Donald Trump’s selection of J. D. Vance as his running mate continues to generate headlines this morning, and for good reason. As David A. Graham writes in the Atlantic, “J. D. Vance’s rapid rise from obscurity to the vice-presidential nomination is an only-in-America tale.” Consider the facts and judge for yourself:

• James David Vance grew up in a broken home in rural Ohio, surrounded by economic and social decline.
• His parents divorced when he was a toddler. His mother struggled with substance abuse, so he was raised by his grandmother.
• He enlisted in the Marines, served in Iraq, then graduated in two years summa cum laude from Ohio State University, where he majored in political science and philosophy.
• He earned a law degree at Yale, where he served as editor of the Yale Law Review.
• He wrote Hillbilly Elegy, a bestselling memoir of the travails of working-class America. The book was made into a movie directed by Ron Howard.
• He founded a venture capital firm, then was elected to the Senate on his first try.
• At thirty-nine years of age, he has been nominated for vice president of the United States.

Now consider his counterpart:

• Kamala Devi Harris was born in Oakland, California. Her mother emigrated from India to attend the University of California, Berkeley, where she met Harris’s Jamaican-born father, Donald. Her mother became a cancer researcher, while her father became a Stanford University economics professor.
• Her parents divorced when she was seven years old. At age twelve, she moved with her mother and sister to Montreal, where she attended high school and founded a dance troupe.
• She graduated from Howard University in Washington, DC, majoring in political science and economics and serving on the debate team. She earned a JD in 1989, worked as a deputy district attorney in Alameda County, California, and was elected San Francisco district attorney in 2003.
• She was elected California attorney general in 2010, the first African American and the first woman to hold the position.
• In 2016, she became the second African American woman and first South Asian American woman to be elected to the US Senate.
• In 2020, she was elected vice president of the United States, becoming the first female, the first Black, and the first Asian American to hold the position.

Both are “made-in-America” narratives. But as we’ll see today, there’s more to the story.

“From a nation of joiners to a nation of loners”

Our national ethos, as expressed in our founding declaration that “all men are created equal,” especially encourages the rise of individuals from obscurity to the highest levels of power.

But over the generations, this declaration has morphed from “all men are created equal” to “all people are equal.” Darwin taught us that we are not the purposeful creation of God but the coincidental product of natural selection. Freud convinced many that belief in a Creator is a fantasy based on the infantile need for a dominant father figure. Postmodernists have persuaded our culture that all truth claims are personal and subjective (which, of course, is an objective truth claim).

As a result, according to existentialist philosopher Martin Heidegger, we are actors on a stage with no script, audience, director, past, or future. Courage, he claimed, is facing the meaninglessness of life as it is.

How’s this working for us?

The Wall Street Journal interviewed a variety of Americans about their feelings following the attempted assassination of Donald Trump last Saturday. According to the article, “they pointed fingers and expressed anger, fear, and heartbreak.” However, nearly to a person, “they also expressed a sense of dread, saying there seems to be no good news on the horizon.”

They are not alone. According to the New York Times, our country has been transformed in recent decades “from a nation of joiners to a nation of loners.” The article interviews Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam, whose research shows that in the last fifty years, political polarization, economic inequality, and individualistic morality have fomented an epidemic of social isolation and loneliness.

Is this the epitaph of our age?

This is where the uniqueness of the biblical worldview is especially relevant.

On the one hand, Christians believe that we are each created personally by God in his image (Genesis 1:27) and so valuable to him that his Son died to purchase our salvation (Romans 5:8). On the other, we also believe that we are members of a larger body (1 Corinthians 12:27) who find our ultimate purpose and joy in community with our spiritual family.

You and I can experience the abundant life of Christ only through a personal, passionate union with him. He taught us, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). As Oswald Chambers notes, “The essential thing is my personal relationship to Jesus Christ. . . . To fulfill God’s design means entire abandonment to him.”

But we are only one of the branches on the vine. We are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). We experience God most fully in community. When we pray for each other, serve each other, hold each other accountable to biblical truth, and serve Jesus with each other, we offer our broken culture a redemptive community they can find nowhere else.

This adage could therefore be the epitaph of our age:

“With God, all things are possible. Without God, all things are permissible.”

Choose wisely today.

Wednesday news to know:

• US authorities learned of potential Iranian assassination plot against Trump weeks before deadly shooting
• Biden seriously considering proposals on Supreme Court term limits, ethics code, AP sources say
• Bob Menendez found guilty on all counts including acting as a foreign agent, in federal corruption trial
• Powell says Federal Reserve is more confident inflation is slowing to its target
• On this day in 2020: Congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis dies

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

Quote for the day:

“Once we deeply trust that we ourselves are precious in God’s eyes, we are able to recognize the preciousness of others and their unique places in God’s heart.” —Henri Nouwen

Denison Forum

A “real-life superhero” and the pathway to sacrificial courage

Today’s news cycle is being dominated by former President Donald Trump’s announcement of J. D. Vance as his running mate, the first night of the Republican National Convention, the dismissal of Mr. Trump’s classified documents case, and President Biden’s interview with NBC’s Lester Holt last night. However, I want to focus this morning on a story I don’t want us to miss before it fades from the headlines.

Corey Comperatore was an engineer, a former chief of the Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Company in Pennsylvania, and a lifelong volunteer firefighter. He was also a husband and the father of two daughters.

When shots rang out last Saturday at a rally for former President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, one of Corey’s daughters later described how her father reacted. “He shielded my body from the bullet that came at us,” she wrote in a social media post. “He loved his family. He truly loved us enough to take a real bullet for us.”

Corey Comperatore died defending those he loved. His daughter called him a “real-life superhero.”

“We are all on our last cruise”

Donald Trump’s near assassination illustrates John F. Kennedy’s prophetic statement: “If anyone is crazy enough to want to kill a president of the United States, he can do it. All he must be prepared to do is give his life for the president’s.” If the person presumably better protected than anyone in our country can be in mortal danger, so are we all.

Recent celebrity deaths include sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer, actress Shannon Doherty, and fitness guru Richard Simmons. Russian Czar Nicholas II and his family were executed on this day in 1918; John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, and her sister perished in a plane crash on this day in 1999. Shark attacks and the rising threat of bird flu are in the news as well.

An American Airlines flight parked at its gate at San Francisco International Airport was evacuated recently because of smoke in the cabin. Metaphorically, we’re all on that flight. Robert Louis Stevenson made a similar point:  “Old and young, we are all on our last cruise.”

According to Jesus, none of us knows when our time will come: “Always be ready, because you don’t know the day or the hour the Son of Man will come” (Matthew 25:13 NCV). However, while we cannot know the hour of our death, we can prepare for it. We can decide today that we will respond as Corey Comperatore did: with sacrificial courage and selfless love.

How can we do this?

“No more stirring symbol of man’s humanity to man”

Aristotle taught: “Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.”

One person said of Corey Comperatore’s sacrifice: “He was a firefighter. Why am I not surprised his instinct was to put his own body in harm’s way?” I have been privileged to pastor several firefighters over the years and can testify personally to the truth of this statement.

Kurt Vonnegut agreed: “I can think of no more stirring symbol of man’s humanity to man than a fire engine.” Think about it—when everyone else runs from the conflagration, firefighters run to it as quickly as they can get there, knowing they may not return.

The Greek historian Thucydides was right: “The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out to meet it.”

Stated succinctly: If we live for others today, we’re more likely to be willing to die for them tomorrow.

How can we do this?

“If we live, we live to the Lord”

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro testified that Corey Comperatore went to church every Sunday. This is unsurprising: A longtime friend called him “a great man who loved his family fiercely and did the same with God.”

As a result, Corey found in his Lord the strength to follow his example: “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). Followers of Jesus know these facts to be true:

• “Godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world” (1 Timothy 6:6–7).
• “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20).
• “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s” (Romans 14:8).

As a result, we are free to “set your mind and heart to seek the Lᴏʀᴅ your God” (1 Chronicles 22:19). We are free to live—and to die—for his glory and the common good. We are free to serve others whether or not we are served, to love them whether or not we are loved, and to live each day for our eternal reward and theirs.

St. Augustine observed:

We do not seek, nor should we seek, our own glory even among those whose approval we desire. What we should seek is their salvation, so that if we walk as we should they will not go astray in following us. . . .

If then you are good, praise is due to him who made you so; it is no credit to you, for if you were left to yourself, you could only be wicked. . . . And so, my brothers, our concern should be not only to live as we ought, but also to do so in the sight of men; not only to have a good conscience but also, so far as we can in our weakness, so far as we can govern our frailty, to do nothing which might lead our weak brother into thinking evil of us.

Otherwise, as we feed on the good pasture and drink the pure water, we may trample on God’s meadow, and weaker sheep will have to feed on trampled grass and drink from troubled waters.

The philosopher Andrew Bernstein was therefore right:

“The hero is the man who lets no obstacle prevent him from pursuing the values he has chosen.”

Will you be a hero today?

Tuesday news to know:

• In the wake of Trump’s attempted assassination, investigators search for clues around the motive
• Trump shooting is Secret Service’s most stunning failure in decades
• NASA astronauts from Boeing’s Starliner may be stuck in space until August
• Fertility declines, tapering populations, soaring life expectancies: What the UN population report shows about us and our future on this planet
• On this day in 1945: the first atomic bomb test is successfully exploded

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

Quote for the day:

“We can walk without fear, full of hope and courage and strength to do his will, waiting for the endless good which he is always giving as fast as he can get us able to take it in.” —George Macdonald

Denison Forum

Reflections on the attempted assassination of former President Trump

Donald Trump wrote on his social media platform TruthSocial yesterday that it was “God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening,” allowing him to survive Saturday’s assassination attempt. The Wall Street Journal editorial board similarly wrote, “It’s nothing short of miraculous that Mr. Trump avoided death by a literal inch.”

According to the New York Times, the picture of the bloodied former president, his fist raised, flanked by an American flag, is “already the indelible image of our era of political crisis and conflict.”

“We are living through an age of rage”

At this writing, authorities are still trying to determine a motive for the attempted assassination. The twenty-year-old alleged gunman made a $15 donation when he was seventeen to a group that supports Democratic politicians, but he was also a registered Republican.

If political rhetoric was in fact a motivating factor for the shooter, the tragedy further demonstrates the power of hateful speech to incite hateful actions.

Legal scholar Jonathan Turley responded to the shooting: “We are living through an age of rage. It is not our first, but it may be the most dangerous such period in our history.” In the first attempted assassination of a current or former president in the social media era, partisan reaction and conspiracy theories swiftly illustrated his warning.

In my Daily Article Special Edition response to the shooting Saturday, I quoted a number of Democratic leaders who stated their gratitude that Mr. Trump was safe. Others, however, responded in horrific ways. For example, a Colorado state representative tweeted, “The last thing America needed was sympathy for the devil but here we are.” (His post was quickly deleted and roundly condemned by his party’s leaders.) Some on the right were likewise quick to blame President Biden and Mr. Trump’s other critics for the attack.

“Do not speak evil against one another”

Saturday’s shooting has a larger social context. In a nationwide poll conducted last month, 10 percent of those surveyed said the “use of force is justified to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president.” A third of those giving that answer also said they owned a gun. On the other side, 7 percent of those surveyed said they “support force to restore Trump to the presidency.” Half of these respondents said they owned guns.

Words provoke actions. This is why Scripture warns us, “Do not speak evil against one another” (James 4:11), and commands us “to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people” (Titus 3:2).

