The power of Christian character to change the culture

Let’s meet a couple whose commitment to Christ and to godliness is making headlines. Rebekah Hurford and Kirk Peter plan to get married one day, but they’ve never shared a passionate kiss and are waiting until marriage to do so. When the Christian couple began dating, they chose not to become intimate. They never sleep at the same place. They have had sexual relationships with others in the past which led to “broken trust” and “a lot of wounds,” so this time they’re choosing to live biblically.

How’s this working for them?

“The result of strong boundaries and saving ourselves until marriage has been the most joyful and stress-free relationship of my thirty-one years,” Hurford says. She added: “Don’t compromise in dating, ladies, the man who will honor you is out there.”

You might think I read their story in a Christian publication, but it’s actually a headline in the New York Post. So was this: “Scottie Scheffler has become golf’s unassuming megastar.” The article was published even before Scheffler won the Masters and then won again yesterday.

Though he is always quick to give the glory to God, as I noted after his triumph at Augusta, the secular world doesn’t seem to make the connection. One golf commentator went on and on Saturday describing what a “good person” Scheffler is with no mention of the real reason why.

It’s a fact: The darker the room, the more obvious and attractive the light.

A quick way to improve your health

Yesterday we focused on research indicating that perhaps as few as 5 percent of Americans attend religious services weekly. What are they missing?

A friend recently pointed out this article: “Why public health should attend to the spiritual side of life.” The subheading answers the question: “Research suggests weekly service attendance is associated with better health.”

The writer points to extensive evidence that “weekly religious service attendance is longitudinally associated with lower mortality risk, lower depression, less suicide, better cardiovascular disease survival, better health behaviors, and greater marital stability, happiness, and purpose in life,” linking to research for each outcome.

He also notes that about 40 percent of the increasing suicide rate in the United States from 1999 to 2014 could be attributed to declines in attendance at religious services during this period. According to another study, declining attendance from 1991 to 2019 accounted for 28 percent of the increase in depression among adolescents.

Again, you might think I’m quoting from Christianity Today or a similar publication, but this article was written by Tyler VanderWeele, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, and published by Harvard.

The darker the room, the more obvious and attractive the light.

Benjamin Franklin on the power of faith

Our spiritual enemy has a strategy for combatting stories like the ones we’re discussing today. If he cannot get us to reject Christ, he’ll tempt us to adopt religion. That’s because he knows that religion cannot save anyone’s soul—only a personal relationship with Jesus can do that. Religion cannot transform the human heart—only the indwelling Holy Spirit can do that.

St. Basil the Great (AD 330–379) observed:

Through the Holy Spirit comes our restoration to paradise, our ascension into the kingdom of heaven, our return to the status of adopted sons, our liberty to call God our Father, our being made partakers of the grace of Christ, our being called children of light, our sharing in eternal glory—in a word, our being brought into a state of all fullness of blessing both in this world and in the world to come, of all the good gifts that are in store for us.

When you and I experience the risen Christ each day, our lives cannot be same. Nor can our culture. Even Benjamin Franklin, not known for evangelical piety, recognized this fact:

“He who shall introduce into public affairs the principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world.”

“Christ in you” is “the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27), not just for your soul but for everyone you influence.

The darker the room, the more obvious and attractive the light.

“Long eagerly for what heaven has in store”

Pope St. Gregory the Great (AD 540–604) encouraged us:

Let us stir up our hearts, rekindle our faith, and long eagerly for what heaven has in store for us. To love thus is to be already on our way. No matter what obstacles we encounter, we must not allow them to turn us aside from the joy of that heavenly feast. Anyone who is determined to reach his destination is not deterred by the roughness of the road that leads to it. Nor must we allow the charm of success to seduce us, or we shall be like a foolish traveler who is so distracted by the pleasant meadows through which he is passing that he forgets where he is going.

Are you “determined” to reach your “destination” today?

Tuesday news to know:

• NY vs. Trump: First witness takes the stand in Manhattan court
• Columbia cancels in-person classes amid pro-Palestinian protests
• Supreme Court divided over homeless ban and rights of the unhoused
• Lyrid meteor shower 2024: How to see a stunning fireball tonight
• On this day in 1564: William Shakespeare was born

Quote for the day:

“In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.” —Francis Bacon

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Cultural Christianity and the power to change culture

How many Americans say they attend religious services each week?

How many actually do?

