While the Trump Administration’s focus remains largely on the war in Iran, the president took some time earlier this week to address the situation with Cuba as well. Hinting that they may be next in line for regime change, he stated, “It may be a friendly takeover, it may not be a friendly takeover. It wouldn’t matter because they’re really, they’re down to, as I say, fumes.”

Trump went on to add, “They have no energy. They have no money. They’re in deep trouble on a humanitarian basis.” As I discussed in the News Worth Knowing section of this week’s Focus, those comments came after he’d previously mused, “They want to make a deal, and so I’m going to put Marco [Rubio] over there, and we’ll see how that works out.”

As we’ve seen with Iran, Russia and Ukraine, Venezuela, and in a host of other conflicts, wanting to make a deal and being willing to give up what it would take to get a deal are rarely the same. And while the president is correct that Cuba is struggling in almost every way, it’s still unclear what any such negotiations would entail.

Cuba does not have a clear successor who could take over, like in Venezuela. They also don’t have the same kind of economic or natural resources that could prove appealing. Instead, it’s likely that any concessions of interest to the administration would center around the country’s relationships with Russia and China.

A report from the Center for Strategic & International Studies found that there are likely multiple sites on the island that China is currently using to spy on the United States. Russia is also thought to utilize Cuba and other Latin American countries like Nicaragua for similar purposes. Reducing our neighbor nation’s ties to these countries would be difficult, but it would also fit well within the administration’s foreign policy focus on the Western hemisphere.

Yet, until a deal is reached, it’s the people in Cuba who will continue to suffer, and it’s crucial that we don’t lose sight of their plight as we consider the broader negotiations between governments.

“You can tell something isn’t right”

While the toppling of former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro—and, more specifically, the cessation of free oil to Cuba—was, in many ways, the tipping point for the Cuban people, many were in dire straits well before then.

Cuba is one of only two Latin American nations currently in a recession, with Haiti the other. 89 percent of the population lives in extreme poverty, and even their government admits that most live on one meal a day, if that. Moreover, a mosquito-borne illness—easily treated with acetaminophen like Tylenol—has proved difficult to contain and has led to 55 deaths since November due to a shortage of medicine.

A nationwide blackout was triggered recently after the Antonio Guitera thermoelectric plant, the island’s largest power station, failed. Even when the plant was functioning, though, the aforementioned fuel shortages meant many went without power. Power cuts of up to twenty hours are common, while the lack of fuel makes getting to work, transporting food, or simply getting around too great a struggle for most.

And, as Jaob Lesniewski, the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) regional codirector for Cuba, described, it gets worse the farther you get from the capital:

When you arrive in Havana, you can tell something isn’t right. But it’s nothing compared to what you begin to see as you travel farther east. Entire cities look like ghost towns. There are factories, schools, and hospitals that once functioned but now stand empty and severely deteriorated.

As is often the case, however, God is already at work through his people in ways that are making a genuine difference in the lives of those in need.

“Christian churches have become essential spaces”

Hernán Restrepo has an excellent article in Christianity Today about the work believers are doing in Cuba. In it, he describes how Christians are using whatever means are at their disposal to help those around them. Whether it’s providing food, clothing, hygiene products, or simply comfort, God’s people are giving from what little they have to be his hands and feet to the people the Lord has placed around them.

Moreover, even the government has started to recognize the value of getting help from believers. Ministries like MCC have met remarkably little resistance as they’ve brought in shipping containers of humanitarian relief. Instead, their greatest problems have come from getting that aid to the people once it arrives.

The oil embargo has made it difficult to use trucks to distribute the supplies, and the churches with whom they work are often forced to rely on “underfed horses” and carts instead. Still, they’re doing what they can, and it’s still often far more than the people receive from the government.

As Mayra Espino, a sociologist and researcher in Cuba, points out:

In a country where the state can no longer provide basic services like health care and education, Christian churches have become essential spaces for society—not only to receive humanitarian aid or spiritual comfort, but also to build community.

And it’s been that way for quite a while.

In 2008, for example, Cuba was devastated by four hurricanes in a single year. Espino notes that Christians earned a newfound respect after local churches helped repair the roofs of their non-Christian neighbors before fixing their own. It was a gesture of care that was not soon forgotten, in part because Cuban believers have continued to demonstrate that kind of concern in the years since.

And, in so doing, they offer an important example for believers everywhere.

“The gospel is relational”

Sometimes it can be easy to look at the gravity of the needs around us and feel overwhelmed. And that’s alright. Many of those needs are truly overwhelming and, to put it a bit cynically, there’s a reason Jesus told his disciples that they would always have the poor with them (Matthew 26:11).

But the lesson we should learn from our brothers and sisters in Cuba is that we don’t have to meet every need in order to make a tangible difference. Moreover, seldom will you be called to meet those needs alone.

Cuban believers, at their best, make a difference in their communities by working together. They try to model the kind of fellowship Luke describes at the end of Acts 2, where the believers devoted themselves to the study of God’s word, to sharing meals, to prayer, and to providing for the needs of those around to the extent that it was within their capacity to do so (Acts 2:42–46).

And the result is often the same today as it was two thousand years ago: “The Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47).

As Pastor Carlos Alamino of Proclaim Cuba described when he and his son were guests on the Denison Forum Podcast, “The gospel is relational . . . So if we are able to provide for a person, if we’re able to meet their needs, their hearts are going to be ready to receive the gospel.”

And the key is that they are not doing it alone. Carlos went on to describe how “if I close my eyes and I touch any part of the island, we have somebody there that we can call and do ministry with.”

Can you imagine how much more we could accomplish for God’s kingdom in America if we could say the same? Can you imagine how much more you could accomplish just in your city or your town if you could point to any part of your community and know that your finger would fall on someone you could “do ministry with”?

The best place to start toward that goal is to make sure you are willing to be that someone in your community.

While your role in the Body of Christ is essential, you can’t play that role well if you’re trying to do it by yourself. So don’t try. Instead, take some time today to ask God where he would like you to serve, then pray for people to serve with you in that capacity.

Let’s start right now.

• Note: If you would like to find out more about what God is doing in Cuba and how you can help, I encourage you to visit ProclaimCuba.org. There are a number of organizations doing God’s work on the island, and they’re a great place to start learning more.

Quote of the day: 

“If God only used perfect people, nothing would get done. God will use anybody if you’re available.”—Rick Warren

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• Should we be culture warriors or cultural missionaries?
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• The Focus: The slippery slope of Canada’s fall toward 100,000 assisted deaths

Denison Forum

A reflection on cultural engagement and personal transformation

NOTE: Iran has apparently conducted a significant cyberattack against a US company, a first since the war began. As more is known, I will provide an update on the war and a biblical response in an article on our website later this morning.

If you live where I live, you waited for the rain to end yesterday for hours on end. But it could be worse: people in the Northern Territory of Australia are being warned to stay out of rain-fueled rivers in their area because, as one official put it, “There are crocs absolutely everywhere.”

Social media in the region is filled with images and videos of crocodiles floating down streets and galloping across roads. Residents are being told to “assume any waterway may contain a crocodile.”

There’s your devotional thought for the day.

If you pay much attention to secular culture, you might feel the same way about the moral issues of our time. It seems you cannot watch a television show without meeting LGBTQ characters normalizing LGBTQ ideology. Advocates for “reproductive healthcare” (abortion) are active on every platform. Non-evangelicals view evangelicals in decidedly negative ways.

Continue reading Denison Forum – “There are crocs absolutely everywhere” →

A surprising discovery about doubt and fear

A potent storm system is bringing a multi-day threat of tornadoes, damaging winds, and large hail to the Plains, Midwest, and the Ohio Valley. This after a tornado with maximum wind speeds up to 130 mph ripped through Michigan last week, leaving a trail of destruction in its path. The mayor of Three Rivers, Michigan, told FOX Weather that the storm damage is so extensive that she does not recognize parts of her city.

