While the headlines were focusing on Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter yesterday for $44 billion, an event involving a high school football coach could affect the future of religious liberty in America.

Following a twenty-year career in the Marine Corps, Joseph A. Kennedy was hired in 2008 as assistant football coach for the varsity and head coach of the junior varsity squad at Bremerton High School near Seattle, Washington. Soon after, he began kneeling to pray at the fifty-yard line after each game. After a few games, some of his players asked to join him. Visiting players later joined them.

His post-game prayer continued for several years, but, in 2015, Bremerton’s athletic director told Kennedy his prayers were against the rules. He refused to stop and was placed on leave; the school district did not rehire him for the following season. Yesterday, First Liberty defended Coach Kennedy before the US Supreme Court.

Critics allege that the prayers were public, not private, and that the coach was acting coercively in his professional capacity. By contrast, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Coach Kennedy explained his position and the stakes involved: “Unless the US Supreme Court rules in my favor, teachers could be fired for praying over their lunch in the cafeteria if students can see them. That doesn’t seem like the Constitution I fought for in the Marine Corps.

“I just want to be back on the field with my guys, building a team to accomplish a mission. I hope the Supreme Court agrees.”

The latest euphemism for immorality

Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah, is refusing to cancel an elective class where students will watch hardcore porn together. Despite widespread outrage, the college insists that pornography is “an art form that requires serious contemplation.”

This headline in the Washington Post is a harbinger of our moral future: “These Christian leaders embraced sex positivity—and now preach it.” The article reveals the latest cultural euphemism, using “sex positivity” to refer to “the belief that all forms of sexual expression between consenting adults are permissible and should be destigmatized.”

The writer cites aberrant theologians and ministers, many of whom are gay, to undergird her claim that the ethic limiting sex to a married heterosexual couple is less biblical than Puritan. Of course, the writer could not be more wrong from a biblical perspective. But her use of “sex positivity” to describe her position aligns with “pro-choice,” “death with dignity,” and “marriage equality” as recent additions to our cultural vernacular.

Each frames its issue in a way that resonates emotionally. Who isn’t for “positivity,” “choice,” “dignity,” and “equality”? Euphemisms can be powerfully persuasive, whether they are accurate or not.

“Lord, paint the dragon red”

Yesterday we introduced the concept of “besetting” sins, defined as sins “we continually struggle with and have a weakness toward.” What are some practical ways to gain victory over them? Let’s consider today’s news in reverse order.

First, to counter Satan’s spiritual euphemisms, we need to pray for the wisdom to recognize sin as sin.

When we deal with repetitive temptations, our moral sensitivity can grow dull and our objections weaken. Over time, we cease seeing sin as sin. The person being tempted believes the tempter’s lies (Genesis 3:4–5) and is “enticed by his own desire” (James 1:14). Then desire “gives birth to sin” and “sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” (v. 15).

This is why we need to begin every day by submitting to the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:18). Ask him to bring to your mind anything that displeases God, then confess what comes to your thoughts. Some of what he reveals may surprise you at the time, indicating the degree to which you have been deceived. Then ask him to help you see temptation for what it is and to refuse sin as a result.

A wise friend of mine prays often, “Lord, paint the dragon red.” Let’s join him: pray for the Spirit to reveal the spiritual euphemisms of our day and give you the strength to defeat them in the power of God.

“Kindle sacred flames of love in my heart”

The next way to defeat “besetting” sins is to do what we believe to be right, whatever the cost. Coach Kennedy has paid for his convictions with his job and has endured widespread scorn and opposition across the years his case has been litigated. But he is defending his religious freedom on behalf of all those who may face similar threats in the future.

When you know you are being tempted, take these steps in this order: “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). And remember that the cost of what you are being tempted to do must outweigh any benefit or your spiritual enemy who “comes only to steal and kill and destroy” would not offer it to you (John 10:10).

Speaking of idols, the psalmist warned, “Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them” (Psalm 115:8). I often warn that sin will always take you further than you wanted to go, keep you longer than you wanted to stay, and cost you more than you wanted to pay.

So pray for the discernment to know what is right and for the courage to do it. Charles Spurgeon prayed: “To come to Thee is to come home from exile, to come to land out of the raging storm, to come to rest after long labor, to come to the goal of my desires and the summit of my wishes.”

Then he added: “But Lord, how can a stone rise, how can a lump of clay come away from the horrible pit? O raise me, draw me. Thy grace can do it. Send forth thy Holy Spirit to kindle sacred flames of love in my heart, and I will continue to rise until I leave life and time behind me, and indeed come away.”

Would you make his prayer yours right now?

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“God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

Let’s begin this Friday article with some good news: a twelve-year-old wood craftsman recently launched a raffle for one of his handmade bowls—etched with a blue and yellow ring, the colors of Ukraine’s flag—to raise money for Ukrainian children. As of last Friday, he had raised more than $109,000 for Save the Children’s Ukraine relief effort.

Some more good news: a city in Tennessee rejected an atheist group’s demand to remove crosses that had been in place since the 1950s. A Pennsylvania school board voted down a parent’s request to launch an After School Satan Club. A United Methodist Church high court rejected an attempt to allow the ordination of non-celibate homosexuals. And churches in Poland continue to generate headlines over their sacrificial support for Ukrainian refugees.

“A shield to those who take refuge in him”

Yesterday we discussed Yuval Levin’s profound article, “How to Curb the Culture War,” noting that God is calling us to be not culture warriors but cultural missionaries. What does this mean in practical terms?

Our first step is to embrace the sovereignty of our King.

As we have seen today, there is always good news in the news. God’s Spirit is alive and at work in our culture. Early Christians lived in a world far more immoral and opposed to their faith than our culture, yet by Acts 17:6 they had “turned the world upside down.” (In fact, our latest book, titled How to Bless God by Blessing Others, looks to those early Christians as a blueprint for how we can respond to our culture today.)

It is always too soon to give up on God.

Your Father has both a geographical and a chronological calling on your life. It is by his providence that you are living where you are and when you are. He would not have commissioned you to this place and time if he could not use you in this place and time.

God’s word to Joshua as he faced the Canaanites is his word to us as we face our anti-Christian culture: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lᴏʀᴅ your God is with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9). Scripture promises that our Lord is “a shield to those who take refuge in him” (Proverbs 30:5). We are called to “cast your burden on the Lᴏʀᴅ, and he will sustain you” (Psalm 55:22).

What “burden” do you need to give your Father today?

“What boundless love for men!”

I spent the summer of 1979 serving as a missionary in East Malaysia on the island of Borneo. It was a joyous experience in many ways, but persistent loneliness and occasional physical danger were challenging.

However, my pastor gave me a devotional book before I left in which he inscribed these words: “The will of God never leads where the grace of God cannot sustain.” I found his wisdom to be both true and empowering. When I became especially discouraged, I did what countless missionaries have done across twenty centuries: I remembered the grace of God which I had received and was now called to share.

Cyril of Jerusalem was bishop of Jerusalem in the mid-fourth century. In his “Catechetical Lectures,” he comments on Paul’s statement in Romans 6: “We were buried therefore with [Jesus] by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (v. 4).

Cyril notes: “It was not we who actually died, were buried, and rose again. We only did these things symbolically, but we have been saved in actual fact. It is Christ who was crucified, who was buried, and who rose again, and all this has been attributed to us. We share in his suffering symbolically and gain salvation in reality.

“What boundless love for men! Christ’s undefiled hands were pierced by the nails; he suffered the pain. I experienced no pain, no anguish, yet by the share that I have in the sufferings he freely grants me salvation.”

What was your last sin he forgave? Your last prayer he answered? Your last need he met?

How will you pay forward the love you have experienced from him?

“Then shall your light rise in the darkness”

Vance Pitman was a megachurch pastor who resigned his position to help plant churches across the western US. He told an interviewer, “Too many church planters show up in cities thinking like pastors of churches rather than as missionaries, thinking about how to engage a city with the gospel. How do you begin to build relational bridges? How do you build opportunities to serve the city and build those relationships that allow for cultivating gospel impact in a city?

“Before I moved to Las Vegas, I didn’t think about my city. I thought about the church that I pastored and if the church that I pastored was doing good then I was doing good. But when God put me in a place like Las Vegas, I began to think about a city and to realize the real kingdom success in that city is not just more people going to church.”

How, then, do we engage our cities with the gospel?

Pitman explains: “It can be as simple as what some would call servant evangelism, where you look for needs in a community that you can meet and you begin to meet those tangible needs, not with an ulterior motive of sharing Christ but with an ultimate motive of sharing Christ. I’m not meeting that need so I can share the gospel with you—I’m meeting that need because God desires that need in our community to be met. But as I meet that need, I look for opportunities to let you know who Jesus is in my life.”

Scripture promises: “If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday” (Isaiah 58:10).

How will you serve the “hungry” and the “afflicted” today?

“I don’t love the Vietnamese anymore”

I once heard a veteran missionary to Vietnam describe an especially difficult day. The weather was particularly hot and oppressive and the people he sought to serve were resistant. He came home to discover that thieves had stolen every piece of furniture he owned except his couch, which was too large to fit through the door.

He collapsed on that couch and cried out to God, “I don’t love the Vietnamese anymore. You have to send me somewhere else. I just don’t love these people.” Around 2:00 the next morning, he said, the Lord spoke to him: “You’re not here because you love the Vietnamese. You’re here because I love the Vietnamese.”

That was the reminder he needed to continue in his calling.

Who are your “Vietnamese” today?

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 “Set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity” (1 Timothy 4:12).

Russia ratcheted up its battle for control of Ukraine’s eastern heartland yesterday.

Russian forces seized the city of Kreminna, which appears to be the first city confirmed to have fallen since Vladimir Putin’s forces launched a “new phase of war.” As Russia continues to attack the port city of Mariupol, Ukraine is planning this morning to evacuate around six thousand women, children, and elderly people. The Pentagon estimates that Russia has already sent eleven more battalion tactical groups into Ukraine and has tens of thousands more in reserve north of Ukraine who are being resupplied and readied to join the war.

In other geopolitical news, Iran’s president warned that it will target “the heart” of Israel if the Jewish state makes the “slightest move” against his country. This after Iran accused Israel of “Zionist” aggression following a clash between Palestinians and Israelis at Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque last Friday. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp also promised a “new wave” of support for Palestinians rising up against Israel.

And more than forty people were arrested in Sweden following violent clashes between police and people angry at plans by a far-right group to burn copies of the Qur’an. Following Sunday’s clashes, Sweden’s national police chief said he had never seen such violent riots. More than two hundred people have been involved in the violence; twenty-six police officers and fourteen members of the public have been injured and more than twenty vehicles have been damaged or destroyed.

Vladimir Putin dreams of rebuilding the Russian Empire as a modern-day Peter the Great. Iran believes that the state of Israel is a “theft” of land from its rightful Palestinian owners and thus an attack on Islam. Swedish street violence is pitting people against each other over ideologies.

As John F. Kennedy observed, “A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.”

The threat of artificial intelligence

Yesterday we began discussing Jonathan Haidt’s illuminating Atlantic article analyzing the impact of social media on our culture. He notes the degree to which “a democracy depends on widely internalized acceptance of the legitimacy of rules, norms, and institutions” and shows how social media is undermining such acceptance as polarizing and often false content becomes increasingly pervasive and influential.

