Since the wreckage of the Titanic was discovered in 1985, the site has been the subject of endless fascination. Now the deep-diving submersible Titan, used to take people to see the wreck, has gone missing in the Atlantic Ocean with its passengers and crew aboard. According to the Coast Guard, it lost contact with a surface vessel on Sunday morning during a dive about nine hundred miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

The submersible holds five people and usually dives with a four-day supply of oxygen. It typically carries a pilot, three paying guests (at $250,000 per seat), and what the company calls a “content expert.” At this writing, a major search and rescue operation in the North Atlantic has failed to locate the craft.

Why are so many people focusing on five missing people out of a global population of more than eight billion?

For the same reason I included this Time headline in today’s Daily Article: “6 Killed, Dozens Injured in Spate of Weekend Mass Shootings Across US.” For the same reason a Dutch court sentenced a soccer player to eighteen months in jail for stabbing his cousin in the knee. And for the same reason a music festival in Washington state was canceled after a shooting at a nearby campground left two dead.

Humans are each made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). Accordingly, there is something in us that cares intuitively and intrinsically about what happens to other humans. The English poet John Donne (1572–1631) was right: “Each man’s death diminishes me, / For I am involved in mankind.” As a result, “Send not to know / For whom the bell tolls, / It tolls for thee.”

However, legal systems birthed by such solidarity are the best that secularized societies can do to restrain fallen human nature. As the violence reported above demonstrates, they’re not nearly enough.

“What defines this next phase of human history”

Adrienne LaFrance is the executive editor of The Atlantic. In her latest article, she states that artificial intelligence “may well be the most consequential technology in all of human history.” As recent coverage has shown, AI is capable of disrupting and even threatening our future existence.

However, as an illustration of our fallen nature, LaFrance warns that “neither the government’s understanding of new technologies nor self-regulation by tech behemoths can adequately keep pace with the speed of technological change or Silicon Valley’s capacity to seek profit and scale at the expense of societal and democratic health.” As a result, she argues, “What defines this next phase of human history must begin with the individual.”

In part, this means that we should resist relying on “overconfident machines [that] seem to hold the answers to all of life’s cosmic questions.” Instead, “we should put more emphasis on contemplation as a way of being. We should embrace an unfinished state of thinking, the constant work of challenging our preconceived notions, seeking out those with whom we disagree, and sometimes still not knowing. We are mortal beings, driven to know more than we ever will or ever can.”

Her brilliant essay is right as far as it goes. The problem lies in its title: “The coming humanist renaissance.” Nothing in the article suggests that resources for facing humanity’s future exist outside humanity’s present. Given that she is writing a secular article for a secular outlet, this should not surprise us.

“Let light shine out of darkness”

Before you and I became followers of Jesus, we were “following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:1–3).

What was true of us is true of anyone who does not know Jesus personally: “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). This is because “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4).

By contrast, “God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (v. 6). This is not because of our merit but God’s mercy: “God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:4–5).

Now God is calling us “to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22–24).

“You have all the power you need”

How do we do this?

Sanctification begins with a mindset: “Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11). Then it proceeds to a choice: “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions” (v. 12). Instead, “Seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:1–2).

This process starts every day at the beginning of the day when we submit our minds and lives to God’s Spirit (Ephesians 5:18). Then we walk through the day in conscious dependence on him to lead and empower us. When we fall to temptation, we turn immediately to Christ, asking for his forgiveness and cleansing grace (1 John 1:9).

As we live in the power of God’s sanctifying Spirit, our holiness then becomes our most compelling witness.

Max Lucado notes: “As a Christian, you have all the power you need for all the problems you face. The Bible says your body is a temple for the Holy Spirit who is in you. The question isn’t, ‘How do I get more of the Spirit?’ but rather, ‘How can you, Spirit, have more of me?’”

Will you ask the Spirit this question right now?

Denison Forum

According to the Smithsonian Institution, “Juneteenth marks our country’s second independence day.” On this day in 1865, some two thousand Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas, where they announced that the more than two hundred and fifty thousand enslaved black people in the state were free by executive decree. The day became known as “Juneteenth” by the newly freed people in Texas and eventually became a federal holiday.

As such, today illustrates the path to cultural transformation our nation urgently needs.

“Lots of Negroes were killed after freedom”

President Abraham Lincoln’s “Emancipation Proclamation” declared all enslaved people in the Confederate States legally free on January 1, 1863. However, as the Smithsonian explains, “Not everyone in Confederate territory would immediately be free. Even though the Emancipation Proclamation was made effective in 1863, it could not be implemented in places still under Confederate control.”

As a result, in the westernmost Confederate state of Texas, enslaved people would not be free for another two years. Even after the Civil War ended and the Thirteenth Amendment legally ended slavery, some former Confederate soldiers still tried to round up black “runaways” and return them to their owners while white vigilantes tracked down and punished formerly enslaved people.

Susan Merritt of Rusk County, Texas, recounted what happened when some black people in Texas tried to claim their freedom: “Lots of Negroes were killed after freedom . . . bushwacked, shot down while they were trying to get away. You could see lots of Negroes hanging from trees in Sabine bottom right after freedom. They would catch them swimming across Sabine River and shoot them.”

It was another century before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination on the basis of race and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 banned racial discriminatory practices in voting. The social and cultural struggle for racial equality continues today.

Laws are essential but not sufficient

Brookings reports that in 1940, 60 percent of employed black women worked as domestic servants; today the number is 2.2 percent, while 60 percent hold white-collar jobs. In 1958, 44 percent of whites said they would move if a black family became their next-door neighbor; today the figure is 1 percent. In 1964, the year the Civil Rights Act was passed, only 18 percent of whites said they had a friend who was black; today, 86 percent said they do, while 87 percent of blacks said they have white friends.

Despite much progress, much progress remains.

The US Justice Department released last Friday what the New York Times called a “damning account of systemic abuses and discrimination by the police in Minneapolis, the result of a multiyear investigation that began after the murder of George Floyd in police custody ignited protests across the country.”

Black families in America have a median wealth of $13,460; white families have a median wealth of $142,180. The homeownership rate for whites is 72 percent; for blacks, it’s 42 percent. Racial disparities in educational, economic, and health care outcomes persist in the US.

Here’s my point: laws are essential to a moral society but not sufficient. The persistence of racial discrimination long after Juneteenth reminds us that America needs the kind of social transformation that society cannot create.

“He will bring forth justice to the nations”

Scripture proclaims: “Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lᴏʀᴅ his God” (Psalm 146:5). This is because our God “executes justice for the oppressed” and “gives food to the hungry” (v. 7a).

In addition, “The Lᴏʀᴅ sets the prisoners free; the Lᴏʀᴅ opens the eyes of the blind. The Lᴏʀᴅ lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lᴏʀᴅ loves the righteous. The Lᴏʀᴅ watches over the sojourners; he upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin” (vv. 7b–9).

How does our Father bring about such cultural transformation? Through the ministry of his Son.

In Isaiah 42, the Lord said of the coming Messiah, “I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. . . . He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth” (vv. 1, 4). Since justice has not yet been “established” fully “in the earth,” we can know that Jesus’ earthly ministry continues through his church serving as his “body” in the world (1 Corinthians 12:27).

Three practical steps

How can we join our Lord as he brings “justice to the nations”?

One: Pray for the Fifth Great Awakening now circling the globe to come to America. Intercede daily for the moral and spiritual transformation our society needs so desperately. And pray that it begins with you.

Two: Ask God to reveal your role in working to end racial discrimination in our culture. Trust him to empower and equip you as you work to fulfill your calling. Measure success by your obedience.

Three: Emulate Jesus’ passion for every human being as an image-bearer of God (Genesis 1:27) for whom our Savior died (Romans 5:8). God loves each of us as if there were only one of us (St. Augustine). Make his compassion your goal.

Henri Nouwen writes: “One of the greatest human spiritual tasks is to embrace all of humanity, to allow your heart to be a marketplace of humanity.” He adds: “Somehow, if you discover that your little life is part of the journey of humanity and that you have the privilege to be part of that, your interior life shifts. You lose a lot of fear and something really happens to you. Enormous joy can come into your life. It can give you a strong sense of solidarity with the human race, with the human condition.”

Will you choose such joy today?

Denison Forum

When Southern Baptists met in New Orleans this week for their annual convention, a number of important issues were on the docket, including updating the Convention’s progress on the sexual abuse scandals that were the focus of last year’s meeting and discussing budget problems after coming in nearly $7 million in the red last year. However, the SBC’s primary focus was rendering a verdict on whether Saddleback Church, a megachurch in California started by Rick Warren, would be able to remain affiliated with the SBC due to the issue of women pastors.

The Convention decided to disfellowship the church back in February because it had ordained three women as pastors in 2021 and “assigned pastoral titles to all women in pastoral roles” last December. However, the SBC’s bylaws gave Saddleback—and the other five churches who received a similar judgment—the opportunity to appeal the decision at the national convention. And while more than 88 percent of those who came representing their home churches voted to uphold that judgment, it’s unlikely that the matter is settled for good.

After all, as Rick Warren said in his final remarks, there are 1,928 churches within the Convention that have women on pastoral staff. Moreover, many among that 11.36 percent that voted to keep Saddleback in the SBC—the equivalent of roughly 5,600 churches—are likely less than thrilled with the results as well.

But why was the topic of women in the role of pastors such a big issue for the SBC? And why is this discussion relevant to you, regardless of your belief on that subject or your denominational affiliation?

Let’s tackle the first question first.

Creeds vs. confessions of faith

One of the foundational principles that sets Baptists apart from many other Christian denominations is that, from their earliest days, they have been wary of creeds, which essentially function as a statement of belief with which one must agree to be part of the group that holds to it. Baptists have instead favored confessions of faith, which function more as a guideline to explain the core beliefs shared by the majority of churches in their affiliation.

While the difference between those two approaches may sound like semantics, it has been important historically because it has helped to mitigate the division that often pops up when theological disagreements threaten to become more important than our shared faith in Jesus Christ.

In the SBC, that confession is called the Baptist Faith and Message, and it has undergone a number of revisions over the years in order to keep the document accurate to the beliefs of the majority within the Convention. The latest version was updated in 2000 and added this specification: “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.” An amendment approved at this year’s convention would add the offices of elder and overseer to that list of positions that only men can fill as well. That amendment will have to be ratified once again in 2024.

Prior to 2000, this section of the confession focused more on defining the church as “an autonomous body, operating through democratic processes under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.”