I can understand on a logical level the suffering that results from human sin: God honors the free will with which we are made in his image, so the consequences of our moral failures are not his fault but ours. I can even stretch this logic to include the suffering our sins cause others; if God removed all such consequences, we would not have moral agency.

But this is easy for me to say when I am not the innocent victim of such sin. I would be horrified if someone used this logic to explain the Holocaust to the Jewish people or the horrors of 9/11 to those still grieving those who died on that tragic day.

And it is even harder to understand suffering when it has no moral cause. I know that natural disasters and diseases are the result of the Fall (Romans 8:22); in the Garden of Eden, there were no tornadoes or cancers. But God often intervenes in the Bible and across history to prevent such disasters. When he does not, we can easily question his decision and even his character.

A maxim I have heard over the years advises us to “doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs.” That’s fine until our doubts truly threaten our beliefs.

What then?

“First world” problems

I have been dealing with a series of “first-world” problems lately.

I skipped walking outside this morning because of the rain our local meteorologists forecast that never fell. A repair person is coming by later today to replace our modem because our internet provider couldn’t get the existing one to work, through no fault of the existing modem. I am placing my third call to a repair person who keeps promising to fix our back gate but never shows up. Later today, I will place my third call to an insurance representative who keeps promising to look into a missing rebate but never calls us back.

The other day, my wife and I were talking with an older man on our walking trail who told us about the illness their daughter continues to face. He made a statement that has stayed with me: “Everyone has a million problems until they get sick.”

It’s then, in those crises where we most need God, that we sometimes feel that he is least present. This struggle is not sinful: if the sinless Son of God could cry from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46), so can we.

“But they had no child”

Part of our problem is that our minds are finite and fallen and thus cannot possibly comprehend the character and ways of an infinite and perfect Being. As Elihu noted, God “does things that we cannot comprehend” (Job 37:5). If we could truly understand God, either we would be God, or he would not be.

Another part of our challenge is that we can experience reality only in this moment and thus are incapable of seeing the larger perspective within which God operates.

For example, I read this week that Zechariah and Elizabeth “were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years” (Luke 1:6–7). Then came the miracle by which Gabriel appeared to Zechariah, promising that he and his wife would have a son (vv. 8–23). We know him as John the Baptist.

They could not possibly have understood that God’s delay was so that Mary could become old enough to bear the Son of God, for whom their son would serve as a forerunner. We can seldom understand God’s timing at the time, but his omniscience is not limited by our limitations.

However, even acknowledging the finitude of my mind and temporality, I still want to understand why God permits such suffering in his creation. I would like to believe that such doubts are motivated solely by my mind and quest for rationality.

But a sermon I read this week has convinced me otherwise.

“In these times of doubt, look to your fears”

I subscribe to a daily devotional from the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Boston. These brief paragraphs are excerpts from longer sermons the brothers have preached over the years. A devotional I received earlier this week caught my eye, so I opened the sermon it came from.

It was preached by Br. Jack Crowley in January 2025. His message was based on the flight of the holy family to Egypt (Matthew 2:13–15), focusing on the doubts and stress that Joseph and Mary must have felt as they left all they knew for an unknown future as King Herod sought to murder their baby boy.

Br. Crowley noted that we all have similar “flights” and the fears they engender: “In our flight to Egypt there will be times of doubt. Times when we doubt if we have done the right things, times when we will doubt the quality of our own selves, times when we will doubt our ability to find God in any of it, and times when we will doubt humanity at large.”

Then he advised:

In these times of doubt, look to your fears. Ask yourself what fear is fueling your doubt? Do you fear that you are not good enough? Do you fear that you are not worthy of love? Do you fear that you have not done enough with your life?

These fears can drown us in doubt. These fears can make our lives impossible. These fears can paralyze our days. We need God’s help. We can admit it, we are not strong enough on our own, we need God’s help.

We need to bring to God our fears, our doubt, our stress and all the other things that keep us up at night. We need God’s help in our journey into Egypt. There is no shame in praying out of desperation and great need.

When we get to the other side of this thing we will be stronger, we will know ourselves better, and we will be closer to God. Our journey into Egypt may take a long time, but it is worth it. May God help us all.

“Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”

Br. Crowley is right: My doubts are sometimes birthed by my fears. What if God is not the loving Father I want him to be? What if his omnipotence or omniscience is limited? What if he doesn’t hear my prayers or care about my problems?

Then I realize these fears are less about him than they are about me. I fear that I am not worthy of his love and care. I fear that I am not able to pray effectively or to trust fully. I fear less that he is not enough than that I am not enough.

At such times, I need to remember the cross, where the Father considered my salvation worth the death of his Son. I need to remember all the sins he has forgiven, all the needs he has met, and to believe that he does not change (Malachi 3:6) and that all of God there is, is in this moment.

And then, if this is not enough, I can pray with the beleaguered father, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).

And he will.

Denison Forum

NOTE: As the founder of a non-partisan ministry, I do not endorse candidates or political parties. My focus on the theological issues I will discuss today would be the same if the candidate in question was running as a Republican or an Independent.

Today’s news is understandably focused on Iran’s new leader, the war, and its implications for Iran, the Middle East, China, Russia, and the global future. With all of that, you probably wouldn’t expect me to devote today’s article to a response to liberal Christianity.

However, as I wrote yesterday in explaining the worldview Texas senatorial candidate James Talarico is popularizing these days, the way Christians approach our faith and its relationship with the world is foundational to our understanding of the world and our role in it. Talarico, who is a Presbyterian seminary student and thus considered a “Bible scholar” by some in the media, is advancing his liberal version of Christianity with regard to abortion, transgenderism, gay marriage, and the claim that all religions “point to the same truth.”

In response, I articulated the basic interpretive principle I utilized in my doctoral studies and taught in seminary classes and churches over the decades: the Bible can never mean what it never meant. This principle has been embraced by Christians across the vast majority of Christian history.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Responding to James Talarico’s theology →

NOTE: As the founder of a non-partisan ministry, I do not endorse candidates or political parties. My focus on the theological issues I will discuss today would be the same if the candidate in question were running as a Republican or an Independent.

James Talarico has become a national figure after winning the Texas Democratic Senate primary last week. His theological worldview has especially garnered attention. For example, today’s New York Times headlines that he “hopes to counter what he sees as a conservative takeover of the American church.” A recent Times headline asked if he can “Reclaim Christianity for the Left.”

Talarico has stated that “Jesus never said anything” about abortion, transgenderism, or gay marriage. In his view, Mary’s agreement to become the mother of the Messiah means that “creation has to be done with consent,” affirming what abortion activists call “reproductive rights” for women. Speaking against a bill restricting transgender student athletes, he stated that “God is nonbinary.”

In an interview with New York Times columnist Ezra Klein, Talarico said he believes “Christianity points to the truth,” but “other religions of love point to the same truth.” He views Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism as “circling the same truth about the universe, about the cosmos. And that truth is inherently a mystery.” Because he is a student at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, the media often characterizes him as a “Bible scholar.”

Talarico’s positions are consistent with a stream of theology often called “liberalism.” Where does it come from? How are we to understand its core beliefs in light of biblical truth?

A brief history of theological liberalism

Liberalism is a freighted word that means different things in different contexts. If you give generously to others, you are “liberal” with your money. If you believe in freedom, equality, human rights, limited government, and democracy, you have historically been considered to be aligned with “liberal” governance.

For our purposes today, however, we will consider liberalism in the context of Christian theology. Let’s begin with a very brief history.

Until the seventeenth century, Christians were united in their belief that the Bible is the objective and authoritative word of God. Catholics believed that biblical truth is authoritatively interpreted through the teachings of the church, while Protestants insisted on sola Scriptura, “Scripture alone.” But both considered truth to be objective and ultimately revealed by God to and through his people.

However, the European Enlightenment (c. 1660–1798) shifted the focus of authority to human reason and/or experience. The German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) detached reason from religion, arguing that only what can be demonstrated by reason or learned through scientific discovery qualifies as knowledge.