Haidt believes that as corrosive and damaging to our culture as social media is now, its future effects will be far worse. He warns that “artificial intelligence is close to enabling the limitless spread of highly believable disinformation.” He cites the AI program GPT-3, which is “already so good that you can give it a topic and a tone and it will spit out as many essays as you like, typically with perfect grammar and a surprising level of coherence.” Then he notes, “In a year or two, when the program is upgraded to GPT-4, it will become far more capable.”

Deep-fake videos, images, and text will “quickly become inconceivably easy” as a result. American factions and adversaries such as Russia’s Internet Research Agency and terrorist groups will be able to use this technology to polarize our society and spread distrust.

The consequences for our children are especially damaging. As Haidt notes, they are “less likely to arrive at a coherent story of who we are as a people, and less likely to share any such story with those who attended different schools or who were educated in a different decade.” They are growing up in a world with no objective norms, no north on the compass, and only the applause or opprobrium of their social media friends for moral guidance.

Four reasons for adolescent depression

The World Health Organization notes that depression, anxiety, and behavioral disorders are “among the leading causes of illness and disability among adolescents.” Four forces are especially propelling the rising rates of depression among young people today:

• Social media use subjecting teenagers to the judgment of friends, teachers, and the digital crowd
• A decline in sociality as today’s teens spend less time with their friends or playing youth sports
• News about the world’s stresses such as gun violence, climate change, and the divisive political environment
• Modern parenting strategies that accommodate children rather than helping them cope with their challenges.

Each of these forces is related in some way to Haidt’s fears regarding the pervasiveness and corrosiveness of social media in contemporary culture. (For more, see Mark Legg’s helpful article, “Why are teens sadder, lonelier, and more depressed than ever before?“)

Here’s another consequence: as social media use has risen, the religious affiliation of eighteen to thirty-five-year-olds has plummeted. In 1998, 73 percent of this demographic claimed to be Christians; today the number has fallen below 50 percent.

How can Christians respond biblically and redemptively?

Every Paul needs a Timothy

In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville noted, “Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.” As faith declines, so will consensual morality and ultimately the liberty that depends upon it.

Paul’s admonition to Timothy has never been more urgent than it is today: “What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2). “Entrust” means to “pass along” in the sense of passing a baton. “Able” means “equipped and strengthened.” If Timothy will pass forward the truth of Scripture to those who will in turn pass it on to others, the Christian movement will continue and will multiply. Otherwise, it will die.

This is because God has no grandchildren. Christianity is always one generation from extinction. What Timothy and others of his generation did to promote and perpetuate the faith enabled the kingdom to advance across the ages to you and me.

Now it’s our turn. Every mature Christian needs to mentor someone who will continue the mission after their kingdom assignment is completed.

Every Paul needs a Timothy, and every Timothy needs a Paul.

Which is true for you today?

NOTE: When will the next Great Awakening occur? History records four notable ones from the 1730s to the early 1900s. Isn’t it time for another? In the latest book from Denison Forum, my son Ryan Denison describes these Awakenings and the role each of us may play in bringing about the next Great Awakening. I encourage you to request your copy of How to Bless God by Blessing Others today to learn more. 

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 “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).

The national mask mandate covering airplanes and other public transportation was set to expire yesterday, but the CDC extended it until May 3, stating it needed more time to study the BA.2 omicron subvariant now responsible for the vast majority of cases in the US. Airlines countered that air filters on modern planes make transmission of the virus during a flight highly unlikely. Critics also pointed to the fact that states have rolled back rules requiring masks in restaurants, stores, and other indoor settings, yet COVID-19 cases have fallen sharply since mid-January.

Yesterday, a federal judge in Florida sided against the CDC, striking down the national mask mandate. Her ruling freed airlines, airports, and mass transit systems to make their own decisions about mask requirements.

How do you feel about her decision?

Your answer likely depends at least in part on the degree to which you trust the CDC. At the beginning of the pandemic, 69 percent of Americans believed what they heard from the agency; earlier this year, the number had fallen to 44 percent.

This aligns with a larger narrative:

• Only 40 percent of Americans say they trust the federal government to do what is right.
• Only 38 percent consider its impact on the US to be positive.
• Only 23 percent believe it to be transparent.
• And only 27 percent say it listens to the public.

The reasons behind this phenomenon are vital not just for our government but for the very future of our democracy.

“The shattering of all that had seemed solid”

Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist and bestselling author. In a brilliant new Atlantic article, he explains the social changes we are witnessing more holistically than anyone I have seen. I’ll summarize his article briefly, then we’ll respond biblically.

Haidt discusses “the shattering of all that had seemed solid, the scattering of people who had been a community” and “what is happening not only between red and blue [states], but within the left and within the right, as well as within universities, companies, professional associations, museums, and even families” (his emphasis).

He reports that “social scientists have identified at least three major forces that collectively bind together successful democracies: social capital (extensive social networks with high levels of trust), strong institutions, and shared stories.” However, over the last ten years, social media has weakened all three.

Haidt points to “the intensification of viral dynamics” beginning in 2009 by which Facebook users can publicly “like” posts with the click of a button and Twitter users can “retweet” and thus publicly endorse a post while sharing it with all their followers. Facebook soon copied this innovation with its own “share” button; “like” and “share” buttons soon became standard features of most other platforms.

Facebook then developed algorithms to bring each user content more likely to generate a “like” or “share.” Research later showed that posts that trigger emotions—especially anger at others—are the most likely to be shared.

“When citizens lose trust in elected leaders”

By 2013, social media had become a “new game” in which creating “viral” content or demeaning content with which we disagree became the norm. Users were guided by reward and punishment dynamics that were “almost perfectly designed to bring out our most moralistic and least reflective selves.” Haidt notes that “the volume of outrage was shocking.”

This phenomenon is especially dangerous for democracy.

The Framers of the US Constitution knew democracy had an Achilles’ heel: it depended on the collective judgment of the people, but communities are subject to “the turbulency and weakness of unruly passions,” as James Madison noted. The founders created a sustainable republic in response with mechanisms requiring compromise and giving leaders insulation from the mania of the moment while holding them accountable to the people periodically through elections.

But social media is undoing what the founders intended. Haidt writes that “a democracy depends on widely internalized acceptance of the legitimacy of rules, norms, and institutions. . . . When citizens lose trust in elected leaders, health authorities, the courts, the police, universities, and the integrity of elections, then every decision becomes contested; every election becomes a life-and-death struggle to save the country from the other side.”

How to experience divine omnipotence

We will explore Haidt’s article in further detail tomorrow. For today, let’s focus on two responses: thinking biblically and acting redemptively.

Paul’s goal should be ours: “We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). We do this by measuring every truth claim against the unchanging truth of Scripture (Hebrews 4:12). Then we can fulfill the apostle’s mandate: “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Philippians 4:8).

As we think biblically, we should then act redemptively.

In Acts 19, the “town clerk” in Ephesus (the chief administrative officer in the city) said of Christians in their city, “these men . . . are neither sacrilegious nor blasphemers of our goddess” (v. 37). Like them, we should make “speaking the truth in love” our constant goal (Ephesians 4:15). In response to the vitriol and divisions of our day, God needs us to be not cultural warriors so much as cultural missionaries.

You might think it’s too late for Christ-followers to make a significant difference in a culture as broken as ours. But it’s always too soon to give up on an omnipotent God. Anne Graham Lotz was right: “If our lives are easy, and if all we ever attempt for God is what we know we can handle, how will we ever experience his omnipotence in our lives?”

Will you experience his omnipotence today?

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 “When they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him” (Luke 23:33).

One of the Russian Navy’s most important warships sank in the Black Sea yesterday. Ukraine claims the Moskva was hit by Ukrainian Neptune anti-ship missiles. Russia said a fire broke out on the cruiser, causing munitions aboard to explode. Whatever the cause, the results are the same: the ship is at the bottom of the ocean today.

In other maritime news, the British ocean liner Titanic sank into the North Atlantic Ocean on this day in 1912. The ship struck an iceberg on the evening of April 14 and sank at 2:20 a.m. on April 15. However, the cause of the Titanic’s sinking was less relevant than its outcome. If the ship had suffered an internal explosion or collided with another ship in a manner that caused the same damage as the iceberg it struck, the results would have been the same.

And Abraham Lincoln died on this day in 1865, a tragic event that changed the trajectory of American and world history. I have visited the theater where he was shot on the evening of April 14 and the bedroom where he died on the morning of April 15. I have even seen the derringer pistol on display in Ford’s Theater used by John Wilkes Booth to shoot the president.

However, the method of Lincoln’s assassination was less relevant to history than its outcome. If Wilkes had stabbed the president, struck him with an object, or poisoned him, the grievous results would have been the same.

“They have pierced my hands and feet”

I offer these observations to ask this question: Why was Jesus crucified on Good Friday?

I’m not asking why he died on this day. You know the answer: Jesus died in our place to pay for our sins and purchase our salvation. As Paul observed, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

My question is: Why did Jesus die by crucifixion? Why was he not stoned to death like Stephen or beheaded like Paul? Why did he die in the cruelest, most horrific manner of execution ever devised?

You might respond: because that is the way Rome executed its prisoners. That is true, but remember that a Jewish mob stoned Stephen to death (Acts 7:54–60) and tried to throw Jesus off a cliff (Luke 4:29).

You might also respond that Jesus had to die by crucifixion to fulfill prophecy. Once again, you’d be right: the manner of Jesus’ death was predicted centuries before it occurred. For example, David testified in Psalm 22, “They have pierced my hands and feet—I can count all my bones—they stare and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots” (vv. 16–18). Each phrase was fulfilled by Jesus’ crucifixion a thousand years later.

However, I would reply: Why did the Lord predict that Jesus would die in this way? He could have led Old Testament writers to describe the Suffering Servant’s death in ways that were much less horrific. If they could predict Jesus’ death by crucifixion, they could have predicted his death by beheading, for example.

Why, then, did the Lord arrange for his Son to die on this day in such a horrific manner?

“It is he who endured every kind of suffering”

St. Melito of Sardis was a second-century bishop and apologist for the Christian faith. In an Easter homily, he said of Jesus, “It is he who endured every kind of suffering in all those who foreshadowed him. In Abel he was slain, in Isaac bound, in Jacob exiled, in Joseph sold, in Moses exposed to die. He was sacrificed in the Passover lamb, persecuted in David, dishonored in the prophets.

“It was he who made man of the Virgin, he who was hung on the tree; it is he who was buried in the earth, raised from the dead, and taken up to the heights of heaven. He is the mute lamb, the slain lamb, the lamb born of Mary, the fair ewe. He was seized from the flock, dragged off to be slaughtered, sacrificed in the evening, and buried at night.”

In other words, Jesus endured the worst suffering a human can experience to demonstrate his solidarity with all human suffering.

You can feel no pain worse than the pain he felt when he was scourged and crucified. You can experience no shame worse than his shame when he was rejected by the crowds and ridiculed by the priests, no betrayal worse than his betrayal by Judas, no abandonment worse than his abandonment by his disciples, no horror worse than his horror when the sins of all humanity were laid on his sinless soul, no loneliness greater than the loneliness he felt when he bore our sins and his Father turned his face from him in judgment.

“Our citizenship is not of this world”

Two results follow.

