Kamala Harris was “completely shocked” by her election night loss to Donald Trump, while her running mate, Tim Walz, was so “stunned” by their defeat that he had “no words.” This is according to The Hill correspondent Amie Parnes, co-author of FIGHT: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House.

Reading the book, I noted the degree to which their campaign team “bought the hype” that they were doing better than they were based on crowd sizes and fundraising. They are not the first, of course; Mitt Romney’s internal polls persuaded him that he would defeat Barack Obama in 2012, for example.

Our “post-truth” culture is absolutely convinced that there is no such thing as absolute truth, despite the illogic of this claim. In this view, reality is what we believe it to be. But believing something doesn’t necessarily make it true, as any politician who lost a race they thought they would win can tell you.

Duke was convinced they would defeat Houston Saturday night up to the last seconds of the game when they didn’t. Now I’m convinced my hometown Cougars will defeat Florida tonight to win the NCAA men’s championship (unless they don’t).

Tom Cruise pays tribute to Val Kilmer

However, believing something to be true can make it true if the consequence of our choice depends upon our choice. For example, if I believe I am capable of being a good writer and therefore write this article, I then have the opportunity to make my belief a reality.

By contrast, some realities become true for us because we refuse to believe that they are true. If I believe I am unworthy of writing this article and therefore refuse to finish it, my belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

My dermatologist recently diagnosed a spot on my jawline that needed to be removed before it became cancerous. If I had chosen to believe that she was wrong, my rejection of her prediction would have made it a reality.

These reflections were spurred by Tom Cruise’s comments at a film event in Las Vegas last week. Paying tribute to his Top Gun costar Val Kilmer, he asked attendees to join him in a moment of silence. Afterward, speaking to the late actor, he said, “I wish you well on the next journey.”

Cruise’s tribute has generated stories praising him for his kind words. None that I have seen questioned whether his “wish” is based in reality.

“I don’t believe in heaven and hell”

According to Jesus, our “next journey” after death is binary. Speaking of himself, he testified: “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe in him is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 3:18).

Rejecting Jesus’ clear statement about heaven and hell does not invalidate it—it means we reject the only way we can experience the first and avoid the second. The apostles testified about our Lord: “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

By contrast, George Clooney famously declared, “I don’t believe in heaven and hell,” as though his opinion changes their existence. This is an example of Nietzsche’s “acoustic illusion,” the fallacy that what we do not hear does not exist to be heard. Clooney’s disbelief does not change the reality of heaven and hell any more than disbelieving in Australia changes its existence.

As a result, the best way to wish someone “well on the next journey” is to help them prepare for that journey before it begins.

Woman fights an alligator to save her dog

The first step is to believe that lost people are truly lost. That, despite the tolerance-based relativism of our culture, Jesus was right when he said of himself, “No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Then, like the Florida woman who risked her life by prying a six-foot alligator’s jaws open to save her dog, we will do whatever it takes to help the people we know come to know our Lord.

The next is to share our story with them, telling them how we met Jesus and how they can do the same. This is to be our lifestyle, not just our occasional effort: “Sing to the Lᴏʀᴅ; bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day” (Psalm 96:2; cf. Acts 1:8).

Our job is not to convict people of sins or lead them to faith—this is the work of the Holy Spirit (cf. John 16:8–11). Our job is to be a witness who goes to the stand when the Spirit calls us to testify and then tells what we know. If the “jury” rejects the One on whose behalf we testify, that is their fault rather than ours (cf. Acts 7:54–60). If they choose for him, that will be their eternal joy and ours (cf. Luke 15:7).

If, however, we do not tell what we know, that is our fault: “If anyone sins in that he hears a public adjuration to testify, and though he is a witness, whether he has seen or come to know the matter, yet does not speak, he shall bear his iniquity” (Leviticus 5:1).

“The truth that can fuel this transformation”

Easter is that season above all seasons when people are open to spiritual conversations about our risen Lord. Over the next two weeks, as we serve God in the “great might” that the Spirit “worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead” (Ephesians 1:19-20), his resurrection power can work through us to raise the spiritually dead to eternal life.

