Warren Buffett is chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, which owns dozens of companies. He has been extremely benevolent over the years, donating hundreds of millions of dollars to charitable causes. Forbes estimates his net worth at $1141 billion dollars. My net worth is several zeroes less.

Who, then, am I to disagree with the famed “Oracle of Omaha” when he gives advice?

The ninety-two-year-old was asked at Berkshire’s recent annual shareholder meeting how to avoid mistakes in business and in life. His response: “You should write your obituary and then try to figure out how to live up to it. It’s not that complicated.”

With all due respect to Mr. Buffett, it is. Or at least, it should be.

We can “write our obituary” without God’s help and, depending on what we choose to write, “figure out how to live up to it.” Or we can seek God’s best for our lives, knowing that we must then have his power if we are to fulfill his purpose.

There is an eternally significant chasm between these two options.

Almost a third of high-school girls considered suicide in 2021

Western secularism has been trying for generations to follow the path of self-reliance. As American playwright Tennessee Williams observed, “Snatching the eternal out of the desperately fleeting is the great magic trick of human existence.”

How is our “magic trick” working for us?

A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association reports that mental health-related visits to emergency rooms by children, teenagers, and young adults have risen sharply in recent years. The worst escalation was for suicide-related visits, which increased fivefold.

According to recent data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly a third of female high-school students said they considered suicide in 2021. Nearly 60 percent said they felt sad or hopeless—the highest number in a decade. Depression became more common among young people across the past decade; in 2015, the suicide rate among teenage girls hit a forty-year high.

New York Times opinion columnist David French reminds us that politics cannot fix our deepest problems, such as pervasive loneliness, the crises of suicide and drug overdoses, and our yearning to love and be loved. The WHO can end its emergency declaration for COVID-19, but as Wall Street Journal writers Betsy McKay and Brianna Abbott note, “The pandemic has shattered an illusion that humanity has control over its environment.”

Rather that writing our own obituary and trying to live up to it, what if we allowed God to define our life mission and then partnered with him in fulfilling it? How would we do this?

One: Admit your need for divine grace

Our first step into such a life of empowered purpose is to admit our need for what only God can do in our lives. Billy Graham wrote: “Why can’t we live together in peace? The reason is that our hearts are selfish and filled with anger and greed and a lust for power. Until our hearts are changed, we will never know lasting peace.

“Tragically, we are a planet in rebellion against God. That is why the world’s greatest need is to turn to Christ. Only he can change us from within by his Holy Spirit. But even when wars rage, we can have peace in our heart as we open our life to Christ. Ask God to give you that peace—and pray that others will know it, too.”

Take a moment now to ask God to guide your life and your day into his peace for you. Pray for his Spirit to control and empower you as you step into his best (Ephesians 5:18).

Two: Partner persistently with God

St. Augustine noted that before we became Christians, it was not possible for us not to sin. Now it is: “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions” (Romans 6:12). God’s Spirit will help us, but we must want the holiness he empowers us to experience.

Paul asked regarding sin, “What fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed?” (v. 21). Remember that because Satan hates us, temptation must always cost more than it pays. Charles Spurgeon’s advice is relevant here: “When thou sleepest, think that thou art resting on the battlefield; when thou walkest, suspect an ambush in every hedge.”

One of Satan’s subtle strategies is to suggest that the persistence of temptation means it cannot be defeated. This is not true. Paul testified, “I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand” (Romans 7:21), yet he also stated, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13). After Jesus’ victory, the devil “departed from him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13), but he remained sinless (Hebrews 4:15). Persistence is vital to godliness.

Three: Live today for eternity

Today is the only day there is: “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring” (Proverbs 27:1). It is not “carpe diem” (“seize the day”) but “cedere diem” (“yield the day”) to God (cf. Matthew 11:29).

Live this day fully for the sake of eternity, remembering that every act of obedience on earth echoes in heaven (cf. Matthew 16:27).

“An endless day that knows no night”

St. Maximus of Turin (ca. 380–465) noted in a sermon: “The light of Christ is an endless day that knows no night.” As a result, “The coming of Christ’s light puts Satan’s darkness to flight, leaving no place for any shadow of sin. His everlasting radiance dispels the dark clouds of the past and checks the hidden growth of vice.”

St. Maximus then likened Christ’s glory in heaven to his power on earth: “The celestial day is perpetually bright and shining with brilliant light; clouds can never darken its skies. In the same way, the light of Christ is eternally glowing with luminous radiance and can never be extinguished by the darkness of sin.”

Will you walk in “the light of Christ” today?

Denison Forum

The world was focused last Saturday on the tradition-steeped coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla, and sports fans were watching fifteen-to-one longshot Mage rally from the back of the pack to win the Kentucky Derby. Meanwhile, those of us who live in North Texas were horrified as another mass shooting erupted, this time in our backyard.

A gunman opened fire at the Allen Premium Outlets Saturday afternoon, killing six people at the mall and injuring at least nine others. Of the nine who were hospitalized, two later died. Three others are in critical condition at this writing. The gunman, identified yesterday by police as Mauricio Garcia, was “neutralized” by a city police officer who was responding to an unrelated call at the mall. Authorities are reportedly investigating the gunman’s possible links to white supremacist ideology.

Allen is a city twenty-five miles north of downtown Dallas with a population of 106,874. I have been there several times over the years and have friends who live in the area.

There is something about the proximity of tragedy that makes it feel more real. For example, more than four hundred people are dead and many more are missing after flooding in eastern Congo; I confess that if these floods had happened where I live, they would feel even more tragic to me.

Our omniscient and omnipresent Father is not constrained by such territorial compassion. He loves the entire “world” (John 3:16) whether we requite his love or not (cf. Romans 5:8). As St. Augustine observed, God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.

How, then, should we respond when he allows horrific tragedy? Consider two options.

“Let our might be our law of right”

One answer is to view the character of God through the prism of human suffering. Many who do this decide that God, if he exists, is certainly not love (1 John 4:8) or worthy of our love (Matthew 22:37). In this view, because we are fragile people living in a broken world, we should make the best we can of life, knowing there is no larger purpose to guide our days or redeem our pain.

In the Book of Wisdom (one of fourteen apocryphal books included in the canons of the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches), we read that ungodly people “reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves, ‘Short and sorrowful is our life. . . . we were born by mere chance, and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been, for the breath in our nostrils is smoke, and reason is a spark kindled by the beating of our hearts; when it is extinguished, the body will turn to ashes, and the spirit will dissolve like empty air. Our name will be forgotten in time, and no one will remember our works’” (Wisdom 2:1–4).

As a result, they say, “Let our might be our law of right, for what is weak proves itself to be useless” (v. 11).

However, “They were led astray, for their wickedness blinded them, and they did not know the secret purposes of God, nor hoped for the wages of holiness, nor discerned the prize for blameless souls; for God created us for incorruption, and made us in the image of his own eternity” (vv. 21–23).

“The essential activity of life”

Our other option is to view human suffering through the prism of God’s character. Many who do this believe that God grieves with all who grieve (cf. John 11:35) and calls us to join him in acting on our compassion in redemptive ways (cf. Romans 12:15).

In a brilliant new essay for the Atlantic, columnist David Brooks identifies two ways of approaching life: autonomy-based and gift based. The former stands on “one core conviction: I possess myself. I am a piece of property that I own. Because I possess property rights to myself, I can dispose of my property as I see fit. My life is a project that I am creating, and nobody else has the right to tell me how to build or dispose of my one and only life.”

Autonomy-based living is the basis for elective abortion, the sexual revolution, gender redefinition, “death with dignity,” and all other “rights” our secular society believes we deserve. According to Brooks, the consequence is a world in which “the purpose of my life . . . is to be happy—to live a life in which my pleasures, however I define them, exceed my pains.”

Gift-based living, by contrast, “starts with a different core conviction: I am a receiver of gifts. I am part of a long procession of humanity. I have received many gifts from those who came before me, including the gift of life itself.” As a result, “The essential activity of life is not the pursuit of individual happiness. The essential activity of life is to realize the gifts I’ve been given by my ancestors and to pass them along, suitably improved, to those who will come after.”

A child shielded by his mother

A mass murderer is a horrific example of autonomy-based living, but we should not let such gruesome sin blind us to the allure of the “will to power” for the rest of us. When I claim to “possess myself” in a “project that I am creating,” I feel justified in treating people as a means to my ends, whether I treat them well or mistreat them cruelly.

Nor should we allow the unfathomable scope of human suffering to blind us to the power of gift-based living for those who receive our gifts. Scripture commands us: “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace” (1 Peter 4:10). Every grieving person we serve is someone whose life may be forever changed by our compassion.

For example, one of the first people who arrived at the scene of the mass shooting in Allen found a child covered by his mother, who died protecting him. That boy, as long as he lives, will always know how sacrificially he was loved.

Every time you see a cross, remember that the same is true for you.

How will you pay forward such sacrificial grace today?

Denison Forum

“We think there can be a restoration of faith in America, and we think getting [the] Ten Commandments on these walls is a great way to do that. . . . We think we can really set a trend for the rest of the country.” Matt Krause, a former state representative and current employee of the First Liberty Institute, made that statement when he testified before the Texas Senate last month in defense of a bill that would require public schools to post a copy of the Ten Commandments in every classroom from kindergarten through high school. The bill passed earlier this week and is expected to go before the State House of Representatives soon.

The reasoning behind the legislation is that the Ten Commandments played a key role in the development of America’s founding documents and, as such, should be considered historical in nature rather than strictly religious. As one might expect, not everyone agrees with that assertion.

Rep. Candy Noble argued that “this legislation will bring back the historic tradition of recognizing America’s religious heritage.” Rep. James Talarico countered that “every time, on this committee, we try to teach basic sex education, but we can’t because we’re told that’s the parents’ role. Now you’re putting literal commandments—religious commandments—in our classrooms, and we’re told that’s the state’s role.”

Arguments over the value of the proposed law could prove irrelevant, however, if the Supreme Court decides that it is unconstitutional.

Will the Ten Commandments bill become law in Texas?

This time last year, the proposed law would almost assuredly have been tossed aside by the nation’s highest court. Now the matter is less certain.

Following the Court’s ruling in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, in which a football coach was found to have been wrongfully fired for praying with his players on the field after the school told him to stop, the bill’s authors argue that the path has been cleared for legally requiring schools to display the Ten Commandments in Texas schools.

Others are less sure.

The religious component of each is similar, but that’s largely where the commonalities cease. While the Kennedy case was about protecting an individual’s right to religious expression, a public display of the Ten Commandments on school grounds could be seen as an imposition of religious beliefs on the students who are required to sit in those classrooms. As such, it is likely that the bill—if it becomes law—would face a difficult path on its way to implementation.

However, questions over whether the bill could become law have largely obscured the much more important issue of whether it should become law. And the answer to that latter question is more complicated than you might suspect.

Will displaying the Ten Commandments in Texas public schools make a difference?

On the surface, the idea that students and schools would benefit from paying greater attention to the moral precepts established in the Ten Commandments makes a lot of sense. And that Judeo-Christian morality did play a historically significant role in the development of the American Constitution and much of Western society. Even the deists among our nation’s founders—those who believed that God created the world but is no longer active in it—held no reservations about the importance of the virtues God established.