He and those he influenced reinterpreted biblical teachings in line with their rational principles. In this view, theology is progressive and must be developed by each generation; many redefined miracles as myths that teach spiritual truths; some even reinterpreted the resurrection of Jesus as the resurrection of the faith of his disciples.

In nineteenth-century America, the Social Gospel movement became especially prominent, claiming that Christianity is primarily about the transformation of culture in the context of justice and various social problems. In recent years, “culture war” issues have dominated the conversation as many “mainline” denominations have taken positions endorsing abortion, same-sex marriage, LGBTQ advocacy, and euthanasia (as examples) that contradict historic Christian teachings on these subjects.

(For more, see my article Shaking the foundations: The shift in scriptural authority in the postmodern world, my book The Coming Tsunami, and historian Andrew Hoffecker’s excellent summaries here and here.)

A quest for cultural and theological tolerance

In the view of liberal (now sometimes called “progressive”) Christianity, the Bible can (and should) be reinterpreted by each individual and generation in accordance with their views of truth and their cultural and personal needs. The intended original meaning of the biblical text, so we’re told, is either unknown, unknowable, and/or irrelevant.

Consequently, the annunciation of Mary can be a proof text for “consent” in reproduction and thus for abortion rights. Jesus’ affirmation of the worth of women can be used to fuel feminist theologies that far transcend biblical teachings. Biblical calls for social justice (especially dominant in the prophets) can frame the central mission of the church; biblical claims regarding the uniqueness of Jesus and the necessity of faith in him can be reinterpreted or ignored in a quest for cultural and theological tolerance.

Arguments from silence are especially significant here. If Jesus (allegedly) did not specifically address abortion or same-sex marriage (as examples), we’re told that the church should have no decided position on these issues and that we are free to vote and express our personal convictions on them.

As you can see, this is a large and complex subject, one with massive ramifications for the way we view the Bible, our faith, and the role of our faith in the world.

The Bible can never mean what it never meant

My purpose has been to offer a brief explanation and context for the theological worldview James Talarico has brought into the larger cultural conversation. Tomorrow I plan to offer a biblical, theological, and apologetic response.

For today, let’s close with a principle articulated by Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart in their marvelous book, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth. I used it as a textbook when I taught seminary classes on biblical interpretation and recommend it highly.

They explain that the “first task of the interpreter” is “to discover the original, intended meaning” of the biblical text. This means “to hear the word as the original recipients were to have heard it, to find out what was the original intent of the words of the Bible” (their italics).

The Spirit who inspired the words of Scripture (2 Peter 1:21) will lead us to know and apply their intended, objective meaning. Accordingly, as I often warned my students, the Bible can never mean what it never meant.

We must therefore measure all theological assertions, whether made by James Talarico, myself, or anyone else, by the objective truth of Scripture. In this sense, we need to emulate those in Berea who, when Paul arrived during his second missionary journey, “received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11).

As a result, “Many of them therefore believed” (v. 12). When we do what they did, we will experience what they experienced.

Will you be a Berean Christian today?

Quote for the day:

“When you open your Bible, God opens his mouth.” —Mark Batterson

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Denison Forum

Where is Christianity in Iran’s history, and where could it be in its future?

The implications of the current Iranian conflict are far-reaching and go well beyond the geopolitical discussions you might hear discussed on social channels or cable news. While our media is focused on international trade outcomes, the White House’s foreign policy, and the prospects of stability for the region, an underrated impact is being felt by the Christian community in Iran. Though it may appear inconsequential on the surface, the Iranian church’s future is intertwined with the nation’s future and ultimately carries eternal significance.

Christianity is a persecuted minority today, but has a pivotal presence in Iran’s history, dating back to the Apostolic days of the church. Tradition holds that Thaddeus and Bartholomew visited modern-day Iran in the decades after the resurrection, even establishing a since-reconstructed monastery around 68 AD. Over the next two millennia, the church took a roller coaster ride. From the Muslim conquest, Ottoman rule, the modern missions movement, and the Iranian revolution to today, the church expanded and contracted, but always persisted.

While God has preserved a remnant of believers since the earliest days of the church, being a follower of Christ in Iran has not been an enviable position. Islam-sanctioned persecution has marked much of Persian history for believers. It is only by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit that anyone would leave behind the “comforts” of Islam for the dangers of Christianity.

Continue reading Denison Forum – What to know about the church in Iran →

Who is Markwayne Mullin, and will he be better?

President Trump announced yesterday afternoon that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem would be reassigned to a new security initiative called The Shield of the Americas. While the move is not technically considered a demotion, the president’s frustrations with Noem have been growing for some time, with Tuesday’s hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee serving as the final straw.

Many had called for Trump to fire Noem for months, with her handling of ICE activity in Minnesota a particularly potent example of the ways in which she seemed ill-equipped for the job. After the shootings of both Renee Good and especially Alex Pretti, Noem blatantly mischaracterized what occurred, which further exacerbated an already tense situation. President Trump eventually removed her from the state and sent border czar Tom Homan in to settle things down.

However, her handling of ICE was not the only reason many have been calling for someone else to take over.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Kristi Noem is out as DHS Secretary →

Praying for spiritual regime change in an ancient land

Last night, the Pentagon released the last two names of the six US soldiers killed in a Kuwait attack a day after the US and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury. The other four Americans had earlier been identified. A military official said of the soldiers, “We honor our fallen Heroes, who served fearlessly and selflessly in defense of our nation. Their sacrifice, and the sacrifices of their families, will never be forgotten.”

If Iran has its way, they will be only the first of many American deaths to come.

As the New York Times reports, “The Islamic Republic of Iran’s first priority is to survive. To do that, its leaders will want to drive up the cost of the war for President Trump—in terms of American casualties, energy costs, and inflation—to try to persuade him to declare victory and go home.”

The reason the Iranian regime wants to survive this war at all costs is not just personal, as selfish as it was for them to massacre thousands of civilians who protested against them. Their larger agenda is ideological.

Until we understand it, we will be unequipped to win this war in ways that will matter long after it is over.

Sunnis, Shiites, Twelvers, and the Mahdi

(For an expanded explanation of this section, please see my books The War in Israel and Radical Islam: What You Need to Know.)

Around 85 percent of Muslims are Sunnis; around 15 percent are Shiites. The latter are the majority in Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, and Bahrain, though sizable populations also live in Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Kuwait.

We can think of the two groups somewhat like Catholic and Protestant “denominations,” with historic and significant differences but still part of the larger faith. Their divergence goes back to the death of the Prophet Muhammad in AD 632. Sunnis (from sunna, “habit” or “usual practice”) believe that the caliphs (“leaders”) who followed Muhammad were his proper successors. Shiites (“partisans” or “party of Ali”) disagree, claiming that Muhammad’s son-in-law Ali, the fourth caliph, was his rightful heir.

Approximately 80 percent of Shiites are “Twelvers.” They believe that the twelfth imam (the Shiites’ supreme spiritual leader), Abu al-Qasim Muhammad, was hidden by God in AD 872 and then transported to a transcendent realm in AD 934 (this event is called the “occultation”). In their theology, this “twelfth imam” is still alive and waiting to reappear at the end of history as the Mahdi (“the guided one”), a kind of Muslim messiah. Many Shiites voice and write prayers to him daily.

Many Twelvers also believe that a time of great chaos will precede the coming of the Mahdi. According to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (the military that dominates Iranian politics and society), Israel must be destroyed before the Mahdi will reappear. This is why the possibility of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons is an existential threat to Israel and the West. This also explains why negotiations to prevent Iran from permanently acquiring such weapons have never succeeded.

We should add that for many jihadists, dying in a jihad (“holy war”) is their only certain guarantee of a place in paradise. Now that senior clerics in Iran have declared this conflict to be a jihad, this element should not be overlooked.

What Iran needs most

This ideology explains why, following the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran has been the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. It has supported proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah in their atrocities against Israel and repeatedly incited violence against the West.