Commenting on this text, Billy Graham wrote:

Did you know that the same power that raised Christ from the dead is available to you and me today? The moment we receive Jesus as Savior, the Holy Spirit comes into our hearts. He gives us supernatural power to overcome temptations, to smile through tears, to experience joy despite life’s burdens and trials. The Holy Spirit will raise you from the mundane, the monotonous, the hopeless; he will raise you out of your spiritual lifelessness and transform you.

In fact, imagine what a difference it would make if people understood that Christ is risen and the Holy Spirit has been given! What a transformation would take place in our families! What a reversal there would be in our culture’s deteriorating morals! What a lessening of tensions we would see between individuals, groups, and even nations! And a new purpose and power we would experience if we caught the wonder of the biblical truth that Jesus is alive!

He concluded:

“Believe and share the truth that can fuel this transformation: Jesus is alive!”

If we truly believe this “truth,” we also believe that every person we know desperately needs to believe it as well. Therefore, we believe this truth to the degree that we share it.

Will you “believe” it today?

Quote for the day:

“Catch on fire and others will love to come watch you burn.” —John Wesley

Our latest website resources:

• Will an iPhone cost $2,300? The power of biblical faith in an age of uncertainty
• White House spiritual advisor offers “supernatural blessings”
• The problem of grandiosity
• Val Kilmer, Top Gun and Batman actor, dies at 65
• A book review of Jefferson Fisher’s “The Next Conversation”: Say it to connect, not win the argument

Denison Forum

Palestinian murdered for protesting terrorists in Gaza

On March 29, Hamas murdered twenty-two-year-old Uday Nassar Saadi al-Rabbay, according to his family. They tortured him and mutilated his body, then threw his body off a tall building.

His crime? He took part in recent protests against the terrorists who rule Gaza.

As a result, according to his mother, “They caught him, tortured him, slashed his arms with knives, stabbed him with screwdrivers. They stabbed him 170 times. His whole body was stabbed and pierced.” A note was pinned to his body: “This is the price for all who criticize Hamas.”

“The most appalling act of racism”

The most detailed Western investigation into the atrocities of October 7 has now been released. The UK’s October 7 Parliamentary Commission Report runs to 318 pages. Chaired by Lord Andrew Roberts, one of Britain’s leading historians, it documents the deaths of 1,182 people in a forty-eight-hour period. The report describes the assault as “a meticulously planned operation designed not only to kill but to terrorize through extreme brutality, looting, and humiliation.”

Some examples in the report:

• A baby was murdered just fourteen hours after it was born.
• A Holocaust survivor was killed at the age of ninety-one.
• Infants were shot in strollers or burned alive.
• Women and girls were gang raped.
• Sexual violence was committed against corpses.
• Terrorists used victims’ phones to send images to their families, booby-trapped corpses with grenades, and dragged bodies through Gaza.

When asked how democracies should respond, Roberts answered: “The first is properly to memorialize the victims. The second . . . is to see this appalling act of barbarism for what it is, which is a complete denial of democracy, a blow struck deliberately against civilization, and . . . the most appalling act of racism.”

(For more on this “appalling act of racism,” please see my friend Reuben Nevo’s firsthand account of growing up where Hamas invaded and the path forward for Israel.)

The immorality of “moral equivalence”

I reference Uday al-Rabbay’s murder and the UK report to counter the “moral equivalence” claims that have tragically dominated much of Western response to October 7. From college campuses to media outlets to halls of government, we continually hear the assertion that “both sides are wrong” and that Israel is as complicit in this tragedy as Hamas.

Some go even further, caricaturing Israel as a “colonialist” whose “oppression” of Gaza forced Hamas to respond as it did and blaming Jews for the massacre of Jews. As Israel continues its efforts to keep Hamas from mounting another such invasion (something the terrorist group repeatedly claims it wants to do), much of the world blames the IDF for all civilian casualties despite the fact that Hamas hides behind Palestinian human shields, mosques, hospitals, and schools.

If Israel’s critics want the Jewish state to defend itself at all, they want it to do so while engaging a highly challenging urban environment in ways that do not harm the very civilians Hamas hides behind and whose subsequent deaths Hamas uses to bolster itself in the court of world opinion.

