Why, then, am I taking time to discuss the first transgender Star Wars stormtrooper?

The character, named Sister, appears in the new book, Star Wars: The Secrets of the Clone Troopers. Some applauded the move, while others were grieved, myself among them. This is not only a religious liberty and election issue; as John Stonestreet noted yesterday, fourteen thousand children have been “forever harmed” by transgender surgeries, puberty blockers, and cross-sex hormone injections.

But the story points to an even more fundamental disconnect that threatens our cultural future.

We have fought wars in the past and will likely fight them again in the future. But if we cannot agree on what constitutes an ally and an enemy, how can we defend the former from the latter?

Similarly, if we cannot agree on foundational social constructs such as gender and marriage, how can a participatory democracy that depends on consensual morality flourish?

No law and no science?

Yesterday I stated my belief that the Bible is objectively true and should be the stack pole against which we measure human beliefs and opinions. For example, Scripture teaches that life begins at conception (cf. Psalm 139:13–16) and marriage is intended for one man and one woman (cf. Genesis 2:20–25), which is why I am pro-life and for biblical marriage.

However, I can hear someone saying, “That’s just your interpretation of the Bible.” How would I respond?

Let’s begin with some analogies.

The American legal system stands on the belief that our laws can be objectively interpreted. If someone being prosecuted for a crime can successfully argue that the charges are “just the prosecutor’s interpretation of the law,” there can be no law.

Scientists similarly utilize the scientific method to guide their investigations. When they publish findings, if critics can successfully argue that these results are “just the researcher’s interpretation of the data,” there can be no science.

Of course, human subjectivity and error enter the equation. This is why we have courts to weigh legal opinions and judge according to accepted jurisprudence. It is why we have peer review of scientific research. And both legal and scientific positions can change as more information comes to light.

But in neither case do we believe that the enterprise itself is subjective and thus untrustworthy. The same mindset should prevail with regard to biblical study.

When it doesn’t, we should ask whether the skeptic is working on the basis of objective reasoning or rejecting truth claims they don’t happen to appreciate personally. For example, every religious leader I know who changed their stance on the Bible to become an LGBTQ advocate had a personal agenda at work—they either identified as LGBTQ themselves, had family members who were, or had other personal issues related to their new stance.

A seminary course in four steps

How, then, can we interpret the Bible objectively and without bias?

What follows is my brief condensation of content I taught in semester-long seminary courses and published in book-length form. My point is not to be exhaustive but illustrative: it is possible—and, in fact, necessary—to interpret and apply Scripture objectively.

Biblical hermeneutics (the art and science of biblical interpretation and application) follows a four-step method:

• Grammatical: What do the words say? What do word and grammar studies tell us about the author’s intended meaning?
• Historical: What is the larger context of the text? What cultural, political, religious, and environmental factors help us identify the intended meaning?
• Theological: What does the text intend to tell us about God, humanity, and other theological subjects?
• Practical: What practical applications does the author intend us to make today?

Again, interpreters can obviously differ in applying this method, which is why biblical hermeneutics is such a rich and exciting scholarly discipline. But they agree that the method is itself objective and that, used properly, yields objective results.

“The very image of Christ”

Let’s close with one other factor: God intends for us to understand his word. To this end, the same Spirit who inspired the Scriptures (2 Peter 1:21) now interprets their truth to us (John 16:13) as we study God’s word objectively and carefully (2 Timothy 2:15).

When we do so, we meet God in his living word. Unlike any other book ever written, the word of God leads us to the God of the word (John 1:1). We do not just learn truth—we experience the One who is the Truth (John 14:6).

In the preface to his monumentally important edition of the Greek New Testament (1516), the great scholar Erasmus wrote:

These sacred words give you the very image of Christ speaking, healing, dying, rising again and make him so present, that were he before your eyes you would not more truly see him.

When last did you “see” Jesus in the Bible?

Why not today?

Tuesday news to know:

• Hurricane Milton could have an impact on Florida in the long term
• Nobel economics prize goes to inequality researchers Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson
• China ends war games around Taiwan, but leaves door open to more
• SpaceX catches giant Starship booster in fifth flight test
• On this day in 1991: Clarence Thomas confirmed to the Supreme Court

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

Quote for the day:

“When you open your Bible, God opens his mouth.” —Mark Batterson

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Why do Christians serve those in need?

Rescue crews are wading through heavy flooding caused by Hurricane Milton, looking for people trapped in houses, cars, and other structures. First responders completed around 170 high-water rescues in just one county yesterday. More than one hundred residents in an assisted living facility in Tampa were transported by rescuers in boats to safety.

We should all be grateful for officials who act in such heroic, selfless ways, though they would probably tell us they are “just doing their jobs.”

