The Wall Street Journal broke the story that is now making headlines everywhere: “The Secret Group of Scientists and Billionaires Pushing a Manhattan Project for Covid-19.”

They call themselves “Scientists to Stop Covid-19.” Their group includes chemical biologists, an immunobiologist, a neurobiologist, a chronobiologist, an oncologist, a gastroenterologist, an epidemiologist, and a nuclear scientist. Biologist Michael Rosbash, a 2017 Nobel Prize winner, says that of all the scientists at the center of the project, “There’s no question that I’m the least qualified.”

Their work had not been reported before the Journal article. They are led by a thirty-three-year-old physician-turned-venture capitalist named Tom Cahill. He lives in a one-bedroom rental near Boston’s Fenway Park and owns just one suit. But his connections through his investment firm have made the group’s work possible.

The article describes scientific proposals from the group that are already being discussed or implemented by government leaders. They are now looking at ideas for the post-COVID-19 world.

No one involved with the effort stands to gain financially. Their desire is to add their expertise and connections to the coronavirus battle effort. Stuart Schreiber, a Harvard University chemist and member of the group, says, “We may fail. But if it succeeds, it could change the world.”

A teleconference that impressed me greatly 

One of the most hopeful aspects of the pandemic is the fact that the entire world is united in fighting it. Our best minds from around the globe are focused on our common foe. Unlike a war in which nations fight each other, this is a conflict in which our enemy has made us all allies.

We are seeing such collaboration not just in science but across our nation and culture. This is one way God is redeeming this crisis.

Jesus prayed in John 17 that his followers would be united “so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me” (v. 23). As the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27), we obey our head and fulfill his purpose far better when our members are working in unity.

I was asked this week to join a teleconference of Houston-area religious leaders. They crossed all denominational and cultural boundaries. Their common desire was to support and encourage each other as they sought ways to move forward together.

One example that impressed me was their concern for smaller churches meeting in area schools. These schools are closed into the summer, meaning that these congregations will have no place to meet once in-person services begin. So the larger churches began working on ways the smaller churches could use their campuses.

I am convinced that Jesus was smiling in heaven.

Competition and intercession 

Our free-market economy is based on competition. The theory is that the more companies and workers compete, the better their products become and the lower their prices. By contrast, I have seen the state-sponsored economy work in Cuba—or not work, I should say. When people own what they make and can advance based on their hard work and initiative, society benefits.

One downside of this competitive environment, however, is that it can so easily foster spiritual independence and conflict. Churches compete with churches for members. Pastors compete with pastors for acclaim and advancement. Church growth can be a zero-sum game: if the new family in our community joins your church, they did not join my church.

I have witnessed such competition across my entire ministry. But the common enemy we face today is being used by God to unify his people in transformative ways. The astounding evangelistic movement I profiled in yesterday’s Special Edition is one result of such collaboration. The pastors in Houston who discussed ways to help smaller congregations are another.

So, here’s my question: As we face the ongoing pandemic, could God’s people be united in prayer more powerfully and intentionally than ever before?

We have responded financially to crises in the past. For example, you were incredibly generous when I asked you to help us raise funds to support those devastated by Hurricane Harvey in my hometown of Houston.

As we face physical, financial, social, and relational challenges unseen in living memory, is there a better time for us to answer Jesus’ intercession for unity through united intercession of our own?

Find a movement and join it 

My purpose today is not to announce a prayer movement in response to the pandemic. God has led other believers to do this very thing. Some are centered on 2 Chronicles 7:14 and pray at 7:14 every morning and evening in response. Others are being supported by churches, denominations, and ministries.

The Lord might lead you to find and join such a movement. He might lead you to begin one. He might lead you to ask a handful of other believers to join you in specific intercession for each other and our world. Two believers in agreement are enough to pray in powerful unity (Matthew 18:20).

My purpose is to emphasize the urgency of prayerful unity today and tomorrow. Defeating our viral enemy will require medical and social collaboration. Defeating our even more dangerous spiritual enemy will require spiritual collaboration.

What step will you take to pray in unity today?

Denison Forum

Max Glauben was liberated from the Holocaust on April 23, 1945. His parents and brother were murdered by the Nazis.

He came to the US as an orphan, served in the US Army, met his wife Frieda, and started a family that now includes three children, seven grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. He helped launch the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum. Since 2005, he has returned to concentration camp sites fourteen times, leading March of the Living trips.

Each time, he goes to a mausoleum that holds seven tons of human ashes and recites a prayer for the dead. “I look at the ashes, the seven tons of ashes, and I wonder how many of the owners of these ashes, how many diseases they could’ve cured,” he says.

