Democrats gained control of the House and the Senate last night in what the Wall Street Journal called a “blue wave” that “surged across the country.” The party flipped Senate seats in Maine, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, Texas, South Carolina, and North Carolina, along with numerous seats in the House. In my home state of Texas, Democrat James Talarico defeated Ken Paxton in a key Senate race, and Democrat Gina Hinojosa secured victory over three-term Gov. Greg Abbott.

The results were decisive but unsurprising. Since 1938, only twice have midterm elections resulted in congressional gains for the party in the White House (in 2018 and 2022, the president’s party lost seats in the House but gained seats in the Senate). As a political science professor explained, “Governing requires choices that disappoint some voters, and dissatisfaction can give the opposition a stronger incentive to participate. Midterms also provide an opportunity to express frustration with national conditions or support a check on presidential power.”

Continue reading Denison Forum – Responding to the “blue wave” that swept the country →

How to sacralize the secular

More than fifty million Americans cast ballots in early voting prior to today’s midterm elections. Among them was Pope Leo XIV, who submitted a mail-in ballot for the midterms, becoming the first pope to vote in a US election and likely the first to vote in a secular democratic election. More than a hundred million people are expected to join him by voting today.

But why do we vote on a Tuesday? The US is one of only twenty-eight democratic countries that typically hold national elections on non-holiday weekdays. By contrast, sixty democracies typically hold elections on Saturdays or Sundays, and sixteen others hold elections on weekdays but declare them public holidays.

Our reasoning goes back to the nineteenth century, when the nation was primarily rural and all voting was in person. Wednesday was farmers’ market day, so it was out. And Sunday wasn’t an option because so many people were in church.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Three-day weddings and Tuesday midterms →

In light of tomorrow’s midterm elections, many are wondering what comes next. The Wall Street Journal reports that the US has told several Gulf Arab countries to be prepared for a short, intense military campaign after the elections. Stocks were down significantly last Friday but could rally after the elections, while the election results will definitely affect the last two years of the Trump Administration and the next congressional session.

Some are worried that dire threats could be on the horizon, fears fueled by news that the UK launched its “Be Ready” campaign on October 22, encouraging households to stockpile three days of drinking water, nonperishable food, cash, and other emergency essentials. Closer to home, the Pentagon is preparing US bases to keep operating for at least ninety days without outside support.

The British effort is the first stage of a three-year campaign to help households be prepared “if everyday services are temporarily disrupted” through “events such as severe weather.” The Pentagon, by contrast, is preparing for the possibility of a major war that could cripple power grids, disrupt supply chains, and threaten critical infrastructure.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Pentagon prepares bases to operate autonomously for 90 days →

If you don’t have “election anxiety,” you’re in the decided minority. With all the political messages inundating social media, television, and mailers, we’re inundated daily with the subject. Conversations about politics can strain friendships; heated debates can increase tension and negatively impact relationships.

Some avoid social gatherings altogether to avoid conflict. And many are worried about what comes after the elections.

Reading through Daniel 6 today, I found an ancient remedy for the anxiety of our times. It is relevant regardless of our circumstances and fears. I am committing myself to it anew today and invite you to join me.

“Going up to the temple at the hour of prayer”

Many people know of the Muslim custom of praying five times a day (known as Salah), but fewer know that the Jews have historically prayed three times each day. (Some historians think Muhammad was aware of this and patterned the Muslim custom on it.)

Continue reading Denison Forum – An ancient remedy for “election anxiety” →

Discussing death can be uncomfortable. Most of us would rather avoid the subject unless circumstances force us into it, and even then, we’ve largely rebranded funerals as a celebration of life rather than a memorial for the departed. To be clear, I don’t think there’s necessarily anything wrong with that.

Still, the end result is that most people in our culture tend to be pretty bad at wrestling with the fact that we’re mortal. But if there’s one time of the year when we’re willing to drop our defenses and open ourselves up to a conversation about death, it tends to be Halloween.

As Hannah Miller King describes, Halloween is “that stretch of weeks every fall when our death-avoidant culture reveals its underlying fascination with mortality and the afterlife. Already the houses on my street are transforming into macabre scenes full of skeletons and plastic tombstones.”

Continue reading Denison Forum – How God can use the dead to redeem Halloween →

My first visit to Cuba was as though I had traveled through a time tunnel. The cars were all 1950s American or 1980s Russian. The buildings in Havana, most of which were built prior to Castro’s revolution in 1959, were crumbling. A store I went into had almost nothing on its shelves. The people were incredibly industrious and gracious, but their government was failing them.

It’s far worse today, as Robert Worth’s new Atlantic article shows. Titled “The Collapse of Cuba,” its subtitle reports, “The withering of the state is shocking to behold.” While Cuba’s Communist government has always blamed America for its problems, the Cubans Mr. Worth interviewed disagreed, each without exception blaming their leaders for their suffering.