The line the SBC wouldn’t cross

The belief that churches within the convention were ultimately accountable only to Christ played a key role in Rick Warren’s argument that Saddleback should not be removed from the SBC. As he stated, both from the convention floor and in an open letter to Southern Baptists, he does not expect those who disagree with him and his church on the issue of women in pastoral roles to change their theology. He just asked that they see the issue in the same way as other doctrinal differences—he named Calvinism and dispensationalism as two such examples—and agree to disagree.

The Convention was not willing to make that accommodation.

And while that may seem harsh and overly demanding, their reasoning is important to understand even if you still disagree.

As Albert Mohler, who spoke for the committee that handled Saddleback’s appeal, stated, “Southern Baptists decided this is not just a matter of church polity, this is not just a matter of hermeneutics, it’s a matter of biblical commitment—to a Scripture we believe unequivocally limits the office of pastor to men.”

While Christians can disagree on how “unequivocally” the Bible speaks to this issue (see “Should women be pastors?” by Dr. Jim Denison), the Convention’s reasoning is important because it shows that what distinguishes this question from the subjects that Warren brought up is the degree to which a clear answer can be known.

For the SBC, this issue is clear, and any compromise would constitute a challenge to biblical authority.

That was the line the SBC was unwilling to cross. And while some may disagree with where they drew that line—myself among them—the discussion points to a critical decision that each of us must make as we seek to fulfill the Great Commission and help the lost find Jesus.

Watering down the Word of God

One of the greatest temptations we must guard against is wanting so badly to help people accept Jesus that we dilute the gospel into something that is more palatable but no longer the truth of God’s word.

If you were to describe the core tenets of the Christian faith, where would you start? How long is that list of nonnegotiables? And how far down the list do you get before things start to get a bit uncomfortable?

For me, the hardest part is when we get to the issue of sin.

I recognize that all of us are sinful and that we need Jesus to save us. However, I also feel the pull to water down just how damning that sin is in comparison to our holy God and to focus so much on Christ’s grace that the reason he had to die in the first place becomes something of an afterthought.

But human depravity is a nonnegotiable truth of Scripture, and minimizing or ignoring its importance fundamentally alters the truth of the gospel.

The same basic principle applies to a number of other subjects as well.

We cannot cross certain lines and still consider our message to be Christian. While I do not believe the role of women as pastors rises to that level—and, to be clear, the SBC is not saying Saddleback or any other church that affirms women as pastors is no longer Christian—the authority of the Bible is essential.

So take some time and ask God to show you any areas in your faith where you’ve approached, or even crossed, the line of creating a gospel in your image rather than allowing the gospel to mold you into God’s image.

All of us have some area where we’re tempted to go astray.

What’s yours?

Denison Forum

According to a new Gallup survey, more Americans say they are conservative on social issues (38 percent) than say they are liberal (29 percent) or moderate (31 percent). The last time this many Americans said they ascribe to social conservatism was 2012. This despite the cultural forces so prominently and powerfully aligned on the other side.

In light of this surprising good news, what can we learn that will help us make a transforming impact on our lost culture?

“Our opponents had everything going for them”

Acclaimed Princeton professor Robert George recently described the resources supporting Roe v. Wade before it was overturned: “Our opponents had everything going for them: power, money, prestige, control of the leading institutions of education, culture, philanthropy, entertainment, the economy, and, of course, the news media. We had, and have, none of those things.” His words describe our cultural position with regard to biblical morality more generally as well.

For example, as the Colson Center’s John Stonestreet and Shane Morris note, “Each year, the four-week season of corporate and political virtue signaling known as ‘pride month’ becomes more aggressive and in-your-face, and those who promote it more insistent that everybody participates. For a while now, it has seemed as if there is no limit to how saturated programming, shelves, and corporate messaging could become with pride imagery each June.”

And yet they report that Bud Light, after featuring transgender celebrity Dylan Mulvaney on commemorative cans, has lost over $15 billion in market value. After prominently stocking pride merchandise designed by a self-proclaimed Satanist, Target’s cap is down $13 billion.

According to Gallup, 69 percent of Americans now say transgender athletes should only be allowed to compete on sports teams that conform to their birth gender. This is up from 62 percent in 2021, despite the fact that 39 percent say they know someone who is transgender, up from 31 percent two years ago.

In more good news, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that religious participation is correlated to significant positive health outcomes. In one study, those who attended religious services at least once a week had 33 percent lower mortality over a sixteen-year period. Such religious engagement also lowered the study participants’ suicide rate by 80 percent. Attending services at least weekly or meditating regularly also reduces feelings of depression and increases feelings of life satisfaction and purpose.

“The happiest state of a Christian”

Here’s the problem: skeptics can discount evidence for our faith from virtually any source. They can dismiss opposition to Pride Month indoctrination as homophobia and to transgender athletes as transphobia. They can explain positive health outcomes from religious engagement as Freudian wish fulfillment. They can even reject miracles if miracles threaten their social status and power.

Here’s the source of evidence they have the hardest time dismissing: our changed lives.

Charles Spurgeon observed, “God neither chose [his people] nor called them because they were holy, but he called them that they might be holy, and holiness is the beauty produced by his workmanship in them.” He added: “The happiest state of a Christian is the holiest state. As there is the most heat nearest to the sun, so there is the most happiness nearest to Christ.”

Oswald Chambers showed us the way to such happiness: “There is only one thing you can consecrate to God, and that is your right to yourself. If you will give God your right to yourself, he will make a holy experiment out of you.” Others will take note: “If you abandon to Jesus, and come when he says ‘Come,’ he will continue to say ‘Come’ through you; you will go out into life reproducing the echo of Christ’s ‘Come.’ That is the result in every soul who has abandoned and come to Jesus.”

Peter agreed: “You 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, my emphasis).

The closer we are to Jesus, the holier we become. The more countercultural our holiness, the more obvious our witness. The darker the room, the more powerful the light.

“The world despises them as useless pieces of straw”

St. Anthony of Padua (1195–1231) was a personal friend of St. Francis of Assisi and one of the greatest preachers and intellectuals of his day. He encouraged us to be countercultural in our faith and values: “O religious soul, dove beloved of Christ, behold those little pieces of straw which the world tramples under its feet! They are the virtues practiced by thy Savior . . . of which he himself has set thee an example—humility, meekness, poverty, penance, patience, and mortification. The world despises them as useless pieces of straw; nevertheless, they will be for thee the material wherewith to construct thy dwelling place forever in the profound hollow of the rock—in the heart of Jesus.”

When we practice these virtues in the power of the Holy Spirit, we can then “speak as the Holy Spirit gives us the gift of speech.” Consequently, “Our humble and sincere request to the Spirit for ourselves should be that we may bring the day of Pentecost to fulfillment, insofar as he infuses us with his grace, by using our bodily senses in a perfect manner and by keeping the commandments. Likewise we shall request that we may be filled with a keen sense of sorrow and with fiery tongues for confessing the truth, so that our deserved reward may be to stand in the blazing splendor of the saints and to look upon the triune God.”

Will you ask the Spirit to help you “bring the day of Pentecost to fulfillment” today?

Denison Forum

The University of Oklahoma women’s softball team made history recently when it became only the second team to win three national titles in a row. But that’s not why I’m beginning today’s Daily Article with their story.

According to OU head coach Patty Gasso, the Lord told her several years ago, “You’re not here to win games. You’re here to open the door—here to win souls.” Now God is honoring her Christian commitment to the Great Commission in remarkable ways.

Team captain Grace Lyons was asked by an ESPN reporter how she and her teammates handle the pressure of their competition and maintain their joy. The reporter might not have expected her answer: “The only way that you can have a joy that doesn’t fade away is from the Lord. Any other type of joy is actually happiness that comes from circumstances and outcomes.” (For more, see the remarkable “Letter to Softball” video below she recorded about her faith story.)

Lyons’ teammate Jayda Coleman shared how, after winning the Women’s College World Series her freshman year, she was happy but didn’t feel joy: “I didn’t know what to do the next day. I didn’t know what to do that following week. I didn’t feel fulfilled and I had to find Christ.”

She continued: “I think that is what makes our team so strong is that we’re not afraid to lose because it’s not the end of the world if we do lose—obviously we’ve worked our butts off to be here and we want to win—but it’s not the end of the world because our life is in Christ and that’s all that matters.”

The only true remedy for our fractured society

I am writing this Daily Article to convince you that Jayda Coleman’s worldview is crucial not only for her and her teammates but for the future of our society.

Yesterday, I claimed that the only true remedy for our fractured and politicized nation is seeing each person through the eyes of God’s grace. When we view our fellow Americans not as political allies or enemies but as individuals whom our Father loves as much as he loves us, we are empowered to accept them as unconditionally as he does.

Brothers and sisters will disagree with each other, but in a healthy family they know they are equally loved by the same father. So it can be for us when Christians model the grace of Christ in our broken world.

Such a worldview, however, presupposes a view of the world that has been in decline for five centuries. Understanding and reversing this decline is crucial to our collective future.

How science “replaced” religion

I consider Carl Trueman to be the most brilliant historical analyst of culture in the Christian world today. You can find our reviews of his monumental recent works, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self and Strange New World, on our website. Now Trueman has published a remarkable essay in Public Discourse that demands our attention yet again.

In it, he explains the central thesis of Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, whose work on secularism has been so foundational in recent years. To summarize and simplify Trueman’s perceptive analysis: Western people before AD 1500 saw themselves as part of a unified spiritual/physical world. They believed that God made and makes all that is, from the universe to today’s sunrise to your next breath. It was therefore not possible to see oneself as separate from God’s holistic ongoing creation. Religious activities were not ends in themselves but expressions of the unifying reality that we are one with our Maker and his world.

Then came the crisis of the papacy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and the Reformation in the sixteenth, all of which undermined the central authority of the Church in the world. The printing press led to a rise in literacy and private reading. Economies changed from dependence on the land and seasons to privatized production and trade.

The result was a shift in what Taylor calls the “social imaginary,” which Trueman defines as “the set of beliefs and practices that reflect and reinforce the intuitions of a given culture or society.” In this new “social imaginary,” the “self” is viewed as internal and spiritual and the “world” as external and material. Modern science affirmed this view of the material world as secular rather than spiritual.

Consequently, religion moved from being the default intuition of members of society to being optional or even marginal to society. Science “replaced” religion, not by disproving its basic teachings but by aligning with our new understanding of the world and the way it works.

“If our brothers are oppressed, then we are oppressed”

So long as we separate Sunday from Monday and the spiritual from the secular, we isolate ourselves from God’s power to transform us into Christlike disciples (Romans 8:29) who love others as we are loved (John 13:34–35). We privatize our faith into subjective belief with no relevance beyond our inner selves. We should not be surprised when others dismiss the relevance of such a personal hobby.

