Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lᴏʀᴅ of hosts (Zechariah 4:6).

Democrats will continue to control the US Senate after Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto was projected on Saturday to win reelection. Whatever the outcome of the December 6 runoff in Georgia, Democrats will have fifty votes in the Senate, with Vice President Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking vote when needed.

This news is far more consequential than it may seem.

The “filibuster” is a rule requiring sixty votes in the Senate to pass legislation. It was suspended on a simple majority vote by Democrats in 2012 to confirm then-President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees and again in 2017 by Republicans to confirm then-President Donald Trump’s first nominee to the Supreme Court.

President Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) have each called for suspending it again to pass legislation codifying abortion regardless of states’ objections or legislation. There have been similar calls in support of the so-called Equality Act, which would codify LGBTQ rights with no protections for religious freedom.

Two Democratic senators—Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ)—have refused to suspend the filibuster in the past. If Democrats win the Georgia runoff, they will be one vote from doing so even over the objections of both.

One vote away?

As the leader of a nonpartisan ministry, my purpose today is not to advocate for or against any political party or leader. Rather, it is to illustrate the problems inherent in advancing biblical morality through secular legislation.

For example, if you believe on biblical grounds that marriage should be between a man and a woman, you should be strongly opposed to the so-called Equality Act (EA) which has passed the US House of Representatives twice but does not have the sixty votes it needs in the Senate. But if the filibuster were suspended on this issue, the EA would pass and be signed by President Biden. And legislation considered to be the most invasive threat to religious liberty in American history would become law.

We may be one vote in the Senate from this scenario becoming a reality. Pro-life supporters could face a similar scenario with proposed legislation that would codify abortion access regardless of states’ laws or objections.

In both cases, Christians would be depending on one or two senators to prevent legislation that has broad public appeal. For example, 58 percent of Americans support a federal law establishing a right to an abortion before a fetus can survive outside the womb; 70 percent support same-sex marriage.

From Moral Majority to moral minority

My entire professional life, conservative Christians have engaged our culture on the premise that the majority of Americans agreed with us. For example, Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority in 1979 to advance conservative social values; the name was meant to signify that he and his supporters spoke for the majority of Americans on cultural and moral issues.

At the time, 70 percent of Americans believed (PDF) same-sex sexual relations were “always wrong”; in 1988, only 10 percent of Americans supported same-sex marriage. Electing lawmakers who would support traditional marriage was not only the right thing to do biblically—it reflected the broad consensus of Americans.

This consensus is now gone.

If lawmakers vote in ways that reflect popular consensus today, biblical morality will increasingly lose. You and I will hope for the “right to be wrong” on the basis of our First Amendment religious liberty protections, but these can be overturned on a case-by-case basis as with the so-called Equality Act.

Not to mention all the other ways a “moral minority” can face the opprobrium of the majority, from demands that the NCAA exclude evangelical schools, to threats against federal funding for schools deemed “discriminatory” against LGBTQ students, to calls for ending tax-exempt status for organizations that do not support same-sex marriage.

Could this be the start?

More than ever before in American history, America’s Christians will need to be both courageous and persuasive. We will need to stand for biblical morality whatever the personal cost, remembering that “all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12). And we will need to persuade our fellow citizens that biblical morality is best for them and for society since we can no longer depend on legislation and legislators to do that job for us.

In other words, Christians in the twenty-first century are returning to the first century. We are returning to a day when we had little or no social standing. We owned no buildings, so we taught “in public and from house to house” (Acts 20:20), going to those who would not come to us. We had no official clergy, so each of us was responsible for “the work of the ministry” (Ephesians 4:11–12).

And by Acts 17:6 we had “turned the world upside down” and birthed the mightiest spiritual movement in human history.

Our secret was simple: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lᴏʀᴅ of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6). Paul testified, “My speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2:4–5).

Could it be that we have relied in recent decades on politics to do what only the Spirit can do? Could America’s widespread embrace of unbiblical morality and rejection of biblical Christianity force us to depend on the Spirit more than ever before?

If so, could this be the start of the spiritual awakening we and our nation need so desperately?

Denison Forum

The law of the Lᴏʀᴅ is perfect, reviving the soul (Psalm 19:7).

“I never collect welfare, I never collect Medicare, I never collect any money from the government. All what I do, I work hard, seven days a week. I raised my kids, graduated from the college and bought a house and I bought a business all because I work hard and become an honest man.” This is how Joe Chahayed described himself to reporters after selling the winning $2.04 billion Powerball ticket this week.

Mr. Chahayed emigrated from Syria in the 1980s with his wife, two children, and around $14,000 in his name. Now a grandfather of ten, he owns Joe’s Service Center in Altadena, an unincorporated community northeast of Los Angeles. For selling the winning ticket, he will receive a Powerball bonus of $1 million. Unsurprisingly, he plans to spend it on his five children and donate some to the community.

“Uncertainty is the friend of the status quo”

In Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The Wisdom of Legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser, Dan Levy lists and discusses a number of insightful and practical axioms taught by the noted economist.

Among them is this observation: “Uncertainty is the friend of the status quo.” Levy explains: “When there is uncertainty about the value of the choices we are considering in a given decision, we tend to stick with our initial or previous choice.” He cites credit cards, bank accounts, gym memberships, and even toothpaste brands as examples.

Such “status quo bias” is often appropriate, as Levy notes: “As long as we consider the original brand we choose to be sufficiently good, and the cost of assessing whether to change not worth it, it is rational to stick with our initial choice.” However, he adds that “one can take advantage of status quo bias to help people make better choices by setting a default option that will be good for the person making the decision.”

In behavioral economics terms, this involves constructing “choice architecture” that “nudges” people toward good choices. Such defaults have been used to get people to automatically enroll in retirement plans or donate organs, for example.

Two transforming truths

As America has focused on this week’s midterm elections, we have focused in the Daily Article on the relationship between politics, culture, and religion. Yesterday we discussed the urgency of holiness for Christian leaders since “religion is the root of culture” and religious leaders play a formative role in the lives of religious followers.

Today, let’s close our series by considering the urgency of personal godliness for all Christians, whatever our leadership status. We’ll do so by applying the two narratives we’ve explored thus far:

1. In a postmodern society that measures truth by relevance, our personal character is fundamental to our cultural impact.
2. Establishing biblical authority as our “default option” will transform our personal character and our public influence.

Joe Chahayed is not the first or the last person to sell a winning Powerball ticket of significant size (though the one he sold was the largest so far). However, he made the news not just for what he did but for who he is: a hardworking, conscientious immigrant who has made a good life for himself and his family.

We are always going to be attracted to the beliefs of attractive people. (This is why celebrity endorsements remain such popular and powerful marketing tools.) However, as fallen people, you and I are more likely to live in ways that discourage rather than encourage others to trust in our holy God unless we have his help.

This is why it is so urgent that we decide every day at the start of the day to live biblically that day. When we say to God, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105, my emphasis), it will become so. When we decide that “all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16), we will profit from it personally.

“Pilate was merciful till it became risky”

It should be noted that choosing against culture always comes at a cost. It is far easier to float with the current than to swim against it. Living biblically in an unbiblical culture especially requires courage, as the members of the Hebrews 11 “Hall of Faith” vividly remind us:

“Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—of whom the world was not worthy” (vv. 35–38).

In The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis famously observed: “Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. . . . A chastity or honesty or mercy which yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions. Pilate was merciful till it became risky.”

However, the further our culture turns from biblical morality, the more it needs biblical truth. The less it considers God’s word to be relevant, the more it needs to see the relevance of God’s word in our lives.

“The testimony of the Lᴏʀᴅ is sure”

Let’s close by applying our conversation personally: What is your next step into biblical obedience? It likely will require courage on your part—if it were easy, you would probably have already taken it.

But if you will decide now to make biblical living your “default option” for the day, you will say with David, “The law of the Lᴏʀᴅ is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lᴏʀᴅ is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lᴏʀᴅ are right, rejoicing the heart” (Psalm 19:7–8).

Will your soul be revived and your heart rejoice today?

Denison Forum

“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” —Hosea 4:6

Republicans are still on track this morning to regain control of the House, though numerous races are still undecided. Three seats are still undetermined in the Senate as well, where Republicans hold a 49–48 edge.

It has been said that “democracy is a slow process of stumbling to the right decision instead of going straight forward to the wrong one.” As our latest exercise in democracy continues to unfold, a relevant Wall Street Journal article caught my eye today. In “Lincoln’s Vision of Democracy,” famed Princeton historian Allen C. Guelzo shows how Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” summarized American democracy concisely but brilliantly in his now-famous triplet: “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

As Dr. Guelzo explains, “This wasn’t merely a rhetorical flourish. In that triplet, Lincoln lays out the three fundamental elements of democracy.” The first is consent—government of the people. The second is the people’s voice in the work of governing—government by the people. The third is government that serves the interests of the people it represents—government for the people.

President Lincoln believed that a new commitment to these three ideals would lead to a “new birth of freedom” for our land. According to Dr. Guelzo, “That new birth is the task that lies before every succeeding generation of Americans. In it, we find our way not only back to Lincoln but to democracy itself.”

How can we experience this “new birth of freedom” in these divided and divisive days?

“America’s long heroic journey”

I consider The Abolition of Man to be C. S. Lewis’s most prophetic book. In it, he consistently warns against the rising moral subjectivism that he believed would lead to the downfall of democracy. Lewis’s insights relate directly to our “post-truth” culture today.

Here’s one example: “For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men [and] the solution is a technique.”

The fact that scientific techniques are more successful than magic tricks in subduing reality to our wishes makes his point more relevant. Amazing medical and technological advances have improved all of our lives immeasurably. As a result, we have been conditioned to believe that unaided human effort can “subdue reality to the wishes of men,” whatever those wishes are.

For example, in his first inaugural address, President Bill Clinton declared: “Our democracy must be . . . the engine of our own renewal. There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.” He then called on Americans to embrace “the conviction that America’s long heroic journey must go forever upward.”

Such self-reliance lies at the heart of Western culture. Socrates claimed that to “know thyself” is the path to knowledge. Aristotle asserted, “Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.”

How is such self-reliance working for us?

“Religion is the root of culture”

In a democracy, we are tempted to invest politics with the same power and authority we have assigned to science, asking our leaders to “subdue reality” to the wishes of those who elect them. But politics in a democracy cannot solve our greatest problems because leaders are elected by voters to do what voters want, and voters are just as fallen as the leaders they elect.

What, then, is the answer to our deepest challenges and needs? Richard John Neuhaus observed: “Culture is the root of politics, and religion is the root of culture.” This is why renewing America requires renewing America’s religion.

I often quote from George Washington’s 1796 Farewell Address because this observation is so critical for our nation: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports” (my emphasis). Here’s the problem: in our secularized, post-Christian, even anti-Christian culture, many would divorce religion from morality. As I noted recently, more Americans think morality should be based on “what you feel in your heart” than any other source, including the Bible.