The same cannot be said, however, regarding Samaritan’s Purse, Texans on Mission, and other religious groups whose volunteers are responding to the destruction of Hurricanes Milton and Helene. My friend, Dr. Duane Brooks, noted in one of his daily devotionals that Christians responding to disasters seldom have to compete with atheist groups, because they’re not there.

The numbers bear him out. According to Philanthropy Roundtable:

• Americans who attend religious services weekly and pray daily are nearly twice as likely as others to do volunteer work. Nearly two-thirds gave to the poor in the past seven days, compared to 41 percent of other Americans.
• People who attend worship at least twice a month give four times as much to charity as non-attenders.
• Such giving is not reserved for religious causes: 65 percent of those who attend religious services regularly also give to secular causes, compared with 50 percent of those who never attend religious services.

Why are Christians so motivated to help in times of need?

If I were a skeptic

If I were a skeptic, I would turn to Darwinian evolution to explain sacrificial altruism as a manifestation of our innate desire to propagate ourselves. Helping others advances our species and may make it more likely that others will help us in our time of need. The satisfaction we feel in such service is nature’s way of encouraging our sacrifice and compelling further service.

With regard to those who serve for religious reasons, I would offer a similar response: We want to advance our religious community while positioning ourselves to receive their help in the future. And since we believe that God will reward us in heaven for faithful service on earth (Matthew 25:23), we are even more motivated by selfish desires than nonreligious people.

Of course, we do not need to be Darwinian evolutionists to acknowledge that we have a God-given instinct to preserve and steward our lives and community. Nor do we need to disagree that such service advances ourselves and our faith community in this life and the next.

But there is more to the story.

“Not to be served but to serve”

Even when others do not see our true motives, “the Lᴏʀᴅ looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). And he cannot reward selfish transactionalism as he can genuine altruism.

Why is this?

The answer goes to the heart of Christian uniqueness. Ancient Greeks and Romans made sacrifices to the gods so the gods would meet their needs. Other world religions are similarly transactional: If we do what we are told to do, God or the gods will respond accordingly.

Christianity is uniquely different. We serve not so God will love us but because he already does. We love our Lord and our neighbor because our Lord loves our neighbor and us.

This frees us from the constant anxiety of doing more to receive more. When our relationship with God and others is based on our service, there is always more service to render. We are never done. We cannot have the peace of God that “surpasses all understanding” (Philippians 4:7) because our peace is based not on God’s grace but on our works.

However, if we serve others because we have been served by God and love others because we are loved by God, then we are free to love whether we are loved in return or not. We are free to give without thought for who can give to us, because we emulate the One who “came not to be served but to serve” (Matthew 20:28).

Three practical responses

What can you do to help those facing the devastation of Hurricane Milton and other disasters?

1: Pray fervently

1. D. Gordon was right: “You can do more than pray after you have prayed but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.” When we pray, we experience what our omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omnipresent God can do. And we are led to know what we can do and find that we are empowered to do it.

2: Give sacrificially

1. S. Lewis observed, “I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare.”

3: Serve strategically

I once heard Dr. Mac Brunson say that every Christian should have a personal Acts 1:8 strategy. How will you help those in need at home, in the larger area where you live, and “to the end of the earth”? According to Jesus, your “neighbor” is anyone who needs what you have to give (Luke 10:36–37).

I’ll say it again: We serve not so God will love us but because he already does. We give not to be blessed but because we already are. However, it is a fact that when we pray, give, and serve, we position ourselves to experience God’s best in response.

St. Francis of Assisi, in his first known letter to all Christians, assured us:

Men lose all the material things they leave behind them in this world, but they carry with them the reward of their charity and the alms they give. For these they will receive from the Lord the reward and recompense they deserve.

What will you do today that you will “carry” to heaven one day?

NOTE: Our nation’s political landscape can feel overwhelming, but you change the conversation. Respectfully, I Disagree will help you engage in tough conversations with grace and How Does God See America? will guide you through understanding cultural shifts. Receive both as our gift to thank you for your donation of $25 or more. Get your political bundle today.

Friday news to know:

• Ethel Kennedy, widow of Robert Kennedy and family matriarch, dies at 96
• Inflation cools slightly in September
• Nobel Peace Prize given to Nihon Hidankyo for work to halt nuclear weapons
• Rafael Nadal to retire from tennis at end of season
• On this day in 2002: Jimmy Carter wins Nobel Peace Prize

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

Quote for the day:

“He who does not serve God where he is would not serve God anywhere else.” —Charles Spurgeon

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Hurricane Milton rapidly intensified into a Category 5 storm yesterday. The center of the monster storm could come ashore Wednesday in the Tampa Bay region, which has not seen a direct hit by a major hurricane in more than a century. Forecasters are warning of the highest storm surge ever predicted for the region.

Ahead of the devastation that is likely tomorrow, I want to think with you about some faith questions as we seek hope in these hard days.

