Jimmy Kimmel Live! will return to the air tonight. The Walt Disney Company, which owns ABC, said in a statement, “Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country. It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive.”

The statement added, “We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.” (For more on the story, see Dr. Ryan Denison’s Daily Article, “Jimmy Kimmel suspended for comments on Charlie Kirk’s killer.”)

The controversy over Kimmel’s suspension illustrates the partisan fault lines dividing our country: According to a new poll, Democrats are far more likely to watch late-night talk shows than Republicans or Independents. This explains why late-night talk show hosts are negative toward President Trump and Republicans while sympathetic toward Democratic Party leaders—they are “playing to their audience.” However, confining themselves to only one part of the electorate also defines their audience, further reinforcing their bias and that of those who watch them.

By contrast, Johnny Carson, widely known as the “King of Late Night,” explained many years ago that he was “not there” to deal with political issues. “Once you start that, you start to get that self-important feeling” and try to sway people, he said, adding, “I don’t think you should as an entertainer.” Jay Leno made the same point recently.

However, both were reflecting times that were not nearly so bitterly and deeply divided. As Chris Matthews illustrates in his fascinating book, Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked, Republican President Ronald Reagan and Democratic Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill disagreed on many issues but found ways to work together. Matthews writes: “Reagan was fond of Tip and completely believed that Tip wanted to help the little people. He just disagreed about how to do it.”

That was then, this is now. The divisiveness of our society has risen to a level that fundamentally threatens the future of our democratic experiment.

And the solution lies in the very message that many people blame for the problem.

The challenge of “affective polarization”

Cultural commentator Fareed Zakaria remembers a time when political debates involved two issues: economics (how much to tax and spend) and the Soviet threat (how best to counter it). On both issues, compromise was possible.

However, many of today’s issues are moral in nature and thus far more deeply held. While there once were pro-life Democrats and pro-choice Republicans, for example, Zakaria writes that the parties have now “sorted themselves into ideologically consistent groups,” so “the divides get weaponized” and “each party sees the other as not just misguided but evil.”

New York Times columnist Ezra Klein explains how this happened: over the past fifty years, our partisan identities have merged with our racial, religious, geographic, ideological, and cultural identities. These “merged identities” have come to define who we are, not just what we believe. We therefore self-select into disparate cultures with little or no overlap or interchange.

The result is “affective polarization,” which is how scholars describe a society such as ours in which the two sides simply do not like members of the other party. How do we make a democratic republic work in the midst of such bitterness?

Three biblical facts

Many religious skeptics consider religion to be at the root of our divisions. They’re right that our most divisive issues are religious at their core, from abortion to same-sex marriage to euthanasia. They’re also right in noting that religious platforms are often used to advance political agendas and politicians today.

However, our faith embraces not just a worldview that critics consider divisive, but the way its followers can embrace such critics. Consider three biblical facts.

First, the Bible views all people, whatever their beliefs, as “image bearers” of the Divine (Genesis 1:27).

God loves us despite ourselves: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Now our Savior commands us to love as we are loved (John 13:34–35). As a result, Christians are compelled to seek common ground with our opponents, to wish their best even at the cost of our own, to forgive as our Father has forgiven us and to pay forward the grace we have received by faith.

Second, the God who commands us to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:43) also empowers us to do what he commands.

His Spirit indwelling his people manifests the “fruit” of “love” in and through all who submit to him (Galatians 5:22; Ephesians 5:18). Erika Kirk’s decision to forgive her husband’s assassin is just one example of such love at work. No other religion or worldview empowers its followers from within to be the change they wish to see. But Jesus does.

Third, our commitment to love those who do not love us points the essential way forward for our society.

Cultural commentator Paul Kingsnorth describes our cultural moment: “Cut loose in the postmodern present, with no center, no truth, and no direction, we have not become independent-minded, responsible, democratic citizens in a human republic. We have become slaves to the power of money, and worshippers of the self.” We therefore have no hope for a better future in ourselves. But we have abundant hope in the transforming grace of Christ (cf. 1 Peter 1:3; Romans 5:5).