I do not mean to suggest that Israel is by any means a perfect nation or that the IDF has responded flawlessly to October 7 in Gaza. Like America, they are a nation made of fallen sinners who sometimes fail their values just as we do.

The difference between Israel and Hamas is that the former has values the latter does not.

If Israel laid down its arms

As I have explained repeatedly since Oct. 7, Hamas’ atrocities express their founding charter and commitment to the annihilation of Israel. This is why Israel must not allow Hamas to rearm itself, or it will stage another October 7.

Dennis Prager, a cultural commentator who studied at the Middle East Institute at Columbia University’s School of International Affairs, explains the conflict this way:

Israel wants to exist as a Jewish state and to live in peace. Israel also recognizes the right of Palestinians to have their own state and to live in peace. The problem, however, is that most Palestinians and many other Muslims and Arabs do not recognize the right of the Jewish state of Israel to exist. . . .

Think about these two questions: If, tomorrow, Israel laid down its arms and announced, “We will fight no more,” what would happen? And if the Arab countries around Israel laid down their arms and announced, “We will fight no more,” what would happen?

In the first case, there would be an immediate destruction of the state of Israel and the mass murder of its Jewish population. In the second case, there would be peace the next day.

October 7 made Prager’s point brutally clear.

“We fall down, and we get up”

Let’s close by making the issue of moral relativism personal.

We live in a postmodern culture where such relativism reigns supreme. Many illogically believe it to be absolutely true that there are no absolute truths. Add Critical Theory’s Marxist division of the entire human race into oppressors and oppressed, and you have a recipe for immorality in the name of morality.

This issue is as real for you and me as it is for Hamas’s most virulent supporters. Like you, I am tempted to view uncomfortable truths through the prism of personal preferences, making Jesus my Lord only in those places where his lordship does not demand changes I do not want to make.

Here’s the good news: God will help anyone to be holy who wants his help.

Solomon noted: “The way of the wicked is an abomination to the Lᴏʀᴅ, but he loves him who pursues righteousness” (Proverbs 15:9, my emphasis). Since we are finite and fallen people, the “pursuit” of righteousness is what God seeks.

Our secularized culture measures success by the destination, since its destinations are within human reach. God measures success by the journey, since the destination is not achievable in this life.

Someone once asked a monk living in a mountain monastery high above the village below, “What do you do up there so close to God?” He smiled and replied, “We fall down, and we get up. We fall down, and we get up. We fall down, and we get up.”

Let’s do the same today, to the glory of God.

Quote for the day:

“Because truth is unpopular does not mean that it should not be proclaimed.” —Billy Graham

Our latest website resources:

• Criminal calls 911 after injuring himself during break-in: An April Fools’ Day story and the health of our souls
• A biblical alternative to toxic empathy
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• Is the new “Snow White” worth seeing? Why the new film is so controversial
• Growing up on the Gaza border: My view on the war in Israel and why there can be no peace until the hostages come home

Denison Forum

President Trump recently told NBC News that he does not rule out seeking a third term in the White House, saying there are methods for doing so and that he is “not joking.”

“A lot of people want me to do it,” he said. “But, I mean, I basically tell them we have a long way to go, it’s very early in the administration.” When asked whether he had been presented with plans to allow him to seek a third term, he said, “There are methods by which you could do it.”

What are such methods?

Why this question is complicated

At issue is the 22^nd Amendment to the US Constitution, which states:

No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.

Since Mr. Trump has been “elected to the office of the President” twice, it would seem that the question is a moot point. Some might argue that since his terms were nonconsecutive, the amendment doesn’t apply to him. However, it makes no distinction between consecutive and nonconsecutive terms in office.

Here’s where the story gets complicated: The amendment only prohibits a person from being “elected” to office more than twice but says nothing about a person becoming president in other ways.

Here’s one possibility: Someone could run for president in 2028 with Mr. Trump as their running mate, be elected, and then resign from office, returning Mr. Trump to the White House.