Their purpose is not geographical—Iran does not seek to “conquer” the land of Israel in the way Putin seeks to conquer Ukraine and Hitler tried to conquer Europe. Rather, it is ideological: they believe that their theological worldview is the only proper version of Islam and want to export it across the Muslim world. And, as we have seen, their even “higher” purpose is to prepare for the arrival of the Mahdi, who will then dominate the world for Islam.

The Iranian regime believes that it exists in the service of these agendas and that it is serving Allah in so doing. Accordingly, Israel and the US are encouraging a regime change by which the Iranian people revolt against their leaders and take control of their country.

However, what Iran needs most is a spiritual regime change. Its population has become dramatically more secularized in recent years (only 15 percent agree that “the hijab should be mandatory in public,” for example). As the Christian population in Iran grows exponentially, this is a crucial time for the gospel in this historic country.

The ancient land of Persia (as Iran was called prior to 1935) is mentioned some thirty times in the Bible. For example, the Persian King Cyrus liberated the Jews from their Babylonian captivity, enabled them to return to their homeland (2 Chronicles 36:22–23), and helped them rebuild their temple (Ezra 6:3–5). Many historians believe the Magi who worshipped the infant Christ were Persians as well (Matthew 2:1–12).

“If we don’t believe that the end is near”

Christians can therefore stand with this ancient people by praying for a transforming spiritual awakening to sweep their land. The more Iranians and their leaders turn to Christ, the more they will seek peaceful relations with other nations (cf. Hebrews 12:14) and the more they will help to advance such transformation across the world to the glory of God.

There is enormous urgency in our spiritual response to this spiritual conflict. Not just for the sake of those for whom we intercede, but for ourselves as well. In his famous sermon “Learning in War-Time,” C. S. Lewis, himself a veteran of World War I, observed:

War makes death real to us, and that would have been regarded as one of its blessings by most of the great Christians of the past. They thought it good for us to be always aware of our mortality. I am inclined to think they were right.

Br. James Koester of the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Boston, therefore, notes:

If we don’t believe that the end is near, then it doesn’t matter how we live. After all, whatever messes we have made, we can clean them up tomorrow, or whenever, as the case may be. But if the end is coming, if it is near, then how we live, and the mess we have made in our own lives, and in the lives of others, needs to be cleaned up, not whenever, or tomorrow, or even later today, but right now.

Do you have some “clean up” to do today?

Quote for the day:

“The only reason we don’t have revival is because we are willing to live without it.” —Leonard Ravenhill

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• Is America’s war with Iran legal?
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• Betting on suffering: The moral crisis of prediction markets

Denison Forum

Political headlines this morning are focusing on overnight results from Senate primaries in Texas and North Carolina, races whose outcomes could help determine control of the Senate in the fall. However, a different political story is making fewer headlines, though its impact could affect the entire world.

As Iran has expanded the war by targeting US allies in the Middle East, it is facing a consequence it apparently did not expect: the Wall Street Journal reports that “Gulf states, rattled by volleys of Iranian drones and missiles targeting their hotels, ports, and airports, are concluding the Iranian peril must be confronted.”

This is of foundational significance. Arabs are not Persians. There has been enmity between the two cultures for millennia. And most Arab Muslims are Sunni, while most Iranian Muslims are Shiite. If Arab states (most notably Saudi Arabia) side with Israel and the West in responding to Iran, this geopolitical alliance will forge what one article calls a “very different” Middle East.

However, there is a consequence to the Arab states’ involvement in the war that is not military or political but spiritual and eternal.

Sincerely running on the wrong road

I’ve been responding this week to “Operation Epic Fury” by reminding Christians that our “front lines” in this conflict are the prayers by which we wage spiritual war for the protection of innocents and the conversion of multitudes. Here’s my point today: the more Muslims across the Arab world are endangered by this war, the more urgently we should pray for them to know Christ before it’s too late.

Of course, secularists and even some Christians will respond by claiming that Muslims and Christians worship the same God and that my call to intercession for Muslim conversions to Christ is therefore unnecessary and oppressive.

Is this true?

You’ve perhaps heard the saying with regard to world religions, “All roads lead up the same mountain.” But the reality is that Christianity and Islam are very different “mountains.” And when two mountains exist, you cannot climb them both at the same time.

As I noted in Monday’s Daily Article, the Qur’an explicitly denies the divinity of Jesus (cf. Surah 5:75; 19:36), while the New Testament explicitly states that trust in Christ as Savior is the one essential path to salvation (cf. John 3:18; 14:6; Acts 4:12; 2 Corinthians 5:20–21; Revelation 20:15). If Islam is right about Jesus, Christianity is wrong about him. And faith in the wrong “road,” no matter how sincerely it is held, still leads to the wrong outcome.

You may have heard about the runner who was leading the US Half Marathon Championships in Atlanta last weekend before she was led off the course by a media vehicle. By the time she got back onto the right path, her lead was gone and she finished in ninth place.

She was sincere in running the wrong road, but she was sincerely wrong.

The biblical bottom line

If Muslims do not need to hear the gospel and respond by turning to Christ, why is God calling so many Christians to share the good news with them? You might say that these believers are wrong in thinking they are called to such ministry, but what of the dreams and visions by which Jesus himself is appearing to Muslims?

Is Jesus wrong as well?

I have encountered liberal theologians over the years who claim that the Bible commissions us to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19) not because the lost will spend eternity in hell apart from Christ, but so they can live better lives in this world. But Jesus clearly stated, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (John 3:38).

And it is not necessarily true that Muslim converts to Jesus will live “better” lives in this world as a result. Many face the loss of their jobs, homes, families, and even their lives.

The biblical bottom line is clear and non-negotiable: Every person who does not know Jesus needs to know him personally. And every person who does know Jesus needs to share him personally.

“The whole purpose of becoming a Christian”

In The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, Tim Keller notes: “If you don’t live for Jesus, you will live for something else.” Why choose him? As Keller reminds us, “Jesus is the one Lord you can live for who died for you—who breathed his last breath for you.”

With all due respect, Muhammad did not die for Muslims. Buddha did not die for Buddhists. Jewish rabbis do not atone for their fellow Jews by their deaths, much less for the rest of humanity. But “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Each of us. All of us.

Now we are to imitate our Lord by paying forward the grace we have received.

In his Exposition on Galatians, St. Augustine wrote, “The believer who imitates Christ becomes … the same as Christ whom he imitates.” According to C. S. Lewis, such Christlikeness and nothing less is the purpose of the Christian faith.

In Mere Christianity, Lewis observed: “The whole offer which Christianity makes is this: that we can, if we let God have his way, come to share in the life of Christ. . . . Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else.”

To become like Jesus, we must embrace his mission as ours: “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve” (Matthew 20:28).

How will you “serve” those who do not know your Lord today?

Quote for the day:

“God had only one Son, and he made him a missionary.” —David Livingstone

Our latest website resources:

• Is America’s war with Iran legal?
• A review of “Biblical Critical Theory” by Christopher Watkin
• Betting on suffering: The moral crisis of prediction markets
• Christian parenting in the age of AI and influencers
• USA hockey gold, State of the Union, tariff ruling, cartel takedown, Iran update & UFO files

Denison Forum

The FBI is reporting that the mass shooting in Austin, Texas, last Sunday morning may be related to terrorism. A third victim has now died; more than a dozen others were injured, including some who remain in critical condition. Police shot and killed the suspect as well.

The attack came on the weekend that the US and Israel launched multiple strikes on Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The gunman in Austin was reportedly wearing a sweatshirt with the words “Property of Allah.” An FBI agent also said, “There were indicators on the subject and in his vehicle that indicate potential nexus to terrorism.” The bureau’s terror task force is now probing the mass shooting.

A very troubling aspect of this story is its possible connection to hardline Muslim clerics in the US who have been claiming that war between the US and Iran is part of a prophetic destiny tied to the return of the Mahdi, their messiah. One of them closed his Friday prayer before war broke out: “May Allah destroy all the nonbelievers.” He asked for this victory “before the arrival of Imam Mahdi.”

Add to that senior clerics in Iran who have now issued a fatwa (religious edict) against Americans, stating that vengeance is a “religious duty” for all Muslims. Some Muslims believe that for a Muslim to die while carrying out such a jihad is a guaranteed path to paradise.