Fidel Castro tried to build a state on atheistic socialism with himself at its center. Cuba is a tragic study in the fallacy of such idolatry and illustrates the fact that “those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast hope” (Jonah 2:8).

This is a principle worth contemplating today, for the sake of our nation and our souls.

“Solomon built a high place for Chemosh”

I was reading 1 Kings 11 recently and came upon a surprising passage. The text tells us that “King Solomon loved many foreign women,” and “his wives turned away his heart” (vv. 1, 3). Consequently,

Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord, as David his father had done. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem. And so he did for all his foreign wives, who made offerings and sacrificed to their gods (vv. 6–8).

In response, God told Solomon he would “surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant” (v. 11), a division that occurred when Solomon’s son Rehoboam took the throne and Jeroboam led the ten northern tribes to rebel against his rule.

Here’s the part that struck me: If you and I were alive at this time and aware of David’s adultery with Bathsheba and the murder he arranged to conceal it, we might consider his sin to be more horrific than his son’s idolatry. But God disagrees. In his view, worshiping any God but the one true God is a sin worthy of the most severe judgment.

Is this because he is a divine egotist? His Word states, “You shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God” (Exodus 34:14). Concerning idols, the Lord warns us, “You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God” (Exodus 20:5).

What does this say about God and about us?

The foundational sin of fallen humanity

I believe we can make sense of God’s “jealousy,” not by attributing it to weakness in his character, but by connecting it with the consequences of serving any God but the one true God. Consider:

1. Creation requires a Creator, what Aristotle called the “unmoved Mover.” Our God must be the Supreme Being in such a universe, or there is another deity more supreme than he. St. Anselm called God “that than which nothing greater can be conceived.” The psalmist testified, “I have seen a limit to all perfection” (Psalm 119:96), but our God cannot be so limited and still be God.

1. Because God is the Supreme Being, worshiping any other deity is choosing to serve something less than the best. In fact, since no other gods exist in reality, idolatry serves a myth and a mirage rather than the highest reality there is.

1. Worshiping and serving the one true God as our only Lord and king positions us to experience his best for our lives as his Spirit moves in and through us (Ephesians 5:18). A loving father cannot bless that which harms his children. Conversely, when we worship God, his Spirit is able to mold us into the character of Christ (cf. Romans 8:29).

1. Such worship is the foundation of all biblical morality. The “fruit of the Spirit” is manifested in lives fully yielded to the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23). The capacity to obey God’s will is given to us as the Lord empowers those who walk intimately with him.

1. Consequently, idolatry is the foundational sin of fallen humanity, while worshiping the one true God is the foundational commitment of a flourishing Christian life.

“The line dividing good and evil”

Idolatry is the service of anything or anyone but God. For example, “sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness” are “idolatry” (Colossians 3:5). Rebelling against God “is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry” (1 Samuel 15:23; cf. 1 Peter 4:3).

The problem comes when I want such idols in my life as a means to becoming my own god (Genesis 3:5). The changes required to repent of my will to power and live with holistic holiness come at a cost that sometimes seems greater than their gain.

In The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn famously wrote, “The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

The good news is that the Holy Spirit will empower us to surrender our hearts to our Lord. God honors the free will with which he created us, but if we ask him to mold our will to his own, he answers our prayer and enables our obedience. Holiness is his work in our lives, not ours. The love for God that empowers us to seek such holiness is the “fruit” of his Spirit in our yielded hearts (Galatians 5:22).

St. Augustine warned,

“Idolatry is worshipping anything that ought to be used, or using anything that ought to be worshipped.”

How will you respond to his warning today?

NOTE: I encourage you to join me in praying daily for our Cuban sisters and brothers in this time of extreme difficulty. Let’s ask God to help and protect them and for his Spirit to use their incredible courage and faithfulness to lead many to Christ. I also encourage you to consider our longtime ministry partner, Proclaim Cuba. I have been with them many times in Cuba, pray for their leaders daily, and love and trust them completely. I hope you’ll join me in praying for them and supporting their vital work.

Quote for the day:

“Idolatry is not just a failure to obey God; it is a setting of the whole heart on something besides God.” —Timothy Keller

Our latest website resources:

• Will Nigeria’s Christians ever be safe? Why little has changed after a year of headlines
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• Praying with purpose for the persecuted church

Denison Forum

Having led more than thirty study tours to the Holy Land, I am watching this week’s elections in Israel with extreme personal interest. Some of my best friends live in the country, and people and places that are dear to me are likely to be affected by what happens this week.

