The relationship between private virtue and public flourishing

In our ever-more connected world, what happens anywhere can affect us everywhere. For example, what implications could the recent exploding pager attacks against Hezbollah have for air travel in America? Could terrorists do to us what Israel was able to do to Hezbollah terrorists? Could our personal electronics explode mid-flight, bringing our planes crashing to the ground?

The answer is actually good news: US officials say TSA screening is able to detect such explosives, so they have no current plans to ban such devices from air travel. However, the issue reminds us that actions in one part of the world have direct consequences on the other side of the world.

Another example is President Biden’s recent announcement that the US is donating one million mpox vaccine doses and at least $500 million to African countries to support their response to the outbreak. This is good global citizenship, but it is also a way to counter the spread of the virus to our country.

Now let’s consider another illustration of our topic, one that affects every one of us in truly vital ways.

Do you trust the government to tell you the truth?

More than 60 percent of Americans admit to “self-silencing”—keeping their true feelings on sensitive topics to themselves. For example:

• Only 22 percent of Americans say publicly that they trust the government to tell them the truth. (Consider for a moment the implications of this response.) However, when asked in a way that preserves their anonymity, it turns out only 4 percent actually feel this way.
• 24 percent say publicly that they trust the media to tell them the truth, but only 7 percent say the same in private.
• 37 percent say publicly that we live in a “mostly fair society,” but only 7 percent say the same privately.

These numbers are deeply troubling on two levels: the degree of distrust we feel toward our government, media, and society, and the degree of distrust we feel even to share our true feelings in public.

This news reveals an issue foundational to our democracy, one identified early in our history by John Adams. (In what follows, the founding father means “Republican” to refer to the American democratic republic, not the political party that arose nearly a century later. Also, I preserved the capitalizations and spellings he used.) In 1772, Adams wrote that “the preservation of Liberty depends upon the intellectual and moral Character of the People.” Four years later, he stated:

There must be a positive Passion for the public good, the public Interest, Honour, Power, and Glory, established in the Minds of the People, or there can be no Republican Government, nor any real liberty. And this public Passion must be Superiour to all private Passions. Men must be ready, they must pride themselves, and be happy to sacrifice their private Pleasures, Passions, and Interests, nay their private Friendships and dearest Connections, when they Stand in Competition with the Rights of society.

In 1795, Adams warned: “When Ambition and Avarice are predominant Passions and Virtue is lost, Republican Governments are in danger.” In 1798, he famously stated:

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

In 1807, he claimed, “Without national Morality, a Republican Government cannot be maintained.” And in 1819, he stated, “Without Virtue, there can be no political Liberty.”

“Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom”

According to John Adams, the personal morality of some of us affects the national experience of all of us. Private virtue is vital to public government.

The reason is simple: If we cannot govern ourselves, we cannot govern each other.

We cannot give others what we do not possess. We cannot ensure that, in Abraham Lincoln’s immortal words, “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth” if “the people” are incapable of such government.

What is the pathway to personal character? Consider this biblical command:

Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lᴏʀᴅ who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth (Jeremiah 9:23–24).

Jesus prayed: “This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). Paul therefore testified: “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8).

Oswald Chambers observed: “The summing up of our Lord’s teaching is that the relationship which he demands is an impossible one unless he has done a supernatural work in us.”

“Thou in me dwelling, and I with thee one”

If you want our nation to experience God’s best today, strive for personal morality that strengthens public democracy. To do this, “seek the Lᴏʀᴅ and his strength; seek his presence continually!” (Psalm 105:4). Settle for nothing less than a transforming, intimate daily relationship with your Father. Experience his love in prayer, Bible study, and worship. Practice his presence as you walk consciously with him through your day.

God calls us to “seek my face” (Psalm 27:8), knowing that one day we will “see his face” (Revelation 22:4). In the meantime, let’s make the medieval Irish hymn our prayer:

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart,
Be all else but naught to me, save that thou art;
Thou my best thought in the day and the night,
Waking and sleeping, thy presence my light.

Be thou my wisdom, thou my true word,
Thou ever with me, and I with thee, Lord;
Thou my great Father, and I thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with thee one.

Are you “one” with your “great Father” today?

If not, why not?

Thursday news to know:

• Hurricane Helene could bring “catastrophic and deadly storm surge” to parts of Florida Gulf Coast
• US leads new effort to end hostilities in Lebanon and Gaza, sources say
• Eric Adams is indicted after federal corruption investigation
• Congress passes temporary bill to avoid shutdown as lawmakers punt spending decisions to December
• On this day in 1960: Kennedy and Nixon square off in first televised presidential debate

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote for the day:

“There are far too many people who settle for practicing a sterile religion rather than enjoying a growing, vibrant, personal relationship with the living God.” —Henry Blackaby

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Choosing the God who has chosen you

If you’ve never heard of Apollo Quiboloy before, you’re not alone. His name was unfamiliar to me as well before reading a recent article in Christianity Today that chronicled his legacy and arrest on charges of rape, sex trafficking, fraud, and smuggling. What makes his arrest particularly troubling, however, is the legacy he leaves behind as the leader of a cult in which he claimed to be the “Appointed Son of God.”