Mr. Glauben intended to spend the seventy-fifth anniversary of his liberation back overseas on his fifteenth March of the Living trip. But because of the coronavirus pandemic, the trip was canceled.

Last Thursday, he expected to spend the day at home with family but went outside to find an amazing surprise: a drive-by procession was held to celebrate him and his story of survival.

When asked how to move forward when you don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, Mr. Glauben said, “Never, never, never, never give up. Enjoy life and try to treat everybody that you are surrounded with the way you’d like to be treated.”

A vaccine by October?

You may not have heard of Max Glauben before today. However, every person he teaches about the atrocities of the Holocaust who then works to confront anti-Semitism will benefit the world as a result of his efforts.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Holocaust survivor honored 75 years after his liberation: How people you don’t know change your world →

The Jetsons were an animated television family in the early 1960s. Their space-age home was cleaned by Rosie the robot. They talked to each other via video and smartwatches and read the news on flat-screen televisions. Drone-like flying pods delivered their children to school. Voice-activated devices talked to them.

That was then, this is now.

As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, interior designers are busy planning the office of the future. Here’s a vision of what office workers may come back to (whenever that is).

The doors into our office building will open automatically so we don’t have to touch them. We will tell the elevator our floor so we don’t have to touch its buttons. Elevator occupancy will be regulated to enable social distancing.

Our office will have dividers separating workspaces that are spaced further apart. Break rooms and kitchens will have fewer chairs and signs documenting the last time they were cleaned.

All of this reverses the trend following the last recession in which companies were trying to do more with less space. Many packed their employees into open office spaces, a practice known as “densification.” This will likely be reversed now with more private spaces or personal offices for employees. Sensors will detect and warn of overcrowding; employees will take turns using private offices and will work from home otherwise.

One company is developing a concept called “Six Feet Office” with visually displayed foot traffic routing to keep employees six feet apart. Higher quality air filtration systems, UV lighting to sanitize surfaces, and more ubiquitous hand-sanitizing stations are predicted. So are infrared body temperature scanners and virus and antibody testing kits for employees.

We will need more space for fewer employees

All of this, of course, assumes we will return to our offices.

According to a new MIT report, 34 percent of Americans who previously commuted to work were working from home by the first week of April due to coronavirus. Prior to the pandemic, only 4 percent of the American workforce worked from home at least half the time.

Home offices are becoming more ubiquitous as a result. People are looking for ways to convert a closet or add a room to create more functional work-from-home space. They are buying desks, office supplies, and computer technology more frequently than before.

Does this trend mean that companies will lease less space? One way companies can lessen the financial impact of the pandemic is to reduce their rent obligations. However, while they may have fewer in-office employees, their social-distancing space may need to be larger, so that the two trends cancel each other out.

“Return, O my soul, to your rest”

As we look to the future with the pandemic, it’s vital that we look to the past with our Lord.

Psalm 116 begins: “I love the Lord” (v. 1a). This is a present-tense affirmation and experience. But here is why the psalmist makes this declaration: “because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy” (v. 1b). He trusts God in the present because God has been trustworthy in the past.

The psalmist makes his point again: “Because he has inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live” (v. 2, my emphasis). Once again, he bases his present faith in God on God’s faithfulness in the past.

He then illustrates: “The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish. Then I called on the name of the Lord: ‘O Lord, I pray, deliver my soul!'” (vv. 3–4).

This experience taught him that “gracious is the Lord, and righteous; our God is merciful” (v. 5). He knows that “the Lord preserves the simple” because “when I was brought low, he saved me” (v. 6). Now he can say, “Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you” (v. 7).

How to “cast all your anxiety on him” 

What pandemic-induced changes in your life today are especially difficult for you? Name them, then identify times in the past when God has been faithful to you when you faced related challenges.

If you’re struggling financially, remember previous times when God met your needs. If you’re worried about the future, remember days when such worries were met by God’s grace. If you’re concerned about your family or health, remember when God provided for your family and health.

Now trust your present fears to your ever-present Father. He promises that “he will not leave you or forsake you” (Deuteronomy 31:6). Jesus assured us, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). You can “cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7).

1. C. Sproul observed: “The issue of faith is not so much whether we believe in God, but whether we believe the God we believe in.”

Do you?

Denison Forum

The National Football League held its first-ever virtual draft last night. As many predicted, the Cincinnati Bengals made LSU quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Joe Burrow their selection and thus the first pick in the draft.

Will Burrow become a superstar in the league? Or will he soon be forgotten?

In the fifty-three previous seasons since the AP Rookie of the Year award began, only six first draft picks have won the award. Burrow can enjoy his status until the season begins (whenever that is), but then he will become one of 1,696 players on NFL rosters.