As such, the argument that the Ten Commandments have historical significance has merit. But is throwing a one-and-a-half-by-two-foot picture of them up on the wall really going to make much of a difference in guiding America’s youth back to that sense of morality? And is the fight over their inclusion in the classroom going to help the advancement of the gospel among the lost?

It’s possible that the answer to both of those questions is yes, but it’s far from certain.

Moreover, history tends to show that when Christians try to impose elements of our faith where they’re not wanted, it’s the church that suffers. And it was the recognition of that reality that led Baptists to push for the inclusion of the Establishment Clause in the Bill of Rights shortly after America’s founding. They understood that even when the government acts with the genuine intent of helping the church, they typically end up doing more harm than good.

Changing our focus

Would it be beneficial if today’s youth were more aware of and accepting toward God’s will as established in the Ten Commandments? Absolutely.

But, as Rep. Talarico insinuated, that’s not the school’s responsibility. It’s ours. And if we were collectively doing a better job of living out God’s laws in our own lives and teaching our kids to do the same, perhaps we wouldn’t feel the need to force the Commandments into classrooms in the hope that students will glance in their direction when they get bored.

So regardless of where you stand on the idea of putting the Ten Commandments in classrooms, remember that we should be far more concerned with instilling God’s word in the hearts and minds of those he brings into our lives. Whether that’s your children, coworkers, neighbors, or anyone else you encounter on a regular basis, a key part of Christ’s call for every Christian is taking the personal responsibility of teaching others to obey all that he has commanded (Matthew 28:20).

And we don’t need the government’s approval to do that.

With whom can you start today?

Denison Forum

Today is the National Day of Prayer. However, for reasons I will explain shortly, I am beginning today’s Daily Article by discussing the cost of the British royal coronation on Saturday.

The celebration comes at a challenging time for the UK: the country is reeling from a cost-of-living crisis that has fueled multiple strikes by hundreds of thousands of government workers, doctors, teachers, train drivers, and others. Since leaving the European Union, Britain’s currency has lost a fifth of its value. Things have been so dire that the Wall Street Journal recently headlined “Britain’s Financial Disaster Is a Warning to the World.”

Nonetheless, Saturday’s coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla is expected to cost British taxpayers at least $125 million, roughly double the cost of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation.  Unsurprisingly, only 32 percent of the British public thinks the coronation should be funded by the government.

Some suggest that, since King Charles’ personal wealth is estimated at around $1.8 billion, he should pay for his own coronation. Since he became king the moment his mother died last September and Saturday’s coronation changes nothing on a practical level, some people wonder why Britain persists as the only country in Europe that still practices coronations.

However, there’s a larger question at work here, one that applies to every evangelical Christian of every nationality.

What “gives a man the only true life”

The year before Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953, President Harry S. Truman proclaimed a National Day of Prayer. Presidents dating back to George Washington had issued such proclamations for particular days or challenges, but President Truman’s declaration made this an annual observance.

Unlike Saturday’s royal coronation, today’s observance costs nothing for those who participate. Jesus’ death on the cross paid the debt we owed when God “made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). As a result, we can “with confidence draw near to the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16).

Evangelicals rightly emphasize the fact that we are saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8–9) and that there is nothing we can do to earn or lose our salvation. However, it can consequently be tempting for us to lapse into what martyred German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace.” In The Cost of Discipleship, he wrote: “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession. . . . Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”

By contrast, he explained, “Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble. It is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.”

Bonhoeffer famously added: “Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.”

“Think about these things”

While it costs us nothing to pray today to Christ our Savior, it costs us everything to coronate him our King. C. S. Lewis observed, “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”

God’s word emphatically and consistently calls us to the complete commitment of our lives to our King:

• “Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am the Lᴏʀᴅ your God. . . . You shall be holy to me, for I the Lᴏʀᴅ am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine” (Leviticus 20:7, 26).
• “Let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 7:1).
• God is “training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age” (Titus 2:12).
• “Be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish” (2 Peter 3:14).

Such holiness in service to a holy King begins with our minds. As we noted yesterday, epigeneticists report that our thoughts and attitudes can lead to changes in gene expression that lead to tangible changes in our brains and, thus, our lives. As a result, we should say with Job: “I have made a covenant with my eyes” (Job 31:1). When we refuse to look upon or think about what is sinful, we will be less sinful.

To do this, pray every day: “Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things” (Psalm 119:37). Then join God in answering your prayer: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2) through Bible study, prayer, worship, and communion with Christ.

Seek the “mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16) through the discipline of your mind: “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Philippians 4:8, my emphasis). Then turn your mind into an altar upon which you pray today and every day for our nation and her leaders (1 Timothy 2:1–4).

Spinning at 1,040 miles per hour

Our planet is spinning on its axis at 1,040 miles per hour. The earth is spinning around the sun at 66,600 mph. Our solar system is moving around the Milky Way galaxy at a rate of 558,000 mph. And the Milky Way is moving through the universe at 660,000 mph.

The King of the universe holds all of that in the same palm of his hand (cf. Isaiah 40:12) where he is holding onto you (John 10:28).

Are you holding onto him today?

Denison Forum

According to a new report from the US Surgeon General’s office, lacking social connections “can increase the risk of premature death to levels comparable to smoking daily.” Loneliness increases the risk of premature death by nearly 30 percent and elevates our risk of stroke, heart disease, depression, anxiety, and dementia.

Technology is making this problem worse: people who use social media for two hours or more daily are more than twice as likely to report feeling isolated than those who are on such apps for less than thirty minutes a day.

“A reason for living and some hope”

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. (For an excellent resource, please see Dr. Lane Ogden’s “What does the Bible say about mental health” on our website.) As a result, we’ll see a plethora of information like the Surgeon General’s report in the coming days. In the midst of all the bad news, however, here’s some good news: according to the Wall Street Journal, America is seeing a “surprising surge of faith among young people.”

A recent survey found that about one-third of eighteen-to-twenty-five-year-olds say they believe in the existence of a higher power. This is more than the percentage who doubt such an existence and is up from about one-quarter in 2021. The Journal explains: “Young adults, theologians, and church leaders attribute the increase in part to the need for people to believe in something beyond themselves after three years of loss.”

An eighteen-year-old college student is typical of many: Believing in God “gives you a reason for living and some hope.”

However, in another new survey, only 31 percent of younger Americans said religion was very important to them, which was the lowest percentage of all adult age groups. Another study found that only 20 percent of this age group attend religious services monthly or more, down from 24 percent in 2019.

A warning from the “Godfather of AI”

When a driver stops using the fuel his car was designed to depend upon, he should not be surprised when his car stops running.

A recent Harvard poll found that 48 percent of Americans between the ages of eighteen and twenty-nine felt unsafe recently. Twenty-one percent say they’ve felt unsafe at school; 40 percent are concerned about being victims of gun violence or a mass shooting; 73 percent believe homelessness could happen to anyone; and 32 percent fear they could one day be homeless.

More signs of the times: There are twice as many security guards employed in the US compared with twenty years ago. Due to financial volatility such as the ongoing banking crisis, older adults are entering a “retirement minefield.” And an artificial intelligence pioneer often called “the Godfather of AI” is warning that AI technologies will upend the job market and could pose a threat to humanity.

Feeling fear in a fallen world is inevitable. Having no one to trust with our fears is not.

A science-based approach to mental health

As our society focuses on mental health this month, I’d like to offer a suggestion: spend some time each day thinking less about yourself as a creature and more time thinking about creation and the Creator.

New York Times opinion writer and Anglican priest Tish Harrison Warren writes that “we need to take up the task of embracing the goodness of the palpable, analog world, whether it be to make time for a hike or to notice the sweetness of gentle rain or to revel in the bitterness of good coffee or to listen to the laughter of children.”

She quotes priest, author, and chef Robert Farrar Capon, who claimed that “God is the biggest materialist there is.” Capon explained that since God created the material world, he must enjoy it even more than we do.

When we consult the field of epigenetics, we find physiological reasons why focusing on the beauty of creation and the glory of our Creator is good for our mental health. These scientists study changes in gene expression that do not alter the underlying DNA sequence. As a result, they report that our environment, lifestyle, and thoughts can lead to changes in our physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

For example, chronic stress and negative thoughts can lead to changes in gene expression associated with inflammation and an increase in chronic diseases. However, practices such as meditation, mindfulness, and positive thinking influence gene expression to promote relaxation, stress reduction, and improved immune function. Over time, focusing on positive aspirations can lead to tangible changes in our brains and, thus, our reality.

Why God became one of us

The magnificence of creation and the majesty of the Creator intersect most fully in the One who is “the image of the invisible God” by whom “all things were created” (Colossians 1:15–16). In Jesus, God became one of us so we could be one with God.

This is why, as we noted yesterday, a daily, transforming relationship with the living Lord Jesus is so vital for us. Such intimacy with Christ feeds our souls, strengthens our mental health, and empowers our cultural impact.

So, don’t settle for a religion about Jesus when you can have a personal relationship with him. Imagine yourself walking alongside him all through this day. Talk with him about the challenges and opportunities you encounter. Ask him to speak by his Spirit into your mind and spirit. Make it your first priority today to practice his presence.

I am convinced that if every Christ follower truly followed Christ, our lonely, fearful, dangerous world could not be the same.

Will you join me in testing my assertion today?

Denison Forum

When the morning news is dominated by multiple fatalities from a dust storm in Illinois, tornadoes in Virginia and Florida, a Hollywood writers strike, and the death of legendary singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, it’s uplifting to find stories of heroism as well. For example, a Michigan seventh grader recently took control of his school bus after the driver lost consciousness. He stepped to the front of the bus and used the hand brake to ease it to a stop.

He told his parents later that he knew what to do because he watched the driver do it every day. None of his fellow students was injured in the incident.

The news report nowhere speaks to the young man’s religious beliefs or lack thereof. Of course, none of us would claim that he would have to be an active Christian to do what he did. Being kind to others is instinctual for most humans since, according to social scientists, kindness clearly raises personal happiness. Living with meaningful purpose in the world is similarly linked to positive mental health and well-being. These facts are facts regardless of one’s religious commitments, if any.

“People are selfish; deal with it.”

Yesterday we noted a recent Pew Research Center report in which 65 percent of Americans agree that “it’s not necessary to believe in God to be moral.” Such a claim is popular because its underlying lie is popular: morality is what you believe it to be, so you need no divine assistance in defining your moral standards or achieving them.

We are watching this worldview undermine the very foundations upon which our democracy was built. The Founders declared that “all men are created equal” and thus possess “inalienable rights” to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” However, if all truth is subjective and personal, the Declaration of Independence can be just the Founders’ truth. I am free to live by my own truth. And if my truth is that the world and everyone in it is a means to my end, who are you to tell me I’m wrong?

In this context, I found David Brooks’ latest column in the New York Times to be both relevant and disturbing. He warns about “a kind of nihilism that you might call amoral realism” and explains: “This ethos is built around the idea that we live in a dog-eat-dog world. The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. Might makes right. I’m justified in grabbing all that I can because if I don’t, the other guy will. People are selfish; deal with it.”