The 12^th Amendment states that “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States,” but it does not specify that such a person is “ineligible to be elected Vice-President.” Perhaps this simply imposes the Constitution’s stated criteria for presidential eligibility: that they be a natural-born citizen of the US, at least thirty-five years of age, and have lived in the US for at least fourteen years. The US Supreme Court would have to decide this issue.

A second option would be for Mr. Trump to be elected vice president in 2028, then the elected president to be declared “unable to discharge the powers and duties of the office,” in which case Mr. Trump would become Acting President via the 25^th Amendment.

A third option would be for a person to be elected vice president in 2028 and then resign. The newly elected president could then nominate Mr. Trump for the position and Congress could approve the nomination (as occurred via the 25^th Amendment with Gerald Ford in 1973), the president could resign, and Mr. Trump could take his place.

A fourth option would be for the Constitution to be amended to allow a person to serve three non-consecutive terms as president. A member of Congress proposed such an amendment in January, but it is highly unlikely in our era of intense political polarization.

A fifth approach would be for Mr. Trump to be appointed by the next president as an unofficial adviser, allowing him to continue to exercise the power of the presidency without the actual title.

“What I have written I have written”

In these weeks leading to Easter, I am continuing on occasion to spotlight aspects of the story that are often overlooked. Here’s another: when the Romans crucified our Lord,

Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” . . . So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but rather, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.’” Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written” (John 19:19, 21–22).

Pontius Pilate was much more right than he knew.

Jesus was born a king, as the Magi acknowledged by their words (Matthew 2:2) and worship (v. 11). He lived as a king (Isaiah 9:6–7; John 18:36), died as a king (as Pilate acknowledged), was raised as a king (Ephesians 1:20a), ascended to heaven as a king (vv. 20b–21), rules there now as a king (v. 22; Hebrews 1:3–4; Revelation 1:5–6), and will return as “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Revelation 19:16; cf. Daniel 7:13–14).

Here’s the problem: Americans like our leaders to be elected by us and thus responsible to us.

President Trump’s comments about a third term have been widely reported in part because some are concerned he might return to office in ways they believe the Constitution does not intend and voters did not choose. The current controversy over unelected “activist judges” who have issued orders blocking parts of the president’s agenda illustrates this concern from the other side of the aisle.

Americans view our leaders as extensions of ourselves who are accountable to us as they serve “we the people.”

It is therefore natural, though tragic, that many of us view Christ in the same way.

“Able to do far more abundantly”

Even though Jesus is the king of the universe who rules beyond our election or opinions, he limits his omnipotence to our free will. He knocks at the door of our hearts, waiting for admission into our lives (cf. Revelation 3:20). He forces neither his salvation nor his abundant life on us. Only when we elect him our “president” and king can we fully experience the best his omniscient, omnibenevolent omnipotence can do in and through our lives.

We often blame God for the suffering in our world, but how much of our pain would be alleviated if we lived by his word and will? If, for instance, we refused lust (Matthew 5:28–30), what would become of the plague of pornography, adultery, and sex trafficking in our society? If we reserved sex for marriage (Genesis 2:24–25; Hebrews 13:4), what would become of abortion, adultery, and divorce? If we venerated life as sacred as does our Lord (cf. Genesis 1:27), what would happen to crime, abortion, and euthanasia?

Clearly, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34).

Unfortunately, as fallen people, our default position is to rule on the throne of our own lives. Unless we consciously dethrone ourselves each day, enthrone Jesus as our king, and then keep him there through our worship and obedience, we are our own kings.

By this measure, who is your king right now?

“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever” (Ephesians 3:20–21).

Amen?

Quote for the day:

“No single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’” —Abraham Kuyper

Our latest website resources:

• The latest on the Myanmar earthquake and Hamas hostages: An article I did not intend to write and a quote that changed my heart
• Is the new “Snow White” worth seeing? Why the new film is so controversial
• Why “Anora” and “The White Lotus” are making headlines: A biblical response to a broken culture
• Growing up on the Gaza border: My view on the war in Israel and why there can be no peace until the hostages come home
• Artificial Intelligence: Tool or threat?

Denison Forum