But Washington had a prophetic word for this dangerous fallacy: “Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

Does Hosea’s warning apply to us?

So, renewing American democracy requires renewing American culture, which requires renewing American religion. Spiritual awakenings across our history have brought about such moral and even political transformation, but they always begin within the church.

God’s familiar promise to Israel in 2 Chronicles 7:14 to “heal their land” begins, “If my people who are called by my name . . . .” The Lord warned the religious leaders of Hosea’s day, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. . . . you have forgotten the law of your God” (Hosea 4:6).

In a day when religious leaders and entire denominations reject biblical sexual morality and endorse elective abortion, when just 37 percent of America’s pastors hold a biblical worldview, does Hosea’s warning apply to us?

However, I must admit that there is a personal downside to today’s article: it is tempting for me to criticize political and religious leaders for their failings and so avoid honesty about my own. I have no right to ask others to do what I am unwilling to do.

So I must ask, Is my heart “wholly true to the Lᴏʀᴅ” (1 Kings 8:61)?

Am I willing to serve my King whatever the risk?

Am I willing to do whatever he asks, go wherever he leads, and serve whatever the cost?

Are you?

Denison Forum

 “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!” —Psalm 122:6

As of this morning, Republicans appear to be on track to regain control of the House of Representatives, though the size of their majority is yet to be known. Control of the Senate is still to be determined, with several pivotal races too close to call.

As the leader of a nonpartisan ministry, I am responding to the midterm elections with reflections that would be the same regardless of which party controls which branch of our government.

“The problems posed by living in collaborative groups”

As background, let’s consider a New Yorker article indicating that “reason developed not to enable us to solve abstract, logical problems or even to help us draw conclusions from unfamiliar data; rather, it developed to resolve the problems posed by living in collaborative groups.” In other words, we tend to make our decisions based on how our group makes theirs. Consequently, while we’re critically aware of the fallacies held by others, we are blind about our own.

In addition, we must rely on the expertise of others for the essentials of life (such as the function of toilets, as the article illustrates), so we do the same with our opinions, depending on the “knowledge” of those with whom we already agree. Further research demonstrates that we experience genuine pleasure—a rush of dopamine—when we process information that supports our beliefs.

These facts relate directly to voting in a democracy. Once we identify our “group,” we tend to vote in ways that advance our group’s agenda. We are much more able to see the shortcomings of the other group’s candidates than our own. We are rewarded psychologically when our side wins and the other side loses.

And democracy, which depends on the wisdom of the voters to elect leaders most capable of serving the people, is weakened as a result.

“The father of American democracy”

In 1638, Puritan pastor Rev. Thomas Hooker delivered a sermon before the Connecticut General Court advocating for popular sovereignty, the right of the people to rule themselves. This was the first time in the colonies that an American explicitly asserted such democratic ideas.

He based his sermon on Deuteronomy 1:13, where Moses instructed the people, “Choose for your tribes wise, understanding, and experienced men, and I will appoint them as your heads.” Hooker’s sermon influenced the creation of the Connecticut state constitution, the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, which was the first constitution in the American colonies.

As a result, he is often described as “the father of American democracy.”

Note his belief that our leaders must be “wise, understanding, and experienced.” This implies that the people who choose them must also be “wise, understanding, and experienced” so as to identify leaders who deserve their support. This is the fundamental challenge within our system of governance: as French philosopher Joseph de Maistre noted, “In a democracy, people get the leaders they deserve.”

The fact that we are fallen people explains the fallenness of our society and of our politics. As grateful as I am for those who are willing to engage in public service, the fact remains that we can only elect sinners like ourselves.

History professor Daniel K. Williams notes, “Political parties work well as highly imperfect tools for accomplishing particular aims, but they become horrific idols when we treat them as sources of our moral identity.”

“We have received Christ himself”

David implored us, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!” (Psalm 122:6). Note that he did not encourage us to “work” for the peace of Jerusalem, but to “pray” for it. The Hebrew word translated “pray” could be rendered “beg for, plead.” The grammar could be rendered “plead and keep on pleading.”

“Peace” translates shalom, a very significant word in Jewish culture even today. It describes completeness, wholeness, health in every dimension of life. David knew that the source of true shalom for Israel and for the rest of the world lies in God, not in us. We must come to him with expectant, urgent, humble, repentant faith.

And when we do, God does what only he can do.

Charles Spurgeon observed, “By an act of faith Jesus becomes a real person in the consciousness of our heart. . . . It is true that he gave us life from the dead. He gave us pardon of sin; he gave us imputed righteousness. These are all precious things, but we are not content with them; we have received Christ himself” (his emphasis).

“Preach first by the way that you live”

This is why sharing the good news of God’s love is so urgent. As pastor and evangelist Greg Laurie notes, “God’s primary way of reaching nonbelievers is through the verbal articulation of the gospel.” We are inviting others into a personal, transforming relationship with a personal, transforming God. We can actually know Jesus and then make him known. And knowing him does in us and through us what no political party or leader could ever accomplish.

However, Charles Borromeo, the Archbishop of Milan from 1564 to 1584, offered an important qualification: “Be sure that you preach first by the way that you live. If you do not, people will notice that you say one thing but live another, and your words will bring only cynical laughter and a derisive shake of the head.”

Live the gospel and share the gospel. Know Christ and make him known, and long after yesterday’s elections are forgotten, your faithfulness to your Lord will echo in eternity.

This is the promise, and the invitation, of God.

Denison Forum

 “Be wise in the way you act with people who are not believers.” —Colossians 4:5 NCV

If I could predict the future, I might have joined Jim McIngvale—better known as “Mattress Mack”—in his $10 million bet last May that his Houston Astros would win the World Series. His bet won him $75 million, which is believed to be the largest payout in legal sports betting history. When asked what he planned to do after winning, the seventy-one-year-old said he’d be back to work the next morning at 9 a.m.

Or I might have purchased the winning Powerball lottery ticket and won a record $1.9 billion. The drawing was delayed, so it’s likely the official results won’t be known until later today. I’d be happy to wait that long.

Of course, I cannot predict the future. But I am nonetheless willing to make a clear prediction regarding today’s midterm elections and their consequences for our country and our culture.

“The deepest habit of mind in the contemporary world”

In his debate with Jimmy Carter a week before the 1980 presidential election, Ronald Reagan asked the nation, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” It’s the kind of question politicians typically ask before elections. And it reveals far more than the answers voters give.

In his paper, “Is Theology Poetry?” Oxford scholar C. S. Lewis identified “universal evolutionism” as “perhaps the deepest habit of mind in the contemporary world.” He defined the term: “the belief that the very formula of universal progress is from imperfect to perfect, from small beginnings to great endings, from the rudimentary to the elaborate.”

He added that this belief “makes people find it natural to think that morality springs from savage taboos, adult sentiment from infantile sexual maladjustments, thought from instinct, mind from matter, organic from inorganic, cosmos from chaos.” However, he observed, “It seems to me immensely unplausible, because it makes the general course of nature so very unlike those parts of nature we can observe.”

This “habit of mind” nonetheless assumes that the world must evolve to get better and better. If it does not, voters in a democracy hold our leaders accountable.

Democrats are claiming that women’s rights are under attack by Republicans and hope this issue galvanizes their base. Republicans hope their focus on crime and the economy will help them win the midterms.

But this belief that political leaders can effect systemic change overlooks a basic fact about human nature.

“He will give you pardon and imparted holiness”

Scripture is clear: “Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” (James 4:17). This applies to us all: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). John added: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8).

A. W. Tozer was right: “Sin is a terrible thing, and either we deal with our sin or our sin will deal with us.” By contrast, when a person comes to Christ, “that second the supernatural life of God invades him instantly. The dominating power of the world, the flesh, and the devil is paralyzed, not by your act, but because your act has linked you on to God and his redemptive power” (Oswald Chambers).

I do not mean to suggest that politics are not important. To the contrary, there are absolutely positive consequences to biblical political leadership. For example, in the first two months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the number of abortions fell by more than ten thousand. That’s ten thousand precious lives that have been spared as a consequence of decades of hard work and political engagement by pro-life advocates.

There are absolutely negative consequences to political leadership as well, as the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2015 demonstrates. The proposed so-called Equality Act similarly constitutes the greatest threat to religious liberty in American history.

For these reasons, I am convinced that God is calling more Christians into public service than are answering his call. But here’s my prediction: no matter the results of today’s midterms, the gospel will still be the only answer to the greatest problems we face.

Billy Graham noted: “In exchange for perplexity, [Christ] gives the blessed assurance of his grace and adequacy. In exchange for your anxiety, he gives you a confidence and trust that knows no bounds. In exchange for boredom, he will give you a bold, courageous, purposeful faith. In exchange for your sin, he will give you pardon and imparted holiness.”

“Courteous conduct honors Christ”

Consequently, the way Christians engage in politics is crucial to our witness and the eternal destinies of those we influence. Max Lucado was right: “Those who don’t believe in Jesus note what we who believe in Jesus do. They make decisions about Christ by watching us. When we’re kind, they assume Christ is kind. When we’re gracious, they assume Christ is gracious. But when we’re dishonest, what assumption will an observer make about our Master?

“No wonder the Apostle Paul says, ‘Be wise in the way you act with people who are not believers, making the most of every opportunity. When you talk, you should always be kind and pleasant so you will be able to answer everyone in the way you should’ (Colossians 4:5–6 NCV).”

Lucado therefore noted: “Courteous conduct honors Christ. It also honors his children.”

Will your political engagement today honor both?

Denison Forum

 “All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” —2 Timothy 3:12

I returned home last weekend after spending two weeks in Israel, where I observed their latest elections firsthand. As you know, a coalition led by former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu won enough seats in the Israeli parliament to form a new government.

What you may not know, however, is why this story matters to every evangelical Christian in America.

The issue above all other issues

The popular vote was evenly split with about 49 percent going to Mr. Netanyahu and 49 percent going to his opponents. However, as my Israeli friends explained to me, Mr. Netanyahu’s victory was fueled primarily by the rise of a political partnership led by two men who are unfamiliar to Americans but who are dominating the news in their country.

Bezalel Smotrich leads a political party called Religious Zionism which, as Israeli political commentator David Horovitz explains, “ultimately seeks an Israel run according to the laws of the Torah.” Itamar Ben Gvir leads Otzma Yehudit, which “advocates the annexation of the biblical Judea and Samaria for an enlarged sovereign Jewish state in which West Bank Palestinians would be denied equal rights.”

The two parties formed a coalition with Mr. Netanyahu’s secular Likud party to win a sixty-four-seat governing majority in the 120-seat parliament. This coalition, according to my Israeli friends, is fueled less by popular support for Smotrich and Ben Gvir’s actual agendas and more in response to the security threats Israel is facing. Violence in the West Bank is escalating dramatically; Iran continues to arm Hezbollah in Lebanon while pursuing nuclear capacities that pose an “existential threat” to Israel.