According to Brooks, “People who live according to the code of amoral realism tear through codes and customs that have [been] built over the centuries to nurture goodness and foster cooperation.” In their world, “cruelty, dishonesty, vainglory, and arrogance are valorized as survival skills.” As a result, “Other people are not possessors of souls, of infinite dignity and worth; they are objects to be utilized.”

Brooks applies his thesis to national and international politics and politicians, but we are watching it in the news every day. From street violence to mass shootings, sex trafficking, and the rising popularity of abortion and euthanasia, the ethos that other people are “objects to be utilized” is spreading like a moral and spiritual cancer in our culture.

Three urgent steps

You and I are just as temptable as anyone else, just as subject to the fallen human condition in which we exert our “will to power” over others as we seek to be our own god (Genesis 3:5). In fact, Satan employs a subtle deception for evangelical Christians by which we are tempted to separate our public moral stands from our private moral failures. Accordingly, God is calling us to take three urgent steps today.

One: Settle for nothing less than holistic holiness.

Scripture declares: “Blessed are those who keep [God’s] testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart, who also do no wrong, but walk in his ways!” (Psalm 119:2–3, my emphases). What is your “heart” condition today?

Two: Seek an intimate, transforming relationship with Jesus.

Years ago, some pastor friends and I were discussing the plague of pornography in our churches. One of them said, “Our biggest problem is that our people don’t love Jesus. If they did, they would hate what he hates and love what he loves.” The pastor was right: “If we walk in the light, as [God] is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). How fully are you walking “in the light” today?

Three: Trust Christ for victory over sin.

Charles Spurgeon reminded us that just as we are saved by grace, we can be sanctified only by grace. Our works were of no benefit for our salvation (Ephesians 2:8–9); neither will they enable us to achieve the holiness we desire.

The psalmist testified, “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:26). When we turn to God, “They who wait for the Lᴏʀᴅ shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40:31). And we will say with Paul, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).

When we bring God our persistent temptations and sins, he often leads us to counselors or trusted friends who can help us. He gives us guidance in his word by his Spirit. But ultimately, we must ask him for the victory we need and trust him to provide it.

“You are a fire ever burning”

Is it possible for us to know Christ with such transforming intimacy? St. Catherine of Siena (1347–80) did. She prayed, “You are a mystery as deep as the sea; the more I search, the more I find, and the more I find the more I search for you. But I can never be satisfied: what I receive will ever leave me desiring more. When you fill my soul I have an even greater hunger, and I grow more famished for your light. I desire above all to see you, the true light, as you really are.”

As a result, she could say to God, “You are a fire ever burning and never consumed, which itself consumes all the selfish love that fills my being.” And she could add, “You are the garment which covers our nakedness, and in our hunger you are a satisfying food.”

All this because “your Holy Spirit has given me the desire to love you.”

Would you ask the Spirit to do the same for you today?

Denison Forum

George Washington claimed (PDF) that “religion and morality” are each “indispensable supports” of democracy. John Adams was certain that our Constitution was “made only for a moral and religious people” and is “wholly inadequate to the government of any other” (my emphasis).

According to 65 percent of US adults, these Founding Fathers were wrong.

In a recent Pew Research Center report, two-thirds of American respondents claimed that “it’s not necessary to believe in God to be moral.” They can make this claim because our secularized culture has convinced them that morality is personal and subjective. Like the archer who fires an arrow and then paints the target around the place it lands, we get to choose what is moral for us and need no help from God in achieving it.

However, the mass shooting in Texas, the deadliest Russian attack on Ukraine in months, the first US mass evacuation effort from Sudan, and widespread discouragement about the future are windows into how well our subjective morality is working for us. And what do we do when your definition of morality and mine directly contradict each other? When you think abortion on demand is a moral “reproductive right” and I think it is the immoral killing of an unborn child? When you think marriage has no gender and I think it should be reserved for one man and one woman?

This debate is not only foundational to the future of our democracy—it is especially urgent for the souls of evangelicals like me.

My Apple Watch is incompetent

I walked on my treadmill last Friday morning for my usual three miles, setting the pace at 4.2 mph, which equates to 14.17 minutes per mile. My Apple Watch disagreed, however, claiming that I finished my first mile in 13.58. It tracked my second mile at 13.57. I then increased my speed to a 4.3 mph pace, which equates to 13.57 minutes per mile. My Apple Watch, however, reported that I finished that mile in 15.27.

My point is not that my Apple Watch cannot track my walking pace competently, though that is consistently true. My point is that I want to believe that the fastest time is accurate and the slowest time is a technological aberration.

It was the same when I played golf and tennis: I believed that my best shots were “normal” and my other shots were anomalies or bad luck. This is an example of the “slothful induction fallacy,” which occurs when “sufficient logical evidence strongly indicates a particular conclusion is true, but someone fails to acknowledge it, instead attributing the outcome to coincidence or something unrelated entirely.”

My purpose is not to complain about my Apple Watch or to claim unwarranted athletic prowess. Rather, it is to note that what I did on the treadmill, I am constantly tempted to do with my soul. My sins are aberrations, “deviations from the mean” as it were, while my virtuous acts reveal my true character.

If only that were true.

How Satan uses our morality against us

According to Scripture, “secret” sins do not exist: “God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:14). The psalmist said of God, “You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence” (Psalm 90:8).

Dwight Moody was right: Character is what you are in the dark.

This fact is especially relevant for evangelical Christians in the context of sexual morality. Many of us have incurred the wrath of our fallen culture by standing publicly for biblical marriage and sexuality. However, Paul warns us: “In passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things” (Romans 2:1).

For example, when evangelicals condemn homosexual sexual sin but commit heterosexual sexual sin, we sin just like those whose sin we oppose. Our sin may not be as public—a same-sex married couple is obviously living unbiblically, while a heterosexual married couple may or may not be sinning sexually—but it is no less real.

Nonetheless, Satan uses our biblical stance against us by tempting us to believe we are justified in our sins since we condemn the sins of others. He also wants us to think that our sins are less damaging if they are less public. But, as always, Satan is “a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44).

Private pornography, for example, is addictive and destroys mental health and dating and marriage relationships. Sex before marriage weakens the marriage; sex outside of marriage can obviously destroy marriage.

Satan also ensures that our “private” sins inevitably become public and then uses them to disparage our Father and our faith. Paul warned his Jewish Christian readers that because of their sins, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you” (Romans 2:24). In a recent survey, “the hypocrisy of religious people” was the top reason people of no faith gave for doubting Christian beliefs.

“The utter joy of being forgiven”

Tomorrow we’ll identify three practical ways to respond biblically and redemptively. For today, let’s decide that we want to. Let’s decide that we want to be as holy as God can make us. Then, let’s admit to God our need for his transforming power.

Br. Geoffrey Tristam of the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Boston writes: “Until we acknowledge our need for God, we will never experience the utter joy of being forgiven, healed, restored, and empowered. Once we have experienced that grace, there’s no going back to a life where we trust in our own power and strength. Once we have known God’s hands upholding us and strengthening us, nothing else will do.”

Will you experience the “utter joy” of God’s sanctifying grace today?

Denison Forum

Elon Musk recently tweeted, “Violent crime in SF is horrific.” A responding headline in the Sunday Los Angeles Times caught my eye: “Sorry, San Francisco is not the crime-ridden hellhole the far right claims it is.” The reason, we’re told, is typified by an “iconic transgender cabaret” named AsiaSF.

The writer admits that San Francisco is plagued by what she calls its “tech bust,” “crisis of addiction,” “anti-Asian hate crimes,” and overall lack of safety. However, she cites one of the owners of AsiaSF, who calls San Francisco “a beacon of hope for so many people.” In his view, “No matter who you are, you have to find your truth and live your truth.”

The author responds: “And that is the enduring strength of San Francisco.”

What “very happy” people have in common

Reading the Times article left me with great sadness, not only for so many deceived people in San Francisco but also for the degree to which the writer speaks for millions of others across our nation.

I would think more people would connect the cultural dots: in the years since our society has decided that all truth is “your truth,” the values of patriotism, religion, and community involvement have plummeted. Meanwhile, the percentage of Americans who say they are “not too happy” has more than doubled, while the percentage who say they are “very happy” has fallen by more than half to a mere 12 percent, by far the lowest percentage in the five decades the poll has been conducted.

When asked about their values, “very happy” Americans cite belief in marriage and community involvement. And 68 percent of them point to belief in God (contrasted with 42 percent of those who say they are “not happy”).

My first response upon reading the report was to claim vindication for faith in a culture that increasingly views religion as irrelevant, bigoted, and dangerous. But upon reflection, I realized there’s an urgent issue here we need to discuss, a fact about religion that our society completely misunderstands.

Aspirin won’t cure a broken leg

I’m glad “very happy” people consider “belief in God” to be “very important” to them. Here’s the problem: our pluralistic culture thinks all such beliefs are the same, just “different roads up the same mountain.”

But religions are not all the same any more than medicines are all the same. Aspirin for a headache won’t cure a broken leg. When Islam’s holy book rejects the Trinity (Quran 4:171) while the Bible consistently teaches this doctrine (cf. Matthew 28:19; 2 Corinthians 13:14), they are clearly not teaching the same truth.

Furthermore, belief in God by itself will not change us or our broken world: “Even the demons believe—and shudder!” (James 2:19). In recent years, religion has brought us horrific clergy abuse scandals. Denominational internecine fights have dominated headlines with conflicts over partisan politics, theological controversies, and church property. Evangelicals are stigmatized as homophobic and Trumpist; mainstream denominations are labeled wokeist and liberal.

Clearly, belief in God is not enough. The Greco-Roman world was highly religious, as Paul noted (Acts 17:22). But they treated women as possessions, threw unwanted babies out with the trash, and engaged in sexual activities too horrific for me to describe here.

“By my God I can leap over a wall”

By contrast, Psalm 18 models transforming faith in the one true God. Here David proclaims: “The Lᴏʀᴅ is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold” (v. 2). Note the eight times he calls God not “the” God or even “our” God but “my” God.

Consequently, he can pray, “It is you who light my lamp; the Lᴏʀᴅ my God lightens my darkness. For by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall” (vv. 28–29). He therefore asks, “Who is God, but the Lᴏʀᴅ? And who is a rock, except our God?” (v. 31).

Now you and I have a choice to make. We can believe in a generic God and think that because we are religious, we have all of God we need. Or we can follow David’s example by making God our “rock” in every moment of every day as we “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

How do we do this without being monks in a monastery?

Moving to a “God-centered dialogue”

I found help and hope in a reflection by Henri Nouwen that begins in a surprising way: “To pray, I think, does not primarily mean to think about God in contrast to thinking about other things, or to spend time with God instead of spending time with other people.” This is precisely what many of us think praying does mean.

But Nouwen notes, “As soon as we begin to divide our thoughts into thoughts about God and thoughts about people and events, we remove God from our daily life and put him in a pious little niche where we can think pious thoughts and experience pious feelings.”