How you and I respond to Saturday’s shooting will significantly impact our witness in our secularized culture. Let us obey these biblical commands by “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). Then our light in the darkness will glorify our Lord and draw others to him (Matthew 5:14–16).

New York Times columnist David French, a conservative evangelical but also a longtime critic of Mr. Trump, responded to the shooting: “There has rarely been a better time to love our enemies, to pray for our nation, and to remember—during one of the most fraught political campaigns in generations—that each and every one of us is a human being, created in the image of God.”

A misfiring gun and a grenade that did not explode

A 2008 report by the Congressional Research Service stated that direct assaults against presidents, presidents-elect, and candidates have occurred on fifteen separate occasions. Ten incumbents, including four of the previous six presidents, had been targeted. Four of the ten (and one candidate) died as a result of such attacks.

Of the forty-five individuals serving as US president, thirteen (about 29 percent) have been subject to actual or attempted assassination. This number does not include Saturday’s shooting.

Some examples of near-misses:

• Theodore Roosevelt was spared in 1912 when a steel case for his glasses and his fifty-page speech kept a bullet from striking his vital organs.
• Bullets fired at Franklin Roosevelt three weeks before his 1933 inauguration missed him, but they hit and killed the Chicago mayor standing nearby.
• On September 5, 1975, a person standing two feet from President Gerald Ford pointed a gun at him, but it misfired. Seventeen days later, a person standing forty feet from the president fired a shot at him, narrowly missing. She raised her arm again, but a former Marine dove toward her and grabbed her arm, possibly saving Mr. Ford’s life.
• The “Devastator” bullets fired at Ronald Reagan in 1981 were designed to explode on impact, but the one that struck the president likely malfunctioned because it apparently ricocheted off the door of his armored limousine before hitting him.
• An attacker threw a grenade at George W. Bush during an event in Tbilisi in 2005, but it did not explode.

These tragedies and near-tragedies, coupled with Saturday’s shooting, call us to intercede for ”all who are in high positions” (1 Timothy 2:2). Consequently, please join me in praying even more fervently for Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and others in leadership. Ask God to enable the Secret Service and others to protect them. Pray for the family of the Corey Comperatore, the man killed in the shooting, and for David Dutch and James Copenhaver, who were injured.

“Ascend above the hate”

And pray for God to use this tragedy to lead our nation past the bitterness and divisiveness of these days. Following the shooting, Mr. Trump stated, “It is more important than ever that we stand united.” Last night, President Biden used a rare Oval Office address to condemn political violence and to plead with Americans to “resolve our differences at the ballot box.”

The morning after her husband was shot, former First Lady Melania Trump released a letter in which she likewise implored our nation:

Ascend above the hate, the vitriol, and the simple-minded ideas that ignite violence. We all want a world where respect is paramount, family is first, and love transcends. We can realize this world again. Each of us must demand to get it back. We must insist that respect fills the cornerstone of our relationships, again.

To “realize this world again,” let us begin on our knees today.

Monday news to know:

• Trump assassination attempt: former president says his rewritten GOP convention speech will call for unity
• Trump shooting: reactions from investors and analysts
• Israel seeks proof of whether strike killed Hamas military chief
• Record-breaking heat wave shifts east as millions of Americans under heat alert
• On this day in 2006: Twitter launches

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

Quote for the day:

“Intercessory prayer might be defined as loving our neighbor on our knees.” —Charles Bent

Denison Forum

The Republican Party recently released its 2024 platform, outlining its goals and priorities should the November elections go its way. While the document comprises a list of twenty promises and ten chapters that go in depth on a variety of subjects, the changes to the party’s official stance on abortion have received the most attention.

In 2016—the last time the GOP released an official platform since they chose not to do so in 2020—the issue of abortion featured prominently, with more than 700 words devoted to the topic and mentioning abortion specifically thirty-five times. By contrast, the 2024 version uses the term once and gives the subject less than 100 words of attention, stating simply:

“We proudly stand for families and Life. We believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied Life or Liberty without Due Process, and that the States are, therefore, free to pass Laws protecting those Rights. After 51 years, because of us, that power has been given to the States and to a vote of the People. We will oppose Late Term Abortion, while supporting mothers and policies that advance Prenatal Care, access to Birth Control, and IVF (fertility treatments).”

In understanding the changes, it’s worth noting that in 2016 Roe v. Wade was still the law of the land, whereas now the issue of abortion has been rightly returned to the states. Moreover, in the vast majority of elections since that shift occurred, the pro-life position has lost. We’ll discuss one of the primary reasons why that’s the case—and how it impacted the changes to the GOP platform—in a bit, but those losses have created a good bit of angst among Republicans running for office this fall.

As a result, many Republicans—former president Donald Trump chief among them—have sought to reframe the GOP’s stance on this issue to appeal to a wider range of voters. However, doing so risks losing the pro-life part of a base they’ve come to rely upon in the process.

For example, Clint Pressley—a megachurch pastor in North Carolina and the recently elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention—spoke for many when he tweeted, “I am disheartened by what’s happened in the GOP. The GOP platform may be subject to change, but God’s word is not. Southern Baptists ‘contend for the sanctity of all human life from conception to natural death’ and will insist that elected officials do the same.”

But is that the right approach?

The answer is perhaps more complicated than it would first appear.

When is it right to compromise?

In a recent article for the Gospel Coalition, Joe Carter does an excellent job of outlining the argument for why pro-life supporters should remain uncompromising on the issue of abortion. As he notes, “Central to the pro-life ethos is the belief in the inherent value and dignity of human life. The acknowledgment that life is sacred from conception until natural death undergirds the entire movement.”

He goes on to describe how the pro-life and pro-choice positions “are binary,” arguing that “Just as you cannot be a ‘little bit pregnant,’ you cannot be a little bit pro-choice. Once you support abortion in any form, you lose the right to the label of pro-life.”

Is he correct?

When it comes to personal convictions, I believe he is.

If life truly does begin at conception—and the biblical position is that it does—then abortion at any stage of pregnancy is killing a human created in the image of God and cherished by our heavenly Father. And while abortion becomes increasingly barbaric in the second and third trimesters, it is equally tragic no matter when it occurs.

At the same time, being uncompromising in our convictions does not necessarily mean that we should be uncompromising when it comes to the practicalities of fighting for life in a culture that is predominately pro-choice.

When faced with the binary decision of either supporting a woman’s right to abortion or rejecting it, 63 percent of Americans support it. However, when you parse the question by trimesters, the majority of Americans do not think abortion should be legal after thirteen weeks.

In short, when given only two options, Americans have repeatedly been pro-choice, and there is little evidence of that changing anytime soon. Recognizing that fact and adjusting accordingly is not cowardice or giving up on the unborn’s right to life. It’s political prudence.

And the reality of that situation reminds us of an even more important fact that’s become all too easy to overlook in recent decades.

The best way to be pro-life

At the end of the day, politicians aren’t going to advocate for a pro-life position until we can convince more people to be pro-life. That doesn’t happen in the rooms of party conventions or by yelling and bemoaning the state of abortion on social media. It happens by talking with the people God brings along our path and helping them to understand why life is valuable from conception to natural death. It happens by helping the moms and dads considering abortion to see that there’s another way. And it happens by being pro-life in every facet of our lives to the point that we earn the right to be heard on this subject.

And to the extent that we can see political change with abortion, the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and sent the issue back to the states was a win primarily because it shrinks the number of people we have to convince in order to see that change take place.

Would it be great if the federal government decided to ban abortion? Absolutely. Is that likely to happen? Probably not.

The choice left to us is to decide whether we want to spend our time, energy, and resources bemoaning that fact or shift our attention to more practical ways that we can make a real difference and save lives. And while that’s not necessarily an either/or choice, far too many have placed their hopes in politicians when politicians have repeatedly shown that they don’t deserve it in this area.

So instead of wasting our time wishing our political leaders were different, ask God to help you make a difference.

Partner with a local crisis pregnancy center. Prayerfully consider adoption or support those who are called to adopt. There are a host of ways you can make a practical difference in this area, and doing so is the easiest path to seeing true change when it comes to the defense of unborn life.

How can you make a difference today?

Quote of the Day:

“There are many of us that are willing to do great things for the Lord, but few of us are willing to do little things.” — D.L. Moody

Denison Forum

Amidst all the bad news in the news this week, let’s focus today on some good news.

A new study of gratitude and mortality among older adults (in this case, older US female nurses) found that those who more frequently noticed and felt grateful for positive experiences tended to live longer. This report is by no means an outlier.

For example, psychologists recruited a group of participants and asked one third to write up to five things for which they were grateful that week. A second group was asked to record hassles or irritations; a third was told to record events that affected them over the week. After doing this for ten weeks, those in the gratitude group:

• Rated their life more favorably than those in the other two groups, both with regard to life as a whole and in relation to the upcoming week.
• Experienced fewer symptoms of physical illness.
• Spent significantly more time exercising.

In another study, participants who wrote letters of gratitude to other people were happier and more satisfied with life. They also experienced decreased symptoms of depression.

Cicero would not have been surprised, calling gratitude “not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.” Plato likewise claimed, “A grateful mind is a great mind which eventually attracts to itself great things.”

Scripture similarly commands us to “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:18) and to give thanks “always and for everything to God the Father” (Ephesians 5:20).

Why?

How?

And how does this discussion relate to the massive cultural issues we face today?

The great grief of my life

Gratitude in challenging times does not require naivety or minimize the suffering we face. Nor would I suggest that we will always find reasons for gratitude that outweigh the pain to which we are responding.

I am grateful for the wonderful support our family received when our oldest son was diagnosed with cancer, but I would much rather he not have experienced that ordeal. The same with our grandson who is continuing his leukemia treatments; we are very grateful that he is doing well, but we would much rather he and his family not have to fight this battle.

I am grateful for the ways I learned to trust God more deeply when my father died at the age of fifty-five, but I wish he had lived many more years. The great grief of my life is that my father never met my sons.

My purpose is not to commend gratitude as an end in itself. Rather, my principle reason for encouraging gratitude to God in the midst of adversity is that it can turn adversity into greater reliance on him.

Paul testified that he had “learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need” (Philippians 4:12). “Plenty” and “abundance” bring their own temptations to self-reliance. Moses was grieved that when the Israelites “grew fat, stout, and sleek,” they “forsook God” and “were unmindful of the Rock that bore you” (Deuteronomy 32:15, 18).

By contrast, looking for ways God is at work in challenging times encourages us to trust his omnipotence and grace. David could testify regarding his past experience with God: “I know that the LORD saves his anointed” (Psalm 20:6a). As a result, he could trust him with the future: “He will answer him from his holy heaven with the saving might of his right hand” (v. 6b). And with the present: “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God” (v. 7).

As J. Warner Wallace noted on a recent Denison Forum Podcast, this hope should fill us with gratitude that only believers can share.

“Viewing a movie after you’ve read the book”

How does this work in practice?

• As a native Houstonian, I am grieving for the millions in the city who are still without power in the midst of dangerous heat and humidity. But I am grateful for the thousands who are mobilizing to restore electricity and for the many churches and ministries who are serving those in need.
• As Russia’s horrific offensive against children and other innocent victims continues, I am grateful for the Ukrainians’ incredible resolve and courage.
• As controversy regarding President Biden’s future escalates, I am grateful to live in a nation where we are free to vote as we wish and to speak our minds regarding even the most powerful among us.