If every wrong chess move can be replayed

The English poet John Keats called our fallen planet a “vale of soul-making.” Yesterday I suggested that God uses natural disasters to show us our need to “seek the Lᴏʀᴅ and his strength” (Psalm 105:4) and to grow in holiness as a result.

Inherent in this worldview is the claim that some suffering is necessary for spiritual maturity, much as a kite needs wind to climb higher. When Paul was afflicted with a “thorn in the flesh,” for example, he chose to “boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

It is also true (though not in the case of innocent suffering) that much evil in the world is the consequence of misused free will. As C. S. Lewis notes in The Problem of Pain, “The possibility of pain is inherent in the very existence of a world where souls can meet. When souls become wicked they will certainly use this possibility to hurt one another; and this, perhaps, accounts for four-fifths of the sufferings of men.”

God must allow the consequences of freedom or we are not free. If every wrong chess move can be replayed, we have no game. The law of gravity cannot function if it is countermanded every time someone falls.

But why must this be so?

Responding to the “utopia thesis”

Philosophers Antony Flew and J. L. Mackie proposed the “utopia thesis,” claiming that an all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful God could create a world in which people are free and grow to full spiritual maturity without the presence or necessity of evil and suffering. We cannot understand how he might do so, but we’re not God.

One response is that even God is not obligated to do what is logically impossible, such as making a rock so big he cannot move it or two mountains without a valley in between. It is illogical that even he could create a utopia in which humans are truly free but they never misuse such freedom.

But here’s my problem with this response: such a “utopia” is precisely how the Bible describes heaven.

Revelation 7 pictures “a great multitude that no one could number . . . crying out in a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” (vv. 9–10). Worship, our expression of love and adoration for God, is the central activity of heaven. But love must be a choice, which requires freedom of will even in heaven.

At the same time, we are assured that in heaven, “death shall be no more” (Revelation 21:4a). Since “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), it’s hard to see how there can be sin in heaven without death as a consequence. Or how “there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain” (Revelation 21:4b NASB) while sin is present.

So, if we will experience a “utopia” one day in which we are free but sin and suffering do not exist, why not now?

“I believe; help my unbelief!”

Mystery is part of the Christian faith. We wonder, for example, how God can be three yet one, Jesus could be fully God yet fully man, and the Bible can be divinely inspired yet humanly written.

In the same way, I do not know an explanation for our suffering world that is free from all questions and mystery. But let me ask you this: Do you truly believe that our God is all-knowing, all-loving, and all-powerful? Then by definition, he must always know what is best for us, want what is best for us, and therefore do what is best for us.

Now we have a choice: We can view his nature through the prism of events, or view events through the prism of his nature. I choose the latter with the prayer, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). All the while knowing that there are truths in this world God cannot reveal to me because I am unable to comprehend them (1 Corinthians 13:12).

But this world is not all there is.

Max Lucado quotes a friend who says, “Everything will work out in the end. If it’s not working out, it’s not the end.” While the “utopia” of heaven raises questions about earth, it also offers wonderful assurance about life beyond this life. As Paul declared,

“I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18).

How can we have the same confidence?

“When we can reach beyond our fears”

Henri Nouwen observed: “We are fearful people. We are afraid of conflict, war, an uncertain future, illness, and most of all, death.” This is problematic because “this fear takes away our freedom and gives society the power to manipulate us with threats and promises.”

However,

When we can reach beyond our fears to the One who loves us with a love that was there before we were born and will be there after we die, then oppression, persecution, and even death will be unable to take our freedom. Once we have come to this deep inner knowledge—a knowledge more of the heart than of the mind—that we are born out of love and will die into love, that every part of our being is deeply rooted in love, and that this love is our true Father and Mother, then all forms of evil, illness, and death lose their final power over us and become painful but hopeful reminders of our true divine childhood.

Will you “come to this deep inner knowledge” today?

Tuesday news to know:

• Israel marks Oct. 7 anniversary under shadow of escalating war
• Hezbollah missiles hit Israel’s Haifa in escalating conflict
• Antisemitic incidents in US surge to record high—report
• Discovery in tiny worm leads to Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for two scientists
• On this day in 1970: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wins the Nobel Prize in Literature

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

Quote for the day:

“Those who understand God’s sovereignty have joy even in the midst of suffering, a joy reflected on their very faces, for they see that their suffering is not without purpose.” —R. C. Sproul

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A reflection on crisis and the power of faith

A year ago today, Hamas launched the worst massacre in Israel’s history, murdering 1,195 people and taking 251 hostages. The last twelve months have been what the Economist calls “the year that shattered the Middle East.”

Despite the horrors of war and the tragic loss of life that have ensued, the past year has seen significant progress for Israel:

• The Israeli people are more unified in fighting their enemies: fully 80 percent support the current offensive against Hezbollah, for example.
• The IDF has largely decapitated Hezbollah and destroyed many of its missiles, significantly degrading what had been Iran’s strongest proxy in the region.
• Israel’s army chief said yesterday that Israeli forces had defeated the military wing of Hamas. The terror group’s hoped-for “axis of resistance” against Israel has not come to its defense.
• Iran has been largely ineffectual in its attacks on Israel, staging two missile launches that caused little damage to the Jewish state.