As last week’s election showed once again, a tiny nation surrounded by enemies will always put its defense ahead of other political issues.

Kyrie Irving’s suspension and the rise of anti-Semitism

Why is this fact relevant to you and me?

For the answer, we must explore briefly the global rise in anti-Semitism that is contributing to the political situation in Israel.

NBA star Kyrie Irving was suspended last week by the Brooklyn Nets after posting a documentary with antisemitic conspiracy theories and falsehoods on Twitter. Nike also suspended its relationship with him in the wake of the controversy. Irving later apologized to the Jewish community.

Meanwhile, the Jewish advocacy group Anti-Defamation League (ADL) warns that anti-Semitism is rising on US college campuses at a time when violence against Jews in America has reached record levels. Last year, the ADL reported 2,717 incidents of assault, harassment, and vandalism against the Jewish people, a 34 percent increase from the year before and the highest number on record since the group began tracking anti-Semitic incidents in 1979.

Anti-Semitism has been called “history’s oldest hatred.” Many factors explain this tragic narrative, but one is especially relevant for Christians in America: the Jewish commitment throughout history to maintaining their unique religious identity.

Jews refused to worship the gods of Persia (cf. Daniel 3 and 6), Greece (thus the Maccabean revolt), and Rome (thus the revolt that led to the destruction of the temple in AD 70). They have been committed throughout their history to truth and morality as expressed in their 613 commandments (mitzvot in Hebrew) extracted from the Old Testament that govern every dimension of their lives.

Should the Bible govern morality?

Why is this commitment relevant for you and me?

George Barna and the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University have just released (PDF) a new report studying morality in the US. Here’s the good news: “Most Americans, regardless of their religious faith, champion traditional moral values.”

Here’s the bad news: 71 percent “now contend that human beings rather than God should be the judge of right and wrong.” Forty-two percent said “what you feel in your heart” is the best moral guide, followed by 29 percent who said we should base morality on majority rule. Only 29 percent said principles taught in the Bible should guide our morality.

By contrast, 66 percent of American adults who possess a biblical worldview said that the Bible should be the main source of determining right and wrong.

As the history of anti-Semitism shows, if you will not bow to the gods of your culture, you will face the wrath of your culture. Paul warned us: “All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12, my emphasis).

We can therefore determine the degree to which we follow Jesus by the degree to which the world opposes us.

If worshiping God yesterday does not make us different from those who did not worship him, did we truly encounter God? If you and I are not living in ways that distinguish us from our secularized, post-Christian culture, how can we truly be following Jesus?

“A sense of overwhelming awe”

The more we experience Jesus, the more we will become like him (Romans 8:29) and the less we will be like those who oppose him (cf. 1 John 3:1).

Gordon Fee has been called “one of the most influential New Testament scholars who has ever lived.” A textbook he wrote with colleague Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, was the primary textbook I used in teaching biblical interpretation courses in seminary. It is now in its fourth edition and has sold around a million copies.

Fee died recently at the age of eighty-eight. In a 1988 paper reflecting on Bible study and spirituality, he concluded (PDF) that to study God’s word properly, “We must hear the words with our hearts, we must bask in God’s own glory, we must be moved to a sense of overwhelming awe at God’s riches in glory, we must think again on the incredible wonder that these riches are ours in Christ Jesus, and we must then worship the living God by singing praises to his glory.”

By this measure, did you “worship the living God” yesterday?

Will you today?

Denison Forum

 “Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.” —Philippians 1:18

A new research facility has gathered the full documentary record of Billy Graham’s life and work in one place. According to Christianity Today (which was founded in 1956 by Dr. Graham), archives that had been loaned to Wheaton College will be combined with “hundreds and hundreds of boxes that remained at Graham’s home office in Montreat, North Carolina, and additional material from his ministry’s former offices in Minneapolis and in storage in Charlotte.”

This state-of-the-art archive is located across the road from the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, North Carolina. It comprises thirty thousand square feet at a cost of $12 million and opens on Monday, Dr. Graham’s birthday.

David Bruce, who served as executive assistant to the famous evangelist, has overseen the project. He notes that its purpose is not nostalgia or history for history’s sake. “Mr. Graham wouldn’t have approved of any of this unless it could be used to further the gospel,” he said. “I hope that people see the work of God in his life, and then all the history he touched, and it can encourage people to reflect on the living, breathing Word of God.”

“We have all of Jesus we want”

Years ago, a wise mentor in one of the churches I pastored said, “Our problem is that we have all of Jesus we want. Not all of Jesus we need, but all of Jesus we want.” He was speaking for more people than our congregation.

Billy Graham knew how much he needed Jesus. He told a 1993 crusade in Portland, Oregon, “I can’t live the Christian life alone. I’m a failure. Billy Graham cannot live the Christian life. I’ve tried. I can’t do it. But with the help of the word of God and the help of the Holy Spirit, I can live the Christian life. But he lives it through me.”

He knew that we need Jesus as much as he did. In 1955, he said on “The Hour of Decision,” “The regeneration of the individual is much more needed than the revolution of society.” He stated that same year, “If I didn’t believe that the Bible and the gospel of Jesus Christ held the answer to this world’s baffling problems, I would go back to the farm and the rural life that I love and spend my days in peaceful solitude.”

He declared, “When our minds are on Christ, Satan has little room to maneuver.” And he knew that when we are changed by Jesus, everything about us is changed: “The transformed man loves when others hate. He is just when others are prejudiced. He is understanding when others misunderstand and he is poised when others are frantic.”

Dr. Graham was convinced: “If Christianity is important at all, it is all important. If it is anything at all, it is everything. It is either the most vital thing in your life, or it isn’t worth bothering with.”

“In order that I may gain Christ”

Paul would have agreed. All through his letter to the Philippians, often considered his favorite church, the apostle repeated the same theme. He told them that even though some “proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment,” nonetheless “Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice” (Philippians 1:17–18).

He testified, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (v. 21) and added, “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better” (v. 23). He wanted their “manner of life [to] be worthy of the gospel of Christ” (v. 27) and informed them that their sufferings were “for the sake of Christ” (v. 29).

Paul then offered them “encouragement in Christ” (Philippians 2:1) and encouraged them to have “this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus” (v. 5). One day, he predicted, “every tongue [will] confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (v. 11).

The apostle set the example for all to follow: “Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:7–8).

Paul’s ultimate purpose and passion were clear: “That I may know him” (v. 10).

“My one purpose in life”

Knowing Christ is the purpose of the Christian life. Everything else about our faith is secondary and derivative. We were created for an intimate, daily, personal relationship with our living Savior.

So, let me ask you: How well do you know Jesus today?

You can know him just as you can know any other living person. Better, in fact, since his Spirit lives in you (1 Corinthians 3:16), he is always interceding for you (Romans 8:34), and he is as close as your next prayer.

You get to know Jesus just like you get to know anyone else: by spending time with him. Read his word to hear his voice. Listen for his Spirit as he speaks to your spirit. See his hand in his creation (Colossians 1:16). Speak to him through the day. Practice his presence by imagining yourself in his presence, and it will be so.

Then do all you can to help those you know to know him. Billy Graham was clear: “My one purpose in life is to help people find a personal relationship with God, which, I believe, comes through knowing Christ.”

What is your “one purpose in life”?

Denison Forum

“Be still before the Lᴏʀᴅ and wait patiently for him.” —Psalm 37:7

Joanna and Chip Gaines are two of the best-known evangelical Christians in popular culture. Their long-running home improvement show, Fixer Upper, was one of HGTV’s highest-rated franchises ever and was nominated for two Primetime Emmys. The couple has expanded into restaurants, home décor, a realty company, and a TV network.

However, in a personal essay for the winter issue of her Magnolia Journal, Joanna opened up about her experience with burnout. While expressing deep gratitude for all the ways she and her family have been blessed, she writes: “I knew I couldn’t keep going the way I have. It’s hard to explain how I was feeling. I was grateful beyond measure, but exhausted. Loved, but feeling unworthy. Full, but running on empty. And because my world kept me busy, I could still feel the wheels of my life humming. What became harder to tell is where they should be headed.”

In writing her memoir, which is set to release on November 8, she was able to reflect on her life in a way that made her more intentional about being present in the moment. She says, “When I look back next time, I don’t want to see a kind of kaleidoscope life—out of focus and jumbled.” Instead, she continues, “I want to live the next season of this beautiful life in focus.”

“Take away my life”

Joanna Gaines is a committed believer who experienced burnout in the midst of great success. She is not the first, nor will she be the last. Job in his travails comes to mind immediately, as do David fleeing from Saul, Moses leading his people through the wilderness, and Peter after his denials of Christ.

But no one in Scripture pivoted from incredible success to deep personal discouragement more starkly than the prophet Elijah. In 1 Kings 18, “the fire of the Lᴏʀᴅ” fell on the altar he constructed (v. 38) and the people fell on their faces and said, “The Lᴏʀᴅ, he is God” (v. 39). However, as soon as wicked Queen Jezebel learned of Elijah’s triumph over her false prophets, she vowed his death (1 Kings 19:2).

So the prophet ran for his life, traveling from Mt. Carmel in the north to Beersheba in the south (v. 3), a distance of 120 miles and as far from Jezebel as he could go. Here, he “asked that he might die, saying, ‘It is enough; now, O Lᴏʀᴅ, take away my life’” (v. 4).

But God sent an angel to sustain him (vv. 5–7), and Elijah “went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God” (v. 8). Here he complained again to God: “The people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away” (v. 10). God responded in a “low whisper” (v. 12) to his prophet, calling him to anoint new kings and a new prophet to continue his ministry (vv. 15–17).

And he assured Elijah that he had “seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him” (v. 18).

God “remembers your sins no more”

Like Elijah, you and I can face seasons of deep discouragement and despair. Such struggles come to us from at least three sources: sin, temptation, and circumstances.

If, like Peter, you have failed your Lord through personal sin (Luke 22:54–62), know that God has not given up on you. As he restored Peter (John 21:15–19), so he wants to forgive you and restore you to your kingdom calling.

Ask the Holy Spirit to bring to mind anything in your life that is displeasing to God. Now confess what comes to your thoughts specifically and honestly. Claim God’s promise to forgive all you confess (1 John 1:9), knowing that he then separates your sins from you “as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12), buries them in “the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19), and “remembers your sins no more” (Isaiah 43:25 NIV).

Now, the next time guilt comes back, remember that you confessed that sin and are forgiven for it and claim the fact that grace is greater than guilt. You may need to do this one hundred times today and ninety times tomorrow, but eventually the guilt will leave and grace will prevail.

“Resist the devil, and he will flee from you”

Temptation is a great discourager of God’s people as well. Satan loves to tempt us and then to tempt us to feel guilty that we are being tempted. The opposite is actually the case: the more fervently you serve the Lord, the greater a threat you are to his enemy. If he would tempt Jesus in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1–10), he will certainly tempt his followers.