And as I continue to speak biblical truth to the issues of our day, I am deeply grateful for the providential hand of God in our ministry. I take heart from Oswald Chambers’ observation:

“The spiritual saint never believes circumstances to be haphazard, or thinks of his life as secular and sacred; he sees everything he is dumped down in as the means of securing the knowledge of Jesus Christ.”

Max Lucado wrote:

God is using your struggle to toughen you up. It’s like viewing a movie after you’ve read the book. When something bad happens, everyone else gasps at the crisis on the screen. But not you. Why? You’ve read the book. You know how the good guy gets out of the tight spot.

God views your life with the same confidence. He’s not only read your story, he wrote it. His perspective is different, and his purpose is clear. One of God’s cures for weak faith? A good, healthy struggle.

Lucado therefore encourages us to “join with Isaiah who resolved, ‘I will trust in him and not be afraid!’” (Isaiah 12:2 NLT).

Why do you need such “trust” today?

NOTE: Today is the last day to give! Denison Forum’s Summer Campaign ends tomorrow, and we need your support to end it strong. Please help reach the $550,000 Summer Campaign goal — and be a part of transforming lives with Christ-centered content. GIVE NOW.

Thursday news to know:

• Alec Baldwin’s trial starts nearly three years after “Rust” shooting
• American workers have quit quitting, for now
• US intel chief says Iran is attempting to stoke Gaza protests
• 250-year-old musket balls from “Shot Heard Round the World” found in Concord, Massachusetts
• On this day in 1804: Aaron Burr slays Alexander Hamilton in duel

Quote for the day:

“God will not permit any troubles to come upon us, unless he has a specific plan by which great blessing can come out of the difficulty.” —Peter Marshall

Denison Forum

When Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker delivered the commencement address at Benedictine College—a small Catholic school in Atchison, Kansas—on May 11^th, he understood that his speech would be controversial. In fact, he essentially led off by acknowledging “These are the sorts of things we are told in polite society not to bring up.” However, I doubt even he thought he’d still be making headlines nearly two weeks later.

So what is it about Butker’s speech that has caused such a stir? And is the criticism he’s received warranted, or is it another example of modern society’s penchant toward free speech for me but not for thee?

As you might expect, the answer to both questions is complicated.

Using the right lens

Let’s start by looking at what Butker actually said.

The part of his address that has received the greatest amount of attention is when he spoke specifically to the women in the audience:

For the ladies present today, congratulations on an amazing accomplishment. You should be proud of all that you have achieved to this point in your young lives. I want to speak directly to you briefly, because I think it is you—the women—who have had the most diabolical lies told to you. How many of you are sitting here now, about to cross this stage, and are thinking about all the promotions and titles that you are going to get in your career? Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.

While those thoughts would not have been terribly controversial fifty years ago, they understandably caused quite a stir today. The problem, however, is that much of the criticism he’s received has been levied by people who took his words and interpreted them through a lens that did not necessarily fit the context of his speech.

AJ Willingham, for example, claimed “Butker suggested that a woman’s accomplishments in the home are more valuable than any academic or professional goals.” It’s easy to see how Willingham would reach that conclusion, particularly since Butker proceeded to spend the next few minutes of his address thanking his wife for making the choice to stay home with their kids and detailing the joy she feels as a result.

Yet, his statement about women was one example within a larger message encouraging people to find peace and contentment by accepting God’s plans for their lives. If he truly thought that the only path God could have for a woman would be as a wife and mother, he would not have surrounded that statement by congratulating the women graduates for earning their degrees or for the “successful careers in the world” that some of them will surely go on to achieve.

Now, it’s probable that, given the larger worldview he espoused within his speech, he would agree with the idea that the most fulfilling life a woman could lead would be as a mother and wife. And it’s all right to disagree with that assessment.

WHO DEFINES SEXUALITY?

In our book, Sacred Sexuality: Reclaiming God’s Design, we look at God’s intentions for our flourishing.

However, it’s important to note that he did not say—as Sam McDowell surmised—that such a life was “their duty as a husband’s servant.”

Fortunately, there were some—including from some surprising sources—who saw Butker’s comments differently.

“Can’t that just be a choice too?”

On last Friday’s episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, the host addressed both Butker’s speech and the response it received.

He started by saying, “I can’t express how much this guy is not like me. He’s religious. He loves marriage. He loves kids.” He then went on to state, “I don’t see what the big crime is. I really don’t.” Speaking specifically of Butker’s comments about being a wife and stay-at-home mom, Maher added, “Can’t that just be a choice too?”

And I think that final thought was at the heart of Butker’s address.

Is motherhood and homemaking the only acceptable vocation for women? Absolutely not. Is it God’s calling for some? Yes, and in such cases it is every bit as valuable and worthy of praise as those who are called to pursue a career outside the home.

You see, what ultimately defines the value of a person’s vocation is that it comes from the Lord. Everything else is secondary, and that is true for men and women alike.

Unfortunately, that part of Butker’s message has been largely lost amidst the controversy over his thoughts on the role of women.

The admonition to find our sense of peace and purpose in God’s call for our lives rather than the expectations of the world—or even ourselves—is something our culture desperately needs to hear.

Learn to be content in your calling

One of the primary sources of the stress and anxiety permeating every facet of the population today is the result of our lives failing to live up to the expectations we’ve placed on them. And when those expectations come from someone or something other than the Lord, we should not be surprised when they prove unsatisfying.

After all, why would God bless a path that differs from the one he has called you to take?

Ultimately, you don’t have to agree with Butker’s views on women, Catholicism, or any number of the other topics he addressed in his speech to see the wisdom in finding contentment within the vocation God has called you to uniquely pursue.

And while, as the Apostle Paul notes, contentment in the Lord is something we have to learn rather than a state that will come naturally to us, it is by far the best way to go through this life and the only way to experience the peace and strength God longs to give (Philippians 4:11–13).

Quote of the Day:

“A great many people are trying to make peace, but that has already been done. God has not left it for us to do; all we have to do is enter into it.”  — D.L. Moody

Denison Forum

The rise of the “nones” in the religious demographics of our society has been among the most troubling trends for many Christians across recent decades. The group is typically comprised of those who do not claim membership in any religious tradition, though there is variation at times as to whether atheists and agnostics are considered part of the nones or their own categories.

However, the latest data points to an interesting and encouraging trend:

• When the General Social Survey (GSS) first began to follow the nones back in 1972, they comprised roughly 5 percent of the total population.
• The nones stayed in the 5–6 percent range until 1991 when they began a rather precipitous and steady rise that reached as high as 30 percent by 2013 and 35 percent by 2019.
• However, the nones haven’t really grown in the last five years, ranging between 34–36 percent of the total population.
• And, what’s perhaps most encouraging, their numbers have actually started to fall among the younger generations.
• Similar findings have also been reported in both the Cooperative Election Study and in Pew’s latest research.

As Ryan Burge—who has studied and written about the nones for many years—concludes, “The rise of the nones may be largely over now. At least it won’t be increasing in the same way that it did in the prior thirty years.”

That’s good news. Yet, as he goes on to note, the more pertinent question is why.

Building on bedrock

One of the dangers with placing too much emphasis on trends is the temptation to think that they’ll continue unabated into the future. That danger has led to quite a bit of hand-wringing in Christian circles as report after report detailed the rise of the nones across the last thirty years.

And that’s understandable.

After all, the rise of the nones was one of the leading causes that burst the bubble of how Christians viewed our place in the culture. The ensuing angst was the result of the thought that Christians were leaving the faith in droves and the cascade of doubts that followed.

However, looking back on it now, it seems clear that the issue was less about genuine believers leaving the faith—though that does happen at times—as people growing increasingly comfortable with being honest about their faith (or the lack thereof).

And, as Burge writes, the fact that the percentage of nones in our culture has leveled off in recent years likely means that we’ve reached the point where “The loose topsoil has been scooped off and hauled away, leaving nothing but hard bedrock underneath.”

WHO DEFINES SEXUALITY?

In our book, Sacred Sexuality: Reclaiming God’s Design, we look at God’s intentions for our flourishing.

The scariest passage in Scripture

As Dr. Jim Denison notes, only 17 percent of the nones are atheists. The rest range from agnostic to spiritual, with as many as 69 percent claiming to believe in God or some higher power. In short, most of the nones today would have probably called themselves Christians fifty years ago, with the biggest difference being that many of them would have gone through life thinking that their claim to be a Christian was true.

Jesus spoke to the danger of such an approach toward the end of the Sermon on the Mount.

In Matthew 7, Jesus warns the crowds—many of whom considered themselves to be his followers—that:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness’” (Matthew 7:21–23).

At first glance, this passage is perhaps the scariest in all of Scripture for those who claim to be Christians. However, if you read this text and are concerned that it might be talking about you, then chances are good that it’s not.

That’s not a guarantee, as it could be that God is using these verses to alert you to the fact that you do fall among those who have served the Lord without having a personal relationship with him. But it’s important to remember that the people about whom Jesus speaks in this passage were genuinely surprised when he rejected them. It had never occurred to them that they might not be saved because they were certain that their good works were enough to merit that salvation.

And it is that latter category that stands in dire need of the true gospel today.

Share the whole gospel

As our culture becomes increasingly accepting of the decision to reject religion—and Christianity in particular—there will be fewer people who go to church on Sundays and claim to follow Jesus because it’s simply the acceptable thing to do. And the research across the last few decades bears that out.

Still, it would be naïve to think that everyone with whom we worship on Sunday morning is going to heaven. Odds are that there are still some in our communities of faith who think themselves saved but who lack a personal relationship with Jesus.

So whether the nones are our coworkers, neighbors, or the people sitting next to us at church, Christ’s call is the same: go and make disciples by sharing the gospel—the whole gospel—with those who need to hear it (Matthew 28:19–20).

How can you carry out that calling today?

Quote of the day: 

The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose. — C.S. Lewis

Denison Forum

One person died and more than thirty others were injured after a Singapore Airlines flight hit severe turbulence this morning. The jet was headed to Singapore from London when it was forced to make an emergency landing in Bangkok.

Even though flying is statistically the safest form of travel, all of us who fly read stories like this and shudder, knowing the deceased person could have been us. It could one day be us. What is true of air travel is true of every other dimension of life on this fallen planet: we are not in control of our lives. To the contrary, we are “a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14).

This fact amplifies yesterday’s focus on the urgency of living in the power of the Spirit so fully that the Spirit changes us and changes the culture through us. We have only today to live for God in the power of God. Eternity beckons for us all.

A story making headlines today illustrates our theme powerfully and poignantly.

Why Dennis Quaid’s new movie grieves me

A few months ago, Dennis Quaid told People magazine that he returned to his Christian roots some years ago in the midst of an addiction battle. He even recorded an album titled Fallen: A Gospel Record for Sinners.

As a result, I was grieved when I learned that he is starring in a new horror movie in which, according to one reviewer, his costar is in “several scenes featuring full nudity.” (I won’t name the actress or the film or link to its content or reviews.)

When Christians act in ways that violate Christian beliefs, our secularized society is confused and misled even further. Then I looked more closely at Quaid’s interview with People. He tells us that amid his addiction struggle, he began rereading the Bible, as well as the Bhagavad Gita, the Qur’an, and other religious texts.

According to Quaid, “All of us have a relationship with God, whether you’re a Christian or not.” He says we’re all looking for “the joy in life, which is our gift, actually, the relationship with God that we all have.”

My purpose is not to disparage Dennis Quaid, but to respond to two related issues this story raises, both of which are pervasive among evangelicals and vitally relevant to our cultural influence (or lack thereof).

WHO DEFINES SEXUALITY?

