Lebanese bride Israa Seblani stood in a long white gown and veil, smiling and posing for her wedding video, when the scene was shattered by a horrific roar and a shockwave nearly threw her from her feet.

The footage captured the moment on Tuesday when a massive explosion rocked Beirut, killing at least 135 people and injuring more than 5,000.

Seblani, a doctor working in the US, helped check on the injured before fleeing the area to safety. She said later, “What happened during the explosion here—there is no word to explain . . . I was shocked, I was wondering what happened, am I going to die? How am I going to die?”

“There are no words to describe the catastrophe” 

Lebanon’s president, Michel Aoun, said that 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate caused the massive fireball that sent a shockwave across the city. “There are no words to describe the catastrophe that hit Beirut,” he stated.

The Port of Beirut was destroyed. Shop and apartment windows were blown out two miles from where the explosion occurred. Losses are estimated to be between $10 billion and $15 billion.

Protests erupted last night in central Beirut. More than three hundred thousand people—more than 12 percent of the city’s population—are now homeless. Hospitals are overwhelmed with the injured. Images of a shattered city convey just some of the horror.

Why was the ammonium nitrate there? A vessel called the MV Rhosus entered the port at Beirut in 2013 due a lack of seaworthiness and was forbidden from sailing. The ship’s owner abandoned the vessel, and the ammonium nitrate remained in a storage facility in Beirut’s port. Authorities were supposed to dispose of it safely but failed to do so.

Many in Lebanon blame years of mismanagement and corruption by the country’s political leaders. Some speculate that Hezbollah, a radical Shiite organization that controls much of Lebanon and is pledged to the destruction of Israel, was holding on to this material to use against Israel in missiles or bombs.

What “could change life as we know it” 

The explosion in Beirut was two orders of magnitude greater than the most powerful nonnuclear weapon in the US arsenal. This fact leads to another story in the news this week.

Yesterday was the seventy-fifth anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Nine countries currently possess nuclear weapons: the US, Russia, France, China, the UK, Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea. A recent report in the Wall Street Journal states that Saudi Arabia may be working with China to join their number.

Some nine thousand nuclear weapons exist; as the Union of Concerned Scientists notes, “the use of even one could change life as we know it.”

A university professor who studies nuclear events warns that “the risk of a nuclear exchange—and its devastating impact on medicine and public health worldwide—has only escalated compared to previous decades.” He adds that “the developing technological sophistication among terrorist groups and the growing global availability and distribution of radioactive materials are also especially worrying.”

“The linear life is dead” 

The tragedy in Beirut and the threat of nuclear annihilation point to the unpredictable and chaotic nature of our fallen world. In Life Is in the Transitions, Bruce Feiler expresses this fact bluntly: “The linear life is dead.” By the “linear life” he means “the idea that life follows a series of carefully calibrated progressions—childhood to young adulthood to middle age to old age; dating to marriage to children to empty nest; low-level job to mid-level job to senior-level job to retirement.”

According to Feiler’s research, this idea “seems preposterously outdated.” He discovered that the average person experiences a life “disruptor” every twelve to eighteen months and a “lifequake” (one big event or multiple disruptors at the same time) three to five times in adulthood.

In addition, he reports, the average worker today will hold twelve different jobs before the age of fifty. Those with higher education can expect to change their jobs fifteen times and alter their skill set three times. The typical job now lasts four years; among those under thirty-five years of age, it drops to three.

To navigate such a chaotic, non-linear world, Feiler believes we need agency (“the belief that you can impact the world around you”), belonging (a community that surrounds and nurtures you), and a cause (“a transcendent commitment beyond yourself that makes your life worthwhile”).

Feiler’s insights are more biblical than he may know.

What should be our “greatest fear”? 

God’s word is replete with promises of agency, the assurance that your Father can use your life to impact your world even in the gravest of circumstances. From Joseph, Peter, and Paul in prison to Daniel in a lions’ den and John on Patmos, God uses us in spite of and often because of our challenges (cf. Philippians 4:6–7, 13).

Our Father also offers us belonging in a community of faith so strong and enduring that “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). And he has a cause for us that gives our lives eternal significance (Matthew 28:19–20).

So, admit that you live in Beirut, wherever you live. Pray for those who are suffering and find ways to share with them the hope and community of Christ. Live fully in this day, for it is the only day you have.

And remember: “Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter” (Francis Chan).

Will your life “really matter” today?

Denison Forum

If you’ve been to the US Capitol, you’ll remember its collection of one hundred statues, two from each state of the Union. Some, like Helen Keller and Thomas Edison, are known to us all. Others are less famous nationally.

North Carolina currently honors Charles Brantley Aycock and Zebulon Baird Vance. However, the former was one of the masterminds of an 1898 race riot in which a local government composed of Black Americans was overthrown and replaced by white officials.

In his place, a life-sized statue of Billy Graham will be installed sometime next year. Rev. Graham is one of his home state’s most beloved figures, with two state highways named to honor him. One of Charlotte’s biggest tourist attractions is the library documenting his life and ministry and its grounds that include his gravesite and restored childhood home.

The statue will feature Rev. Graham as he looked in the 1960s, preaching and holding a Bible in one hand. His son, Franklin Graham, said, “My father would be very pleased that people thought of him in this way. But he would want people to give God the glory and not himself.”

Let’s consider the replacement of Aycock’s statue with that of Billy Graham as a parable for our day.

“It gives me a great deal of hope” 

Today is the anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, which was signed into law on August 6, 1965 by President Lyndon B. Johnson. It prohibits discriminatory voting practices, enforces the voting rights of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, gives racial minorities the right to vote across the country, outlaws literacy tests, and bars state or local governments from imposing voting qualifications.

The House of Representatives recently approved a measure to rename the legislation after the late Rep. John Lewis (D–Ga.), coinciding with a ceremony honoring him in the US Capitol Rotunda. The House voted by unanimous consent to rename the bill the “John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act.”

On March 7, 1965, Lewis led a civil rights march across the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma, Alabama, in support of voting rights. He was nearly beaten to death by state troopers wielding clubs and tear gas. At the time, many Black Americans were denied the right to vote in Alabama. In Dallas County, Alabama, for example, where Black Americans made up more than half of the population, just 2 percent were registered voters.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Statue of Billy Graham to be installed in US Capitol: The anniversary of the Voting Rights Act and the ultimate solution to the sin of racism →

Pastor John MacArthur led his congregation in worship inside Grace Community Church’s 3,500-seat sanctuary in Sun Valley, California, last Sunday. They met in violation of state restrictions stating, “Places of worship must therefore discontinue indoor singing and chanting activities and limit indoor attendance to 25 percent of building capacity or a maximum of one hundred attendees, whichever is lower” (their emphasis).

Videos and pictures of the service showed the sanctuary filled to capacity with worshippers sitting shoulder-to-shoulder. I did not see anyone wearing a mask.

MacArthur said in a video statement, “We will obey God rather than men. We’re going to be faithful to the Lord and we’re going to leave the results to him.” He added, “We will not bow to Caesar. The Lord Jesus Christ is our king.”

According to Franklin Graham, officials from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health have threatened MacArthur with “repercussions such as fines and even possible arrest.” Nonetheless, MacArthur states, “We will meet as the church of Jesus Christ because we’re commanded to do that. We will sing, we will pray, we will fellowship, we will proclaim the word of God far and wide.”

Commenting on churches that have chosen to defer in-person worship until January, MacArthur said, “I don’t have any way to understand that other than they don’t know what a church is and they don’t shepherd their people, but that’s sad. And you have a lot of people in Christianity, who seem to be significant leaders, who aren’t giving any strength and courage to the church. They’re not standing up and rising up and calling on Christians to be the church in the world as I said on Sunday.”

How Greg Laurie’s church responded to the restrictions 

An hour away, in Riverside, California, worshipers at Greg Laurie’s Harvest Christian Fellowship met in a white tent half the size of a football field to comply with state orders restricting indoor worship.

Volunteers scanned attendees’ foreheads with infrared thermometers before they entered the tent, where they found rows of six chairs spaced about six feet apart. Masks were required and signs directed worshipers to wave at rather than touch one another.

An official with MacArthur’s Grace to You ministry said that moving gatherings outdoors to comply with state regulations was not an option for Grace because of the size of the congregation and the California heat. He also said, “You don’t have to shut down the whole church” just because people might catch an illness.

Continue reading Denison Forum – John MacArthur’s church violates state restrictions: Three principles to balance in serving Caesar and Christ →

Doris Crippen, age seventy-three, was recently diagnosed with COVID-19 and became a patient at a rehabilitation center in Nebraska. Bev Boro, a medication aide, has worked at the facility for more than two decades.

Last month, Bev was looking over her patient list when she recognized Doris’s name. She was shocked: Doris is her older sister, though the two have not seen each other in more than fifty years.

The two share a father but were born to different mothers. Doris was raised by her mother and stepfather and was twenty years old when she last saw Bev. The women knew each other’s names and spent years searching for each other without success. Then the pandemic brought them together.

Despite the suffering Doris has endured, she told a reporter, “I am the happiest person in the world. I cannot believe I finally found my sister.”

We all love stories that have such happy endings, especially during days of pandemic pain and economic suffering. But what do we do with stories that don’t end so well? With family members and friends who don’t recover from this horrible disease? With prayers that seem unanswered?