Nouwen offers us a better way: “Although it is important and even indispensable for the spiritual life to set apart time for God and God alone, prayer can eventually become unceasing prayer when all our thoughts beautiful and ugly, high and low, prideful and shameful, sorrowful and joyful can be thought in the presence of God.”

As a result, “We convert our unceasing thinking into unceasing prayer when we move from a self-centered monologue to a God-centered dialogue. This requires that we turn all our thoughts into conversation. The main question, therefore, is not so much what we think, but to whom we present our thoughts.”

Will you live in a monologue with yourself or a dialogue with God today?

Denison Forum

Kenyan runners Evans Chebet and Hellen Obiri won the Boston Marathon yesterday. Ever since the bombing in 2013, the race has taken on an aura of grief and fear along with accomplishment and celebration. For two brothers, the world’s oldest marathon is all of the above. J. P. and Paul Norden each lost a leg in the bombings and now utilize a prosthetic leg. As a result, their family started a foundation, A Leg Forever, which so far has helped sixty people who’ve lost limbs pay for prosthetics, wheelchairs, and bedside care.

Speaking of the bombing, J. P. says, “In a lot of ways, it changed me for the better.” Their mother says of her sons, “Nothing stops them. I’m in awe all the time. ‘Cause I’m still angry, I still get sad sometimes for them, but nothing holds them back.”

“Either weapons or tools”

The Norden brothers typify this fact: most things, events, and experiences can be used for bad or for good. The terrorists who attacked the Boston Marathon had no idea their horrific crime would lead to good for so many who need what A Leg Forever provides. It is far easier to face challenges if we trust that they are being used for a greater purpose.

As New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman points out in his fascinating recent article, “America, China and a Crisis of Trust,” this is a principle of enormous geopolitical significance.

Friedman makes the foundational point that digital services are “dual use”—they can be both a weapon and a tool. He explains: “In the Cold War it was relatively easy to say that this fighter jet is a weapon and that that phone is a tool. But when we install the ability to sense, digitize, connect, process, learn, share, and act into more and more things—from your GPS-enabled phone to your car to your toaster to your favorite app—they all become dual use, either weapons or tools depending on who controls the software running them and who owns the data that they spin off.”

As a result, “Today, it’s just a few lines of code that separate autonomous cars from autonomous weapons. And, as we’ve seen in Ukraine, a smartphone can be used by Grandma to call the grandkids or to call a Ukrainian rocket-launching unit and give it the GPS coordinates of a Russian tank in her backyard.”

“The single most important competitive advantage”

This fact is especially germane to America’s relationship with the People’s Republic of China. There was a time when China sold us primarily what Friedman calls “shallow goods”—shoes, socks, shirts, and solar panels. Now it is selling us “deep goods”—software, microchips, smartphones, robots, and other goods that go deep into our economic and technological systems and are dual use.

Here’s the point: America doesn’t have enough trust in China to buy its “deep goods.” We purchase microchips instead from Taiwan, where 90 percent of the world’s most advanced logic chips are manufactured.

The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is a foundry, meaning it takes the designs of the most advanced computer companies in the world and turns them into chips that perform different processing functions. Their business model is simple: TSMC makes a solemn oath to its customers never to compete against them by designing its own chips and never to share the designs of one of its customers with another. Their customers trust them because they know that TSMC’s business depends on keeping their trust.

By contrast, China is pursuing a strategy of global competition and dominance over the US and the West. Its failure of transparency with the origins of COVID-19, its crackdown on democracy in Hong Kong and on the Uyghur Muslim minority in Xinjiang, its aggressive claims to the South China Sea, its support for Vladimir Putin, and its increasing threats toward Taiwan all exacerbate the failure of trust that exists between China and the West.

For example, US law enforcement officers arrested two New York residents yesterday for allegedly operating a Chinese “secret police station” to target Chinese dissidents now living in America. And the Chinese military recently rehearsed “encircling” Taiwan after the US House Speaker visited the island.

As Friedman notes, “Establishing and maintaining trust is now the single most important competitive advantage any country or company can have. And Beijing is failing in that endeavor.” He quotes one of American statesman George Shultz’s cardinal rules of diplomacy and life: “Trust is the coin of the realm.”

My experience in Beijing

Friedman’s perceptive analysis demonstrates one of the reasons the gospel is so vital to human flourishing: only Jesus teaches selfless character and then empowers Christians to fulfill what he teaches.

I was invited several years ago to deliver lectures on ethics to a group of business leaders in Beijing. I focused on the fact that sacrificial integrity is foundational to an economy based on consumption. If producers do not trust their employees to do what they are paid to do, production falters. Conversely, if consumers do not trust that products will perform as advertised, consumption falters. A culture based on atheistic communism has no ideological commitment to sacrificial integrity and no power by which to effect such a commitment if it were to exist.

By contrast, Christians are taught to “clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another” (1 Peter 5:5) and to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39). Then we are called to “be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18) so he can produce his “fruit” in our lives: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22–23).

Imagine the difference if everyone exhibited such “fruit” in their business relations. This is what the Spirit of Christ can do in everyone who follows Christ as Lord. This is what both China and the US need if they are to flourish in a trust-based global economy. This is why a true spiritual awakening is our only hope for the future we long to experience.

If you believe that Jesus redeems all he allows, you will unconditionally trust his word and others will be drawn to the Christ they see in you. So, when last did you pay a significant price to trust and follow Jesus? Are you willing to pay such a price today?

In other words, is trust the coin of your realm?

Denison Forum

Four people were killed and dozens more were injured at a mass shooting during a Sweet 16 birthday party Saturday night in Alabama. This makes the 163^rd mass shooting so far in 2023; today is the 107^th day of the year.

When we cannot deal with the pain of such tragedy, we objectify it. “Another shooting,” we say as we grimace and shake our heads. But the families of the four people who were murdered will never say that of a mass shooting again as long as they live.

Many do the same with abortion. As of this writing, nearly thirteen million babies have lost their lives to abortion so far this year. This number is equivalent to the populations of West Virginia, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Montana, Rhode Island, Delaware, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont, and Wyoming—combined.

In the US, nearly 20 percent of all pregnancies end in abortion. Those who defend such tragedies must shift their focus from the dead child to the issue of “reproductive freedom,” “democracy,” partisan politics, and so on.

Case in point: Vice President Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance at a pro-abortion rally in Los Angeles on Saturday. In her speech, she warned against “those who would dare to attack fundamental rights and, by extension, attack our democracy” and urged those in attendance to “stand up and fight” for abortion.

I want us to do the opposite today: I’m writing to “stand up and fight” for the victims of abortion.

“Roe wasn’t the beginning of abortion”

A woman in attendance at the LA rally held up a sign that read, “Roe wasn’t the beginning of abortions—Roe was the end of women dying from abortions.” A more accurate sign would read: “Roe wasn’t the beginning of abortions—Roe was the beginning of babies dying legally from abortions.”

Recent conflicts over abortion pills and Florida’s six-week abortion ban are just the latest examples of George Will’s observation that Roe v. Wade “inflamed the issue and embittered our politics.” This is because there is something intrinsic to human nature that knows that taking the lives of innocent humans is wrong.

As a result, some say they are not pro-abortion but pro-choice, claiming that this should be the mother’s decision, not that of the government. But they obviously do not extend this logic to other decisions regarding the mother and her child.

Once this entity in its mother’s womb has changed locations and is now outside her womb, her choice regarding abortion vanishes. But if that entity is a human being after it is born, what was it before it was born? From a scientific point of view, “human embryos from the one-cell stage forward are indeed individuals of the human species; i.e., human beings.”

Because we know a newborn baby is a human, we confer on it all the protections of the law and thus make infanticide illegal. By what logic do we not do the same in the womb as outside the womb?

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was right

Some point to “viability,” claiming that an unborn child is a “person” and thus deserves our protection only when it can live outside the womb. But what do we mean by “viability”? Left alone, a newborn child will soon die. It can breathe without its mother, but it cannot feed itself or protect itself. It is no more viable without the mother after its birth than it was before its birth.

Others say that in a democracy, we have no right to force our values on others. But the founders disagreed. Our founding creed proclaims, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” The Declaration says we are “created” equal, not “born” equal. We are endowed by our “Creator”—not our mother—with “certain inalienable rights,” the first of which is “life.”

In his famed “I Have a Dream” speech, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. challenged America to “live out the true meaning of its creed” regarding the equality of all humans of all races. I want us to do the same regarding the equality of all humans of all ages, from conception to death.

This issue is obviously urgent for the millions of unborn babies whose lives hang in the balance. However, it is no less urgent for the future of our nation.

Moses “stood in the breach”

When the Israelites compromised with Canaanite culture, “they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan” (Psalm 106:38). Is elective abortion for financial gain or personal convenience a similar “sacrifice”?

As a result, “The anger of the Lᴏʀᴅ was kindled against his people, and he abhorred his heritage; he gave them into the hand of the nations, so that those who hated them ruled over them” (vv. 40–41). Can our nation claim to be exempt from the justice of God?

Here’s the good news: one person can change the trajectory of a nation.

When the Israelites in the wilderness “forgot God, their Savior” (v. 21), “he said he would destroy them—had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him” (v. 23). When centuries later Israel again rejected God’s word and will (Ezekiel 22:23–29), he said, “I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none” (v. 30).

Will you “stand in the breach” for America?

Will you pray daily for our nation to embrace our founding creed that all lives are “created equal”?

Will you pray for our elected leaders to protect their most innocent and vulnerable constituents and for our judges to rule righteously?

Will you ask God to use you to help women considering abortion to choose life?

The longtime pastor and statesman Paul Powell was right: “We are the light of the world—not just of the church.”

How will you use your light for life today?

Denison Forum

As the May 6 coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla approaches, we now know that Prince Harry will attend the event, though Meghan Markle will stay in California for their son’s birthday. Dozens of world leaders, including First Lady Jill Biden, will attend the event as well.

However, President Joe Biden will not. This decision has angered some British politicians and commentators, but it is not a personal snub: since America’s independence from British rule in 1776, no sitting US president has ever attended a British coronation. Nor do British monarchs attend presidential inaugurations, so far as I can determine.

Only if we were robots

According to the British people, their top problems include the economy, health, immigration, the environment, defense, housing, and education. What if their new king were all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving? How many of these problems could and would he solve?

Fewer than we might think, assuming he honors the free will of his subjects. They would still be free to spend more than they make, live in unhealthy ways, mistreat the environment, and so on. Only if Great Britain were populated entirely by robots programmable by the king could he solve such problems.

The king of the universe is in the same position.

The Bible is clear on his omnipotence: “The Lᴏʀᴅ reigns, let the peoples tremble!” (Psalm 99:1). His omniscience is equally clear: “God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything” (1 John 3:20). As is his omnibenevolence: “God is love” (1 John 4:8).

However, he made us to love him and each other (Matthew 22:37–39) and honors the freedom such love requires. As Jesus stated so picturesquely: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20–21).

Consequently, none of the evil and suffering attributable to misused free will is God’s fault. If I refuse to study for the test and fail the exam, the fault is not with the professor.