All of this taken together could cause Americans to fear all Muslims in our midst and to hate radical Islamists who seem to hate us. But while we should obviously take necessary steps with regard to the security of Americans at home and abroad, this visceral reaction is not the way God wants believers to respond.

The opposite is actually the case.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Possible terrorism in Texas and jihad against Americans →

As “Operation Epic Fury” continues, Iran and its proxies are expanding their response as they fire missiles at Israel and the Arab states. The US Central Command announced yesterday that three US service members have been killed in the conflict and at least five others seriously wounded. However, it stated that it remains steadfast in its “relentless campaign to defend the American people by eliminating threats from the Iranian regime.”

At the top of this threat list was Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. When news broke Saturday that he had been killed, one person in Tehran responded: “I think the Middle East has become a better place. Even [the] world has become a better place now.” A video shows teenagers at a school dancing and chanting over the strikes by US and Israeli forces; one says, “I love Trump.” An Iranian lawyer living in Los Angeles said, “It’s not an invasion, it’s a liberation. My support is behind this 100 percent.”

While large crowds in cities across Iran celebrated the news of Khamenei’s death, Iranian state TV showed mourners in Tehran packed into a square, dressed in black, with many of them weeping. The Iranian government has declared forty days of mourning and seven days of public holidays across the nation to commemorate Khamenei’s death.

Continue reading Denison Forum – A biblical reflection on the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei →

Explaining “Operation Epic Fury” and offering four biblical prayers

According to Israeli intelligence, Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, has been found dead after the US and Israel carried out air strikes early this morning on Tehran. The ayatollah’s body has reportedly been pulled from rubble left by the strikes.

This is the latest news on what may be “the most important day of the 21^st century so far.” Early this morning, US and Israeli forces launched “Operation Epic Fury.” In a video statement posted Saturday at 2:30 a.m. ET, President Trump stated, “A short time ago, the United States military began major combat operations in Iran. Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime.”

After describing the regime’s terrorist actions against America and the West since it took power forty-seven years ago, the president stated that “the United States military is undertaking a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests.”

He said this operation would “destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground,” annihilate their navy, ensure their proxies can “no longer destabilize the region or the world,” and “ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon.”

Continue reading Denison Forum – Ali Khamenei reportedly found dead in Tehran →

Casting lots over a dying man’s garments was considered a scandal in my biblical upbringing. Today, we call it a prediction market—and Wall Street calls it innovation.

The rapid growth and expansion of prediction markets have flooded the public marketplace, making it feel as if all of this is supposed to be business as usual, another opportunity to grow your financial portfolio like day trading or other, edgier ways to expand investment opportunities. We’re not yet two months into the new year, and major prediction market companies like Polymarket and Kalshi have dominated the headlines.

Polymarket opened up a pop-up “free grocery store” in New York’s Greenwich Village this past week, following a similar publicity stunt from fellow prediction market rival, Kalshi, which offered patrons $50 groceries in early February. Providing free/discounted food appears, on its face, to benefit a community, but there is a dark reality behind these goodwill efforts.

Many have heard of these companies, but few understand how they actually work. The mechanics are simple. A prediction market poses a question with a defined outcome, often binary, like “Will Candidate X win?” Traders buy shares that pay $1 if the answer is yes and $0 if it’s no. If those shares trade at $0.65, the market is implying roughly a 65% chance of a yes outcome.

As people trade, buying when they think the chance is higher and selling when they think it’s lower, the price updates in real time. The idea is that anyone who has a better read (new information, sharper analysis, faster synthesis) can profit by pushing the price toward a more accurate forecast. In that sense, the market becomes a living estimate shaped by incentives rather than expert judgment.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Betting on suffering: The moral crisis of prediction markets →

Why Artificial Intelligence is not afraid of nukes

When US forces captured former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, the strike was broadly hailed as one of the more impressive displays of force in recent military history. In the weeks since, we’ve learned more about how they pulled off the attack so seamlessly, including that Anthropic’s AI tool, Claude, played a role in the operation.

Now, the nature of that role is still a bit nebulous, but Anthropic had quite a few questions about how the Pentagon used its technology. As a company spokesman stated, “Any use of Claude—whether in the private sector or across government—is required to comply with our Usage Policies, which govern how Claude can be deployed.” And a key part of those usage policies is that their AI cannot be used to “facilitate or promote any act of violence or intimidation.”

As we’ll talk about in a minute, AI has given plenty of reasons to be wary of crossing that line, but Anthropic had to know that this stance could pose something of a problem when it comes to the military applications of their tools. After all, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has not been shy about the role he sees for AI going forward.

“The future of American warfare”

In December, Hegseth remarked that “the future of American warfare is here, and it’s spelled AI.” And at an event last month where the Pentagon announced it would be working with xAI in a similar capacity, he was clear that the Department of Defense would not “employ AI models that won’t allow you to fight wars,” which many took as a shot at Anthropic’s concerns.

To further complicate matters, it’s likely that the US has already used Claude to help the military prepare for a potential war with Iran. And while negotiations are ongoing, the mediator seems to be the only one who thinks they’re going well.

So, against that backdrop, Hegseth has given Anthropic until 5:01 this afternoon to decide whether to grant the US military unrestricted use of its technology. If they do not—and the early signs aren’t promising—then Hegseth has warned that he will consider either invoking the Defense Production Act to force Anthropic’s cooperation or list them as a supply chain risk, which could void any of the company’s other defense-adjacent contracts.

But whether Claude is deemed too essential to lose or too untrustworthy to keep, it could have a profound impact on Anthropic’s business going forward. Still, their concerns about how the military uses AI are not unwarranted, and a recent test by Kenneth Payne at King’s College London offers a good reminder of why.

Why Artificial Intelligence chose nukes

In an attempt to see how Artificial Intelligence would run a conflict if given the chance, Payne set ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini against each other in a series of simulated war games. The models faced off twenty-one times, taking a total of 329 turns. They also provided extensive reasoning for each of their actions.

As Chris Stokel-Walker described, “The AIs were given an escalation ladder, allowing them to choose actions ranging from diplomatic protests and complete surrender to full strategic nuclear war.” By the time they were done, at least one model chose nuclear war in 95 percent of the games. None chose to surrender, regardless of how bad things were going.

That’s not good.

And, as Tong Zhao at Princeton University pointed out, “Major powers are already using AI in war gaming, but it remains uncertain to what extent they are incorporating AI decision support into actual military decision-making processes.” While most countries seem hesitant to fully grant AI control over the keys to their missiles, it only takes one nation to set off a global catastrophe.

To this point, the principle of mutually assured destruction has prevented that scenario from playing out. But what if AI isn’t as afraid of death as people are? And what if it sees striking first as the most logical way to prevent its own destruction?

If Payne’s tests are any indication, those conclusions are not all that unlikely, especially as AI becomes more relied upon for background calculations and scenario building. As Zhao warns, “Under scenarios involving extremely compressed timelines, military planners may face stronger incentives to rely on AI.”

The US military already appears to be heading down that road to some extent, and it’s highly unlikely that they’re the only ones. And if someone chooses to cross that line, chances are that a very human fear will be the driving factor.

“Just trust me”

To be honest, when I consider this topic and where it could lead, fear is pretty high up on my list of responses as well. It’s weird to potentially watch the central plot of an apocalyptic film play out in real life. The logical side of me knows that it probably won’t get that far, but fear rarely has any use for logic, which is what makes it so dangerous.

I think that’s part of why Jesus spent so much time talking about fear and warning against letting it play an executive role in our decision-making.

Take Jairus, for example. When he approached Jesus to seek healing for his daughter, only to have someone come up while they were on their way to tell him that it was too late, Jesus told him “Do not fear, only believe” (Mark 5:36). In The Message, Eugene Peterson translates this command as “Don’t listen to them; just trust me.”

When fear threatens to consume our thoughts or direct our actions, hearing the Lord say “just trust me” can be exactly what we need most.