What happened to me in 1958 

In our culture, who we are is measured by what we do. The Bible disagrees.

One of the earliest controversies in Christian history was whether Gentiles could become Christians without first having to submit to the rules and customs of Judaism. In other words, was there something they had to do to become who they could be in Christ?

Paul answered this question definitively: “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God” (Galatians 4:4–7).

I was born in 1958. I did nothing to deserve being born. I did not choose to be born. Rather, this choice was made for me. Once I became the child of my parents, I would always be their child. There was nothing I could do to earn or lose this status.

In the same way, when we are “born again,” we become forever the children of God (John 3:3; 2 Corinthians 5:17).

Br. David Vryhof of the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Boston writes: “Who we are and what we are is grounded in the truth that we belong to God. We are God’s children by adoption and heirs of God’s promises. This identity offers us a sense of value that does not come from anything that we have done for God, but rather from what God has done for us.”

Continue reading Denison Forum – Bengals make Joe Burrow first pick in the NFL draft: Who you are is not what you do, but what you do reflects who you are →

Gabe Scuderi has been working for twenty-four years at a Lysol factory in New Jersey but says, “It’s the first time I felt this isn’t only a job. We’re on the front lines now.”

A grandmother named Estelle Slon is emailing riddles to sick children forced into isolation as they undergo treatment for cancer and other dire illnesses. More than a thousand volunteer groups have been set up in the UK to help the most vulnerable during the coronavirus outbreak.

How are we to account for altruism?

Writing for the Federalist, Glenn T. Stanton notes the “extravagant beauty” in nature that defies evolutionary explanation. His article describes in detail the contradictory ways Charles Darwin and other evolutionists have tried to explain beauty that does not seem to serve any evolutionary purpose.

Yale University’s Richard Prum’s theory is “captured in his simple phrase ‘beauty happens.'” The bottom line is that naturalistic evolutionists have no compelling explanation for what Stanton calls their “most persistent problem.”

The same can be said of humans who perform deeds of sacrificial altruism. If evolutionary theory is right in claiming that survival optimization is our basic drive, then why is this person taking such risks? If survival of the species is the explanation, then why isn’t everyone doing the same?

Here’s the biblical response: when we care for others simply because we care for them, we express a vestige of the divine image in which we are created.

God loves us because “God is love” (1 John 4:8). He loves us because it is his very nature to love, not because we have done or can do anything to deserve his love. When we love through service that is not earned and comes at great personal cost, we act as creatures who reflect the nature of our Creator.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Lysol factory worker is ‘on the front lines now’: Evolution’s ‘most persistent problem’ and the privilege of knowing a personal God →

Have you heard of the “three blessings” exercise?

Yale psychology professor Laurie Santos teaches an online course on happiness that has reached more than a million people. She recommends something called the “three blessings exercise.”

Here’s her explanation: “Research shows that we really can benefit from counting our blessings even when it feels like there aren’t that many blessings to be counted. The simple act of scribbling down three things you’re grateful for can significantly bump your mood, in some studies as quickly as within a couple of weeks. It’s completely free. It takes five to ten minutes a day. At the end of your day, just scribble down a few things that you’re grateful for right now.”

Dr. Santos was asked for “final words of wisdom” and shared this: “If I had a last word to share, it would be self-compassion. It really is an awful time. There’s a reason we’re calling this crisis unprecedented. We’re dealing with a deadly virus that’s incredibly scary and uncertain. . . . Give yourself and your family members more self-compassion and more of a benefit of the doubt than you usually would.”

“Give thanks in all circumstances” 

Counting our blessings even in hard times is a biblical exercise: “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). No matter how the world changes, God’s love does not: “Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!” (Psalm 106:1).

However, there’s a way to experience our Father’s presence that transcends an occasional attitude of gratitude. The psalmist continues: “Who can utter the mighty deeds of the Lord, or declare all his praise?” (v. 2). Then he answers his question: “Blessed are they who observe justice, who do righteousness at all times!” (v. 3, my emphasis).

Continue reading Denison Forum – The ‘three blessings exercise’: The path to gratitude that changes our lives and culture →

If you’ve not been watching John Krasinski’s Some Good News YouTube show, let me encourage you to start today. Past episodes have featured a hilarious interview with Steve Carell (of course) and a performance by the Hamilton cast from their homes. To thank a group of frontline medical personnel in Boston, he arranged an experience I won’t give away here but that is worth watching with gratitude.

Now Krasinski has done something memorable for high school seniors: he hosted a virtual senior prom and was the DJ as well. He was joined by Chance the Rapper, Billie Eilish, and the Jonas Brothers. High school seniors and their families across the country were able to participate in a variety of ways.

