Delaina Ashley Yaun and her husband were on a date last Tuesday and decided to get a massage. They went for the first time to Young’s Asian Massage Parlor near Woodstock, a town north of Atlanta. When a gunman attacked the parlor, Delaina and three others were murdered.

“I’m lost, I’m confused, I’m hurt. I’m numb,” her mother later told reporters.

Two other Atlanta-area massage parlors were also attacked; eight people died in all. Authorities charged Robert Aaron Long in the worst mass killing in the US in almost two years.

This story is tragic on so many levels. Six of the victims were women of Asian descent and died amid a rising tide of anti-Asian incidents across the country. The suspect told investigators that he targeted the businesses because he blamed them for “providing an outlet for his addiction to sex.”

Here’s the part of the story that I’m being asked about: according to his youth pastor, the suspect was active in a Southern Baptist congregation. Brett Cottrell, who led the youth ministry at Crabapple First Baptist Church in Milton, Georgia, from 2008 to 2017, told the Washington Post that Long stacked chairs and cleaned floors at the church as a teenager. Cottrell added that Long’s father was considered an important lay leader in the church; the family attended services on Sunday mornings and evenings, as well as meetings on Wednesday nights and mission trips.

Cottrell considered Long a “typical teenager” growing up in the Atlanta suburbs. He stated that Long was part of a high school group that met for Bible study once a week before school and helped a backyard Bible club with games and songs for kids.

According to authorities, Long’s parents identified their son from surveillance images of the first shooting on Tuesday and alerted the sheriff’s office. “They’re very distraught. And they were very helpful in this apprehension,” the sheriff said. Authorities added that without their help, the carnage could have been even worse.

Man killed in church service this week 

A man was shot and killed Wednesday afternoon inside Emerald City Bible Fellowship Church in Seattle while participating in a church gathering. We have become tragically accustomed to the frequency of such shootings in recent years and often ask why bad things happen to God’s people.

But when church members are the shooters rather than the victims, we are forced to face a different kind of question: What difference does Christianity make when those who claim to be Christians act in horrific ways?

Clergy abuse scandals have rocked the Catholic church for years. However, Catholics are not alone in this: according to a 2019 report, seven hundred people were sexually abused in Southern Baptist churches over twenty years. The Ravi Zacharias scandal continues to make headlines. We could list other evangelical leaders accused of sexual misconduct in recent years.

The Bible promises: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). God’s word says of believers: “You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11).

Why, then, do Christians fail morally, sometimes in horrific ways?

Three biblical responses 

It may seem that, like a medicine that promises to make us well but makes us sick, our faith does not do what it claims to do. If Christians are not more like Christ than anyone else, why follow Christ?

A biblical response is that our faith never promises that Christians will be made perfect in this life. Sanctification requires cooperation, which is why we are to “put to death what is earthly in you” (Colossians 3:5). Even Paul the Apostle admitted, “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing” (Romans 7:19). Conversion starts the process of sanctification, but that process is not completed in this world (Philippians 1:6).

Others will say that people who claim to follow Jesus but sin in horrific ways are not true Christians. That may well be true for specific individuals, but the Bible teaches, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). If Jesus was tempted, we will be tempted (Hebrews 4:15). If Peter could fail, we can fail (Galatians 2:11–14).

This reality leads to a third fact: Becoming a Christian does not remove our free will. We were created to love our Lord and our neighbor (Matthew 22:37–39), but love requires a choice. God therefore gives us freedom to choose and honors our freedom. (For more on divine sovereignty and human freedom, please see my website article on luck and providence.)

When Christians sin, the fault is not with Christ but with us. The Holy Spirit will give us the strength to defeat temptation (1 Corinthians 10:13), but we must seek his help daily (Ephesians 5:18).