1. T. Wright, one of the most profound theologians of our generation, notes that lament is a central part of our faith. Psalms that express anger, frustration, and pain to God are in Scripture for a reason. Some of them, as Wright observes, “come out the other side into the light. And sometimes . . . they simply don’t. They stay in the dark. And there’s a sense that God is with us in that darkness.”

Yesterday we focused on our need for the power of God to live as the people of God. Today, we’ll examine perhaps the greatest obstacle to experiencing such power in painful times.

Learning from the Old West 

I’m reading Dreams of El Dorado: A History of the American West by H. W. Brands, a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin. One of the facts his fascinating narrative reinforces on nearly every page is the frailty of life on the frontier.

Settlers moving west were one Indian raid or hard winter from annihilation. Starvation was an ever-present possibility. A broken leg in the wilderness could mean a horrible death from infection or wild animals.

As a result, those on the frontier knew they needed God and each other to survive. Generations facing the Great Depression and two world wars learned the same lesson.

However, our technological and medical advances have insulated us from much of what they faced. The rising secularism and moral relativism that have resulted from our cultural self-sufficiency now threaten our souls.

And our churches as well.

The problem with church-growth seminars 

I was called to my first pastorate in 1984, just as the church-growth movement was gaining momentum. The scientific study of growing churches led to identifying best practices that could be emulated in other congregations. Before long, church-growth conferences hosted by megachurches became mandatory for pastors of smaller churches. I attended at least one a year in my early years as a pastor and read the literature produced by this movement extensively.

The purpose of these resources was to identify biblical principles that all churches should understand and seek to practice. The downside, however, was the sense—however unintended by leaders in the movement—that if churches organized themselves strategically, created worship and teaching experiences that appealed to a consumeristic culture, and marketed their services and events effectively, their growth was assured.

The fact is, human words cannot save human souls. You and I cannot convict anyone of their sins or lead them to repentance. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. He will use us to the degree that we depend on him.

If our church growth strategies are submitted to the Spirit in passionate prayer and utter dependency, he will use them for God’s glory. But only then. Otherwise, we are building buildings and attracting numbers, but we are not growing God’s kingdom.

When God gives us “overcoming life” 

The coronavirus pandemic proves our mortality. The recession demonstrates the unpredictability and unreliability of wealth and the folly of self-reliance.

However, if we reframe the sufferings we face as an invitation to seek the strength of our Savior, he will redeem them by leading us into the spiritual renewal we need so desperately.

Oswald Chambers observed: “God does not give us overcoming life: he gives us life as we overcome. The strain is the strength. If there is no strain, there is no strength. Are you asking God to give you life and liberty and joy? He cannot, unless you will accept the strain. Immediately you face the strain, you will get the strength.”

We can illustrate this principle physically. To get stronger, we must strain the muscles we intend to build. In the same way, when we develop the reflex of trusting our problems and pain to the power of Jesus, we experience his presence and peace in transforming ways.

“This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope” 

Speaking of biblical lament, the writer of Lamentations set the standard with his deep, despairing grief over the destruction of Jerusalem. At one point he testifies of “my afflictions and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall!” (Lamentations 3:19).

But his despair leads him to make this decision: “This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (vv. 21–23).

What is the source of your “hope” today?

Denison Forum

Activists burned a stack of Bibles in front of the federal courthouse in Portland Friday night. A statue of Jesus was beheaded recently at a Miami church.

A recent faculty survey at Harvard University found that 79.7 percent consider themselves “very liberal” or “liberal”; 18.9 percent say they are “moderate”; only 1.46 percent call themselves “conservative” or “very conservative.”

Unsurprisingly, 67 percent of white evangelical Protestants believe Christianity’s influence on American life is decreasing. Two-thirds say their beliefs are in conflict with mainstream American culture.

“We have no enemies, only opponents” 

And yet, this is a time when the evangelical message that we can have a personal relationship with a personal Savior is more urgently needed than ever.

Tropical Storm Isaias is on track to impact the Carolinas later today, demonstrating our finitude before the power of nature. Dr. Deborah Birx noted yesterday that the coronavirus pandemic is “extraordinarily widespread” in the US. Governmental leaders are meeting today to continue negotiations over a new coronavirus-relief package, but they cannot end the recession without an end to the pandemic that is causing it.

How can we make God’s offer of redemption in response to our repentance more available and attractive to those who need it? Consider two sentences I believe every American needs to hear.

Last Thursday, President George W. Bush spoke at the funeral of Rep. John Lewis. In his brief but emotional eulogy for one of our greatest civil rights heroes, the former president made this statement: “John and I had our disagreements, of course. But in the America John Lewis fought for and in the America I believe in, differences of opinion are inevitable elements and evidence of democracy in action.”

When we view those with whom we disagree as our enemies, our sentiment usually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. When we view them as members of the same human family and citizens of the same great nation, we can engage with them in the spirit of “democracy in action.”

Ronald Reagan used to tell those who served in his administration, “Remember, we have no enemies, only opponents.”

Consider three biblical principles.

One: God can use anyone, whether we think so or not 

Joshua 24 records the Lord’s address to his people at the end of Joshua’s life. It begins with God’s reminder that “your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates . . . and they served other gods” (v. 2). And yet, he “took your father Abraham from beyond the River and led him through all the land of Canaan, and made his offspring many” (v. 3).

You and I might not have chosen a childless idolater to begin a nation, but God did. We might not have believed that a prisoner in Egypt would one day become prime minister, or that a fugitive would lead the Jewish people out of Egyptian slavery, or that a disciple who denied Jesus three times would preach the Pentecost sermon.

If God could redeem and use an enemy of his people like Saul of Tarsus, what could he do with someone who burns a Bible or beheads a statue of Jesus? Continue to pray for your nation and proclaim God’s word with grace, knowing that it’s always too soon to give up on God.

Two: All we have is ours by grace 

The Lord concluded his address with this statement: “I gave you a land on which you had not labored and cities that you had not built, and you dwell in them. You eat the fruit of vineyards and olive orchards that you did not plant” (v. 13).

I did not earn the right to be born in America rather than North Korea. I did not earn the right to hear the gospel from Christians who knocked on my door and invited me to ride their bus to church. If you know more about your Lord than those who oppose your faith, you have an obligation to pay forward to them the grace you have received.

Three: We need the power of God to live as the people of God 

Joshua followed God’s message with his own: “Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord” (v. 15). The people promised in response: “The Lord our God we will serve, and his voice we will obey” (v. 24).

However, after Joshua and his generation died, “the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt” (Judges 2:11–12). They could not live as the people of God without the power of God.

Nor can we.

We cannot ask Americans to do what we are not doing. If we would challenge them to repent of self-reliance and live in dependence on Jesus, we must do the same. If we would call them to biblical morality, we must exhibit biblical morality.

Otherwise, our words are only words.

“As for me and my house” 

Joshua modeled the commitment God is calling us to emulate when he told the nation, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15).

I remember vividly my first visit to Janet’s home in Houston after we began dating in college. Her parents displayed Joshua’s declaration on a plaque in their dining room where everyone entering their home could see it. As I soon learned, they lived the truth of these words every day.

Could you display their plaque in your home today?

Denison Forum

Bert terHart set sail from British Columbia last year in late October on a solo journey to circumnavigate the globe. He arrived back on July 18, where he was welcomed by family and friends. And where he was promptly thrust into the reality of life in a pandemic.

“In a nutshell, I’ve been sequestered completely, totally isolated from the rest of the world,” terHart said of his voyage. Astronauts on the International Space Station orbiting thirty-five miles above the earth were actually the closest humans to him for most of his journey.

He told a reporter, “When I got back, the first thing I said was, ‘What did I miss?'”

A reader’s perceptive question 

In my sixty-two years, these have easily been the most tumultuous nine months I have witnessed. In these difficult days, Rep. John Lewis’s commitment to “redemptive suffering” has taken on special meaning and urgency.

In a recent article, I stated my deep appreciation for Rep. Lewis’s courageous and sacrificial leadership in America’s ongoing quest for racial equality. However, I also noted my disagreement with him on moral issues such as same-sex marriage, religious liberty, and especially on abortion.

A reader responded to my article with this question: “Jim, I am struggling with how to balance how a man so Christlike in his courage to confront violence/racism nonviolently could arrive at these conclusions on issues that are so contrary to God’s word. Any comments would be appreciated.”

I did not have the privilege of knowing John Lewis personally, so I cannot answer this question from firsthand knowledge. But I can describe the reasoning of many who share our faith in Christ but agree with Rep. Lewis on these issues.

On abortion, I know Christians who claim that science cannot determine when life begins. As a result, they believe that decisions regarding the preborn baby are best left with the mother rather than being “imposed” by the state. (For my response, see my paper on abortion).

On same-sex marriage, some Christians claim that the Bible does not forbid loving, monogamous same-sex sexual relations. They therefore view LGBTQ people as a persecuted minority in need of the same civil rights protections as racial minorities. (For my response, see my paper on same-sex marriage).

Continue reading Denison Forum – Man spends 267 days sailing solo around the world: The compelling power of character in chaos →

Remember when you couldn’t find toilet paper?

Chad McMillan, the pastor of students, evangelism, and missions at First Baptist Church in Navasota, Texas, had a novel idea. He put his pastor on a trailer surrounded by plexiglass and armed him with a T-shirt gun to distribute toilet paper rolls wrapped with Bible verses. It went so well, they added a pulpit, piano, and sound system to do pop-up worship services while flinging the TP.