Name your temptation and give it immediately to God, asking him for the strength and wisdom you need. Claim his promise: “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

Now turn to Scripture in response, as Jesus did. Use your temptation as an opportunity for prayer, worship, and intimacy with your Lord. Note and follow this order: “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). As Erasmus noted, Satan hates nothing so much as for his evil to be used for good.

“Let us not grow weary of doing good”

Circumstances can be a third source of discouragement for believers. From the stock market and rising interest rates to threats of nuclear war in Ukraine and a “worrying resurgence of tuberculosis,” today’s news can feel hopeless.

But it is always too soon to give up on God. Scripture calls us to “be still before the Lᴏʀᴅ and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!” (Psalm 37:7). We are promised: “Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9).

To that end, we’ll close with an eighth-century Irish prayer that was translated into one of the most beloved hymns of the church. I invite you to pray these transforming and empowering words slowly to God today:

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart; Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night, Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word; I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son; Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

Be Thou my battle Shield, Sword for the fight; Be Thou my dignity, Thou my Delight;
Thou my soul’s Shelter, Thou my high Tower; Raise Thou me heavenward, Power of my power.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise, Thou mine inheritance, now and always;
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart, High King of heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

High King of heaven, my victory won, May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heaven’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall, Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.

Denison Forum

 “He sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction.” —Psalm 107:20

The man accused of breaking into US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home, beating her husband, and seeking to kidnap her told police he planned to target other California and federal politicians, according to a court filing yesterday. The filing quotes David DePape as telling officers and medics at the scene that he was sick of the “lies coming out of Washington DC.” He added: “I didn’t really want to hurt him but you know this was a suicide mission. I’m not going to stand here and do nothing even if it cost me my life.”

This horrific attack is not an isolated event.

According to figures from the Capitol Police, the number of recorded threats against members of Congress has increased more than tenfold since 2016, rising to 9,625 in 2021. Threats are rising against members of both parties. “I wouldn’t be surprised if a senator or House member were killed,” Sen. Susan Collins told an interviewer.

Supreme Court justices are not immune, as protests outside their homes earlier this year demonstrated. Nor are governors, as the plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer shows. Unsurprisingly, the head of the US Capitol Police has called for “more resources to provide additional layers of physical security for members of Congress.”

Why has political vitriol and animosity reached such a boiling point in our culture?

Separating God from religion

Here’s one explanation: “For many Americans, politics has become a quasi-religion—especially as participation in actual, organized religion has plummeted.”

The US has long been known for our “civil religion,” which has been described as “a shared, nonsectarian faith centered on the flag, the nation’s founding documents, and God.” However, the number of Americans who believe in God has fallen to its lowest point since Gallup began asking the question in 1944. So, a simple explanation for our crisis is that Americans are replacing God with politics.

The truth is more complex.

Gallup’s survey still found that 81 percent of Americans said they believed in God. However, only 47 percent belong to a church, synagogue, or mosque, down from 70 percent in 1999. What’s more accurate to say is that many Americans have separated God from religion and then replaced religion with politics.

Why is this distinction important?

Separating religion from life

The Bible teaches a holistic religion: Jesus called anyone who would follow him to “take up his cross daily” (Luke 9:23). Every dimension of our lives is to be dedicated every day to the service of our king (Matthew 6:33; cf. Galatians 2:20; Romans 12:1).

However, the European Enlightenment that so influenced America’s founders “invented religion as an autonomous sphere of life,” thus conceptualizing “the world as divided between ‘religious’ and ‘secular.’” Darwin’s theories then taught millions of Americans that the Bible cannot be trusted outside its religious sphere. Rising materialism and secularism have focused our attention on earth rather than heaven while scientific progress has made earth more like heaven. Medical science has lessened our fear of death as we are living healthier lives while most who die do so in antiseptic hospital conditions removed from the rest of us.

The result is that most Americans no longer turn to religion to meet our most basic needs: living well in this life while preparing for the life to come. We think we can believe in God however we understand him with little or no implications for the rest of our lives.

But if religion cannot improve society, what can? What speaks to every dimension of our secular world? In a democratic republic, the answer is politics. And engaging in politics with a fervor once reserved for religion is therefore necessary, at least in the minds of those who do so.

As David French shows in his latest Dispatch article, millions of Americans (80 percent in a recent survey) are convinced that their political opponents will destroy America. Millions (72 percent in another poll) also believe that their side is losing. And millions on both sides of the political divide believe they must therefore do whatever it takes to save the nation.

Is it any wonder that animosity and violence against political leaders is becoming an epidemic?

Uniting religion and the “real world”

Today is All Souls’ Day on the Christian calendar, a day of prayer and remembrance for the faithful departed.

This day reminds us that “it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). This judgment is for us all: “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Corinthians 5:10, my emphases).

On that day, all illusions of separating sacred and secular, religion and the “real world,” will disappear. Every dimension of our lives will be accountable to the one true King (Revelation 20:12).

Christians need have no fear of eternal damnation since everyone who trusts in Christ as Lord “shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 NIV). However, our eternal rewards in heaven are based on our obedience on earth: if we have served God holistically with our best, we will “receive a reward” (1 Corinthians 3:14). If we have not, we will “suffer loss” (v. 15).

How to heal our land

Politics cannot heal our nation, but living in light of eternity can.

There are approximately 210 million Christians in America. If each of us prepares for judgment by loving God with “all” our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we will love our neighbors as ourselves (Mark 12:30–31). We will then engage our many problems not with political animosity but by “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15).

How could our culture be the same? How could we?

What the Lord did for his people of old, we need him to do for us today: “He sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction” (Psalm 107:20).

Can your Father speak his healing word through you today?

Denison Forum

 “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day.” —Psalm 119:97

At least 154 people were killed and 149 others were injured in a crowd surge at a packed Halloween festival Saturday night in Seoul, South Korea. In other weekend news, Somalia’s president said at least one hundred people were killed Saturday in two terrorist car bombings, though the death toll could rise. An overcrowded suspension bridge collapsed yesterday in India, killing at least 134 people.

And Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul is recovering from surgery after being attacked early Friday morning by a hammer-wielding intruder at their San Francisco home. Paul Pelosi suffered a fractured skull and injuries to his hands and right arm, but he is expected to recover fully.

Oscar Wilde observed, “The real tragedies of life occur in such an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning.” In a world encompassed with such daily suffering, it is not surprising that we would invent holidays like Halloween and station them throughout the year.

The typical US year has ten such holidays, beginning with New Year’s Day and ending with Christmas. The Catholic liturgical year celebrates the lives of various saints on more than 120 different days across the year.

Some of our holidays serve a diversionary purpose as they distract us from the challenges we face. Others serve a more edifying purpose as they focus on faith, country, and family. But here’s a fact you may not have considered regarding America’s holidays, both sacred and secular: not one of them is found in the Bible.

Halloween and other nonbiblical holidays

Nowhere does Scripture command us to set apart a specific day for observing Jesus’ birth or his resurrection, much less our other holidays. Thanksgiving comes closest, though the biblical command is to “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:18), not just one day a year.

Many of our holidays are purely secular, as with Halloween, while church tradition has created others such as tomorrow’s All-Saints’ Day (“All Hallows’ Day”), for which today is the “eve” (“All Hallows’ Eve” or “Halloween”).

If you want your holidays to come directly from Scripture, you will need to follow the Jewish religious year. It includes Pesach (Passover), Shavuot (Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost), Sukkot (Tabernacles), and the High Holidays: Rosh Hashanah (New Year) and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). Each is required and described by the Torah. While the Jews have added others through tradition (such as Hanukkah), their calendar centers on biblical prescriptions.

Here’s my point: events and decisions in our lives fall into three categories—biblical, nonbiblical, and unbiblical.

Halloween is nonbiblical: God’s word does not command it, which would make it biblical, or forbid it, which would make it unbiblical. However, Scripture does teach us what would be biblical to do today, such as using the day for church outreach events, getting to know your neighbors so you can build relationships for the gospel, and spending fun time together as a family.

And it teaches us what would be unbiblical to do today, such as engaging in occult practices (Leviticus 19:31) or anything that would glorify Satan, “a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44) who “comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10).

When obedience was a pleasure

The same principle applies to much of life. For example, God’s word obviously does not directly address the digital technology by which I am creating and distributing today’s Daily Article. But it does encourage biblical uses of technology such as internet discipleship, and it warns us against unbiblical uses of technology such as pornography.

How can we be sure we are doing nonbiblical things in biblical ways and that we are avoiding unbiblical things at all costs? It would be wonderful if we could simply follow our instincts and do what comes naturally to us. But this is a privilege we left behind when we left Eden so long ago.

In The Problem of Pain, C. S. Lewis observed: “Paradisal man always chose to follow God’s will. In following it he also gratified his own desire, both because all the actions demanded of him were, in fact, agreeable to his blameless inclination, and also because the service of God was itself his keenest pleasure, without which as their razor edge all joys would have been insipid to him.

“The question ‘Am I doing this for God’s sake or only because I happen to like it?’ did not then arise, since doing things for God’s sake was what he chiefly ‘happened to like.’ His God-ward will rode his happiness like a well-managed horse, whereas our will, when we are happy, is carried away in the happiness as in a ship racing down a swift stream. Pleasure was then an acceptable offering to God because offering was a pleasure.”

How can we return to such a blessed condition?

Acting into feeling

The psalmist declared to God, “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day” (Psalm 119:97). “Love” translates a Hebrew word meaning “to desire, to delight in, to breathe after.” The word translated “meditation” refers to one’s “occupation or thoughtful contemplation.” The two phrases reinforce each other: the more we are passionate about God’s word, the more time we will spend studying and applying it to our lives, and the more we study and apply God’s word, the more passion we will develop for it.

Counselors say we should “act into feeling” rather than “feeling into acting.” If you don’t feel love for your spouse, do what you would do if you did: go on a date, give them something you know they would enjoy, and so on. The more you do what love does, the more you may feel what love feels.

So, with today’s holiday and every other nonbiblical event or decision you encounter, spend time seeking scriptural truth and wisdom. Take note of what would be biblical and unbiblical to do. Pray for God’s Spirit to help you do the former and refuse the latter. Then do what you know you should do.

The more you live biblically, the more you will want to live biblically.

And you will obey Billy Graham’s admonition, wisdom that is especially appropriate on Halloween: “Stay close to Christ—because the closer you are to him, the farther away you are from the devil.”

Will you be closer to Christ today than you were yesterday?

Denison Forum

 “There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” —Acts 4:12

Coach Joseph Kennedy will be reinstated as a high school football coach after he was fired seven years ago for leading prayers on the field after games. This after the US Supreme Court sided with him last June. Critics alleged that he was forcing his faith on his students, which violates the cardinal virtues of our postmodern culture: tolerance and inclusion.

