Does the day’s news ever make you question, even if just for a moment, God’s authority in the world? I’m guilty of at least asking the question now and then, and I doubt I’m the only one. To some extent, I think it’s only natural given the increasingly unstable nature of the world today.

President Trump, commander in chief of the world’s second largest nuclear arsenal, warned that further threats from North Korea “will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.” North Korea responded by threatening to attack the American base in Guam. In France, six soldiers were injured in a possible terrorist attack after a dark BMW crashed into their patrol. And the impending release of a new report on climate change already has proponents from both sides on the defensive as they prepare for another round of the same old fight.

Amidst all the uncertainty and strife we face each day, believing that God remains in control and still has plans for this world and all those in it has seldom been more important or more difficult.

Jeremiah 29:11 is one of the most commonly cited verses when people are going through times such as these, and for good reason. God’s promise that he has a plan for you and that those plans are to “prosper you and not to harm you . . . to give you a hope and a future” can provide just the kind of reassurance and encouragement needed when life seems bleak. Unfortunately, that verse is also one of the most commonly misunderstood passages in Scripture.

Continue reading Denison Forum – When God’s plan is hard to trust →

Last week, we discussed President Trump’s assurance that North Korea would be “handled” and the mixed reaction that statement received. In the days since, with the key support of North Korean allies China and Russia, the UN passed new sanctions effectively reducing the country’s economic output by a third. It was a bold move but seems to have had little impact on Kim Jong-un and his government. The Washington Post broke a story on Tuesday that could explain why.

United States intelligence officials recently determined that, in addition to their developing weapons program, North Korea has successfully miniaturized a nuclear warhead that could fit inside many of its long-range missiles. The Japanese Ministry of Defense recently reached the same conclusion.

As the Post describes, that development was expected to take the regime years to attain. While North Korea still lacks the missiles necessary to deliver such a warhead to the mainland United States, much of the world is now theoretically within range, including many of America’s allies.

Despite the looming threat, some experts argue that an even larger mistake than underestimating North Korea’s nuclear capabilities would be to overestimate them, thereby unnecessarily increasing the stakes in the region. Others argue, however, that the fear of overestimating the danger posed by the regime have led us to, in the words of Jeffrey Lewis, insist “on impossible levels of proof” instead of reacting appropriately to what we do know.

Continue reading Denison Forum – North Korea has a deployable nuke →

Marcus Hutchins was a relatively unknown British cybersecurity researcher until he helped stop the “WannaCry” ransomware attack that plagued countless companies, hospitals, and governments around the world earlier this year. The “WannaCry” software locked a computer until the user paid the perpetrators a ransom of roughly three hundred dollars.

Hutchins discovered that the virus could be stopped by controlling a specific website and then purchased the site for a little over ten dollars. While he initially hoped to simply track the spread of the virus, purchasing the site triggered a kill-switch that put an end to the global attack.

Hutchins tried his best to remain anonymous, going instead by his Twitter handle, but it only took a matter of days for journalists to discover his identity. Now he’s back in the news, but for a much more sobering reason.

It turns out the man who saved the world’s computers had allegedly crafted and sold some malware of his own a few years prior.

The program was intended to steal banking information and was made available for several thousand dollars. It’s unclear how many used the program, or the extent of the damage, but Hutchins has since been arrested outside the Las Vegas airport and indicted on six counts of computer fraud.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Hacker hero arrested →

“Unfortunately, confidence is an elusive goal for many people. And that’s because we fundamentally misunderstand the way it works.” So describes Quartz’s Melody Wilding in a fascinating article about why so many struggle with their sense of self-esteem and how the key to confidence often lies in failure as much as success.

Wilding writes of how many parents in the 1980s and 1990s worked to instill self-confidence in their children through participation awards and constant praise—earned or otherwise. The reality is that because parents helped their kids avoid failure rather than learn from it and work to become better, many of those children now struggle to build confidence on their own. As a result, we live in a culture where many either wrestle with self-doubt or overcompensate through baseless pride.