In his Friday Daily Article, Dr. Ryan Denison explained how the Israeli elections work and discussed their implications for the country’s future in the Middle East. Whatever happens with regard to Israel’s governance, however, some extremely worrying facts will remain:

• Antisemitic assaults in the US last year were twice as high as before October 7.
• 24 percent of American Jews were targets of antisemitic incidents over the past year.
• More than three-quarters of surveyed teachers in the European Union have encountered antisemitic incidents in their classrooms.
• Following Hamas’s horrific October 7 invasion of Israel, antisemitic incidents rose 600 percent in Argentina, 738 percent in Australia, 961 percent in Brazil, and 1,000 percent in France.
• A survey by the Anti-Defamation League found that 26 percent of the adults surveyed were “deeply infected with antisemitic attitudes.” This figure represents more than a billion people.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Israel’s elections and two sources of antisemitism today →

A Minnesota store clerk named Ebro Ahmed noticed a school bus driving by with the doors open. When he looked inside, he saw the driver having what appeared to be a seizure. He then ran toward the bus, jumped inside, and pulled the emergency brake, saving nearly twenty children.

The students were transferred to another bus and sent home; the driver was later released from the hospital. Ahmed explained his actions to reporters: “I really felt like it was my duty. Also, too, it’s kids we’re talking about, you know. Even if I were to die, it would still be worth it.”

“God” appears nowhere in the Constitution

Don’t you wish such news were all the news in the news? So do I. But we both know it’s not so. You don’t need me to comment on the manhunt still ongoing for a murderer who escaped from a Tennessee prison, or the fifteen-year-old boy who allegedly staged a mass shooting in Florida, or the Baltimore mass shooting that paralyzed a three-year-old boy, or the NYPD detective who was stabbed ten times during a robbery in the Bronx.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Store clerk jumps inside moving school bus to save children →

Today’s topic is strangely paradoxical: the less relevant we believe it to be, the more relevant it becomes.

We’ll begin with this: The Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the New Orleans Saints yesterday. This is good news in Pittsburgh, bad news in New Orleans, and not news for the rest of us.

Except that the game was the first ever played in Paris and took place amid some of the most violent public demonstrations in that country’s recent history. The day before the game, more than four hundred thousand people protested across the nation over school funding and soaring living costs. The chaos has been so threatening that President Trump believed the NFL should have postponed the game.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Should the NFL have postponed its game in Paris? →

On October 27, Israel will hold its first national election since Hamas attacked just over three years ago. Given the ongoing war with Iran, the tenuous—at best—peace in Gaza, and the country’s ever-changing relationships with its neighboring nations, Tuesday’s vote could have massive implications for the future of the region. However, chances are good that Wednesday will come without much clarity as to who will be in charge.

You see, Israel’s election process is quite a bit different from what we have in America. Rather than voting for individuals, Israelis will cast their votes for one of an estimated thirty-eight parties in the running. To be part of the country’s parliament and get a voice in the government’s direction, a party has to get at least 3.25 percent of the votes. As of now, it’s estimated that around eleven will make the cut.

The final results are due by November 4, at which point the leading group typically gets the first shot at convincing enough of the other parties to support them to come away with a majority in the 120-seat delegation. I say typically because President Isaac Herzog technically gets to decide who gets the first chance, though it usually goes to the party that received the most votes.

Once that selection is made, the party will have twenty-eight days to form its coalition and reach a majority. If they fail, Herzog can either choose to give them an extra two weeks or move on to the next party.

The latest polls have the race neck-and-neck between Gadi Eisenkot’s “Yashar” party and current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “Likud” party. Both are projected to come in well below the necessary sixty-one-vote threshold, though, and neither has a clear path to get there. Still, when everything is finally decided, many expect the country will have someone new in charge.

Israel’s place in the world

Given the string of military successes Israel has had since the October 7 attacks, it may come as a surprise that Netanyahu faces an uphill battle to stay in control. However, as Bobby Miller describes, “Whatever else is on the ballot come October 27, Israelis are entitled to ask what has been done to ensure that such a catastrophe cannot happen again.” And, in that regard, the picture is cloudy at best.

Netanyahu has long maintained power by arguing that the key to Israel’s safety lies in its strength. After three years of war, few doubt Israel’s military power. Iran and its proxies have been reduced to something far more akin to Monty Python’s armless knight shouting “just a flesh wound” than the “existential” threat that existed before. However, there are open questions as to whether the nation is safer as a result.

In the years leading up to the October 7 attacks, Israel had been slowly making progress in normalizing its relationships with several of its key neighbors in the Middle East. Many believe that the invasion by Hamas was “intended to sabotage such talks” by forcing the rest of the Muslim world to choose between Israel and Gaza. They chose Gaza, and any further discussions were put on hold until the war reached its current truce.

Still, even before October 7, nations like Saudi Arabia were inching closer to normalizing relations with Israel because they feared Iran rather than because they genuinely wanted to be in an alliance with their Jewish neighbors. While Iran is not yet entirely defeated, and these nations continue to harbor no traces of goodwill toward it, its power has been reduced enough that it’s no longer seen as the same threat it once was. As a result, many of these countries have begun to look elsewhere for alliances and security.

