Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Washington, DC, yesterday on his first trip outside his homeland since it was invaded by Russia exactly three hundred days ago.

He met with President Biden in the afternoon and addressed a joint session of Congress last night. Prior to his arrival, President Biden announced that he is sending nearly $2 billion in additional security assistance to Ukraine. Congress is poised to pass more than $44 billion in additional military and economic aid to Ukraine as part of its omnibus funding bill.

I thought President Zelensky’s address to Congress was especially stirring. He spoke movingly of the sacrifices his people are making: “In two days we will celebrate Christmas. Maybe candlelit. Not because it’s more romantic, no, but because there will not be—there will be no electricity.”

To those who question our financial support of Ukraine, he said, “Your money is not charity. It’s an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in the most responsible way.” He also declared, “The struggle will define in what world our children and grandchildren will live in.”

The same day, Russian President Vladimir Putin presided over the launch of a major new Siberian gas field to help drive a planned surge in supply to China. His country is obviously an existential threat to Ukraine and its neighbors, and his nuclear capacities make him a danger to the world. However, Russia is not yet the clear and present danger to the United States that the old Soviet Union represented.

This is good news for our country. But is it bad news for our faith?

Three reasons for the decline of American Christianity

Pew Research Center estimates that Christians could make up a minority of Americans by 2070. According to sociology professor Stephen Bullivant, a practicing Catholic who teaches in London and Sydney, there are three main reasons for this decline in religious commitment and the concomitant rise of the nonreligious: the Cold War, 9/11, and the internet.

The Cold War pitted Christian America against godless communism in the eyes of many Americans. However, in response to 9/11, a “new atheism” rose to prominence: public figures such as Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins claimed that religion produces terrorists and gave intellectual respectability to religious skepticism. Along the way, the internet has provided support for people who are questioning their faith by offering community with fellow doubters.

Bullivant admits that cultural issues such as abortion and gay marriage have played a factor in the current exodus from the church, but he notes that denominations such as the Episcopal Church have adopted progressive theological positions but still lost members in droves.

His analysis aligns with a narrative we have seen in the decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union: the USSR gave the US an external enemy that united our disparate cultural blocs in a common cause. Confronting the existential threat of nuclear annihilation forced our political parties to work together in ways we have not since the USSR fell. Apart from a brief moment of patriotism after 9/11, we have not experienced such unity for decades.

If, in fact, our unity was based on external enemies more than internal cohesion, it’s hard to see what could unify us again apart from a cataclysmic crisis.

How the world changes

Architect, writer, and inventor Buckminster Fuller observed, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

From the printing press to the iPhone, cultural history has proven him right. But Fuller’s thesis was never more powerfully demonstrated than it was twenty centuries ago in a manger in a tiny town south of Jerusalem.

The world into which Jesus was born was as divided and divisive as ours. While the “Pax Romana” prevailed through military force and subjugation to the Empire, the culture of the first century was conflicted and confused in the extreme.

A plethora of religions and worldviews competed with each other, including Greek and Roman mythology, mystery cults, Judaism, and philosophical schools such as neo-Platonism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism, Epicureanism, Cynicism, and Skepticism. Jewish society was divided into supporters of Rome such as the Sadducees, zealots plotting to overthrow the Empire, legalists like the Pharisees, and those who were caught in the midst of their conflicts.

Into this dark and divided culture came the “light of the world” (John 9:5). His movement transcended the cultural and spiritual divides of his day with a new hope unlike any the world could offer. He promised his followers, “Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).

Of course, the key is to “follow” Jesus.

The only path to true peace

St. Ambrose (340–397) was one of the greatest theologians in Christian history and a seminal contributor to the conversion of St. Augustine. Referring to our bodies as God’s temple, he urged us to “maintain this house, sweep out its secret recesses until it becomes immaculate and rises as a spiritual temple for a holy priesthood, firmly secured by Christ, the cornerstone.”

Ambrose also noted: “Christ is the image of God and so any good or religious act that a soul performs magnifies that image of God in that soul, the God in whose likeness the soul itself was made. And thus the soul itself has some share in its greatness and is ennobled.”

Billy Graham made the same point more simply but no less profoundly: “In the same proportion that the world has trusted Christ, it has peace.”

Is your heart at peace today?

If not, why not?