Three practical responses 

Let’s close with these practical responses to the tragedy in Georgia:

One: Pray for the families of the victims, asking God to grant them his “peace that passes understanding” (Philippians 4:6–7) and to raise up Christians who will minister to them with his compassion and grace (1 Corinthians 12:27). Then volunteer to help the hurting people you meet today in the spirit of Jesus (Mark 10:45).

Two: Ask God to reveal any areas where you need to repent of sin today, remembering that “sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” (James 1:15). The best time to repent of sin is now.

Three: Submit your day to the Holy Spirit, asking him to manifest his “fruit” in your life (Galatians 5:22–23) and to “sanctify you completely” (1 Thessalonians 5:23). Leave no area outside his control and power.

The Scottish theologian John Baillie offered a morning prayer to God that I invite you to pray with me: “By your grace, O God, I will go nowhere today where you cannot come, nor seek anyone’s presence that would rob me of yours. By your grace I will let no thought enter my heart that might hinder my closeness with you, nor let any word come from my mouth that is not meant for your ear. So shall my courage be firm and my heart be at peace.”

Will your “courage be firm” and your “heart be at peace” today?

NOTE: I’m excited to let you know that we’ve just re-released my foundational book, Blessed: Eight Ways Christians Change Culture, with the inclusion of the new, bonus Blessed Small Group Study Guide. This resource focuses our attention on the Beatitudes, and the goal of exploring these timeless principles is simple: to align our lives with their truth so fully that they define our character—and empower our influence as culture-changing Christians. So please request the special Blessed resource when you give today. It’s my gift to thank you for your generosity to help more Christians discern the news differently.

Denison Forum

Here’s the best story I’ve seen in a while: the Washington Post is reporting that a Southwest Airlines employee returned a toy left on an airplane to its owner. How he did what he did, and why, is worth our time today.

Two-year-old Hagen Davis was flying with his family from Sacramento to Dallas to attend his great uncle’s funeral. He left his beloved Buzz Lightyear action figure on the plane. The aircraft then flew to Little Rock, Arkansas, where Beth Buchanan, a Southwest Airlines operations agent, discovered it. She noticed the name “Hagen” on the bottom of Buzz’s boot and decided to scan the passenger list.

A ramp agent named Jason William Hamm saw the toy sitting on his colleague’s desk. They confirmed that Buzz belonged to Hagen, and Hamm decided to get it back to him. He emailed the family to let them know he had located Buzz and to ask for their address so he could return the toy to them. Then he decided to convince Hagen that Buzz had been on a mission before returning home.

So Hamm, an aviation photographer, took pictures of Buzz in front of an airplane, an engine, and a cockpit. He wrote a letter from Buzz to Hagen explaining his “mission” and the photos. He decorated a cardboard box with drawings of Buzz, stars, planets, and classic Toy Story sayings, including “To infinity and beyond!” Then he mailed Buzz, the letter, and the photos to Hagen.

Why did Hamm go to such lengths? “I have an autistic son, and he gets attached to toys. If he loses a toy, I know how hard it is for him,” he explained. “It’s the dad in me, I guess you could say.” Hagen’s mother said, “For Jason to go above and beyond for someone he did not know, and to take that much time and effort, it’s just incredible.”

Polygamy is here 

From good news to bad: the New Yorker is carrying a very long and very supportive article on “how polyamorists and polygamists are challenging family norms.”

When the Supreme Court discovered a constitutional right to same-sex marriage in 2015, Chief Justice Roberts noted that the majority’s reasoning “would apply with equal force to the claim of a fundamental right to plural marriage.” Many of us have been warning that polygamy and polyamory were the next stages of this devolution from marriage. Same-sex marriage activists have dismissed such fears as “scare tactics.”

Unfortunately, we were right.

How can evangelical Christians most effectively persuade those who reject biblical morality that biblical morality is best for them?