But when we reject the social imaginary that secularized the material world, serving God with a “whole heart” (Isaiah 38:3) and viewing every moment as a gift and every person as sacred, we agree with Abraham Kuyper: “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”

And we embrace our calling to assault the gates of hell (Matthew 16:18) by taking the holistic good news of God’s love to every need we face and every eternal soul we touch. In the face of such a movement, the world cannot remain the same.

Today is Flag Day, commemorating the adoption of the American flag by the Continental Congress on this day in 1777. In his Flag Day address to the nation in 1942. President Franklin D. Roosevelt closed with a prayer I invite you to share with me today:

Grant us that simple knowledge
If our brothers are oppressed, then we are oppressed.
If they hunger, we hunger.
If their freedom is taken away, our freedom is not secure.
Grant us a common faith,
That man shall know bread and peace,
That he shall know justice and righteousness,
Freedom and security, an equal opportunity,
And an equal chance to do his best,
Not only in our own lands, but throughout the world.

Amen.

Denison Forum

Donald Trump arrived yesterday afternoon in Miami, where he spent the night. He will motorcade to the federal courthouse today, where he will be arraigned on thirty-seven felony counts to which he will plead not guilty. His supporters have already begun lining up at the courthouse; the city is preparing for five thousand to fifty thousand protesters.

Yesterday we noted the fraught nature of this moment in American history. To expand on its perilous significance for our democracy, consider two plausible scenarios.

“MAGA Republicans” and “socialist Democrats”

Outcome A: Mr. Trump is exonerated of the charges against him, but many of his opponents consider the verdict a miscarriage of justice. If he is reelected next year, they refuse to recognize the authority of the presidency, leading to unprecedented consequences for our democracy.

Outcome B: Mr. Trump is convicted of the charges against him, but many of his supporters consider the verdict a miscarriage of justice. If he is defeated next year, they refuse to recognize the authority of the presidency, leading to unprecedented consequences for our democracy.

When a significant number of citizens believe their government to be illegitimate, their democracy is imperiled. Such a government could then be forced to use force to compel its citizens’ obedience to its dictates. I have seen such autocracy at work during my many trips to Cuba over the years. We are watching the same story unfolding in China under Xi Jinping and in Russia under Vladimir Putin.

I am not predicting that America’s future lies in a similar direction, but I do believe that we are closer to a grave crisis of confidence in our leaders and institutions than at any time in many decades.

Consider this: a recent poll found that 69 percent of Democrats and 69 percent of Republicans say our democracy is “in danger of collapse.” Illustrating the danger, however, one side blames former President Trump and his “MAGA Republicans,” while the other side blames President Biden and his “socialist Democrats.”

“What religion without religion looks like”

When Adam blamed Eve for his sin, he objectified her as his moral inferior and a means to his ends. From then to today, one foundational characteristic of fallen human nature is our tendency to demean our fellow humans in the same way.

Philosophers refer to this as “Othering,” our propensity to “turn fellow humans into abstract entities we can distance ourselves from or treat as less-than-human.” Simone de Beauvoir noted that this tendency is basic to thinking: as soon as we think about something, we think about its opposite, the Other. But it is also central to our fallen “will to power”: once we identify people as the Other, it becomes easier to justify treating them in ways we would not treat our fellow humans.

Each time I visit Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, I am reminded of the horrific Othering of Jews by Nazis. The slave trade and the Rwandan genocide are other examples.

Now we are witnessing the Othering of Americans by Americans along political divides. Not only does each side see the other side as dangerous to society, they do so with a fervor that is religious in its zeal.

Shadi Hamid notes in The Atlantic: “As Christianity’s hold, in particular, has weakened, ideological intensity and fragmentation have risen. American faith, it turns out, is as fervent as ever; it’s just that what was once religious belief has now been channeled into political belief. Political debates over what America is supposed to mean have taken on the character of theological disputations. This is what religion without religion looks like” (his italics).

He adds: “Christianity was always intertwined with America’s self-definition. Without it, Americans—conservatives and liberals alike—no longer have a common culture upon which to fall back.”

“When the church is absolutely different from the world”

The solution to Othering is found in the Christian gospel, which Paul described as “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16, my emphasis). As Tim Keller explained, “The Christian gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me.” This means that no person—Democrat, Republican, or Independent—is fundamentally any worse or better than I am. No person is loved by God any less or more than I am.

Now it’s our turn to see others in the same way. Imagine the difference if America’s two hundred million Christians prayed daily for God’s Spirit to enable us to love others as Jesus loves us. Imagine the impact if we modeled unconditional love for others whatever our political differences. Imagine the difference if others saw the difference God’s love has made in our hearts as “we love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

Josh McDowell was right: “Whenever Jesus has been proclaimed, we see lives change for the good, nations change for the better, thieves become honest, alcoholics become sober, hateful individuals become channels of love, unjust persons embrace justice.” This is because, as Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones observed, “The glory of the gospel is that when the church is absolutely different from the world, she invariably attracts it.”

How “different from the world” will you be today?

Denison Forum

Former President Donald Trump is set to appear in a Miami courtroom tomorrow after a federal indictment unsealed Friday charged him with thirty-seven felony counts related to his handling of classified information.

Dean Phillips, a Democratic congressman from Minnesota, said of Mr. Trump and the charges against him: “Everyone is innocent until proven guilty, but we don’t need a judge or jury to determine if his destruction of decency and dangerous incompetence continues to stain America.” Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia of California added: “Donald Trump is a con man who damaged our institutions, turned us against each other, and who will finally be held accountable by the country he tried to destroy.”

By contrast, just 17 percent of Republicans in a recent poll thought Mr. Trump should be charged over how he handled classified documents; 75 percent said he should not be. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy called the indictment a “brazen weaponization of power,” and several other Republican leaders voiced similar protests. Some of Mr. Trump’s supporters even called for civil war, other acts of violence, and public executions of the “traitorous rats” behind the charges.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board called the Donald Trump indictment “a fraught moment for American democracy.” It explained: “For the first time in US history, the prosecutorial power of the federal government has been used against a former president who is also running against the sitting president.” The board predicts that the indictment “will roil the 2024 election and US politics for years to come.”

New York Times columnist Peter Baker likewise writes that the Donald Trump indictment “poses one of the gravest challenges to democracy the country has ever faced. It represents either a validation of the rule-of-law principle that even the most powerful face accountability for their actions or the moment when a vast swath of the public becomes convinced that the system has been irredeemably corrupted by partisanship.”

How have we come to this “fraught moment for American democracy”? What is the way forward?

Our “propensity to this dangerous vice”

James Madison wrote in 1787, “Among the numerous advantages promised by a well- constructed union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction” (The Federalist Papers No. 10). Madison, often called the “Father of the Constitution,” was deeply concerned about the threat of factions to America’s governance: “The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice.”

The Founders’ solution to this problem, as embodied in the US Constitution, was to create a republic in which the wishes of the majority and the rights of the minority are balanced. This balance, however, was predicated on a foundational commitment to objective truth and consensual morality.

George Washington was convinced that “truth will ultimately prevail where there are pains taken to bring it to light.” In a biography of Benjamin Franklin, Henry Stuber wrote, “A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins.”

As a result, according to Alexander Hamilton, “It seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force” (The Federalist Papers No. 1).

It is this “important question” that stands before us now.

A seminar in two paragraphs

For many years, I taught a doctoral seminar at Dallas Baptist University on the history of Western thought. To summarize that seminar in two paragraphs:

What we call Western civilization was founded by the Greeks and Romans on the belief that the world can be understood by human reason operating through objective principles of logic and investigation. The rule of law developed over time as the cultural foundation for a moral and stable society. While thinkers varied widely in their interpretive methods, they held in common the belief that truth is objective.

The postmodern revolution that began in the mid-twentieth century shook this foundation like an earthquake. Building on the work of Kant and Nietzsche, postmodern thinkers like Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Richard Rorty convinced us that since our subjective minds interpret our subjective sense experiences, all truth claims must be subjective. (This is, paradoxically, an objective truth claim.)

This insistence on subjective truth soon paved the way for subjective morality with the sexual revolution that has legitimized pornography, premarital and extramarital sex, same-sex sexual relations and marriage, and the larger spectrum of LGBTQ ideology. Now we are witnessing the damage this cultural earthquake is doing to our larger democracy and the political institutions upon which it stands.

“Where there is no law, there is no liberty”

Clearly, a large percentage of Americans have decided the guilt or innocence of Donald Trump not on the merits of the charges against him (which few have even read) but based on their preconceived opinions of him.

This reflects our larger loss of faith in the judiciary: only one-third of Americans have confidence in our courts. Nor do we trust the media to report this story fairly: only 16 percent of us have confidence in newspapers, and only 11 percent trust television news. Nor do we trust our elected officials to respond fairly: only 7 percent of us have confidence in Congress.

When all truth and moral claims are viewed as subjective impositions of personal opinions, there can be no objective laws. And, as Benjamin Rush noted, “Where there is no law, there is no liberty.”

Tomorrow we’ll explore biblical solutions for this cultural crisis. For today, I encourage you to pray David’s words with me: “Teach me your way, O Lᴏʀᴅ, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name” (Psalm 86:11). Now pray them for our nation: “Teach us your way, O Lᴏʀᴅ, that we may walk in your truth; unite our hearts to fear your name.”

In accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. proclaimed, “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.”

Do you agree?

Denison Forum

Influential minister, broadcaster, and politician Pat Robertson passed away Thursday at the age of ninety-three. As of this writing, no cause of death has been given, but he is survived by his four children, fourteen grandchildren, and twenty-four great-grandchildren.

Robertson is best known for his roles on The 700 Club and his political involvement, which continues to shape the relationship between evangelical Christians and the Republican party.  In his later years, Robertson tried to focus more on the gospel than other issues, telling Fox News in 2021 that “God is not a Republican” and that he felt led to focus on “eternal matters and not secular politics” at that point in his life. However, politics remain an important part of his legacy.

Given his family history, though, perhaps that should not come as a surprise.

How Pat Robertson’s life led to The 700 Club

Pat Robertson was born on March 22, 1930, and his given name was Marion Gordon Robertson—the moniker of “Pat” came from his brother. His father served in Congress for thirty-six years as a representative from Virginia in the House and Senate while, on his mother’s side, he was related to both William Henry Harrison and Benjamin Harrison, respectively the ninth and twenty-third presidents of the United States.

Robertson went to military school as a child and served with the Marines in the Korean War, though he never saw combat, with some speculating that his father’s influence ensured that he never got too close to the fighting. After the military, he attended Yale Law School, where he did well but failed to pass the bar exam after graduation. While there, though, he met his eventual wife, Dede, who was a nursing student at the time.