One: Jesus calls us to trust our deepest pain, grief, and guilt into his crucified hands. 

Scripture assures us: “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). As a result, our Lord invites us: “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (v. 16).

Why do you need such mercy and grace today?

Two: Jesus calls us to stand in solidarity with all who suffer, paying forward his compassionate grace. 

Paul explained that God “comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Corinthians 1:4).

Br. James Koester of the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Boston notes: “We live in a world where Me is king. But our citizenship is not of this world. We are citizens of another country, whose king is a servant, whose orb is a towel, whose scepter a wash basin, whose crown is humility, and whose motto is service. As citizens and subjects of that kingdom, we cannot swear ultimate allegiance in any other way than taking up our towels, holding our basins, and getting down on our knees” (his emphases).

On this Good Friday, whose feet will you wash today?

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Gateway Church is a multisite megachurch based in Texas. They are in the news today because they have helped around four hundred Ukrainian refugees relocate and are in the process of helping to relocate hundreds more. According to the church’s spokesman, Gateway has been able to do this because of relationships with several congregations in Ukraine that predate the outbreak of war.

By contrast, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe released a 108-page document accusing Russia of illegally targeting hospitals, schools, residential buildings, and water facilities. The United Nations reports that 1.4 million Ukrainians are without running water and 4.6 million are at risk of losing their water supply. Experts are warning that the US and Europe “must be ready for Russian biological or chemical attacks.” On Tuesday, President Biden accused Vladimir Putin of perpetrating genocide against the Ukrainian people.

What explains the divergent ways Gateway Church and Vladimir Putin view Ukrainians?

The answer might surprise you.

“When men and women no longer revere God”

Wallace B. Henley is a former pastor, White House, and congressional aide. In an article published yesterday on Christian Post, he reports that a TV interviewer asked him, “Why do you think the Russians are committing atrocities in the Ukraine?

He writes: “‘Abortion,’ I answered so quickly it surprised even me.”

Here’s the connection: whether it’s Russian soldiers massacring innocent Ukrainians or Americans murdering innocent unborn babies, both are objectifying humans as a means to their ends. He is right: “Without the sense of God’s transcendence, the concept of sin is lost as well.” The result is “the loss of the secularized individual human spirit and the soul of the society of the belief in and sense of God’s transcendence and the human accountability that goes with it.”

Henley concludes: “When men and women no longer revere God, they lose reverence and respect for the life he has created in the womb as well as the lives of innocents rushing to shelters amidst a fiery war.

“The tragedies in Ukraine should appall us all, but not surprise us at all.”

“He made him to be sin who knew no sin”

On this day in Holy Week, Jesus pled three times with his Father for this “cup” to “pass” from him” (cf. Matthew 26:36–44). I believe our Savior was focused less on the physical torture he would face, as unspeakably horrific as it was, than on the spiritual agony he would experience.

On the cross, the Father placed the sins of all of humanity on his sinless Son’s soul. In that moment, for the only moment in all of eternity, the two were separated as the Son cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).

Paul explained the transaction this way: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). On this Maundy Thursday night, the Father said no to his Son so he could say yes to you and me.

Here’s the problem: we know this to be so. We’ve heard all our Christian lives that God loved us so much he sent his Son to die for us (John 3:16). As a result, we can miss the necessity of that sacrificial love for our souls today. That’s because we all too easily overlook the depth of our sins today.

A profound Yad Vashem quote

You and I don’t have to commit atrocities against Ukrainians or abort unborn babies in America to participate in a culture that objectifies others to their loss and our gain. Every relational sin we commit, from theft to deceit, gossip, slander, lust, and so on, is a variation on the same theme.

But it’s not just sins of commission that sent Jesus to the cross—it’s sins of omission as well.

When our Israel study group recently toured Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, I stopped before a statement by the German writer Kurt Tucholsky that moves me every time I read it: “A country is not just what it does—it is also what it tolerates.”

I live in a country that has murdered ten times more unborn babies than the number of Jews murdered by the Nazis. We tolerate pornography and endorse all manner of sexual immorality. Racism is still endemic in parts of our society. Drug and alcohol abuse are epidemics. I could go on.

Maundy Thursday urgently calls us to remember this simple fact: it was my sins that put Jesus on the cross. And yours.

How to “abandon every false way of obtaining love”

We have focused this week on the work of the Holy Spirit during Holy Week. Let’s close today’s reflection with the fact that the Spirit not only convicts us of the sins for which Jesus died (John 16:8), but he also participates in our forgiveness and restoration “by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5).

Now we as Christians have a choice. We can embrace the security of our salvation but overlook our present sins of commission and omission. Or we can make time on this Maundy Thursday to submit to the Spirit, asking him to identify our unconfessed sins and then repenting of them with genuine contrition.

If we wisely choose the latter, we will experience the transforming grace of God in ways that will make this a true Holy Week for our souls. Henri Nouwen explained the nature of such faith with his usual depth of wisdom:

“The word faith is often understood as accepting something you can’t understand. People often say, ‘Such and such can’t be explained, you simply have to believe it.’ However, when Jesus talks about faith, he means first of all to trust unreservedly that you are loved, so that you can abandon every false way of obtaining love. . . .

“When Jesus says to the people he has healed, ‘Your faith has healed you,’ he is saying that they have found new life because they have surrendered in complete trust to the love of God revealed in him.”

Will you experience this “new life” today?

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 “He would withdraw to desolate places and pray” (Luke 5:16).

An intensive manhunt is underway at this hour for the man who set off smoke grenades and fired a handgun on a crowded Brooklyn subway train yesterday morning. Ten people were hit by gunfire, making the shooting the worst in the history of the New York City subway. Another thirteen people suffered injuries related to the attack.

In other New York news, Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin, the No. 2 official to Gov. Kathy Hochul, resigned yesterday after he was arrested in a federal corruption investigation. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has paid a fine for breaking lockdown rules at Downing Street, making him the first holder of his office in living memory to be sanctioned for breaking the law while in office.

An Olympian’s mother was killed by a stray bullet while sewing in her Connecticut home. A youth minister in the Dallas area was arrested after multiple child sexual assault allegations. Inflation has risen to the highest level since 1981 as economists warn about a possible recession by the end of the year. Sexually transmitted infections in the US surged to a record high in 2020. All this as Vladimir Putin vows to continue Russia’s bloody invasion of Ukraine.

In the midst of such challenging times, this story could be a cultural parable: an enormous container ship has been stuck in the Chesapeake Bay for more than a month. After other attempts to free the ship proved unsuccessful, the next course of action will be to remove cargo containers from the boat to lighten it.

If we cannot change the world, we can change the way we respond to it.

“The great enemy of spiritual life”

This day in Holy Week is sometimes called “Silent Wednesday” since the Gospels do not record any activities by our Lord on this day. So far as we know, Jesus spent the day in Bethany at the home of his dear friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, preparing for the monumental events to come.

Do you and I need to follow his example?

I just read John Mark Comer’s marvelous book The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry and recommend it most highly. This very transparent (and humorous) pastor tells his story of learning to imitate Jesus’ approach to time and the challenges of life. Early in the book, he quotes noted philosopher Dallas Willard: “Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day. You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”

Comer notes that for much of history, life was experienced within the rhythms of nature, sleeping at night and working during the day. Then, in 1370, the first public clock tower was erected in Cologne, Germany, creating “artificial time.” As a result, Comer writes, “We stopped listening to our bodies and started rising when our alarms droned their oppressive siren—not when our bodies were done resting. We became more efficient, yes, but also more machine, less human being.”

Then, in 1879, Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, making it possible for people to stay up past sunset. Remarkably, as Comer notes, the average person previously slept for eleven hours a night. Now we’re down to about seven. Technology has further hurried our lives as we can work more hours in more ways so that the average American works nearly four more weeks per year than they did in 1979.

With the iPhone and the advent of the digital age in 2007, our lives became even more hurried and crowded. Now technology companies exploit the dopamine rush that results from “likes” and “shares” on social media and constant interaction with the culture, causing many of us to be actually addicted to our devices and the engaging experiences they provide.

“Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life”

By contrast, Comer notes that Jesus lived by the spiritual disciplines of silence and solitude, Sabbath, simplicity, and “slowing,” which John Ortberg defines as “cultivating patience by deliberately choosing to place ourselves in positions where we simply have to wait.” In response, Comer says he has reorganized his life around three simple goals:

1. Slow down.
2. Simplify my life around the practices of Jesus.
3. Live from a center of abiding in Christ.

He quotes Frank Laubach’s beautiful observation, “Every now is an eternity if it is full of God.” And he has made Paul’s assertion his personal manifesto: “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life” (1 Thessalonians 4:11 NIV). As he notes, “ambition” and “quiet” sound more like enemies than friends, when the first actually amplifies the significance of the second.

Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, offered similar advice: “Try to keep your soul always in peace and quiet.”

“Worshiping the Lord and fasting”

The church at Antioch changed the world by modeling today’s topic. When “they were worshiping the Lord and fasting,” the Holy Spirit instructed them to “set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them” (Acts 13:2). Then, “after fasting and praying” once again, “they laid their hands on them and sent them off” (v. 3). And the world has never been the same.

On this Silent Wednesday, Jesus “fasted” from the world and prayed.

How will you follow his example today?

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Oreo is the best-selling cookie brand in the US and the number one selling cookie globally. In this age of “woke” business, it’s not surprising that Oreo’s parent company, Nabisco, would want to capitalize on the popularity of their commodity. On Monday, they released a short film affirming a young Asian man who is coming out as gay.

Their film is just one example of the escalation of unbiblical sexual morality in American culture. Here are some others: GLAAD, a leading LGBTQ watchdog group, is urging Hollywood to incorporate more LGBTQ content into children’s programming. A former Disney Channel actor recently spoke of witnessing his female co-stars being sexually exploited at an early age. And new sex education guidelines in New Jersey will teach first-graders about gender identity.

“My identity isn’t a golf score”

However, if you’re discouraged by Western society’s continued decay and decline, take heart: God is still using his people in culture-changing ways.

For example, after Scottie Scheffler won the Masters last Sunday, he was asked at a press conference how he balances his fierce desire to compete without letting it define who he is as a person. He replied: “The reason why I play golf is I’m trying to glorify God and all that he’s done in my life. So for me, my identity isn’t a golf score.”

Then he added: “Like Meredith [his wife] told me this morning, ‘If you win this golf tournament today, if you lose this golf tournament by ten shots, if you never win another golf tournament again, I’m still going to love you, you’re still going to be the same person, Jesus loves you and nothing changes.’”

As a result, he said, “All I’m trying to do is glorify God and that’s why I’m here and that’s why I’m in [this] position.”

“No one ever spoke like this man!”

Yesterday we focused on the power of the Spirit to transform us into the character of Christ (Romans 8:29). Today, let’s build on this theme by focusing on one aspect of Jesus’ life and work: his brilliant mind.

On Tuesday of Holy Week, our Lord was confronted by the religious leaders of his day. They had already determined to put him to death (John 11:47–53) and now sought to bring charges that would turn the crowds against him as a false teacher and prophet.

One of their questions was especially incendiary: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” (Matthew 22:17). If Jesus said that it was, the crowds would turn against him for supporting the hated Roman Empire. If he said it was not, the Romans would arrest him for insurrection. It seemed that they had him trapped.