On the other end of the generational spectrum, Captain Tom Moore is a ninety-nine-year-old British World War II veteran. He broke his hip and must use a walker with wheels for mobility. Did this stop him from doing what he can to combat the pandemic? Not at all.

He set a goal of walking the twenty-five meters around his garden one hundred times before his one hundredth birthday on April 30. He completed his task last Thursday. In so doing, he raised more than $31 million for the British health service.

When a new field hospital opens in response to the coronavirus outbreak next week, the retired army officer will be the guest of honor. Capt. Moore said in a statement over the weekend, “I am still amazed by the amount of kindness and generosity from the UK public who continue to give despite it being an uncertain time for many.”

Reframing in the light of God’s sovereignty

Tragedies always make us feel frustrated that we cannot do more to help. A gunman in Nova Scotia killed at least sixteen people over the weekend. A man hijacked a public transit bus in Dallas yesterday and wounded two officers. We can read the news and pray for the victims, but we want to do more.

In the same way, one of our frustrations with social distancing is that it feels so hard to help those in need. We cannot visit senior adults isolated in nursing homes, many of whom do not have the technological means to FaceTime or text with us. It’s hard to volunteer at food banks or rescue missions when we’re not allowed out of our homes.

Continue reading Denison Forum – John Krasinski hosts a national prom: What can you do that you couldn’t do before the pandemic? →

President Trump announced yesterday the White House’s three-phase plan for easing social distancing measures, a subject I intend to discuss in this afternoon’s Special Edition. For this morning, however, let’s shift from news about the coronavirus pandemic to focus on a surprising way to respond to news about the pandemic.

I’m reading Edward Achorn’s Every Drop of Blood, which masterfully sets Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address in its historical context. I have long been a student of Civil War history, but I did not realize the depth of personal rejection and suffering our sixteenth president endured as he tried to lead the nation through her most perilous days.

And yet, Lincoln was famous during the war for his quips and down-home humor. He would often respond to criticism and anger with a story that changed the entire tone of the moment. He once explained his strategy: “With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.”

On another occasion Lincoln said he felt “like the boy that stumped his toe: it hurt too bad to laugh, and he was too big to cry.” He summarized his spirit in crisis this way: “I laugh because I must not cry.”

“The world has turned upside down” 

Now let’s try an experiment. A dear friend sent me some “humor while in quarantine” yesterday:

• “Quarantine has turned us into dogs. We roam the house all day looking for food. We are told ‘no’ if we get too close to strangers. And we get really excited about car rides.”
• “The world has turned upside down. Old folks are sneaking out of the house, and their kids are yelling at them to stay indoors.”
• “2019: Stay away from negative people. 2020: Stay away from positive people.”
• “Tomorrow is the National Homeschool Tornado Drill. Lock your kids in the basement until you give the all clear. You’re welcome!”
• “Day seven at home and the dog is looking at me like, ‘See? This is why I chew the furniture!'”

Continue reading Denison Forum – My favorite coronavirus humor: Finding ‘signals of transcendence’ in a pandemic →

Dr. Anthony Fauci is not only America’s top infectious disease doctor, he has also become one of the most trusted people in the US. So, when he suggested a way to bring back sports during the coronavirus pandemic, his opinion made national news.

“There’s a way of doing that,” he said in an interview. “Nobody comes to the stadium. Put [athletes] in big hotels, wherever you want to play. Keep them very well surveilled . . . and have them tested like every week and make sure they don’t wind up infecting each other or their family and just let them play the season out.”

Of course, some will complain that sports without spectators is not sports. Dr. Fauci disagrees: “I think you’ll probably get enough buy-in from people who are dying to see a baseball game. Particularly me. I’m living in Washington—we have the world champion in the Washington Nationals. I want to see them play again.”

The latest on when we’ll have a vaccine 

As the coronavirus pandemic passed two million cases yesterday, Dr. Fauci’s comments point to one aspect of the topic on everyone’s mind these days: How do we return to “normal,” whatever that looks like?

President Trump said this week he is close to completing a plan to end the COVID-19 shutdown and reopen the battered US economy. He believes that some parts of the country may be ready to go before May 1.

According to the president, roughly twenty states have avoided the crippling outbreaks that affected others and could be opened “very quickly.” He plans to work with the various governors to implement “a very powerful reopening plan” at a specific time and date for each state.

For instance, the Texas governor announced that he will release details Friday on his plan to jumpstart his state’s economy. By contrast, California’s governor expects to ban mass gatherings of hundreds or thousands of people in his state at least through summer.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Dr. Fauci on how to bring back sports: The path to God’s ‘perfect peace’ →

April 15 is an auspicious day for many reasons.