Then McMillan started Barbecue Baptist Church. The church borrowed a catering truck from a member and traveled around the county, serving about four meals a day, four days a week, along with a short worship service. Last month, they took the ministry on the road from Navasota to Nashville, visiting first responders and medical professionals across six states in seven days.

Along with the meals, they are offering a message of hope and some humor as well. “Not to make light of what’s happening,” McMillan explained, “but to try to give people a moment of levity and joy to know that God loves them, and we love them.”

A price it’s easy for me to ask you to pay 

When you’re offering free toilet paper and barbecue, people tend to be grateful. When you’re called to share unpopular biblical truth, they can be less so.

It is especially challenging to speak such truth to people when our success depends on their affirmation.

Most of you reading this article make your living in the secular world and are therefore measured by secular means. In such a culture, it can be risky to stand up for spiritual truth. As we’ve discussed before, if you defend biblical marriage, you’ll be branded a “homophobe.” If you advocate for life from conception, you’ll be accused of participating in a “war on women.” In these days of cancel culture (for more, see my paper here), those who oppose biblical truth have unprecedented means of attacking Christians.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Barbecue Baptist Church delivers meals, hope, and levity: How being “guests” liberates us to speak biblical truth →

The body of Rep. John Lewis is lying in state today at the US Capitol in Washington, DC as lawmakers and the public pay their respects. According to congressional historians, he is the first Black lawmaker to lie in state at the US Capitol Rotunda.

As I noted following Rep. Lewis’s death, his original intention was to become a preacher. As a boy, he was responsible for taking care of the chickens on the family farm. He fed them and read to them from the Bible, baptized them when they were born, and staged funerals for them when they died. As he noted in his memoir, “I could imagine that they were my congregation. And me, I was the preacher.”

Rep. Lewis dedicated his life to civil rights as an expression of his faith and call to ministry. He was by no means alone.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said of himself, “In the quiet recesses of my heart, I am fundamentally a clergyman, a Baptist preacher.” It has been noted that “the Black church served as the center for the civil rights movement in the South in both logistical and symbolic ways.” Catholic activists were prominently involved in the Selma demonstrations of March 1965 that led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act.

One writer describes the civil rights movement’s leaders this way: “They were pastors who rose up to confront a powerful segregationist establishment and face down violent mobs. Their steel will, backed by thousands of followers inspired by their faith [in] nonviolent resistance, broke the back of unjust segregation laws and set in motion the transformation of America into a more racially tolerant nation.”

Two ways evangelicals need to change 

Historians will look back on 2020 as another pivotal year in the struggle for racial equality. This time, however, we are also battling the worst pandemic in a century and the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, all during a presidential election year.

In the midst of crisis, however, there is opportunity for the gospel. Viktor E. Frankl, a psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, noted: “In times of crisis, people reach for meaning. Meaning is strength. Our survival may depend on our seeking and finding it.”

In these days, I am convinced that God is calling his people to step into cultural leadership that speaks courageous truth in the character of Christ.

To answer this moment, however, many evangelicals need to revise our worldview in two ways.

One: The gospel is about more than a salvation experience. 

While Jesus clearly declared, “You must be born again” (John 3:7), he also came “to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed” (Luke 4:18, quoted in fulfillment of Isaiah 61:1).

As the faith leaders who helped lead the civil rights movement knew, God cares about every dimension of our lives. His word speaks to every need of our day. It is vital that we use our influence to call people to salvation in Christ. But it is also vital that we speak biblically and act redemptively with regard to racial injustice, poverty, sex trafficking, and every other issue we face.

Two: We must not be discouraged from our calling. 

As our society degenerates morally, it’s easy to give up in the assumption that there’s nothing we can do. Street riots, economic crisis, and a pandemic disease are each overwhelming, not to mention when they are combined. But discouragement is not of the Lord. It is always too soon to give up on God (cf. Galatians 6:9).

Three statements that should not be controversial 

Every Christian has a kingdom assignment, a way to use our influence to lead in this moment for God’s glory and our good. Because many will disagree with us, we will need the courage of our convictions and the compassion of our Lord.

Since writing this Daily Article is part of my kingdom assignment, I’ll use it as an example by making three cultural statements. The fact that all three are controversial is a sign of our times.

One: Mask wearing is not a conspiracy. 

In a recent article, I responded to four claims against mask-wearing by citing scientific evidence and objective medical facts. Wearing a mask not only benefits you in ways we are just discovering, it is a clear way to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:39).

Two: Public worship services during the pandemic can be dangerous. 

A small church in Alabama held a week-long revival recently. Now more than forty people, around half their regular attendance, have COVID-19. Singing is known to spread the SARS-CoV-2 virus in ways that other group activities do not, which means public worship services can be even more dangerous than many other group activities.

Again, we are called to love our neighbor as ourselves. Scripture is clear: “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:4).

Three: We should use our influence only to spread truth. 

Conspiracy theories always run rampant in times of social upheaval. These days are no exception. For excellent responses to conspiracies about coronavirus, governmental leaders, and other issues, go here, here, and here.

Christians are commanded to reject dishonesty and slander (cf. Proverbs 20:19; Ephesians 4:29). Before you post anything to social media or share it in other ways, examine it carefully. Use your influence for good and guard your witness.

Imagine the difference in our culture if everyone obeyed this biblical command: “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).

Let it begin with me. And with you.

Denison Forum

Are these the “last days”? In Luke 21, Jesus made three predictions.

One: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom” (v. 10).

Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday that the Russian Navy would be armed with hypersonic nuclear strike weapons and underwater nuclear drones. Such weapons would be difficult for the US to track and intercept.

Experts say the risk of military conflict between the US and China is higher than ever. After the closing of the Chinese consulate in Houston, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated, “If we bend the knee now, our children’s children may be at the mercy of the Chinese Communist Party.”

Two: “There will be earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven” (v. 11).

Regarding “earthquakes,” a magnitude 7.8 quake struck off the coast of Alaska last week. Regarding “famines and pestilences,” as of this morning, COVID-19 has infected more than sixteen million people and caused more than 648,000 deaths. Experts say the pandemic has put 265 million people at risk of famine.

Regarding “terrors and great signs from heaven,” Hurricane Hanna made landfall in South Texas Saturday afternoon, flooding streets and knocking out power. And Hurricane Douglas is brushing the Hawaiian Islands this morning, bringing as much as eight inches of rain.

Three: “They will lay their hands on you and persecute you” (v. 12).

China is escalating its persecution of Christians: Believers are being jailed for praying online and even official churches are being closed. The Communist government is supervising a new Bible translation. Chinese citizens are being urged to use an app dedicated to President Xi’s sayings that gives the government backdoor access to their social media, contacts, and internet history.

What does “last times living” look like? 

My purpose this morning is not to predict the return of Christ. God’s word divides history into the “former times” before the Messiah comes and the “last times” after his coming. Biblically, therefore, we have been in the “last times” since Jesus’ incarnation (Acts 2:17; Hebrews 1:2; 1 Peter 1:20).

While Christians disagree about the degree to which the “signs of the times” will intensify toward the end of history, we can all agree on this fact: we are one day closer to Jesus’ return than ever before.

In the meantime, how are we to live in these chaotic days? How are God’s people to respond to political conflict, natural disasters, and rising persecution? In other words, what does “last times living” look like?

After describing some “signs of the times,” our Lord stated: “This will be your opportunity to bear witness” (Luke 21:13). “Bear witness” translates the Greek marturion, from which we get “martyr.” We are to make public our faith in perilous days whatever the cost to ourselves.

Why we are losing the rhetorical high ground 

Richard Rorty was one of the most influential thinkers of our time. He did much to promote and popularize the postmodern claim that all truth claims are subjective (which is an objective truth claim, by the way). There are “truths” but no “Truth.”

However, Rorty also acknowledged that it is difficult to live in a world with no certainties. As a result, societies develop pragmatic values that become their public “Truth.” As Nathanael Blake notes, such “Truth” is produced by emotion and intensity of belief more than by reason.

As a result, American evangelicals are losing the rhetorical high ground on moral issues.

“Freedom” and “equality” are examples of values held deeply and passionately by Americans. Consequently, pro-abortion advocates gain the cultural high ground when they accuse pro-life supporters of waging a war on “reproductive freedom.” Same-sex marriage advocates employ a similar strategy with their support for “marriage equality.” Generational shifts on abortion and a public reversal on same-sex marriage (60 percent were opposed in 2004 vs. 61 percent who support today) demonstrate the effectiveness of these strategies.

In response, Christians should declare and defend biblical values in ways that resonate with a public persuaded by emotion. For example, telling our personal story is vital and effective (cf. John 9:25). And we need to match the passion of those who champion ungodliness with our passionate love for our Lord and our neighbor.

The “god” that is our enemy 

As we do, we should admit a second fact: evangelicals will pay an escalating price to declare unpopular Truth.

The cancel-culture phenomenon shows that it is easier than ever to attack those whose beliefs conflict with public “Truth.” (For more, see my paper on cancel culture here.) If you risk bringing your Sunday values into your Monday world, you are likely to experience what Jesus predicted: “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20).

However, those who oppose biblical truth are not our enemies. Since “the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers,” we should not be surprised when they reject “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4). That “god” is their enemy and ours.

In “last days living,” however long it lasts, telling our story and promoting biblical truth with courage and compassion is the greatest gift we can give the eternal souls we influence.

How generous will you be today?