In our book, Sacred Sexuality: Reclaiming God’s Design, we look at God’s intentions for our flourishing.

“Faith” is not an objective reality. We don’t “have faith”—we have faith in something or someone.

And the object of our faith is the crucial determiner for our faith’s validity and agency.

You can have faith that you are on the right road home, but if you’re not, your faith won’t get you to your destination. You can have faith that you’re taking the right medication, but if you’re not, your faith can make you sick or worse.

Our “post-truth” culture’s dogmatic (and contradictory) insistence on tolerance leads many to applaud the idea that “all of us have a relationship with God, whether you’re a Christian or not.” But Jesus disagreed, stating of himself: “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 3:18).

His first followers said of him, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12, my emphasis).

Our lost culture also separates Sunday from Monday, the spiritual from the secular, and religion from the “real world.” It is therefore unsurprising that professing Christians can be involved in “secular” activities that contradict their “spiritual” beliefs.

For example, Scripture forbids public nudity, teaching that “women should adorn themselves in respectable attire, with modesty and self-control” (1 Timothy 2:9; cf. Matthew 5:28). But the pervasiveness of pornography and adultery among self-professing Christian men is just one tragic example of the way so many separate their Sunday religion from their Monday lives.

“The world will be amazed and astonished”

We cannot do the same thing and expect different results. As New York Times columnist David Brooks noted, “We’re not going to solve our problems at the same level of consciousness on which we created them.”

Brooks cites the work of Black theologian Howard Thurman, a contemporary of Martin Luther King Sr. who had a strong influence on the activism of his son, Martin Luther King Jr. According to Brooks, “Thurman reminds us that when networks of relationships in a society are broken and unjust, national transformation must flow from a tide of personal transformations.”

Such holistic transformation is truly possible only by the agency of the Holy Spirit. As Pentecost Sunday reminded us two days ago, the first Christians were “filled with the Holy Spirit” on the day of Pentecost and “began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:4). These were languages they did not know but could now use to share the gospel with people from fifteen different locales now gathered in Jerusalem for the holiday (vv. 8–11).

The people who heard them were understandably “amazed and astonished” at the miracle they witnessed (v. 7). Br. James Koester of the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Boston comments:

The wonder of Pentecost is not that people suddenly spoke in foreign languages. The wonder of Pentecost is that people suddenly spoke in the language of God, the language of compassion, unity, and understanding. And like those early disciples, the gift to speak the language of God is ours for the asking.

Then he adds:

“When we truly are people of the Spirit, we will be people of compassion, unity, and understanding, speaking the language of God, and the world will be amazed and astonished, once more.”

Whose “language” will you speak today?

Tuesday news to know:

• US national security adviser, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince meet to discuss “semi-final” security deal
• Container ship removed 8 weeks after Francis Scott Key Bridge crash in Baltimore
• Who is Mohammad Mokhber, Iran’s interim president?
• War crimes prosecutor seeks arrest of Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Netanyahu
• On this day in 1881: American Red Cross founded

Quote for the day:

“To be a witness means to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist.” —Madeleine L’Engle

Denison Forum

I planned to write today’s Daily Article about golfer Scottie Scheffler’s response to his early-morning arrest last Friday and the global coverage that has ensued. Then word came this morning that Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash Sunday in northwestern Iran. A hard-line protégé of the country’s supreme leader, his death is likely to set off what the Atlantic is calling “a fierce scramble for power” in the Islamic nation.

The two stories offer the same reminder in starkly disparate ways: the time to prepare for the inevitable crises of life is before they happen.

Dwight Moody noted that “character is what you are in the dark.” However, our character is revealed to a skeptical world when the bright light of adversity shines on us. And none of us knows when that moment is coming.

To be the people we most want to be, there is a choice we can make right now. Its consequences will shape this world today and echo in the next world forever.

“That’s what I admire the most”

As everyone who follows the news knows, the world’s No. 1 golfer was arrested Friday morning. A man had been struck and killed by a shuttle bus earlier that morning; Scheffler tried to drive around the crash scene when he was arrested by an officer and taken to jail.

Golf Digest has an in-depth account of what happened and what happens next; most observers seem to think this was a misunderstanding. According to the Wall Street Journal, other golfers at the scene “described a rare level of pandemonium.” One said of Scheffler’s arrest, “That could have been any one of us.”

After he was booked and released, Scheffler stated, “There was a big misunderstanding of what I thought I was being asked to do. I never intended to disregard any of the instructions.” He added: “All of us involved in the tournament express our deepest sympathies to the family of the man who passed away in the earlier accident this morning. It truly puts everything in perspective.”

Amid all the controversy, Scheffler finished the tournament tied for eighth at 13-under. But my point was made by a commentator I heard respond to the story over the weekend: “Of all the things Scheffler could have said, you know what he didn’t say? He didn’t tell the officer, ‘Do you know who I am?’ He’s the world’s No. 1 golfer, but he didn’t try to use his status. That’s what I admire the most.”

“The physical organism through which Christ acts”

We cannot ask others to be what we are not or lead them further than we are willing to go. A dentist with bad teeth is unlikely to have a thriving practice. A lawyer in constant legal trouble will have few clients but himself.

WHO DEFINES SEXUALITY?

This is especially true for Christians, since as C. S. Lewis noted, we claim that “Christ is actually operating through [us]; that the whole mass of Christians are the physical organism through which Christ acts—that we are his fingers and muscles, the cells of his body.”

As a result, seeking to be godly is our first step in persuading anyone else to be godly.

After Scottie Scheffler won his second Masters championship last month, he told interviewers: “I believe in Jesus. Ultimately, I think that’s what defines me the most.” He added, “I’ve been called to come out here, do my best to compete, and glorify God.”

It’s one thing to honor the Lord when you win golf’s most prestigious tournament. It’s another to act with humility when you are arrested and thrust into the glare of the global media.

“The splendor that irradiates our understanding”

Yesterday was Pentecost Sunday, commemorating the day when early Christians were “filled with the Spirit” and launched the mightiest spiritual movement the world has ever seen (Acts 2).

St. Hilary of Poitiers (c. 315–c. 367) was a champion of orthodoxy and one of the most brilliant theologians in Christian history. In his treatise On the Trinity, he wrote:

We receive the Spirit of truth so that we can know the things of God. In order to grasp this, consider how useless the faculties of the human body would become if they were denied their exercise. Our eyes cannot fulfill their task without light, either natural or artificial; our ears cannot react without sound vibrations, and in the absence of any odor our nostrils are ignorant of their function. . . . It is the same with the human soul. Unless it absorbs the gift of the Spirit through faith, the mind has the ability to know God but lacks the light necessary for that knowledge.

This unique gift which is in Christ is offered in its fullness to everyone. It is everywhere available, but it is given to each man in proportion to his readiness to receive it. Its presence is the fuller, the greater a man’s desire to be worthy of it. This gift will remain with us until the end of the world and will be our comfort in the time of waiting. By the favors it bestows, it is the pledge of our hope for the future, the light of our minds, and the splendor that irradiates our understanding.

St. Hilary was right: we experience the power of the Spirit to the degree that we wish to experience it. That decision is best made at the start of each day, seeking to be “filled” and controlled by the Spirit as we yield our lives to him (Ephesians 5:18).

Scottie Scheffler had no idea when last Friday began that he would soon find himself in a jail cell. You and I have no idea how this Monday will unfold. Consequently, the moment to submit to the Spirit and seek his empowering direction and holiness is now. The time to prepare for the crisis—or the opportunity—is before it comes.

The question I’ve written this article to ask

Billy Graham wrote: “The Holy Spirit is God himself, as he comes to live within us.” He noted that the Spirit “comes to convict us of our sin,” he “gives us new life” as we trust in Christ, and he “produces fruit in our lives” as we reflect his love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22–23). Dr. Graham added, “This fruit comes as we yield ourselves to the Spirit.”

Then he closed with the question I’ve written this article to ask:

“How yielded is your life today?”

NOTE: In a culture where ideologies on sexuality conflict with Scripture, our latest book, Sacred Sexuality: Reclaiming God’s Design, offers the clarity you need. Addressing issues like homosexuality, transgenderism, and nonbinary identities with biblical truth and compassion, this book equips believers like you to guide the next generation with truth. Support Denison Forum by May 31, and receive this essential guide for navigating modern sexuality with our thanks.

Monday news to know:

• Iran’s Supreme Leader approves Mokhber as interim president, declares 5 days of mourning
• US and Europe move closer to using Russian assets to help Ukraine
• What it’s like being Jewish at Harvard
• The lunch rush is dead as Americans live for the weekend
• On this day in 1506: Christopher Columbus dies

Quote for the day:

“When we have the Holy Spirit we have all that is needed to be all that God desires us to be.” —A. W. Tozer

Denison Forum

Black holes are objects in the universe with a gravitational pull so strong that not even light can escape from them. “Stellar” black holes are formed by the collapse of individual stars, while “supermassive” black holes are found at the centers of most galaxies. The one at the center of our Milky Way has a mass of around 4.3 million times that of our sun. Now NASA has produced a simulation in which the viewer begins around four hundred million miles from a supermassive black hole and rapidly falls toward it. Light and time both warp around you. Unfortunately, however, you have only 12.8 seconds before you die by what physicists call “spaghettification”—your body is pulled apart atom by atom.

There are days when it seems this is happening to our culture.

For example, I was shocked to read that pro-Palestinian protesters disrupted a solemn remembrance march to honor the victims of Nazi atrocities at Auschwitz. Some of the protesters even wore yellow badges resembling those forced on Jews by the Nazis.

This time last year, could you have imagined such a horrific scene?

One reason antisemitic protests persist is that there has typically been so little accountability for them. Many protesters even wear masks to hide their identities; others insist on amnesty for their actions. By contrast, where authorities have enforced their “time, place, and manner” restrictions, order has prevailed.

There’s a lesson here Christians can especially embrace and offer our broken culture.

“The most civilizing force in all of human history”

Criminology experts tell us that deterrence measures discourage people from committing crimes to the degree they guarantee swift punishment with a severity proportional to the crime committed. The certainty of being caught has proven to be an even more powerful deterrent than the punishment that follows.

Here’s one reason our post-Christian society is breaking apart: when we no longer consider God to be relevant to our lives or even to exist, we ignore the moral accountability such faith brings to our lives and our world.

Cultural commentator Jonah Goldberg wrote in Suicide of the West: “The notion that God is watching you even when others are not is probably the most powerful civilizing force in all of human history.” He adds:

WHO DEFINES SEXUALITY?

In our book, Sacred Sexuality: Reclaiming God’s Design, we look at God’s intentions for our flourishing.

GET MY COPY NOW

If you think God is watching and speaking to you through conscience—or through what Adam Smith called ‘the impartial spectator’ within us—you’re going to think twice about your actions. Or at least it will give you a strong incentive to think twice.
Believing there is something outside of you, judging you by an external ethical or moral standard, gives you a standard to think about yourself that is outside yourself.

This is why “the fear of the Lᴏʀᴅ is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10). Scripture is clear: “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Corinthians 5:10). On that day:

Each one’s work will become manifest, for the [Judgment] Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation [of Christ] survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire (1 Corinthians 3:13–15).

If Jesus is your Savior and Lord, your eternal salvation is assured (cf. John 10:28), but your eternal rewards or loss of rewards are not. Even when we confess our sins and are forgiven for them (1 John 1:9), we lose the rewards we would have received had we chosen obedience rather than disobedience.