That latter temptation is especially troubling because the line between pride and confidence is often hard to discern.

As Christians, we are well aware of the dangers pride poses. So how do we live with confidence in who the Lord made us to be without crossing that line? The key is understanding where confidence ends and pride begins.

Pride and confidence cannot both exist in the same person. Pride is an overestimation of yourself; confidence is the result of a right understanding of your abilities and limitations. Consequently, prideful people are in constant need of justification to maintain the facade that they are something greater than their reality.

However, confidence does not require that sort of justification because it is already a correct view of one’s abilities and character. As a result, the confident person can be humble when the prideful person cannot because his or her limitations are not threats to be dealt with but limitations to be explored and improved upon. When we can view those aspects of our lives that need improvement as an opportunity rather than a danger, it’s a good sign we’re on the right path.

Continue reading Denison Forum – The line between pride and confidence →

The NCAA is fond of saying that most of its nearly four hundred thousand athletes “will go pro in something other than sports.” Given that a recent study found the slogan was true for more than 99 percent of student-athletes, it’s a helpful perspective for those young adults to keep in mind.

Apparently, though, it only applies once your playing career is at an end. Try to start going pro in something else while on scholarship and you’ve crossed an unforgivable line.

Donald De La Haye recently learned that lesson the hard way. As the backup kicker for a relatively unheralded program, it’s long been clear that De La Haye’s post-college career was unlikely to include football. To his credit, he made the most of his time on campus by becoming something of a YouTube star.

His channel had just over sixty thousand subscribers in June of this year—not enough to register far outside of Florida, but enough to warrant a relatively small paycheck from the video service. Unfortunately for De La Haye, the NCAA deemed his success a violation of their rules since part of the draw was that he played scholarship football at a Division 1 program.

Consequently, they told the backup kicker that if he wanted to continue doing both, he’d have to demonetize and remove any reference to his status as a student-athlete in both future videos and those he’s already made. Essentially, he can’t use his own name or status as a student-athlete to make money while under scholarship (even though the NCAA makes billions each year by doing just that). De La Haye chose YouTube and has since been kicked off the UCF football team for doing so.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Kicker loses scholarship because of YouTube →

Arizona until Donald Trump came to office. Since then, he has become a face for the conservative opposition to the kind of politics that have defined the president’s term to date. His recently published book, Conscience of a Conservative: A Rejection of Destructive Politics and a Return to Principle, continues to cause a stir among those on both sides of the aisle.

James Hohmann of The Washington Post called it “the most courageous conservative rebuttal of Trumpism yet,” while others, like Mark Levin and Brent Bozell, have called him a “liberal” and an “impostor,” respectively. I haven’t had the chance to read Sen. Flake’s book yet and will reserve judgment on it until I get the chance to do so. I’d encourage you to do the same rather than make definitive judgments based on excerpts and secondhand statements.

Rather, my purpose today is to look at the environment in which a sitting senator of the same party as the president felt he needed to publish a book denouncing the commander in chief. Such a move is largely unparalleled, especially considering that Flake’s Senate seat is up for grabs in next year’s elections, and President Trump has already reportedly offered support to conservative candidates thinking about running against the senator. It speaks volumes about Flake’s assessment of the political climate that he felt the risk of losing his seat was worth the potential reward of bringing about what he deems to be necessary changes.

Chief among those changes appears to be the belief that the Republican party has prioritized politics over convictions, embracing the partisan belief that the other party’s “failure would be our success and the fortunes of the citizenry would presumably be sorted out in the meantime.” He traces that belief back to the Republican response to Obama’s first term. Lest we make the mistake of thinking it’s solely a Republican problem, however, the now-minority Democrats have often embraced a very similar tactic since Trump came to office.