Quiboloy started his movement, called the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KOJC), in 1985. Prior to that, he was a pastor in the United Pentecostal Church International (UPCI). His departure was, perhaps, expedited by the fact that the UPCI was already investigating him for false teachings by the time he left.

His church began with fifteen followers but eventually grew to as many as seven million, as his claims of being a messianic figure and bridge to God proved attractive to the people around him.

He states that he earned his title as God’s Appointed Son because “he was the first man to have endured all the fiery trials of persecution and hardship and to have overcome them all without breaking his covenant with the Father.” Moreover, he claimed to have broken “the chain of sin by his absolute obedience to the Father’s will.”

As such, he represented the firstborn and start of Christ’s second coming, which he taught would occur “in millions of sons and daughters of the Father in the Kingdom Nation of God on earth.”

As with many cults, however, his false teachings were not the only way in which he misled and abused his followers.

One of many

In 2021, Quiboloy was indicted by a federal grand jury in California after he was accused of forcing the girls he used as personal assistants—some as young as twelve—to have sex with him or risk “eternal damnation.” He also relied upon a network of followers to solicit donations that were used to finance “the lavish lifestyle of KOJC leaders.” Such allegations were hardly unique to the United States, however.

His crimes were well-known back home, but he was allowed to continue unhindered, largely because he enjoyed the protection of the nation’s former president, Rodrigo Duterte. As such, even after being placed on the FBI’s most wanted list, he continued to preach and build up followers.

It was not until Duterte stepped down in 2022 that the path was cleared for Quiboloy’s arrest. Yet, even then, it required 2,000 security officers to storm his complex and get past the thousands of followers who had amassed in order to protest his arrest; followers who have not exactly abandoned their leader in the days since.

And even with Quiboloy in jail, it remains unlikely that circumstances will change in the Philippines anytime soon.

You see, as Beng Alba-Jones notes in the article referenced above, the KOJC is one of many such cults that continues to play an outsized role in Filipino society. And the reason why should serve as a warning to all of us, regardless of where we call home.

What drives your devotion?

The common thread running through most of the Filipino cults Alba-Jones described is the idea that the best way to relate to God is to go through those who claim to be closer to him than we are. And that impulse is hardly limited to the Philippines.

We see it in the Old Testament when the people wanted to go through Moses rather than relate to God directly (Exodus 20:18–19). We see it in the way priests and rabbis became the undisputed mouthpiece for the Lord by the time of Jesus. And we see it today with the following garnered by many pastors and religious leaders.

Even in the secular parts of our culture, there are countless examples of musicians, politicians, athletes, and others who garner an almost religious level of devotion among their fans.

But why is that the case? Why do we seem to insist on following humans rather than God when Jesus came to enable us to go directly to the Father?

I think at least part of the explanation is that, on some level, most of us recognize that the very idea that we should be able to interact with the omnipotent God of the universe is pretty ridiculous. After all, there is zero reason that you or I should deserve an audience with our perfect creator. As a result, when someone else comes along and offers to serve as the mediator we know we should need, it just makes more sense.

The problem with that line of thinking is that we don’t get to be the ones to decide who is and isn’t worthy of experiencing a personal relationship with God. Only he gets to make that choice, and he has chosen to extend that invitation to all of us.

However, accepting that invitation means recognizing that we don’t deserve it. It means making peace with the fact that we have done nothing to earn his favor and can never repay the debt Jesus covered on our behalf.

In short, it means moving beyond our desire to be God when that impulse has been at the core of our fallen natures from the start (Genesis 3).

So, the next time you see people fawning over pop stars, politicians, or pastors, remember that the same impulse driving their devotion lives in you as well. It may not manifest in the same way, but our need for God’s help in making sure that he remains the focus of our worship is just as great as theirs.

Have you sought that help yet today?

Friday news to know:

• Pentagon concerned Israel will soon send troops into Lebanon after the latest bombing
• Kentucky sheriff arrested after shooting judge inside the courthouse
• Shohei Ohtani becomes first MLB player with 50 HR and 50 SB in a season after “greatest baseball game of all time”
• US overdose deaths drop by more than 10 percent over the last year
• On this day in 1973: Billie Jean King beats Bobby Riggs in “Battle of the Sexes”

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote for the day:

“Religion operates on the principle of ‘I obey—therefore I am accepted by God.’ The basic operating principle of the gospel is ‘I am accepted by God through the work of Jesus Christ—therefore I obey.’” —Tim Keller

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Israel bombed Lebanon’s Hezbollah targets and a weapons storage facility in southern Lebanon this morning. Yesterday, the terrorist group was hit by a second wave of exploding devices as walkie-talkies blew up in homes, cars, and operatives’ hands across Lebanon. The explosions came a day after thousands of pagers carried by Hezbollah members blew up at roughly the same time, killing twelve and injuring more than 2,800 people.