However, there is also cause for grave concern:

• Nearly forty-two thousand people have been killed in Gaza, and around 70 percent of the area’s housing stock has been destroyed. Over half of Gaza’s population has lost a relative; some three-quarters have been displaced at least three times during the war.
• Palestinians’ support for violence in the West Bank has grown from 35 percent in September 2022 to 56 percent in September this year.
• The ongoing wars are significantly harming Israel’s economy: GDP is shrinking year-on-year; the prolonged absence of so many reservists is harming businesses; and railway stations have been forced to close for lack of security guards.
• The threat of terrorism persists: On October 1, more Israelis were killed by two Palestinians who attacked a commuter rail station in Jaffa than were harmed by 180 Iranian missiles. Hezbollah rockets hit Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city, early this morning and launched another attack on Tiberias.
• Israel’s direct conflict with Iran could escalate into a regional war that eventually involves the US on its side and China, Russia, and North Korea with the Iranians. As Israeli forces degrade its proxies, Iran may turn to developing nuclear weapons in response.
• The conflict could spawn terrorism in the US as well: The FBI and Department of Homeland Security are warning that a “variety of actors” could commit acts of violence here in response to today’s anniversary.

Millions of unexploded bombs

In light of all the challenges in the news and our daily lives, let’s ask: Does God want us to be happy or to be holy?

Today’s terrible anniversary comes as millions in the American Southeast are reeling from one of the deadliest hurricanes of the modern era, with another threatening storm on the way. The World War II bomb that recently exploded in Japan was one of millions of unexploded bombs around the world and serves as a parable for our trying times: There always seems to be another crisis waiting to erupt.

According to Peggy Noonan’s latest Wall Street Journal column, “Americans feel surrounded by crises—inflation, the Mideast, Vladimir Putin, AI’s gonna eat your brain and no one’s gonna stop it, China. You can see this in the right track/wrong track numbers, which continue underwater—the whole country fears we’re on a losing slide in a dangerous world.”

If God primarily wants us to be happy, he doesn’t seem to be doing his job very well. But there’s more to the story.

The word happiness comes from the Old Norse word hap, which means “chance, luck, fortune, or fate.” It is based on happenings and is thus transient. We are happy depending on whether our team won or lost, the current state of the stock market, and a variety of other transient factors.

Paradoxically, pursuing happiness often leads us to make compromises with our character that harm us and others, thus reducing our happiness.

By contrast, holiness (from the German heilig, meaning “whole” or “sacred”) is not transient but transforming. Pursuing holiness often leads us to make changes in our character that mature us and bless others, thus increasing our holiness.

If the world is a “vale of soul-making”

If God intends us to be holy, this world makes much more sense. As I explain in my latest website article, God and Hurricane Helene: Thinking biblically about natural disasters, this is not the world as God originally created it. Rather, we live on a broken planet where natural disasters are an inevitable consequence of the Fall (cf. Genesis 3:17–19; Romans 8:22).

However, the God who redeems all he allows uses even these disasters—not to make us happy, but to help us be holy.

Paul observed: “Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Romans 5:3–4). The second-century theologian Irenaeus accordingly suggested that God uses our fallen world to grow us spiritually. And, as C. S. Lewis noted in The Problem of Pain, “If the world is indeed a ‘vale of soul-making,’ it seems on the whole to be doing its work.”

Now you and I have a choice.

Scripture calls us to “seek the Lᴏʀᴅ and his strength; seek his presence continually!” (Psalm 105:4). When we face the crises of life, God wants us to “remember the wondrous works that he has done” (v. 5) and trust our unchanging and loving Father to do the same today.

But we can also respond to crises by doubling down on self-reliance. Rather than trusting our Lord, we can seek to be our own god (Genesis 3:5), trusting our frailty and finitude over his omnipotent power and omniscient wisdom. We can exchange holiness for happiness—and forfeit both.

The famed missionary Jim Elliot noted,

“God always gives his best to those who leave the choice with him.”

Will you experience his best today?

Monday news to know:

• Hurricane Milton gaining strength fast, expected to hit Florida as a major hurricane this week
• Trump makes a dramatic return to Pennsylvania shooting scene
• US added a whopping 254,000 jobs last month
• Biden will allow legal permission to lapse for migrants from 4 countries
• On this day in 2001: US-led attack on Afghanistan begins

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

Quote for the day:

“Obedience is the key that opens every door.” —C. S. Lewis

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For the vast majority of modern history, women have outnumbered men when it comes to who shows up most often at church. In fact, many scholars have come to see it as something of a universal truth. However, the latest research for Gen Z men and women shows that pattern has started to change.