We are back where we began

In a sense, Americans are where America started. As the famed historian Joseph Ellis explains, colonial Americans were united in their opposition to Great Britain but were otherwise thirteen very disparate and divided colonies. Consequently, George Washington observed that their hope for a collective future lay not in themselves. Rather, he declared,

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.”

As historians Peter A. Lillback and Jerry Newcombe compellingly demonstrate, the “religion and morality” our first president embraced and endorsed was the Christian faith.

In a consensual democracy, citizens rule each other. But we cannot rule others if we cannot rule ourselves. And as James Madison warned, “Whenever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.”

There is only one Power in the universe capable of remaking fallen people, of giving sinners a “new heart” and a “new spirit” (Ezekiel 36:26) as children of God who manifest his character to the world (John 1:12; Romans 8:29). Submitting to this Power and demonstrating this transforming love is the greatest, most essential gift we can give our divided nation.

Do you agree?

Quote for the day:

“The salvation of a single soul is more important than the production or preservation of all the epics and tragedies in the world” —C. S. Lewis

Our latest website resources:

• Why the alleged assassin killed Charlie Kirk: Trusting God to use great evil for greater good
• Check your fears
• Did God spare Donald Trump but not Charlie Kirk?
• Cultural shockwave of Charlie Kirk’s death, America divided, free speech debate, viral revival, Robert Redford & Larry Ellison
• How to fight against the Age of Outrage

Denison Forum

In all my life, I have never seen so many people afraid of so many things.

War, poverty, disease, crime, shortages, violence, and suffering are in news reports on any channel, through the internet, and even intruding upon “social” accounts.

I don’t discount fears. They are real, and they have a way of adding up.

Is it any wonder that Jesus continued to say “fear not” in his time with the disciples?

Do you fear man or God?

We just fear so many things and so often. But, in Luke 12, Jesus goes to the core of fear and divides it into two disparate categories: those who fear man and those who fear God.

He starts with a warning about the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is when we create a public impression to hide our real motives. It’s as though we wear a mask and play-act at who we really are because we are afraid of people. Being a fake is no laughing matter to God, and, as a pastor, I find it especially poignant that Jesus is exposing religious leaders as fakes.

Notice that Jesus doesn’t give this warning to the multitude who are crowding on top of one another to get to him but to the twelve because they needed it. Jesus knew even they could fall to hypocrisy, and Jesus loved them enough to say the hard truth to them. They need to beware, to watch out, because that small bit of spiritual leaven is dangerous.

And what a picture of hypocrisy Jesus gave when he called it leaven. You and I know the implications: something that can start small and grow, something that works its way through the entirety of where it is placed, and something that is hard, if not impossible, to remove.

Doesn’t that describe fear well too?

Hypocrisy is born of the fear of man and he said it was the leaven of the Pharisees as it had filled their lives.

What if Jesus called you a hypocrite?

Think about all the things you might be afraid of and ask yourself this: “How afraid would I be if Jesus called me a hypocrite”?

Your answer determines which column you fit in.

The Fear of Man column isn’t really afraid of his opinion.

But if you line up under the Fear of God column, these are chilling words.

It also shows just how far away from God religious people can be. Didn’t they know they were pretending to be someone they were not?

And they had to be shocked at how Jesus was able to see through their pretense, but there is no indication that they ever considered listening to him and making a change. They fit into the description of verse 4: they feared man, not God.

Can that be true today?

Are there religious people, even those serving in ministry, who fear men more than God?

If Jesus warned the disciples, it seems that answer is yes.

When my focus changed

The church I serve started as a plant. During those early days when money was tight and the future uncertain, a few people banded together to try to force a change in the direction of our mission.

Eventually, they left. As you know, they seldom leave silently.