“In this Little Thing I saw three properties”

My purpose today is not to evoke a “sinners in the hands of an angry God” reaction (though Jonathan Edwards’ homiletical masterpiece should be required reading for us all). Rather, it is to suggest that God’s warning of judgment to come is not only a necessary expression of his holy nature (Isaiah 6:3; Revelation 4:8), but also a great gift from the One who “is” love (1 John 4:8).

Like any good father, it is because God loves us that he warns us away from all that is not best for us. Because he loves us, we can always know that his will for us is “perfect” (Romans 12:2) and that violating his will is therefore harmful for us.

If your doctor was omniscient and omnibenevolent, would you not obey her medical directions whether you understood their purpose or not?

In Revelations of Divine Love, Julian of Norwich (1342–c. 1416) records a vision in which she saw “a little thing, the quantity of a hazel-nut, in the palm of my hand.” It seemed small and fragile, but she came to understand that it was the entire universe, “all that is made.”

Then she reported:

“In this Little Thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it, the second is that God loveth it, the third, that God keepeth it.”

All three “properties” are completely true of you.

How obediently will you respond to such grace today?

Thursday news to know:

• Biden says US won’t transfer offensive weapons if Israel invades Rafah
• Mike Johnson easily survives ouster attempt from Marjorie Taylor Greene
• Federal judge indefinitely postpones Trump classified documents trial
• 3 dead from severe storms, tornadoes in Tennessee, North Carolina
• On this day in 1960: FDA approves “the pill”

Quote for the day:

“The whole duty of man is summed up in obedience to God’s will.” —George Washington

Denison Forum

Nearly every headline in the news today is about something we wish was different but feel powerless to change. For example:

• During a Holocaust memorial ceremony at the US Capitol yesterday, President Biden condemned a “ferocious surge of antisemitism in America and around the world” and pointed to “vicious propaganda on social media.” He’s tragically right, but what can be done about this?
• Miss USA gave up her crown, citing a need to protect her mental health. One in five Americans lives with a mental illness, but 60 percent give a poor or failing grade to how such conditions are treated in our country. As loneliness and depression continue to escalate, what can be done?
• Ukraine says it foiled an alleged Russian plot to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelensky. As Russia intensifies its attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid, what can be done to halt its offensive?

The good news is that no matter how hopeless we may feel in these chaotic days, Christians can embrace and share a hope the world can neither recreate nor destroy.

Let’s take a two-step journey into such hope today.

What do you hope “for”?

Research correlates hope with positive emotions, a stronger sense of purpose and meaning, lower levels of depression, and less loneliness. High-hope people experience better physical health and a reduced risk of mortality, chronic illness, cancer, and sleep problems.

Who wouldn’t want more hope?

However, hope has no independent status or reality. It is not a thing like a desk or a chair. We either hope “for” something or we hope “in” something.

Both are vital to being people of hope.

• French President Emmanuel Macron is warning that if Russia wins in Ukraine, European security will lie in ruins. I am therefore hoping for Ukraine’s success in the war.
• A Foreign Affairs article reports that America’s adversaries are uniting to overturn the global order. For example, Russia’s offensive is employing weapons fitted with technology from China, missiles from North Korea, and drones from Iran. I am therefore hoping for a future that does not include World War III.
• Another Foreign Policy article explains that America’s superpower status is difficult to project to areas where our adversaries are neighbors to our allies (Russia with Ukraine, China with Taiwan, North Korea with South Korea). I am therefore hoping for means of deterring them that, once again, do not include World War III.

For what do you hope most today?

What do you hope “in”?

But hoping “for” is of no practical benefit unless whatever we hope “in” can do what we hope it can do. Here is one way the gospel lives up to its definition as “good news.”

WHO DEFINES SEXUALITY?

In our book, Sacred Sexuality: Reclaiming God’s Design, we look at God’s intentions for our flourishing.

The eminent psychologist and Pulitzer Prize winner Erik Erikson believed hope to be a foundational virtue for the best kind of life. He also linked it to the “major creedal values” of religion. Extensive research now supports this connection, demonstrating that religious beliefs, practices, and communities clearly and powerfully inspire hope.

Christians can take a step further: we have historical, evidential, empirical reasons for placing our hope where we do. As St. Augustine reminded us, we are post-Easter people.

Unlike any other religious figure, our risen Lord defeated death and the grave. He promises to do the same for all who place their hope in him (John 11:25–26). And we know that he will come again for us individually (John 14:3) or collectively (Hebrews 9:28) to take us to “a new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1) where we will “rest from [our] labors” (Revelation 14:13) in a paradise beyond our imagining (1 Corinthians 2:9).

These are promises no other figure in human history has been able to make. And, as Dwight Moody noted:

“God never made a promise that was too good to be true.”

My college advisor died this week

In the meantime, we can remember all God has done as we trust him for all he will do.

Today is V-E Day, celebrated by Great Britain and the United States as the end of World War II in Europe. But before there could be V-E Day, there had to be D-Day nearly a year earlier. The Allied invasion at Normandy, France, marked the beginning of the end for Hitler’s forces. Between D-Day and V-E Day, the war still raged but its outcome was determined.

You and I live between D-Day, when our Lord invaded our fallen planet, and V-Day, when he will return. Spiritual conflict still rages (Ephesians 6:12), but its outcome is sure (cf. Matthew 25:31).

This fact became especially personal for me this week when I learned that my college faculty advisor had died.

Dr. Gene Wofford was a gracious educator and a wise mentor. I will always remember the time in a Christian doctrine class when he claimed he could summarize the Book of Revelation in two words. Seeing the surprised looks on our faces, he smiled and said, “We win.”

Now, in the very presence of his Savior, Dr. Wofford knows he was right. If Christ is your Lord, so will you one day.

Why do you need this hope today?

Wednesday news to know:

• Biden administration halted bomb shipments to Israel over Rafah invasion concerns, reports say
• Testifying in hush money trial, porn actor Stormy Daniels describes first meeting Trump
• New US strategy looks to blunt Russian and Chinese influence in cyberspace
• Boy Scouts rebrands as Scouting America, dropping gendered name
• On this day in 1884: Harry S. Truman is born

Quote for the day:

“However many blessings we expect from God, his infinite liberality will always exceed all our wishes and our thoughts.” —John Calvin

Denison Forum

An Israeli tank brigade took control of the Gaza Strip side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt this morning. However, the overnight incursion appears to be short of the full-fledged offensive Israel has planned into Rafah.

It comes after Hamas announced yesterday that it had accepted a cease-fire proposal to halt the war. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office responded that the truce proposal fell short of Israel’s demands, but Israel will send a delegation to meet with negotiators to try to reach an agreement.

If you support Israel as I do, you’re hopeful that negotiations lead to long-term peace for the Jewish state. But you’re concerned that if Hamas survives in Gaza, it will make good on its promise to invade Israel again with the same brutality it unleashed on October 7.

Also, if you’re like me, you didn’t reflect immediately on what today’s news could mean for the 1.4 million Palestinian civilians in Rafah. You know that God loves Arabs as much as he loves Jews (Galatians 3:28), but it is human nature to respond most deeply to news that affects us most personally.

And as followers of a Jewish Savior, we tend to view the Middle East through the lens of the Jewish people.

“A handle for what is nearest”

This personal filter is essential for navigating the deluge of news in our digital culture. If we became viscerally involved with every story, the cognitive and emotional overload would be debilitating.

Consider these headlines in today’s news:

• Triumphal Putin is inaugurated for fifth term as Russian president
• Met Gala 2024: Zendaya, Tyla and Sabrina Carpenter lead eye-catching looks
• Columbia University cancels main commencement ceremony after protests
• South Africa: Deadly building collapse leaves dozens trapped
• Starliner launch delayed after issue identified with rocket valve

You likely care about these stories to the degree that they do or do not affect you personally. You’re not alone: in The Crisis of Narration, philosopher Byung-Chul Han quotes the cultural critic Walter Benjamin: “What gets the readiest hearing is no longer intelligence coming from afar, but the information which supplies a handle for what is nearest.”

While personalizing the world is understandable, there’s a better way.

“When you know how much God is in love with you”

Paul had “great sorrow and unceasing anguish” in his heart for Jews who had not yet accepted their Messiah (Romans 9:2). Given his previous life as a Pharisee trained by Gamaliel, such passion is to be expected.

However, the apostle was deeply concerned for Gentiles as well, most of whom he had not yet met but all of whom he sought to bring to Christ (Romans 15:15–21). He risked and ultimately gave his life to reach them. The reason was simple: Paul had experienced the transforming love of Christ and now, he testified, “the love of Christ compels us” to share that love with the world (2 Corinthians 5:14; NKJV).

Mother Teresa was right:

“When you know how much God is in love with you, then you can only live your life radiating that love.”

It’s been said that a true test of a person’s character is how they treat people they don’t have to treat well. Similarly, we can measure the depth of our love for our Lord by our compassion for those whom our circumstances would not compel us to love.

When we love such people, we offer the world something it can find nowhere else. We demonstrate the power and relevance of the faith we profess. Such unconditional love answers our skeptics (1 Peter 3:16) and changes our culture, one person at a time.

These facts apply to this morning’s news and to every person you meet today.

“This grace is for all the world”

Julian of Norwich (1342–c. 1416), whose deeply personal encounters with the love of Christ have inspired generations, wrote:

God protects us as tenderly and as sweetly when we are in greatest need;
he raises us in spirit
and turns everything to glory and joy without ending.
God is the ground and the substance, the very essence of nature;
God is the true father and mother of natures.
We are all bound to God by nature,
and we are all bound to God by grace.
And this grace is for all the world (my emphasis).

When last did you experience such grace?

With whom will you share it today?

NOTE: In today’s world, society often contradicts biblical truth, especially regarding sexuality. So how do we guide our loved ones rightly? Our latest book, Sacred Sexuality: Reclaiming God’s Design, offers answers and aims to equip you with wisdom and compassion to navigate these challenges. Request your copy today and join us in reclaiming biblical principles for our families and future generations.

Tuesday news to know:

• 3 bodies found in Mexican well identified as Australian, American surfers killed for truck’s tires
• US jobs growth set to slow, conference board says
• China’s Xi shouldn’t expect an easy ride in Europe this time
• Russia to carry out exercises for tactical nuclear weapons
• On this day in 1945: Germany surrenders unconditionally to the Allies at Reims

Quote for the day:

“God’s love is like an ocean. You can see its beginning, but not its end.” —Rick Warren

Denison Forum

How can you find meaning in life?

Have you considered beekeeping?

Unless you live in Phoenix, Arizona, and have needed pest control, you likely had not heard of Matt Hilton before last Tuesday. That was when a swarm of bees along the netting behind home plate delayed the game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Matt got the call and came to the rescue, vacuuming the bees into a container and transporting them safely off-site.

The stadium played “Holding Out for a Hero” while he worked and fans chanted “MVP” when he was done.

Here’s another option: you could make hats for the Kentucky Derby.

From its inception, the oldest continuous sporting event in America was intended to provide a spectacle both on the track and among the spectators. As jockeys and horses prepare for the Kentucky Derby’s 150^th running tomorrow, hat makers have been preparing spectacularly colorful designs for women in the stands.

Here’s yet a third approach: you could join fans the world over who will take part in Star Wars Day tomorrow. The date is special to them because it is May 4. Consequently, they can recite the litany, “May the fourth be with you.”

Leo Tolstoy’s advice seems ironically appropriate in this context:

“The meaning of life is to serve the force that sent you into the world.”

How can Christians experience such meaning?