The key to persuasion 

In The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, author and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt notes that “people bind themselves into political teams that share moral narratives. Once they accept a particular narrative, they become blind to alternative moral worlds.” As a result, “We do moral reasoning not to reconstruct the actual reasons why we ourselves came to a judgment; we reason to find the best possible reasons why someone else ought to join us in our judgment” (his emphasis).

Consequently, persuading someone that they are wrong is especially difficult when they are convinced that they are right. I am just as adamant that polygamy is wrong for the polygamists in the New Yorker article as they are adamant that it is right for them.

The key to persuasion, according to Haidt, is relationships. We must earn the trust of the person with whom we disagree on a level that lowers the defensive barriers to genuine discussion and debate. This requires that we listen to the other person, not to point out where they are wrong but to learn why they think as they do and to find places where we can agree.

Haidt quotes Henry Ford: “If there is any one secret of success it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from their angle as well as your own.” On this basis, we can build a foundation on commonalities as a bridge to constructive dialogue and perhaps transformation.

Four transforming steps 

Jason Hamm saw Buzz Lightyear through the eyes of Hagen Davis and created a memory for his family that will last a lifetime. According to tradition, St. Patrick used the shamrock to explain the Trinity to the Irish.

When Jesus called fishermen to be disciples, he promised to make them “fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19). When he met a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, he started their conversation with water and led her to his “living water” (John 4:7–10). When Paul preached in synagogues, he quoted from the Hebrew Bible (cf. Acts 13:17ff); when he spoke to Greek philosophers, he quoted Greek philosophers (Acts 17:28).

As I noted yesterday, CNN commentator Don Lemon made headlines this week by telling the pope and the Vatican that they were wrong about God. Lemon added a suggestion, however, that we would do well to hear: “Instead of having the pew hinder you, having the church hinder you, instead of being segregated in the church or among yourselves, go out and have a barbecue and meet people and start breaking bread with people and getting to know them.”

Once we decide to build relationships with those with whom we disagree, we should take four biblical steps:

1. Ask the Lord where and how to begin, confident that he will lead us to those he is already preparing for our initiative (cf. Acts 16:9–10).
2. Pray for the humility to learn what we do not know and to change what we need to change (Philippians 2:3; Proverbs 18:12).
3. Ask for the words to speak and the grace with which to share them, knowing that life transformation is not our work but that of the Spirit (John 16:7–11).
4. Trust the results to the God who knows our hearts and loves us unconditionally (1 Samuel 16:7; Romans 5:8).

A prayer for protection Jesus always answers 

The Stoic philosopher Epictetus was right: “It is impossible for a person to begin to learn what he thinks he already knows.”

Would you join me in praying for the humility to learn from those with whom you disagree and the courage to share biblical truth with them? Would you ask the Lord to lead you today to the people he has already prepared for your engagement? Would you trust him to use you to plant trees you may never sit under and to use your faithfulness for his glory and their eternal good?

As you go, Jesus goes with you (Matthew 28:20) and you can make St. Patrick’s prayer for protection your own:

Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise. 

This is a prayer Jesus always answers, to the glory of God.

Denison Forum

CNN commentator Don Lemon made headlines last year with his announcement that Jesus “was not perfect when he was here on this earth.” Now he’s back in the news for his attack on the Vatican’s refusal to bless same-sex marriages.

In an interview he gave last Monday, Lemon stated that the Catholic Church and other churches should “reexamine themselves and their teachings because that is not what God is about. God is not about hindering people or even judging people.”

Lemon’s belief that he can dictate theology to the Catholic Church reflects the postmodern claim that personal beliefs are truth. If he says that God is “not about hindering people or even judging people,” it must be so, at least in his mind.

This despite the biblical fact that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Corinthians 5:10). And the biblical fact that “it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). We could go on (see Revelation 20:12; Matthew 25:46; 1 Peter 4:17; 1 Corinthians 4:5; Revelation 22:12).

Lemon’s belief that his beliefs reflect reality is akin to the man who once told me “I don’t believe in hell” as though his belief changed the existence of hell. If I were to claim that “I don’t believe in Canada,” does that change the existence of Canada?