Denison Forum

Rep. John Lewis died Friday after a six-month battle with pancreatic cancer. The civil rights icon was eighty years old.

He was elected to Congress in November 1986 and served as US Representative from Georgia’s Fifth District for seventeen terms. He was awarded more than fifty honorary degrees and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama in 2011.

The son of sharecroppers, he spent Sundays growing up with a great-grandfather who was born into slavery. When Lewis was a few months old, the manager of a chicken farm named Jesse Thornton was lynched about twenty miles down the road. His offense: he referred to a police officer by his first name rather than as “Mister.” A mob pursued Thornton, stoned and shot him, then dumped his body in a swamp.

As a boy, Lewis decided that he wanted to be a preacher. He earned a BA in Religion and Philosophy from Fisk University and graduated from the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville.

However, when he was fifteen years old, he heard Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preach on the radio and felt that God was calling him to join the civil rights movement.

Beaten, spat upon, and burned with cigarettes 

According to the New York Times, Lewis “led demonstrations against racially segregated restrooms, hotels, restaurants, public parks, and swimming pools, and he rose up against other indignities of second-class citizenship. At nearly every turn, he was beaten, spat upon, or burned with cigarettes. He was tormented by white mobs and absorbed body blows from law enforcement.”

During the Freedom Rides of 1961, the Times reports that Lewis “was left unconscious in a pool of his own blood outside the Greyhound Bus Terminal in Montgomery, Alabama, after he and others were attacked by hundreds of white people.” It adds that he “spent countless days and nights in county jails and thirty-one days in Mississippi’s notoriously brutal Parchman Penitentiary.”

Lewis was the youngest keynote speaker at the March on Washington in 1963. On March 7, 1965, he led a group of six hundred people marching for Black voting rights in Selma, Alabama. They were met by a group of police officers; Lewis suffered a skull fracture when one of them beat him with a nightstick.

“I thought I was going to die,” he said later. The event became known as “Bloody Sunday.”

“Hate is too heavy a burden to bear” 

In his early twenties, Lewis embraced a form of nonviolent protest grounded in the principle of “redemptive suffering.” In his memoir, Walking with the Wind, he explained that there is “something in the very essence of anguish that is liberating, cleansing, redemptive.”

He added that suffering “touches and changes those around us as well. It opens us and those around us to a force beyond ourselves, a force that is right and moral, the force of righteous truth that is at the basis of human conscience.”

This philosophy centers in the belief that your attacker is as much a victim as you are. It requires the choice to forgive “even as a person is cursing you to your face, even as he is spitting on you, or pushing a lit cigarette into your neck.”

Lewis explained his life philosophy this way: “At a very early stage of the movement, I accepted the teaching of Jesus, the way of love, the way of nonviolence, the spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation. The idea of hate is too heavy a burden to bear. . . . I don’t want to go down that road. I’ve seen too much hate, seen too much violence. And I know love is a better way.”

“The strength of his might” 

I disagreed with Rep. Lewis on moral issues such as same-sex marriage, religious liberty, and especially on abortion, which is devastating the African American community. But I share his belief in “redemptive suffering,” a commitment he demonstrated courageously and sacrificially.

When what is right is also unpopular, we are forced to decide whether we will stand selflessly in courage or fall selfishly into cowardice. This is a binary choice.

The fact that God’s people are so often forced to make this choice is illustrated by the frequency with which God’s word calls us to courageous faith (cf. Deuteronomy 31:6; Joshua 1:9; 1 Chronicles 28:20; 2 Chronicles 32:7; Psalm 16:8; 1 Corinthians 16:13; Ephesians 6:10; Philippians 1:28). Our Father’s invitation is compelling: “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might” (Ephesians 6:10).

But know this: when you choose “redemptive suffering,” your courage and example can change the world.

“Our nation will never forget this American hero” 

Bloody Sunday led directly to the passage of the Voting Rights Act, which President Lyndon B. Johnson presented to a joint session of Congress just eight days later and signed into law on August 6.

On the fiftieth anniversary of Bloody Sunday, President Obama and former president George W. Bush joined Rep. Lewis in a walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. The picture of Rep. Lewis holding hands with an African American president as they marched where Lewis had been beaten fifty years earlier is a testament to the transforming power of redemptive suffering.

President Obama said after Lewis’s death, “He loved this country so much that he risked his life and blood so that it might live up to its promise.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stated, “Progress is not automatic. Our great nation’s history has only bent towards justice because great men like John Lewis took it upon themselves to help bend it. Our nation will never forget this American hero.”

When asked if he regretted not continuing in traditional ministry as a young man, John Lewis said, “I think my pulpit today is a much larger pulpit. . . . I preach every day.”

Now it’s our turn.

Denison Forum

Phillip Blanks is a retired Marine and was a star receiver in high school and college. He was at a friend’s apartment in Phoenix recently when he heard screaming and a commotion. He ran outside and saw the top floor of the apartment complex ablaze and enveloped in smoke.

He looked up and saw a petrified woman on the third-floor balcony with a child. Flames were creeping up behind her. “People started yelling for the lady to throw her kids down,” Blanks said.

The mother dropped her son over the third-floor railing. As Blanks saw the small child falling, he dove for him, arms out, and caught him just milliseconds before he would have hit the ground.

Blanks said his time in the Marines, along with his athletic training as a football player, prepared him for this moment. The Marines taught him to “always be on high alert, not be complacent, and to have discipline,” he said.

He was not the only hero that day, however.

The child’s mother ran back into the building where her eight-year-old daughter was. She never came out. Word spread below that a child was in the apartment. D’Artagnan Alexander heard screams and saw the flames. “I have a three-year-old and a nine-year-old, so when I heard there were kids in there, that really hit my heart,” he said later.

He immediately parked his car, ran toward the smoke-filled building, and made his way to the third floor, where he found the girl and carried her out.

“Saving this child changed my entire perspective,” Blanks said. “It made me realize how short life is, and how we need to protect each other and treat people better.” Alexander echoed his sentiments: “I couldn’t be more thankful that we both happened to be there.”

“It was not you who sent me here, but God” 

Morgue trucks are being ordered by counties in Texas and Arizona as their morgues are reaching capacity amid the skyrocketing number of COVID-19 cases in their states. Florida recorded 15,300 new coronavirus cases yesterday, the largest one-day increase in any state since the start of the pandemic.

In the midst of this crisis, it is easy to feel trapped and powerless. But God knew these days were coming before we did. He assured his people, “I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come” (Isaiah 46:10 NIV).

And as with Phillip Blanks and D’Artagnan Alexander, he was preparing us for this pandemic before it struck.

In the midst of a global famine, Joseph told his brothers in Egypt, “God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God” (Genesis 45:7–8).

“The reality of heaven touching the reality of earth” 

Now it’s our turn to believe that God was preparing us for this “famine” before it struck, that our past has prepared us for a present that can build a better future.

The Bible calls us “God’s fellow workers” (1 Corinthians 3:9). As we work, God works. As we experience God’s love, we are to share his love so that others can experience it as well. In fact, we cannot understand our faith fully until we share it.

If I serve those I love, I find that my love for them grows deeper. If I serve even those I dislike, I find myself liking them in a new way. It is the same way with God—when we serve him by serving those he loves, we find ourselves loving him in an indefinable but profoundly deeper way as well.

In The Seamless Life: A Tapestry of Love & Learning, Worship & Work, Regent College professor Steven Garber notes: “We think that worship and work are fundamentally different—one being more important to God than the other, one being ‘spiritual’ and one being ‘secular.’ Rather, if our truest vocation is the imitation of Christ, the very image of God, we see that everyone and everything matters, sacramental as it all is, holy as it must be.

“In a thousand ways, our human experience of this life in the world should be a window into the mystery and wonder of the reality of heaven touching the reality of earth, a ‘sacrament’ so to speak, if we have eyes that see.”

“Yearning for heaven and earth to touch” 

Your Father has entrusted you with gifts, abilities, education, experience, and relationships that are combined to make you the person you uniquely are. When you use them to help hurting people, your ministry advances his kingdom and draws suffering souls to our Savior.

Dr. Garber: “Whether our work is agricultural or academic, whether we are plumbers or carpenters, whether our labor is the law or the marketplace, whether our days take us into hospitals or schools, we want what we do with our lives to be born of something more, reflected, interpreted, and sanctified by the liturgical rhythms and realities of the truest truths of the universe. We are called to be like the Creator himself, yearning for heaven and earth to touch in and through the work of our hands.”

And when we love others as God loves us, they see his love in our compassion and are drawn to his saving grace.

Phillip Blanks and D’Artagnan Alexander are rightly being called heroes after what they did in Phoenix. But Blanks said it was the mother who saved her son but didn’t survive herself who is “the real hero.”

That’s the love of a mother for her children. And that’s the love of a Savior for those he died to save.

If you have experienced his love, with whom will you share it today?

Denison Forum

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) was founded in 1845. Slavery played a significant role in its formation, a fact for which the denomination has expressed great remorse.

In a resolution adopted on its 150th anniversary, the SBC stated, “We lament and repudiate historical acts of evil such as slavery from which we continue to reap a bitter harvest” and added, “We apologize to all African Americans for condoning and/or perpetuating individual and systemic racism in our lifetime.”

The denomination further stated, “We ask forgiveness from our African American brothers and sisters,” and then committed to “pursuing racial reconciliation in all our relationships.”