Why 40 percent of Texas churches left their denomination

This week we’ve been focusing on foundational cultural issues in light of the fact that Jesus is “the light of men” whose “light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4–5).

One way we can continue Jesus’ ministry as the “body of Christ” in the world today (1 Corinthians 12:27) is to focus our light where the room is darkest. Our Lord came to “those dwelling in the region and shadow of death” (Matthew 4:16). You and I dwell in such a “region” in ways that are unprecedented in American history.

For example, another denomination—this time the United Methodist Church—has rejected biblical sexuality by embracing LGBTQ ideology. In anticipation of this decision, churches who affirm biblical morality have been leaving in droves. More than 40 percent of Methodist churches in Texas have abandoned the denomination, for instance.

I could go on, with campus demonstrations, the Middle East conflict, AI– and climate-related fears, and economic anxiety all dominating this morning’s headlines. The fact that bad news is not surprising is itself unsurprising.

A Wall Street Journal article recounts our recent history: “The 9/11 attacks, costly wars in the Middle East, the loss of more than five million manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2010, the financial collapse and the Great Recession, intensified racial strife, the pandemic and various polarizing responses to it.”

Consequently, “As mishaps multiplied, Americans became divided to an extent not seen in generations. Because the sides were closely divided numerically, neither party could gain a lasting governing majority. As gridlock continued, America’s confidence in its capacity for self-government plunged.”

“A force of immeasurable range”

You and I are not to be cultural warriors but cultural missionaries. God has called both to where we are and to when we are. If he could not use us at this pivotal moment in American history, we would not be alive at this pivotal moment in American history.

How can we make a difference that matters?

When the book of Acts opens, a small group of believers is gathered in Jerusalem; when it closes, they have penetrated Rome itself, “proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance” (Acts 28:31). The Scottish biblical scholar James Stewart contrasted their witness with ours:

It is a tragedy that the Christian religion is in many minds identified merely with pious ethical behavior and vague theistic beliefs, suffused with aesthetic emotionalism and a mild glow of humanitarian benevolence. This is not the faith which first awakened the world like a thousand trumpets and made people feel it bliss in such a dawn to be alive. Men knew what Christianity really was—the entrance into history of a force of immeasurable range.

Early Christians were empowered by the Holy Spirit to be Jesus’ witnesses (Acts 1:8), but they were also empowered by the Holy Spirit when they acted as his witnesses (cf. Acts 4:8).

Like them, we find meaning by sharing meaning. We experience the light by sharing the light. When we strive to imitate Jesus with our works and to share him with our words, the Spirit leads us where we can best impact others (cf. Acts 8:29) and speaks through us to convict sinners (Acts 2:37) and save souls (v. 41).

Hear Tolstoy again:

“The meaning of life is to serve the force that sent you into the world.”

Will you experience such meaning today?

Friday news to know:

• More than 2,000 people arrested nationwide in pro-Palestinian campus protests
• Economic confidence slips for first time since last fall: Gallup
• Fate of Gaza cease-fire talks hangs on two hard-liners: Netanyahu and Sinwar
• Arizona legislature votes to repeal state’s ban on virtually all abortions
• On this day in 1469: Italian philosopher and writer Niccolo Machiavelli is born

Quote for the day:

“God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” —John Piper

Denison Forum

Why should you care that today is the National Day of Prayer? You know the correct answers to the question, of course:

• You are to pray for our leaders and thus for our nation (1 Timothy 2:1–2).
• You are in fact to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17).
• You want God’s best for our country and her people.
• It is a patriotic privilege to join with other Christians in interceding for America.

All good responses, obviously. Here’s one more:

Americans find themselves, and there is no reasonable way to deny this, in a moment of profound crisis. The country is changing, and the substance of that transformation is not clear. Americans are divided, and those divisions go well beyond ideological differences. They cut to the marrow of the bone. Too often we see each other as enemies. Disagreement is saturated with contempt. Mutuality drowns in the bitterness of our public discourse. The sense of common purpose and public good has been thrown into the trash bin as we huddle in our silos.

Is this the doomsaying of an extremist ranting on social media to get clicks and likes?

Actually, these are the observations of Dr. Eddie S. Glaude Jr., the James C. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor at Princeton University and former president of the American Academy of Religion. His solution to our crisis frames the discussion I’d like us to have today:

The salvation of democracy itself . . . requires that we understand that democratic flourishing cannot be, in John Dewey’s words, “separated from the individual attitudes so deep-seated as to constitute character.”

Then Dr. Glaude makes this point in italics:

We must be the kinds of people democracies require.

How can we be such people today?

Using a fly swatter to play golf

It is a category mistake to use something for a purpose it was not intended to fulfill. You wouldn’t use a fly swatter to play golf or a bicycle to travel to Hawaii.

Neither should we expect temporal strategies to satisfy eternal needs. The psalmist spoke for us all when he testified, “I am a sojourner on the earth” (Psalm 119:19).

Jesus identified the path to the transformation Americans need for the sake of America: “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

St. Cyril of Alexandria (AD 376–444) commented on Jesus’ statement:

Just as the trunk of the vine gives its own natural properties to each of its branches, so, by bestowing on them the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, the only-begotten Son of the Father, gives Christians a certain kinship with himself and with God the Father because they have been united to him by faith and determination to do his will in all things. He helps them to grow in love and reverence for God, and teaches them to discern right from wrong and to act with integrity.

What does this mean in practical terms?

Courageous prayer and the courage to pray

The Bible says Abraham “grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God” (Romans 4:20). There is a reciprocal relationship at work here: The more I glorify God, the stronger I grow in my faith. Then, the stronger I grow in my faith, the more I glorify God. The closer I am to the “light of men” (John 1:4), the more I reflect his light and am changed by it. And the more I am changed by it, the more I reflect it.

When King Darius commanded the Babylonians to pray only to him, Daniel courageously defied this idolatrous edict by continuing to pray to the one true God (Daniel 6:6–10). What we might overlook in reading this story is the possibility that Daniel’s continued prayer gave him the courage to defy the edict. The more he prayed, the more he was empowered to pray.

How does this conversation relate to today’s National Day of Prayer?

The more we pray for our nation, the more our connection with God through prayer will empower and encourage us to pray for our nation. And the more we are empowered to pray, the more we will want to pray.

Then, when we have been thus empowered by the Spirit, we are more equipped and enabled to be the answer to our prayers:

• As we pray for Americans to come to Christ, we are more likely to lead them to Christ through our witness and example.
• As we pray for our leaders, we are more likely to engage with them personally and to enter public service ourselves.
• As we pray for our nation to turn to biblical truth and morality, we are more likely to become the change we wish to see.

In short, praying for our nation on this day—and every day—is one of the most patriotic ways we can serve our nation. As a result of such a commitment, we will “be the kinds of people democracies require.”

May it begin with me.

And with you.

Thursday news to know:

• In Israel, Blinken pushes Netanyahu for sustained aid into Gaza
• Hundreds of protesters arrested at college campuses across the US
• US officials are bracing for another summer of dangerous heat. These maps show where it’s most likely to happen
• Immigration ranks as top issue for Americans for longest consecutive monthly stretch in past 24 years: poll
• On this day in 2011: Osama bin Laden killed by US forces

Quote for the day:

“The whole reason why we pray is to be united into the vision and contemplation of God to whom we pray.” —Julian of Norwich

Denison Forum

“In this moment the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a ceasefire is Hamas.” This is how US Secretary of State Antony Blinken described a ceasefire proposal that he called “extraordinarily generous on the part of Israel.”

In its first phase, Hamas would release as many as thirty-three hostages in exchange for a pause in hostilities in Gaza and the release of Palestinian prisoners. A second phase, described as the “restoration of sustainable calm,” would include the exchange of the remaining hostages, captive Israeli soldiers, and the bodies of hostages for more Palestinian prisoners.

If Hamas accepts the proposal, will this bring peace to the Middle East?

Tragically not, so long as Hamas remains pledged to Israel’s complete destruction. If your neighbor publicly vowed to murder your family and burn down your house, I doubt you’d invite him to dinner.

If the protesters went to Gaza

While no one would blame you for defending your family, activists across our country continue to blame Israel for doing the same.

Student protesters at Columbia University declared this morning that they had taken over a building on the campus after defying a deadline to disperse. Protesters and police clashed yesterday at the University of Texas in a confrontation that resulted in dozens of arrests. The number of arrests at campuses nationwide is now approaching a thousand.

Imagine, however, what would happen if these activists actually went to Gaza: women would be subjugated, while gay and transgender individuals would likely be imprisoned or executed.

Ironically, the protesters would be far safer in the hands of the IDF in Gaza than with Hamas.

The Israeli soldiers whose work in Gaza is being so roundly condemned actually have a strong claim to being the most moral army in the world. In strong contrast with Hamas, the IDF operates by a clear code stating that “every individual is of inherent value, regardless of their ethnicity, religion, nationality, gender, or status.” Women and LGBTQ individuals are not their victims—they actually fight in their army.

But what about Palestinian civilian casualties?

According to one analysis, for every Hamas combatant eliminated, approximately 1.5 civilians have been tragically killed. Since the United Nations estimates that civilians typically make up 90 percent of the casualties in a war, this is an impressive ratio.

Given that Hamas hides its soldiers behind the Palestinian civilians it was elected to serve, it is even more so.

What students at Columbia are reading

You may be wondering why you don’t hear these facts from university protesters and the mainstream media. There’s a reason for that.

Many of the professors and journalists supporting the current activists were students in an era forged by Vietnam War anti-government protests, the rise of the sexual revolution, and the postmodern rejection of absolute truth and objective morality. Now, as George Packer notes in the Atlantic, their revisionist ideas are “so pervasive and unquestioned that they’ve become the instincts of students who are occupying their campuses today.”

To illustrate: New York Times columnist Ross Douthat explored the syllabus at Columbia for a course titled “Contemporary Civilization.” He reports that its focus for the twentieth century “narrows to progressive preoccupations and only those preoccupations: anticolonialism, sex and gender, antiracism, climate.” Unsurprisingly, the now-popular “colonialist occupier” caricature of Israel makes it an easy target for opposition and Hamas an exemplar of revolution.

If students who represent our cultural future are this militant in imposing their ideology on their campuses, what will they do when they graduate into places of corporate, cultural, and political leadership? Will their identity politics that divides humanity into oppressors and oppressed and views Christians as bigoted and dangerous become even more pervasive?

When non-Christians believe the gospel

By contrast, one reason the Christian gospel is such “good news” is that its news is good for everyone. Whether you are Arab or Jew, Palestinian or Israeli, Black or White or Latino, Democrat or Republican or Independent, whatever your sexual orientation and gender identity, you are the creation of the Father and loved unconditionally by the Savior.

Here’s the catch:

Non-Christians typically believe the gospel to the degree that Christians live the gospel.

This week we’re responding to our perilous times by remembering that Jesus is “the light of men” (John 1:4) and the corresponding fact that his “light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (v. 5).

Today, the transforming light of Christ shines through you and me when we demonstrate his inclusive love by our inclusive compassion and walk so closely with Jesus that others will know we walk with Jesus (cf. Acts 4:13).

St. Irenaeus (AD c. 120–c. 203) said of the Christians of his day:

Just as God’s creature, the sun, is one and the same the world over, so also does the Church’s preaching shine everywhere to enlighten all men who want to come to a knowledge of the truth.

Now it’s our turn.