Why unbelievers don’t believe

I make this point in light of a new Barna study asking nonbelievers to list reasons for their doubts. Number 1 on the list: the hypocrisy of religious people. Number 2: science. Number 3: human suffering.

Each of them is the result in part of blaming God for what is not God’s fault.

When religious people act hypocritically, God grieves (cf. Matthew 7:5; 1 John 4:20; Matthew 6:1). When people misunderstand the relationship between science (which focuses on creation) and religion (which focuses on the Creator), the Creator is not to blame. When humans cause human suffering, their Father mourns (cf. Lamentations 3:22–23; John 11:35).

However, you’re probably asking: What about suffering that is not caused by misused freedom? What about tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, and so on?

It is true that we live in a world broken by the Fall and sin (Romans 8:22). There were no tornadoes in the Garden of Eden. But another principle is worth considering as well: “You do not have because you do not ask” (James 4:2).

All through Scripture, God intervenes in nature at the request of his people. Jesus healed so many people that “great crowds followed him” as a result (Matthew 4:25). Because “I the Lᴏʀᴅ do not change” (Malachi 3:6), his omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence are no different today than in the biblical era.

Here’s what has changed: many modern, scientific people no longer truly believe that our miracle-working God still works miracles. Even if we say that we do, our prayers (or lack thereof) often disagree.

When last did you ask God to intervene in a natural disaster? When last did you ask him to heal someone with a terminal illness (and truly believe that he could)? When last did you ask him to do what only God can do?

A modern miracle

New Testament scholar Craig Keener’s new book, Miracles Today: The Supernatural Work of God in the Modern World, is outstanding. Dr. Keener is meticulous in his scholarship, documenting the contemporary miracles he describes with objective precision.

Here is an example: Dr. Sean George, a thirty-nine-year-old physician in Australia, had a heart attack on October 24, 2008. His coworkers tried for fifty-five minutes to revive him, administering some four thousand chest compressions and shocking him thirteen times before giving up.

They notified his wife, who is also a medical professional. By the time she reached him, Sean’s body was cold since he had been dead for an hour and twenty-five minutes. Instead of saying goodbye to her husband, however, she took his hand and prayed: “Sean is just thirty-nine, I’m just thirty-eight, and we have a ten-year-old boy. I need a miracle!”

Immediately, Sean’s heart started beating. Because the human brain is completely dead after twenty minutes without blood, doctors were certain he would suffer irreversible brain damage. To their shock, he awoke three days later with full brain function. He was discharged from the hospital two weeks later and was back to working full-time in three months.

Aware of the significance of his experience, Dr. George kept all his medical records and has made them available on his website for the world to see.

To be sure, God does not always answer our prayers in the way we wish. I would never suggest that all suffering is due to a lack of faith. (Jesus, his martyred followers, and Job would obviously contradict such a claim.) But I do believe that some is the consequence of a post-Christian worldview that views miracles as myths and discourages faith in a miraculous God.

“You do not have, because you do not ask.” Don’t let this be true of you today.

Denison Forum

Let’s begin with some very good news: millions of lives could be saved by a groundbreaking set of new vaccines for cancer and a range of other conditions. Dr. Paul Burton, chief medical officer of the pharmaceutical company Moderna, believes the firm will be able to offer such treatments for “all sorts of disease areas” in as little as five years. “It will save many hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lives,” he added.

In more good news: President Biden has signed a bipartisan congressional resolution ending the US national emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the news on the virus front is not all encouraging.

The Washington Post is publishing an extensive article titled: “Research with exotic viruses risks a deadly outbreak, scientists warn.” The Post found that the number of biocontainment labs handling dangerous pathogens worldwide is now believed by experts to be in the thousands. Risks from such research are so great that one expert warns, “This is a national security concern. It’s a global public health concern.”

Here’s one more disconcerting headline: “The Deadliest Volcano in the Western Hemisphere Might Be Waking Up.” A volcano in Colombia that killed twenty-three thousand people the last time it erupted is showing signs of activity. Residents on its upper slopes are currently being evacuated out of fear of a possible eruption.

The true definition of courage

These stories illustrate the degree to which most of us are “catching and not pitching” in life. Unless you’re a scientist specializing in immunology, you have little to do with the development of vaccines or the risks of research that could change the trajectory of deadly diseases. And none of us can stop volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and other natural disasters from striking.

The philosopher Martin Heidegger likened us to actors on a stage with no script, director, audience, past, or future. The true definition of courage, he claimed, is facing life as it is.

How do we choose such courage in the face of tragedy?

We are especially grieved and angered when mass shootings such as the tragedy in Louisville make headlines. According to the Washington Post, there have been 377 school shootings since 1999; more than 349,000 students have experienced gun violence at school since the Columbine tragedy. Pew Research Center reports that gun deaths among US children and teens rose 50 percent in the last two years.

The firearm-related death rate in the US is three times higher than in Nicaragua, nearly five times higher than in Uganda, five times higher than in Israel, and forty times higher than in the United Kingdom.

In the face of disaster and tragedy, it is a terrible feeling to feel that there is nothing we can do. But here’s what Christians can do that the rest of society cannot: we can be the change we wish most to see.

Our Lord commands us to “consecrate yourselves . . . and be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44). We are told to “cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 7:1). Paul adds: “God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness” (1 Thessalonians 4:7).

“I belong to a new spiritual order”

To this end, I cannot overstate how important I think today’s reading in Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest is for us. However, we need these reflections from Chambers in yesterday’s devotional to set the stage:

“I can have the resurrection life of Jesus here and now, and it will exhibit itself through holiness.

“The idea all through the apostle Paul’s writings is that after the decision to be identified with Jesus in his death has been made, the resurrection life of Jesus penetrates every bit of my human nature. It takes the omnipotence of God—his complete and effective divinity—to live the life of the Son of God in human flesh. The Holy Spirit cannot be accepted as a guest in merely one room of the house—he invades all of it. And once I decide that my ‘old man’ (that is, my heredity of sin) should be identified with the death of Jesus, the Holy Spirit invades me. He takes charge of everything. My part is to walk in the light and to obey all that he reveals to me. . . .

“God puts the holiness of his Son into me, and I belong to a new spiritual order.”

How can we experience this “new spiritual order”?

Today’s reading answers our question: “Even the weakest saint can experience the power of the deity of the Son of God when he is willing to ‘let go.’ But any effort to ‘hang on’ to the least bit of our own power will only diminish the life of Jesus in us. We have to keep letting go, and slowly, but surely, the great full life of God will invade us, penetrating every part. Then Jesus will have complete and effective dominion in us, and people will take notice that we have been with Him.”

The movement God is calling us to join

This process begins every day by submitting that day to the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:18). We cannot give God “tomorrow” because it does not yet exist. But we can and should give God this Wednesday as it begins. Ask the Spirit to take control of your attitudes, thoughts, words, and actions. Pray through your day, submitting your plans to him. Ask him to empower you and use you for God’s glory and our good.

Then, as you walk through this day, stay submitted to the Spirit. In the challenges and opportunities you experience, ask the Spirit to guide you and reveal Christ through you. Make this your daily habit and commitment, and over time you will see the change the Spirit alone can make in a human life.

Imagine the results if two billion Christians were so Spirit-empowered that we manifested the character of Christ to our broken world. This and nothing less is the spiritual movement God is working to advance today. Right now, he is calling you and me to join him.

Will people take notice that you have been with God today?

Denison Forum

Vice President Kamala Harris has spent much of this week in Africa, attempting to forge better relationships with key governments across the continent. She has announced more than $1 billion in funding for initiatives ranging from fighting against extremist groups like al-Qaeda to building up infrastructure, agriculture, and the economies of partner nations.

And though American officials are quick to state that their primary motivation for the new policies is a genuine desire to help, China’s uptick in involvement across Africa in recent years has likely played an important role as well.

As The Dispatch notes, “While the U.S. financed about $14 billion of projects in Africa from 2007 to 2020, comparable institutions in China financed a whopping $120 billion-worth.” In addition, “China’s developmental banks lent more than twice as much for public-private infrastructure projects in sub-Saharan Africa as the U.S., Germany, Japan, and France—combined.”

The nature of that help also plays an important role in the relationship between African countries and the West.

As Mvemba Dizolele, the director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, notes, “When the Chinese go to Africa . . . . they talk about Africa’s needs, and they try to bridge that gap.” By contrast, western nations have often spent their time focusing on humanitarian aid and promoting democracy. And while many have benefited from those efforts, Dizolele notes that “people don’t eat democracy and good governance. People need jobs. People need schools. People need hope as they contemplate the future.”

In short, too often American involvement in Africa takes the form of a hero coming to the rescue when what most Africans want is a partner to help them grow.

That’s a lesson Christians in America need to learn as well.

The plight of Bhutanese Nepali refugees

While western missions to Africa, Latin America, and other parts of the world are usually undertaken with the genuine intent to help people and share the love of Christ, the reality is that we often do a poor job of taking into account what the people to whom we’re ministering actually want from us. Moreover, it can be easy to forget that while God asks us to join him in sharing his love and gospel with those who need it, he is the one ultimately responsible for saving people.

To that end, a recent story from Angela Lu Fulton about the amazing work the Lord has done in and through Bhutanese Nepali refugees offers an important reminder for each of us.

As Fulton describes, the refugees are ethnic Nepalis who were expelled from their home in Bhutan on account of their largely Hindu faith. Many traveled to Bhutan—a small country between India and Tibet—in search of work only to later face persecution from the Buddhist majority. Those who protested the discrimination were arrested, tortured, and often killed, eventually forcing upwards of 120,000 people to flee the country. The vast majority would eventually settle into seven refugee camps in Nepal established by the UN.

However, the stories of how God worked within those camps sound like they belong in Acts more than in the modern era.

Modern-day miracles

Fulton details many of these accounts in her article for Christianity Today and it is worth reading in its entirety.

One such story is about Bhadra Rai, whose family converted to Christianity after his sister was miraculously healed when a group of believers prayed for her. Rai noted that “many people in the camps were drawn to Christianity after seeing miraculous healings from illnesses, both physical and mental.” Others describe how God protected people from poisonous snake bites and drowning in rapid moving rivers.

Still more “were drawn in by the equality they found in Christianity, where there were no castes or discrimination.” As Fulton describes, “Several Bhutanese Nepali Christians said they came to believe in Christ in the camps because of the love they found at church—a love that was missing in their home lives.”

And what’s most important for our conversation today is that all of this occurred because “the power of God was actively moving.” As John Monger, who ended up in a refugee camp after his family and the local government tried to kill him for converting to Christianity, notes, “There was no missionary, no denomination, just the simple power of God, the love of God, and the presence of God.”

The Lord continued to work in and through the refugees after they were eventually resettled in America and other western nations. Those who started churches in the camps did the same wherever they ended up, often reviving the communities and more established churches with whom they partnered in the process.

As Manoj Shrestha, the pastor of Nepal Baptist Church in Baltimore, notes, “I think God was preparing them there [in the camps] so when they moved, everywhere they move, there’s a church. They have a zeal to share the gospel, they want to plant churches, they want to become missionaries.”