Reports indicate that Israel intended to explode these devices just before a full-scale war but chose to proceed due to concerns that Hezbollah might have discovered their plan. The use of exploding personal devices is apparently intended to show Hezbollah leaders that they are personally vulnerable in a war with the Jewish nation.

Such intent frames my point today.

Why “we must hang together”

Reading the news through the lens of personal relevance is an understandable way to filter the cataract of content that would otherwise overwhelm us daily. For instance, you and I would obviously care more about the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah if we lived in Lebanon or northern Israel.

Consider Instagram’s new Teen Accounts safety feature, California’s new laws protecting actors against unauthorized use of AI, political developments in Canada, new deep-sea footage of the doomed Titan submersible wreckage, and a new study revealing changes in the human brain throughout pregnancy—such stories impact us to the degree to which they affect us personally.

There was a day when American culture focused more on the collective than the individual. At the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin reportedly quipped, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” As Yuval Levin reminds us, the first words of the US Constitution are: “We the People of the United States . . .”

In those days, colonial Americans needed each other if their infant nation was to win its war for independence against the mightiest military power the world had ever seen. Participatory governance and an agrarian economy also required the engagement of all thirteen colonies. That’s why our Constitution created three co-equal branches of governance with foundational checks and balances to ensure the participation and representation of all citizens, a fact Levin demonstrates powerfully in his new book American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation—and Could Again.

But our collectivism ran even deeper than these pragmatic necessities.

How’s this working for us?

The prevailing moral worldview in Europe at the time was deontological, a rules-based ethical framework especially promoted by the philosopher Immanuel Kant. “Duty for duty’s sake” was his maxim. If you knew the right thing to do, it was only right to attempt to do it.

It was conventional wisdom for many—and especially for America’s founders—that such duties are most fully expressed in biblical morality. This is why so many of them insisted that religion and morality are “indispensable supports” of democracy (to quote George Washington’s famed Farewell Address).

That was then—this is now. Some signposts along the way:

• Darwinian evolution persuaded many that the Bible is more myth than science.
• Freud popularized the notion that faith in God is a neurotic attempt to control the external world.
• Wilhelm Reich claimed that humans should be free to express themselves sexually however they wish.
• Herbert Marcuse argued that speech must be censored if it contradicts society’s new norms.

The result is a culture that has jettisoned objective truth and biblical morality for a “post-truth” subjectivism that embraces sexual and personal “freedom” at all costs. Anyone who disagrees is considered dangerous to society.

We have therefore replaced deontological morality (based on objective rules) with teleological ethics (the desired ends justify the means). In this world, your society exists to enable your personal desires and happiness, however you define them.

In light of our escalating suicide rate and ongoing epidemic of loneliness, depression, and anxiety, we might ask: How’s this working for us?

“Sir, we would see Jesus”

You and I were made for the One who made us. This is why embracing and sharing biblical truth is so vital to our souls and our society. It is why, on the pulpit of every church I pastored, I inscribed the words,

“Sir, we would see Jesus” (John 12:21 KJV).

And it is why Denison Ministries exists—to give God’s word to the world by speaking biblical truth to the vital issues of our day. It is also why your financial support on North Texas Giving Day and across the year is so vital—so we can offer biblical truth free of charge.

God is blessing our work because he always blesses his word (Isaiah 55:10–11). Last year, our biblical content was read, heard, or seen more than ninety-two million times. We are excited about new ways of reaching even more people in the months and years to come.

In his personal journal, UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld (1905–61) noted:

God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason.

Will this Source illumine your life today?

NOTE: Today is North Texas Giving Day — the most important day of the year for Denison Forum. This is our BIGGEST opportunity to make a lasting impact, and we need your help to seize it. By giving today, you’ll support the creation of biblically grounded, civil content that inspires, informs, and transforms lives for Christ. Great news as well: We’ve just received an additional $25,000 Matching Grant! That means your gift will be DOUBLED. So don’t wait. Take advantage of this opportunity to double your impact to guide more Christians through these challenging times with a steady, nonpartisan voice.

Thursday news to know:

• Fed slashes interest rates by a half point, an aggressive start to its first easing campaign in four years
• Teamsters union declines to endorse in presidential election, breaking decades of precedent
• Body found amid Kentucky manhunt believed to be gunman in highway mass shooting
• Boeing furloughs thousands as it hunkers down for extended strike
• On this day in 1957: Nevada is site of first-ever underground nuclear explosion

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote for the day:

“Christ is the key which unlocks the golden doors into the temple of divine truth.” —A. W. Pink

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