I was experiencing my first real fear of man as a pastor and it must have shown. One of our early leaders pulled me aside and told me he was praying I wasn’t “snakebit.” He had grown up in the country, where a snake bite could alter your behavior and make you live with fear of the next snake. He reminded me that I was here to serve God and he loved me and believed in me.

In those few words, I realized my focus had changed and I never saw it coming.

I was looking at and fearing man so much I had not even given a glance toward the God who called me. I have come to believe that it’s a constant struggle for most pastors. So let me encourage you that if you feel that way, you are not the first, and you don’t have to live with that fear.

Even the great prophet Jeremiah was afraid and needed straight talk about fearing man and he got it! “Get up and dress and go out and tell them whatever I tell you to say. Don’t be afraid of them, or else I will make a fool of you in front of them” (Jeremiah 1:17 TLB).

Then, just like the heavenly Father that God is, he seems to pull Jeremiah close in verse 19 and says,  “‘They will try, but they will fail. For I am with you,’ says the Lord. ‘I will deliver you.’”

It’s like Oswald  Chambers said, “The remarkable thing about God is that when you fear God, you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God, you fear everything else.”

I do not want to fear everything else. I want to fear God.

The benefits of fearing God

As ministers, we have already made the big decision to follow Jesus in a life of ministry, but sometimes we need to be reminded of some of the benefits of fearing God:

• I have a singular focus on God.
• I don’t have to fear man.
• I accept the blessing of personal conviction rather than run from it. God is drawing me to be close to him.
• I am in a relationship with the only One who knows me completely and still loves me.
• I don’t labor alone but with him.
• I don’t know what is next, but God does.
• I am part of something eternally significant.
• I can pray with confidence.
• I am on the winning side. We’ve read the Bible, and we know how this ends.

I’ll end with the testimony of David: “I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed” (Psalm 34:4–5).

Denison Forum

Jimmy Kimmel, host of Jimmy Kimmel Live! on ABC, was suspended indefinitely in the wake of falsely characterizing Charlie Kirk’s killer as a member of “The MAGA Gang.” Kimmel made the comments around two minutes into his monologue on Monday’s show as part of a larger condemnation of President Trump and his response to Kirk’s death.

To be honest, after listening to what he said, the line was neither funny nor factual, but I probably wouldn’t have given it a second thought except for the firestorm that followed.

You see, Kimmel had the poor judgment to make that statement at a time when both the Trump administration and conservatives across the country were already on edge over the manner in which many—though far from most—of those on the left responded to the shooting. As such, when Kimmel declared that Tyler Robinson—the suspect charged with Kirk’s murder—was a member of the MAGA movement, he became an easy target for the right’s anger.

The latest reports are that Kimmel planned to address the controversy on Wednesday’s show but was not going to apologize. Instead, he was intent on “defending what he said [as] being grossly mischaracterized by a certain group of people.” Given that 66 of ABC’s roughly 200 affiliate stations were not planning to air the episode, Disney decided to take the decision out of their hands.

What does the First Amendment protect?

Many of those who condemned Kimmel’s suspension have characterized it as an assault on his freedom of speech. However, this assessment demonstrates an important misunderstanding of what the Constitution actually protects.

The First Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” The Supreme Court later expanded that protection to include all levels of government, from the federal to the state and local as well.

But while every aspect of the First Amendment is important, the key part for our present discussion is that it specifies that the government cannot punish the exercise of free speech. It says nothing, however, about employers choosing to do so.

We’ll discuss this aspect of the controversy and the ways it’s of particular relevance to Christians in a bit, but understanding that ABC and its affiliates had every right to take Kimmel off the air for what he said is essential context to this story. And if they were the only ones to influence that decision, the story would end there. However, that was not the case.

Why was Kimmel canceled? 

On Wednesday, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said of Kimmel’s comments, “Frankly, when you see stuff like this—I mean, we can do this the easy way or the hard way . . . I think that it’s really sort of past time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves push back on Comcast and Disney and say, ‘Listen, we are going to pre-empt, we are not going to run Kimmel anymore until you straighten this out.’”