But Jesus turned the tables on them, asking to see the coin used to pay the tax in question. It was a denarius, with a profile of Tiberius Caesar. He then made his famous declaration, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (v. 21). Matthew records that “when they heard it, they marveled. And they left him and went away” (v. 22).

This event was by no means unusual in the life of our Lord. Even when he was just twelve years old, “all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers” (Luke 2:47). When he concluded the Sermon on the Mount, “The crowds were astonished at his teaching” (Matthew 7:28).

When the authorities earlier sent soldiers to arrest him (John 7:30), the officers returned empty-handed and explained, “No one ever spoke like this man!” (v. 46). Jesus was such a brilliant thinker and speaker that biblical scholar Jonathan T. Pennington could write an entire book titled Jesus the Great Philosopher. (I recommend Pennington’s work highly, by the way.)

“He will teach you all things”

Here’s my point: Jesus taught and spoke in the power of the Holy Spirit.

John said of him: “He whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure” (John 3:34). Jesus said of himself, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63).

He promised the same to us: “The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:26). Jesus added that the Spirit “will guide you into all the truth . . . and he will declare to you the things that are to come” (John 16:13).

If we will seek and submit to the wisdom of the Holy Spirit each day, he will help us develop the “mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16; Philippians 2:5). We will “be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2). And we will “destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).

“The test of the artist”

In To Change the World, sociologist James Davison Hunter demonstrated conclusively that we change culture by achieving our highest place of influence and living there faithfully. Scottie Scheffler is an example: he was as fully devoted to Jesus before he began winning PGA tournaments as he is now that he is the world’s No. 1 golfer. But his excellence on the golf course has empowered his witness and platform off it.

You and I can follow the same culture-changing approach: work hard to be and do your best to the glory of God in daily submission to the omniscience and wisdom of the Spirit. He will “guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13) if you are willing to be led. And he will use your excellence for his glory and our good.

Thomas Aquinas observed, “The test of the artist does not lie in the will with which he goes to work, but in the excellence of the work he produces.”

What kind of work will you produce today?

NOTE: Christians today are increasingly marginalized—yet consider how the early Christians lived under Roman rule. In our new book, How to Bless God by Blessing Others, Dr. Ryan Denison looks at how the early church responded to their culture—which was arguably much more antagonistic to the Christian faith. Request your copy today to learn How to Bless God.

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“Blessed are the people whose God is the Lᴏʀᴅ!” (Psalm 144:15).

Let’s consider three very different stories as metaphors for our culture today.

One: The University of Texas will allow students to live together regardless of their gender or sexual identity. The university explained, “This helps enhance our residents’ sense of belonging and improve our competitiveness with the Austin market and other institutions. It also allows us to be more responsive to student needs.” The fact that you’re probably not surprised by this news is my point.

Two: on a lighter note, Major League Baseball will allow pitchers and catchers to use technology intended to prevent sign stealing. A catcher uses a pad with buttons on the wrist of his gloved hand to communicate the intended pitch and location to the pitcher through a listening device. This is intended to speed up the game and keep the other side from stealing signs. However, it says something about us that “America’s pastime” has to adopt such unprecedented means to prevent cheating.

Three: in other sports news, Scottie Scheffler won yesterday’s Masters tournament, solidifying his status as the world No. 1 golfer. Before Scheffler could win the tournament, however, he had to do something very important a few months ago: RSVP to his invitation to play. According to the New York Times, Augusta National sends invitations each year to golfers it wishes to invite to the tournament. They must signal their intention to play before they are permitted to compete.

There was a time when I played golf every week and practiced several times a week. However, no matter how much I worked on my game, I would never have received such an invitation. There are some things we cannot do for ourselves, no matter how hard we try.

It’s not a “Holocaust” museum

I returned Saturday after spending fifteen days in the Holy Land. I have led more than thirty study tours of Israel; each time I am deeply impressed by the continued courage and resilience of the Jewish people.

For example, terror attacks escalated in Jerusalem once again as Ramadan began. One of the victims was a former Israeli Olympian and father of three; another victim became engaged to his fiancé last month and was planning his wedding.

And of course, every visit to Israel is a reminder of the Holocaust. It is difficult to meet an Israeli who did not lose a family member to the Nazis and their collaborators.

Last Thursday, our group visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. Except it’s not actually a “holocaust” museum. “Holocaust” is a Greek word referring to a “sacrifice by fire” made to God. The Nazis did not sacrifice the Jews to God—they murdered six million of them in cold blood.

For this reason, the Jewish people use the word Shoah, Hebrew for “catastrophe,” to describe what happened to their people.

Inside the museum, I noticed a quotation I had not seen before, this one from a poet and philosopher named Benjamin Fondane who was murdered at Auschwitz in 1944: “Remember only that I was innocent and, just like you, mortal on that day. I, too, had a face marked by rage, by joy and pity, quite simply, a human face!”

“The best friend you have ever known”

From rising anti-Semitism around the world to the tragic death of twenty-four-year-old NFL quarterback Dwayne Haskins to the continuing tragedy in Ukraine to senseless violence against teenagers in the US and an epidemic of mental health challenges for American children, each day’s news proves again that fallen humans are incapable of changing fallen human nature. But what we cannot do, the Spirit of God can.

As Oswald Chambers noted, “It is gloriously and majestically true that the Holy Ghost can work in us the very nature of Jesus if we will obey him.”

Let’s apply his observation personally: identify an aspect of your life that you wish were different—something you are doing that you should stop or something you are not doing that you should begin. What can you do to enable the Spirit to transform that part of your life into the “very nature of Jesus”?

Craig Denison writes: “If you ask for a deeper friendship with the Holy Spirit, you will find he is the best friend you have ever known.” This is because “friendship with the Spirit is like any other friendship in that it develops over time. Like a new friend, you must get to know his character and personality. Spend time just talking with him, listening to him and allowing him to work in your heart and life.”

If we do, Craig assures us, “He is your gateway to experiencing the things of God. Walk in relationship with him, follow his guidance, and make a new best friend in the Holy Spirit.”

“The firstborn among many brothers”

We cannot change our hearts as the Spirit can. However, we can hinder the Spirit from doing his transforming work in our lives. Craig notes that “the Holy Spirit has a personality. He has likes and dislikes. He feels, thinks, enjoys, likes, suffers, and desires.”

As a result, it is vital that we “do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God” (Ephesians 4:30) and that we “do not quench the Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 5:19). To this end, I want to encourage you to make a “spiritual inventory” part of your life each morning: ask God to bring to your mind anything that is hindering the Spirit from making you more like Jesus, then confess whatever comes to your thoughts and claim your Father’s forgiving and cleansing grace (1 John 1:9).

In addition, I encourage you to take time periodically for a deeper inventory. Offer the same prayer but with paper and pen in hand. Write down what comes to mind, giving the Spirit as much time as he needs to answer your prayer. Once again, confess these sins specifically and claim God’s forgiveness and mercy.

As Christians around the world noted yesterday, Jesus rode into Jerusalem triumphantly on Palm Sunday. As we will remember this Holy Week, he died in agony on Good Friday and rose in victory on Easter Sunday. All of it was not only to save humanity but to transform humans until we are “conformed to the image of [God’s] Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:29).

Your Lord will settle for nothing less.

Will you?

Denison Forum

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson has been confirmed as America’s first Black female Supreme Court justice. Russia was suspended yesterday from the UN Human Rights Council. Tiger Woods’ return to the Masters is being called “his greatest achievement.” Opening Day for Major League Baseball was yesterday.

In the midst of such headline-making news, why should you care that Elon Musk is now on the board of Twitter, where he recently became the single largest shareholder? Less than one in four Americans even use Twitter. And yet, the Wall Street Journal calls Musk’s engagement on the social media site “a hopeful moment for political speech and debate at America’s increasingly censorious tech giants.”

Axios columnist Jim VandeHei explains: “Right now, Twitter decides if former President Trump can post on its platform, and whether to delete a post about vaccines if it and most scientists deem the post misinformation. In a decentralized web, you would decide if Trump appears on the web3 equivalent of your Twitter feed—and set your own thresholds on vaccine information providers” (his emphases).

In a day when Americans trust The Weather Channel more than all other media organizations (by a large margin), it is clear that media agendas are undermining trust in media. As I hope to explain today, this issue is vital not just for our news consumption but for the very future of our society.

Has FOX News “sold its soul”?

FOX News Media CEO Suzanne Scott recently announced that Caitlyn Jenner would be joining their organization as a contributor, stating, “Caitlyn’s story is an inspiration to us all.” The news prompted Christian Post contributor Michael Brown to write an article with the headline “Christian conservatives, you cannot put your trust in Fox News.” He claims that the news organization “has lost its voice and sold its soul.”

The transgender swimmer Lia Thomas has been likened to Jackie Robinson, even though the comparison is illogical and unfounded on a variety of levels.

Bills that would legalize infanticide have been introduced in Maryland and in California. Colorado’s governor signed a bill legalizing abortions up to birth with no limits. A battle over abortions induced by “abortion pills” is looming. The Atlantic has a long essay profiling abortion activists who are developing ways to provide abortions if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade this June.

What could these disparate stories have in common?

The best historical explanation of our cultural crisis

Carl R. Trueman’s new book is titled Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution. It is the best historical explanation of our current cultural crisis I have ever read. (For a summary of his argument, please see my overview of the book on our website.)

Trueman believes we are facing today “a situation without obvious historical parallel.” In brief, contemporary society has made two catastrophic decisions that are undermining our culture and endangering our future.

One: We have decided that we are whatever we feel ourselves to be. 

Trueman defines “the modern self” as “one where authenticity is achieved by acting outwardly in accordance with one’s inward feelings.” He traces this evolution from Descartes through Rousseau, the Romantics, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, and Wilhelm Reich.

Whether we have read these thinkers or not, we are now all influenced by their assertions. In fact, any attempt to express disapproval of one’s decision to act in accordance with one’s feelings is seen as a blow “against the right of that person to be whoever they wish to be.”

For example, we are told that if one feels oneself to be “a woman trapped in a man’s body,” one should be free to change one’s physical body to align with one’s inner feelings. And society should honor and even celebrate the courage of such an “authentic” person.

Two: We have jettisoned the traditional frameworks by which we have always identified ourselves: nation, religion, family, and geography. 

Trueman shows how Reich and Herbert Marcuse have been especially influential in persuading our culture that historical norms and institutions have “restrained” us and kept us from experiencing personal authenticity. Now it is conventional wisdom that such institutions must be repudiated on behalf of sexual, gender, and racial “equality” and replaced with new norms that celebrate personal freedom. Any speech that disagrees or disapproves of this movement is viewed as dangerous to society and worthy of cancelation.

Satan “has blinded the minds of the unbelievers”

It is therefore unsurprising that Twitter and other media platforms would censor speech with which they disagree (ignoring the illogic of being intolerant with the “intolerant”). Or that transgender athletes are hailed as courageous victims (ignoring the athletes against whom they compete so unfairly). Or that abortion would be hailed as a “healthcare” right (ignoring the healthcare of unborn babies).

Christians can expect this narrative to continue and even escalate. As I note in The Coming Tsunami, our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and freedom of religion are more imperiled than at any time in American history.