And when it comes to missions, there is much they can teach us.

Sharing the gospel out of gratitude

Christy Staats, who helps to train churches in cross-cultural ministry, warns that “there is a tendency for Americans to jump into refugee work thinking we are the hero, and we need to curb that.” She goes on to add that “what’s really deep in my conviction is the leadership and capability that the Bhutanese Nepali refugees display. I need to learn from them.”

And when it comes to what we can learn from groups like the Bhutanese Nepali refugees, how to share the gospel from a place of gratitude rather than obligation belongs near the top of the list.

When we truly understand how good our God is, it becomes much easier to share his love and message with the people around us. Conversely, if we haven’t encountered or don’t fully appreciate what God has done, it can be hard to get excited about telling others.

It’s the difference between sharing the gospel because we think people need it—even though they do—and sharing the gospel because we think it’s genuinely going to make their lives better.

When we look at how the first generations of Christians shared their faith, gratitude was the defining characteristic. In American churches today, though, I think obligation has become a far more common motivation. As such, perhaps it should not come as a surprise that many of us struggle to do missions well.

So take some time today to ask God to help you understand the degree to which you are genuinely grateful for all that he has done for you. Ask him to bring to mind examples of the ways that he has blessed you and redeemed your struggles. And if those struggles threaten to block out his goodness, look to the Bhutanese refugees as an example of how to find solace in the Lord even when your circumstances make that difficult.

God doesn’t need heroes. He just needs people who understand how good the good news really is and who are willing to share it with those we meet.

Will you?

Denison Forum

Pope Francis is in the hospital today with a respiratory infection. He also made news recently when he wore what the Atlantic describes as “a stylish white puffy jacket.” Except he didn’t. The image was generated by artificial intelligence (AI), as were pictures of Donald Trump being arrested. Time has helpfully provided tips on spotting AI-generated images, an issue that will undoubtedly be part of our future media consumption.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Elon Musk and more than a thousand AI experts and industry executives have written an open letter calling for a six-month pause in developing systems more powerful than OpenAI’s newly launched GPT-4. This AI moratorium has been requested because “powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable,” according to the letter.

Here’s one example of the need for an AI moratorium in today’s news: as many as three hundred million full-time jobs around the world could be automated in some way by the latest AI, according to Goldman Sachs economists. They estimate that approximately two-thirds of jobs in the US and Europe “are exposed to some degree of AI automation” and up to a quarter of all work could be done by AI completely.

“The global transformation of Christianity is here”

In my website paper, “ChatGPT and artificial intelligence: What you need to know,” I outline the history of artificial intelligence, explain how “chatbots” work, and discuss the opportunities and challenges presented by what is truly an epochal moment in human history. In yesterday’s Daily Article on the subject, I quoted Elon Musk’s apocalyptic warning, “Artificial intelligence is a fundamental risk to human civilization.”

Here’s what I didn’t have room to say: in the midst of such technological and cultural transformation, you and I are living in a day of unparalleled spiritual transformation as well.

For years, I have been focusing on the “fifth great awakening” sweeping much of the world. We are seeing unprecedented advances for the gospel in the Muslim world, the underground church in China, and much of the Global South.

In her New York Times column last Sunday, Tish Harrison Warren agreed. Titled “The Global Transformation of Christianity is Here,” her article notes that “the last century has seen a near-complete reversal of the global demographics of Christianity.” For example, Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa has grown from around 9 percent at the beginning of the twentieth century to almost 45 percent at the end of it. Warren quotes Sam George, the director of the Global Diaspora Institute at Wheaton College: “Christianity at the beginning of the twenty-first century is the most global and the most diverse and the most dispersed faith.”

The largest church congregation in the world is Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, South Korea, with around 480,000 members. Latin America boasts fourteen megachurches with a total membership of over twenty thousand. By some estimates, China will have more Christians than any other nation by 2030. Warren cites what she calls “conservative” estimates that there were around 98 million evangelical Christians globally in 1970; now there are over 342 million.

“A decadent slum of unforeseen consequences”

Secularists have been predicting the death of Christianity in Western culture for a very long time, but God refuses to abandon us. In fact, as Os Guinness notes in his marvelous new book, Signals of Transcendence: Listening to the Promptings of Life, our Creator continues to draw us to himself in ways we might expect and ways we might not.

Guinness tells us how Malcolm Muggeridge, G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, Leo Tolstoy, and several other cultural luminaries came to faith. In each instance, something in the temporal world sparked or “signaled” the transcendent longings in their hearts.

According to Guinness, our culture desperately needs to listen to these “signals” before it is too late. He writes: “Our present need for a massive spiritual awakening dwarfs the many other problems of our modern age and represents the only hope of redeeming modernity itself. Western civilization is in the civilizational moment it finds itself in because it opposes the Jewish and Christian faiths that made it, and it has no satisfactory replacement.

“Western civilization is in evident decline. The West will therefore stand or fall according to whether it experiences such an awakening and sees the renewal of the faiths that made it. Without such a spiritual awakening, the West is shown up as a cut-flower civilization whose once vibrant life and beauty can only wither and die. Brilliant as it may be, our highest ingenuity and mastery will fall short in guiding the world forward, and in its wake, they will produce a decadent slum of unforeseen consequences, unknown aftermaths, and insoluble social and moral problems that range from wars and revolutions to suicide.”

“Only God can save the world now”

The greatest “signal of transcendence” in human history was the ministry of Jesus Christ. More than any person who ever lived, he uniquely pointed us from the temporal to the eternal, then he uniquely made a way for us to experience the transcendent today.

Compare Jesus with AI: while the latter has access to current digital data, the former is so omniscient that he knows the past, the present, the future, and the thoughts of every human heart (cf. Matthew 12:25). AI-enabled apps can guide your journey, but Jesus alone can guide you to your best life in this world (John 10:10) and your eternal destination when this life is done (John 14:3).

AI can instruct you; Jesus can forgive you. AI can provide you with information; Jesus can provide you with his loving presence in every valley and storm of life (cf. Matthew 28:20).

This is why knowing Christ and making him known are the most urgent priorities in the world. As Guinness notes, “The truth is that our Western commitment to hedonism has proved empty and damaging, and our Western reliance on technocracy will always let us down. Only God can save the world now.”

He adds: “Man cannot live by shadows alone. For all who have seen the sun, the shadows will never again deceive and satisfy, but the challenge then is even bigger and more arduous: the task of building societies and a civilization that are genuinely sunlit too.”

How will you bring sunlight to the shadows today?

Denison Forum

If you could order and pay for food with your palm, would you do it? Panera Bread café is hoping you’ll say yes to palm scanning, but first you should know the conditions: you’ll obtain a MyPanera membership, then link it to an Amazon One account that will use your palm scan as payment. The company will then know your name and your favorite orders at checkout.

What if advances like Panera’s palm-scanning technology were to be used for more than purchasing a meal? What if digital technology were to be employed to monitor everything we do and then to punish those who act in ways the monitors disfavor?

This is happening today.

“The greatest threat of all to our collective future”

The Kremlin is using facial recognition to identify and detain thousands of Russians who disagree with Vladimir Putin’s policies. According to political scientist Ian Bremmer’s The Power of Crisis, China is similarly using digital technology to monitor its citizens, giving them a social credit score in response to their alignment with the Communist regime. More than 2.5 million people have been barred from air travel as a result of poor scores, and ninety thousand have been denied high-speed rail service.

Bremmer notes that the same system could be used for dating sites, buying a home, getting a job and/or a raise, seeing the best doctors, or helping your children secure these advantages. A bad score might send you to jail. This system is already being used to monitor Chinese Christians and to close churches.

You might be thinking that this could never happen in America. But consider these facts from Bremmer’s book:

• The largest companies in American history are already gathering our digital data in “surveillance capitalism.” Every day, Americans generate about 2.5 quintillion bytes of data (2.5 followed by eighteen zeroes). This is feeding algorithms intended to sell us products and services.
• The average American is caught on security cameras 238 times per week; law enforcement is using this data and artificial intelligence (AI) to catch criminals, but this system can be used for other purposes.
• 5G is building the Internet of Things that will capture even more information, including genetic codes, to produce a “true global central nervous system.”
• Quantum computing can make it impossible to protect information via encryption, with ramifications for the security of our nation’s infrastructure from power grids and water systems to food security, public transportation systems, and a stable financial system.

Bremmer warns: “The greatest threat of all to our collective future will come from the unexpected impact of new technologies that change the way we live, think, and interact with other people and will determine our future as a species.”

“A fundamental risk to human civilization”

Yesterday we began discussing the opportunities and challenges inherent in the AI revolution now upon us. As I read further, I realized that this is a topic too large to summarize in a Daily Article, so I wrote a paper for our website: “ChatGPT and artificial intelligence: What you need to know.”

In it I quote a former research and strategy officer for Microsoft who told New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman that AI “represents mankind’s greatest invention to date.” Friedman agreed that “this is a Promethean moment” that will change every dimension of our lives.

AI presents staggering opportunities, from medical diagnostics and treatments to advancing scientific knowledge and education. However, as the late physicist Stephen Hawking noted, “AI could develop a will of its own, a will that is in conflict with ours and which could destroy us.” Elon Musk similarly warned, “Artificial intelligence is a fundamental risk to human civilization.”

How can followers of Jesus redeem the epochal opportunities and cataclysmic risks inherent in this “Promethean moment”?

“We must attack the enemy’s line of communication”

In Easter 1945, C. S. Lewis delivered a paper on Christian apologetics to an assembly of Anglican priests and youth leaders. He could have just as easily been answering our question.

Given his assigned topic, the preeminent apologist of the century must have surprised his listeners by stating, “I believe that any Christian who is qualified to write a good popular book on any science may do much more by that than by any directly apologetic work.” He explained his reasoning: “We can make people (often) attend to the Christian point of view for half an hour or so, but the moment they have gone away from our lecture or laid down our article, they are plunged back into a world where the opposite position is taken for granted.”

As a result, Lewis noted, “We must attack the enemy’s line of communication. What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians on other subjects—with their Christianity latent” (his emphasis). For a materialistic secularist, Lewis predicted, “It is not books on Christianity that will really trouble him. But he would be troubled if, whenever he wanted a cheap popular introduction to some science, the best work on the market was always by a Christian.”

Here’s the point: AI in particular, and our broken society in general, desperately need the moral compass of the Christian worldview. To guide culture most effectively, however, we must do so from inside. We need Christians who are charismatic political leaders, brilliant screenwriters, exemplary businesspeople, and superlative athletes. The rest of us need to pray for Christians in such positions of strategic influence.

In the context of today’s article, we need believers who are preeminent computer scientists and will bring Jesus’ moral authority to their work. In the AI age now dawning, bedrock biblical values such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the sanctity of life will be needed as never before.

As I close this article, I sense the words of Isaiah 6:8 in my soul: “I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’”

Denison Forum

The death toll from a tornado in Mississippi last Friday has risen to twenty-six people as of this morning. The pictures are horrifically tragic; among the victims were a one-year-old and her father. More severe weather struck the region last night, including a likely tornado in Georgia that injured multiple people and caused significant damage.