Pat spent much of the early years of their marriage in clubs and gambling until an encounter with a traveling evangelist led him to Christ. Shortly thereafter, he went to seminary and graduated with a Master of Divinity in 1959.

While living in a rundown parsonage next to a brothel, Robertson purchased an old, off-air UHF television station in Portsmouth, Virginia, and moved his family there in order to start the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). Their first show aired on October 1, 1961, as WYAH-TV, an homage to the name of Yahweh. However, the station took off when, five years later, he started The 700 Club.

Over the following decades, both the show and the station rose in prominence, and the influence of Robertson—who served as The 700 Club‘s primary host—rose along with it.

“The most influential figure in American politics” in the 1990s

By the 1970s, Robertson was interviewing global figures like Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, as well as future presidents like Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. That pivot into the political sphere would intensify when Reagan became president and culminated in Robertson making a run at the Republican nomination in the 1988 election.

While most discounted his chances in that race, he finished second in the Iowa caucuses, ahead of then vice president and eventual nominee George H. W. Bush.

Bush eventually pulled ahead and secured both the nomination and the presidency. However, the experience gave Robertson the legitimacy and clout to secure the Christian Coalition, which he started in 1987 to support his campaign, and which gave him a prominent seat at the table of Republican politics throughout the 1990s and beyond. As William Martin said of Robertson’s campaign, “Christians really became mobilized. They had a cause now, they had a champion who was speaking to their pain, speaking to their hearts and was willing to speak out loud.”

That influence reached its peak in 1994 when “it helped to elect the first Republican Congress in decades,” and did so with “a budget of around $25 million and a membership of four million or more.” By the time Robertson stepped down as the Coalition’s leader in 2001, a case could be made that he was “the most influential figure in American politics in the past decade.”

After leaving the Coalition, he continued his work with CBN before entrusting its management to his son, Gordon, in 2007. He remained the primary host of The 700 Club until 2021 when, as part of CBN’s sixtieth-anniversary celebration, he announced that he would turn that responsibility over to Gordon as well. But despite the reduced involvement, Pat continued to be a prominent guest on the program throughout his final years.

When legacies have controversies

Pat Robertson’s influence on the development of evangelical Christianity in America and its relationship to politics is undeniable. However, that influence did not come without controversy. And that controversy points to an important lesson we would all do well to remember today.

Anyone who spends the better part of sixty years as the host of a daily television program is going to say some things that are wrong. Robertson was no exception.

Among the most egregious was his agreement with Jerry Falwell’s statements that 9/11 happened, at least in part, because Americans had grown more accepting of homosexuality, abortion, and a host of other unbiblical positions. Blaming the earthquake that devastated much of Haiti in 2010 on a pact previous generations made with the devil and promising that “God himself” would intervene to keep former President Trump in office following the 2020 election are other examples of false and defamatory claims about God and his purposes.

There were more instances as well. And, while Robertson often walked those statements back in the aftermath, spoken words can never be fully retracted. Those controversies are as much a part of his legacy as the people he helped and the ministries he started. They do not, however, define that legacy.

And the same is true for us as well.

It can be tempting, at times, to compound our mistakes by giving them too much weight and allowing them to diminish the effectiveness of our lives for God’s purposes. That’s not to minimize the consequences of our faults or excuse the severity of sin, but we sin again when we allow guilt over past mistakes to keep us from fully experiencing God’s redemption when it takes place.

So repent when you know you’ve acted or spoken in error, but don’t allow regrets or sins of the past to determine what God can do with your present and future.

He sees more in you than your worst moments and wants to help you do the same.

Will you let him?

Denison Forum

Whether it’s the Great Commission or Christ’s final command prior to his ascension to heaven, Scripture makes clear that our fundamental job as Christians is to help people in every culture know Jesus and follow his word.

Far too often, however, we make the mistake of underestimating how creative God can be in accomplishing that task.

Take, for example, the work of the Bible translation ministry unfoldingWord and their partnership with the Church Growth Project of Chad (Projet Croissance des Eglises au Tchad, or PCET).

Muslim Bible translators are converting to Christianity

The work of the two groups in Chad is unique in that the majority of their translators are Muslim.

Perhaps that should not come as a surprise considering the majority of the population there is Muslim, but they did not necessarily start out with that goal in mind. Rather, their model relies on hiring locals to take on the work of translating Bible stories into their native tongue instead of training outsiders to accomplish the same task. As a result, when they put out the advertisement asking for workers, most of those who responded just happened to be non-Christians.

However, as Rachel Pfeiffer describes, they “noticed that Muslims quickly latched on to the projects for reasons beyond the financial incentive. PCET and unfoldingWord were clear that the materials for translation would be Christian, but Muslim participants saw some of the stories, such as those about Abraham, as part of their religion, too.”

It turns out that many of the same villages and people groups that lacked Christian resources in their native dialect lacked a Qur’an that they could read as well. As such, these stories resonated in a way that went beyond their theological differences.

As Eric Steggerda, field operations manager for unfoldingWord, described, “Many of these languages are struggling for importance in the world, as it were. There’s not much that’s actually in their mother tongue, so they rejoice when they find things that are, because it really speaks to them of the importance of their language . . . . They’re very receptive to the idea of the Bible stories, for example, translated into their mother tongue.”

Along the way, PCET brought in pastors to help ensure that each group’s translations were accurate and free of theological errors, but it was rare for the difference in religion to be an issue. And the work has already begun to bear fruit in amazing ways.

At least two of the Muslim translators converted to Christianity over the course of their work, and many of the imams in the area have been surprisingly open to engaging with the groups in reading the stories to their villages once they’re completed. As a result, the faith has grown, and, as one Chadian leader described, people have come to see that Christianity is not just “a Western product. When they can listen to [the] Word of God in their own language, that changes the narrative.”

However, remote villages in Chad are not the only ways in which God is working to change the narrative about his word.

The Visual Commentary on Scripture

Many of history’s greatest artists have chosen religious themes and stories as the inspiration for their work. However, as the culture grows increasingly secular, the biblical understanding necessary to fully appreciate those works is often lacking. Ben Quash, the chair in Christianity and the Arts at King’s College London, hopes to change that.

To that end, he established the Visual Commentary on Scripture, an open-access online resource that relies on historians and theologians to choose three works of art from any time period to illustrate parts of the Bible.

As Anna Somers Cocks describes, the project invites people to “write a short art-historical commentary on each work and then a longer comparative text discussing their relationship to the biblical passage.” She goes on to note that “many of the art historians who have contributed to the VCS are new to theology, which does not mean expressing subjective religious feelings, but rather using the Bible to provide a scholarly interpretation of the art.”

The result is “an imaginative exercise in reading the Bible as religious people read it and also seeing how art can make the texts and questions of faith come alive again without your needing to be religious,” Quash says. He adds that “what I find most encouraging is that the more progressive and adventurous curators are up for engaging with religion, while the ones who think that it’s terrible or dangerous are the ones who are stuck in the mud.”

So far, the VCS has entries for roughly one-third of the Bible and hopes to finish the rest in the next five years.

Until then, it will continue to open doors and minds to the truth of God’s word, often among those who would never think to open a Bible.

How will you translate the Bible today?

When we talk about segments of the population not having a Bible in their language, our thoughts usually gravitate toward remote villages and local dialects. However, language is about more than just the words that are spoken. Ultimately, translating the Bible is about making God’s word relatable in a way that fosters understanding and encourages people to explore a closer walk with him.

And while there is something unique about the way God communicates through his word, our lives are meant to preach the gospel message as well.

Jesus promised that people would know we are his disciples when they saw his love lived out in us (John 13:35). The religious leaders recognized that Peter and John had been with Jesus because of the passion and power with which they shared the gospel. And the church in Antioch represented the Lord so well that the lost around them came to call them “Christians,” which can be translated as “little Christs” (Acts 11:26).

Every one of us is called to translate the Bible to the people we meet by spending each day as a living embodiment of its message. But what that looks like in your life may be vastly different than what it looks like in mine or anyone else’s.

Ultimately, God is the only One who gets to make that call.

Just don’t be surprised if he does so in a more creative way than you might expect.

Denison Forum

Early Tuesday morning, a significant portion of the Nova Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric power station along the Dnieper River in Ukraine was destroyed. The reservoir it previously restrained held roughly 18 million cubic meters of water, most of which has now spilled over the remaining walls and flooded much of the area between what’s left of the dam and the city of Kherson, less than fifty miles away. As many as one hundred towns and villages downstream from the dam have either already flooded or are in danger of that fate.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called it “the largest man-made environmental disaster in Europe in decades.” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres echoed those thoughts, describing the dam’s breach as a “monumental humanitarian, economic and ecological catastrophe,” adding that it represented “another devastating consequence of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.”

But while we cannot know the full extent of that devastation until the waters recede over the next five to seven days, the damage wrought by the flood could be felt for years to come.

Far-reaching consequences from the destroyed Nova Kakhovka dam

One of the greatest fears, initially, was that the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant upriver from the dam could experience a meltdown since it relied heavily upon the now-depleted reservoir to cool its reactors. It would appear that, at least for a few months, they have sufficient supplies of water in reserve to operate safely, but officials have noted that bringing in water from the outside could be necessary eventually.

The more pressing fear is that the lands along the river will be unusable for quite some time. The reservoir was responsible for irrigating much of Ukraine’s most fertile farmland, and any land that survived the flood could be difficult to rely upon without the reservoir’s reserves.

Considering that, prior to the war, Ukraine provided roughly 16 percent of the world’s corn exports and supplied 40 percent of the grain used by the World Food Program to help feed some of the most impoverished and malnourished people on the planet, the loss of that arable land will be felt around the globe. The rise in wheat prices—up 3 percent in the hours following the dam’s collapse—offers another reminder that we will all feel that impact to some extent.

However, the reservoir was also the primary source of water for Crimea, the region that has been under Russian occupation since 2014.

Given that most experts have blamed Russia for the attack—though the cause is still uncertain as of this writing—many have wondered why the Kremlin would cripple the portion of Ukraine that is of greatest concern to most Russian citizens.

However, Russia is prepared to ensure that the region still gets its water. The difference is that now it will be forced to rely largely on water pumped across the Kerch bridge from the Russian mainland. Consequently, even if Ukraine manages to retake the area, it will be difficult to sever ties with Russia completely.

Did Russia destroy the Nova Kakhovka dam?

Ultimately, most have laid the blame for the dam’s collapse at the feet of the Kremlin.

Last year, Zelensky claimed that the Russians had placed mines on the dam and warned that “there may come a moment when an explosion occurs.” Considering that the invading armies have been in control of the dam and its power plant from the opening days of the war, they would have had ample opportunity to prepare it for sabotage in the event that such an extreme step was deemed helpful to their cause.