Saudi Arabia, for example, recently signed an agreement with Turkey and Pakistan that’s modeled somewhat after NATO’s Article Five in that it’s a pact to defend one another against foreign aggression. The end result is that Israel is as isolated as they’ve been in some time.

They have some friendships, and it’s still possible that they’ll normalize relations with many of these countries over the coming years, but America continues to be the only other nation that seems heavily invested in defending Israel against its enemies, and even that relationship is less secure than it once was. That’s a troubling thought for many Israelis; one that could lead them to look in a new direction for leadership going forward.

How much do you need Jesus?

Although Gadi Eisenkot holds views similar to Netanyahu’s on Gaza, Hamas, Iran, and many other key issues, he has a good chance of winning simply because he is not Benjamin Netanyahu. To be clear, the outcome is far from certain. But it’s worth noting that their biggest differences are more about personality than policy, which could have an impact on rebuilding Israel’s reputation on the world stage.

And that’s a lesson we need to keep in mind as well.

As Christians, one of the most important truths we need to remember is that every action we take, and the manner in which we take it, reflects on our Lord. That doesn’t mean God expects us to be perfect—though that is the standard we’re called to aspire to (Matthew 5:48). But it does mean that we don’t get to take days off when it comes to living out our faith well.

I don’t know about you, but the 24/7 nature of the Christian walk can feel overwhelming at times. And it should. We’re not built for that kind of existence, and that’s on purpose.

God created us to need him in order to help us live every day in communion with him. He even gave us the Holy Spirit to help facilitate that relationship. But if your daily life does not require his help to live well, then it’s worth asking if you’ve set your sights too low. And one of the easiest ways to make that mistake is by keeping our faith a secret and our spiritual life firmly separated from everything else.

Our heavenly Father wants more for us and from us than that. We are called to live in such a way that when we interact with others, they will recognize that we have been with Jesus (Acts 4:13).

Will that be true for you today?

Quote of the day:

“The highest reward for a faithful life is not what you get for it but what you become by it.” —Warren Wiersbe

Our latest website resources:

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• Baseball and the Bible: Lessons on grace and perseverance

Denison Forum

According to the Wall Street Journal, “An attack ad against an Ohio Democrat featuring her estranged mother calling her a liar and unfit for office has roiled the state’s closely contested governor race.” The candidate, Dr. Amy Acton, has said her mother’s husband sexually abused her; she and her mother have been estranged since she was a child. Last Tuesday, her opponent, Vivek Ramaswamy, took responsibility for the ad.

Reaction has been strong on both sides. Former Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Democratic nominee for Senate this fall, called the ad “disgusting.” His opponent, GOP Sen. Jon Husted, said, “I would not have run that ad.”

By contrast, Vice President JD Vance rebuked Republicans for “whining” about the ad, saying: “Politics is a tough business.” At a campaign rally in Ohio, he said the ad “calls it out like it is.” And Donald Trump Jr. posted, “Ohio watch this and think about what it means.”

There’s an old truism about politics that says you have to get elected to serve, so whatever it takes to do the former is warranted so long as you then do the latter. I’m certainly not endorsing this approach, and it remains to be seen whether the ad will work for or against its sponsoring campaign when all the votes are cast.

Of course, such transactionalism is not limited to politics. Any of us who aspire to something are likely to do what it takes to try to achieve it. And since we aspire to many different things, we adopt many different strategies for success. They are like masks we wear, each intended for the context in which it is being worn.

Behind such masking, an even more foundational process is at work. Psychologists say we all have an “idealized self,” the person we wish we were and want others to believe us to be. We then act to project this perfected person to the world.

This is wearying work. We wish we could be ourselves with everyone, but we fear they wouldn’t like us if we did.

Sacrificing to Mars before we go to war

The good news is that our Father already knows what’s behind our masks and loves us anyway. But it’s hard to believe this to be true since it’s not entirely true with anyone else we know.

For example, my wife’s love for me over our many decades of marriage is a daily marvel to me. Knowing myself as I know myself, I continue to be astonished that she loves me as she does. But if I were to have an affair or act in a way that harmed our children or grandchildren, I have to think that I would damage her heart for me. She might still love me, but she couldn’t love me in the same way. The same would be true of my family and friends, I presume.

It is only natural to apply this reality to our relationship with God. Unsurprisingly, the world’s religions function on an axis of transaction: if we do what God wants, he will do what we want.

When I led study tours to Ephesus, for example, we walked past the many altars that lined its main thoroughfare, each of them an invitation to do business with the deity it represented. If you’re going to war, you want to sacrifice to Mars so he will protect you in battle. If you need wisdom, Athena is your god; if you’re sailing, you want to placate Neptune beforehand.