On this day in 1783, the US Congress ratified articles of peace ending the Revolutionary War with Great Britain. On this morning in 1865, Abraham Lincoln was pronounced dead.

On April 15, 1912, the RMS Titanic sank. On this day in 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball. On April 15, 1955, Ray Croc opened the first McDonalds. The Boston Marathon was attacked by bombers on this day in 2013.

And on this day in 1957, my parents were married, a fact for which I am obviously and personally grateful.

“The most important silver lining in this crisis” 

April 15 is best known to most Americans as the day when our income taxes are due, a deadline that was moved to this date in 1955. However, because of the coronavirus pandemic, the deadline has been postponed ninety days to July 15.

This is just one change caused by the most disruptive event of my lifetime.

As catastrophic as the coronavirus pandemic has been for the world medically, financially, and socially, God has been at work using this tragedy for spiritual good as well. For example, well-known pastor Greg Laurie posted an article to Christianity Today describing some of the ways people are searching for God in these days of crisis.

He points to a Pew survey in which 55 percent of Americans stated they had “prayed for an end to the spread of coronavirus.” He notes another report that Google searches about prayer skyrocketed when coronavirus went global. In yet another poll, nearly half of respondents called the pandemic a “wake-up call” from God.

Bestselling author Joel C. Rosenberg notes: “Americans in near full lockdown are anxious, and understandably so. Yet millions are turning to God, the Bible, and Christian sermons for answers, some of them for the first time. That may be the most important silver lining in this crisis so far.”

Learning from The Good Doctor 

God will do his part in redeeming this crisis, but we must do ours.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Why April 15 is so important to me personally: ‘Hope has a name’ →

Astronomers say they have discovered the largest and brightest supernova ever seen.

A supernova is defined as an extremely bright and powerful explosion of a dying, massive star at least five times the mass of our sun. A study published yesterday reports that the mass of this supernova, labeled SN2016aps, was between fifty and one hundred times greater than our sun.

For a sense of scale: our sun could contain 1.3 million Earths and is about 333,000 times the mass of our planet. It contains 99.8 percent of the mass of the entire solar system. While it has burned off material that is more than 100 times the mass of the Earth, this is only about 0.05 percent of the sun’s total mass.

But our sun is only 1 to 2 percent the size of the supernova now being reported. And there are estimated to be 100 billion such stars in the Milky Way galaxy, and ten trillion such galaxies in the universe.

And our God made all of that.

A path to triumphant courage 

Nearly half the people in the US feel the coronavirus pandemic is harming their mental health. As the Washington Post notes, “If you’re scared, anxious, depressed, struggling to sleep through the night, or just on edge, you’re not alone.”

While COVID-19 is now the number one cause of death per day in the US, heart disease still kills 1,773 people every day and cancer causes 1,641 deaths a day.

In other words, there’s a lot to worry about. But there’s a way of dealing courageously and triumphantly with life on this broken planet, a source of strength and hope that is available to every child of God.

And we celebrated it just two days ago.

“Eternal life is the gift of God”  Continue reading Denison Forum – The brightest supernova ever discovered: How to experience omnipotence today →

A church in Florida appeared to be full yesterday, but this is because members of the congregation emailed photos of themselves to the staff, who then printed the images and taped them to the backs of seats in the sanctuary.

Welcome to Easter Sunday 2020.

A church in South Carolina had Easter services in their parking lot as members watched on large outdoor screens while listening to the broadcast over local radio. A youth pastor in Arlington, Texas, created an Easter egg hunt for children using the online video game Minecraft, a strategy which gained national attention.

A church in North Carolina has held a sunrise Easter service for 250 years, even through the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and two World Wars. But for the pandemic, the celebration was replaced by an online service.

Archbishop José Horacio Gómez of the Los Angeles diocese was right: “Our churches may be closed but Christ is not quarantined and his Gospel is not in chains.”

Boris Johnson is home from the hospital 

Now it’s the Monday after Easter. What difference did yesterday make today?

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was released from the hospital Sunday morning to continue his recovery from COVID-19 at home. In a video tribute, he thanked healthcare workers who “saved my life, no question.” Scientists are trying to determine whether patients such as the prime minister now have an acquired immunity that protects them from reinfection or at least lessens the severity of future infections.

If so, doctors who recover from COVID-19 could care for coronavirus patients in the place of those who are still at risk. The same could be true for grocery workers, delivery drivers, and anyone else performing an essential service at the risk of infecting themselves (and then their families).

Let’s consider this possibility as a post-Easter parable.

The practical path to happiness 

I have long been grateful for the work of Arthur C. Brooks, the former president of the American Enterprise Institute and now faculty member at Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School. A committed Christian, he is one of the most thoughtful interpreters of culture today. His keynote address at this year’s National Prayer Breakfast was just one example of his practical wisdom.