However, Trueman reminds us that early Christians faced a culture far more antagonistic than ours (so far). Many paid for their faith with their lives. And yet they engaged their antagonists with a positive argument that “Christians made the best citizens, the best parents, the best servants, the best neighbors, the best employees.” Over time, the positive difference Jesus makes in those who follow him fully became obvious, attractive, and empowering.

Paul warned that “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4). Here is how he responded: “What we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake” (v. 5).

Whom do you know who has been “blinded” by “the god of this world”?

Whom will you serve “for Jesus’ sake” today?

Denison Forum

My great aunts Daisy and Clella were convinced Americans never went to the moon. They died many years ago believing that the television coverage of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon in 1969 was staged, probably on sand dunes in Arizona. When I asked them about moon rocks I had seen in a museum, they replied, “How do you know they were from the moon?”

I am guessing they would not have been candidates for an unusual auction next week: the Bonhams Space History sale will offer lunar dust collected by Armstrong from the Apollo 11 mission. You can own your own (tiny) souvenir from the moon for a mere $800,000 to $1,200,000.

I have no way to estimate the physical comparison of this dust to the moon from which it came. But I can tell you that our moon is 27 percent the size of our planet and yet our planet is so small that 1.3 million Earths can fit inside our sun. While our sun contains 99.86 percent of the mass in our solar system, it is just one of 200 billion stars in our galaxy. Astrophysicists estimate that our galaxy is just one of between one hundred billion and two hundred billion galaxies in the universe.

And the God who made all of that measures it in the palm of his hand (Isaiah 40:12).

Could aliens see us as “bacteria”?

Scientists recently designed a radio message to be beamed into deep space and reveal Earth’s location. They hope it will be received and understood by an intelligent alien civilization.

This despite Stephen Hawking’s warning in 2015 that aliens could be vastly more powerful than us and “may not see us as any more valuable than we see bacteria.” As a result, he advised that if we receive a signal from another planet, “We should be wary of answering back.”

Our planet has in fact received a message from beyond ourselves. More than a signal, it is an entire book written by the God of the universe. Since he is omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent, living by his revealed truth is by definition the most loving, wise, and empowering way to live (cf. Hebrews 4:12; 2 Timothy 3:16–17).

By contrast, ignoring or rejecting his word comes at our peril, always.

The scientific benefits of gratitude

When humans reject the sanctity of all humans, atrocities such as the slaughter of civilians in Ukraine result along with the authoritarian quest to expand one’s empire that is a perennial feature of human history.

In a secularized culture that has replaced biblical sexuality with the claim that any consenting behavior is therefore moral, David French demonstrates persuasively that such “morality” is “profoundly harmful” and cites several secular writers who are “giving voice to deep pain” in our culture.

When we reject biblical guidance for marriage and family, we should be grieved but not shocked by a CDC report documenting increased drug and alcohol use, reported abuse, and feelings of mental distress among America’s teenagers. “These data echo a cry for help,” according to a CDC official.

A New Yorker article reports that between 1950 and 1988, the proportion of teenagers aged between fifteen and nineteen who died by suicide quadrupled. Between 2007 and 2017, the number of children aged ten to fourteen who died in the same way more than doubled. And research shows that boys without fathers fare worse than boys with fathers on more than seventy different metrics, including the likelihood to commit mass shootings.

By contrast, John Stonestreet and Kasey Leander demonstrate that the biblical value of gratitude can bring “a range of benefits” such as “better sleep, improved interpersonal relationships, better stress and hormonal regulation, and even reduced physical pains.” And the rhythms of spirituality have been shown to correlate significantly with better mental health.

“I have to give glory to God”

In Psalm 18, David testified, “I love you, O Lᴏʀᴅ, my strength” (v. 1). Here’s why: “The Lᴏʀᴅ is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold” (v. 2). Count how many times David uses “my” to refer to his Lord.

Could the depth of his intimacy with God explain the divine omnipotence he experienced?

If we do not believe in an omnipotent God, we will not position ourselves by faith to experience his omnipotence. Then our lack of faith becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy on the path to a heightened secularism that eventually rejects his relevance and even his existence.

However, the converse is true as well. South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said her team’s recent national championship victory was “divinely ordered” and told an ESPN reporter, “I have to give glory to God, glory to God.” Before Jalen Wilson led Kansas to the men’s title, he tweeted, “Thank you God, without your blessings I wouldn’t have any of this.”

I don’t mean to suggest that faith in an omnipotent God guarantees success in life. On the contrary, I mean to suggest that success in life is cause for praise for those with such faith.

“We already have a home”

Henri Nouwen described our Father’s omniscient and omnipotent love for us this way: “You are loved long before other people can love you or you can love others. You are accepted long before you can accept others or receive their acceptance. You are safe long before you can offer or receive safety.”

He notes that such love means “we already have a home” with God. When we grasp this truth, “we may at last have the strength to unmask the illusions created by our fears and continue to return again and again and again.”

When last did you return home?

When next will you?

Denison Forum

One reporter called it “the stuff of sporting legend.” Another called it “borderline surreal.” A director of sports medicine called it “a story that’s just beyond belief.”

They were describing the news that Tiger Woods might play in tomorrow’s Masters Tournament less than fourteen months after a car accident that nearly led to the amputation of his right leg. Woods ended the speculation with his announcement yesterday, “As of right now I feel like I am going to play.” More than thirty-five thousand fans were on the grounds at Augusta National on Monday hoping to get a glimpse of his practice round, and his fellow professionals were more than excited to see him.

Tiger Woods has eighty-two PGA Tour wins, tied with Sam Snead for the most in history. In 2001, he became the first golfer ever to hold all four professional major championships at the same time. He was the youngest Masters champion ever and is the career money list leader.

At age forty-six, Woods is fourteen years older than the average age for a major golf champion. Only two players in the last fifty-four years were his age or older when they won a Grand Slam title. And neither was attempting to come back from a life-threatening accident.

Why would Woods even consider doing this?

The question is actually relevant not just for him but for us all.

Our “collective worship of work”

Carolyn Chen is co-director of the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion at UC Berkeley. In a recent article for the Atlantic, she discusses one of the most fascinating and troubling trends in American culture: our “collective worship of work.”

She cites a McKinsey report that 70 percent of employees said their sense of purpose is defined by their work. In her view, the “invisible religion of work” has “become an unassailable part of our culture.”

According to Chen, “At a time when religious-affiliation rates are the lowest they’ve been in the past seventy-three years, we worship work—meaning we sacrifice for and surrender to it—because it gives us identity, belonging, and meaning, not to mention that it puts food on our tables” (her emphasis).

In her view, “houses of worship” that can compete with the worship of work “would have to claim our time, energy, and devotion like work does. We would have to sacrifice and submit to their demands, as we do for work. We would have to build communities of belonging, together seeking meaning and purpose outside of our productive labor.”

Chen adds that such “houses of worship needn’t be only religious ones; they could also be our co-ops, neighborhoods, unions, reading groups, or political clubs.” The goal would be to build “civic organizations that can help us visualize human flourishing that rises above a company’s bottom line.”

“I am not who I think I am”

I do not know Tiger Woods personally (though I have watched him play at the Masters in person and am in awe of his talent). As a result, I cannot say with any certainty what is motivating his possible return to golf. But I do believe his story is a parable of a culture that defines who we are by what we do.

A man stood on a busy street corner and asked a thousand people as they went by, “Who are you?”

Without exception, every person who responded answered by describing their job: “I’m a doctor,” or “I’m a teacher,” or “I’m a pastor.”

A counselor once explained our culture’s sense of self this way: “I am not who I think I am. I am not who you think I am. I am who I think you think I am.”

And I think you think I am what I do.

By contrast, the Bible defines our identity not by what we do but by Whose we are. We are told that “to all who did receive [Jesus], who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). If our identity is our unchanging essence, this is our identity as Christians. Everything else about us can change, but this cannot. Once we become the children of God, we are a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). We will forever be the children of our Father in heaven.

A penetrating life question

How can Christians convince secularized people to choose God’s grace over our cultural worship of work?

We will need to show our skeptical society that our Father’s way is better than their way. To do this, as Chen notes, we will need to “sacrifice and submit” to God’s claim on “our time, energy, and devotion.”

In other words, we desperately need to reject the Western cultural division between the sacred and the secular, Sunday and Monday, religion and the “real world.” We need to adopt the biblical call to holistic faith that submits our lives as a “living sacrifice” to God every day (Romans 12:1). We need to vacate the throne and enthrone the one true King (Matthew 6:33) by being “filled with the Spirit” every day (Ephesians 5:18).

Then the Spirit can empower and direct us to, in Chen’s words, “build communities of belonging, together seeking meaning and purpose.”

Author James Clear recently asked a penetrating question: “If someone took control of your life tomorrow, what’s the first thing they would change?”

Let’s amend his question: “If God took control of your life tomorrow, what’s the first thing he would change?”

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Graphic images from Bucha, Ukraine, are shocking the world. According to CNN, they show the bodies of at least twenty dead men in the street, some of whom had their arms bound behind their back. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, “This is genocide.” President Biden called for Vladimir Putin to be tried for war crimes.

NATO’s chief described the reports as “horrific” and said they represent “a brutality against civilians we haven’t seen in Europe in decades.” He also noted that the International Criminal Court has opened an investigation into potential war crimes in Ukraine so that “those responsible are held accountable.”

The fact that you and I are following this war so closely is part of what makes it “our first true world war,” in the opinion of New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. Anyone with a smartphone—and that’s nearly half the planet’s population, according to Friedman—can watch what is happening in Ukraine and express their opinions globally through social media.

Friedman also reports that Ukraine’s government has raised more than $70 million worth of cryptocurrency after appealing on social media for donations and that cyberwarriors are attacking Russia’s government, news, and corporate websites. He calls this conflict “World War Wired.”

America’s states are becoming “radically different”

Americans are joining the world in uniting against Russia’s atrocities in Ukraine at the same time we are witnessing a deepening chasm of division at home.

The Senate Judiciary Committee deadlocked yesterday, with all eleven Democrats supporting Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the Supreme Court and all eleven Republicans opposed. And a wave of legislation is making American states “not only a little different but radically different,” according to a UCLA law professor.

For example, when Idaho proposed a new ban on abortions, nearby Oregon approved $15 million to help cover the abortion expenses of out-of-state patients. When the governor of Texas ordered state agencies to investigate parents for child abuse if they provide certain medical treatments to their transgender children, lawmakers in California proposed a law making their state a refuge for transgender youths and their families.

Only two states—Minnesota and Virginia—have legislative chambers split between political parties. As more state governments are controlled by single parties, partisanship is deepening. If the Supreme Court rolls back federal abortion rights, we are likely to see a sharp escalation in political battles over abortion on the state level and between states.

Arabs and Jews working together in Israel

A common crisis can be a powerful force for unity and community.

According to President Biden, NATO has “never been more united” in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As extremist violence in Israel has escalated recently, Arabs and Jews are working together in unprecedented ways to forge a common future.

Ranchers from as far away as Wyoming gathered in South Dakota to pray for rain in the face of ongoing drought and its devastating consequences. Christianity Today reports that “pastors and churches across Ukraine are working to bring people the bread they need to feed their bodies and the bread they need for their souls.”

Poland and Romania have launched programs to help Ukrainian refugees integrate by providing housing, jobs, schooling, and personal kindness. Meanwhile, according to the Associated Press, “members of faith communities have been leading the charge to welcome the displaced” in America.