However, Ukraine had also carried out test strikes on the dam last year to see if it would be possible to raise the river’s waters enough “to stymie Russian crossings but not flood nearby villages.” The tactic was held as a “last resort,” though, and the circumstances of the war have changed enough in the time since that it would make little strategic sense for Ukraine to have attacked the dam. The rising waters and muddy landscape the floods will leave behind are likely to prove to be a great impediment to their attempts at a counteroffensive.

Russia is most likely to blame for the dam’s collapse, either through outright attack or negligence over the last year. The destruction of the dam was not the only attack on civilian infrastructure to make headlines yesterday, though.

The Ukranian plot to sabotage the Nord Stream pipeline

News also broke on Tuesday that the CIA learned last June of a Ukrainian plan to sabotage the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline that linked Russia to Germany. The Kremlin was initially held responsible by most Western powers, including the United States, but that belief shifted as the investigation pointed in other directions. And while Ukraine has denied any responsibility for the attack last September, the details in the leaked report align so closely with how the attack took place that it has become increasingly difficult to believe anyone else could have been behind it.

The intelligence report claims that Ukraine’s highest-ranking military officer, General Valery Zaluzhny, was given command of the attack so that President Zelensky would have plausible deniability in its aftermath. As such, his comments that the destruction of the pipelines was “a terrorist attack planned by Russia and an act of aggression toward [the European Union]” look both manipulative and damning in retrospect.

The increasing odds that Ukraine was behind that attack do not change the likelihood that Russia was responsible for what took place at the Nova Kakhovka dam, but it does remind us of an important principle to keep in mind when evaluating both the war in Ukraine and complex situations in other realms of life.

A warning against dichotomous thinking

It is human nature to prefer a simple explanation—even when it’s wrong—to a more complex one. As a result, it can be easy to ignore inconvenient truths when they muddy the waters of how we would prefer to see a given situation.

With the war in Ukraine, it is simpler to see Ukrainians as valiant heroes, fighting in defense of their homeland and Russians as the evil invaders bent on destruction. To be sure, there is a good bit of validity to both characterizations.

However, neither side is without fault in this war, and it’s vital that we don’t lose sight of the gray areas in which the truth often resides just because the world seems simpler in black and white.

And that perspective is equally important in other areas of our lives as well.

Take politics, for example. Our country and our culture would be so much healthier if people were willing to see beyond the labels and put in the work to truly understand those who think differently. In the same way, how much healthier would our churches be if we did the same there? How about our families or workplace?

Ultimately, we will be far better witnesses to the One who is the truth (John 14:6) if we are willing to embrace a more nuanced and correct view of the world around us instead of clinging to the simple stereotypes that can so quickly lead us into error.

Where do you need to put in that work today?

Denison Forum

I remember my visit to Beijing’s massive Tiananmen Square some years ago as if it were yesterday. The area is named for a gate in the wall of the Imperial City built in 1417; the square was built in 1651 and enlarged fourfold in the 1950s. It is intended to impress visitors with its size (it measures more than fifty-three acres) and thus with the grandeur and power of the Chinese ruling dynasty.

Its political purpose was tested as never before, however, when nearly a million protesters crowded into central Beijing in May 1989 to call for greater democracy. Yesterday marked the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, the day when Chinese troops and security police stormed through the square, firing into the crowds. Perhaps thousands were killed; as many as ten thousand were arrested.

What kind of government fires on its own citizens?

The kind that violated maritime laws in the Taiwan Strait two days ago in what US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called an act of “coercion and bullying.” The incident marked the second major provocation by China’s military in the span of a week.

The kind that props up North Korea as it continues to develop nuclear warheads that, according to its latest claims, could be capable of striking South Korea and Japan. The kind that supports Russia’s immoral war in Ukraine with economic aid and military technology. And the kind that serves as Iran’s largest trade partner as the latter moves closer to obtaining nuclear weapons than ever before.

“You are not destined to live in quiet times”

Imagine a future in which three nuclear-armed powers (along with a fourth if Iran fulfills its nuclear ambitions) are aligned against the West. Add the warning last week from technology experts that artificial intelligence could lead to the extinction of humanity. And the partisan political divisions that are deeper and more vitriolic than they have been in decades.

The fact is, as Walter Russell Mead recently noted, “You are not destined to live in quiet times.”

Mead is the Global View Columnist at The Wall Street Journal, a Strategy and Statesmanship fellow at Hudson Institute, and a foreign affairs and humanities professor at Bard College. In my view, he is one of the most perceptive geopolitical analysts working today.

One factor he identifies in “making sense of our times” is the widening gap between technological advances and cultural values. Mead writes: “Our political parties and institutions took shape long before the internet and social media existed. Our government bureaucracies, our schools, and our legal system were all built for conditions that no longer exist. . . . Many of our political ideas and ideological assumptions also reflect the conditions of an earlier era.

“If society’s operating system is running on the equivalent of a long-outdated version of Windows, that makes real reform difficult to imagine, and harder still to carry out.”

Mead concludes: “While the ever-accelerating and ascending wave of human progress has brought us to peaks of achievement and affluence that our ancestors could scarcely imagine, it has both failed to keep us safe from the most dangerous predators of all and—to the degree that the rate of progress has become a major force of destabilization—progress itself may now be the greatest source of danger humans face.”

A culture at a crossroads

As China’s autocratic dictatorship widens its influence and enforces its will on more and more of the world, we are seeing Mead’s thesis in action. A government bereft of biblical or even objective morality, one that exists solely to protect its leaders and advance its national interests even at the expense of its own citizens, shows us what happens when technological progress outstrips moral boundaries.

As America moves further and further from biblical morality and objective truth, we are illustrating the same warning culturally and spiritually: “Progress itself may now be the greatest source of danger humans face.”

Our “progress” with human sexuality is destroying families through adultery, damaging minds through pornography, and deceiving generations of impressionable children and teens through LGBTQ ideology. Our “progress” with artificial intelligence is, in the view of many experts, threatening our future as a civilization. Our “progress” with information technology is enabling us to consume only the political perspectives with which we agree while demonizing our political opponents.

At such a crossroads, you and I hold the only hope for a flourishing and redemptive future.

The choice that defines our future

Perhaps Tim Keller’s most famous quote was his observation, “The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.”

I invite you to embrace and proclaim the two biblical facts Dr. Keller noted.

One: Humans are so “sinful and flawed” that we have no assurance of a better future of our own making. Left to our own devices, we invent nuclear technology that powers cities but also destroys them. We create innovations that improve our lives immeasurably but also threaten our survival as a species. And, whatever our particular experiences with these realities, we will all die one day (if the Lord tarries) and face eternity.

Two: Humans are so “loved and accepted in Jesus Christ” that, when we put our hope in him, he is “able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us” (Ephesians 3:20). When we make Christ the king of our lives and encourage everyone we know to do the same, our future is as bright as his omnipotent love.

Our choice between these two realities defines our future as a nation and as individuals.

Choose wisely today.

Denison Forum

Chick-fil-A made news again this week—complete with calls to boycott the fast-food chain—in response to ire over the company’s stance on diversity, equity, and inclusivity (DEI). Of course, Chick-fil-A is no stranger to such controversy, but this time it came from those who have typically been on the other side of the outrage.

The company’s DEI policy garnered attention on Twitter and quickly went viral from those who assumed that it pushes similar “woke” policies to those often denounced by conservatives. Erick McReynolds, the company’s vice president of DEI, was a focal point of the controversy, though more for the existence of his position than for anything he said or did.

Calls for Chick-fil-A boycott due to DEI policy

McReynolds has previously stated that DEI is crucial to the company’s purpose, noting that “Chick-fil-A restaurants have long been recognized as a place where people know they will be treated well. Modeling care for others starts in the restaurant, and we are committed to ensuring mutual respect, understanding and dignity everywhere we do business.”

What’s most peculiar about the recent outrage, however, is that there is nothing new about Chick-fil-A’s stance. Their DEI policies date back to 2020 and do little more than formalize their long-held position that they do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, sexuality, physical condition, or a host of other descriptors.

That approach is good for business, good for the gospel, and also what every company is required by law to do when it comes to hiring staff and serving customers.

Still, given the degree to which people on both sides of the “woke” agenda have their antennas raised this time of year, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that it would not take much to make conservatives fear the worst with regards to what has been lovingly described as “God’s chicken,” particularly when a more legitimate concern has been raised with another fan-favorite in recent days.

Controversy on The Chosen set

When the producers of The Chosen recently released a promo for season four, they likely expected that it would generate buzz for the show. But though the video has certainly done that, it’s perhaps not the kind of attention for which they’d hoped.

A small rainbow flag appears in the background of the set for roughly four seconds, and while it’s barely visible unless you’re looking for it, it did not escape public notice for long.

Conservative commentator Jon Root then tweeted a screenshot of the flag to The Chosen‘s official account, asking, “Can you explain why there’s a Pride flag on set?”

In response, the show stated that “just like with our hundreds of cast and crew who have different beliefs (or no beliefs at all) than we do, we will work with anyone on our show who helps us portray or honor the authentic Jesus. We ask that audiences let the show speak for itself and focus on the message, not the messenger, because we’ll always let you down.”

Given the ensuing controversy, it seems clear that many of the show’s fans did indeed feel let down.

In the days since, the show’s creator and director, Dallas Jenkins, has doubled down on the response, stating, “We’ve made no secret our cast and crew come from all different beliefs and backgrounds. I don’t believe personal workspaces on set are relevant to the content of The Chosen, but if someone wants to stop watching a free show because of it, it’s their right.”

While Jenkins has been consistent in that approach from the beginning, and labor laws would prevent him from doing otherwise even if he wanted to, calls to boycott the show have become an increasingly popular refrain among a segment of those who used to be among its greatest supporters.

Jenkins is correct that people have the right to stop watching because of the pride flag’s brief appearance and, more particularly, the defense of its presence by the show’s cast and crew. But should they? Is boycotting a show that has, by all accounts, done an excellent job of introducing people to Jesus in a way that is both authentic and compelling really the best response to the present controversy?

I’m not so sure.

If you’re considering boycotting

My purpose today is not to tell you whether or not it is appropriate to boycott The Chosen, Chick-fil-A, or any other institution with whom you might have a grievance, even if that grievance is legitimate.

Rather, it’s to encourage you to let God be part of that decision.

In today’s culture, both Christians and non-Christians alike tend to confuse emotional responses for reasonable ones. Perhaps that was inevitable given the growing emphasis on the legitimacy of personal truth over objective truth, but it doesn’t make the resulting decisions any less harmful.