Continue reading Denison Forum – What Jeff Flake says about our nation →

Following North Korea’s successful launch of its longest-range missile to date, tensions are once again running high over the volatile nation’s plans to join the list of global nuclear powers. In a recent meeting, President Trump stated, “We will handle North Korea. We are gonna be able to handle them. It will be handled. We handle everything.” This assurance has left many ill at ease regarding the president’s plans for the region.

Sen. Lindsey Graham clarified that the president assured him part of that plan could ultimately include military intervention: “There is a military option to destroy North Korea’s [missile] program and North Korea itself.” Graham then stated his belief that such actions are “inevitable if North Korea continues.”

Kim Jong Un and the North Korean government seem undeterred by the president’s position and the recent increase in sanctions against the country. North Korea’s most recent demonstration was coupled with increased submarine activity, including a test of their ability to launch a missile from a submersed submarine. Taken together, the tests represent two-thirds of the so-called “Strategic Triad,” a military theory arguing that a nation must possess land-, air-, and sea-based nuclear capabilities to prevent an outside attack.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Can North Korea be “handled”? →

Major League Baseball’s trade deadline passed yesterday afternoon, and the outlook for this year’s playoffs remains relatively unchanged. That doesn’t mean it was boring, as the Rangers and Dodgers pulled off a swap for ace pitcher Yu Darvish at the deadline, but the trades are usually defined by the rich getting richer at the cost of future prospects. Teams positioned to win now sacrifice a bit of their future for a better chance at experiencing success in the present.

The Houston Astros, on the other hand, made the opposite decision. They currently have the best record in the American League, but their rotation grows weaker by the day, and many doubt how well it will hold up in the playoffs. Still, they kept their best prospects to safeguard the future, even though it could come at a high price in the present.

Such calculations are not unique to baseball, however. Life requires that each of us weigh these sorts of decisions every day. The difficulty of doing so without knowing their consequences is a large part of what can make our time on this side of heaven so stressful. All we can really do is try to balance what we know of the present with what we expect might happen in the future. Fortunately, we serve a God for whom tomorrow is just as real as today.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Would you trade your present for your future? →

Janet and I are on vacation, so I’ve asked our oldest son Ryan to write the Daily Article in my absence. Ryan has been writing for our website for several years. He has earned BA and Master of Divinity degrees and is completing a PhD in church history. I believe you will profit from his insights as he engages cultural issues with biblical truth.

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It’s long been said that money can’t buy happiness, but a recent study put that cliché to the test and found that it’s not always true. As The Washington Post’s Jenna Gallegos writes, those who use their money to buy more free time through outsourcing tasks like cleaning the house and mowing the yard, or by taking the tollway to and from work, were less stressed and generally happier than those who spent their money on material goods. And while that may seem like something only the well-off can afford, the study’s results were consistent across most income levels.

Unfortunately, few of us live like that. Only two percent of people reported that, if given forty dollars to spend, buying more free time would be among their initial purchases. As the study’s lead author, Ashley Whillans, put it, “People are notoriously bad at making decisions that will make them happier.” The primary reason is that it’s far more difficult to measure the value of our time than it is movie tickets, a new dress, or a few more hours at the office.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Turns out money can buy happiness →

For a few hours, Jeff Bezos was officially the wealthiest person in the world. With a net worth exceeding $90 billion, he passed Bill Gates when shares of Amazon stock surged Thursday morning. The company’s stock then settled down slightly, moving Bezos into second place today.

Amazon was named “the world’s most innovative company of 2017.” The company started as an online book retailer but now delivers everything from groceries to personal care products to cloud computing. Amazon has outgrown Walmart to become the largest retailer in the United States.

But there’s a dark side to the story. Bezos was named World’s Worst Boss by the International Trade Union Confederation in May 2014. A New York Times article profiles Amazon’s work culture, in which emails arrive past midnight followed by text messages asking why they were not answered.