Now the nation’s largest Protestant denomination has taken a significant step in this pursuit. The SBC’s Executive Committee, the group that runs the business of the denomination outside its annual meetings, has elected its first African American chairman.

Rev. Rolland Slade, senior pastor of Meridian Baptist Church in El Cajon, California, was elected unanimously in what the outgoing chairman called a “wonderful and historic moment.” He was previously vice chairman of the committee and chair of its Cooperative Program Committee.

How Tony Evans and Robert Morris are making a difference 

I became a Christian through the outreach of a Southern Baptist church and graduated from a Southern Baptist seminary. While Denison Forum is nondenominational, I will forever be grateful for the contributions made by Southern Baptists to my faith and life.

But I have never been as proud of Southern Baptists as I am today. Nor have I been more committed to their goal of “pursuing racial reconciliation in all our relationships.”

To that end, this week we have been answering Benjamin Watson’s call to respond to racial injustice with awareness, advocacy, and action. Yesterday we discussed awareness, examining the history of racism in American culture and asking God to reveal any vestige of this sin in our lives.

Today, let’s focus on advocacy, defined by Merriam-Webster as “the act or process of supporting a cause or proposal.” We practice advocacy when we use our influence in the service of a value or purpose.

The Executive Committee of the SBC practiced advocacy when it elected an African American chairman. Dr. Tony Evans practiced advocacy when he wrote a brilliant article for the Dallas Morning News stating that “the church must address racial, economic, health care, and opportunity inequity, as well as recognize the systems that work against the fair treatment of people.”

Pastor Robert Morris of Gateway Church practiced advocacy by talking with ministers of different races “to hear the stories from these precious men and women of God of the racism and prejudice that they faced and that their families have faced, their parents, their grandparents.” He adds that their tragic stories “will break your heart.”

His church’s website states, “We acknowledge the evils of racism and discrimination fighting so hard to tear us and our nation apart at the seams.” It adds: “While these issues can be difficult to talk about, we want to keep talking about them and empower you with resources to help you in your own conversations.”

Three steps to justice and truth 

The Bible calls Eve “the mother of all living” (Genesis 3:20). We are all created by the same Father and descended from the same parents. How can you and I be effective advocates for the value of every human being of every race as created in the image of God?

One: Identify your platform 

God has given you resources, abilities, and spiritual gifts that are uniquely yours. Ask the Lord to help you define your mission and influence in our culture today. (For more, see my latest Faithwire article, “Are There At Least 36 Intelligent Civilizations in Our Galaxy? Why Our Uniqueness Is Relevant to COVID-19 and Racism Today.”)

Two: Pray for God’s words and God’s heart 

Human words cannot transform human hearts, but God’s word spoken in the power of God’s Spirit will advance God’s kingdom in our culture and impact others for eternity. Ask the Lord to lead you to the biblical truth he intends for you to share with grace (cf. Ephesians 4:15; 1 Peter 3:15). (For more, see my latest Stream article, “How to Talk about LGBTQ Issues and Racism: Speaking the Truth in Love.”)

Three: Use your influence to stand for God’s inclusive love 

God called his prophet to “run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, look and take note! Search her squares to see if you can find a man, one who does justice and seeks truth, that I may pardon her” (Jeremiah 5:1). There is no justice that is not built on truth, and no truth that does not lead to justice.

Once you know your platform and you have prayed for God’s leading, look for ways to advance truth and justice in the lives of those you influence. And know that, however they respond, your obedience will bear eternal significance (Matthew 25:23).

The urgent question of the hour 

The hymn, God is Love, closes with these words:

Sin and death and hell shall never
O’er us final triumph gain;
God is love, so Love for ever
O’er the universe must reign.

What part of the “universe” will you influence with God’s love today?

Denison Forum

President Trump signed an executive order on police reform yesterday. He stated that “chokeholds will be banned except if an officer’s life is at risk.” In addition, the federal government will provide funding for “co-responders” like social workers to help police officers deal with issues such as homelessness, mental illness, and substance abuse.

The order also mandates that departments share information on officers accused of abusing power. The National Fraternal Order of Police praised the president’s action.

In other news, Dr. Anthony Fauci told a British newspaper, “I would hope to get to some degree of real normality within a year or so. But I don’t think it’s this winter or fall.”

Two days that revealed the world 

March 11 was a day that changed the world. That was the day Tom Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, announced they had been infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 and the day the NBA suspended its season.

Actually, March 11 was the day when the world became aware of a reality that already existed. A disease that began in China the previous year has now infected more than eight million people and caused more than 443,000 deaths as of this morning.

May 25 was a second day that changed the world. That was the day George Floyd died in the custody of Minneapolis police officers. The response to his tragic death has become a global movement to combat racism in all its forms.

Actually, May 25 was the day when the world became aware of a reality that already existed. African slaves were first imported into what we know as America four hundred years earlier. Racial minorities have been dealing with discrimination for centuries.

Awareness of racism in the past 

If you’re like most of us, you wish we were making more progress than we are on both fronts. To that end, let’s consider a call issued last Sunday by former New England Patriots tight end Benjamin Watson at an event he hosted called Boston Pray. As I noted in the Monday Daily Article, the hour of prayer, worship, and Bible study was remarkably powerful and hopeful.

At one point, Watson stated that to make progress on racial justice, we need awareness, advocacy, and action. Today and for the rest of this week, we will focus on all three.

Let’s begin with awareness.

Mark Noll is one of America’s preeminent church historians. A recipient of the National Humanities Medal, he has taught at Wheaton College, Notre Dame, and now at Regent College.

Over the weekend, I read his remarkable study, God and Race in American Politics: A Short History. He notes that many Europeans came to the New World with the firm belief that they were racially superior to the indigenous people they found here and to the millions of Africans who were eventually enslaved in America.

Slavery was legally abolished in the US with the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment in December 1865. The Fourteenth Amendment extended the rights of citizenship to African Americans; the Fifteenth Amendment extended to them the right to vote. But the racial prejudice that had empowered slavery remained.

Awareness of racism in the present 

Noll writes that less than a decade after the end of the Civil War, “the unleashing of lynch-law terrorism, the general lack of concern for black civil rights in the North, and the imposition in the South of Jim Crow laws to quash black political participation” were inflicted on the nation’s African American population. (“Jim Crow laws,” named for a black minstrel show character, were a collection of state and local statutes that legalized racial segregation.)

As Noll notes, the consequence was a functional repeal of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. It took almost one hundred years after the Civil War ended for civil rights legislation to ban racial discrimination and remove legal barriers to voting by African Americans.

Unfortunately, many white Americans think this legislation ended the problem of racism in our country. As African Americans across our country have been saying in the wake of George Floyd’s death, this is tragically far from true.

A yard sign offers transforming hope 

I am convinced that until our nation embraces our Father’s love for all people of all races, we cannot be the nation he wants us to be. Since “God shows no partiality” (Acts 10:34), we must reject all prejudice. Since he “made from one man every nation of mankind” (Acts 17:26), we must embrace all men and women as our brothers and sisters.

The good news is that our living Lord stands ready to empower us as we seek to make true our nation’s founding claim that “all men are created equal.”

As I was walking in my neighborhood this week, a yard sign caught my eye: “Hope is alive. Jesus is alive!” I noted on Instagram that because Jesus is alive, we have hope for our past, since Jesus died for our sins (Romans 5:8) and rose from our grave. We have hope for our present, since the living Lord is praying for us right now (Romans 8:34). And we have hope for our future, since Jesus will return for us (John 14:3) and will one day create “a new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1).

Here’s my invitation to you: Ask Jesus to show you if there are racial sins in your past, then repent of anything he brings to your mind and claim his forgiving grace (1 John 1:9). Ask Jesus to show you ways you can respond to racism in the present, then obey his call at all costs (cf. Romans 12:1–2). Ask Jesus to show you ways you can help build a more just future, then follow his Spirit’s leading (John 16:13).

I am joining you in all three prayers today in the assurance that hope is alive because Jesus is alive.

Who will experience hope because Jesus is alive in you?

Denison Forum

“An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law.” This is the conclusion of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch’s majority opinion handed down yesterday. The court ruled that “an employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender violates Title VII.”

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it unlawful “for an employer to fail or refuse to hire or discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual . . . because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” The court, by a six-to-three margin, ruled that “sex” applies to homosexual and transgender persons.

When I saw the news, I thought immediately about religious liberty. Does the ruling mean that churches, Christian schools, ministries, and other religious institutions could be forced to violate our biblical convictions regarding gender and sexuality? If your church’s pastor declared that he was transgender, would your congregation be able to end his employment on that basis? Could a ministry refuse to hire a gay person on the basis of their sexual identity?

Let’s discuss what we know so far, then we’ll focus on three biblical responses to this issue.

“Questions for future cases” 

Jesus taught us to “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21). A free church in a free state is the biblical ideal, a conviction protected by the First Amendment to the US Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Yesterday’s ruling notes the objection that “complying with Title VII’s requirements in cases like ours may require some employers to violate their religious convictions.” Justice Gorsuch writes: “We are also deeply concerned with preserving the promise of the free exercise of religion enshrined in our Constitution; that guarantee lies at the heart of our pluralistic society.”

Then he adds: “But worries about how Title VII may intersect with religious liberties are nothing new; they even predate the statute’s passage.” He notes that Title VII includes an exception relating to “the employment of individuals of a particular religion to perform work connected with the carrying on . . . of its activities.” (In other words, Christian churches cannot be forced to hire Muslim ministers, or vice versa.)