Even when we can find a biblical basis for our choices, we should not take for granted that the resulting decision is automatically correct. After all, one of Satan’s favorite strategies—even when confronting the Son of God (Luke 4:1–13)—is to twist God’s word to justify actions that go against God’s will.

If you saw the pride flag on the set of The Chosen and your immediate response was a mixture of disappointment and anger, that’s understandable. But just because those initial emotions were justifiable in that case does not automatically mean they form a solid foundation for how we should respond.

So the next time you are tempted to condemn a business, person, or organization for taking a position that goes against biblical truth, commit to spending at least as much time praying about how to respond as you are willing to spend actually responding.

Ultimately, Satan doesn’t care if you take the right position on an issue so long as you do so in the wrong way. That’s why we need God’s help not only in discerning the truth but also in knowing how to stand up for it.

Will you ask for his help today?

Denison Forum

America is the kind of nation where a girl born in the Galveston County Jail can grow up to graduate from high school at the top of her class and attend Harvard University this fall. Our nation’s founding belief that “all men are created equal” was truly revolutionary in a world dominated by kings, despots, and class-driven societies.

Now, however, this declaration is facing a threat unprecedented in American history. This threat is represented by Pride Month as it begins today, but it is more foundational than meets the eye. To love our Lord and our neighbor well, it is vital that we understand this threat and respond in the most redemptive, positive way possible.

“Indulging anti-Catholic sentiment is an elite pastime”

This story caught my eye recently: “People in a throuple, or a relationship between three people, have gained major followings on TikTok. The hashtag #throuple currently has over 869 million cumulative views on the app.”

Columnist Jonathan Tobin is right: the legalization of polygamy was always the logical consequence of Obergefell’s legalization of same-sex marriage. He asks: “If marriage is possible between any two individuals, then why not three, four, or any number of consenting adults, regardless of their sex?”

As Pride Month celebrates LGBTQ individuals, some of its proponents have generated headlines for lambasting those who disagree. Gerard Baker, editor at large for the Wall Street Journal, cites the Los Angeles Dodgers’ about-face in including the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence in their Pride Night festivities. As Baker notes, the group is “most visible for their performative acts—frequently involving lewd depictions of sacred Catholic rituals that crudely lampoon the church’s precepts on homosexuality and transgenderism.”

His article documents other examples illustrating the fact that “indulging anti-Catholic sentiment is an elite pastime.” He also notes that if the Dodgers had “invited an anti-trans or pro-life group to receive plaudits at a game,” the cultural response would have been far different.

Gallup reports that 7.2 percent of Americans identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or something other than straight or heterosexual. Why is there an entire month dedicated to normalizing and legalizing the ideology and behavior of such a small minority while stigmatizing and criminalizing those who disagree? Why are groups who ridicule biblical morality elevated by popular culture and those who support it are denigrated?

“I try to please everyone in everything I do”

Critical Theory (CT) claims that our nation was created by a privileged class to protect their privileged status. In this view, minority groups, whether they are defined by race, gender identity, or sexual orientation, have been systematically underprivileged in our society as a result. Now, to undo the wrongs of our history and create a truly equitable nation, CT proponents argue that minority groups must be privileged over majority groups.

This Marxist ideology results in “woke” companies, schools, media organizations, and political leaders who believe their corporate mission is to champion minorities while persuading the rest of society to join their advocacy. As I note in The Coming Tsunami, this mission views anyone who supports biblical morality as dangerous to society.

The anti-Catholic bias Gerard Baker documents is but one symptom of this narrative. We can expect many more as Pride Month continues.

One response is to withdraw from our broken society into a Christian sub-culture. But this keeps our salt in the saltshaker and our light under a basket (cf. Matthew 5:13–16). The opposite response is to “fight fire with fire,” mimicking our critics’ militantism as culture warriors for biblical truth. But as I noted Tuesday, “such antagonism hurts those we are called to help and reinforces the narrative of ‘hate speech’ so often associated with evangelical biblical morality.”

A third way is to counter opposition to biblical truth by proclaiming biblical truth as lovingly, graciously, and attractively as possible. Paul set the standard: “Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved” (1 Corinthians 10:32–33).

How can we follow his example this month?

What is Fidelity Month?

In his Breakpoint article yesterday, Colson Center President John Stonestreet highlights a remarkable initiative by Princeton professor Robert George. John describes Dr. George as “perhaps the leading Christian legal thinker of our lifetime.” He is a brilliant cultural analyst and stalwart follower of Jesus.

Dr. George is responding to Pride Month by announcing what he is calling Fidelity Month. This initiative will launch today with a Fidelity Month webinar open to the public at 2 p.m. EST. The group’s purpose is “to establish June as national ‘Fidelity Month’—a month dedicated to the importance of fidelity to God, spouses and families, our country, and our communities.”

Dr. George adds: “All who are interested in achieving this goal with the ultimate aim of helping to restore Americans’ belief in the importance of such values as patriotism, religion, family, and community—the values that used to unite Americans despite our many differences—are invited to join.”

Whether you formally join this group or not, let’s covenant to make June “Fidelity Month” with our Lord and our neighbors. When we see Pride Month ads and events, let’s intercede for those who created them and those who are influenced by them. Let’s look for redemptive ways to explain God’s word and will regarding sexual orientation and gender identity.

And let’s ask God to help us love everyone he loves in ways that demonstrate his compassionate grace. Billy Graham noted: “The most important thing we can do is to show by our life and love that Jesus is real. Our actions often speak far louder than our words.”

Then he asked the question I’d like us to ponder today: “Do others see Christ in you, both by what you say and by what you do?”

Denison Forum

Clayton Kershaw has long been one of my favorite athletes. It was my privilege to interview him a few years ago as part of a fundraising event for a ministry we both support. He and his wife Ellen are two of the most godly, sincere, and kingdom-centered people you will ever meet. In addition, the longtime Los Angeles Dodger is a certain first-ballot Hall of Famer widely considered one of the greatest pitchers of all time.

Now he is in the news for a reason that is relevant if you follow Jesus, whether you follow baseball or not.

Clayton Kershaw’s statement and “the platform that Jesus has given us”

A few weeks ago, the Dodgers disinvited an LGBTQ charity called the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence from their annual Pride Night Celebration. The advocacy group calls itself an “order of queer and trans nuns”; their motto is “go and sin some more.” Their Easter ceremony last month included “children’s programming followed by a drag show where adult performers dress[ed] in blasphemous imitation of Jesus and Mary.” They have also hosted “pub crawls mocking the Stations of the Cross and even the Eucharist.”

After an outcry from other LGBTQ advocacy groups, the Dodgers reversed their stance and reinvited the group. Clayton Kershaw disagreed with the decision and made a statement: “I don’t agree with making fun of other people’s religions,” he explained. “I just don’t think that, no matter what religion you are, you should make fun of somebody else’s religion.”

But rather than protesting the reversal, he approached the team about relaunching the club’s Christian Faith and Family Day. “I think we were always going to do Christian Faith Day this year, but I think the timing of our announcement was sped up,” he said.

Speaking for himself and his wife, he added: “For us, we felt like the best thing to do in response was, instead of maybe making a statement condemning or anything like that, would be just to instead try to show what we do support, as opposed to maybe what we don’t. And that was Jesus. So to make Christian Faith Day our response is what we felt like was the best decision.”

Speaking of Christian Faith Day, Clayton Kershaw noted in his statement, “It’s our opportunity to be able to kind of share our testimony of what we believe in and why we believe in it, and how that affects our performance on the field.” He added, “It’s a great opportunity to see the platform that Jesus has given us and how to use that for his glory and not ours.”

“The goal of the Christian life”

Yesterday we discussed ways to use our resources and influence in voicing our disagreement with unbiblical immorality. Today let’s consider the positive side of this cultural coin. As Clayton Kershaw said in his statement, we can “show what we do support, as opposed to maybe what we don’t. And that was Jesus.”

However, to lead those we influence to Jesus, they need to see Jesus in us.

Dr. Duane Brooks, the longtime senior pastor of Tallowood Baptist Church in Houston and a dear friend, wrote in a recent daily devotional: “The goal of the Christian life is to become like Jesus. We know we live in him as we begin to live as Jesus did.”

C. S. Lewis agreed, noting in Mere Christianity: “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. It is even doubtful, you know, whether the whole universe was created for any other purpose.”

Dr. Brooks added: “If [Jesus] has justified you, he wants to sanctify you. We are free from sin’s penalty. Through the Holy Spirit we are being set free from sin’s power. Someday, we will be free from sin’s presence. And all of this through Jesus.”

Three practical steps

Your goal and mine each day should be to be more like Jesus today than we were yesterday. How can this goal become a reality for us?

First, admit that we cannot become like Christ without the help of Christ.

Charles Spurgeon advised, “A little child, while learning to walk, always needs the [parent’s] aid. The ship left by the pilot drifts at once from her course. We cannot do without continued aid from above.” But this is hard for us to admit, which is why we must heed Spurgeon’s warning: “Those who think themselves secure are more exposed to danger than any others. The armor-bearer of sin is self-confidence.”

Second, ask the Holy Spirit every day to take control of our minds and lives (Ephesians 5:18) so we can be “conformed to the image of [God’s] Son” (Romans 8:29).

Tim Keller noted: “The gospel is that Jesus Christ came to earth, lived the life we should have lived and died the death we should have died.” Now the Holy Spirit will reproduce in us the “life we should have lived” as he continues the earthly ministry of Christ through the “body of Christ” (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:27).

Third, partner with the Spirit to manifest Christlikeness to the world.

William Booth counseled us to “work as if everything depended upon work and pray as if everything depended upon prayer.” He explained: “Faith and works should travel side by side, step answering to step, like the legs of men walking. First faith, and then works, and then faith again, and then works again—until they can scarcely distinguish which is the one and which is the other.”

Without God “all things are permitted”

Let’s imagine a world where Christians are more like Christ than we are like the culture. Then let’s do all we can to create that world.

Paul observed that with God, all things are possible (Philippians 4:13). Fyodor Dostoyevsky, by contrast, noted that without God “all things are permitted.”

Which of these realities will you manifest today?

Denison Forum

Target recently lost $10 billion in market valuation over ten days as its Pride-themed clothing line for children provoked a massive backlash. Nonetheless, CEO Brian Cornell has defended his company’s LGBTQ advocacy: “It’s helping us drive sales, it’s building greater engagement with both our teams and our guests, and those are just the right things for our business today.”

Target is not the only retailer making such headlines: Kohl’s is now selling Pride clothing for three-month-olds. The retailer is also marketing a children’s shirt with the words, “Ask me my pronouns.” Critics are calling for shoppers to boycott the retailer.