So, it only makes sense to go to church on Sunday so God will bless you on Monday. Start the day with a “quiet time” with him so he will bless your day. Act with righteousness to be blessed by your righteous God.

Of course, this could only work if we were as sinless as the Lord whose favor we seek. If he is to bless our righteousness, he must punish our sinfulness. And we are back where we started, needing the help of a God whose help we cannot earn.

“I have loved you with an everlasting love”

The good news is that, unlike you and everyone you know, “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Love is his very nature, his essence, not just what he does but who he is. To put it a bit crudely, God loves you because he cannot help loving you. His nature requires him to love you.

There is, therefore, nothing you can do to make him love you any more or any less than he did when he sent his Son to the cross for you. He loves you as much as when he chose to create you. He loves you on earth as much as he will love you in heaven.

This is why he can say to his people, “I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jeremiah 31:3a). There never was and will never be a time when his love for us changes, which is why he can add, “I have continued my faithfulness to you” (v. 3b).

The key is seeing ourselves as he sees us, remembering all through the day that we are God’s “Beloved,” as Henri Nouwen called us. We then respond by worshipping him, not so he will love us but because he already does. We serve him, not so that he will bless us, but because he already has. Our gratitude for his grace motivates all we do and liberates us to do it in love.

Someone wrote that he asked Jesus, “How much do you love me?” He responded, “I love you this much,” as he spread his arms wide on the cross and died.

He would do it all again, just for you.

Denison Forum

Why a baseball work stoppage is on the horizon, and a biblical view of the value of work

The World Series begins on Friday night between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Milwaukee Brewers, with the guarantee that one fanbase will experience the thrill of a first championship. The low-payroll clubs clash after boasting the best records in the sport. The intrigue is there, and we’d better cherish it because it may be the last of Major League Baseball that we see for a little while.

Baseball’s crown jewel event may get overshadowed by the strong likelihood of an imminent labor dispute. How did we get here?

Baseball is ingrained in the fabric of American culture. We use baseball idioms in regular conversation, perhaps without even realizing that’s where they derive from. Field of Dreams, The Sandlot, and Moneyball headline a lengthy list of influential feature films centered around America’s Pastime.

Major League Baseball, in particular, has left its mark on Civil Rights, American cuisine, and the rest of professional sports. Yet, despite its pioneering journey, it began to fade into the shadows in recent generations.

After a lull in its prominence, MLB has experienced its own sort of renaissance in recent years. The introduction of a pitch clock, the emergence of international superstars, and efforts to reach younger fans are all paying off. Television ratings and ticket sales have surged.

However, all that progress may soon be down the drain as MLB’s future looms uncertain, with a lockout likely to begin when the current collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between owners and players expires on December 1st.

Why a lockout?

The 2027 season is set to open on March 24th, but that is beginning to seem optimistic. It feels like baseball has only recently completed its PR recovery from the disaster of the 1994 players’ strike that cost fans a half-season and an entire postseason.

While the league locking out the players may be a foregone conclusion at this point, how long the siege persists depends on several factors.

The primary topic of concern is the creation of a “salary cap.” MLB is on an island of its own without one. The NBA, NHL, and NFL each introduced a cap decades ago. Now, baseball franchise owners are hoping to enact one.

Owners desire to strengthen the sport’s competitive balance and increase the value of their franchises. The sport’s resurgence could continue with financial predictability and stability.

But the players’ union has vowed never to agree to a cap. To the union, the cap is just a path for owners to artificially reduce player values and squeeze control of the free-agent market to line their own pockets.

The initial league proposal is for a $245.3 million cap and a mandatory floor of $171.2 million. Just ten teams opened the 2026 season with payrolls in that range–twelve were below, and eight were above.

Mark Feinsand, for MLB.com, points to other leagues to argue that the floor would increase spending and directly benefit player compensation. Feinsand also notes overwhelming fan support for creating a cap.

The fuller picture

With the Brewers and Rays as the last two standing this year, the Fall Classic will be between two bottom-half payroll teams. Experts are curious if this might change the dynamic at the negotiating table. Both players and league owners desire public support, and small-market teams finding postseason success does not fit the league’s narrative.

Following the elimination of the two-time reigning champion, big-market, high-payroll Dodgers, Ryan Glasspiegel of Front Office Sports shared his perspective on X: “Hard to see how MLB could credibly lock players out for months or longer over competitive balance issues now. . .Brewers might have saved the sport.”

From 2021 to 2025, nine out of ten World Series participants were top-half payroll teams, and the most recent “small-market” team to win was the 2015 Royals. While 2026 is flipping that script, it is certainly more of an exception than a norm. Perhaps the timing of the exception will prove significant.

If the lockout carries deep into the spring, actual baseball games will vanish from the calendar. 60 games is seen as a potential breaking point, according to The Athletic. Missing 60 games means the current media rights will be extended by a year, and importantly, “the big payday owners expect from new national TV rights deals could wind up delayed by a lockout.”