That doesn’t mean such trust will be easy or silencing the fears will be simple, but it’s a good reminder that the choice of whom we will listen to is always ours to make. And the more often we choose Jesus, the easier it gets to do so in the future.

So, where do you need to trust Jesus today? Are there any fears clawing at your heart and mind?

I’m still a bit freaked out by the AI stuff, and perhaps you are as well. My goal today, though, is to listen to God rather than fear, and to trust that he knows how it’s going to turn out. And, just as importantly, he promises to bring good out of it, no matter how it ends (Romans 8:28).

Holding tight to that promise won’t always make the fears go away—after all, sometimes they’re justified—but it can give us a new perspective on them, one born of peace rather than anxiety.

Let’s pray for that peace today.

Quote of the day

“Only he who can say, ‘The Lord is the strength of my life’ can say, ‘Of whom shall I be afraid?’” —Alexander MacLaren

Our latest website resources

• Our political future and an interview that moved me deeply
• USA hockey gold, State of the Union, tariff ruling, cartel takedown, Iran update & UFO files | Ep. 58
• Christian parenting in the age of AI and influencers
• Who was “El Mencho” and why should his death matter to you?
• A Christian response to the age of selective outrage

Denison Forum

Commentators are still responding to President Trump’s “State of the Union” address in the predictably partisan ways you would expect. Reactions have been from such polar opposites that an uninformed observer could question whether they are responding to the same speech.

I genuinely grieve to see the depth of rancor and bitterness that exists in our country toward fellow Americans with whom we happen to disagree politically. And I genuinely question whether our democratic experiment can be sustained while we sustain such animosity toward one another.

In 1774, John Wesley advised those who would be voting in an upcoming election:

1. To vote, without fee or reward, for the person they judged most worthy
   2. To speak no evil of the person they voted against, and
   3. To take care their spirits were not sharpened against those that voted on the other side.

Don’t you wish more Americans would take his advice?

Continue reading Denison Forum – Our political future and an interview that moved me deeply →

Reflections on the state of our union and our best future

President Trump delivered his annual “State of the Union” address to Congress and the nation last night. The speech was the longest ever, lasting 108 minutes, and covered a range of topics designed to buttress his party’s chances in the upcoming midterms.

A highlight for me and for many was the entrance of the US men’s hockey team into the House chamber. The president announced that he would be awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom, our nation’s highest civilian honor, to the team’s goaltender, Connor Hellebuyck.

Their story in winning the Olympic gold medal is inspirational on so many levels, among them the tribute paid by Jack Hughes, who scored the winning goal in overtime and later exulted, “This is all about our country right now. I love the USA. I love my teammates. It’s unbelievable. The US are a hockey brotherhood. It’s so strong and we had so much support from ex-players. I’m so proud to be an American today.”

Hughes made his remarks while missing two front teeth knocked out earlier in the game, which made images of him grinning while wrapped in the American flag especially iconic. The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote, “There isn’t much that unifies all of America today, but the Olympic overtime victories by the US men’s and women’s hockey teams ought to qualify for anyone with a modicum of patriotic feeling.”

They titled their editorial, “Jack Hughes for President.”

When the other side is “immoral”

Judging from partisan reactions to Mr. Trump’s speech, the Journal board is right in their assessment of America’s unity or lack thereof. We should be saddened but unsurprised; in a Pew Research Center survey, 72 percent of Republicans said Democrats are “immoral,” while 63 percent of Democrats said the same of Republicans.

It is difficult to find common ground and make common cause with people whose character we find “dishonest,” “unintelligent,” and “close-minded” (other accusations the parties made against each other in the survey). When the other “side” is not just wrong but evil, how are we to forge a collective future with them?

In a now-iconic 1858 speech, Abraham Lincoln cited Jesus’ statement, “A house divided against itself cannot stand” (paraphrasing Luke 11:17). Mr. Lincoln was referring to slavery, but I wonder if he would issue the same warning with regard to our divisive time.

What is the way forward for our “United” States?

“Our country, right or wrong!”

The esteemed moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre once delivered a lecture that has outlived its context and its author. Titled “Is Patriotism A Virtue?”, it is one of the most thoughtful expositions of patriotism ever offered to our secularized society.

Dr. MacIntyre stated, “Patriotism is not to be confused with a mindless loyalty to one’s own particular nation which has no regard at all for the characteristics of that particular nation.” Conversely, he noted, “The morality for which patriotism is a virtue offers a form of rational justification for moral rules and precepts whose structure is clear and rationally defensible.”

He showed that morality, defined as adherence to objective ethical truths and principles, cannot be “patriotic” if the term is defined as unquestioned loyalty to one’s country. This version of patriotism was captured by US naval commander Stephen Decatur’s famous 1816 proclamation, “Our country, right or wrong!”

In this sense, the apostles were unpatriotic to the Jewish nation when they refused its leaders’ demand that they cease preaching the gospel (Acts 5:27–32). Christians today are similarly unpatriotic when we stand against unbiblical immorality such as elective abortion and same-sex marriage, despite their protected status in law.

I would counter that allegiance to biblical morality when it conflicts with our nation’s values is the most patriotic way to serve our nation. This is because obedience to God’s word leads us into our greatest flourishing and out of immorality that is destructive to our lives and country. If the apostles had ceased preaching the gospel when the authorities demanded that they do so, they would have deprived these leaders and the nation they served of the only path to salvation in this world and the world to come (cf. Acts 4:12).

Accordingly, we are at our most patriotic when we offer our nation what it most needs. And what it most needs is a personal relationship with our only Savior and the biblical truths that empower and enliven that relationship.

“To make us love our country”

Fifty-five years after Commodore Decatur’s proclamation, a German-born US general and US senator named Carl Schurz offered this clarification: “Our country right or wrong. When right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be put right.” The great British political philosopher Edmund Burke similarly stated, “To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.”

Here’s the problem: Our secular republic does not possess the inherent resources to be such a country. Our founding creed endows us with the rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” but it does not and cannot define them.

What is “happiness” to you may not be to me. So long as the pursuit of our versions of happiness (theoretically) does not harm others, our jurisprudence permits and even defends it. Thus, as I noted yesterday, much that is immoral in America is not illegal. And the freedom to be immoral cannot unify a nation or sustain its future.

So, once again, we find that the gospel is the answer to the question, whatever the question is.

“The duty of all Nations”

Jesus alone can sanctify sinful hearts and infuse us with a love for our neighbor that promotes our highest patriotism. He alone can empower us to forgive our fellow Americans, past and present, for injustices of the past and the present. He alone can enable us to serve our country and people with sacrificial, selfless humility.

Abraham Lincoln was therefore right to assert in his First Inaugural Address:

Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on him, who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty.

Our greatest president echoed the wisdom of our first president when he began his 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation:

It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favors.

To be at our patriotic best, let us perform all four duties today and every day, to the glory of God.

Quote for the day:

“To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian.” —George Washington

Our latest website resources:

• Who was “El Mencho” and why should his death matter to you?
• When I wish I were doing something else: An Easter word of encouragement for weary souls
• A Christian response to the age of selective outrage
• Is the American dream dead? Plus: James Van Der Beek, Robert Duvall, Jesse Jackson & Winter Olympics
• What does “I Can Only Imagine 2” teach us about faith and suffering?

Denison Forum

A reflection on geopolitics, morality, and our best future

On this day four years ago, Russia invaded Ukraine.

What became the largest ground war in Europe since World War II has reshaped global security, energy markets, and geopolitical alliances. Russian forces now occupy roughly one-fifth of Ukraine, with the front lines largely unchanged for months.

Attacks on Ukrainian energy, water, and railway infrastructure are continuing. The number of troops from both countries who have been killed, wounded, or missing is nearing two million. The war is forcing Russia to cannibalize its non-military economy to feed its war machine, with dire consequences for its future. By the end of last year, its army was losing more men than it could recruit.