As Pride month begins this Thursday, these stories raise an important question: Should Christians boycott “woke” companies?

Are we to be culture warriors?

We can begin by identifying what not to do.

Target reports that since introducing this year’s Pride collection, “we’ve experienced threats impacting our team members’ sense of safety and well-being while at work.” The retailer is therefore “removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior.” Clearly, any threat to stores, employees, or others violates the biblical command to love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:39).

Demeaning people, whatever their sexual orientation, gender identity, or support for “woke” policies, likewise violates the biblical command to relate to others “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love” (Ephesians 4:2). We are not permitted to say about someone what we would not first say to them (cf. Matthew 18:15). We are to “put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander” (1 Peter 2:1).

In short, we are not to be culture warriors doing battle with those with whom we disagree. Such antagonism hurts those we are called to help and reinforces the narrative of “hate speech” so often associated with evangelical biblical morality.

When I served as a college missionary in East Malaysia, those I sought to reach were not my enemies. To the contrary, they were people for whom Jesus died who deserved to know the One I knew. I was simply a beggar helping other beggars find bread.

In the same way, in cultural conflicts, our opponents are not our enemies. Satan is the enemy; those who reject biblical truth are his victims: “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4). Consequently, “the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).

This is why “speaking the truth in love” should be our daily aspiration and mantra (Ephesians 4:15). Rather than fighting our opponents as cultural warriors, we should love them as cultural missionaries sharing God’s word and grace in the place and time he has assigned to us.

Voting with our dollars

In The World: A Family History of Humanity, Simon Sebag Montefiore observed, “History is made by the interplay of ideas, institutions, and geopolitics. When they come together in felicitous conjunction, great changes happen.” Note the order: ideas change institutions, which change geopolitics, which change the world. John F. Kennedy was right: “A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.”

To win the battle for minds in the context of “woke” capitalism, we must stay so close to Jesus that his Spirit can guide us and speak to and through us (cf. Matthew 10:20). Charles Spurgeon observed: “The first thing for our soul’s health, the first thing for his glory, and the first thing for our own usefulness, is to keep ourselves in perpetual communion with the Lord Jesus, and to see that the vital spirituality of our religion is maintained over and above everything else in the world.”

Then, as Jesus leads us, we are to use our possessions in ways that honor him and support biblical morality (cf. Colossians 3:23). In a democracy, we vote with our ballots. In a capitalistic economy, we vote with our dollars.

Target’s CEO was clear: his company’s LGBTQ advocacy has been “helping us drive sales,” at least until recently. The bottom line with for-profit companies is profits. Supporting companies that advocate unbiblical immorality will only encourage such advocacy. Supporting businesses that stand for biblical truth, such as campaigns to support Chick-fil-A after its CEO affirmed biblical marriage, sends similar signals in a positive way.

“The chief danger that confronts the coming century”

I am not writing today to support any particular boycotts or other economic actions against any particular companies. I will leave such decisions to you as the Spirit leads you. But I am advocating a biblical worldview that includes our use of personal finances as we declare and defend biblical morality (2 Timothy 4:2; 1 Peter 3:15–16).

This is one way we join God at work in our broken world. The stakes could not be higher.

William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, died in 1912. Consider his prophetic prediction for the twentieth century: “The chief danger that confronts the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, heaven without hell.” Has his warning come to pass?

Lest discouragement win the day, let’s close with Edward Everett Hale’s injunction: “I am only one, but I am one. I can’t do everything, but I can do something. The something I ought to do, I can do. And by the grace of God, I will.”

What is the “something” you “ought to do” today?

Denison Forum

President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) announced last night that they have reached an agreement to raise the nation’s borrowing limit. Congressional votes on the deal could come as early as Wednesday in the House, but critics on both sides are already lambasting it. In the midst of our bitterly divisive partisan environment, it’s worth remembering on this Memorial Day the true purpose of government and the heroes who paid the ultimate price to fulfill that purpose.

“We don’t know them all, but we owe them all”

In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis wrote: “It is easy to think the State has a lot of different objects—military, political, economic, and what not. But in a way things are much simpler than that. The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life.

“A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging in his own garden—that is what the State is there for. And unless they are helping to increase and prolong such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police, economics, etc., are simply a waste of time.”

As I write this Daily Article today in security and freedom, I am grateful for the 1.1 million men and women who died “to promote and to protect” such “ordinary happiness.” Each of them illustrates the wisdom of Thucydides: “The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage.”

It has been well stated: “We don’t know them all, but we owe them all.”

On days like today, I often tell the story of meeting a veteran of the war in Iraq whose face and hands had been disfigured by an IED. When I thanked him for his great sacrifice, he looked me in the eye and said, “The best way you can thank us for our service is to make America a nation worth dying for.”

How can you and I do that today?

“The breaches of the city of David were many”

In the Old Testament era, cities were largely responsible for their own defenses. When enemies advanced, they needed to protect their water sources and fortify their walls.

For example, Isaiah 22 depicts Jerusalem in a time of war when “the breaches of the city of David were many” (v. 9a). Consequently, “You collected the waters of the lower pool, and you counted the houses of Jerusalem, and you broke down the houses to fortify the wall. You made a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the old pool” (vv. 9b–11a).

This was a conventional strategy in wartime. However, “you did not look to him who did it, or see him who planned it long ago” (v. 11b). It was God who made Jerusalem strong under King David and protected the nation against Assyrian aggression when King Hezekiah turned to him for help (2 Kings 19:14–36).

Now, however, the nation had rejected God’s call to repentance: “In that day the Lord Gᴏᴅ of hosts called for weeping and mourning, for baldness and wearing sackcloth; and behold, joy and gladness, killing oxen and slaughtering sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine. ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die’” (Isaiah 22:12–13). The prophet responded to such blatant disobedience: “The Lᴏʀᴅ of hosts has revealed himself in my ears: ‘Surely this iniquity will not be atoned for you until you die,’ says the Lord Gᴏᴅ of hosts” (v. 14).

And so it was that Jerusalem, which withstood the mighty Assyrian army with God’s help, fell to the Babylonians. Their temple was destroyed and their people enslaved (2 Kings 25:1–21).

Three biblical responses

Every word of Scripture is relevant beyond its immediate setting (Romans 15:4). What can we learn from ancient Jerusalem on this Memorial Day?

One: A nation must never presume that past victories or present prosperity insulate us from future judgment.

Scripture warns: “It is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?” (1 Peter 4:17).

Two: The best way to honor those who served our country sacrificially is to emulate their example in serving our Lord and our nation.

Samuel’s word to his people is God’s word to us: “Fear the Lᴏʀᴅ and serve him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things he has done for you” (1 Samuel 12:24).

Three: Our best service to our nation is to pray and work for spiritual and moral awakening.

First, we pray: “Restore our fortunes, O Lᴏʀᴅ, like streams in the Negeb!” (Psalm 126:4). Then we work: “Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy. He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him” (vv. 5–6).

How will you sow the seeds of spiritual renewal through your intercession and witness?

“He loves his country best”

Yesterday was Pentecost Sunday, that day when the collective church remembers with gratitude the empowering work of God’s Spirit that birthed the mightiest spiritual movement in human history (Acts 2).

We need the miracle of Pentecost every day. When you and I are “filled” and empowered by the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), God makes us like his Son (Romans 8:29) and uses us as salt and light to transform our culture (Matthew 5:13–16). Such a movement is America’s greatest need and her greatest hope.

Robert G. Ingersoll noted, “He loves his country best who strives to make it best.”

How much do you love your country today?

Denison Forum

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to begin his formal presidential campaign in a live audio conversation on Twitter with Elon Musk this evening. South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott joined the campaign Monday with a rally in South Carolina. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is likely to run; former Vice President Mike Pence and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu have been laying the groundwork for their campaigns as well.

Of course, former President Donald Trump announced his campaign last November. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former biotech executive Vivek Ramaswamy, conservative talk radio host Larry Elder, and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson have also joined the race. The Democratic Party side has three candidates so far: President Joe Biden, author and spiritual adviser Marianne Williamson, and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

My calling is to speak biblical truth to cultural issues without personal or partisan bias, so I would never endorse a candidate or political party. However, there is a cultural and biblical principle running through today’s topic that transcends the candidates and even the office to which they aspire.

What makes our presidency unique

In America, we elect our national leader by popular vote. (This is not entirely accurate: we actually elect a body of “electors” to the Electoral College who then elect the president.) By contrast, many of the world’s democracies are parliamentarian in structure: you vote for a party, then the leader of the party that gets the most votes (or successfully builds and leads a coalition of parties as in the case of Israel) becomes prime minister. The presidency in such arrangements is typically a ceremonial role.

The fact that our president is elected by all of us makes the presidency unique among our elective offices. My governor and senators were elected by Texans, not Iowans; my congressman was elected by those in my district; my mayor was elected by those in my city. As a result, candidates for these offices run on issues specific to our state and district. We vote for them in part based on who they are and in part based on what they say they will do when elected.

The same is true in parliamentary elections as I have observed them over the years: people typically vote for the party whose agendas most closely align with theirs, and the winning party’s leader becomes leader of the country. Again, these elections focus largely on specific issues and platforms.

A candidate for president, by contrast, must appeal to Americans across all states and districts. No set of promises or plans could appeal to enough Americans to elect a candidate solely on their merits. We largely vote for candidates based on who the candidate is, trusting that they will then do what we hope they will do.

Donald Trump’s appeal in large part has centered on his persona as a take-charge businessman. Ron DeSantis is running on the persona of a leader who knows how to get things done. Joe Biden’s supporters see him as a seasoned leader of competence and normalcy. Tim Scott declared in his campaign announcement event, “I am America.” Each of the other candidates will likewise seek to impress us with their unique qualifications as people and leaders.

The foundational decision you must make each day

I prefer our system, while flawed, over parliamentary systems for this reason: no one can know during an election the crucial issues the president will face in the upcoming term. When George W. Bush ran for president in 2000, no one saw 9/11 coming. When Donald Trump ran in 2016, no one predicted the coronavirus pandemic. Who a president is will therefore be vital to what they do once in office, whatever the challenges they face.

This principle transcends presidential campaigns and even the office of president.

In yesterday’s Daily Article we discussed the now-popular claim that “there is no such thing as human nature,” so “everything is socially constructed.” The Bible could not disagree more strongly: God makes each of us in his image and likeness (Genesis 1:27), then he remakes us as his children by the transformation of his Spirit when we trust his Son as our Lord (John 1:12; 2 Corinthians 5:17).