But there’s a larger story behind this story, one that we urgently need to understand.

The “god” of American culture 

Dr. Albert Mohler published an article this week in Public Discourse that every Christian should read. Titled “The Equality Act and the Rise of the Anti-Theological State,” it sets out in stark terms the unprecedented threat this radical legislation poses for all religious freedoms in America. I have issued the same warning repeatedly in the past.

Here is how the Equality Act’s attack on religious liberty and Don Lemon’s attack on the Vatican are related: if we agree with the latter, we are exempt from the threat of the former.

Don Lemon’s “god” is the god of American culture today. He said in his interview, “I respect people’s right to believe in whatever they want to believe in their God, but if you believe in something that hurts another person or does not give someone the same rights and freedoms—not necessarily under the Constitution because this is under God—I think that that’s wrong.”

I am certain that a large number of Americans would agree. You are welcome to your beliefs in God unless someone disagrees. If anyone considers your beliefs to be hurtful to anyone, they must therefore be hurtful. And if they are hurtful, they must be disallowed.

The Equality Act poses no threat to such a religion. Rising opposition to biblical morality as homophobic and dangerous poses no threat to those who abandon such morality. The simplest, easiest thing for Christians to do in the months and years to come will be to agree with Don Lemon.

“We must obey God rather than men” 

This choice between compromise and courage is not new for God’s people.

Think of the prophet Jeremiah, imprisoned in a cistern because he would not stop preaching God’s word (Jeremiah 38:1–6). Remember Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace (Daniel 3), Daniel in the lions’ den (Daniel 6), Peter in Herod’s prison (Acts 12), and John exiled on Patmos (Revelation 1).

The compromise we will be encouraged to make was just what the apostles were ordered to do by the supreme court of their day: “We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching” (Acts 5:28). If these believers would keep their beliefs to themselves and go along to get along, they would get along.

However, the apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than men” (v. 29). When the council then “beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus” (v. 40), they left “rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name” (v. 41).

The real story of St. Patrick 

Such courageous faith is on display around the world today, though most don’t know it.

St. Patrick’s Day is being celebrated with green rivers and beer, shamrocks and Irish folklore. But many do not know that the historical St. Patrick was a hero for his time and ours.

Patrick was born in England around AD 389 but enslaved at the age of sixteen and sold to a farmer in Ireland. Somehow, he came to faith in Christ. Six years later, in response to a vision from God, he risked his life and returned home to England.

However, God gave him a deep burden for the salvation of the Irish people.

He spent seven years in Bible study, then returned to Ireland, not as a slave but as a missionary. He founded two hundred churches and led one hundred thousand people to Christ over his career, surviving twelve attempts on his life along the way. His death on March 17, 461, is the historical reason today is St. Patrick’s Day.

Patrick’s courageous compassion for people who had enslaved and threatened him is a model God invites us to imitate today. (For more, see my paper, Who was St. Patrick? What does the Bible say about luck and divine providence?)

“I am greatly a debtor to God” 

Tomorrow, we’ll explore practical ways we can emulate St. Patrick.  For today, we’ll close with a call to the humility that empowers courageous compassion.

Standing for biblical truth does not mean that we condemn others or consider ourselves to be better than them. It means that we love them enough to tell them the truth even—and especially—when they do not want to hear it. It means that we share with them the good news that has given us hope in the belief that it will do the same for them.

In his Confessions, Patrick made such humility clear: “I am greatly a debtor to God, who has bestowed his grace so largely upon me, that multitudes were born again to God through me. The Irish, who had never had the knowledge of God and worshiped only idols and unclean things, have lately become the people of the Lord, and are called sons of God.”

St. Patrick said of his ministry, “Let it be most firmly believed, that it was the gift of God.”

How will you share your gift today?

Denison Forum