As Ruth Graham describes, “For the first time in modern American history, young men are now more religious than their female peers. They attend services more often and are more likely to identify as religious.” And this trend appears to be unique to Gen Z, since men are more likely than women to be religiously unaffiliated in every other generation. Now the question experts are asking is, “Why?”

Part of the explanation is that women are simply leaving the church faster than men. A poll from earlier this year found that Gen Z men are only 11 percent less likely to be religiously affiliated than those in the Baby Boomer generation. However, the gap between women in those generations is nearly two-and-a-half times as large. Consequently, it appears that the issue has at least as much to do with more women leaving the church as it does with more men deciding to stay.

At the same time, Gen Z’s religious affiliation still represents a shift in the right direction from the millennials above them, who are the least religiously affiliated generation alive today.

So what has caused this shift and, more importantly, what can it teach us about sharing the gospel with both men and women in those younger generations?

#ChurchToo’s continued impact

As Graham points out, religious affiliation is one of many ways in which men and women are on different trajectories among young people today. For example, Gen Z women are:

• More educated than Gen Z men
• Earn a higher income in prominent cities like New York and Washington
• Less likely to say they want to become parents, by a margin of 12 percentage points
• More likely to report feeling like they are treated unequally in most churches

And that last part is particularly important in explaining the gender gap in religious affiliation.

Many Gen Z women came of age during the #MeToo movement—and its religiously based cousin #ChurchToo. As such, some of their most formative years were spent hearing about the abuse and scandals perpetrated against women, far too often by leaders in the church. It is understandable that many would find it difficult to separate that kind of abuse from the faith of the abusers, even if drawing such a correlation overlooks the basic realities of who Jesus is and what the gospel is truly about.

Conversely, Gen Z men grew up among the same influences, though they often experienced those events differently.

Derek Rishmawy, who leads a ministry at the University of California, Irvine, points out that for some of the young men with whom he works, Christianity is seen as “one institution that isn’t initially and formally skeptical of them as a class.” He goes on to add that “We’re telling them, ‘you are meant to live a meaningful life’” at a time when that is not always the primary message they receive from the world around them.

As a result, many have come to see the church as a place where they can find community when that is not necessarily as available in the other areas of their lives.

But what is true for Gen Z men should be true for all people. To that end, let’s examine some steps we can take as both individual Christians and members of the body of Christ to help make it so.

How to reach Gen Z

While Gen Z men and women may be heading in opposite directions when it comes to religious affiliation, one thing on which they agree is that their mental health is not in a good place. Forty-six percent of them listed mental health as the greatest concern for themselves and for their community. Relatedly, addiction checked in as their second biggest issue at 31 percent.

Considering that the church represents a source of mental health problems for a relatively large portion of Gen Z women, it makes sense that they might be more hesitant to attend and more willing to look outside of the Christian faith for answers. While God’s truth does not change with our experiences, our experiences often provide the lens through which we understand the Lord. As a result, one of the best ways we can reach out to young people regardless of gender is to make our communities of faith a place where they can feel welcome and safe.

Such efforts don’t mean always tailoring our services or beliefs to fit what they want. After all, the gospel needs to remain the gospel, and authenticity is one of the most important values Gen Z is looking for in both people and organizations. Yet there are still things we can do to make them feel wanted, and that’s a great place to start.

If your church has a large Gen Z population or is located in a younger part of your city or town, do you have a plan for reaching out to them? Are there life groups or Sunday School classes where they can feel at home? What ministries exist in your area that are aimed at reaching out to Gen Z and can your church partner with them?

Beyond that, are there avenues for young people to get plugged into your church’s leadership or chances to serve that show you value what they bring to the table? Such efforts are especially important when it comes to reaching out to the young women who often feel as though they are less valued at church than in the other areas of their lives.

One of the reasons Jesus gained such a diverse and devoted following throughout his ministry is that his words and actions demonstrated how much he loved and valued the people who crossed his path. They felt accepted by him, even while he challenged their thoughts and confronted their sins.

As his ambassadors to the world around us, we need to do the same.

Will you?

Friday News to Know:

• Putin gives Russian criminals the option to enlist in the army to avoid prosecution
• Dockworkers’ union suspends strike until January as negotiations continue
• Michael Jordan could bring unprecedented change after suing NASCAR
• Israel continues strike against Hezbollah in Beirut, Lebanon
• On this day in 1957: Soviet Union launches Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite

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

Quote of the day

“We are either in the process of resisting God’s truth or in the process of being shaped and molded by his truth.” —Charles Stanley

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A reflection on mortality and morality

Last night’s vice presidential debate between Tim Walz and J. D. Vance had no decisive winner, according to a poll conducted just after the event. Unsurprisingly, Democrats overwhelmingly sided with Walz, while Republicans overwhelmingly picked Vance as the winner.