Russia’s illegal and immoral attack on Ukraine continues to devastate Ukrainians as well. Millions have been uprooted from their homes, creating the largest and fastest displacement crisis in Europe since World War II. More than twelve million people have required humanitarian assistance.

Nor is this conflict likely to be limited to Ukraine.

After the war eventually ends, according to Finland’s 2025 military intelligence review, Moscow is expected to more than double the number of troops it stations along NATO’s northern frontiers. Last November, Germany’s defense minister said Russia would be ready to attack by 2029 and quoted “certain military historians” who said the continent had already lived through its “last peaceful summer.”

In December, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte announced that Russia could attack a NATO country in the next five years and warned that member states “should be prepared for the scale of war our grandparents or great-grandparents endured.”

I’m certain that you believe Vladimir Putin’s criminal invasion of Ukraine and his ongoing threats to the future of Europe to be morally wrong.

My question is, Why?

Would you save your dog or a stranger?

I’m not asking if you agree or disagree with Putin’s supposed justifications for his actions. Or whether you can marshal geopolitical arguments for or against his regime. I’m asking why you believe there are such categories as right and wrong.

Your answer is crucial, not just to wars and politics but to the way you live your life today.

Public intellectual and author Dennis Prager’s latest book, If There Is No God: The Battle Over Who Defines Good and Evil, is being published today. I will read it as soon as possible, but I am grateful for the excerpt he shared with the Free Press. In it, he notes that humans can live by their feelings or their values, but not both.

He illustrates: If you would rather rescue your drowning dog than a drowning stranger, you are operating on feelings. If you prioritize the man you don’t know over the dog you love, you are operating on biblical values that identify humans as made in the image of God.

Unfortunately, as Prager writes, “The great moral tragedy of our time is that feelings have replaced values.” From abortion and euthanasia to the “sexual revolution” and all it has fostered, Americans are doing what feels right to them with no consideration for objective truths or moral standards.

In fact, many do not believe that such standards exist. They are absolutely certain that there are no absolute truths, despite the oxymoronic illogic of such a belief.

Then a horrific moral tragedy such as Putin’s invasion of Ukraine comes along, itself a consequence of such subjective immorality. And we are forced to grapple with the fact that if all morality is a matter of preference, we have no way to disagree with even the most monstrous evils in our world.

How to be moral people in a moral world

Of course, you and I know better.

We believe that our God is holy (Isaiah 6:3; Revelation 4:8) and that he has given us a book by which we can live according to the moral standards he requires (2 Timothy 3:16–17). We therefore have solid rational ground for branding Vladimir Putin’s atrocities as atrocities and his immorality as immoral. We can do the same with other “culture war” issues of our time.

Until, that is, we are forced to choose between feelings and values for ourselves.

I cannot think of the last time I faced a temptation in which I genuinely did not know right from wrong. In the moment, the conflict between what I want to do and what I know to do is the heart of the issue (cf. Romans 7:15–24). The same is true of omissions as well as commissions: “Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” (James 4:17).

There is no legal way out of this moral quagmire. All the laws in the world cannot force us to change our feelings about what we want; only the methods by which we seek to obtain it.

This is why, if we want to be moral people in a moral world, we need the transformation only Jesus can bring.

When Jesus is making us like himself

One day, “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb” and “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lᴏʀᴅ as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:6, 9). Until then, wars and conflicts, crimes and immorality will only cease to the degree that the Messiah, who will one day change the world, first changes us.

The path to our best future lies through our hearts.

This is why “preaching the word,” which was the core purpose of Jesus, must be ours as well (Mark 2:2). It is why sharing Christ with our neighbor is the most significant way we can love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:39).

And it is why we need to know our Savior so intimately that we become the change we need to see.

You and I can know that Jesus is making us like himself when we no longer want to do the wrong things we used to do, and we want to do the right things we used to avoid.

By this measure, how close to him are you today?

Quote for the day:

“You change your life by changing your heart.” —Max Lucado

Our latest website resources:

• When I wish I were doing something else: An Easter word of encouragement for weary souls
• A Christian response to the age of selective outrage
• The Focus: Why are the new voter ID laws so controversial?
• Is the American dream dead? Plus: James Van Der Beek, Robert Duvall, Jesse Jackson & Winter Olympics
• What does “I Can Only Imagine 2” teach us about faith and suffering?

Denison Forum

Any of these stories could be the focus of today’s Daily Article:

• The Winter Olympics concluded yesterday, with Norway winning forty-one medals and the US in second place with thirty-three. The US men’s hockey team won the gold medal in overtime, its first since the “Miracle on Ice” forty-six years earlier.
• A historic winter storm has placed fifty-nine million people in the Northeast under weather warnings today.
• At least fourteen people were killed yesterday, including seven National Guard troops, as violence erupted across Mexico after the army killed the country’s most-wanted drug lord.
• With US forces in place across the Middle East, President Trump is said to be considering his options for Iran.
• Authorities in Arizona are continuing their search for Nancy Guthrie more than three weeks after she disappeared.

But today, I’m focusing on Friday’s Supreme Court decision striking down President Trump’s global tariffs. I consider it an even more foundational story, though not for reasons you might think.

As you know, I lead a nonprofit ministry committed to neutrality with regard to partisan politics. It may therefore surprise you that I am writing this morning to claim that the Court’s decision is good news for every American.

The reason I can do so and remain missional is that my assertion has nothing to do with partisan politics or tariffs and everything to do with our national and cultural future.

 “If men were angels, no government would be necessary”

In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, historian Gordon Wood writes that our revolution “did not just eliminate monarchy and create republics; it actually reconstituted what Americans meant by public or state power and brought about an entirely new kind of popular politics and a new kind of democratic officeholder.” As political scholar Yuval Levin has written, “The Constitution establishes a politics in which no one is in charge and, therefore, in some sense, everyone is in charge.”

We tend to focus on the Founders’ positive view of humanity that counters centuries of European monarchical thinking with “all men are created equal.” In such a worldview, anyone can be elected president, sit on the Supreme Court, or serve in Congress.

But the Founders also understood the negative side of humanity. In Federalist No. 51, James Madison wrote:

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

Accordingly, Madison and the other framers of our Constitution created checks and balances to ensure no individual or group would possess unaccountable power. In our system, the Supreme Court can overturn the actions of the president, the president can veto laws made by Congress, and Congress can overturn court decisions through legislation (cf. the horrific Supreme Court Dred Scott decision of 1857 vs. the Civil Rights Act of 1965).

Laws can replace laws, as can constitutional amendments. Presidents and members of Congress can be replaced by voters, and they and justices can be impeached.

A foundational fact for our national future

This system is intended to prevail even in the face of partisan pressure.

For example, in his response to Friday’s ruling, President Trump said he was “absolutely ashamed” of some justices who ruled six-to-three against him. Vice President JD Vance similarly called the high court decision “lawlessness” in a post on X.

The Wall Street Journal headlined that the ruling “rips open Trump’s relationship with the Roberts Court.” The president especially singled out Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch, whom he nominated in his first term, as a “disgrace to our nation.”

But he is abiding by the ruling and adopting other means of imposing tariffs. This outcome shows that our democratic republic continues to function 250 years after it was created. This is a foundational fact for which all Americans should be grateful.

I thought Christianity was a system of morality

However, a “government of laws, not of men,” as John Adams famously described our system, can only take us so far. Legality is a poor substitute for morality.

In our system, we can do whatever we want so long as we are not caught doing it. Much that is immoral and damaging to our lives and culture is nonetheless legal, from abortion and euthanasia to adultery, pornography, and same-sex marriage.

The only path to our best lives is one that changes not just what we do but the essence of who we are. This is an offer made by no legal system, worldview, or religion—except Christianity.

Only Jesus says we can be “born again” (John 3:3). Only he can make us a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Only he can change our hearts.

Our culture does not understand this. I didn’t know it for many years before I became a Christian.

And, to my point today, I overlooked it for many years after I did.

I thought Christianity was a system of morality by which I could please God and receive his blessing in return. Reading the Bible, praying, attending church, sharing my faith, and so on were the expected ways for Christians to behave. I believed the credo, “What you are is God’s gift to you; what you make of yourself is your gift to God.”