The league is eagerly eyeing the prospect of new television contracts for 2029 as an opportunity to make everyone richer (see the NBA’s most recent media rights deal). Owners may not be willing to postpone such a significant pay increase. Plus, if the lockout drags into a 1994-like PR disaster with fans, the league’s media value will tank.

Canceling games will come with other casualties, like ticket revenue, concessions, sponsorships, and merchandise sales as well. Each side has prepared by stockpiling a “warchest” for years in anticipation of this day.

As December 1st nears, MLB revealed plans to use the new CBA as an opportunity to revamp the sport’s calendar. The primary changes include reducing the season from 162 to 154 games, implementing a guaranteed weekly off day, and expanding the early postseason rounds. Such changes are widely viewed as beneficial to owners and players, but they come with a catch…a salary cap.

As with our recent examination of college football’s current challenges, it’s all about the money for baseball. As billionaire owners bicker back and forth with millionaire players, avid fans will wait in disappointment, and casual fans will simply disappear if games are not played.

Working is redemptive

Lockouts in professional sports are far from unprecedented. Every time a significant work stoppage like this is anticipated, I am reminded of God’s view of work, outlined in Scripture. Work is a blessing and should be treated as such.

God gave Adam work in the Garden, before the Fall (Gen. 2:15). Paul describes work as a service to the Lord, not to man (Col. 3:23-24). Scripture also speaks harshly against laziness (Prov. 10:4), idleness (2 Thess. 3:10), and greed (Ecc. 5:10)—all temptations for the person that “works” from a self-serving heart.

A great many athletes and league officials love their work and are passionate about what they do, but others are just there for the paycheck. It is hard for the average spectator to sympathize with the plight of players or owners when it all feels so greedy. Yet, the greed that influences decisions in ballpark front offices also influences decisions in workplaces of all shapes and sizes.

Our culture has degraded the value of work to a transactional segment of our lives, typically seen as separate from the personal and spiritual parts of ourselves. At best, work may be about our personal passions and goals. More commonly, work is simply a means to get rich or to be known, and if it does not produce those desired outcomes, we either leverage it for what we want or pull the plug and move on.

But work, whether a paid job or the efforts we pour into everything else in life, was never meant to be about us. Work is a form of stewardship. God has entrusted each of us with skills, time, and opportunities. Our responsibility is to use what he has provided for his glory, whether in a dream job or a “dead-end” job.

If the biblical worldview of work took root in the hearts of athletes and team owners, perhaps we wouldn’t be here waiting on a lockout. If it took root in the hearts of folks in Silicon Valley or on Capitol Hill, perhaps the country, and even the world, would look different.

But what if, first and foremost, the biblical worldview of work took root in your heart and the hearts of those you work with? Perhaps a newfound contentment and joy will emerge as you bring glory to Christ in your working efforts.

Denison Forum

Here’s some good news: Russian state media is reporting this morning that US citizen Stephen Hubbard, held in Russia since 2022, has been released. Now to some bad news: according to the New York Times, “a mysterious Russian satellite moved threateningly close to a US commercial radar satellite that provides imagery to the Ukrainian military.”

Over the weekend, a satellite called Kosmos 2612 came within an estimated eighty-five feet of ICEYE-X36, a satellite that produces three-dimensional images of Earth’s surface under contract with Ukraine. Analysts say the Russian satellite likely intended to attack the US radar satellite in what would have been the first instance of warfare in orbit, but the Kremlin may have called off the operation at the eleventh hour. Kosmos 2612 could close in on ICEYE-X36 again, and five other Kosmos satellites also in orbit could join in nefarious actions overhead as well.

The incident illustrates new warnings that a space war could break out in the future. The destruction of our satellites could cripple military operations and critical national infrastructure, leading to information blackouts and a financial sector collapse. Analysts warn that such a conflict would return modern life to the nineteenth century.

“Sleepwalking into World War III?”

What is happening above us is happening below us as well: Foreign Policy warns that “an underwater shadow war is raging.” The article reviews Undersea War: The Battle to Control the Cables and Pipelines That Connect Our World, a new book focusing on ocean floor cables that carry between 95 and 99 percent of global internet traffic. According to its author, both Russia and China are now damaging and threatening these cables.

Are these acts of war? When a reporter asked this question of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, he replied that the “damage and destruction of submarine cables” marks “a completely different transition between peace and war.”

Both stories illustrate an article by foreign affairs journalist Gideon Rachman titled, “Are we sleepwalking into World War III?” His Financial Times subtitle states, “As regional conflicts rage and revisionist powers challenge the established order, warnings of a new global conflagration are growing louder.”

I saw his article just after reading The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict, and Warnings from History by Odd Arne Westad. The Yale historian argues that the world looks alarmingly similar to geopolitical circumstances just prior to World War I, a global conflict that led to forty million casualties.