In better news from nature, Mercury, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Uranus will align and display themselves tonight in a row on the western horizon. The best time for viewing will be twenty to twenty-five minutes after the sun has set.

Meanwhile, researchers report that shifting tectonic plates are splitting Africa into two continents. The shift has been ongoing since the East African Rift—a thirty-five-mile-long crack in Ethiopia’s desert—emerged in 2005. However, we’re told the continent will not completely split for another five to ten million years.

A “scaled secession” is happening in the United States

If you’re looking for another continent dividing in real time, you could focus on the United States. Professor Michael J. Lee writes in The Conversation that a “scaled secession” is already taking place within the United States. This is not the “national divorce” that has been recently in the news but “soft separatism” in which communities are distancing from one another in a variety of ways.

Wealthier areas are separating into parallel school districts. Eleven states calling themselves “Second Amendment sanctuaries” refuse to enforce federal gun restrictions. Eleven counties in Eastern Oregon support seceding and reclassifying themselves as “Greater Idaho”; Idaho’s state government supports the move. Over two dozen rural Illinois counties, seeking to be free of Chicago’s political influence, have passed pro-secession referendums.

Momentum toward secession is growing on the “left” as well: “Cal-exit” is a plan for California to leave the union. “Sanctuary” cities and states refuse to enforce what they consider to be unfair immigration laws and policies. Some prosecutors and judges refuse to prosecute women and medical providers for newly illegal abortions in their states.

California punishes Walgreens over abortion

Are we dividing over biblical morality as well?

In a recent New York Times column, David French chronicles a host of recent events that impinge on our basic constitutional freedoms. For example, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that his state would not renew a multimillion-dollar contract with Walgreens because the company responded to Republican legal warnings and chose not to dispense an abortion pill in twenty-one “red” states.

In 2018, the Supreme Court struck down a California rule requiring pro-life pregnancy centers to publish information about free or low-cost abortions. An appeals court recently ruled that legislation in New York prohibiting employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of their “reproductive health decision making” may violate the rights of pro-life organizations that require employees not to have abortions and to refrain from extramarital sex.

Public schools sometimes withhold information from parents about a child’s gender transition. California has enacted a statute granting the state broad authority to permit children to receive “gender-affirming health care” in the state, even potentially over the objection of a custodial parent. And the list goes on, in “red” states and “blue” states alike.

Legislation in Israel would jail Christians for evangelism

The Easter season is a great time to discuss the meaning of Jesus’ resurrection and to invite friends to Easter services. So, here’s a thought experiment: What cost would you pay to make your faith public?

In Israel, a bill was introduced in January that would punish Christians who “solicit conversion of religion” with jail time. If they seek to lead an adult to Christ, they would serve a year in jail; if they share their faith with a minor, they would serve two years. Prime Minister Netanyahu announced last week, “We will not advance any law against the Christian community,” indicating that the bill has no chance of becoming law.

But what if it did? What if similar legislation were to pass in the US? What price would you pay to fulfill Jesus’ Great Commission (Matthew 28:18–20) as his witness where you live and around the world (Acts 1:8)?

As the Mississippi tornado demonstrated, we are all one moment from eternity. We have only today to turn to the One who made the planets (Colossians 1:16) and in whom “all things hold together” (v. 17) in our broken world (Romans 8:22). And we have only today to help those we influence turn to him as well.

“Gratitude offered by the saved to the Savior”

The next time it could cost you to share your faith, remember how desperately people need your Lord. The night before he died, Jesus prayed: “This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). Evangelism does not “impose” your personal beliefs—it shares the only path anywhere in the universe that leads to eternal life.

The more people reject our Savior, the more they need our Savior.

And the next time it could cost you to serve your Lord, remember the price he paid to serve you. Max Lucado wrote: “Worship is a voluntary act of gratitude offered by the saved to the Savior, by the healed to the Healer, and by the delivered to the Deliverer. If you and I can go days without feeling an urge to say ‘thank you’ to the One who saved, healed, and delivered us, then we’d do well to remember what he did.”

If we can “go days without feeling an urge” to serve him by sharing his grace, we’d do well to do the same.

Denison Forum

While news of Donald Trump’s impending arrest dominated headlines earlier this week, the former president remains a free man as of this writing. That reality might come as a surprise, however, for the millions of people who’ve already seen pictures of him thrown to the ground and dragged off by police.

It turns out, those “deepfake” pictures that went viral across social media were the work of an AI art generator following the suggestions of Eliot Higgins, the founder of an open-source investigative outlet called Bellingcat.

As Higgins described, “I was just mucking about. I thought maybe five people would retweet it.” More than 5.5 million views later—not counting all those who have shared the images across other platforms—it’s safe to say that the images have surpassed his initial expectations. And while the original post included the caption “Making pictures of Trump getting arrested while waiting for Trump’s arrest” to clarify that the images were fake, that disclaimer was quickly lost as the pictures spread.

Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.) noted that “while it took a few years for the capabilities to catch up, we’re now at a point where these tools are widely available and incredibly capable.” And the more famous the person at the focus of the art, the more realistic the images become since the AI gets better at portraying someone the more often it attempts to do so.

Sam Gregory, the executive director of the human rights organization Witness, warns that a time could be fast approaching when realistic but false images made for fun are the least of our concerns: “There’s been a giant step forward in the ability to create fake but believable images in volume. And it’s easy to see how this could be done in a coordinated way with an intent to deceive. . . . The aim may not be to convince people that a certain event happened but to convince people that they can’t trust anything and to undermine trust in all images.”

However, if that outcome were to become a reality, it would not necessarily be the fault of the AI but rather of the people who use it. And we don’t have to look far to see how those decisions are already yielding potentially devastating consequences.

Ten minutes to guns loaded

In a recent study by the group EKO, researchers set up nine new TikTok accounts (PDF), each with a birthday portraying the account holder as a thirteen-year-old, the youngest a user can be to set up an account with the service. Their goal was to see how easy it would be for a child to find explicit videos related to suicide, incel and “manosphere,” and drugs.

After establishing accounts to focus on each of those subjects, they liked and bookmarked—but did not share or comment on—ten videos related to one of those topics. That sample proved sufficient for TikTok’s algorithm to flood their For You Page with videos that promoted increasingly explicit content related to their search.

The results on suicide were particularly troubling.

As the researchers relate, it only took ten minutes of basic viewing for TikTok to begin recommending videos “with guns being loaded and text suggesting suicide, alongside hundreds of comments in agreement and some listing exact dates to self-harm or attempt suicide. Beyond videos explicitly pushing suicide, TikTok’s For You Page was filled with videos promoting content that pushes despondent and hopeless commentary.”

The study’s authors caution that “looking at these videos in isolation might not raise concern. . . . [but] the algorithm seemed to be chasing our researcher with content to keep them on the platform. In this case, the content fed by TikTok’s algorithm was overwhelmingly depressing, nihilistic and otherwise hopeless.” They go on to describe how “even employees at TikTok have been disturbed by the app’s push towards depressive content, that could include self-harm.”

And these issues are hardly limited to TikTok. Most social media platforms have AI-driven algorithms designed to promote increasingly engaging content in whatever areas a user shows interest.

The true problem with AI

It would be easy to look at the findings in the EKO survey or the chaos created by the fake images of Donald Trump’s arrest and conclude that the problem is the technology.

We must remember, however, that AI is not inherently evil. After all, if you go looking for funny animal videos, cooking tips, or sports highlights, it can fill your feed with content that brings happiness and laughter. But if you go with a darker purpose in mind, it can easily exacerbate those intentions as well. And those darker intentions have been around since humanity first left Eden.

Ultimately, the problem with AI is the degree to which it makes feeding our sinful impulses so much simpler. And it can do so in a way that is so subtle that we hardly even notice it’s happening. Again, though, the foundational problem is and always will be our sin.

We can get mad at TikTok or other forms of social media—and such anger or hesitance is by no means unwarranted—but even if they went away tomorrow we would still create new ways to satisfy those same desires.

At the end of the day, people just need Jesus. And as clichéd or preachy as that may sound, it’s the truth.

So be mindful of the power wielded by social media and the artificial intelligence baked into its algorithms, but don’t forget that you are ultimately responsible for its influence in your life. And be sure that when it comes to evaluating that influence, you remember to include God in the conversation.

He is the only One who can save us from the sin that resides at the heart of these problems, both eternally and in the present moment.

Will you seek his help today?

Denison Forum

On a morning when the news is dominated by the Federal Reserve attempting to control the economy and the grand jury investigating Donald Trump, I wanted to focus on something more transcendent. To do so, however, I have to begin with the temporal. Actress Gwyneth Paltrow’s trial over a 2016 ski accident got underway this week. The actress is being sued by a man who alleges that she injured him after she crashed into him on a ski slope and sped off. Paltrow countersued, claiming that the man crashed into her.

More than forty-eight thousand jury trials occur every year in the US, which works out to 192 per weekday. This, however, is the only one of which I am aware that is being streamed, pointing to the power of celebrity in our culture.

In other news, Joe Exotic of Tiger King fame has announced that he is running for president. However, he is serving twenty-one years in prison for his role in a murder-for-hire plot. But once again, we see the power of celebrity to make news.

And Blake Shelton made headlines when he recruited his final contestant on The Voice this week. Shelton has announced his retirement from the singing competition. It is estimated that ten thousand people in the US reach the retirement age of sixty-five every day, but Shelton is the only “retiree” I have seen in the news today.

Beware “Celebrity Worship Syndrome”

One obvious reason Americans are so interested in celebrities is that the media makes them so ubiquitous. It’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg scenario: people get famous, which gets them in the news, which increases their fame, which makes them more newsworthy.

A second is that many people live vicariously through the celebrities they follow. When I watch the Masters next month, I will be imagining myself playing on the most famous golf course in the world. When we read about Warren Buffett’s billions, we imagine ourselves with such wealth. Celebrities are famous because their followers want to be like them.

This phenomenon has become so pronounced in recent years that psychologists have coined the name “Celebrity Worship Syndrome” (CWS). They warn that “CWS is an obsessive addictive disorder in which a person becomes involved with the details of a celebrity’s personal life.”

Celebrity obsession is especially alluring for people going through difficult times or young people who are still establishing their identities. One psychologist said, “In our society, celebrities act like a drug. They’re around us everywhere. They’re an easy fix.”

This addiction can lead to compulsive buying and other behaviors by which people try to emulate the celebrities they “worship.” Others use social media platforms to seek celebrity for its own sake rather than learning and using skills that contribute to society.

“You cannot see something that is above you”

This quest for celebrity speaks to something even deeper: there is hunger in each of us for significance that transcends the moment. We want to live beyond ourselves. We want to believe when our lives are over that they mattered, that we made a difference, that what we did was worth doing.

This is one way we deal with the reality of death: if we believe others will remember us, we will “live on” in a sense. But even more, this quest for enduring significance is a God-shaped hunger for living eternally in the temporal. It is a “signal of transcendence” pointing from this life to the next.

Here’s the problem: the quest for celebrity can leave us either frustrated that we are not who we wish to be or proud that we are.