But what I could “make of myself” was not enough. Somehow in my soul I knew there was more than this. My “God-shaped emptiness” was not yet filled. To cite St. Augustine, my heart was still “restless” because it had not yet come to “rest in him.”

“Rejoicing for weariness and radiance for dreariness”

It was a spiritual formation course in seminary where I first became acquainted with the idea that God’s Spirit could make me like God’s Son, that if I would surrender my life to him every day, he would then transform me in ways I could neither imagine nor produce.

This is what famed missionary J. Hudson Taylor called the “exchanged life.” In They Found The Secret: 20 Transformed Lives That Reveal a Touch of Eternity, the late Wheaton College President V. Raymond Edman wrote:

It is new life for old. It is rejoicing for weariness and radiance for dreariness. It is strength for weakness and steadiness for uncertainty. It is triumph even through tears and tenderness of heart instead of touchiness. It is lowliness of spirit instead of self-exaltation and loveliness of life because of the presence of the altogether Lovely One.

Would you like to make such an exchange today?

Quote for the day:

“I used to ask God to help me. Then I asked if I might help him. I ended up by asking him to do his work through me.” —J. Hudson Taylor

Our latest website resources:

• A Christian response to the age of selective outrage
• The Focus: Why are the new voter ID laws so controversial?
• Is the American dream dead? Plus: James Van Der Beek, Robert Duvall, Jesse Jackson & Winter Olympics
• What does “I Can Only Imagine 2” teach us about faith and suffering?
• George Washington and the future of the “United” States

Denison Forum

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew of the English royal family, was arrested yesterday on his sixty-sixth birthday after the latest batch of Epstein files that were made public last month shed new light on his connections with Jeffrey Epstein and his associates. But while that connection has been known for years, the charges that landed Andrew in jail—at least for the time being—were not about the allegations of rape and assault that have trailed him for more than a decade. Rather, he was arrested for suspicion of misconduct in public office.

Essentially, Andrew stands accused of sharing confidential information with Epstein while the former prince served as an official trade envoy for England. The charges are a bit nebulous, as technically there’s no official statute that defines what they mean. Rather, they have evolved over time from Britain’s common law.

Even if the accusations are a bit underwhelming when compared with Andrew’s other alleged crimes—for which he’s never been convicted even if they are common knowledge—yesterday’s arrest still marks the first time that a member of the royal family has been taken into custody since King Charles I was tried and executed for treason back during the English Civil War in 1649. And it was apparently done without the family’s knowledge.

After Andrew’s arrest became public, King Charles III released a statement supporting the arrest and promising that police will “have our full and wholehearted support and cooperation. Let me state this clearly: the law must take its course.”

And it’s quite possible that Andrew’s arrest could change other lives as well as the law does just that.

A prince no longer

Last November, Andrew was urged to come speak before Congress regarding his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and their business of trafficking young women and girls. Back then, he declined to appear. However, it’s possible that the FBI could question him while he is in police custody in Britain.

Now that he is potentially facing life in prison, he has less to lose than when he was a free man. Would he trade secrets for a reduced or annulled sentence?

When he was stripped of his titles late last year, there was a good bit of speculation that part of the reason the king made sure he landed on his feet was to keep him from having to sell information to maintain his lifestyle. While the royal family can likely take steps to ensure that their secrets are kept safe, Andrew was close enough with Epstein that his testimony could prove pivotal in bringing others to some measure of justice.

And, given that he has essentially been cut out of the royal family in recent years—the separation became more absolute in the wake of Queen Elizabeth’s passing—he is likely to need all the help he can get. So, whether it’s before a London court or the halls of Congress, Andrew’s affiliation with Epstein and Maxwell is likely to continue making headlines for quite a while.

But why is that? Why does anything involving Epstein make headlines today?

On the surface, it sounds like a silly question. But, if you stop to consider it, I think it points to an interesting conclusion, and one far too many take for granted in our culture today.

“The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”

Last week, cultural philosopher Paul Anleitner noted in response to the latest outrage over Epstein:

Here’s an uncomfortable truth about the Epstein accusations: We only find them morally reprehensible because of Christianity. Before the spread of Christianity, “civilized” Greek and Roman elites openly flaunted underage s*x slaves. This was normal. Emperor Hadrian built an entire city in honor of his favorite boy. We’ve heard for decades that Christianity is a barrier to moral progress, but if you undercut the moral foundations of Christianity from the West, culture reverts back to pagan norms.

While the cultural and moral development of the West is not quite that straightforward, Anleitner is correct. The driving force behind the changes from the Greco-Roman ethics of the ancient world to the Judeo-Christian morality that stands at the foundation of so much of Western society today was Christianity.

As the Greek historian Thucydides noted four hundred years before Christ:

You know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

While the sad reality is that we see that basic dichotomy at times in Christian history as well, many of the fundamental shifts in how people value individual human lives in our culture today owe a great deal to the gospel’s power to transform hearts and renew minds (Romans 12:2).

The question facing our society now is whether we can maintain the moral system built upon Christian ethics while rejecting the God who created it.

Jesus was pretty clear on the answer, and it’s not looking good.

One life at a time

At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus wraps up his teaching by telling his followers:

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” (Matthew 7:24–27)

In this passage, Jesus makes clear that it’s not enough to simply hear Christ’s commands or to have a vague understanding of what they mean. It’s only when we put those commands into action that we can find the kind of foundation necessary to weather the storms that will inevitably come our way.

Most people in America today have at least a passing awareness of who Jesus is and are even familiar with some of his teachings. But familiarity is not enough. Christ demands obedience, and nothing less will suffice.

We are blessed to live in a time when at least some elements of Christ’s commands for how we should live and how we should treat one another are already accepted as the morally right thing to do. That puts us head and shoulders above those first Christians, who lived in a world built on a view much closer to Thucydides than Jesus.

At the same time, though, the lost around us are unlikely to take that next step from awareness to obedience unless they see us do it first.

So, as we finish up for today, ask the Holy Spirit if there are any areas of your life where you’ve settled for less than full obedience? Are there cracks in your foundation, or rooms built on sand?

Most of us have some area we have tried to keep back as our own. But God’s promise is that they won’t hold up for long. And I fear the same will be true of our nation as well unless something changes.

And that’s where you and I come in.

God has given us the privilege of partnering with him in helping to bring our culture back to Jesus, one life at a time.

Where can you start today?

Quote of the day:

“There would be no sense in saying you trusted Jesus if you would not take his advice.” —C. S. Lewis

Our latest website resources:

• A Christian response to the age of selective outrage
• Is the American dream dead? Plus: James Van Der Beek, Robert Duvall, Jesse Jackson & Winter Olympics | Ep. 57
• What does “I Can Only Imagine 2” teach us about faith in suffering?
• Why are the new voter ID laws so controversial?
• Can caffeine and video games protect against dementia?

Denison Forum

It was the unseen interview seen “round the world.” On The Late Show Tuesday night, Stephen Colbert told viewers that CBS told him an interview he taped with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico could not be aired. According to Colbert, CBS was concerned about an FCC rule requiring broadcasters to give “equal time” to opposing candidates when an interview is broadcast with one of them.

The network, however, flatly denied Colbert’s claim, stating, “The Late Show was not prohibited by CBS from broadcasting the interview.” It added that the network “provided legal guidance” and “presented options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled.” The show then presented the interview through its YouTube channel, where FCC rules do not apply.

As of this morning, it has been viewed more than 7.4 million times, roughly triple what the CBS program draws each night. Mr. Talarico also reported that he raised $2.5 million in campaign donations in the first twenty-four hours after the interview.

You may side with Mr. Colbert in this ongoing dispute, you may side with CBS, or you may not care. But it’s worth noting that Mr. Colbert’s show will end in May. We might wonder if the fact that he has little to lose in his conflict with the network contributes to his willingness to stage it.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Stephen Colbert’s ongoing dispute with his CBS bosses →