However, I don’t want to write about a possible world war in the future any more than you want to read about one. We are both suffering from what British journalist Janan Ganesh calls “pessimism fatigue,” the result of living through the threat of nuclear annihilation, followed by the successive threats of jihadist terrorism, the pandemic, and now AI and world war.

By now, you likely expect me to offer trust in God as the antidote to such fatigue. Remembering that the Lord is still on his throne and that he still rules the universe encourages us to choose faith over fear.

But there’s a catch.

“All the thrills of religion and none of the cost”

A group of sociologists recently studied what they call “secular rationalism,” the belief that science is the only way to understand the world and that morality should rest on reason rather than religious teachings. There are three ways of responding to this worldview:

1. You can be a secular rationalist while still believing in God or attending religious services.
2. You can be a secular rationalist while rejecting religion.
3. You can be religious while rejecting secular rationalism.

Which of the three groups is most likely to also believe in magic? The first, by far.

Here’s why: Secular rationalists who hold spiritual beliefs get to define such beliefs however they wish. They stand outside the orthodoxies of a particular religion and approach spirituality as a buffet from which they can choose what they want. In essence, they believe about God whatever helps them be their own god (Genesis 3:5).

I’m reminded of C. S. Lewis’s observation in Mere Christianity regarding what he called the “Life-Force,” an amorphous something behind the observable world. (Star Wars characters might call it “The Force.”) According to Lewis,

The Life-Force, being only a blind force, with no morals and no mind, will never interfere with you like that troublesome God we learned about when we were children. The Life-Force is a sort of tame God. You can switch it on when you want, but it will not bother you. All the thrills of religion and none of the cost. Is the Life-Force the greatest achievement of wishful thinking the world has yet seen?

The “food” of Jesus today

Believing in God in the face of global threats is not enough. Such faith empowers us to face our fears only if it leads us to submit our lives fully to the living Lord Jesus. A shelter only helps those who stand within its protection. An umbrella in the car is no good when you’re caught outside in the rain.

Part of submitting ourselves to the Spirit each day is being obedient to what he then calls us to do. In this way, we are not only trusting our Father with our greatest challenges, but we are helping to meet them as we fulfill our kingdom assignment. “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22).

Jesus testified, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work” (John 4:34). He continues such obedience today in and through our lives as his “body” in the world (1 Corinthians 12:27).

We can relate to him as our “Life-Force” or as our Lord, but not both.

Which would Jesus say you have chosen today?

Quote for the day:

“There are very few men who realize what God would make of them if they abandoned themselves into his hands and let themselves be formed by his grace.” —Ignatius of Loyola

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Around 1:00 in the afternoon on Thursday, a sixteen-year-old shot through the locks on the doors to the Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon. He then proceeded to kill three students and one teacher before a local bystander who’d noticed him enter the building shot him. As of this writing, another student and teacher are alive but wounded from the attack.

Police responded quickly to the flood of 911 calls, arriving at the school only a few minutes after the shooter entered. However, by that point, he was already dead. The surviving students were then taken to a nearby church, where they were reunited with their families.

Officials have yet to release more information on the shooter, his potential motives, or the weapon used, though law enforcement sources suspect it was a shotgun.

Bend Mayor Melanie Kebler spoke for many when she told reporters,

A school should be a safe place where children can learn and feel secure. What happened today should never happen. Like so many in our community, I’m struggling to make sense of a loss that feels unimaginable.

Perhaps you’re feeling the same way. I know dropping my kids off at school will feel different today than it did yesterday, even though what happened in Oregon is unlikely to have any direct impact on our lives here in Texas. Still, I imagine the parents who are grieving the loss of their children, as well as those who will have to try and explain what happened to the ones who survived, thought much the same yesterday morning.

So, what do we do with those feelings?

The churchy answer—which also happens to be the correct one, in this case—is to take them to the Lord. But the truth is, tragedies like this can make it hard to seek comfort from a God who could have stopped them and didn’t. What do we do then?

Reasons to be grateful

In a previous article, I argued that suffering is not only redeemable but necessary in light of God’s goodness. I still believe that’s the case, but tragedies like yesterday’s shooting are among the most difficult to view through that lens, even if they are also when it’s most necessary to do so. As I’ve thought and prayed about how to do that, though, I felt like the Lord brought two thoughts to mind that I hadn’t considered before.

At the end of the day, God’s omniscience means that he knew this attack would happen, and his omnipotence means that he was more than capable of stopping it. As a result, it’s completely valid to ask why he didn’t. But the new thought—at least, new to me—was that if God bears any sense of responsibility for the lives that were lost, then he bears at least some responsibility for the lives that were saved as well.