Such inclusion is on display now in the UK after Rishi Sunak became the first British prime minister of color and, as a Hindu, the first non-Christian. Britain now has a Christian king, a Hindu prime minister, a Muslim mayor of London, and a leader of the opposition who married into a Jewish family.

In other news, the Associated Press reports that a record number of LGBTQ candidates are running for office and notes that “some breakthrough victories are likely.” Meanwhile, the Presbyterian Church USA will add a “nonbinary/genderqueer” category to official church statistics. If you disagree, many will say that you are homophobic and as dangerous to society as if you were a member of the KKK.

One more related story: Pew Research Center and the General Social Survey agree that the percentage of religiously unaffiliated Americans is higher than ever before. Only 63 percent of Americans consider themselves to be Christians, declining from 90 percent in 1972; 29 percent are religiously unaffiliated, up from 5 percent in 1972.

Does the growing number of people with no faith grieve you? If not, why not?

Imposing my polio vaccine on you

We have focused this week on the privilege and necessity of being bold and public with our faith. Let’s close by exploring the necessity of sharing our faith with our skeptical culture.

Almost half of Christian Millennials (47 percent) believe that it is wrong to share one’s personal beliefs with someone of a different faith in hopes that they will one day share the same faith. This fact should not surprise us: postmodern relativism has indoctrinated generations of Americans with the claim that all truth claims are relative and subjective. If all truth is personal, what right (or responsibility) do I have to “impose” my personal beliefs on you?

Consider an analogy.

Polio is making a comeback in the US due to declining vaccination rates. After Dr. Jonas Salk discovered a vaccine against poliomyelitis in 1953, all children were inoculated against the disease, myself included. This is unfortunately no longer the case.

Now imagine that science found a cure for polio that does not require a vaccine. Why, then, would I impose on you the vaccine I received as a child? Alternately, imagine that there are scores of different vaccines available, each of them as effective as any other. Again, why would I impose my vaccine on you? If I tried to do so, how would you respond?

“No one comes to the Father except through me”

In a similar fashion, many Christians today discount or even dismiss the need for sharing their faith with unbelievers.

Some are universalists, believing that because God loves all of us, all of us will go to heaven. Others are “Christian universalists,” believing that Jesus died for everyone, so everyone will go to heaven whether they believe in him or not. You don’t need to know about Jonas Salk to benefit from his vaccine; you don’t need to have a personal faith in Jesus to benefit from his sacrifice, or so some say.

However, God’s word regarding the necessity of personal faith in Christ is clear. Jesus famously said of himself, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Peter said of his Lord, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

The book of Revelation reports, “If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life [through faith in Christ], he was thrown into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:15). And Jesus’ statement is definitive: “Whoever believes in [Christ] is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 3:18).

Three practical responses

Of course, postmodern skeptics will say that these biblical claims are “our” truth and that they are under no obligation to make them “their” truth. Let’s consider three practical responses.

One: Pray for God to do what you cannot.

You and I cannot convict a single sinner of a single sin or save a single soul. This is the work of the Holy Spirit (John 16:8). Pray by name for the lost people you know, asking the Lord to draw them to himself.

Two: Look for ways to join God in answering your prayer.

God’s Spirit is at work today in lives he intends you to influence tomorrow. Ask his Spirit to prompt you when he wants you to meet a need in Jesus’ name (cf. 1 Peter 4:10). Ask him to give you the words you are to say when you are to say them (Luke 12:12). Then trust that he is using your ministry whether you can see immediate results or not.

Three: Begin today.

C. S. Lewis, in his 1939 sermon “Learning in War-Time,” encouraged Oxford University students during the Second World War: “Never, in peace or war, commit your virtue or your happiness to the future. Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment ‘as to the Lord.’ It is only our daily bread that we are encouraged to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.”

Fulfilling our “one purpose” in life

Oswald Chambers states: “The great essential of the missionary is that he remains true to the call of God and realizes that his one purpose is to disciple men and women to Jesus” (my emphasis). But he also reminds us that we must experience for ourselves what we would share with others: “The one great challenge is—Do I know my risen Lord? Do I know the power of his indwelling Spirit?”

Have you asked God’s Spirit to empower and use your life yet today?

Denison Forum

 “Your testimonies are my delight; they are my counselors.” —Psalm 119:24

An earthquake rattled the San Francisco Bay Area yesterday. The strongest quake the region has seen in eight years happened on the Calaveras Fault, one of eight major faults in the Bay Area and a branch of the San Andreas fault line. The event is thus a reminder that earthquakes do not create faults in the earth—they reveal them.

This fact applies to more than geology.

The nineteen-year-old gunman who killed two people and wounded several others at his former St. Louis high school left a handwritten note saying, “I don’t have any friends. I don’t have any family. I’ve never had a girlfriend. I’ve never had a social life. I’ve been an isolated loner my entire life.” According to St. Louis Police Commissioner Michael Sack, “This was the perfect storm for a mass shooter.”

In other news, 2022 has set a record for border crossings and migrant deaths. A man who drove an SUV into a Christmas parade in Wisconsin last November has been found guilty of first-degree intentional homicide. Authorities are investigating a woman’s claim in Iowa that her late father was a prolific serial killer who murdered dozens of people over several decades.

And the body of a little boy who was found stuffed inside a suitcase in Indiana has been identified. Local police have announced an arrest, with another suspect still at large.

“A republic, if you can keep it”

The moral challenges we face reveal the foundational fissures created by our postmodern, post-Christian rejection of biblical truth and morality. This crisis was predictable and was, in fact, predicted.

Adam Smith is considered to be the “father of capitalism.” In An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, he advocated for a society in which “every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man or order of men” (my emphasis).

In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, he added: “Upon the tolerable observance of these duties [such as justice, truth, chastity, and fidelity] depends the very existence of human society, which would crumble into nothing if mankind were not generally impressed with a reverence for those important rules of conduct.” George Mason University economist Erik W. Matson comments: “It is liberty, in Smith’s view, that is at the heart of capitalism, and at the heart of liberty lies commitment to the good of humankind.”

In his magisterial work, Democracy in America, French historian Alexis de Tocqueville explained that this focus on personal morality is “how the Americans combat individualism by the principle of self-interest rightly understood.” He noted that this principle “suggests daily small acts of self-denial” and disciplines us “in habits of regularity, temperance, moderation, foresight, [and] self-command,” drawing us toward “virtue by the will.”

I often state that America’s founders believed consensual morality to be essential to self-governance. Our constitutional checks and balances can only go so far in preserving and advancing our democracy. Government “of the people, by the people, for the people” requires a people capable of self-governance. As Benjamin Franklin famously stated when asked what the Constitutional Convention of 1787 created, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

And so, once again we see that advancing biblical morality is vital to our secular culture.

“Your servant will meditate on your statutes”

Therapists remind us that we cannot change the minds of others merely through the explanation of facts. If people do not want to change, they are unlikely to change.

However, we can demonstrate the transforming personal relevance of biblical truth so fully and powerfully that others may want what we have. As we have noted this week, living boldly and courageously for our Lord is vital to our souls and to our culture.

As an example and a model, consider Psalm 119:23–24: “Even though princes sit plotting against me, your servant will meditate on your statutes. Your testimonies are my delight; they are my counselors.” “Princes” in this context refers to rulers or commanders of the Jewish people. They “sit plotting” against the psalmist—the phrase means that they have gathered together, perhaps behind closed doors, to plan harm against the writer.

Nonetheless, he calls himself God’s “servant”—the word refers to a bondservant or slave, one who must do what his master requests whether he wants to or not. As God’s servant he will “meditate on your statutes”—the Hebrew means that he will focus his attention fully on God’s decrees.

Despite the opposition he faces from his nation’s leaders, the writer makes this commitment happily: “Your testimonies are my delight” (v. 24a), truth in which he finds great joy and pleasure. Furthermore, he will do what these “testimonies” teach: “They are my counselors” (v. 24b).

“Make an effort to be noble”

Such fidelity to biblical truth is no guarantee that we will not be persecuted by those who reject such truth. Nevertheless, the psalmist refused to be deterred from meditating on God’s statutes and enacting them in his life each day.

Dead fish float with the current; live fish swim upstream. God sees every act of unpopular obedience and will reward it forever. Just as he honored “the sons of Zadok, who kept my charge, who did not go astray when the people of Israel went astray, as the Levites did” (Ezekiel 48:11), so he will reward our faithfulness to his word and will.

Oswald Chambers noted, “It takes a tremendous amount of discipline to live the noble life of a disciple of Jesus in actual things. It is always necessary to make an effort to be noble.”

How noble will you be today?

Denison Forum

The Christmas shopping season is already going strong. Christmas decorations are up in stores and on some houses as well. In that context, I have good news and bad news regarding Santa Claus.

The good news: we now have archaeological evidence that he is real. The bad news: this evidence comes in the form of a tomb that has just been discovered. In other words, he’s real but he’s dead.

The historic Santa Claus was Saint Nicholas of Myra, a bishop who lived from AD 270 to 343. The Santa Claus story was based on his reputed ministry of distributing gifts to the poor and the needy. Now archaeologists say they have discovered his tomb beneath St. Nicholas Church in Demre, a town in the Turkish province of Antalya.

The church is named for him, of course, but it had been thought that his bones were moved to Italy during the First Crusade in the eleventh century. However, during a routine survey this month, his tomb was found beneath the church’s floor mosaic. You can visit the church, though you will not see St. Nicholas’s actual sarcophagus since it has not yet been excavated.

Demre is 3,730 miles from the North Pole. Few of us can visit Santa up there, but every year pilgrims from around the world flock to his church in Turkey, where they pack the sanctuary for a December service. Father Amvrosios Chorozidis, who leads the liturgy, explains: “In the West, we seem to have everything, but in fact we have a lack of love in our hearts, so we need someone to visit us even once a year, to give us that love.”

“Starve to death or freeze to death”

Father Chorozidis could have been reading the morning news.

A health teacher killed in the south St. Louis school shooting “loved her students,” as her daughter told reporters. The number of school shootings in the US has already passed the record set in 2021, with more than two months left. In related news, after a series of school shootings, the state of Texas is sending public school students home with DNA kits designed to help parents identify their children “in case of an emergency.”

As Rishi Sunak takes over as prime minister, millions of elderly Brits are facing an escalating cost-of-living crisis with no apparent end in sight. “Starve to death or freeze to death” is the way one person described her dilemma. And a man who has been arrested three times for murder and was released on parole in 2020 is now accused of killing a fourth individual in California.

According to a recent poll, only 9 percent of Americans think our democracy is working “extremely” or “very well.” Americans’ trust in the media remains near a record low as well.

In such struggling times, you and I have a strangely paradoxical role to play in God’s providence.

Why God has blessed America

Years ago, a Cuban pastor friend shared with me his belief that God has blessed America so America’s Christians could bless the world. He cited our church’s ministry in his country as an example of Christian generosity to those in need. His logic makes sense: God would entrust resources to those who would use them as he intends.