He adds that the court has recognized that the First Amendment can protect religious institutions and its ministers from the application of employment discrimination laws. And he cites the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which “might supersede Title VII’s commands in appropriate cases.”

The court did not rule on this issue yesterday, since the employers whose cases it decided did not claim religious liberty infringement. Rather, Justice Gorsuch concludes that such religious liberty issues are “questions for future cases.”

In his dissent, however, Justice Samuel Alito warns that the ruling could have implications regarding bathroom access, women’s sports, housing, healthcare, employment by religious organizations, and freedom of speech. He believes that the court’s decision “will threaten freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and personal privacy and safety.”

Three biblical certainties

We do not know the full implications of yesterday’s ruling for religious freedom, but three biblical certainties are worth remembering today.

One: God creates us as male and female (Genesis 1:27; Mark 10:6) and intends sex for the covenant marriage of a man and a woman (Genesis 1:28; 2:18; Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:26–27; 1 Corinthians 6:9; 1 Timothy 1:10). (For more, see my article, What Does the Bible Say about Homosexuality?)

Two: God loves all people, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. In a biblical passage censuring “men who practice homosexuality,” we also find these other sinners listed: the sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, and swindlers (1 Corinthians 6:9–10). Do you recognize yourself? The good news is that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). All of us.

Three: We must speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), no matter how unpopular that truth becomes. I expect yesterday’s ruling to escalate public acceptance of LGBTQ lifestyles, which will also escalate public condemnation of those perceived to be “intolerant” on this issue. But as the apostles declared unpopular truth to the religious authorities of their day (cf. Acts 5:27–32), so we must proclaim God’s word “with all boldness” (Acts 28:31) and “with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15).

In responding to yesterday’s Supreme Court decision, ethicist Russell Moore notes: “We can be the people who recognize that those who disagree with us are our mission field, to be persuaded, not a sparring partner to denounce. We must have both conviction and kindness, both courage and patience, both truth and grace.”

How to outlove our critics 

The enemy is using our commitment to biblical sexuality against us by inciting our secular culture to condemn Christians and Christian beliefs as bigoted and intolerant. The best way to respond is to outlove our critics.

It is to love LGBTQ persons enough to risk their rejection by sharing God’s best with them in compassion and humility. It is to love our lost friends enough to risk their rejection by sharing God’s saving love with them in the same way.

However, we cannot give what we do not have. Before I can share God’s love with you, I must experience God’s love for myself. Craig Denison notes: “We’re meant to love others out of the overflow of God’s love for us.” He encourages us to make time to meet with our Father today and experience his transforming love. Then we can “ask him for his heart for people around you, and follow through with courage in love.”

Craig concludes: “If you will make it your goal to see God’s heart proclaimed through your life, you will experience more joy and purpose than you can imagine.”

Will you make this goal your passion today?

Denison Forum

Boston Common is one of my favorite places in America. Founded in 1634, it is the oldest park in the United States.

Colonial militia mustered here for the Revolution; George Washington came to the park to celebrate our nation’s independence. In the 1860s, the park was used for Civil War recruitment and antislavery meetings. Victory gardens sprouted during World War I; most of the Common’s iron fencing was donated to the war cause during World War II.

I remember vividly my visit to the Common some years ago. Everywhere I looked, history looked back.

Yesterday, however, the Common looked forward with a message every American needs to hear and a question every American needs to ask.

Boston Pray: Seeking Unity and Justice 

Benjamin Watson played tight end in college. Upon graduation, his Wonderlic score (measuring math, vocabulary, and reasoning) tied for the third highest in National Football League history. He was drafted in the first round by the New England Patriots; his team went on to win Super Bowl XXXIX in 2005. He played sixteen seasons in the NFL.

Watson met his wife through the Fellowship of Christian Athletes at the University of Georgia. He has defended the unborn boldly and been outspoken about his faith for many years.

Yesterday, however, his faithful leadership may have been more crucial than ever.

Watson leveraged his influence to sponsor Boston Pray: Seeking Unity and Justice. The event’s Facebook page explained: “As Christians in and around Boston, we are grieved by the recent murders of unarmed African Americans, including George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and the systematic oppression of those peoples. We recognize that the underlying sin of racism is plaguing our city and nation.

“This is a crucial time for Christians to come together across boundaries to be a catalytic voice for kindness, justice, and righteousness. All are welcome to join in united prayer, scripture, and song in the Parkman Bandstand of the Boston Common on Sunday, June 14 from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. Please wear a mask and take care to physically distance from others, and help us to spread the word!”

I watched the livestreamed service and was deeply impressed. The crowd included African Americans, Anglos, Hispanics, and Asians. They applauded and prayed for the police and local leaders before interceding for our nation. Watson noted that we need awareness, advocacy, and action, then closed by inviting those attending to trust in Christ personally as their Savior.

How to “delight” God 

Watson began yesterday’s service by quoting Jeremiah 9:24: “Let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.”

“Steadfast love” is the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek agape, referring to unconditional love. “Justice” points to actions that arise from a just nature. “Righteousness” refers to honest behavior.

As the New American Commentary notes, “These three terms express the very heart of Hebrew religion. They are not only the attributes of God; he delights in those who manifest these same qualities.”

As a result, God “practices” them—the Hebrew means to produce and exercise. He does this “in the earth,” at all times, and in all places with all people without exception.

Now he calls us to do what he does, testifying that “in these things I delight.” He wants us to find ways to love others unconditionally, without regard for their race or any other characteristic. And he wants us to express this love by seeking justice for them and acting honestly with them.

“Two generations from being forgotten” 

Here’s a question every American should ask themselves: What can we do to answer God’s call to inclusive love and racial justice that we could not do before George Floyd’s tragic death?

Benjamin Watson, as a Super Bowl champion with the New England Patriots, has an obvious platform in Boston. But if he had called for an hour of prayer and worship before Mr. Floyd’s death, how many people would have taken note? In response to the events of recent weeks, his prophetic leadership has made a profound impact in Boston and around the world.

Like Watson, you and I have been entrusted with influence by our Lord. He holds us responsible for producing “steadfast love, justice, and righteousness” in our culture.

In fact, we will stand before Jesus one day in judgment, where each of us will receive “what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Corinthians 5:10). On that day, we will learn that all we do to serve others, we do for him (Matthew 25:40).

Benjamin Watson recently declared, “Our ultimate purpose in life is to glorify God.” He suggested, “If you ever think you’re too important, ask your kid about your grandfather, she doesn’t know him. That’s how fast we are here. You are two generations from being forgotten.”

As a result, he noted, it is vital that we realize “we are part of a larger body, globally, internationally, and it’s simply our turn to carry the torch.”

What torch will you carry today?

Denison Forum

HBO Max recently announced that they would temporarily remove Gone with the Wind from its offerings in response to recent backlash over its portrayal of life in the antebellum South. The film, despite its status as a classic, has also served as a lightning rod for accusations of ignoring the evils of slavery and glorifying racial discrimination.

A spokesperson for the company justified their decision with the argument that “Gone with the Wind is a product of its time and depicts some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that have, unfortunately, been commonplace in American society. These racist depictions were wrong then and are wrong today, and we felt that to keep this title up without an explanation and a denouncement of those depictions was irresponsible.”

HBO will offer the film again when they can pair it with a discussion of the story’s historical context, though the movie itself will not be changed. As the spokesperson noted, “to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. If we are to create a more just, equitable, and inclusive future, we must first acknowledge and understand our history.”

Regardless of whether or not you agree with HBO’s decision, they did get at least one thing right: ignoring history doesn’t change what happened, it just makes us more likely to repeat it.

The subtle influence of media

One of recent history’s most important lessons is that what we see in films, on TV, or consume via other forms of media has a way of shaping our thoughts that few other influences can match.

That basic principle is part of why HBO fears people watching Gone with the Wind might be ever so slightly more prone to underestimate the horrors of slavery or look wistfully at a time when equality among the races was a concept few valued.

It’s also what has often led Christians to be justifiably concerned with the normalization of LGBTQ+ lifestyles in movies and television.

A recent example of that fear is the new animated short on Disney+ titled Out. The 9-minute film is the first time Pixar Animation Studios has featured an openly homosexual main character, and it chronicles his journey towards telling his parents that he’s gay. And while it’s not available under the kids profile setting, it is made with the same basic animation qualities as other programs that are geared towards children.

Given the pervasiveness of media and it’s subtle—yet consistent—influence on our thinking, it’s more important than ever to have a plan in place for how we’ll consume it. To that end, what are some practical steps we can take to guard against the waves of culture slowly ebbing away at our faithfulness to God’s truth without going so far in the opposite direction that we act as though those waves don’t exist?

Don’t run from the issues

First, we need to accept that the issues are real and see that reality as an opportunity rather than a threat. Throughout his ministry, Jesus never shied away from dealing with difficult topics and was often able to use them to help people better understand the Lord.

For example, he used the incipient racism of his day to teach people about God’s love in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). He used the legalism of the religious leaders to show people the limitations of trying to make themselves right with God in their own strength (Luke 11:37-52). And he used the Jewish hatred of Roman taxes to remind them that every part of their lives should be dedicated to the Lord (Mark 12:13-16).

In the same way, we shouldn’t be afraid of the issues commonly brought up in the media. Rather, we should view them as opportunities to teach people about God.