The debate was widely watched for at least three reasons. One was that one in five Americans said they did not know the candidates before the debate. Another was the obvious desire of viewers to learn more about the two parties and their visions for the future.

And another was the fact that when the presidential inauguration takes place in 110 days, one of these two men will be a heartbeat away from the Oval Office.

Of the forty-five people who have served as president of the United States, eight died in office. The vice presidents who succeeded them were a varied lot: Andrew Johnson was impeached, avoiding conviction by a single vote, while Theodore Roosevelt became one of our most admired presidents and Harry Truman helped end World War II.

Consequently, what happened last night could shape our national future and invites us to consider two imperatives.

Beware the illusion of immortality

If you were seeking a unifying theme for the day’s news, human mortality and finitude would be high on your list. For example:

• Iran launched a missile attack on Israel yesterday, threatening to escalate the conflict in the Middle East. (For more, see my Daily Article Special Edition.)
• A suspected terror shooting yesterday in the central Israel town of Jaffa murdered seven people and wounded dozens more.
• The flood damage from Hurricane Helene is apocalyptic, according to meteorologists.
• Another major hurricane could strike America later this week.
• An outbreak of the deadly Marburg virus (for which there are no vaccines) is raising concern over the possibility of international spread.
• A wave of hoax shooting threats is jolting schools across the country.
• The dockworker strike at US seaports could wreak havoc on global supply chains and the economy.
• A teen suicide crisis is continuing in America.

Nonetheless, we avoid the subject of mortality wherever possible.

We can do so in part because medical advances have pushed death further into the future than ever before. New oncological treatments, for example, have enabled President Carter to live nine years with brain cancer that otherwise would have quickly proven fatal.

In addition, with advances in hospitals and hospice care, few of us actually witness death these days. And video games, movies, and television shows make death more fictional and less real.

But there’s a spiritual factor at work here as well. Satan’s first lie to Adam and Eve is one he repeats to us every day: “You will not surely die” (Genesis 3:4). He wants the unsaved to die unsaved and the saved to ignore the fact of their mortality lest they live each day ready for judgment and eternity.

And he uses the illusion of immortality for his nefarious purposes.

Beware the peril of prosperity

Our spiritual enemy employs a second, closely related strategy as well: the peril of prosperity.

Both vice presidential debate candidates did their best last night to convince us that their party would lead Americans to greater flourishing. But we should beware a biblical pattern here.

As the people of Israel prepared to claim their Promised Land, God made this prediction: “When I have brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey, which I swore to give to their fathers, and they have eaten and are full and grown fat, they will turn to other gods and serve them, and despise me and break my covenant” (Deuteronomy 31:20). As a result, Moses warned them: “In the days to come evil will befall you, because you will do what is evil in the sight of the Lᴏʀᴅ, provoking him to anger through the work of your hands” (v. 29).

It was after King David led Israel to peace and prosperity (2 Samuel 10) that he fell into his disastrous sin with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11). The Lord grieved over Israel: “The more they increased, the more they sinned against me” (Hosea 4:7).

By contrast, the psalmist testified: “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes” (Psalm 119:71). Now he can say, “The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces” (v. 72).

Wars, crimes, natural disasters, and diseases remind us daily that “we are dust” (Psalm 103:14). One way God redeems them is by using them to turn our hearts from temporal prosperity to eternal realities.

Charles Spurgeon was right: “Time is short. Eternity is long. It is only reasonable that this short life be lived in the light of eternity.”

A resolution that changed history

To experience God’s best today, it is vital that we admit our mortality and choose biblical morality. To this end, as a teenager, Jonathan Edwards resolved:

“Never to do anything which I would be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.”

He later became America’s greatest theologian and the leading preacher of the First Great Awakening.

What if you and I made the same resolution today?

Wednesday news to know:

• Hurricane Helene death toll rises as rescuers scramble to reach flooded towns
• US job openings rise to 8 million as labor market remains sturdy
• Democrats sue to block Georgia ballot hand count rule
• Judge blocks Georgia law banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy
• On this day in 1967: Thurgood Marshall sworn in as first Black Supreme Court justice

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

Quote for the day:

“On Christ, and what he has done, my soul hangs for time and eternity. And if your soul hangs there, it will be saved as surely as mine will be.” —Charles Spurgeon

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“Our war is with Hezbollah, not the people of Lebanon”

Israeli special forces are engaged in “limited and targeted raids” in southern Lebanon this morning, according to an IDF spokesman. Their purpose is reportedly not to occupy the country but to allow Israelis living in northern Israel to return to their homes.

Israel has been criticized for attacking “civilian” buildings in its latest conflict with Hezbollah, but this is because the terrorists have hidden their weapons and missile launching positions within civilian villages. In fact, the corrupt warlord Hassan Nasrallah and other senior Hezbollah leaders were gathered in a bunker more than sixty feet beneath a working-class neighborhood in southern Beirut when Israel’s air force struck the bunker with a series of timed, chained explosions to penetrate it.