Denison Forum

Note: Thank you to Dr. Ryan Denison for writing today’s Daily Article. He is the Denison Forum Senior Editor for Theology and has written more than four hundred articles for Denison Forum.

One of my favorite parts about the Christmas season is the diverse ways in which people celebrate it. Sure, there are probably some time-tested standards that apply to most of us—putting up decorations, church on Christmas Eve, maybe a party or two—but Christmas is also the season when people tend to get a little creative with their family traditions.

In a recent article from The Atlantic, writers asked readers to send in some of their favorite family traditions for the holiday season. While the responses vary from the patently absurd to the heartwarming and inspiring, they clearly hold a special place in the lives of those who carry them out each year.

For example, LaRae LaBouff writes about how her family would routinely have fifteen to thirty people gather at their grandparents’ house each year to celebrate Christmas. As a result, once the gifts were unwrapped, the floor was littered with wrapping paper, ribbons, and other vestiges of the festivities.

They would place all the trash in a large can and then her grandfather would climb in and push everything down so that it would fit. The kids would then cover him with ribbons and bows. The tradition was known as “Throwing Pop Away” and became a key part of their Christmas experience.

As LaRae’s grandfather got older and began to suffer from cancer, however, he could no longer make it into the trashcan. Rather than give up the tradition, they began filling a smaller cardboard box so that he could still stand inside and be covered up.

She writes that in the years since his passing, other family members have stepped up to take his place and be wrapped in remembrance of their departed patriarch.

But while not everyone’s traditions are as tender and sweet as LaRae’s, they can still bring joy to those who keep them.

A Grinchy breakfast and a science experiment gone wrong

Nate Ransil writes about how he married into the family tradition of starting Christmas day off with the most absurd breakfast they can create. The tradition originated when his wife’s grandfather decided one year that there was just too much good on Christmas, so there needed to be at least one thing the kids wouldn’t look forward to. To that end, he decided to take their traditional breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, and orange juice, stick it in a blender, and serve it as breakfast smoothies.

While the idea began as a joke, Nate’s father-in-law thought it was funny and created a challenge whereby certain family members would be responsible for creating the themed Christmas menu each year.

One year they chose The Grinch, crafting a breakfast of Who pudding, rare Who roast beast, toadstool sandwiches, and bananas with a greasy black peel. Another year, the meal was inspired by Elf and featured spaghetti, crumbled Pop-Tarts, and maple syrup. He writes that last year his son and brother-in-law decided to create a science lab with frog legs, lychee fruit “eyeballs” floating in a jar, brains made of Jell-O, and bowls of worms.

While I doubt I’ll be replicating this particular tradition anytime soon, Ransil described how it always leads to a lot of laughter and the knowledge that “nobody else in the world is eating the same thing we are right now.”

When traditions become more important than people

I highlighted these examples because they offer us a good reminder that our Christmas traditions do not need to come from someplace of profound spiritual meaning in order to be meaningful to you and your family. Rather, it’s the sense of joy, unity, and remembrance they inspire that is most important. They have purpose to the extent that they bring us closer to those we love most.

However, if we’re not careful it can be easy for the tradition to become more important than the people who keep it.

In many ways, that was the primary problem Jesus encountered with the religious leaders throughout his ministry. Most of the scribes and Pharisees were well intentioned, spiritually driven individuals who just wanted to help people know God better. The problem was that they had fallen into the trap of thinking that the best way to accomplish that purpose was by adhering so strictly to their religious traditions that they left little room for the Lord to work.

Over time, they robbed God’s people of the joy they should have found in a relationship with him by insisting on a relationship with the law instead. Their traditions became more important than the people they were meant to help.

But, before we judge them too harshly, let us remember that we are far from immune to making the same error today. And there are few times of the year when that mistake can be easier to make than during the Christmas season.

Blessing God by blessing those he came to save

Take a moment to think back on some of your most cherished traditions. Do you know why they were started? Do they still fulfill the same purpose today? In what ways have they evolved over the years to make room for new family and friends to take part? And is there anything the Lord might want to change to help them better accomplish that purpose this year?

The best traditions are those that bring people together and add depth to our relationship with others. And whether they are silly, sacred, or somewhere in between, it’s worth taking the time to make sure that they are still a means to that end rather than the end itself.

So as we draw steadily closer to Christmas Day, let’s endeavor to make sure that every facet of our celebrations and traditions bless God by blessing the people he came to save.

Will yours?

Denison Forum