That doesn’t mean they’ll always accept his truth, and the opposite is likely to be true as often as not. But if we willingly cut ourselves out of the conversation, then we also give up the right to lament when society seems to move steadily away from the Lord.

After all, if God’s people won’t speak up for him, who will?

Own your influence

Lastly, we need to take ownership of our own spheres of influence.

If you’re worried about your kids, for example, accepting unbiblical truths because they see them on TV or in a movie, then don’t let those mediums be the dominant voice in their lives. That doesn’t mean ignoring the topics or even restricting those shows. If we don’t bring them up, someone else will. It’s up to us to take responsibility for what we see.

If you feel like your kids are old enough to have the conversation about homosexuality, for example, Out could present a great opportunity to broach the subject. (For help preparing for that discussion, see What does the Bible say about homosexuality?) In the same way, Gone with the Wind could be a good (albeit long) chance to show how people used to see slavery and life in the South, while also discussing the flaws inherent to the portrayal of both.

And the same is true for addressing these subjects in your own life as well. If we neglect to take responsibility for the media we take in and the subjects they depict, then we will inevitably be swayed into acceptance. Instead, own those choices and ask the Lord to guide you in seeing the world—media included—through the lens of Scripture.

God is here to help, but he’s not going to do it for you.

Act with caution rather than fear

History has shown that media has the innate ability to sway public thinking in a powerful way. Thoughts shift over time to better align with what we see or read, yet the shift is often so subtle that it can only be seen in hindsight.

That’s why it’s so important for Christians to approach all media with caution.

Caution, however, should not equate to fear.

While there will be times that God leads us to simply avoid a particular film or show, ideas should never frighten us. Rather, if guided by the Lord, they can be avenues through which we can help people know him better.

So whether it’s Gone with the Wind, Out, or any other form of media, check with God before you decide that he won’t use it to advance his kingdom.

His answer might surprise you.

Denison Forum

In light of the protests and charged conversations regarding race, it can be easy to forget that we’re still in the midst of a global pandemic. Many fear the mass demonstrations will soon bring the coronavirus back to the forefront of our minds, though. To that end, where do we stand when it comes to COVID-19?

The answer is both encouraging and confusing.

A scientist with the World Health Organization, for example, recently stated that asymptomatic people “rarely transmit” the virus to others. If true, that’s great news, as one of the primary fears with coronavirus is that even healthy-looking people could get others sick.

The WHO clarified yesterday, however, that while asymptomatic people are unlikely to spread the virus, pre-symptomatic people—those who will eventually show symptoms but haven’t yet—can still infect others.

So, essentially, if you aren’t showing symptoms you are unlikely to get anyone else sick unless you will eventually show symptoms, which you can’t know at the time.

Ultimately, they still recommend wearing masks in public and limiting your exposure to large crowds.

COVID-19 may have started in August? 

There have also been new developments with regard to when COVID-19 first appeared. A recent study from Harvard Medical School used satellite images of parking lots at six hospitals in Wuhan, China to show that, compared with previous years, there “was a steep increase in occupancies from August 2019, which culminated with a peak in December 2019.” The highest daily occupancies occurred between September and October.

That data, taken in conjunction with an increase in online searches for coronavirus-related symptoms, including those unique to the virus, led the study’s authors to conclude that the virus likely originated earlier than the previously reported date of late December.

Beijing, however, has dismissed the study as “ridiculous” and others have claimed that, while it offers some interesting evidence, it’s far from conclusive.

Acquiring a more precise knowledge of when the virus originated could be an important step toward understanding how it has spread and how we can best fight it. But, in the end, the only thing it seems we can be certain of is that we still can’t be certain.

Some good news amidst troubling times

Despite the mixed messages, it does seem like genuine progress has been made in at least containing the virus. Places like New York City that were once devastated by illness are now hitting their desired benchmarks and, while there are still problem areas around the country, there is more hope now than in months past that we’ll be able to resume some semblance of normalcy in the not too distant future.

That future isn’t here yet, though. And in these uncertain times, it can be easy to become either complacent or discouraged as life seems to spin out of our control.

There’s a basic anxiety that goes along with knowing that simply leaving your house is a dangerous decision. And even if you learn to accept that danger as a necessary part of life, it remains in the back of your mind, producing stress and making everything else just a bit more difficult.

Of course, leaving the house has always been dangerous to some extent. But when that danger seemed within our control, when it came more from random accidents than simply getting coughed on, it didn’t bother us as much. I think the reason is that even when those feelings of control are misplaced, they still imbue us with a sense of protection and security to which many have grown accustomed.

A lesson from the ancient Israelites

If there was ever a people group who knew what it was like to live with the constant reminder that protection and security were not guaranteed, it was the ancient Israelites. Whether it was the decades spent wandering in the wilderness, the enemies that made them feel like “grasshoppers” (Numbers 13:33), or the strange battle plans that made no earthly sense (Joshua 6), the Israelites were forced to approach every day with a very clear understanding of their need for God.

Now, that doesn’t mean they appreciated that fact, as evidenced from the multiple times they complained so much, the Lord told Moses he was ready to destroy them (Exodus 33:5, Numbers 14:11).

Still, God was able to accomplish amazing things through the Hebrew people, and it was in large part because they were forced to depend on him. And the same was true for the first generations of Christians as well (Acts 17:6).

How to grow from daily danger

Most of us are likely anxious for a cure or treatment that will reduce the threat of COVID-19 and allow our lives to resume without masks, public restrictions, and the myriad other daily inconveniences brought on by the virus. Until that day comes, however, let’s allow God to redeem these times by learning to live with a greater dependency on him.

After all, our need for his presence and guidance isn’t going to dissipate when the threat of the coronavirus does. Learning to embrace that need now will better equip us for the days ahead when leaning on God will feel less necessary.

It may seem counterintuitive, but these difficult days might be the easiest time for us to make that choice.

Let’s be sure we don’t waste them.

Denison Forum

Minneapolis is back in the news after nine of the city’s twelve city council members voted to defund their police department. Calls to disband or defund the police have become a common occurrence throughout many of the protests around the country, but they have grown in intensity over the last week. But just what do people mean when they speak of defunding police departments?

It turns out, no one is really quite sure.

In Minneapolis, for example, the city council admitted that while they have some early thoughts, there is not a clear plan in place. They hope to work with representatives from the community over the coming months to develop a system of public safety that places a greater emphasis on community policing efforts and programs aimed at more specific problems. At this point, however, it’s still not clear if the city council even has the legal authority to take this step.

Regardless of the ultimate legality, though, the city’s decision has made national headlines and brought the conversation closer to reality than it has been before. As such, let’s take a closer look at the subject and, ultimately, what we can learn from it to better advance God’s kingdom in our culture.

Reform vs. replace

First, calls to defund or disband police have been around for many years, but they’ve always stayed on the periphery of the conversation because they were seen as both extreme and unnecessary. The argument was that greater accountability and better training would be enough to curb, though not eliminate, the tendencies at the heart of the problem.

Minneapolis city council member Jeremiah Ellison spoke for many, though, when he expressed the need “to dramatically rethink how we approach public safety and emergency response. It’s really past due.” For those who agree with Ellison, the police have been given enough chances at reform, and substantive change is needed.

There are many reasons to think Ellison and those who agree with him are wrong in that assumption, but it points to the basic reality that we only get so many chances to do better before people assume that what’s broken simply can’t be fixed.

Defund doesn’t always mean the same thing

The second point is that not all calls to defund the police have the same goal. While the Minneapolis example paints a fairly clear picture of one extreme, most advocates for change seem wary to go that far.

A more common proposal centers on removing some funding from police departments, as well as certain responsibilities, and reallocating both to other groups. Issues involving mental illness, homelessness, and social services are often cited as examples of jobs that currently fall to the police in many cities but could perhaps be better handled by nonprofits or other groups focused on a single task.

Advocates for these policies also frequently argue that by refining the responsibilities of the police, it could help them better focus on the issues they are best equipped to handle without adding the undue pressure of tasks that might fall outside of their true calling.

Can more police equal better police?

Lastly, a common argument among those who disagree with efforts to defund the police is that the best way to avoid the kinds of abuses and harassment at the heart of recent protests is to hire more police rather than less.

Studies have shown that not only does a larger police presence reduce crime, but it can also mitigate the need for overtime and added responsibilities among those who serve on the force. Research in 2017, moreover, demonstrated that “a single hour of overtime led to a 2.7 percent increase in the odds that the officer would be involved in a use-of-force incident the following week.”

As Matthew Yglesias concluded, “What’s helpful is more officers, not more harassment.” However, those who have been on the receiving end of such harassment counter that it’s hard to have one without the other.

Choosing reason instead of fear

Regardless of what comes from the current conversation about police reform, the manner in which people engage in the discussion is likely to have as great an impact on the outcome as the decisions that are ultimately reached. Fear, rather than reason, is often the motivating factor for people as they think about the future of law enforcement.

For some, that fear is based on negative experiences with the police. For others, the prospect of a future without cops leads to visions of unchecked violence and disorder. As a result, it’s incredibly easy to leave God out of the ensuing discussion.

As Paul taught the Philippians, fear and logic can seldom coexist. Rather, he instructed them, “Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:5–7).

Our culture could really use the protection of Christ Jesus for our hearts and minds at this point. Decisions will likely be made across the coming weeks and months with regards to a number of issues—the future of law enforcement among them—that will greatly impact the future of our society for years to come.