According to Gallup polling, 21 percent of us say we attend religious services every week; 41 percent say they attend at least monthly.

However, the data says otherwise.

Devin Pope, a business school professor at the University of Chicago, studied cell phone geodata from over two million Americans to examine their behavior with respect to religion. He found that only 5 percent attended services weekly, and only 21 percent attended monthly. As an article reporting Pope’s study headlined, “People who say they go to religious services weekly are probably lying.”

The story raises a cultural question: Why would so many people claim to attend religious services so much more often than they actually do?

Religion is twice as popular as sports

According to Gallup, about three in four Americans identify with a specific religious faith. Religious commitment therefore outranks a number of other significant identifiers in our culture:

• 28 percent of Americans identify as Democrats, 28 percent as Republicans, and 41 percent as independents.
• 60 percent of us are employed.
• 66 percent of us own a home.
• 37 percent of us say we follow sports extremely or somewhat closely.

In an ever more secularized society, why is it still appealing for so many Americans to claim a religious identity and even to say that they often attend religious services?

British atheist Richard Dawkins made headlines recently by claiming to be a “cultural Christian.” He meant that he appreciates the contribution of Christianity to his country’s history and cultural heritage and prefers the Christian tradition to Islam or other options.

I think Dawkins speaks for many. Religiosity still equates to cultural, moral, and traditional values in our society.

But religiosity is not enough to meet the challenges we face today.

“A hedge against bad things”

In his brilliant exposition, Why Politics Fails, Oxford professor Ben Ansell identifies one of the greatest values of democratic governance: “There’s nothing . . . that guarantees democracies get good politicians. But at least ‘the people’ will be able to throw them out if they’re terrible.”

Cultural commentator Jonah Goldberg agrees:

Democracy’s greatness lies in the fact it is a hedge against bad things. (Its record in assuring good things is decidedly more mixed and contestable.) The ability to fire people is essential to political competition. If a politician or a party screws up or starts looking out for its own interests more than the interests of the voters, the ability to kick them out is essential. This was among the greatest innovations in human history. Monarchs and aristocracies can get selfish and self-absorbed. Indeed, they always do eventually. Politicians are prone to the same tendencies. But in a democracy, you can get rid of them without swords or guns.

While we can be grateful for democracy’s ability to remove bad leaders, Ansell is right: democracy cannot guarantee good leaders. The people we vote into office next will be just as fallen and flawed as the ones they replace.

And religiosity cannot make up the difference.

Only one of the 469 members of the current US Congress admits to being religiously “unaffiliated,” while 87 percent claim to be Christian and another 6 percent say they are Jewish. America has never elected an avowed atheist as president.

How is the religiosity of our leaders working out for us?

Cultural Christianity is a contradiction in terms

We experience the transforming power of Christianity not by identifying with it as a religion but by experiencing the living Christ personally. Saul of Tarsus was changed not by changing his religious identity from Jewish to Christian but by meeting the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. He would later explain this reality to the rest of us: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

This is how all relationships work. Marriage changes your life not because you are “married” but because you commit your life to your spouse and they to you. The same is true with parenthood, education, or employment—it is not identifying with the institution but experiencing the relationship it offers that matters.

However, this is especially true with Christianity. Unlike your spouse or parents, your Lord lives in you by his Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:16). Unlike your employer or professor, Jesus has the divine power to forgive your every sin (1 John 1:9) and to transform your character into his (Romans 8:29).

Here’s the bottom line:

Cultural Christianity is a contradiction in terms, but biblical Christianity transforms culture.

When last did the living Lord Jesus change your life?

NOTE: Did you know that Denison Forum is a nonprofit ministry fully supported by readers like you? So, when you request one of our books—like our just-released and updated edition of Between Compromise and Courage—you’re supporting our calling “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Eph 4:12). Get your copy of our new book today; impact believers across the world tomorrow.

Monday news to know:

• House approves $95 billion aid bill for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan
• US-China internet war intensifies as House passes TikTok ban
• Israeli military intelligence chief resigns over his role in failing to prevent Oct. 7 attack
• Nelly Korda wins fifth consecutive title at the Chevron Championship
• On this day in 1994: Former President Richard Nixon dies

Quote for the day:

“Christians are supposed not merely to endure change, nor even to profit by it, but to cause it.” —Harry Emerson Fosdick

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Israel conducted a strike in Iran early this morning in what appears to be its first military response to Iran’s unprecedented attack on Israel last weekend.