According to the IDF spokesman, Hezbollah had been planning “to invade Israel, attack Israeli communities, and massacre innocent men, women, and children.” By contrast, he stated, “I want to make it clear: our war is with Hezbollah, not with the people of Lebanon. We do not want to harm Lebanese civilians, and we’re taking measures to prevent that.”

Israel has repeatedly warned civilians before staging strikes, using text messages and voice recordings to urge them to leave dangerous areas. It even warned an Iranian plane not to land in Beirut lest it be attacked.

When America stood behind Israel

Unlike Hezbollah and Hamas, who are pledged to the genocidal destruction of the State of Israel and the Jewish people, Israel’s war aim is to enable Lebanon to seize a post-Hezbollah future for its people while restoring stability to the region. In fact, in the wake of Nasrallah’s death, Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister said yesterday that his government is ready to fully implement a UN resolution that would end Hezbollah’s armed presence near the Israeli border and replace them with the Lebanese army in the area.

Nonetheless, in a speech to the UN last week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Anti-Israel incidents of assault, vandalism, harassment, protests, and divestment resolutions on US college campuses escalated 477 percent across the year following Hamas’s October 7 invasion.

There was a day when the United States stood unequivocally behind the Jewish nation and her people in the face of their enemies. For example, when the United Nations tried in 1975 to condemn Zionism (the belief that the Jewish people need and deserve a homeland) as “a form of racism and racial discrimination,” US Ambassador to the UN Daniel Patrick Moynihan denounced “this infamous act” as a “political lie of a variety well-known to the twentieth century, and scarcely exceeded in all that annal of untruth and outrage.”

That was then—this is now.

Here’s the good news: Condemnations on college campuses and behind UN lecterns are less threatening to Israel since they are coming from outside the country. My Israeli friends tell me the nation is united in its resolve to defeat the terrorists who threaten their lives and their future. After leading more than thirty pilgrimages to the Holy Land, I can tell you that her people, while enormously diverse on a wide range of religious and political issues, are passionately committed to the State of Israel.

By contrast, the “untruth and outrage” condemning America are coming from within our nation and imperil our very future.

Is America “among the greatest countries of the world”?

In 1980, the self-described Marxist socialist Howard Zinn wrote A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present. His book has sold more than three million copies; scholars claim that “no introductory work of American history has had more influence over the past forty years.”

In Zinn’s telling, a nation’s history is comprised of “the fierce conflicts of interest . . . between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated in race and sex.” He applies such Marxist thinking to American history with devastating consequences.

He and the critical theory proponents who have popularized this ideology condemn the United States as a racist project built by white supremacists to advance themselves by oppressing others. Unsurprisingly, a cacophony of liberal scholars have been calling in recent years for the US Constitution to be abolished in response.

Such attacks on the moral foundations of our nation are having their effect. In 1998, 70 percent of Americans considered patriotism to be very important; today it’s 38 percent. The younger you are, the less likely you are to believe that the US is “among the greatest countries of the world.”

King David asked:

“If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3).

What, indeed?

“Be worthy of the gospel of Christ”

As Israel seeks to secure peace for itself in the face of virulent terrorist opposition, I am praying for “the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6) to be extended to Lebanon and her people. I am praying for an end to Hezbollah’s bloody reign that has victimized so many Lebanese, Americans, Israelis, and Syrians over four decades. And for the same with regard to Hamas and other jihadist groups that threaten the Middle East and beyond.

I am similarly praying for a new regime in Iran, one that would serve the interests of its long-suffering people. And for a new stability in the Middle East that unites Jews and Arabs in building secure homelands for Israelis and Palestinians.

I am also praying for a renewal of American purpose and mission, one aligned with our founding proclamation that all people—from preborn children to racial minorities to the elderly and infirm—are endowed by our Creator with “unalienable” rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I am praying for a return to the consensual religious morality that George Washington and other founders considered so “indispensable” to political prosperity.

And I am praying for Christians to be submitted to the sanctifying Spirit of God so fully that we can be among the “righteous” to whom David referred (cf. Ephesians 5:18). Paul exhorted his readers to “let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ” (Philippians 1:27). America has never needed America’s Christians to live such lives more urgently than today.

Will you join me?

Tuesday news to know:

• Jimmy Carter turns 100: Long legacy of giving celebrated with new homes, benefit concert
• Death toll triples in Asheville area after Hurricane Helene guts North Carolina: “There were bodies in the trees”
• Dikembe Mutombo, a towering NBA presence, dies at 58
• Pete Rose, Major League Baseball’s all-time hit king, has died at 83
• On this day in 1988: Mikhail Gorbachev becomes head of Soviet Union

Quote for the day:

“To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian” (George Washington).