Why Jesus is praying for you right now

You may know that “Christ Jesus . . . is interceding for us” right now (Romans 8:34; cf. Hebrews 7:25). But do you know the subject of Jesus’ prayers for us?

The night before he was crucified, our Savior prayed “for those who will believe in me through [his disciples’] word” (John 17:20). That’s you and me. To this end: “That they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they may also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (v. 21).

Until we are as “one” as the Father and the Son, I believe the Son will continue praying to the Father for our unity “so that the world may believe” that the Father sent the Son. And I believe he wants us to join him in such intercession.

In a fragmented and war-torn world, our unity can be a compelling witness. Our community empowered by compassion can change the world one hurting soul at a time. And our unified intercession can empower our unified ministry in supernatural ways.

Baylor students pray for revival

The first Christians prayed together for God to grant them boldness to continue speaking his word (Acts 4:29). As a result, “when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness” (v. 31).

Paul asked the Thessalonians to “pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored” (2 Thessalonians 3:1). And he asked the Ephesians to pray for him “that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel” (Ephesians 6:19).

Are you praying for your fellow Christians to be so empowered? Are you asking your fellow Christians to pray the same for you?

Thousands of Baylor University students, joined by friends from other schools up to one hundred miles away, gathered recently at their football stadium for seventy-two hours to pray for revival and spiritual renewal. Their forty-foot by eighty-foot prayer tent was filled at times by standing-room-only crowds.

According to Charles Ramsey, director of campus ministries and associate chaplain at Baylor, “There were times when it was like a high-level festival of celebration. Other times, it was absolutely silent in the tent as students read Scripture and quietly prayed.”

How will you join them today?

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Denzel Washington spoke at pastor T. D. Jakes’ International Leadership Summit last Saturday, where he explained his reaction when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Academy Awards last week. Washington went immediately to speak with Smith, a decision he explained to the group: “I don’t know all the ins and outs of this situation, but I know the only solution was prayer, the way I saw it, the way I see it.”

In other headline news, North Carolina defeated Duke last Saturday in what is being called a “game for the ages” and will play Kansas in tonight’s NCAA men’s basketball championship. When Hubert Davis, North Carolina’s first-year coach, was introduced last April, he told a press conference that his faith “is the most important thing to me. My faith and foundation is firmly in my relationship with Jesus. It just is.”

By contrast, this Atlantic headline caught my eye: “Why People Are Acting So Weird.” The writer documents a variety of ways people are acting more rudely and violently and points to heightened stress, the increased use of alcohol and drugs, and isolation enforced by the pandemic.

Today’s news offers tragic examples: at least six people were killed and at least twelve were wounded in a shooting yesterday morning in Sacramento, California. A man was shot to death in Atlanta. And one person was killed and at least eleven people were hospitalized Saturday night after a shooting incident at a concert in Dallas.

In light of all the bad news, how are Americans doing? In a recent Gallup poll, only 17 percent of respondents said they were satisfied with the direction of the country. However, 85 percent were satisfied with their own lives.

This disparity highlights the point I want to make today.

The challenge of “compassion fatigue”

Denzel Washington and Hubert Davis are Christians who act on their faith when the opportunity arises. By contrast, the perennial temptation in Western culture is to keep our personal lives and our public lives separate.

This temptation extends not only to our actions but also to our intercession. “Compassion fatigue” is a real challenge in these hard days.

For example, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared on screen last night at the Grammy Awards. His speech began: “The war. What’s more opposite than music.” In reference to the music industry’s biggest night, he said, “Our musicians wear body armor instead of tuxedos. They sing to the wounded in hospitals.”

When you see the daily reports about the ongoing tragedy in Ukraine, are you praying with the same passion you did a month ago?

Here’s another example: Ramadan began last Friday. There are more than two billion Muslims in the world, each of whom rejects the divinity of Jesus and is therefore without true hope of eternal life (cf. Romans 8:9). Does this fact weigh on your heart today?

By contrast, our Father loves each of us as if there were only one of us, Muslims included. And he is working in the Muslim world in ways we have not seen in Islamic history.

A sheikh leading other sheikhs to Christ

My friend Tom Doyle has been ministering in the Middle East for many years. His marvelous book, Dreams and Visions: Is Jesus Awakening the Muslim World? tells story after story of ways God is “awakening” the Muslim world by his Spirit.

Over the weekend, I read a companion book, David Garrison’s A Wind in the House of Islam: How God is drawing Muslims around the world to faith in Jesus Christ. Garrison reinforces Tom’s point by documenting statistically the fact that “Muslim movements to Jesus Christ are taking place in numbers we’ve never seen before.” He reports on nine different geographical regions in the Muslim world, identifying eighty-two movements to Christ in “what appears to be a historic hinge moment in the spread of the gospel across the Muslim world.”

Here’s just one example: Sheikh Hakim is a hafez, which means he has memorized the Qur’an. He told Garrison, “If someone said that Jesus was God, we would kill him. When I was a Muslim, I burned churches for Islam.”

He was an overseer of four mosques and was training three hundred Islamic teachers when an African evangelist gave him a New Testament in Arabic. “That night Isa [Jesus] came to me in a dream,” he says. He saw himself chopping down a mosque’s minaret. When he told the evangelist, “He smiled and explained to me, ‘You are going to win many sheikhs to the Lord.’”

When Hakim came to faith in Christ, he lost his job and his farm, and his father tried to murder him. Today he moves from town to town because there are always some trying to kill him. He has since led four hundred Muslim sheikhs to Christ, more than three hundred of whom have already been baptized.

Three ways to pray today

I invite you to join me in three prayer requests today.

First, ask God to give you his heart for our hurting world so that you can pray with passionate compassion.

Second, pray each day during the month of Ramadan (April 2–May 1) for millions of Muslims to come to faith in Jesus and for God to protect Ukraine, end this war, and redeem this tragedy.

Third, pray for the Spirit to move in power in our churches and broken culture. We have never needed a spiritual awakening more than we need a transformative movement of God today.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on this day in 1968. He died knowing that the movement for racial justice he led would ultimately triumph. While we still have far to go, we can claim his testimony as our own today: “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”

Will you pray for the passion to speak unarmed truth in unconditional love today?

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 “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” —Psalm 14:1

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus illustrated the unpredictability of life with his now-famous metaphor, “You cannot step into the same river twice.” He might have been reading the news:

• Skippy is recalling 161,692 pounds of peanut butter because of possible contamination with stainless steel fragments.
• Bruce Willis is retiring from acting after being diagnosed with aphasia, a language disorder caused by brain damage that affects a person’s communication ability.
• Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians is unexpectedly retiring.
• A massive pileup caused by a sudden snow squall on a Pennsylvania highway involved eighty vehicles and left six people dead.
• Singer Tom Parker passed away from brain cancer at the age of thirty-three.
• Americans will be able to choose a gender X designation on passport applications starting April 11.
• Yesterday was the international “Transgender Day of Visibility.”

In contrast to the constant flux and chaos of our fallen world, the Bible proclaims of our Maker, “From everlasting to everlasting you are God!” (Psalm 90:2). But fewer Americans than ever seem to agree.

Secularism continues to grow in the US. According to Pew Research, roughly three in ten Americans have no religious affiliation of any kind. Younger generations are less engaged in church than their parents; many committed Christians are not active in a local congregation.

On this April Fool’s Day, let’s consider King David’s admonition in Psalm 14:1: “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” His observation applies not just to atheists and secularists but also to committed Christians in ways we may not fully appreciate today.

“The most dangerous period since the Soviet Union collapsed”

Our secular culture increasingly insists that personal authenticity is the path to flourishing, defining authenticity as “a feeling that people interpret as a sign that what they are doing in the moment aligns with their true self.”

Historian Carl Trueman calls this viewpoint “expressive individualism.” He explains that it enables a person to believe they are “a woman trapped in a man’s body” or that an unborn child is an organism encroaching on a woman’s life she is therefore free to remove. As I note in The Coming Tsunami, Christians who disagree are stigmatized as outdated, intolerant, oppressive, and even dangerous to society.

And yet, we might ask, how is this radical secularism working for us?

Consider this statement by the Wall Street Journal editorial board: “The world is entering the most dangerous period since the Soviet Union collapsed, and perhaps since the 1930s.” The editorial focuses on geopolitical dangers, but we could add the opioid epidemic and other “deaths of despair,” deepening political sectarianism that threatens democracy, and the escalating crime rate in the US.

“I think we are ready to listen”

In response, an op-ed in the Dallas Morning News caught my eye: “I’m an atheist, but between COVID and nuclear weapons, I’m ready to give God a try.”

Josh Selig is a ten-time Emmy Award-winning television producer and director. He writes: “We’ve entered a pantomime of our own lives. More often than not, it feels like we’re pretending. Pretending to live. Pretending to work. I read an article that said more people than ever are quitting their jobs. Perhaps it’s because our jobs no longer seem important. Not much does. All of our ceremonies feel unceremonious.”

He then tells God: “Although I check daily, there are no answers in my newsfeed, in my inbox, or on my phone. So, I’ve come to you. If you don’t exist then, of course, never mind. The joke’s on me. But if you do exist, and I suspect in your own way you do, then I hope you’ll get back to me.”

Selig concludes: “I’m here. We are all here. And, finally, I think we are ready to listen. Hope to see you on the mountain one day.”

Secular reasons for spiritual engagement

An atheist indeed has good reasons to “listen.” Contrary to American secularism, religion is growing dramatically around the world. Ramadan begins tonight, a month of fasting in Islam that is just one example of religion’s pervasive attraction for billions of people. (For more, see Shane Bennett’s article on our website, “4 things every Christian should know about Ramadan.”)

Even secular writers agree that “on average, religious people are generally happier, healthier, and live longer” and that “religious people are more likely to feel that they belong to a community.” Numerous studies show that the rituals and social bonding inherent in religious engagement are vital to flourishing.

The health benefits of religion are clear as well: a comprehensive Harvard study found that people who attend religious services weekly or more are 16 percent less likely to become depressed and show a 29 percent reduction in smoking and 34 percent reduction in heavy drinking.

For secular reasons alone, Psalm 14:1 turns out to be right.

Why Scottie Scheffler plays golf

Scottie Scheffler poses for photos with the trophy after winning the Dell Technologies Match Play Championship golf tournament, Sunday, March 27, 2022, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

However, the best evidence for biblical faith is its transformative effect on those who embrace it.

Pro golfer Scottie Scheffler is an example. Now ranked #1 in the world heading into next week’s Masters, Scheffler was profiled in Golf Digest after winning a difficult tournament last month. He explained how he keeps his composure under pressure: “I don’t place my value in golf. It’s kind of a tough balance because I spend so much of my time trying to improve and to be good at this game.

“You’ve really got to look at the motivation for why I play. For me, I have a relationship with Jesus Christ. That’s why I play golf. I’m out here to compete because that’s where he wants me. He’s in control of what happens in the end. So just really staying the course and staying faithful and letting him be the guidance for me versus anything that I do.”

When secular people like Josh Selig see the way our truth has changed our lives, they may consider making it their truth. When they do, they meet the Truth (John 14:6).

Is the Truth your truth today?

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Virginia (Ginni) Thomas is the wife of longtime Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. According to the Washington Post, twenty-nine text messages obtained by the Post and CBS News show that she “repeatedly pressed White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to pursue unrelenting efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.”