The company boasts that its standards are “unreasonably high.” Some workers suffering from personal crises claim they were evaluated unfairly or forced out rather than given time to recover. One former employer said, “Nearly every person I worked with, I saw cry at their desk.”

My point today is not to criticize Jeff Bezos and Amazon but to explore the cultural narrative they illustrate. We now live in a world dominated by multinational corporations. According to one analyst, “By many measures, corporations are more central players in global affairs than nations.” Foreign Policy lists twenty-five companies, Amazon among them, which it says “are more powerful than many countries.” It calls them “corporate nations.”

Continue reading Denison Forum – What the ‘world’s richest person’ says about us →

The most inspiring article I’ve read recently comes from an unlikely source.

Johnathon Carrington graduated from Georgetown University with a double major in management and finance. While he was valedictorian of his high school class, that school was in an impoverished, drug-infested community. But Johnathon chose to view his challenges as opportunities: “Given where I come from, giving up wasn’t an option. I wasn’t going to stop.”

“Cognitive reframing” is a way of seeing and experiencing events, ideas, concepts and emotions to find more positive alternatives. We can view our challenges as insurmountable, or we can find a positive way to interpret and conquer them.

A recent article in The New York Times illustrates this concept in relation to stress.

Research indicates that having a lot of stress in your life is not linked to premature death. However, having a lot of stress and believing it is taking a toll on your health increases your risk of premature death by an astounding 43 percent.

Continue reading Denison Forum – ‘Giving up wasn’t an option’ →

“Coke” is the world’s second most recognized word after “okay.” Coca-Cola is one of the most quintessential American brands. When I pastored in Atlanta, our family often visited the World of Coca-Cola, a museum with fascinating displays of historical American culture.

But what we see in the US is apparently not what the rest of the world sees.

A dear friend traveling in Italy alerted me to a deplorable ad playing on television there. It depicts a handsome young man cleaning a backyard pool. An enraptured teenage girl stares at the “pool boy” through a window.

Then the camera pans to her brother, also staring lustfully at the man. Brother and sister race to bring him a bottle of Coca-Cola. But when they arrive, they discover to their consternation that their mother has already given him a bottle of Coke. She stares longingly at the “pool boy,” then shrugs her shoulders at her children.

Coca-Cola clearly thinks its shameless ad will sell its product in Italy, home of the conservative Roman Catholic Church. If immorality sells there, it sells anywhere.

Continue reading Denison Forum – A Coca-Cola ad that foreshadows the future →

An unidentified flying object made headlines recently when it appeared over southwest England. A “flying saucer” was spotted last week over Mexico. Is your first inclination to believe that these were probably visits from outer space?

Your answer may depend on whether you went to church last Sunday, but not in the way our culture expects.

It’s conventional wisdom that faith makes us less scientific and more gullible. However, research indicates the opposite: the less religious people are, the more likely they are to endorse empirically unsupported ideas about UFOs. In addition, the Pew Research Center has discovered that those who attend religious services less than weekly are more than twice as likely to claim they have encountered a ghost.

Writing for The New York Times, psychology professor Clay Routledge cites these studies to argue that those who are less religious still search for transcendent meaning, though in non-religious ways. He is undoubtedly right. There is a “God-shaped emptiness” in us, as Pascal noted. If we will not fill that emptiness with God, we will fill it with something or someone else.

However, there’s more to the story.

What if those who are religious are therefore more biblically literate? What if one of the reasons they are less likely to believe in ghosts and UFOs is because they know what God says about these fictions? Could it be that being more biblical makes us more scientific, not less?

Continue reading Denison Forum – UFOs appear over England and Mexico →

“Divine comedy” is how AP News describes a typographical error in a Wendy’s sign. The fast-food restaurant in Palm Beach County, Florida, recently installed a sign reading, “All of Wendy’s sins off one word—FRESH.” The word was supposed to be “spins.”

While the restaurant could use a better proofreader, its sentiment is interesting. What word does your life “spin off”?

Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. He has been hired by companies such as Google, Wells Fargo, and Warner Brothers to talk about managing people. In an interview published yesterday, he made a statement that is both simple and significant: “What we spend the majority of our waking lives doing should be something we find really valuable and rewarding.”

You would think it wouldn’t take a best-selling psychologist to point out this fact. But are you following his advice? What mission defines your life?

Here’s a better question: Whose mission defines your life?

Jordan Spieth won yesterday’s British Open in record fashion. I watched the tournament on television and was astounded by his performance over the last five holes. His temperament in facing adversity was absolutely remarkable. Spieth is not yet twenty-four years old, but his maturity is already legendary.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Why a typo in Wendy’s sign is ‘divine comedy’ →

This morning’s news is dominated by O. J. Simpson after a parole board unanimously voted yesterday to release the former NFL player from prison. The seventy-year-old Simpson could be free as early as October 1 after serving the minimum nine years of a thirty-three-year sentence.

Orenthal James Simpson was indisputably one of the greatest athletes in NFL history—a five-time Pro Bowler, five-time first-team All Pro, NFL Most Valuable Player, NFL 1970s All-Decade Team, and AP Athlete of the Year.

But his success on the field concealed a troubled life off it.

His father was a well-known drag queen in the San Francisco area who later announced he was gay and died of AIDS in 1986. His parents separated when he was five, and he was raised by his mother. He joined a street gang as a teenager and was incarcerated briefly.

After two years of community college, Simpson transferred to the University of Southern California, where his gifts as a running back made national headlines. He won the Heisman Trophy and was drafted number one by the NFL. His football career and endorsements made him a household name.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Learning from the tragedy of O. J. Simpson →

Stephen Colbert is the most popular talk show host on late-night television. He has discussed his Christian faith frequently over the years; I have written about the fact that he teaches Sunday school and attends mass regularly with his family.

Last Tuesday night, however, Colbert made an extremely obscene gesture as he was ridiculing the Republicans’ failure to pass health care reform. Last May he made headlines with another sexual obscenity as he lambasted President Trump.

How does his lewd behavior reflect on his faith?

A Christian in Israel is accused of stabbing his daughter to death because she was dating a Muslim. A report released Tuesday claims that at least 547 members of a prestigious Catholic boys’ choir in Germany were physically or sexually abused between 1945 and 1992.

Meanwhile, books condoning marital rape were found in an Islamic high school library in England. Three Muslims shot and killed two Israeli officers at the Temple Mount last Friday, triggering tensions that are continuing today.

When you read such stories about Muslims, how do they make you feel about Islam? When non-Christians read stories about the sins of Christians, that’s how they feel about our faith.

Now consider a story you might have missed: Betty Dukes died recently. You may not know her name, but the world’s largest retailer certainly does.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Stephen Colbert makes news for the wrong reason →

A Pennsylvania high school banned a pro-life club but allowed a gay club. There are now more than 900 “Gay-Straight Alliance Clubs” in American schools. Drag queens are reading stories to kindergartners in a New York Public Library.

Does it seem to you that tolerance is our culture’s only “truth”?

Last week I wrote a Daily Article on the question, should a Christian attend a same-sex wedding? My article elicited a wide range of responses. All were gracious; most readers agreed with the position I suggested. However, some took different positions and several asked about attending the wedding of a Christian marrying a non-Christian, a couple who is living together, or a divorced couple.

Nearly all of us are affected directly by these issues. In order to discuss them more fully, I wrote a white paper for our website titled simply, When To Attend A Wedding. I invite you to read the paper and would like to devote this article to a related theme: What is the balance between grace and truth?

We know that Christianity is a relationship with God founded on his grace: “It is by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9). We are all sinners in need of salvation and sanctification. The closer we get to God, the further away we realize we are.