Continue reading Denison Forum – A church fills its empty pews with pictures of its members: How the joy of Easter Sunday can change the world on Monday →

This is the first Good Friday in Christian history to be observed primarily online. Millions of Christians are attending worship services through digital means.

Unless they have their own chapel, that is.

The Christ family (pronounced “Crist”) lives on a slice of pastureland an hour southeast of Oklahoma City. They usually worship with the Wewoka Church of Christ. But three years ago, Ryan Christ constructed a tiny chapel, about twelve feet wide and twenty-five feet long, on their property. It has six small pews and can hold about a dozen non-social-distancing adults.

As the Christian Chronicle article notes, “That’s more than enough for a family of four, stuck at home in the midst of a pandemic.”

According to his wife, Ryan is always looking for ways to share his faith. His last name helps. When people ask him if he’s related to Jesus Christ, “he always comes back with, ‘I’m not him, but I know him,’” she says.

“The symbol of Christianity is an instrument of death” 

So can we, because of what happened on this day twenty centuries ago.

Karl Barth is often considered the most important theologian of the twentieth century. In 1962, on his one visit to America, he was asked how he would summarize the millions of words he had published. Barth replied, “Jesus loves me, this I know; for the Bible tells me so.”

And what the Bible tells us is that Jesus loves us enough to die for us.

Frederick Buechner observed: “A six-pointed star, a crescent moon, a lotus—the symbols of other religions suggest beauty and light. The symbol of Christianity is an instrument of death.”

Continue reading Denison Forum – Meet the Christ family, who worship in a prairie chapel: A Good Friday meditation →

One of the most famous couples in the world went online this week to speak with school children whose parents are working on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. Prince William and Kate Middleton, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, made a video call to pupils and staff from Casterton Primary Academy in Lancashire, in northwestern England.

The students wore Easter-themed bunny ears and presented them with a virtual bouquet of paper flowers. Their parents are working in the National Health Service and social care, as well as serving in supermarkets and making deliveries.

One of them told the duke that the “first William was called William the Conqueror.” The children then wanted to know, “What do you want to be called in a thousand years’ time?” He laughed and said he didn’t think he could answer that.

Your title is your towel 

On this Maundy Thursday, Jesus redefined greatness when he washed the dirty, smelly, mud-caked feet of men who would soon abandon, deny, and betray him. He then taught us, “I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you” (John 13:15).

And he added a “new commandment”: “Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (v. 34). “Just as” means “in the same way” or “to the same degree.”

Here’s why obedience to his commandment is so crucial: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (v. 35). Not because we preach sermons or write Daily Articles. Not because we attend church services or work as elders or deacons. Not because we earn and donate large sums of money.

Continue reading Denison Forum – William and Kate made a video call to children of frontline workers: The best way to measure greatness →

This is the first Holy Week in Christian history to be observed primarily online.

From livestreamed services at the Vatican to video sermons recorded and shared on cell phones, Christians and Christian churches all over the world are meeting virtually these days.

This is a controversial subject. Some claim that governmental restrictions on worship services are an infringement of religious liberty and a violation of the separation of church and state. Others disagree, noting that such prohibitions do not single out religious gatherings but include all events at which people could become infected with coronavirus. Still others claim that church services should be classified as “essential” functions and allowed to continue under social distancing guidelines.

I agree with Dr. Albert Mohler and Kelly Shackelford’s statement in the Washington Post: “Asking houses of worship to briefly suspend large gatherings is neither hostile toward religion nor unreasonable in light of the threat. Rather, this is a time for all of us to exercise prudence over defiance. Love for God and neighbor demands nothing less.”

However, my purpose today is not to litigate this issue. Rather, it is to encourage us to reframe social distancing in a way that aligns with this day in Holy Week.

You might respond by noting that the Gospels do not record any activities of our Lord on the Wednesday before he died. I agree.

“God goes where he’s wanted” 

Jesus spent the first four nights of Holy Week in Bethany, a suburb east of Jerusalem, at the home of his friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus (cf. Matthew 21:17).

Making the homes of others his own was customary for our Lord. He stayed with Peter and his family when in Capernaum (cf. Matthew 8:14; Mark 1:29). He once said, “the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20).

But as Philip Yancey noted, “God goes where he’s wanted.”

Continue reading Denison Forum – Is the government violating religious freedom by restricting church services? A Holy Wednesday invitation to solitude →

Many of us are praying for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to recover from COVID-19 after he was moved to intensive care yesterday. As of this morning, he is not yet on a ventilator but is receiving oxygen support.

