In breaking news, the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote this morning on whether to recommend Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the full Senate.

I watched yesterday’s Committee hearings. The senators were sharply contentious; the two witnesses were deeply emotional.

As conflicted as the day was, however, this thought prevailed in my mind: the process worked.

An American citizen was able to bring her concerns about a federal judge and now Supreme Court nominee before United States senators charged with investigating his candidacy. He was able to respond publicly to her allegations.

The number of countries across world history where such a scene would be possible is indeed small.

“Democracy is the worst form of Government”

Seven decades ago, Winston Churchill stated: “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

1. S. Lewis testified that he believed in democracybecause “I believe in the Fall of Man.” He disagreed with “people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that every one deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true.”

What is his evidence? “I find that they’re not true without looking further than myself. I don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost. Much less a nation.” Lewis concluded: “Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows.”

The best government is one that holds leaders accountable. Not dynastic rule as in North Korea, or one-party rule as in China, or one-man government as in Russia.

But we also need a system in which leaders hold us accountable. William Wilberforce used the governmental system of his day to abolish slavery. American leaders used our legislative process to enact civil rights. I am glad that sex trafficking and illegal drugs are illegal. I am grateful for police officers who enforce the law for the benefit of those who obey it.

And we need an adversarial judicial system. I am glad we have both prosecutors and defense attorneys so that anyone can gain a fair hearing and anyone can defend himself or herself in such a context.

“The Kingdom of God will not arrive on Air Force One”

But none of these advantages found in a democracy can repair what is truly broken about our society.

Our root problem is spiritual. It is a disease no doctor can cure, a brokenness no law can repair, a condition no judge can reverse.

Even if a conservative majority on the Court makes abortion illegal, there will still be abortions (as there were before 1973). The Supreme Court infamously advanced slavery in the horrific Dred Scott case of 1857.

Time notes that in 1973 the justices “discovered an unwritten ‘right to privacy’ in the Constitution” when they legalized abortion, resulting in the deaths of more than sixty million babies. The Court discovered a right to same-sex marriage in the Constitution, overturning centuries of precedent for traditional marriage.

As Chuck Colson famously noted, “The Kingdom of God will not arrive on Air Force One.”

Human words cannot change human hearts

Christians can make two mistakes in response to yesterday’s hearings.

One: We can shake our heads at the chaos of the system and retreat from engagement in governance. But Plato was right (as paraphrased by Ralph Waldo Emerson): “The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men.”

God calls us to pray “for kings and all who are in high positions” (1 Timothy 2:2). We are to speak biblical truth to them, as Paul did to Roman leaders (Acts 24-26). And we are to engage in the political process as God directs.

Two: We can ask our government to do what it cannot. A fallacy popular in evangelical circles is that if we can just elect enough evangelicals, we can “turn around” our country.

While we need more evangelicals in office, human words cannot change human hearts. Laws can regulate society, but they cannot transform it.

“How do you know when the gold is pure?”

Let’s invert the pyramid that puts governmental leaders at the top and citizens at the bottom. In a democracy, our leaders serve us. That’s why they’re called “public servants.” We elect them, and we can remove them.

The esteemed former Congressman Frank Wolf notes that “Congress is downstream from culture.” Beyond participating in our democracy, Christians have a high calling to be the change we wish to see.

As the “body of Christ,” we continue the earthly ministry of Jesus today (1 Corinthians 12:27). The apostles were so Christlike that their enemies saw their “boldness” and “recognized that they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13). Now our Father wants us to know him so intimately that his Son is displayed in our lives and our influence advances his kingdom in our culture.

A group watching a goldsmith at work asked, “How do you know when the gold is pure?”

His answer: “When I can see my face in it.”

How pure is your “gold” today?

Denison Forum

Judge Brett Kavanaugh and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford are set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee today. Last night, Judiciary Committee Republicans revealed that they have interviewed a man “who believes he, not Dr. Kavanaugh, had the encounter with Dr. Ford in 1982.” However, Dr. Ford plans to testify today that she knew Kavanaugh in high school and will clearly identify him as her attacker.

One reason Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination is so critical is that it could change the ideological balance of the Court. For many years, there have essentially been four liberal justices, four conservatives, and a swing vote (Anthony Kennedy). If Judge Kavanaugh replaces Justice Kennedy, the resulting five-to-four conservative majority could control the Court for fifteen years or more.

The status of abortion rights, religious liberty, and a host of other issues could be affected.

The America I remember

I’m old enough to remember an America that looked much more like I wish we looked today.