Your combination of spiritual gifts, abilities, education, and experiences is as unique to you as your fingerprint. Your role in God’s kingdom is one no other person can fill. God “elected” you to your kingdom assignment based on who you are. If you could not succeed in this calling, you would not have received it from him.

You are a missionary to where you are and to when you are. It is by divine providence that you were not alive a century ago or a century from now (if the Lord tarries). Embracing your identity as the child of God and your calling to help others know God is the foundational decision you must make each day.

Finding your “why to live for”

In Find Your Why, authors Simon Sinek, David Mead, and Peter Docker write: “If we want to feel an undying passion for our work, if we want to feel we are contributing to something bigger than ourselves, we all need to know our WHY.” They note that we all know what we do and how we do it. But very few can articulate why they do what they do.

They suggest that we complete the sentence “to _____ so that __________.” The first blank represents our contribution to others; the second represents the impact of our contribution. As I filled in these blanks, my “why” became clear: To respond biblically to crucial issues so that people find and follow Jesus. I found the exercise to be clarifying and encourage you to try it for yourself.

Friedrich Nietzsche famously observed, “He who has a why to live for can tolerate any how.”

What is your “why to live for” today?

Denison Forum

Rev. Tim Keller’s death last Friday at the age of seventy-two made immediate headlines, and not just in the Christian world. A long retrospective in the New York Times was one of many tributes from secular outlets attesting to his cultural influence and legacy.

Keller was born on September 23, 1950, in Allentown, Pennsylvania; his father was a television advertising manager and his mother was a nurse. He embraced the church through the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF) while attending Bucknell University in Pennsylvania. After masters and doctor of ministry degrees, he served with ICVF in Boston and as a pastor in rural Virginia while overseeing the development of new congregations for the Presbyterian Church.

In this role, he invited two pastors to plant a new Presbyterian church in New York City. When both turned him down, he and his wife Kathy felt God calling them to take on the challenge. They moved their three sons to New York in 1989. By 2007, Redeemer Presbyterian Church had grown to more than five thousand attendees and birthed more than a dozen daughter congregations in the immediate metropolitan area.

His dozens of books have been translated into more than twenty-five languages and sold an estimated twenty-five million copies. Redeemer founded Hope for New York to provide social services and the Center for Faith and Work to integrate Christian theology with professional experience. Redeemer City to City influences urban ministries around the world.

He also helped birth The Gospel Coalition, one of the most influential Christian networks in America. The newly-formed Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics will continue his work of helping Christians “share the truth, goodness, and beauty of the gospel as the only hope that fulfills our deepest longings.”

“A pioneer of the new urban Christians”

I was one of the legions who admired Dr. Keller’s intellectual brilliance and pastoral spirit. I met him occasionally and heard him speak in person several times in New York City.

I agree with Christianity Today’s assessment: “Fifty years from now, if evangelical Christians are widely known for their love of cities, their commitment to mercy and justice, and their love of their neighbors, Tim Keller will be remembered as a pioneer of the new urban Christians.”

However, my purpose today is not simply to add another eulogy to the many being written and shared after Dr. Keller’s homegoing. Nor is it to encourage us to emulate what cannot be emulated. Tim Keller was a generational mind called to a very unique cultural setting and moment.

We can learn much from his enduring wisdom, and we can draw inspiration from his commitment to serving Christ in one of the most challenging environments for biblical truth in America. But I believe there is another way you and I can benefit from Dr. Keller’s ministry as well, one that was brought into sharp relief for me by the passing on the same day of another cultural icon.

“Jim Brown leaves a highly flawed legacy”

Jim Brown was recently ranked the third-greatest player in the history of the National Football League. Over his nine seasons with the Cleveland Browns, he led the league in rushing eight times and carried his team to its last league title in 1964. He is often included with Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Jesse Owens, and others as among the greatest athletes in history.

However, when he died on the same day as Tim Keller, the Los Angeles Times headlined, “For all his accomplishments, NFL legend Jim Brown leaves a highly flawed legacy.” The article profiles his life after football as he acted in films and advocated for civil rights but also generated headlines for allegations of violence against several women.

Jim Brown is not the only celebrity whose personal failings are making news these days. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender, “discovered that Bill Gates had an affair with a Russian bridge player and later appeared to use his knowledge to threaten one of the world’s richest men.” A California high school’s “teacher of the year” was arrested for allegedly having sex with an underage male student.

And Carl Lentz, the former minister of Hillsong NYC and pastor of celebrities such as Justin and Hailey Bieber, is in the news as FX’s four-part docuseries, The Secrets of Hillsong, began airing over the weekend. In it, Lentz describes his affair with their children’s nanny, a scandal that rocked their church and made headlines beyond New York City.

“I can’t wait to see Jesus”

By contrast, Dr. Keller ended his earthly life as he lived it: with quiet dignity, deep and abiding faith, and generous compassion for those around him. From the time he was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer in 2020, he was forthright about the challenges he faced and his desire to serve Christ in this season of his life.

He transparently described ways his diagnosis drew him closer to his Lord and his wife spiritually. He could even testify, “My wife and I would never want to go back to the kind of prayer life or spiritual life we had before the cancer.”

Pope St. John Paul II, who experienced his own terrible suffering at the end of his life, once wrote: “Christ does not explain in the abstract the reasons for suffering, but before all else he says: ‘Follow me!’ Come! Take part through your suffering in this work of saving the world. . . . Gradually, as the individual takes up his cross, spiritually uniting himself to the Cross of Christ, the salvific meaning of suffering is revealed before him.”

If we embrace our suffering as an opportunity to trust Christ with our pain and serve others in theirs, “the salvific meaning of suffering” will be revealed to us. We will testify with Paul, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). We will experience an intimacy with our Lord and our fellow sufferers unavailable to others.

And when our journey leads us from this world to the next, we can say what Tim Keller told his family before his homegoing: “I’m ready to see Jesus. I can’t wait to see Jesus. Send me home.”

The old hymn was right: “The way of the cross leads home.”

What cross is yours today?

Denison Forum

“We have become a nation that is more focused on the right to kill than the right to live.”

This is how California Gov. Gavin Newsom responded to the mass shooting in Allen, Texas, as he criticized Congress for not passing gun control reform. However, given his passionate support for elective abortion and efforts to bring women from other states to California’s abortion clinics, pro-life supporters like me find his statement tragically ironic.

On the same theme, I found this headline in a recent Time article jarring: “If someone you love has an abortion, give them a gift.” The writer thanks “friends and neighbors who dropped off big pots of soup [and] home-baked brownies and ice cream” when she had her abortion.

She writes: “Abortion can be a powerful act of love—for one’s self and one’s own future, for one’s existing children and family, for the pregnancy being released and thus spared from the circumstances informing the pregnant person’s decision, and often for a combination of all these things.”

This is the first time I’ve seen abortion called “a powerful act of love” for the unborn baby whose life it ends.

I promise to write tomorrow’s Daily Article

Merriam-Webster defines a “performative” speech act as “an expression that serves to effect a transaction or that constitutes the performance of the specified act by virtue of its utterance.” An example is my promise to write tomorrow’s Daily Article: this act brings something into being that did not exist until it was stated in words.

By contrast, a “constative” utterance “is capable of being judged true or false” on its merits. An example is my claim to have written yesterday’s Daily Article: you can check the article’s authorship on our website or in your inbox. If you are still skeptical, you can investigate further by consulting our editorial staff.

We now live in a culture dominated by “performative” truth claims. In this view, if I state that I am a female, even though I was born a biological male, my statement must be true even though I have no empirical way to verify it. If the Supreme Court discovers and proclaims a “right” to same-sex marriage in the Constitution, even though it overturns millennia of cultural consensus and practice in so doing, its declaration must nonetheless be true.

We have now progressed (or regressed) to the point that even performative statements that clearly contradict facts and evidence are to be taken as truth. For example, the Time article normalizing abortion claims, “Abortion has always existed on the same spectrum as birth, miscarriage, infertility, and so many other human experiences.” This is simply untrue: leaders across twenty centuries of Christian history consistently considered elective abortion to be intrinsically immoral. But the writer wants it to be true, so for her, it is.

Such “performative” reality pervades our politics as well, as Chris Stirewalt explains: do something to get covered by the media, then coverage drives polls, polls drive the media narrative, and that narrative drives reality.

“The heart wants what it wants”

Emily Dickinson described the foundational fact of fallen human nature: “The heart wants what it wants.” It is therefore unsurprising that our culture persists in confusing performative and constative truth claims, substituting our personal preferences for objective morality and calling them “our truth.”

When we can abort an unwanted pregnancy and locate our decision on “the same spectrum as birth, miscarriage, [and] infertility,” we get to do what we want while claiming moral status for our unbiblical decision. When we redefine gender, marriage, and the right to die under the guise of personal truth, we tolerate the unbiblical decisions others make, so they will tolerate the unbiblical decisions we make.

However, God knows the reality behind our performative truth claims: “Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lᴏʀᴅ looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). In the end, his assessment of right and wrong is the only one that matters: “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).

“They have brought this evil on themselves”

I am reading the book of Isaiah as part of my personal Bible study these days and am consistently troubled about my nation as a result. Because neither divine nor human nature changes, what was true for ancient Israel is true for America today.

Consider this prophetic statement, substituting our nation for Israel: “[America] shall be redeemed by justice, and those in her who repent, by righteousness. But rebels and sinners shall be broken together, and those who forsake the Lᴏʀᴅ shall be consumed” (Isaiah 1:27–28).

Because God is holy, he must judge sin: “The haughty looks of man shall be brought low, and the lofty pride of men shall be humbled, and the Lᴏʀᴅ alone will be exalted in that day” (Isaiah 2:11). Consequently, “Jerusalem has stumbled, and Judah has fallen, because their speech and their deeds are against the Lᴏʀᴅ, defying his glorious presence” (Isaiah 3:8).

For this reason: “They proclaim their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it. Woe to them! For they have brought evil on themselves” (v. 9). By contrast, “Tell the righteous that it shall be well with them, for they shall eat the fruit of their deeds” (v. 10).

“The fire of the Lᴏʀᴅ fell”

I am leading a study tour of Israel this week. Today our group will visit Mt. Carmel, where the prophet Elijah faced 450 prophets of Baal who cloaked horrific sexual immorality in the guise of their false religion (1 Kings 18:22).

You remember what happened: the one true God honored Elijah’s sacrifice when “the fire of the Lᴏʀᴅ fell and consumed the burnt offering” (v. 38). As a result, “When all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, ‘The Lᴏʀᴅ, he is God; the Lᴏʀᴅ, he is God’” (v. 39).

In a broken world, God still uses courageous individuals to turn the tide. Does America need more Elijahs?

Will you be one today?

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