Meanwhile, the “biggest, brightest supermoon of 2020” is rising tonight. April’s full moon is a supermoon, meaning that it is full while also in perigee (its closest approach to us). During a supermoon, the moon is about 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than a normal full moon.

The April full moon is called the “pink moon” because it coincides with the blooming of the moss pink wildflower. The best time to view it will be tonight after the sun goes down.

A trick question and a transforming answer 

On Holy Tuesday, Jesus returns to the now-cleansed temple to teach the people. His enemies cannot find a way to arrest him due to his popularity, so they try to lure him into committing blasphemy and defaming himself before the crowds.

Among their attempts is this question asked by a lawyer: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” (Matthew 22:36). If Jesus names one of their 613 laws, they will accuse him of rejecting the others.

Our Lord replies: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (vv. 37–40).

Focusing our moon on the Son 

What does Jesus’ answer on Holy Tuesday have to do with the “biggest, brightest supermoon of 2020” that will appear tonight?

Continue reading Denison Forum – The brightest supermoon of the year: A Holy Tuesday invitation to risk-taking faith that changes eternity →

There is nothing like being in the Holy Land during the Easter season. After leading more than thirty study tours to Israel, I can tell you that each time feels like the first time. There is something miraculous and transforming about this ancient land, especially during this season.

This year, April is not only the month of Easter for Christians, but of Passover for the Jewish people and the beginning of Ramadan for Muslims. Because of the pandemic, however, the streets of Jerusalem are virtually empty. Churches and other religious sites are closed. Even burials are different.

In Israel, Jewish dead are typically laid to rest in a cloth smock and shroud without a coffin. Now, the bodies of COVID-19 victims are taken for ritual washing, which is performed in full protective gear, wrapped in impermeable plastic, and wrapped again in plastic before interment. Muslim bodies are not washed or shrouded but buried in a plastic body bag. Funerals can be attended by no more than twenty people in an open space. The bereaved are not embraced.

Here’s some good news, however: Israel’s Tower of David Museum is using virtual reality to allow us to visit the Western Wall during Passover, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre during Easter, and the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan.

The museum has created an immersive 360-degree virtual reality experience for anyone with internet access. We will be able to see the Holy City as it is today and as it looked twenty centuries ago. The link will be available free of charge from the first day of Passover to the first day of Ramadan (April 9–24).

“Our routine is the scaffolding of life”

The philosopher Walter Benjamin noted, “History is made up of images, not stories.” The images coming out of the coronavirus pandemic, like empty streets in Jerusalem, tell the story of this unfolding tragedy.

In addition to the escalating numbers of victims and patients and its devastation of our economy, the pandemic is disrupting our daily lives in unprecedented ways. Adrienne Heinz, a clinical research psychologist at the Veterans Affairs National Center for PTSD, notes: “Our routine is the scaffolding of life. It’s how we organize information and our time. And without it, we can feel really lost.”

As a result, she says, “I’m . . . really worried about families. I’m worried about increases in alcohol use. I’m worried about domestic violence. I’m worried about child abuse, because parents are under-resourced.”

Psychologist Susan Clayton adds: “Most of us have not faced a situation like this. So we have no previous experience that we can use to interpret it. We have no guidance about how we should be responding.”

Continue reading Denison Forum – Funerals in the Holy Land and a virtual tour of Jerusalem: Using the pandemic for eternal good →

Joe Buck has one of the best-known voices in America. He has called twenty-two World Series and six Super Bowls. The son of legendary announcer Jack Buck, he is ubiquitous in the world of sports broadcasting.

Now you can have his voice on your home videos.

People are sending him videos of dogs chasing each other in an empty field, chickens on a seesaw, and an airline employee guiding a plane to its gate. For each, Buck provides his very funny personal analysis.

This is his way of helping people deal with the anxiety and loneliness of these days.

Advice from “the world’s foremost expert on grief” 

One of the most-read articles ever on Harvard Business Review is an interview with David Kessler on the grief we are feeling in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The article describes Kessler as “the world’s foremost expert on grief.”

He notes that “we’re feeling a number of different griefs. We feel the world has changed, and it has. We know this is temporary, but it doesn’t feel that way, and we realize things will be different. . . . The loss of normalcy; the fear of economic toll; the loss of connection. This is hitting us and we’re grieving. Collectively. We are not used to this kind of collective grief in the air.”

In addition, we’re feeling what Kessler calls “anticipatory grief,” which he defines as “that feeling we get about what the future holds when we’re uncertain. . . . There is a storm coming. There’s something bad out there. . . . I don’t think we’ve collectively lost our sense of general safety like this. Individually or as small groups, people have felt this. But all together, this is new. We are grieving on a micro and a macro level.”