How can we refuse others the grace we have received? How can we be legalistic with their sins when the Lord has been so forgiving of ours? When we consider the way Jesus welcomed tax collectors and lepers and prostitutes into his movement, how can we do less?

Whether the issue is homosexuality, adultery, divorce, or any other moral issue, it feels so “Christian” to offer grace to all without judgment. It seems so right to simply love people and trust God to deal with their issues. After all, the last thing we want is to turn someone from eternal salvation because we were intolerant of them.

Continue reading Denison Forum – How to respond to the intolerance of tolerance →

Garth Brooks was performing in Oklahoma City when he noticed a commotion in the crowd: a man had just proposed to his fiancée. Brooks stopped the concert to ask their names. Then he told them that he and his wife, Trisha Yearwood, would pay for their honeymoon if they went to Hawaii. I hope you’ll watch the video—it’s a great moment that defines grace and joy.

Let’s think about Brooks’s offer: he would pay, but only for Hawaii. Did this make him gracious or demanding? He gave the couple no explanation for insisting that they go to Hawaii. They could accept his generosity, or they could question his motives.

But they could not do both.

When our challenges are growing and our prayers seem unanswered, it is easier to question our Father’s providence than to trust his provision. In Psalm 22, David cries to the Lord, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (v. 1). But note his affirmation just two verses later: “Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel” (v. 3).

In Habakkuk 3, the nation is in financial crisis, but see how the prophet responds: “Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation” (vv. 17–18).

Continue reading Denison Forum – Garth Brooks offers to pay for Hawaiian honeymoon →

Of all the strange stories making news over the weekend, this was perhaps the strangest. A worker went inside an ATM in Corpus Christi to repair the locking mechanism of the door. It shut behind him, locking him in.

He didn’t have his phone with him, so he started feeding notes into the receipt dispenser asking for help. Most customers thought his notes were a prank, but someone finally called the police. They kicked down the door, freeing the man.

Imagine this event as a parable: people are locked inside the materialism of our culture. They need help escaping their prison for the freedom found only in Jesus. How will we respond?

I was reading Jeremiah 1 and came to this statement from God about Israel: “I will declare my judgments against them, for all their evil in forsaking me” (v. 16a). What “evil”? “They have made offerings to other gods and worshiped the works of their own hands” (v. 16b).

What was Jeremiah to do in response? “But you, dress yourself for work; arise, and say to them everything that I command you” (v. 17a). Note that the prophet must say “everything” he hears from God, whether his message will be popular or unpopular. The Lord anticipated this concern, continuing: “Do not be dismayed by them, lest I dismay you” (v. 17b). “Dismayed” translates a Hebrew word that means to be “terrified.”

As I studied these words, this paradoxical insight came to me: we need not fear people unless we fear them.
Continue reading Denison Forum – Man caught in ATM seeks help through receipt slot →

Who is Kid Rock, and why should you care that he plans to run for the US Senate?

The musician, whose birth name is Robert James Ritchie, is a rapper and singer whose albums have sold more than thirty-five million copies worldwide. An outspoken conservative, he endorsed Mitt Romney for president in 2012. Now he has announced that he will run for the US Senate from Michigan.

Why am I writing about yet another musician/actor/celebrity who wants to enter politics? Consider his positions on moral issues: “I am definitely a Republican on fiscal issues and the military, but I lean to the middle on social issues. I am no fan of abortion, but it’s not up to a man to tell a woman what to do. As an ordained minister I don’t look forward to marrying gay people, but I’m not opposed to it.”

I could find nothing online about his claim to be an “ordained minister,” but that’s not my point. I’m writing today to predict that we will see more “Kid Rock” theology in the future. His positions capture the essence of our postmodern relativistic culture: he’s personally opposed to abortion but believes it’s the woman’s right to choose, and he’s uncomfortable with gay marriage but not opposed to it. He seems conservative and tolerant at the same time, which is the best of both worlds.

Except that it’s not.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Why it matters that Kid Rock will run for Senate →