However, there is another dimension to this calculus: I also believe that God has blessed America because America has blessed God’s people.

We enjoy constitutionally enshrined religious freedoms that are virtually unprecedented across history. Christians have been welcome and active in our governance on federal, state, and local levels since our nation’s founding. For most of America’s history, being a public Christian was a good thing in our culture.

Tragically, as I have written often in recent years, this is changing. Christians are increasingly being castigated as intolerant, oppressive, and even dangerous to society. Our religious freedoms are under unprecedented attack. Each day’s news brings another story of a Christian who loses their job or is otherwise “canceled” because of their faith.

Does this mean that our country may face God’s judgment if it persists in judging and oppressing his people?

“What you do makes a difference”

In Revelation 18 we read, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!” (v. 2). Most scholars consider this to be an allusion to Rome, “the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth” (Revelation 17:18). Among the reasons for his judgment we read this indictment: “In her was found the blood of prophets and of saints” (Revelation 18:24).

Jesus grieved over Jerusalem as “the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it” (Matthew 23:37). As a result, he warned, “your house is left to you desolate” (v. 38). Luke similarly tells us that Jesus “wept” over the city, lamenting, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes” (Luke 19:41–42).

Consequently, the courageous public faith we have been discussing this week is vital not only for the people we influence but for the larger trajectory of our nation.

God’s mandate to his exiled people in Babylon speaks to our exiled position in our secularized culture: “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lᴏʀᴅ on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jeremiah 29:7). As we help people know and love our Lord, our influence benefits them in this life and the next. Their transformed lives benefit us as well. And together, we reverse our cultural trajectory before it is too late.

Dr. Jane Goodall observed: “What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”

Choose wisely today.

Denison Forum

 “There is no doubt we face profound economic challenges. We now need stability and unity, and I will make it my utmost priority to bring my party and country together.” This was the promise made Monday by Rishi Sunak, who today will become Britain’s third prime minister in seven weeks. As the New York Times reports, Sunak will also be the youngest prime minister in two centuries and the first person of Hindu faith to achieve the UK’s highest elected office.

However, the new prime minister faces a personal challenge that his predecessors did not: his personal wealth is more than double that of King Charles III, constituting what may be the first time in history that the residents of Downing Street are richer than those of Buckingham Palace.

Here’s why this is a problem: Sunak has ascended to his nation’s highest office at a time when the UK has more food banks than McDonald’s and many are being forced to choose between eating and heating their homes. Critics fear that Sunak cannot identify with the people he will lead and the rising challenges they face.

The new prime minister wants to lead Britain to “stability and unity,” but as Cornel West noted, “You can’t lead the people if you don’t love the people.” I would amend his wise observation: You cannot lead the people if they don’t believe you love them. No matter your claims to care about their challenges and empathize with their pain, if they consider you to be out of touch with their world, they’ll conclude that you cannot understand their problems.

And if you cannot understand a problem, you cannot solve it.

Is America “irredeemably woke”?

This fact helps explain America’s growing political animosity.

According to a new poll reported by NBC News, “80 percent of Democrats and Republicans believe the political opposition poses a threat that, if not stopped, will destroy America as we know it.” In his latest Dispatch article, David French explains the two “sides” of this conflict in ways that underscore the deep cultural chasm bisecting our national soul.

He reports that the far left believes “America was a racist, colonial power. It began as a slave empire, expanded through conquest and genocide, and then—even as it cast itself as a liberator in the world wars and Cold War—propped up vicious tyrants in the name of liberty.

“In this telling, all of the bad aspects of American history were highlighted, amplified, sometimes exaggerated or even fabricated, and then repeated endlessly to create a picture of a nation in whose DNA racism and conquest were inescapably imprinted. The solution to the crisis of America’s past and present was nothing less than revolution—a dismantling of America’s classic liberal founding and its replacement with illiberal structures that used the force of law and government to uproot entrenched power structures and re-order society from the top down.”

By contrast, the far right “sees America as irredeemably woke. All of the institutions of American life are ‘captured’ by the left—from the academy, to corporate America, to the military, to pop culture. Even our churches and religious schools are infected by wokeism.”

Neither side understands the other or wants to resolve this conflict through compassion and compromise. To the contrary, French writes, “The radical left seethes with fury at the America that was and believes that the America that is cannot escape its horrific past, at least not without revolutionary change. The radical right longs for the America that was, loathes the America that is, and believes the America that will be is doomed, at least not without revolutionary change.”

Three quintessential Roman qualities

What both sides are missing is the theological fact that humans cannot change human nature. If either side of our political divide got everything they wanted, our deepest problems would remain. This is because we are at our most primal level fallen sinners (Romans 3:23) who desperately need redemption and transformation we cannot effect (cf. Jeremiah 17:9).

A drowning man cannot save other drowning victims, much less himself.

The ancient Romans tried. In his remarkable biography of Julius Caesar I referenced yesterday, historian Adrian Goldsworthy reports that “what it meant to be Roman” included “such quintessentially Roman qualities as dignitas, pietas, and virtus.” Dignitas was “the sober bearing that displayed openly the importance and responsibility of a man and so commanded respect.” Pietas “embraced not merely respect for the gods, but for family and parents and the law and traditions of the Republic.” Virtus embraced “not simply physical bravery, but confidence, moral courage, and the skills required by both soldier and commander.”

Dignity, piety, and virtue are admirable foundation stones on which to build a flourishing society. But as Roman history proves, humans are incapable of exercising these values consistently. The Republic gave way to an Empire that eventually collapsed when its external enemies proved stronger than its internal character.

Will America suffer the same fate?

“We are ambassadors for Christ”

Today’s conversation underscores the urgent need for our secularized culture to turn to the God who alone can transform our sinful hearts and heal our divided nation. Remember his promise: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17, my emphasis).

Our role in such transformation is clear: “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation” (vv. 18–19).

As a result, “We are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (v. 20).

An ambassador “lives in a foreign country and represents his or her own country’s interests there.”

By this definition, will you be an ambassador for Christ today?

Denison Forum

In yesterday’s article, we discussed the possible impact of protests in Europe on China’s willingness to invade Taiwan, with the takeaway that it seems increasingly unlikely that many of America’s traditional allies would be willing to take the same measures in defense of Taiwan that have proved so important to the defense of Ukraine. That reality is of imminent importance to the United States because recent events make it seem as though we are on a collision course with the Asian superpower.

What is even more troubling, though, is neither side really seems interested in avoiding that fate.

As Ben Werschkul notes, the US and China have been in something of a cold war for a number of years now, but there was a basic understanding that it was in neither side’s best interests for that conflict to escalate beyond bickering and trade disputes. However, recent events have started to portray a different picture.

The two nations have begun to “uncouple on fronts from trade to the movement of labor to technology.” The White House, for example, recently passed a number of new restrictions designed to limit China’s ability to access various American technologies needed for semiconductor development, artificial intelligence, and advanced computing.

As Klon Kitchen, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, warns, “these new actions show the United States is not trying to slow China’s technological advancement, but to arrest and to contain it” (emphasis his).

Likewise, Xi Jinping repeatedly emphasized the need for his nation to become more self-reliant during his opening address at this week’s Party Congress, right alongside warnings against Western “hegemonism and power politics.” At several points, he spoke of the need for stability, with greater independence from the West as a key component to attaining that end.

However, control over Taiwan could be just as important.

Why Taiwan is so important

China and Taiwan have had a testy relationship over the years, as one might expect given that the Chinese government considers the independent island part of its Republic. But despite those issues, the two have developed a great deal of economic interdependence. China and Hong Kong account for roughly 42 percent of Taiwan’s exports and 22 percent of the country’s imports. In comparison, the US comprises 15 percent of Taiwan’s exports and 10 percent of its imports.

Moreover, many of Taiwan’s largest companies maintain factories in mainland China, including the world’s largest producer of semiconductor chips: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC). Those chips are needed for products like cell phones, cars, and—most notably—a wide range of “military-grade” devices from fighter planes to defense systems.

TSMC is currently in the process of building one of its most advanced factories in Arizona, and the company’s Chairman, Mark Liu, warned that they would shut down rather than fall under Chinese control in the event of an invasion.

However, the degree to which Beijing believes that threat remains to be seen. And, even if they do, it is possible that they would rather see the factories close than supply the West with the kinds of semiconductors we cannot yet produce on our own.

All that to say, while both the United States and China have a clear need to maintain economic ties to Taiwan, the latter has also indicated an increased willingness to monopolize that relationship. And, should they try, President Biden has already promised to come to the island’s aid to an even greater extent than the support America has given Ukraine by committing troops and military personnel to the effort.

Unfortunately, as we discussed yesterday, should that come to pass, America may do so alone.

And therein lies the greatest danger, as well as one of the most likely reasons for the recent increase in Chinese aggression toward Taiwan.

A fight we may not win

China has long desired to be the most dominant country in the world. But for some time, those aspirations have been held in check by the US-led alliances that have often set the ground rules for how nations interact with one another. However, the mutual recognition that it would be foolish for one nation to go to war against the world seems increasingly less likely to apply to any conflict over Taiwan.

While NATO’s Article 5 defense commitment, for example, binds nations to defend one another when attacked, Article 6 limits the scope of that commitment to attacks that take place in Europe, North America, or on islands “under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.”

If the US and China go to war in the South Pacific, none of America’s traditional allies would be required to join the fight. And many seem increasingly unlikely to do so.

China, however, is unlikely to have that problem. Given friendly relations with countries like Iran, Russia, and several others that are not exactly fans of the US, it is possible that America is steadily marching toward a fight we may not win.

“The proper estimate of oneself”

As we discussed yesterday, counting the cost as Jesus commands requires a calculation based on what we’re willing to pay rather than what we expect or hope to pay. Both nations and individuals get into trouble when they make decisions based on the latter of those prices.

One of the most indispensable helps in avoiding that mistake is the self-awareness to fully appreciate the fact that we often do not get to dictate what that price will be. And that self-awareness is especially difficult to maintain when one becomes accustomed to acting from a position of strength.

Throughout history, one of the primary reasons that nations fall from greatness is the inability to recognize when the reasons for their prior success no longer apply to their current situation. Allegiances can shift, strength can wane, opposition can grow stronger, and each can occur in ways that are easy to miss if we’re not paying attention.

What is true of nations can be equally true for each of us.

Whether it’s in our walk with the Lord, our relationships with other people, or any other facet of our lives, when we act as though past success guarantees success in the present, we’re setting ourselves up to fail.

Fortunately, God stands ready to help if we’re willing to ask.

So, as Paul advised, pray for the “sober judgment” needed to make an honest evaluation of your life today (Romans 12:3). Ask the Holy Spirit to show you any areas where you might be thinking more highly of yourself than you should, as well as any areas where that problem is reversed.