Fars news agency, which is affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, reported that explosions were heard in the city of Isfahan in central Iran near an air force base. Iranian state TV also reported that several drones were shot down by air defenses in the city.

Climbing down “the escalation ladder”?

The limited scale of the attack and Iran’s muted response both seem to signal a successful effort by diplomats working to avert all-out war after Iran’s drone and missile attack on Israel last Saturday. Tehran is playing down the incident and indicates it has no plans to respond. In fact, they referred to the incident as an attack by “infiltrators” rather than by Israel, obviating the need for retaliation.

According to Israeli officials, their leaders came close to ordering widespread strikes in Iran on the night Iran attacked. However, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to American President Joe Biden, and because the damage was limited, the war cabinet postponed a decision.

Rather than launching a response that would intensify the conflict with Iran, Israel chose a limited action aimed at military targets. Its response was reportedly intended to show Iran that Israel can strike within its borders, but without provoking a larger escalation. In turn, Iranian state-run media sought to minimize the incident, airing footage of an otherwise peaceful Isfahan morning.

“As long as Iran continues to deny the attack and deflect attention from it and no further hits are seen, there is space for both sides to climb down the escalation ladder for now,” according to Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House.

“Nations do not have permanent friends or enemies”

We can be grateful that leaders in Israel and Iran have apparently chosen the path of de-escalation, since an all-out war between their nations would affect the world in a number of dire ways:

• Oil supplies would be threatened, sending oil prices skyward and damaging the global economy.
• A conflict could trigger a sell-off in the global stock market, with oil-based sectors such as automobiles, transportation, and aviation taking the greatest hit.
• Such a war would likely bring Hezbollah more fully into the conflict, threatening all of Israel with its rocket and missile systems and formidable ground forces.
• And Iran could develop nuclear weapons, a step it has avoided thus far through fear of military escalation with Israel and the US.

However, we should not interpret the motives of Iranian and Israeli leaders so altruistically.

In his perceptive book Why Politics Fails, Oxford professor Ben Ansell writes:

The basic model underlying political economy is that everyone is selfish, or at the very least self-interested. You have a set of things that you want, and you’ll do your utmost to get them. Self-interest is everywhere. It explains why we do what we do. And why we should expect others to do that as well.

This is why, as British Prime Minister Henry John Temple stated in the mid-1800s:

“Nations do not have permanent friends or enemies, only interests.”

His sentiment was echoed most famously by former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, but it applies to all nations across all of history.

Leaders in democracies are elected to advance the interests of the people they serve. However, it is in their self-interest to do so effectively enough to be reelected. Leaders in autocracies typically act to their personal benefit. In both cases, if we can determine what is in their self-interest, we can typically predict their behavior.

It is in Israel’s self-interest not to escalate conflict directly with Iran while it confronts the existential threat of Hamas in Gaza along with Hezbollah on its northern border, militias in Syria and Iraq, jihadists in the West Bank, and the Houthis in Yemen. It is in Iran’s self-interest to wage its war with Israel through proxies rather than in ways that directly endanger its military and economy.

Thus, the long-running “shadow war” between the two nations has apparently returned to its previous status quo—at least for now.

How to discover if you are a servant

What is true of national leaders is also true of individual humans. It is in my self-interest to write an article this morning that you will find helpful to the degree that you continue to read what I write and support the ministry that enables me to do this work. It is in your self-interest to read this article to the degree that it meets your personal needs on some level.

There is only one way to escape the “will to power” by which we strive to be our own god (Genesis 3:5), and that is to experience the transformation by which God’s Spirit remakes us in the image of God’s Son so that we manifest the character of the God who “is” love (1 John 4:8). The “fruit” of this Spirit in our lives is “love,” translating the Greek agape, which refers to the unconditional, self-sacrificial commitment to put the other person first (Galatians 5:22).

When we submit our lives every day to the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), he enables us to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31). He empowers us to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). With his help, we can break the cycle of retribution by forgiving as we have been forgiven and loving as we are loved.

Today’s news highlights the binary choice I discussed yesterday: to treat people as instrumentally valuable to the degree that they are means to our ends, or to treat them as intrinsically valuable as sacred bearers of the imago Dei (Genesis 1:27).

The former perpetuates the wars between nations and conflicts between people that have blighted humanity across our history. The latter is the path to God’s best for ourselves and our world as we emulate the One who “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).

To discover if you are truly a servant, see how you respond the next time someone treats you like one.

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