A few hours later, two of ABC’s largest affiliates did just that.

Nexstar, which owns roughly 10 percent of ABC’s stations across the country, called Kimmel’s statements “offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse.” They went on to add that they “do not believe they reflect the spectrum of opinions, views, or values of the local communities in which we are located.”

Sinclair, the largest ABC affiliate group in the country, echoed those thoughts and also stated that it would no longer air Kimmel’s show. Instead, they’ve decided to televise reruns with the exception of this weekend, when they will use that timeslot to run a special program in remembrance of Charlie Kirk.

While it’s possible that both affiliates came to that decision on their own, the timing in relation to Carr’s comments is difficult to overlook. Moreover, Nexstar is currently in the process of merging with Tegna—another broadcast company—in a move that is expected to generate roughly $300 million per year in cost savings, but needs Carr’s approval at the FCC for the deal to go through.

As the Free Press described, “This is what’s known as jawboning—when state actors use threats to inappropriately compel private action.” They went on to warn, “For the MAGA crowd who might like what they’re seeing from Carr: Remember that Democrats will wield this power again. And when they do, they will play by the new rules that Carr and the Trump administration just established.”

The degree to which these rules are truly new in the wake of the controversies in 2020 and 2021 is debatable. But, regardless of where you stand politically, the government openly wielding this kind of influence should concern all of us.

What’s at stake?

As Christians, we should assume that there will be times when our beliefs come into conflict with the popular norms of the culture around us. After all, Jesus promised that it would be that way, and we have nearly two thousand years’ worth of examples that prove he was right (John 15:18–25).

Now, that doesn’t mean that we will always face opposition when we stand up for biblical truth, but we shouldn’t be surprised when some would prefer that we fall in line rather than stand apart on the foundation of God’s word. When that happens, I would much rather live in a place where the government was content to leave me alone, even if it means they have to do the same for people who stand on beliefs with which I strongly disagree.

Even then, though, it’s important to remember that the First Amendment only shields us from government intervention. Your job, your coworkers, or the myriad strangers and keyboard warriors online will always be free to disagree and to seek opportunities to punish you for those beliefs. And when that happens, we’ll have to choose whether we want to keep God’s blessings or pursue what the world has to offer.

Scripture is clear about what that choice should be, but the Lord has left it up to us to decide. However, it’s crucial that we go into that decision with a clear view of what’s at stake.

Choose what’s helpful

As Christians, we are no more entitled to God’s blessings than Jimmy Kimmel is to a late-night talk show. So, when our words and actions do not reflect well on our witness, we shouldn’t be surprised when those sins come with real consequences. While they won’t get us fired in the sense of losing our salvation, they can relegate us to the sidelines of God’s kingdom work.

So, which will you choose the next time you’re faced with the decision of pursuing God’s blessings or the world’s? It’s easy to give the right answer now, but if you haven’t fully wrestled with what that decision may cost you, then it will be far more difficult to make the right choice when it counts.

With that reality in mind, let’s finish for today by taking some time to ask the Holy Spirit to help us understand the degree to which we are willing to choose Christ when that decision proves costly. Are there any areas of your life where you’ve sacrificed God’s blessings in favor of the world’s? And when you think, type, or post about people who think differently than you do, how well do your words align with your faith?

Ultimately, you have every right to post what you want on social media. But, as the apostle Paul warned, “‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things build up” (1 Corinthians 10:23).

Let’s choose what’s helpful to God’s kingdom today.

Quote of the day:

“Fighting who we think is wrong is often confused with doing what’s right. Those two things are not always the same.”—Justin Giboney

Our latest website resources:

• Did God spare Donald Trump but not Charlie Kirk?
• Cultural shockwave of Charlie Kirk’s death, America divided, free speech debate, viral revival, Robert Redford & Larry Ellison | CB Ep. 37
• How to fight against the Age of Outrage
• How can understanding the mind-body-spirit connection improve mental health struggles?
• “Dancing with the Stars” and the Christian journey

Denison Forum