After all, God isn’t interested in false humility but rather, as Charles Spurgeon described it, “the proper estimate of oneself.”

Will you ask the Holy Spirit to help you make such an estimate today?

Denison Forum

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Paris on Sunday in protest over the rising cost of living, a shortage of key supplies, and fears that their circumstances will only get worse as winter looms just over the horizon.

Those who spent their weekend marching through the streets of the French capital are hardly alone in their fear and anger.

The stress and angst that boiled over in the protests has been building for quite some time and was preceded by strikes at oil refineries that further exacerbated the problems. Almost a third of the country’s gas pumps are either fully or partly dry, and additional strikes are expected in the days to come.

Similar protest movements have begun in Germany, Italy, Belgium, and a host of other European countries as well. But while the inflation and shortages at the heart of these protests have a multitude of causes, the focus for many is the war in Ukraine.

When Russia began its invasion back in February of this year, most of the Western world was united in its opposition to Putin and his attacks. Officially, that stance has not changed. Both NATO and the European Union maintain their support for Ukraine and the measures that have been taken to fight back against Russia.

But as the cost of those measures—particularly the economic sanctions and energy shortages—have mounted, large swaths of the general public throughout Europe have started having second thoughts.

And there is perhaps no country paying closer attention to this development than China.

What if China invades Taiwan?

While one could argue that Russia stands to gain the most from any discontent among the European nations that oppose their invasion of Ukraine, circumstances have likely progressed too far for NATO or the EU to change course now. Those nations that stand against Putin’s government will continue to do so until the situation in Ukraine is resolved.

As such, the more pertinent question is whether those European nations can afford to take a similar approach should China invade Taiwan.

From the moment Russia started sending troops across their western border, many have seen similarities between Taiwan and Ukraine. As the latter denied Russia the quick victory that many inside the Kremlin forecasted, it gave hope to those in Taiwan that they too would be able to ward off any incursions by their much larger foe. And it would appear that China shared that apprehension, at least initially.

CIA Director William Burns told a House Intelligence Committee in March that Beijing had been “surprised and unsettled” by both Ukraine’s resistance and the Western response.

However, Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s tone and comments were anything but apprehensive and unsettled on the subject of Taiwan during his opening remarks at this week’s Party Congress. Wen-Ti Sung, a political scientist with the Australia National University’s Taiwan Studies Program, noted that Xi’s approach to the subject shifted from previous speeches and conveyed a “newfound urgency on making progress on the Taiwan issue.”

In fact, the delegates in attendance rendered their loudest applause of the night whenever Xi spoke on his hope for a “peaceful reunification” coupled with the resolve to “reserve the option of taking all measures necessary” to see that reunification come to pass.

In short, it would appear that any fears he had back in March have been assuaged in the months since. And while there are several plausible explanations for how that shift may have occurred, the most likely is the belief that the united Western support that has proved so crucial to the defense of Ukraine will not be extended to Taiwan.

The cost of commitment

We will discuss the implications of that reality for the United States in particular in tomorrow’s Daily Article. But before we do, there’s an important lesson from the European response that we need to consider.

Towards the end of Christ’s ministry, he cautioned his followers against underestimating the level of commitment required to be his disciple. To drive the point home, he compared that commitment to the way a builder counts the cost before beginning to construct a tower and to a king who measures the strength of his army against the enemy’s forces before engaging in battle (Luke 14:25–33).

This teaching was important because Jesus understood that maintaining one’s commitment is much more difficult when it begins to cost us more than we would prefer to pay.

Christ commanded total commitment from his disciples—above their commitment to family, friends, and most of all themselves—because he knew they could not comprehend what it would cost to follow him. As such, weighing that cost was less about what they would have to pay than about what they were willing to pay.

Understanding that distinction is just as important for us today as it was for his disciples nearly two thousand years ago.

How much are you truly willing to sacrifice?

Many of the protests in Europe are the result of countries hoping that the war in Ukraine would cost less than they’re currently having to pay. As such, their citizens are less likely to sanction a similar wager if China invades Taiwan, and Beijing appears to have reached a similar conclusion.

As the cost of following Christ in our culture continues to rise, let’s learn from their example.

For a long time, Christians in America have had the luxury of knowing that the true cost of what we could expect to pay for following Jesus was unlikely to exceed what we were willing to pay. But as circumstances change and that cost becomes less certain, many have already begun to waver in their commitment to the Lord. And while it’s unlikely that the price to follow Jesus will rise to the point of death, only God knows where it will ultimately fall.

So take some time today to ask the Holy Spirit to help you examine by which measure you’re counting the cost of discipleship.

Have you put limits on how much you’re willing to pay to follow Jesus?

Is your commitment based on what you want it to cost or on what Christ says it could cost?

It’s all right to hope for the former so long as you are prepared to pay the latter.

Are you?

Denison Forum

The twentieth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is a weeklong event that opened yesterday in Beijing, China. Beijing is 6,980 miles from Dallas, Texas, where I live. Why should I care what happens there?

Why should you?

According to the US Department of State, the Chinese Communist Party seeks to set up “a new international order dominated by the CCP.” It therefore “threatens the world’s economy and public health by unsustainably exploiting natural resources and exporting its reckless disregard for the environment.”

Meanwhile, the CCP “silences dissent and restricts the rights and freedoms of Chinese citizens to include forced population control, arbitrary detention, censorship, forced labor, violations of religious freedom, and pervasive media and internet censorship,” all while it “manipulates international organizations, democratically elected governments, and companies to mask its human rights abuses at home and abroad.”

The FBI says confronting the economic espionage threats emanating from the CCP is its “top counterintelligence priority.” It warns that “the Chinese government is seeking to become the world’s greatest superpower through predatory lending and business practices, systematic theft of intellectual property, and brazen cyber intrusions.”

And our Christian brothers and sisters in China face some of the most oppressive and sophisticated surveillance and persecution in the world. It is illegal for those under eighteen years of age even to attend church. Christian leaders who are seen as threats to the government have been abducted.

Why we are the enemy

When I was growing up, the Soviet Union was the major threat to the West and to global stability. Now, despite Russia’s horrific crimes against Ukraine, China has risen to become our greatest threat. Why?

The foundational answer consists of two names: Karl Marx and Xi Jinping.

Xi is expected to be reelected this week to an unprecedented third term as China’s leader. He more than any other individual or factor has led China to threaten the West as it does.

The reason is simple: he is following the ideology of Karl Marx. Often called the Father of Communism, Marx emphasized the importance of class struggle in every historical society. He sought to foment working-class revolutions throughout the capitalist world that would lead, he claimed, to a classless society and a socialist utopia.

In Marx’s view, the individual is a means to the advancement of society, which in turn (he claimed) will benefit the individual. He wanted the state to govern every dimension of life as a means to this end and saw Western capitalism, with its emphasis on the value and rights of the individual, as the enemy of such “progress.”

So does Xi Jinping.

Chinese Marxism and American materialism

Kevin Rudd is president of the Asia Society in New York and a former prime minister and foreign minister of Australia. Writing for Foreign Affairs, he notes that Marxism has been China’s official ideology since 1949. However, he states, Xi Jinping “has developed a new form of Marxist nationalism that now shapes the presentation and substance of China’s politics, economy, and foreign policy.”

As a result, he has “reasserted the influence and control the CCP exerts over all domains of public policy and private life” and “stoked nationalism by pursuing an increasingly assertive foreign policy, turbocharged by a Marxist-inspired belief that history is irreversibly on China’s side and that a world anchored in Chinese power would produce a more just international order.”

In direct contrast to Xi Jinping’s ideology that makes the individual the servant of the state, the United States stands on the declaration that “all men are created equal” and a consequent belief in “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” as Abraham Lincoln stated so eloquently.

However, as Anglican priest Tish Harrison Warren notes in yesterday’s New York Times, Americans are increasingly experiencing life as “machines” who exist as a means to materialistic ends.

Digital productivity monitoring has resulted in hyper-controlled work environments. Omnipresent technology means work is no longer confined to the office: nearly 40 percent of workers said they check email outside of regular hours every day. Remote work means we can work anywhere at any time. A majority of workers say it is more difficult to “unplug” from work than when the pandemic began.

A third ideology

As a result, whether we are discussing China’s oppressive Marxism or America’s oppressive materialism, we need to remember a third ideology: the biblical claim that each of us is created uniquely in the likeness of God (Genesis 1:26–27). As “image bearers” of the divine, we are people of intrinsic value and worth.

However, sin marred this image and separated us from our holy Creator, so he sent his Son to die on our cross, pay our debt, and purchase our salvation. When we trust Christ as our Savior and Lord, he makes us the children of God and gives us “abundant” life on earth and in eternity (John 1:12; 10:10).

This is the gospel, literally the “good news.” It is the only ideology that restores fallen humans to the transforming intimacy with our Maker for which we are intended. It is the only worldview that empowers us to love our Father and each other unconditionally (Matthew 22:37–39).

But our world will not adopt our worldview unless we do. Secularists will not love our Father more than we do. Skeptics will not believe we love our neighbor unless we love them.

St. Augustine observed, “Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.”

How beautiful will your soul be today?

Denison Forum

 “This is one of the best days of my life. I feel like I might be dreaming or something. I thought my life was over. I will remember this day for a long time. You don’t know how much I appreciate this . . . you really don’t know.” This is how a one-hundred-year-old veteran thanked a stranger named Isaiah Garza for taking him to Disneyland.

A now-viral video posted to TikTok shows Garza approaching the elderly man (after coordinating with the man’s caregiver) to say, “I’m sorry to bother you, but I’ve had a really rough day. Do you want to go to Disneyland with me today?” The man was shocked but delighted. Garza told a reporter later, “First we went on the tea cups and it was his first ride in like fifty years and then It’s a Small World and sang it together like fifty times it was so cute.”

Garza captioned part of the video: “Became best friends for the day.”

“The nicest place on the internet”

Unsurprisingly, Harvard University reports that “loneliness appears to have increased substantially since the outbreak of the global pandemic.” More than half of all US adults are considered to be lonely; young adults are twice as likely to be lonely than seniors.

In response, a website calling itself “the nicest place on the internet” will give you a virtual hug. Social media offers unprecedented virtual community. But we need community that is more than virtual.

What God said of Adam is true of us all: “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). You and I were made in the image and likeness of the God (Genesis 1:27) of triune community (2 Corinthians 13:14) who created us to love him and to love each other (Matthew 22:37–39).

As we close our weeklong focus on our status as the children of God, let’s focus on this fact: if you are a child of God, you are part of the family of God. The community he offers you and offers the world through you is a gift no one else in the world can give. It is a gift we were created to need. It is a gift that makes the church uniquely relevant to our fractured culture.

It is a gift you are invited to embrace and to share for an especially urgent reason today.

“The source of order in man and society”

Gnosticism (from the Greek word for knowledge) was a second-century heresy that believed humans can save themselves from this evil material world through a special type of knowledge of the divine mysteries. However, this knowledge was reserved only for an elite group who claimed to understand what others did not.