A psychologist notes: “If you look at the Halls of Fame and biographies around the world, there are perhaps only thirty thousand entries and of those, perhaps ten thousand are dead. So this leaves about twenty thousand slots” for fame seekers. How many US presidents can you name? CEOs? Movie stars? Great athletes? Out of a world population of 7.8 billion, how many would you call “great” today?

If you do achieve celebrity that outlives you, beware of the pride that so often accompanies such fame. C. S. Lewis observed, “As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.”

“Jesus came to give us his own life”

The most transcendent celebrity who ever lived was a man who lived in the most humble of ways. If you and I will follow Jesus’ example by focusing on the eternal in the temporal and seeking intimacy with our living Lord, we will experience and reflect his life to a culture in desperate need for what he alone can give.

He testified: “Whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do” (John 14:12). This is because the same Holy Spirit who empowered Jesus now empowers us. He manifests the same “fruit” in our lives that he demonstrated in our Savior’s life (Galatians 5:22–23). And every day, by focusing on Jesus, we experience eternal significance that our world cannot begin to bestow or take.

As usual, Henri Nouwen makes my point better than I can: “Our lives are destined to become like the life of Jesus. The whole purpose of Jesus’ ministry is to bring us to the house of his Father. Not only did Jesus come to free us from the bonds of sin and death; he also came to lead us into the intimacy of his divine life.

“It is difficult for us to imagine what this means. We tend to emphasize the distance between Jesus and ourselves. We see Jesus as the all-knowing and all-powerful Son of God who is unreachable for us sinful, broken human beings. But in thinking this way, we forget that Jesus came to give us his own life. He came to lift us up into loving community with the Father.

“Only when we recognize the radical purpose of Jesus’ ministry will we be able to understand the meaning of the spiritual life. Everything that belongs to Jesus is given for us to receive. All that Jesus does we may also do.”

Are you seeking “the intimacy of his divine life” today?

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Jesus Revolution, a movie about a spiritual awakening in California in the early 1970s, is nearing $46 million in box office ticket sales as of this morning. In so doing, it has matched or surpassed The Fabelmans, The Banshees of Inisherin, Tár, Women Talking, and Triangle of Sadness, combined. (For more on Jesus Revolution, see our review, as well as our interview with director Jon Erwin in The Denison Forum Podcast.)

Why is the movie striking such a chord with so many millions of people?

Rev. Greg Laurie, a California pastor and central figure in the movie, writes: “We were created to worship. And when you get down to it, every person on Earth does worship. We don’t all worship the God of heaven, but we all worship someone or something. It may be a sports figure, an entertainer, or someone else. It may be a possession. But everyone bows at some kind of altar.”

The pastor continues: “Even atheists worship. Skeptics worship. Republicans and Democrats worship. Independents worship. Everyone, everywhere, worships. It’s the fundamental drive of life and one of the unique distinctions of humanity.”

This is because, as Rev. Laurie notes, “God has placed eternity in the human heart (see Ecclesiastes 3:11).”

Every person you know is looking for God in some way. Every person, whatever their public or private stance on faith and religion, is made by God for God. This is a fact beyond their control. It is a reality St. Augustine famously voiced sixteen centuries ago: “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you” (Confessions 1.1.1).

As a result, no matter how dark the days seem to be, you and I should have an “abundance mentality” that expects the King of the universe to use us in making a transforming difference in our lost world. As we will see today, it is always too soon to give up on God.

“No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars”

Evidence that biblical morality is best for us continues to grow. For example, the Wall Street Journal headlines, “For Long-Term Health and Happiness, Marriage Still Matters.” By contrast, studies have clearly linked premarital sex to divorce.

While our secularized culture conflates success with happiness, another Wall Street Journal article reports the opposite: “We’re all sprinting on what psychologists call a hedonic treadmill. That is, we might get a hit of joy when we achieve something, but we eventually return to our baseline level of happiness (or unhappiness). Whatever heights we reach, we’re still, well, us.”

This is because we are fallen people living in a fallen world.

The annual “Stress in America Survey” reports that stress is “rising rapidly” as a result of escalating inflation, concerns about possible Russian cyberattacks or nuclear threats, fears that a World War III could break out, and worries about money and the economy. Unsurprisingly, 90 percent of US adults say the United States is experiencing a mental health crisis.

The depressing news cycle exacerbates our angst. Bad news generates more interest than good news, contributing to a “negativity bias” that conditions us to pessimism about the world around us. As the axiom goes, “A pessimist is never disappointed.”

However, as Helen Keller noted, “No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.” Winston Churchill added, “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

Who was the first named disciple of Jesus?

If I asked you to name the first named disciple of Jesus, whom would you nominate? Peter, the preacher of Pentecost? John, the “beloved disciple”? James, or Matthew, or Thomas? The answer is Andrew (John 1:40; John is the other disciple in the narrative, but he does not name himself).

As soon as he began following Jesus, what did Andrew do? “He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which means Christ). He brought him to Jesus” (vv. 41–42), thereby becoming the first evangelist in Christian history. Andrew later brought some Greek inquirers to Jesus (John 12:20–22), thereby becoming the first cross-cultural missionary in Christian history. He went on to plant churches across modern-day Ukraine, Romania, and Russia, making him the patron saint of all three nations and the 140 million Christians who are his spiritual descendants.

Andrew was ultimately crucified for his Lord. However, according to reliable early tradition, he testified that he was not worthy to die in the same manner as did his Lord, so he was crucified on an X-shaped cross that is known today as “St. Andrew’s Cross.”

But there was a time when Andrew was not so heroic. When five thousand families were following Jesus, he asked his disciples, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” (John 6:5). Andrew responded: “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?” (John 6:9). Jesus then turned that small boy’s tiny lunch into a feast for the multitude.

“What are they for so many?”

Andrew’s question is our question. We read of rising animosity against our Father and our faith, then we look at our capacities and ask, “What are they for so many?” We look at the spiritual, financial, and material needs of our day, then turn to our resources and ask the same question.

In response, consider the counsel of Pope St. Leo the Great (died AD 461): “Do not be put off by a lack of resources. A generous spirit is itself of great wealth, and there can be no shortage of material for generosity where it is Christ who feeds and Christ who is fed. His hand is present in all this activity: his hand, which multiplies the bread by breaking it and increases it by giving it away.”

Will you put your “lunch” in his hands today?

Denison Forum

Former President Donald Trump said Saturday that he expects to be indicted today by the Manhattan District Attorney for alleged hush money payments. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has not commented on Mr. Trump’s claim, and a spokesperson for the former president later stated that there “has been no notification, other than illegal leaks from the Justice Dept. and the DA’s office” to news outlets.

However, as the New York Times notes, “If Trump is indicted, this week will be unlike any other in American politics.”

What happens next?

A possible indictment was reportedly on hold yesterday until a final witness testified before a Manhattan grand jury. Experts say the jury, which meets during afternoon sessions on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, could deliberate again tomorrow and could vote to indict Mr. Trump at that time.

The investigation centers around cash paid to pornographic film star Stormy Daniels in 2016 prior to Mr. Trump’s election win. Daniels claims that she had an affair with Mr. Trump; the former president denies her claim. Mr. Bragg is expected to accuse Mr. Trump of concealing a $130,000 hush-money payment that Michael D. Cohen, his personal lawyer at the time, made to Daniels on the eve of the 2016 presidential election. Prosecutors would need to prove that Mr. Trump reimbursed Mr. Cohen and falsified business records when he did so, possibly to hide an election law violation.

According to the New York Times, “It would not be a simple case. Prosecutors are expected to use a legal theory that has not been assessed in New York courts, raising the possibility that a judge could throw out or limit the charges. The episode has been examined by both the Federal Election Commission and federal prosecutors in New York; neither took action against Mr. Trump.”

If Mr. Trump is indicted, Reuters reports: “Any trial of the former US president would still be more than a year away . . . . and could coincide with the final months of the 2024 presidential campaign as Trump seeks a return to the White House.” As a result, he could have to stand trial during the campaign or even after Election Day, “though putting a president-elect or president on trial for state charges would enter uncharted legal waters.” Reuters adds: “If elected, he would not hold the power to pardon himself of state charges.”

All of this would be unprecedented: no US president, sitting or former, has ever been charged with a crime.

What does this mean for our nation?

What does Mr. Trump’s possible indictment say about our political culture?

The New York Times reports, “In the short term, an indictment seems likely to help Trump politically. It will draw attention to him, and he often performs best when he has a foil.” Columnist Maggie Haberman said, “I do think an indictment, if it happens, will galvanize his supporters. He will describe the case as trivial, a point some Democrats have argued, and he will insist it’s all part of a broader Democratic Party conspiracy against him to help President Biden in his re-election effort.”

Liam Donovan, a veteran Republican strategist, took the view that an indictment may help Mr. Trump in the primary but hurt him in a campaign against President Biden: “Legal escalation would be a significant blow in a general election where he needs to broaden his support, but any event that polarizes the primary in terms of pro- or anti-Trump sentiment only serves to harden his core support.”

Here’s what seems less likely: that an indictment will change many minds about Mr. Trump. His supporters will see such an action as a politically motivated witch hunt that further proves the need for his election to “make America great again.” His detractors will see an indictment as further proof that he is unfit for office. Those who are ambivalent about him are likely not surprised by this news, however they view it.

I say all of that to make this point: our political culture is divided to a depth that raises questions about our national future. A former president of the United States and current leader for his party’s presidential nomination is either the victim of a partisan witch hunt or the perpetrator of felony crimes; one would think either scenario would move the political needle. As it is, it would seem that both parties are believing and doing precisely what the other party condemns them for doing. As I noted yesterday, the depth of these divisions is unprecedented in living memory.

A friend from the past

Let’s apply today’s conversation to an issue even more urgent than the US presidency: the status of people’s eternal souls. Like partisans in today’s political environment, many non-Christians have clear opinions about Christians and reasons they believe warrant their rejection of our faith.

To be sure, their beliefs regarding Jesus and his church are often wrong, but they don’t know that. In their minds, they are justified in their unbelief. To persuade them to question their entrenched opinions is challenging, indeed.

This is why following the lead of God’s Spirit is indispensable in advancing God’s kingdom. Jesus knows the thoughts of those he wants us to influence (cf. Matthew 9:4) and is preparing them and us today for our ministry to them tomorrow. If we will begin today by surrendering it to his Spirit (Ephesians 5:18) and then speak as he speaks to us, he will use us to change minds and souls for eternity. Today’s conversation points to a second fact: It is always too soon to give up on God. He is working in ways you cannot see to effect transformation you may never get to witness. As I often say, you cannot measure the eternal significance of present faithfulness.

I’ll close with a personal example: I received a text yesterday from a colleague who is at a pastoral conference and met someone who said he knew me from my college days. This person greatly understated his impact on my life: when my father died in December 1979, this man drove across Houston the next day to spend the day with me. I don’t remember that he said anything, but his presence was the presence of Christ to my grieving soul. Forty-four years later, I remember his compassion as if it were yesterday.

I’ll say it again: You cannot measure the eternal significance of present faithfulness.

With whom is God calling you to be faithful today?

Denison Forum