As we seek the Lord’s wisdom and discernment in knowing how to engage in those discussions, it’s vital that we follow Paul’s advice and be reasonable voices guided by the peace of God. That won’t happen, though, if we allow ourselves to be driven by fear instead.

Which will guide your response today?

Denison Forum

James Earl Ray, the escaped convict who assassinated Martin Luther King Jr., was arrested 52 years ago today in London, England. He fled to England after shooting King with the goal of reaching Rhodesia, then led by “an oppressive and internationally condemned white minority government.”

Ray would later confess to killing MLK before recanting and saying he was the fall guy for a much larger conspiracy. There are still a number of people who believe him, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary and multiple investigations across the decades since. The constant harassment by the FBI in King’s final years and his public denouncement of the Vietnam War give many pause in assuming the US government did not play a role in the civil rights leader’s death.

I bring all that up now to remind us that often the lens through which we see the world around us and the actions of others is determined as much by our personal experiences as by the larger reality of the situation.

The impact of a single experience

As I’ve read the various accounts of personal experiences from members of the black community in the wake of recent protests, what’s stood out the most is how even a single incident of racial discrimination can have a lasting impact.

In an article for the Athletic, for example, a series of black writers who cover various teams shared stories of the times they’ve been targeted and mistreated because of their race. The accounts of when they were discriminated against by police were especially poignant and left a clear impression on how they view cops to this day.

And it’s not that all—or even most—police are racist, but enough are to make it a real problem throughout this country.

The simple truth is that the actions of some, if seen as representative of the larger group, can often have an outsized influence on how we see the collective whole. It’s why a few bad cops can make people suspect of police everywhere, and also why a small group of rioters can cast an otherwise peaceful protest in a violent light.

And nowhere is that the case more than when those actions threaten our safety or leave us feeling powerless and afraid.

Why we’re still tribal people

As people, we’re hardwired to gravitate towards grouping both ourselves and others according to easily identifiable characteristics. Most of us have one or two that define the core of our identity and, consequently, how we identify others as well. That basic tendency is often referred to as tribalism.

For some, it’s based on what they do for a living. For others, it’s based on race or culture. Still more find that sense of identity in their faith. But all of us do it to some extent.

For the vast majority of human history, such grouping was necessary for our survival. History has, at least to some degree, trained us to see people who don’t fit in the same groups as we do with skepticism and fear.

However, a society as large, diverse, and interconnected as ours cannot sustain itself under those conditions. And that’s a good thing. After all, just because our nation was able to endure through discrimination and inequality in the past doesn’t mean it should continue in the future.

Where this is becoming a challenge for many of us today, though, is that we can agree on the problem but not the solution. That’s in part because there is no simple solution to the racial discrimination, police brutality, and other factors fueling the recent protests. Just as important, though, is the reality that it’s often simply not possible for us to fully understand the perspectives of people with whom we have trouble identifying.

Understanding what you can’t understand

I don’t know what it’s like to be pulled over by a police officer and searched, questioned, or otherwise harassed without just cause. I can read stories about it and try to empathize with those for whom that moment was not only real but, in many ways, defining, but we can’t truly understand something we’ve never experienced.

In the same way, I don’t know what it’s like to be part of a police department where a coworker was shot making what seemed like a routine stop or was otherwise injured while trying to keep the peace. I can listen and I can try to understand, but I’ve simply never had that experience.

And while neither experience would justify sinful and prejudicial action towards another person, perhaps understanding the degree to which we can’t understand where others are coming from can give us the necessary empathy and self-awareness to find a better path forward than the one we’ve been on to this point.

Ultimately, it’s not a sin to lack understanding, but it becomes a sin if we’re content to continue living in ignorance when that ignorance facilitates the discrimination and degradation of other people’s lives. God has called us to so much more.

Valuing lives over comfort

Eric Stephens put it well in the Athletic article referenced above. In talking about the residual anger and pain from experiences of racial discrimination, he wrote, “Don’t try to relate. I don’t want you to. Just understand. Just acknowledge that in some ways, our existence will always be different than yours. Don’t be afraid to stand up if you see someone being mistreated. And don’t be afraid to speak up and have a conversation about race in public and, more importantly, in private.”

Such actions will seldom be comfortable, but engaging in them anyway puts us in good company. After all, you don’t have to dive too deep in the Gospels to find plenty of examples of uncomfortable conversations Jesus had with those he encountered. But whether it was condemning the religious leaders for being blind and insensitive to the pain caused by their legalism, confronting the woman at the well with her sin, or simply teaching the otherwise bewildered masses, our Lord made a habit of valuing people’s lives over their comfort.

Given his example, can we really afford to do otherwise?

Two paths forward

It’s been two weeks since George Floyd was killed, and the protests, difficult conversations, and calls for real change don’t seem to be going away anytime soon. As such, it seems we’re left with two choices.

The first is to wait and hope that eventually things will get back to normal. I’ll be honest, there’s part of me that wants to do just that.

However, the second option is to take an honest look around us and accept that normal probably isn’t worth getting back to.

I think it’s pretty clear which path will do the most good for the kingdom and for the people God has called us to love with the self-sacrificial empathy, compassion, and concern that Christ displayed for all those who crossed his path.

Which will you choose today?

Denison Forum

I have never felt less qualified to write a Daily Article than I do this morning.

I am a white person who has never faced a single moment of racial discrimination in my sixty-one years of life. As a result, I cannot pretend to understand what it is like to be unfairly treated because of the color of my skin.

I grew up in a middle-class community. As a result, I cannot understand what it is like to despair of a better financial future.

I have never been treated unfairly by the criminal justice system. As a result, I cannot understand what it is like to fear the police and the courts.

I do not own or work at a business affected by the violence of recent days. As a result, I cannot understand what it is like to see my dreams and future destroyed in response to a tragic death in Minneapolis for which I am not at fault.

Fortunately, I do not write the Daily Article to offer my personal opinions. My mission is to help us interpret the news of the day in cultural and biblical context. This morning, I will draw on expert guides to help us do both.

Three explanations 

As I wrote last week, the death of George Floyd on Memorial Day was a horrible tragedy. Our Father hates racism and demands that we value each other as he loves us (Genesis 1:28; Galatians 3:28).

Last night, cities across America saw a sixth evening of mass demonstrations following Mr. Floyd’s death. The entire Washington, DC, National Guard was called in to respond to protests outside the White House and elsewhere in the nation’s capital. A tanker truck drove through thousands of people who were marching on a Minneapolis highway, though none of the protesters was injured. At least forty cities have imposed curfews.

Writing for Bloomberg Opinion, John Authers examines the way Americans are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, I believe his insights apply just as perceptively to the crisis unfolding across our country after George Floyd’s tragic death. Authers utilizes the work of British political philosopher Steven Lukes to describe three schools of thought at work in our society. Each of them helps explain the unrest embroiling our cities.

Utilitarians seek the greatest good for the greatest number. This is the impulse behind majority-rule democracy. However, this approach can put minority populations at risk, a fact experienced by many racial minorities across our nation’s history.

Communitarians want us to do what advances the “common good” within our community. But when your community’s common good conflicts with mine, what do we do? Some are justifying the violence of recent days as necessary to effect change, even if minority-owned and operated businesses are among the victims of such violence. In this view, previous calls for change have gone unheeded, requiring an escalating response that causes majority populations to feel the pain of minority victims.

Libertarians insist that individual freedom is paramount. But as Authers notes, when citizens are left alone, “many are left to sleep on the street, city centers are full of sleaze, and a few rich people benefit from gambling.”

Each of these viewpoints is foundational to American society. Can they be reconciled? According to Isaiah Berlin, the twentieth-century British philosopher and essayist, the answer is no.

Responses to George Floyd’s death are making his point. Some minorities feel they must demonstrate in large numbers to bring about change with the utilitarian majority. Some are willing to march (and some even to perpetuate violence) in other communities to make themselves heard. Many are protesting the libertarian lack of resources and compassion for people in need.

Jesus’ solution 

I began today’s Daily Article by admitting that I do not know what it is like to experience racial discrimination, face systemic poverty, encounter injustice, or suffer as an innocent victim of violence.

But Jesus does.

He lived his life as a Jew under Roman occupation. He was so impoverished that he “nowhere to lay his head” (Luke 9:58). After his arrest, he was subjected to what has been called “the most unjust trial in human history.” He suffered and died in innocence (Isaiah 53:9; Hebrews 4:15), atoning for sins he did not commit to purchase our salvation (Romans 5:8).

As a result, Jesus has the moral authority to speak to this crisis in a way I do not. For the next few days, we’ll discuss his example and teachings as we seek his guidance together.

For today, let’s consider the single sentence that is often considered his foundational ethical principle: “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12). This one maxim provides a way forward through the scourge of racism and violence in our day. And it reconciles the utilitarian, communitarian, and libertarian conflicts so endemic to our culture.

Consider: If every person did to others what they would want to be done to them, would racial prejudice exist? Or police brutality? Or violent responses?

Would a single person have ever been enslaved in this land or any other? Would even one of the 40.3 million people enslaved in the world today be victims?

Would the majority oppress the minority? Would members of one community oppress members of another? Would a single individual be left to face our fallen world alone?

My commitment 

I cannot force another person to choose Jesus’ rule for living, but I can choose it for myself. I can seek the most strategic, significant ways to use my influence in its service. I can pray for divine help as I love every person I meet as I want them to love me, modeling Jesus’ transformational love for us all.

This is my commitment today. Will you join me?

Denison Forum