Tuesday news to know:

• US to test ground beef in states with bird-flu outbreaks in dairy cows
• 4 law officers serving warrant are killed, 4 wounded in shootout at North Carolina home, police say
• Less is more: The case for “slow productivity” at work
• Deadly tornadoes rip through Oklahoma leaving thousands without power
• On this day in 1993: World Wide Web (WWW) launches in the public domain

Quote for the day:

“A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God’s truth is attacked and yet would remain silent.” —John Calvin

Denison Forum

Are campus protests a picture of our cultural future?

Nearly nine hundred protesters have been arrested on US campuses in recent days, about 275 of them on Saturday. Activists staged a large event outside the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner Saturday night, part of a wave of pro-Palestinian protests that has spread across the country and could continue through the summer at political conventions.

Columbia University became the epicenter of the movement due to its proximity to national media in New York and its status as an Ivy League institution. The campus is also home to a large Jewish student population, many of whom have faced harassment or attacks from protesters, fueling more media coverage and political scrutiny.

Columbia made more news when it banned a student protest leader who declared that “Zionists don’t deserve to live.” He said with regard to fighting a Zionist (someone such as myself who believes the Jews deserve a homeland in Israel), “I don’t fight to injure or for there to be a winner or a loser, I fight to kill.”

He added, “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.”

Tragically, that’s already been done.

The “worst day” in modern Israel’s history

In the new edition of Foreign Affairs, the Israeli historian Tom Segev offers a brilliant overview of the modern history of the nation. He begins:

To Israelis, October 7, 2023, is the worst day in their country’s seventy-five-year history. Never before have so many of them been massacred and taken hostage on a single day. Thousands of heavily armed Hamas fighters managed to break through the Gaza Strip’s fortified border and into Israel, rampaging unimpeded for hours, destroying several villages and committing gruesome acts of brutality before Israeli forces could regain control.

Hamas leaders have vowed to repeat these attacks until Israel is destroyed. Consequently, Israel had no choice but to send the IDF into Gaza to destroy Hamas.

More than thirty-one thousand Palestinians have died since the Israel–Hamas war in Gaza began, a tragic fact that is a primary reason for pro-Palestinian protests across our country. In their rhetoric, Israel is completely at fault for these deaths.

However, American legal theory distinguishes between a “proximate” cause and an “actual” cause. The latter is the direct cause of an event, such as the car that runs a red light and crashes into your vehicle. The former is the event that caused the latter, such as the large truck that rams into a car, shoving it into the intersection so that it crashes into your car.

Hamas’s terrorist attack on October 7 is the uncontestable proximate cause of all that has happened since. If Hamas had not launched its invasion and then used Palestinian civilians as human shields, not a single casualty resulting from Israel’s response in Gaza would have been harmed. It is therefore also a fact that, as the Wall Street Journal recently noted, “Those who genuinely care about the Palestinians should hope for Hamas’s defeat.”

MLK on “the hottest place in hell”

The US Army liberated the Dachau concentration camp on this day in 1945. With this sober fact as a historical backdrop, consider a letter written by the chairman of the World Holocaust Remembrance Center to the president of Columbia University. In it, Dani Dayan warns that the ongoing anti-Israel demonstrations at elite US colleges and universities are exactly what happened in Germany in the 1920s, just years before Nazis took over the country.

He therefore called on the president to “take a stand” as “thousands of Columbia faculty, staff, and students call for the elimination of the State of Israel and the abolition of Zionism.” He added: “Not a political stand. A moral stand. When it becomes crystal clear that abolishing the existence of the Jewish State is a prevalent ideology in Columbia, the president of the institution cannot remain silent.”

He then cited the Talmud’s teaching, “Silence is admission,” and reiterated, “Silence inevitably will be interpreted as tolerance or, even worse, consent.” He quoted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as saying that “the hottest place in hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.”

Dayan concluded his letter with a quote from Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace laureate who called indifference “the most insidious danger of all.”

An unthinkable and horrific future?

If the faculty and students at America’s elite intellectual institutions cannot stand unequivocally against the genocide of the Jewish people, what does this say about our culture?

Has our “post-truth” society become so confused and corrupted that it cannot condemn the rape, murder, and mutilation of innocent civilians at the hand of terrorist invaders pledged to their annihilation?

If so, is Dani Dayan right in warning that we are on the road to an unthinkable and horrific future?

I believe these are truly precarious days for our nation, a peril I plan to discuss with you this week. Each day, we’ll respond with the hope-filled reality that Jesus is “the light of men” (John 1:4, my emphasis), now and always.

For today, let’s embrace and share this fact:

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).

It never will.

Monday news to know:

• At least 4 killed in Oklahoma tornado outbreak, as threat of severe storms continues from Missouri to Texas
• Israel open to discussing “sustainable calm” in Gaza after initial hostage release: officials
• US and allies aim to help Ukraine bolster defenses after aid gap
• Birth rates in US hit historic low, CDC data show
• On this day in 2004: World War II monument opens in Washington, DC

Quote for the day:

“The purpose of God and the power of God is available for every man.” —G. Campbell Morgan

Denison Forum

If you care about someone whose K–12 school or institution of higher learning receives any federal funding, take note: their school may have to open girls’ bathrooms, locker rooms, housing accommodations, and sports teams to boys who claim to “identify” as girls. Boys’ facilities and activities would likewise have to be accessible to biological girls who “identify” as boys. This is because the Department of Education has unilaterally expanded Title IX of the Civil Rights code, an amendment passed in 1972 that prohibits discrimination “on the basis of sex” by “any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” This was intended to prevent such discrimination with regard to athletic participation, facilities, and scholarships.

Now, however, “sex” has been made to include “sex stereotypes, sex characteristics, pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity.” The new regulations also require K–12 schools to accept a child’s gender identity regardless of their biological sex and without providing notice to, or seeking approval from, the child’s parents.

As First Liberty warns, the Title IX changes directly threaten our religious liberty. The Independent Women’s Forum also strongly condemns the regulation and plans to sue the Biden administration. Others will likely join them in legal opposition.

“Man’s trouble lies heavy on him”

We have been discussing this week our relativistic culture’s rejection of objective truth and morality. An example of such confusion is the controversy over National Public Radio’s new CEO and President, Katharine Maher. She suspended editor Uri Berliner in response to his recent essay criticizing the network’s progressive bias, a move that seems to reinforce his point.

We should not be surprised: when she was CEO of Wikipedia, Maher claimed that “there are many different truths” and stated, “I’m certain that the truth exists for you. And probably for the person sitting next to you. But this may not be the same truth.”

Jesus would disagree. He told his disciples, “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). Note the definite articles. As my wife, Janet Denison, wrote in her blog yesterday:

The only way we can truly be a disciple of Christ is to “abide” in his word. When we allow the opinions of others to influence truth, we have ceased to abide or dwell in the truth of Christ. And Jesus said it was his truth that would set us free (her emphasis).

Embracing Jesus’ truth is the only way to be set free from the burden of fallenness, finitude, and sin. Solomon described this burden well:

Man’s trouble lies heavy on him. For he does not know what is to be, for who can tell him how it will be? No man has power to retain the spirit, or power over the day of death. There is no discharge from war, nor will wickedness deliver those who are given to it (Ecclesiastes 8:6–8).

The wise king would agree:

The more people reject biblical truth, the more they need it. The sicker the soul, the more urgent the Great Physician.

How can we share the truth effectively today?

Three practical responses

Paul stayed in Ephesus longer than anywhere else in his missionary journeys, “reasoning daily” for the gospel so effectively that “all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks” (Acts 19:9–10). We have a fascinating window into his strategy through the testimony of non-Christians who heard him.

One: Show people why they need biblical truth.

An Ephesian who made his living by selling idols complained that “Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods” (v. 26). The apostle exposed the obvious illogic of the man’s livelihood: How can “gods made with hands” be true deities?

The biblical worldview is “True Truth,” as Francis Schaeffer noted. But to open minds to it, we often need to show them why they should consider its claims. With regard to the Title IX revisions noted earlier, for example, we can point to the tragic irony that the new version will defeat the very purpose for which the code was originally intended. Rather than ensuring that girls and boys receive equal support in our schools, it ensures that boys who “identify” as girls can unfairly compete against them and violate their private spaces.

Two: Leverage your influence.

When Paul wanted to address the uprising provoked by the Ephesian idol maker, “some of the Asiarchs, who were friends of his, sent to him and were urging him not to venture into the theater” (v. 31). These were wealthy and distinguished citizens whose office was greatly coveted.

As their fellow Roman citizen and cultural leader, Paul obviously built personal relationships with them over his two years in Ephesus, illustrating James Davison Hunter’s thesis that culture changes as we achieve our highest place of influence and live there faithfully.

Three: Speak the truth in love.

The town clerk quelled the riot in Ephesus by reminding the crowd that Paul and his companions “are neither sacrilegious nor blasphemers of our goddess” (v. 37). They illustrated Peter’s admonition to defend our faith “with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15) by manifesting the “fruit of the Spirit” in ways that impressed even their skeptics (Galatians 5:22–23).

Will you pray for God to raise up more Pauls today?

Will you be an answer to your prayer?

NOTE: This is my last note about our latest book, Between Compromise and Courage (2nd ed). We updated the book with four new topics: AI, end times, the rapture, and gun control. And we updated previous chapters on always-pressing topics: abortion, racism, suicide, and religious liberty. Our team prays that you’re equipped and inspired by this new book to be the salt and light Jesus calls us to be. Request your copy of our newest book today.

Thursday news to know:

• Police tangle with students in Texas and California as wave of campus protest against Gaza war grows
• Biden says US to begin sending military equipment to Ukraine within “hours”
• US Supreme Court split over Idaho’s strict abortion ban in medical emergencies
• “Extraordinary”: George Washington’s 250-year-old cherries found buried at Mount Vernon
• On this day in 1990: Hubble Space Telescope placed in orbit

Quote for the day:

“A lie doesn’t become truth, wrong doesn’t become right, and evil doesn’t become good, just because it’s accepted by a majority.” —Rick Warren

Denison Forum

“The 7^th of October is going to be every day for you.” So screamed protesters at two Jewish Columbia University students just outside the campus gates. Others at Columbia called for Hamas to “burn Tel Aviv to the ground,” which would entail the murder of more than four million Jews, and chanted, “Hamas, we love you. We support your rockets too.”

Since Hamas terrorists murdered an estimated 1,200 men, women, and children in Israel last October 7, antisemitism has escalated dramatically in the US and especially on college campuses.

Columbia, an Ivy League school in New York City, became an epicenter when a tent city dubbed the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” was created on the school’s campus. Now pro-Palestinian demonstrations and encampments have spread to more than a dozen schools across the country. Students are calling for an end both to the Israel–Hamas war and to their universities’ investment in companies engaged with Israel.

School administrators at Columbia did report some progress early this morning in negotiations with pro-Palestinian protesters, who agreed to remove a significant number of tents from the lawn, ensure non-students would leave, and bar discriminatory or harassing language among the protesters.

Harvard University has closed its yard until Friday in anticipation of pro-Palestinian protests. Yale’s president is concerned about “reports of egregious behavior such as intimidation and harassment” on his campus. Officials at numerous schools are concerned that pro-Palestinian demonstrators will disrupt graduation ceremonies later this spring.

Jewish students are especially at risk. Some at Columbia have been assaulted and otherwise threatened. Jewish groups have been hiring extra security for Passover events.

What is behind these protests?

How can the answers help us engage our broken culture with redemptive truth?