Eric Voegelin was a German-American political philosopher. In The New Science of Politics: An Introduction, he used this ancient concept to describe the rising secularism of Western culture: “The more fervently all human energies are thrown into the great enterprise of salvation through world-immanent action, the farther the human beings who engage in this enterprise move away from the life of the spirit. And since the life of the spirit is the source of order in man and society, the very success of a Gnostic civilization is the cause of its decline.”

Let me recast his crucial insight in a current context: Like the ancient Gnostics, a group of cultural elites is convinced they can bring about the “salvation” of society through secular progressivism. However, “the life of the spirit” stands in the way of their secular utopia. As a result, they employ LGBTQ ideology, abortion activism, and other unbiblical causes to expose and condemn the “discrimination” inherent in Christian orthodoxy and thus free society for radical individual “authenticity.”

Here’s their problem: as Voegelin notes, the “life of the spirit is the source of order in man and society.” Consequently, the disintegration of our social unity, escalation of crime, and epidemic of sexual immorality we are witnessing today are inevitable results of their secularist agenda.

“The final word in reality”

Voegelin’s thesis explains why it can be difficult for evangelical Christians to reach cultural “Gnostics” and those they represent: they are foundationally convinced that they understand what we do not. They are certain either that the Bible is wrong on the cultural issues of our day or that we are wrongly interpreting it. Either way, they have no interest in rational dialogue or personal engagement with people they consider dangerous to society.

How, then, are we to reach them and those they influence with God’s word and grace?

Here is where today’s focus on community is so relevant. Every person who has ever lived was created for authentic, life-giving relationship with others. However, from Cain and Abel to yesterday’s shooting in Raleigh, North Carolina, that left five people dead, sin disrupts and corrupts these relationships. Secularism has no solution for sin; it can try to legislate against its symptoms, but it cannot reach their source.

As the Christian psychiatrist and author Curt Thompson notes: We have to change our lives if we want our lives to change.

You and I are called to “have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind” (1 Peter 3:8). Then, we are to extend this community to our critics: “Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called” (v. 9). When we experience such grace with each other and offer it to the world, the “God-shaped emptiness” in every soul is drawn to the Source of our love.

On this day in 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. won the Nobel Peace Prize. In his acceptance speech, he proclaimed: “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.”

Let’s speak that word into reality today, to the glory of God.

Denison Forum

Former Hawaii Representative and 2020 presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard is leaving the Democratic Party, which she denounced as an “elitist cabal of warmongers.” Her announcement reminds us of Ronald Reagan’s famous statement, “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The party left me.”

As the leader of a nonpartisan ministry, my intention today is not to criticize the Democratic Party. To the contrary, politicians leaving the Republican Party would make the same point I wish to emphasize: in the eyes of the world, we are what we do. George Eliot was right: “Just as we define our actions, our actions define us.”

What politicians and political parties do over time defines them far more effectively than platforms adopted at conventions or speeches made at rallies. The same principle applies to the rest of us, as Michael J. Fox noted: “Our challenges don’t define us, our actions do.”

This fact was reinforced for me when I saw the tragic news that American Idol Season 19 runner-up Willie Spence died Tuesday in a car accident at the age of twenty-three. Just hours before the fatal crash, he posted a video of himself singing a worship song.

When I read the story, this question came to mind: Would you do what you are about to do if you knew it would be the last thing you would do?

Do Christians only care about stopping abortions?

You may have seen ads created by the “He Gets Us” campaign, a $100 million effort to bridge the gap between the story of Jesus and the public perception of his followers. The campaign is based on market research showing that while many Americans like Jesus, they are skeptical of his followers.

The research split Americans into four categories: non-Christians (16 percent of the sample), people who are “spiritually open” (20 percent), “Jesus followers” (34 percent), and “engaged Christians” (30 percent). It revealed a large gap between the first three groups and the last.

For example, more than two-thirds of those in the first three categories agreed when asked: “Followers of Jesus say one thing, but do not follow those things in practice.” Only 5 percent of the “engaged Christians” agreed. Most in the first three categories also agreed that Christians only care about stopping abortions rather than caring for moms and their children; only 6 percent of the “engaged Christians” agreed.

Mayor helps family escape before train hits vehicle

We have focused this week on our status as the children of God and its implications for our lives and faith. Today, let’s consider this fact: people judge our Father by his children. When we are loving, kind, and compassionate, they are more likely to think the same of our Lord. When we are hateful and condemning, they are likely to see our Lord in the same way.

God’s word is clear: “Whoever says he abides in [Christ] ought to walk in the same way in which he walked” (1 John 2:6). Jesus taught us: “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples” (John 15:8).

This is because we were “created in Christ Jesus for good works” (Ephesians 2:10). As a result, we are instructed, “Let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:18). Paul warned of those who “profess to know God, but they deny him by their works” (Titus 1:16). Conversely, Scripture admonishes us, “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22).

Let’s consider an example.

Eddie Daniels is the mayor of Vienna, Georgia, a town of four thousand residents. He was on his way to work Saturday morning when he saw an SUV stalled on railroad tracks with a train fast approaching.

“I couldn’t let those babies sit there and get slaughtered by a train,” he told reporters later. He helped the mom out of the vehicle, then rescued a three-year-old and a one-year-old from the back seat. He was helping a six-year-old when the train hit the vehicle.

He managed to get the child out, but Daniels has a broken ankle and eight stitches in his head as a result. “I’m out here just doing God’s work,” he said. “That’s what we’re supposed to do. And they told me I was a hero. I said I don’t feel like a hero, just feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to do, what the people elected me to do.”

Would you predict he’ll be elected again?

“You are my hiding place”

The British explorer Freya Stark observed, “There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.” She was right, not only about us but about those we influence as well.

As the children of God, our every word and action reflect on our Father for good or for ill. Jesus told his followers, “You will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8); some of us are effective witnesses, some of us are not, but each of us is called to the stand every day.

A postmodern culture that measures truth by relevance will measure the truth of our faith by the relevance of our lives. So I’ll ask again, for God’s glory and the advancement of his kingdom: Would you do what you are about to do if you knew it would be the last thing you would do?

I suspect Willie Spence’s answer on Tuesday would have been yes. Here are the lyrics he sang for the world before he left it for his home in heaven:

You are my hiding place
You always fill my heart
With songs of deliverance
Whenever I am afraid.

I will trust in You
I will trust in You
Let the weak say I am strong
In the strength of the Lord
I will trust in You.

What song will you sing for God’s glory today?

Denison Forum

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called courage “the power of the mind to overcome fear.” Courage by definition requires adversity. Where there are no challenges, there is no need for courage.

Seen in this light, we have many opportunities for courage in today’s news.

We could focus on the economy: The Dow Jones closed yesterday up thirty-six points but down nearly twenty percent for the year. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is predicting that the US economy will fall into a recession in the next six to nine months. The World Bank is warning of the threat of a global recession next year. There’s even bad news in the good news: Online holiday discounts could reach record highs, but inflation will cut into spending.

We could talk about geopolitics: North Korea confirmed that its recent barrage of missile launches was the simulated use of nuclear weapons to “hit and wipe out” potential South Korean and US targets. As Russia continued missile strikes against Ukrainian civilians, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky renewed his plea for increased military assistance yesterday at an emergency meeting of the Group of Seven leading industrial nations.

This comes after pro-Russian hackers attacked the websites of several major airports in the US this week, another reminder that cybersecurity threats are an urgent security issue for our nation and the world.

And yesterday was National Coming Out Day, which was launched in 1988 as part of a strategy to normalize LGBTQ activity so it could be legalized, opponents could be stigmatized, and opposition could ultimately be criminalized.

Teacher fired for raising concerns over a book

As we noted yesterday, this strategy is working well in Australia, where a CEO was forced to resign after one day because of his membership in a church that affirms biblical sexuality. Closer to home, a substitute teacher in Georgia was fired from her job after she expressed her concern as a parent over the content of a book in the school library.

The book depicts same-sex couples taking their children to school and two lesbian mothers, one of whom is pregnant. The mother spoke with her six-year-old son’s teacher and asked that he not be part of the story time where the book was to be read. The teacher said that would not be a problem.

The next day, she expressed her concerns over the book with the school’s principal, explaining that she and her husband would like to be the ones to talk with their children about issues such as same-sex marriage, rather than the school. She made clear that she was not asking for the book to be removed, only that her children not be exposed to its content. The principal agreed.

Soon thereafter, the teacher learned that she would no longer be allowed to teach in the school district, as the principal was concerned about her bias “against same-sex couples.” Even though she explained that she expressed her concerns as a mother, not as an employee of the school district, her employment was terminated.

“The stronger the emphasis, the fewer the Christians”

We have focused this week on positive factors inherent in our status as the children of God. Today we need to consider the other side: Those who oppose our Father will oppose his children. Anyone who rejects God’s word will reject those who embrace God’s word.

Jesus warned us: “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20). Scripture is clear: “All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12, my emphasis).

The cost of following Jesus has always made it hard for the masses to follow Jesus.

The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard observed: “The imitation of Christ is really the point at which the human race shrinks. The main difficulty lies here; here is where it is really decided whether or not one is willing to accept Christianity. If there is emphasis on this point, the stronger the emphasis, the fewer the Christians. If there is scaling down at this point (so that Christianity becomes, intellectually, a doctrine), more people enter into Christianity.

“If it is abolished completely (so that Christianity becomes, existentially, as easy as mythology and poetry and imitation an exaggeration, a ludicrous exaggeration), then Christianity spreads to such a degree that Christendom and the world are almost indistinguishable; or all become Christians; Christianity has complete conquered—that is, it is abolished!”

“By the power of the Spirit of God”

The good news is that the Holy Spirit who resides in every true child of God will give us the courage and perseverance we need to imitate Jesus as a true disciple of our Lord. He will empower us to be witnesses for our Lord where we live and around the world (Acts 1:8). We will be able to say with Paul, “by the power of the Spirit of God . . . I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ” (Romans 15:19).

In fact, if we are not living “abundantly” (John 10:10) as “more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37), we should ask why.

Oswald Chambers warned us: “We can remain powerless forever . . . by trying to do God’s work without concentrating on his power, and by following instead the ideas that we draw from our own nature. We actually slander and dishonor God by our very eagerness to serve him without knowing him.”

Asked negatively: Is something keeping you from experiencing his supernatural power? A temptation or sin with which you are struggling? A person you need to forgive or someone from whom you need to seek forgiveness? A difficult next step of obedience?

Asked positively: Are you serving Jesus “with all his energy that he powerfully works” in you (Colossians 1:29)? As a result, are you sharing your faith confidently and courageously? Do others know that you know Jesus?

When the Sanhedrin “saw the boldness of Peter and John . . . they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).

Let’s astonish our lost culture today, to the glory of God.

Denison Forum