In response, some Democrats are calling on Justice Thomas to recuse himself on cases related to the January 6 Capitol riots. Some are even calling for Justice Thomas to step down from the court or be impeached.

As we will see today, this controversy is relevant far beyond Justice Thomas, his wife, and their critics.

A defense of Justice Thomas

Former prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy states that the statute governing judicial disqualification, Section 455 (of Title 28, US Code), involves “financial or legal stakes in the matter, or some connection to the matter as an attorney.” According to McCarthy, “Ginni Thomas’s conservative political activism—up to and including the text messages to Mark Meadows about the 2020 election—does not activate those triggers.”

He adds, “If it did, many judges appointed by Democrats would have been disqualified from cases over which they’ve presided despite the political and legal activism of their spouses.” His statement links to a Newsweek article detailing numerous examples of such activism.

To reinforce his argument, McCarthy states that “Supreme Court justices are not even subject to disqualification over their own activities that bear directly on cases.” He notes the example of Justice Elena Kagan, nominated by President Obama, who served as Mr. Obama’s solicitor general when the administration was formulating its legal strategy to defend the Affordable Care Act. When the Act came before the Supreme Court, she did not recuse herself from the case and in fact provided the critical vote to uphold it.

McCarthy therefore concludes: “The smearing of Justice Thomas is transparently partisan politics, nothing more.”

Using a senator’s words against him

Whether you agree with McCarthy or not is not my point. Rather, I want to focus on the method he used to make his case.

If you accuse me of wrongdoing and I can show that you have done what you now accuse me of doing, I can win our rhetorical battle. Unsurprisingly, politicians do the same.

For example, earlier this year, Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer sought to change the Senate’s filibuster rules. Republican Sen. Tom Cotton then used Sen. Schumer’s previous statements in support of the filibuster against him. 

My point is not to castigate our public officials. I am grateful to those who are willing to serve in a day when they face more criticism—fair and unfair—than at any time in my lifetime. My purpose today is actually the opposite: rather than criticizing political leaders, I want to point a finger at myself. And perhaps at you.

“She gave me fruit of the tree”

One very simple way to avoid responsibility for our sins is to point to the sins of others. This story begins early: when the Lord called Adam to account for his sin in the Garden of Eden, Adam responded, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate” (Genesis 3:12). Eve in turn blamed the serpent (v. 13).

Satan is delighted by the degenerating moral condition of our culture. And he is also delighted when Christians point to the sins of others to justify their own.

Putin’s murderous invasion of Ukraine is obviously one of the most horrifically sinful acts by a political leader in recent times. But his sin does not justify my hatred of my brother. Even though the world would say the two have no comparison, Jesus disagrees (Matthew 5:21–22). It is the same with adultery and lust (vv. 27–30), proving the point that the sins of others do not excuse my sins or yours.

“Keep your heart with all vigilance”

I had a fascinating conversation recently with a millennial Christian leader. He believes that the single greatest reason many of his generation are dropping out of church is the ongoing moral crisis within the church.

I’m convinced that he’s right.

We can complain that critics are holding us to a different standard than they require for themselves, and we’re right. But they’re right to do so. We claim that the Holy Spirit of God lives in us (1 Corinthians 3:16) and that his “fruit” in our lives includes “goodness,” “faithfulness,” and “self-control” (Galatians 5:22–23).

If Muslims or Buddhists, Republicans or Democrats made the same claim, would we not hold them to it?

God’s word declares, “It is time for judgment to begin at the household of God” (1 Peter 4:17). To this end, let’s remember Proverbs 4:23: “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.”

The text explains how: “Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you. Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil” (vv. 24–27).

How cockroaches survive

Scientists tell us that cockroaches survived the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs by hiding in tiny soil crevices that protected them from heat and by being omnivorous scavengers who will eat what others will not.

Sin does the same: it hides from the heat and light of God’s truth and will “eat” anything we “feed” it.

If we would make a transformative impact on our culture, Christ must first make such an impact on us. Daily submission to him is vital to the sanctification that empowers our lives and witness. Oswald Chambers observed: “Abandon to God is of more value than personal holiness. . . . When we are abandoned to God, he works through us all the time.”

How abandoned to God would he say you are today?

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Will Smith has apologized to Chris Rock for slapping him at last Sunday night’s Academy Awards after the comedian made a comment about Smith’s wife. The Academy announced a formal investigation and condemned Smith’s actions. (For more on our response as Christians, read Mark Legg’s “Should we forgive Will Smith?”)

The story dominated social media, eclipsing even the war in Ukraine. However, another story from the Oscars has received less coverage: the hosts took numerous opportunities to castigate Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill.

The legislation has been dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by its critics and the mainstream press. Wanda Sykes slammed the bill in her opening monologue; she and fellow hosts Amy Schumer and Regina Hall repeated the word gay multiple times as the crowd applauded.

Florida’s governor nonetheless signed the bill into law the next day. So, let’s discuss what the legislation does and doesn’t do, identify the larger cultural narrative this controversy represents, and conclude with two biblical principles that apply to us all.

What does the bill actually say?

Ironically, the “Don’t Say Gay” bill never uses the word gay and does not prohibit its use. Rather, the measure bars classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity for children in kindergarten through third grade (from about ages five to nine) in Florida public schools. The law takes effect on July 1 and allows parents to sue school districts they believe to be in violation. 

Republicans argue that parents should discuss these subjects with children. Democrats claim that the law demonizes LGBTQ people by excluding them from classroom lessons.

Gov. Ron DeSantis told reporters when he signed the bill, “We will continue to recognize that in the state of Florida, parents have a fundamental role in the education, healthcare, and wellbeing of their children.” He added, “I don’t care what the big corporations say, here I stand. I’m not backing down.”

“Big corporations” have indeed said much about the law. For example, a Walt Disney Company spokesperson claimed that the bill “should never have passed and should never have been signed into law” and added, “Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts.”

Why LGBTQ activists are focusing on children

My purpose in today’s Daily Article is not to provide a comprehensive discussion of the legislation. Rather, as a cultural philosopher, I want to focus on the worldview issues it represents since they are relevant to each of us, whether we live in Florida and have young children or not.

Nathanael Blake is a postdoctoral fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and author of a perceptive article on our subject in Public Discourse. He notes that many in our culture now believe the LGBTQ activist narrative that humans are “born this way.” Blake explains the argument: “Each of us is born with an immutable sexual orientation and gender identity,” which would mean that some children are born LGBTQ. As a result, they should learn about their sexual orientation and gender identity as soon as possible so they can discover their authentic sexual selves, or so the argument runs.

In this view, teachers of elementary-age children are on the front lines helping their students “discover” and embrace their sexual identities. Parents and the rest of us should be affirming of such “discoveries” as well. Anyone who rejects LGBTQ ideology is by definition suspect and dangerous to children. This ideology can even lead to “non-affirming” parents losing custody of their children.

Blake reminds us that the search for a “gay gene” ended in failure three years ago. Nonetheless, he warns that LGBTQ activists are “pressuring our culture, curricula, and even churches to affirm the ostensibly intrinsic rainbow identities of children.”

Practical responses for parents

In response to this rising threat to our children, two biblical conclusions are vital.

One: It is urgent that you and I understand, embrace, proclaim, and defend biblical sexual morality in all its holistic relevance and beauty.

God’s word clearly teaches that:

• Humans are created in his image as male and female (Genesis 1:27). 
• Sex is intended only for a husband and wife within the covenant of marriage (Genesis 1:28; 2:24; 1 Corinthians 7:2–5).
• And homosexual relationships are outside his design for us and thus forbidden (cf. Leviticus 18:22; Romans 1:26–27; 1 Corinthians 6:9; 1 Timothy 1:10).

For more, see my How to Defend Biblical Marriage.

Two: Parents are responsible for every dimension of their children’s lives.

One way I am asking God to redeem the frightening rise of LGBTQ activism with children is by using it to empower godly parents to become engaged in the entirety of their children’s experiences. They cannot “subcontract” their children’s education to schools, trust their private use of technology, or assume their friends share their biblical values.

God calls parents to teach his word “diligently to your children . . . when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deuteronomy 6:7). Every part of their lives and yours should be informed and lived biblically.

Is your “train” running on God’s “track”?

Here’s the bottom line: Children need the spiritual and cultural protection of their families and churches more today than ever before in American history.

Pastor Paul Powell explained, “As a train was made to run on a track, so we were made to run on God’s law. A train runs most effectively when it stays on the track.”

Accordingly, the greatest gift we can give our children (and everyone we know) is to help them love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30). When they know and live by his word, they live their best and most blessed lives.

Is your “train” running on God’s “track” today?

Is your family’s?

If not, why not?

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According to CNN, “Florida’s got yet another spring breaker in town: Scot, a massive great white shark, has been recorded swimming off the Gulf Coast.” The shark measures over twelve feet long and weighs sixteen hundred pounds.

A “massive great white shark” swimming just offshore feels like a metaphor for much that is happening in our culture, from rising inflation to a more contagious version of COVID-19 to deepening partisan divisions. But, of course, the “shark” that dominates the news each day and has captured so many of our hearts is the horrific invasion of Ukraine and the untold suffering that it is producing. 

As face-to-face talks between Ukraine and Russia continue this week, many analysts are asking how Russia’s aggression in Ukraine will end (assuming it does). In this context, three recent articles have greatly illuminated Vladimir Putin’s thinking and are therefore relevant to us today.

A “personalist regime” 

In a New Yorker article titled “What is Putin Thinking?,” David Remnick points back to the failure of democracy in Russia after the 1991 fall of the USSR. Oligarchs bought up the country’s most valuable state enterprises and made their fortunes while the people struggled. One historian said at the time, “These last four or five years in Russia have produced little besides pure hysteria.” 

In response, when Putin came to power in 1999, he set up what Remnick calls “a personalist regime built around his patronage and absolute authority.” Remnick explains that the national identity Putin created in opposition to the West “has played an essential role in his brutal invasion of Ukraine.” 

He also cites thinkers such as Nikolai Berdyaev and Ivan Ilyin who believed in the exalted destiny of Russia and the artificiality of Ukraine, both of whom were extremely influential for Putin.

A “civilization-state” 

Cultural commentator Andrew Sullivan takes us further back into history in “The Strange Rebirth Of Imperial Russia.” He cites Russian intellectuals who claimed after the fall of the Soviet Union that Russia is not just a nation-state but a “civilization-state.” 

Sullivan explains that this is “a whole way of being, straddling half the globe and wrapping countless other nations and cultures into Mother Russia’s spiritual bosom.” This worldview claims that Russia has always had such a civilizational destiny and mission which the West has countered and sought to undermine. Aleksandr Dugin popularized such theories in The Foundations of Geopolitics, which Sullivan calls “perhaps the best guide to understanding where Putin is coming from, and what Russia is now.” 

In light of this worldview, Putin proposed in 2011 a “Eurasian Union” to counter the European Union, reject the strategic control of the US, and resist Western liberal values. His invasion of Ukraine is but the next step in his passion to rebuild Imperial Russia.

An occupying force 

Journalist Jonathan Tepperman conducted a very illuminating interview with Alexander Gabuev, a former diplomatic correspondent and Russian newspaper editor who is now a scholar on Russia at the Carnegie Moscow Center. 