“The only nation founded on a creed”

The day after the October 7 massacre, Columbia professor Joseph Massad praised the “awesome” scenes of the assault “witnessed by millions of jubilant Arabs.” In 2018, Columbia professor Hamid Dabashi posted on Twitter (now X): “Every dirty treacherous ugly and pernicious act happening in the world” could be traced to “the ugly name of Israel.”

As I noted in my ebook on the conflict between Israel and Hamas, protesters claim that Israel “colonized” its land from the rightful Palestinian owners and that it “occupies” territory that should belong to a free Palestine. As I explain in my book, both claims are absolutely false, both with regard to the history of the land and to current realities there.

However, we no longer live in a culture where truth is determined by what is right and wrong, factual or fallacious. As a result, it is difficult to have a reasoned conversation these days about Israel, abortion, same-sex marriage, transgender rights, or any other contested cultural issue.

G.K. Chesterton famously noted that “America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed.” Ours can be stated in a sentence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

But if these truths are no longer “self-evident,” are we then free to reject them?

• Darwin convinced many that we are not “created” by a “Creator” but the product of naturalistic processes.
• Anti-semitists and other racists, pornographers, and sex traffickers do not believe we are “created equal.”
• Abortion and euthanasia advocates do not believe that the “unalienable Rights” to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” extend to all.

Now we’re seeing a blatant rejection of our founding creed at some of our most elite educational institutions. What does this mean for our future as a democracy?

Beware this “work for God”

Self-governance will fail if people cannot govern themselves. And, as Scripture notes, “There is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins” (Ecclesiastes 7:20). This is why, as we have seen this week, we each need a daily, intimate relationship with the only One who can forgive our sins and transform our hearts.

The good news about human history is that anyone can change history. Paul’s unnamed nephew (Acts 23:16–22) and a Roman officer named Claudius Lysias (Acts 21:31–23:30) were instrumental in saving the apostle from his enemies, enabling his ministry in Rome (Acts 28:30–31) and the last seven of his letters (Acts 23:16–22). Many of the Bible’s greatest heroes came from the unlikeliest of backgrounds.

According to Jesus, you and I are “the light of the world” today (Matthew 5:14). But we must be the change we wish to see. To manifest the love of God, we must experience the love of God (1 John 4:19).

This is why Oswald Chambers warned:

Beware of any work for God which enables you to evade concentration on him.

He explained: “A great many Christian workers worship their work. The one concern of a worker should be concentration on God.” Then he added:

There is no responsibility on you for the work; the only responsibility you have is to keep in living constant touch with God, and to see that you allow nothing to hinder your cooperation with him. . . . God engineers everything; wherever he puts us, our one great aim is to pour out a whole-hearted devotion to him in that particular work.

What is your “one great aim” today?

Wednesday news to know:

• Cable news coverage of Trump trial reflects a US divided
• Senate passes Ukraine, Israel aid package after monthslong fight
• US Congress approves bill banning TikTok unless Chinese owner ByteDance sells platform
• Israelis fled these towns after Hamas attacked. Now they’re coming home
• On this day in 1800: Library of Congress established

Quote for the day:

“To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement.” —St. Augustine

Denison Forum

The power of Christian character to change the culture

Let’s meet a couple whose commitment to Christ and to godliness is making headlines. Rebekah Hurford and Kirk Peter plan to get married one day, but they’ve never shared a passionate kiss and are waiting until marriage to do so. When the Christian couple began dating, they chose not to become intimate. They never sleep at the same place. They have had sexual relationships with others in the past which led to “broken trust” and “a lot of wounds,” so this time they’re choosing to live biblically.

How’s this working for them?

“The result of strong boundaries and saving ourselves until marriage has been the most joyful and stress-free relationship of my thirty-one years,” Hurford says. She added: “Don’t compromise in dating, ladies, the man who will honor you is out there.”

You might think I read their story in a Christian publication, but it’s actually a headline in the New York Post. So was this: “Scottie Scheffler has become golf’s unassuming megastar.” The article was published even before Scheffler won the Masters and then won again yesterday.

Though he is always quick to give the glory to God, as I noted after his triumph at Augusta, the secular world doesn’t seem to make the connection. One golf commentator went on and on Saturday describing what a “good person” Scheffler is with no mention of the real reason why.

It’s a fact: The darker the room, the more obvious and attractive the light.

A quick way to improve your health

Yesterday we focused on research indicating that perhaps as few as 5 percent of Americans attend religious services weekly. What are they missing?

A friend recently pointed out this article: “Why public health should attend to the spiritual side of life.” The subheading answers the question: “Research suggests weekly service attendance is associated with better health.”

The writer points to extensive evidence that “weekly religious service attendance is longitudinally associated with lower mortality risk, lower depression, less suicide, better cardiovascular disease survival, better health behaviors, and greater marital stability, happiness, and purpose in life,” linking to research for each outcome.

He also notes that about 40 percent of the increasing suicide rate in the United States from 1999 to 2014 could be attributed to declines in attendance at religious services during this period. According to another study, declining attendance from 1991 to 2019 accounted for 28 percent of the increase in depression among adolescents.

Again, you might think I’m quoting from Christianity Today or a similar publication, but this article was written by Tyler VanderWeele, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, and published by Harvard.

The darker the room, the more obvious and attractive the light.

Benjamin Franklin on the power of faith

Our spiritual enemy has a strategy for combatting stories like the ones we’re discussing today. If he cannot get us to reject Christ, he’ll tempt us to adopt religion. That’s because he knows that religion cannot save anyone’s soul—only a personal relationship with Jesus can do that. Religion cannot transform the human heart—only the indwelling Holy Spirit can do that.

St. Basil the Great (AD 330–379) observed:

Through the Holy Spirit comes our restoration to paradise, our ascension into the kingdom of heaven, our return to the status of adopted sons, our liberty to call God our Father, our being made partakers of the grace of Christ, our being called children of light, our sharing in eternal glory—in a word, our being brought into a state of all fullness of blessing both in this world and in the world to come, of all the good gifts that are in store for us.

When you and I experience the risen Christ each day, our lives cannot be same. Nor can our culture. Even Benjamin Franklin, not known for evangelical piety, recognized this fact:

“He who shall introduce into public affairs the principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world.”

“Christ in you” is “the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27), not just for your soul but for everyone you influence.

The darker the room, the more obvious and attractive the light.

“Long eagerly for what heaven has in store”

Pope St. Gregory the Great (AD 540–604) encouraged us:

Let us stir up our hearts, rekindle our faith, and long eagerly for what heaven has in store for us. To love thus is to be already on our way. No matter what obstacles we encounter, we must not allow them to turn us aside from the joy of that heavenly feast. Anyone who is determined to reach his destination is not deterred by the roughness of the road that leads to it. Nor must we allow the charm of success to seduce us, or we shall be like a foolish traveler who is so distracted by the pleasant meadows through which he is passing that he forgets where he is going.

Are you “determined” to reach your “destination” today?

Tuesday news to know:

• NY vs. Trump: First witness takes the stand in Manhattan court
• Columbia cancels in-person classes amid pro-Palestinian protests
• Supreme Court divided over homeless ban and rights of the unhoused
• Lyrid meteor shower 2024: How to see a stunning fireball tonight
• On this day in 1564: William Shakespeare was born

Quote for the day:

“In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.” —Francis Bacon

Denison Forum

Cultural Christianity and the power to change culture

How many Americans say they attend religious services each week?

How many actually do?

According to Gallup polling, 21 percent of us say we attend religious services every week; 41 percent say they attend at least monthly.

However, the data says otherwise.

Devin Pope, a business school professor at the University of Chicago, studied cell phone geodata from over two million Americans to examine their behavior with respect to religion. He found that only 5 percent attended services weekly, and only 21 percent attended monthly. As an article reporting Pope’s study headlined, “People who say they go to religious services weekly are probably lying.”

The story raises a cultural question: Why would so many people claim to attend religious services so much more often than they actually do?

Religion is twice as popular as sports

According to Gallup, about three in four Americans identify with a specific religious faith. Religious commitment therefore outranks a number of other significant identifiers in our culture:

• 28 percent of Americans identify as Democrats, 28 percent as Republicans, and 41 percent as independents.
• 60 percent of us are employed.
• 66 percent of us own a home.
• 37 percent of us say we follow sports extremely or somewhat closely.

In an ever more secularized society, why is it still appealing for so many Americans to claim a religious identity and even to say that they often attend religious services?

British atheist Richard Dawkins made headlines recently by claiming to be a “cultural Christian.” He meant that he appreciates the contribution of Christianity to his country’s history and cultural heritage and prefers the Christian tradition to Islam or other options.

I think Dawkins speaks for many. Religiosity still equates to cultural, moral, and traditional values in our society.

But religiosity is not enough to meet the challenges we face today.

“A hedge against bad things”

In his brilliant exposition, Why Politics Fails, Oxford professor Ben Ansell identifies one of the greatest values of democratic governance: “There’s nothing . . . that guarantees democracies get good politicians. But at least ‘the people’ will be able to throw them out if they’re terrible.”

Cultural commentator Jonah Goldberg agrees:

Democracy’s greatness lies in the fact it is a hedge against bad things. (Its record in assuring good things is decidedly more mixed and contestable.) The ability to fire people is essential to political competition. If a politician or a party screws up or starts looking out for its own interests more than the interests of the voters, the ability to kick them out is essential. This was among the greatest innovations in human history. Monarchs and aristocracies can get selfish and self-absorbed. Indeed, they always do eventually. Politicians are prone to the same tendencies. But in a democracy, you can get rid of them without swords or guns.

While we can be grateful for democracy’s ability to remove bad leaders, Ansell is right: democracy cannot guarantee good leaders. The people we vote into office next will be just as fallen and flawed as the ones they replace.

And religiosity cannot make up the difference.

Only one of the 469 members of the current US Congress admits to being religiously “unaffiliated,” while 87 percent claim to be Christian and another 6 percent say they are Jewish. America has never elected an avowed atheist as president.

How is the religiosity of our leaders working out for us?

Cultural Christianity is a contradiction in terms

We experience the transforming power of Christianity not by identifying with it as a religion but by experiencing the living Christ personally. Saul of Tarsus was changed not by changing his religious identity from Jewish to Christian but by meeting the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. He would later explain this reality to the rest of us: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

This is how all relationships work. Marriage changes your life not because you are “married” but because you commit your life to your spouse and they to you. The same is true with parenthood, education, or employment—it is not identifying with the institution but experiencing the relationship it offers that matters.

However, this is especially true with Christianity. Unlike your spouse or parents, your Lord lives in you by his Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:16). Unlike your employer or professor, Jesus has the divine power to forgive your every sin (1 John 1:9) and to transform your character into his (Romans 8:29).

Here’s the bottom line:

Cultural Christianity is a contradiction in terms, but biblical Christianity transforms culture.

When last did the living Lord Jesus change your life?

NOTE: Did you know that Denison Forum is a nonprofit ministry fully supported by readers like you? So, when you request one of our books—like our just-released and updated edition of Between Compromise and Courage—you’re supporting our calling “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Eph 4:12). Get your copy of our new book today; impact believers across the world tomorrow.

Monday news to know:

• House approves $95 billion aid bill for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan
• US-China internet war intensifies as House passes TikTok ban
• Israeli military intelligence chief resigns over his role in failing to prevent Oct. 7 attack
• Nelly Korda wins fifth consecutive title at the Chevron Championship
• On this day in 1994: Former President Richard Nixon dies

Quote for the day:

“Christians are supposed not merely to endure change, nor even to profit by it, but to cause it.” —Harry Emerson Fosdick

Denison Forum