When asked what we can do to manage such grief, Kessler applies the well-known stages of grief: “There’s denial, which we say a lot of early on: This virus won’t affect us. There’s anger: You’re making me stay home and taking away my activities. There’s bargaining: Okay, if I social distance for two weeks everything will be better, right? There’s sadness: I don’t know when this will end. And finally there’s acceptance: This is happening; I have to figure out how to proceed.”

Kessler adds a sixth stage: meaning. He explains: “I did not want to stop at acceptance when I experienced some personal grief. I wanted meaning in those darkest hours. And I do believe we find light in those times.”

What it means to seek God’s “face” 

The US topped one thousand coronavirus deaths in a single day for the first time yesterday. Officials say the daily death toll could more than double by mid-April.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Joe Buck will make your home movie: Finding meaning in crisis through solitude with God →

April Fool’s Day has seldom seemed less appropriate than in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. But in the spirit of the day, let’s begin with the story of a woman in New Jersey who violated her state’s stay-at-home order when she allegedly tossed a Molotov cocktail at a boyfriend’s residence.

She has been charged with a disorderly persons offense for violating the governor’s order. As you might expect, she also faces arson and weapons charges. Fortunately, as the Attorney General’s office noted, her weapon “did not detonate.”

An asteroid the width of Manhattan Island 

For some more good news on this April 1: a giant, “potentially hazardous” asteroid will miss us this month. NASA has named the asteroid 1998 OR2. It is about the width of Manhattan Island and could wreak havoc if it crashed into Earth.

However, at its closest it will be 3.9 million miles from us (more than sixteen times the average distance between us and the moon). We won’t see it again until May 18, 2031. It will return again in 2048, 2062, and 2079, when it will only be 1.1 million miles away.

When I read about 1998 OR2, here was my thought: How do NASA’s experts know how far it will be from us? Or when it will return?

I had a similar question while walking early yesterday morning. Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter were all visible in the predawn sky. Or so a website told me. I would have otherwise been unable to name them or to know that they are planets in our solar system.

As I continued walking, I realized that I don’t know how to make anything that I saw. I don’t know how to make bricks, much less a brick house. I don’t know how to make a car’s fender, much less the entire car. I couldn’t make the concrete on which I was walking or the clothes I was wearing.

Nearly everything we take for granted is something some group of people didn’t take for granted. Rather, they pooled their experience and expertise to do what none of them could have done alone.

“The main business of their lives” 

I am taking us down this road to make a point that relates directly to our spiritual awakening series this week.

President Trump told Americans yesterday to brace for “a very painful two weeks” as public health officials warn that the coronavirus pandemic could leave 100,000 to 240,000 people in the US dead. We are responding to a crisis that is unprecedented in my lifetime by seeking a spiritual awakening that is also unprecedented in my lifetime.

We’re focusing on this familiar text: “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).

Yesterday, we discussed the foundational urgency of humility, noting that God cannot give what we will not admit we need. Today we’ll consider God’s call to pray. The Hebrew word means to “entreat, supplicate, beg.” It is also collective, meaning to pray as a nation for the nation.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Woman allegedly tosses Molotov cocktail at boyfriend’s residence: April Fools and the urgency of collective prayer →

Vin Scully is a legendary baseball broadcaster, the voice of the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1950 to 2016. Now ninety-two years old, he joined Fox News on Monday to discuss the delayed start to this year’s Major League Baseball season.

Scully, a devout Christian, said, “Now that I have some leisure time and we’re all locked in at home, I read an article and it was talking about what happened to Americans in World War II. It was such a terrible time.”

He added, “Three-quarters of Americans belonged to a house of worship. Today . . . half of Americans are involved in a house of worship, prior to this pandemic. So there’s your answer . . . Although they might not be able to go to a house of worship, probably more Americans will be praying since World War II.”

“More people will be coming back to the faith,” Scully went on. “And now that this terrible thing is upon us, people might very well get back to the center. And it’s a better world. We’ll see . . .”

“With the humble is wisdom” 

I referenced the same Wall Street Journal column in yesterday morning’s Daily Article. Scully is right: the anxiety of this crisis may well be a catalyst for the spiritual renewal we need so urgently.

As the saying goes, sometimes we need to get so far down that we have nowhere to look but up. Such humility is the foundational step to the spiritual awakening we need so urgently today.

As we noted yesterday, God’s promise to his people that he would “heal their land” is tied directly to their response to his call: “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turned from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).

First, they must “humble” themselves. The Hebrew word means “to bow the knee” or “to submit with humility.”

Continue reading Vin Scully predicts more Americans will respond to COVID crisis with faith: An atheist doctor comes to faith through a dying priest →