I was born in 1958. In that year, according to Gallup, 92 percent of Americans identified as Christians; only 2 percent said they had no religion. Last year, 59 percent of Americans identified as Christians; 20 percent said they had no religion.

Fifty-nine percent of Baby Boomers like me (born 1946-64) say religion is “very important” in our lives; only 38 percent of Younger Millennials (born 1990-96) agree.

I grew up with no church commitment at all. That made me a distinct minority in my community, where nearly everyone went to church on Sunday. Many of us remember a day like that.

However, 1958 was a bad year for civil rights. On June 29, Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, was bombed by Ku Klux Klan members, killing four girls. Virginia’s governor threatened to shut down any school if forced to integrate. And thirteen African-Americans were arrested for sitting in front of a bus in Birmingham.

In 1958, women made 63 cents for every dollar earned by men; today, they earn 80.5 cents for every dollar a man earns. The poverty rate over the last six decades has fallen by half–from 23 percent to 12.3 percent.

A remarkable story

It’s easy to idealize the past, but there’s never been an era that did not include good and bad. And we cannot go back in time, even if we wish to do so. As Heraclitus noted, you cannot step in the same river twice.

How, then, are we to help our country become all God wants us to be?

Today’s Senate hearing and the results of Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation process are crucial. The political governance of our country is vital to our country. I believe that God is calling more Americans into public service than are answering his call. I believe strongly that Christians should be engaged in our political process on every level.

But I also believe that the solutions to the spiritual crisis of our day are spiritual. We need a new word from God for every new challenge we face.

Consider an extraordinary example.

In 2 Samuel 5, David has just become king of the united tribes of Israel. In response, their archenemies, the Philistines, mounted an assault with so many soldiers that they “spread out in the Valley of Rephaim” (v. 18).

How did the great warrior-king respond to his first crisis? Did he mount an offensive? Did he stage a strategic retreat? “David inquired of the Lord (v. 19). And God led him to attack and defeat his enemies.

Now the story takes an amazing turn.

The Philistines returned (v. 22), so David “inquired of the Lord again (v. 23). This time he was told, “You shall not go up; go around to their rear, and come against them opposite the balsam trees. And when you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, then rouse yourself, for then the Lord has gone out before you to strike down the army of the Philistines” (vv. 24-25).

David “did as the Lord commanded him, and struck down the Philistines from Geba to Gezer” (v. 25).

Your “tent of meeting”

I am absolutely convinced that America’s moral and spiritual future rests with America’s Christians. My reason is emphatically not because we are better than anyone else or more deserving of God’s favor.

It is because a lost person “does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). God speaks his life-changing word to those who can receive and share it. We are our nation’s only salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16).

That’s why it is imperative that we meet with our Lord every day; that we seek his word for us from Scripture, prayer, and worship; that we follow David’s example by giving every challenge we face to our Father in prayer. He has a new word for each new day.

Moses met God in a transforming way at the burning bush (Exodus 3:1-6). Then he continued to encounter God in a “tent of meeting” where “the Lord would speak with Moses” (Exodus 33:9). In fact, “the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend” (v. 11).

It may seem that such a relationship is impossible for us. “I’m not Moses,” you may be saying to yourself.

But as Craig Denison notes: “You and I have access to relationship far greater than a face-to-face encounter like Moses had. We have God’s Spirit within us fellowshipping with our spirit. We never have to leave the burning bush or the Tent of Meeting. True restored relationship finds its source in continual, unending encounters with God’s presence dwelling with us and upon us.”

Where is your Tent of Meeting? When will you meet your Father there?

Denison Forum

Speaking to the United Nations General Assembly yesterday, President Trump stated that American culture is built on “deep faith.”

For evidence, we could point to Rolling Stone‘s headline: “A Christian Singer Is Bigger Than Drake and Ariana Grande This Week.” Lauren Daigle’s new album topped records by Drake, Ariana Grande, and Nicki Minaj on the Billboard 200.

Or we could note Pew Research Center’s report that more than 70 percent of Americans identify as Christians. America’s largest religious demographic is “Evangelical Protestant” at 25.4 percent.

However, America’s second-largest religious demographic is “Unaffiliated (religious ‘nones’)” at 22.8 percent. This is a larger percentage than “Catholic” (20.8 percent) or “Mainline Protestant” (14.7 percent).

As a sign of our troubled times, the Washington Post reports that homicides in Washington, DC, have now surpassed the number of people killed in the city in all of 2017. As another sign of the times, a group of protesters heckled Sen. Ted Cruz and his wife inside a Washington restaurant, forcing them to leave early.

And authorities say bananas donated to a Texas prison had nearly $18 million worth of cocaine hidden in the boxes.

Is culture like the weather?

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