Denison Forum

How Benjamin Netanyahu tricked “the” terrorist

Israel killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike on the group’s central command headquarters Friday. An Iranian general was killed in the same strike. Israel’s military says it has now eliminated eight of Hezbollah’s nine most senior military commanders. As of this morning, Israel has also killed Hamas leaders in Lebanon and Syria and bombed Houthi targets in Yemen.

However, the killing of Nasrallah is making headlines not just for its political significance but also for the way it was conducted.

According to a senior Israeli official, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Friday address to the United Nations was part of a “diversionary plan” intended to make Nasrallah believe Israel would not take drastic action with the prime minister out of the country. The terrorist leader was believed to be watching Mr. Netanyahu’s speech at the UN “and was then attacked by Israeli Air Force planes.” The prime minister approved the strike before delivering his speech, the official added.

A “measure of justice”

To Hezbollah and its jihadist allies, Nasrallah is being mourned today as a hero. To US President Joe Biden, his killing was a “measure of justice” for his many victims, including “hundreds of Americans over a four-decade reign of terror” and thousands of Israeli and Lebanese civilians.

To Mr. Netanyahu, Nasrallah “was not just another terrorist—he was the terrorist” (his emphasis).

As a reminder, Israel’s current conflict with Hezbollah started when the terrorist group began bombing northern Israel in solidarity with Hamas’s genocidal invasion on October 7. Nearly eighty thousand Israelis living near the Lebanese border have been forced to flee. Israel’s goal is to enable them to return to their homes in peace.

As I watched the news regarding Nasrallah’s death unfold over the weekend, the biblical admonition echoed in my mind: “Be sure your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23).

“The soul who sins shall die”

I am not saying that all suffering is the consequence of sin. To the contrary, I am praying fervently for the many innocent victims of Hurricane Helene in the southeastern US and for the brave Ukrainians as they stand up to Vladimir Putin’s murderous invasion.

I am not saying that Israel’s leaders can do no wrong or that their every action is an expression of God’s will. Nor am I claiming that the State of Israel founded in 1948 is a direct fulfillment of biblical prophecy, a question that is much debated (see my extensive article here).

But I am saying that sins have consequences for sinners.

• Some are apparent in the moment, as with God’s judgment on Ananias and Sapphira for their deception (Acts 5:1–11) and on King Herod for his idolatrous pride (Acts 12:20–23).
• Some take longer to unfold, as with God’s eventual judgment on Egypt (Exodus 15) and the execution of the genocidal Haman in Persia (Esther 7:7–10).
• Some must be “discerned” through the eyes of faith as we trust the justice and timing of God (Psalm 73:17).

But all unconfessed and unrepented sin leads to the same ultimate result: “The soul who sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:20). For the lost, their “death” is eternity in hell (Revelation 20:15). For the Christian, their “death” is the forfeit of God’s blessing in this life and reward in the next (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:10–15).

I have often quoted the maxim,

“Sin will always take you further than you wanted to go, keep you longer than you wanted to stay, and cost you more than you wanted to pay.”

If you are thinking that this statement doesn’t apply to you, you’re being deceived right now.

Three personal steps

How should we respond today?

One: Confess personal sins immediately.

Since none of us knows when we will stand before God’s judgment (Matthew 24:36; Hebrews 9:27), we must be ready to meet him today. Ask his Spirit to show you anything that is wrong between you and your Lord, then confess what comes to your mind and claim your Father’s forgiving grace (1 John 1:9). Do it now.

Two: Seek reconciliation with others.

Jesus taught us to “first be reconciled to your brother” even before offering worship to the Lord (Matthew 5:24). The only day we have to make our relationships right with others is today.

Three: View temptation as spiritual poison leading to death.

God will enable us to defeat all temptation (1 Corinthians 10:13), but we must turn immediately to him, seeking the power and victory that can be ours.

A surprising thank-you card

In one of my pastorates, I preached a sermon emphasizing our need to be ready for the judgment of God. Following our evening service, an older couple thanked me for my message that morning. They told me they had taken my sermon to heart, praying together that afternoon as they confessed their sins and asked God to make them right with him and others.

On Monday, the wife died of a heart attack. On Tuesday, I received a thank-you card from her in the mail. She had written and posted it on Sunday in case she did not see me that night. I read it in her memorial service on Wednesday.

You and I are one day closer to eternity than ever before.

Are you ready?

Monday news to know:

• Helene flooding strands hundreds of North Carolina residents as storm’s death toll reaches 95
• Kris Kristofferson death: Country music legend and Blade star dies, aged 88
• Maggie Smith is remembered by “Harry Potter” co-stars, peers, and fans in moving tributes
• Austrian far right projected to register historic election win
• On this day in 1954: USS Nautilus—world’s first nuclear submarine—is commissioned

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

Quote for the day:

“Let us stop the progress of sin in our soul at the first stage, for the farther it goes the faster it will increase.” —Thomas Fuller

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