Gabuev explains that Putin thought his invasion would demoralize the Ukrainian army and that “part of the country would greet Russia with flowers and the other part would not resist.” He was clearly wrong. 

When Tepperman asked Gabuev if he can imagine a deal that could end the war, he replied that Ukraine would not “accept a peace settlement that makes them semi-dependent on the aggressor, even if it saves their cities.” To achieve Putin’s imperialistic agenda, Gabuev predicts that the Russian leader will seek to “occupy Ukraine, and there will be an Iraq-type insurgency, and ultimately this will end badly, because there is no way that Russia can occupy Ukraine forever.”

“An evil person will not go unpunished” 

In Romans 1 we read that God “gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done” (Romans 1:28). This is the permissive judgment of God whereby he allows us the consequences of our misused freedom. Tragically, the innocent are often harmed by these consequences as well. 

If nations and people do not repent, God then moves to his punitive judgment whereby he works directly to punish sin and lead sinners to repentance. We see this with the plagues of Egypt, divine judgment against King Herod (Acts 12:23), and the cataclysmic judgments depicted in the book of Revelation. 

Since we know that God judges nations (Psalm 110:6), it is plausible that Russia is experiencing God’s permissive judgment on its immoral invasion. If Putin persists, he and his people could see God’s punitive judgment. 

Here is what we can know without question: “An evil person will not go unpunished” (Proverbs 11:21) because “vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord” (Romans 12:19). Whether in this world or in the next (cf. Luke 16:19–31), God’s judgment on sin is sure (Hebrews 9:27).

A missionary prayer I have not forgotten 

How does the thought of God’s judgment on Vladimir Putin resonate with you?  

Your first thought might be, “The sooner the better.” Obviously, the fewer Ukrainians who suffer or die at his immoral hands, the better. 

But we must not forget that God loves Russians as much as he loves Ukrainians. He loves North Koreans as much as he loves Americans and Iranians as much as he loves Israelis (cf. Galatians 3:28). He loves each of us as if there were only one of us because he is love (1 John 4:8). 

If we loved the Russians as God does, we would be praying fervently for their nation and leaders to repent of this sinful invasion. If we love Ukrainians as God does, we would be praying fervently for their protection and future. If we loved all nations as God does, we would be praying fervently for every person on earth to know Jesus as Savior and Lord. 

I will long remember the time I heard a missionary pray, “Lord, break my heart for what breaks your heart.” 

What breaks your heart today? 

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CODA made history last night as the first film distributed by a streaming service to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Jessica Chastain won her first Oscar when she was named Best Actress for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, and Will Smith received his first Academy Award when he won for Best Actor in King Richard.

But the headline story is that after comedian Chris Rock made a joke about actor Smith’s wife during the evening, Smith ran up on stage and struck Rock in the face. He later apologized “to the Academy and to all my fellow nominees” during his acceptance speech.

Of course, the conflict on everyone’s mind and heart is the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. Several attendees at the Oscars paid tribute to Ukraine in various ways. Actress Mila Kunis, who was born in Ukraine, has partnered with her husband Ashton Kutcher to raise more than $35 million in humanitarian aid for the Ukrainian people. “Recent global events have left many of us feeling gutted,” she said last night. “Yet when you witness the strength and dignity of those facing such devastation, it’s impossible to not be moved by their resilience. One cannot help but be in awe of those who find strength to keep fighting through unimaginable darkness.”

Russian Nobel Prize winner will donate his medal for Ukraine relief

Kunis’ moving statement is not the only positive story amidst the horrific war in Ukraine. Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov has announced he will auction off the Nobel Peace Prize he won last year to raise money for Ukrainian refugees. He also called on Russia to stop combat fire, exchange prisoners, provide humanitarian assistance and corridors, release the bodies of the dead, and support refugees.

The Academy Awards and Vladimir Putin’s immoral invasion of Ukraine have this in common: they illustrate the brevity and fragility of life.

Who won last year’s Best Actor award? Anthony Hopkins. Best Actress? Frances McDormand. Best Picture? Nomadland. (I had to look up each answer).

Here’s an illustration of human frailty and fallenness from the Ukraine invasion: radioactive materials are reportedly missing from the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. Experts warn that they could be combined with conventional explosives to create a “dirty bomb” that would spread contamination over a wide area.

The weekend news brought more examples of life’s fragility:

• A Colorado wildfire forced the evacuation of nineteen thousand people.
• Country music singer Jeff Carson died of a heart attack at the age of fifty-eight.
• Phil Collins, who has been dealing with health concerns for years, held his last concert ever in London.
• A man who fell to his death from a Dallas rooftop had planned to propose to his longtime girlfriend.
• A fourteen-year-old boy fell to his death from an Orlando amusement ride.
• A mother was shot and killed while visiting her late son’s grave on his birthday.
• A Montana hiker and father of four was killed when he was apparently attacked by a grizzly bear outside Yellowstone National Park.
• Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins died at the age of fifty.
• A police officer was gunned down in a Starbucks parking lot north of Seattle.

Prayer as a spiritual weapon

Last week, we discussed ways God uses his people to advance his kingdom and change their culture. Today, in the midst of our crises and challenges, as we face daily the brevity and fragility of life, let’s focus on ways our Father can change us.

In a Public Discourse article, philosopher Joshua Hochschild brilliantly describes the ways digital technology and social media are changing not just our world but also our minds. He explains that artificial intelligence is now using algorithms that predict our patterns of behavior, present us with customized digital stimuli, and thus shape what we think and do.

How should we defend ourselves? Professor Hochschild points us to “the power of prayer, sometimes described as a spiritual weapon.” He notes, “More than any other deliberate activity, prayer activates and directs the soul’s various modes of cognition, disciplining them and orienting them to deeper understanding of self and union with God.”

He recommends the prayer cycle in St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises as a model:

• Composition: Exercise your imagination and memory to recall sins and visualize yourself in the presence of God. 
• Analysis: Use your intellect to conceive, understand, and assent to truths (especially from Scripture, I would add), reasoning about their implications and contemplating their connections to your life. 
• Colloquy: Reflect on what you have learned and resolve to make good decisions, “exerting the will in acts of humility and love.”

“So shall my courage be firm”

Jesus promised us, “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit” (John 15:5a). But he warned that the converse is also true: “for apart from me you can do nothing” (v. 5b). 

Charles Spurgeon was right: “The stream must flow constantly from the fountainhead, or else the brook will soon be dry.” To this end, let’s make Scottish minister John Baillie’s prayer ours:

“By your grace, O God, I will go nowhere today where you cannot come, nor seek anyone’s presence that would rob me of yours. By your grace I will let no thought enter my heart that might hinder my closeness with you, nor let any word come from my mouth that is not meant for your ear. So shall my courage be firm and my heart be at peace.”

Is your heart at peace today?

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Ten-year-old Zlata Moiseinko is living in a schoolhouse in Ukraine that has been converted into a field hospital operated by Israeli medical workers. Russia’s invasion has now displaced half of Ukraine’s children, Zlata among them. She became so unsettled that her father risked his life to return to their apartment to rescue her pet hamster, Lola, to comfort her.

“I want peace for all Ukraine,” the little girl told an Associated Press reporter.

The human cost of this escalating crisis is staggering. The US Department of State released a statement this week describing “war crimes by Russia’s forces in Ukraine.” The Biden Administration announced yesterday that the US will accept up to one hundred thousand Ukrainian refugees fleeing the fighting. And NATO allies agreed yesterday to provide Ukraine with equipment and training to respond to a possible Russian attack using chemical, biological, or even nuclear weapons.

In the face of such challenges, my claim across this week that Christians should reframe crises as opportunities for the gospel can seem naïve. We understand theologically that we are called to bring the “light of the world” to the darkness, that we are commissioned to make disciples of all nations, even those at war.

But it’s not enough to know we are called to be change agents in a broken culture—we must believe that we can make a transformative difference where we are, as we are. To that end, let’s close our week by focusing on the empowering ways God can change us.

What happens through us must first happen to us. Said differently, when something happens to us, it is likely to happen through us as well.

The only way to “find life and flourishing”

In Jesus the Great Philosopher: Rediscovering the Wisdom Needed for the Good Life, biblical scholar Jonathan T. Pennington identifies two characteristics of biblical ethics: imitative and agentic.

Biblical moral standards are imitative in that God’s ethical demands are rooted in his own nature. According to Pennington, “Humans will only find life and flourishing when they imitate their Creator, when they learn to inhabit the world in the ways that accord with God’s own nature, will, and coming kingdom.”

Biblical ethics are agentic in that “we as moral agents matter.” As Pennington notes, “Who we are as people is significant—our understanding, our emotions, our motives, and our desires are wrapped up in what is right and wrong.”

This imitative and agentic ethic is a kind of “virtue ethics” that “focuses not just on the external issues of right and wrong but on our interior person and our development to be a certain kind of people. In the Bible, this means becoming more like God himself.”

Here’s the problem: we need God’s help to become more like God. Humans, because we are fallen and sinful by nature, cannot transform ourselves into a holiness we do not possess. I once heard our attempts to be good enough for God likened to a group of tourists who decided to swim from California to Hawaii. The best swimmers got further than the others, but all drowned.

“The condescension of compassion”

This is why, as Irenaeus noted, Jesus became one of us that we might be one with him. St. Leo the Great said of our Lord, “He took the nature of a servant without the stain of sin, enlarging our humanity without diminishing his divinity. He emptied himself: though invisible he made himself visible, though Creator and Lord of all things he chose to be one of us mortal men. Yet this was the condescension of compassion, not the loss of omnipotence. So he who in the nature of God had created man, became in the nature of a servant, man himself.”

Because our sinless Savior died for our sins, paying our debt by dying on our cross, you and I now can “with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). If you have asked Jesus to forgive your sins and become your Lord, his Holy Spirit now dwells in you, making you his temple (1 Corinthians 3:16) and manifesting in and through you “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).

If we will repent of our efforts to save, sanctify, and justify ourselves, coming with humble contrition and repentance to our loving Savior, he will forgive everything we confess (1 John 1:9), separate our sins from us “as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12), “cast all our sins into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19), and “remember [our] sin no more” (Jeremiah 31:34; cf. Hebrews 8:12).

Then, when his love liberates us from our sins, through this grace “we draw near to God” (Hebrews 7:19), his Spirit demonstrates his “fruit” in our lives (Galatians 5:22–23), and we become changed people used by God to change the world.

“I am only one, but I am one”

You and I cannot stop Putin’s horrific invasion of Ukraine. We cannot stop all crimes, prevent all disasters, or heal all diseases. However, we must not let what we cannot do keep us from doing what we can do.

If our hope was in our abilities and resources, we would have no real hope at all. But our hope is not in us but in the One who indwells us, empowers us, and wants to use us as his universal body to continue the ministry he began in his physical body (1 Corinthians 12:27).

All Jesus has ever done, he can still do. What he did on earth, he can do on earth. What he did through his first followers, he can do through us.

Will we kneel before his throne as our Lord today? Will we use his blessings, not for ourselves but to advance his kingdom? Will we seek his glory over our own?

If we do, we can say with author and minister Edward Everett Hale (1822–1909), “I am only one, but I am one. I can’t do everything, but I can do something. The something I ought to do, I can do. And by the grace of God, I will.”

Will you?

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