The shooter managed to kill four people in under three minutes, and it could have been so much worse. While we don’t know much about the bystander who stopped him, what are the odds that someone who was not only armed but brave and capable enough to intervene would happen to be near the school as that sixteen-year-old broke in? How many more might have died if he hadn’t risked his own life to stop him?

Moreover, how many more would-be shooters are stopped by friends, family, or other people in their lives who notice them heading down that path and choose to intervene before they ever make it on campus? Thursday’s attack was the first mass shooting in a school since a fourteen-year-old killed four in Winder, Georgia, more than two years ago. It seems unlikely he was the first to consider it, though, and it is right to thank God that more haven’t done the same.

Again, that does not mean it’s wrong to have questions and doubts in the aftermath of a tragedy like this, but if we’re inclined to blame God for the four who died, then we should also thank him for the nearly five hundred who survived.

That said, it can still be difficult not to give the tragedy more weight than the blessing, though. And that basic impulse is important as well.

A lingering reminder of God’s image

The second direction God took me as I reflected on the tragedy of this shooting is how strangely natural it seems for the negative to hold our attention rather than the positive. I think at least part of the reason why that’s the case is that enough of who God created us to be still exists in all of us to recognize that this world is broken.

If God weren’t real and this world was simply the result of random chance, then there would be no reason for us to be this shattered by something like a school shooting. That kind of tragedy would simply be an expected part of living in this fallen, depraved world.

But that’s not the case. Rather, being appalled at something like this is seen as a basic test of our humanity. And there’s no logical reason why that should be the case outside of the fact that a shred of that imago Dei with which we were all created still cries out against such violence and loss of life.

That someone was willing to shoot up an elementary school shows that it is possible for sin to break us so completely that the image of God in our lives is all but buried. But that’s the exception rather than the rule, and it’s important to recognize that fact.

Again, none of this is meant to keep us from asking the hard questions about why God would let something like this happen. Those are entirely fair and appropriate, and the Lord is not offended by our asking them. But that grief is also a reminder that we were created for so much more than this world can offer, and the desire for what only God can provide is still woven deep inside each of us.

Perhaps at least part of the way God will redeem the Silver Rail shooting is by using it to awaken those desires on the other side of the grief and fear endemic to this moment. So, with that possibility in mind, let’s conclude for today by taking some time to pray.

How to pray

If this list is something you need to come back to throughout the day, that’s fine. Just don’t rush through it. After all, those who are hurting deserve more than empty thoughts and a quick prayer. Let’s make sure our prayers reflect that fact.

• Start by praying for the families who lost loved ones in this horrible tragedy. And don’t just offer a generic “Lord, please be with them” kind of prayer. Take the time to genuinely seek God’s help with knowing how to pray for those who are hurting, then follow through in obedience to what he shows you.
• Next, thank God for all the lives that were saved. Again, take the time to seek the Holy Spirit’s help in knowing how to offer that prayer, particularly if gratitude in this moment still feels more forced than natural.
• And if you’re still beset by the doubts, fear, and anger that a tragedy like this can bring to the surface, take those thoughts to God and ask for his help in working through them well. Don’t stuff them down or move on until you’ve genuinely wrestled with them in the presence of the Lord.
• Finally, ask God to make you aware of any opportunities to help people know him that will come about in the days ahead as a result of the shooting. The Holy Spirit knows the hearts and minds of the people around you better than you ever could, and he knows who is ready for that kind of conversation. If God brings someone to mind or helps them to cross your path, ask the Lord to help you be ready to have that conversation well.

Quote of the day:

“The true wonder of human beings is not that we are sinners, but that even in our sin we are haunted by goodness, that even in the mud we can never wholly forget the stars.” —William Barclay

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This August, the tech journalism outlet 404 Media placed an Apple AirTag in a rare book that was part of an unusual bulk order. The book’s final destination was a secret warehouse known as VGT3, “where Amazon scans and destroys books” to train its AI models.

Here, and at other AI companies’ warehouses, workers feed books into a “hydraulic powered cutting machine,” which slices off their spines. After being trimmed to fit a scanner, the books’ detached pages are scanned at high speed before being discarded or recycled.

This practice, known as destructive scanning, is standard in the AI industry, which uses books as training data for large language models such as Anthropic’s Claude and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The scale of the practice is truly massive. Planning documents from Anthropic’s Project Panama— an “effort to destructively scan all the books in the world,”— indicated that the company wanted to convert anywhere from “500,000 to two million books over a six-month period.”

Continue reading Denison Forum – Why AI companies are buying books to destroy them →

What happened: Last month, New York prosecutors reopened the case of a woman who claimed that she was sexually assaulted by seven men at Cornell University in October of 2024. As the story has gone viral over recent weeks, the line between presumption and fact has blurred to a dangerous degree.

Why it matters: At the end of the day, this story seems to have a clear victim and multiple abusers, but no one involved is innocent. And while blame is by no means shared equally, losing sight of that fact only makes it more likely that people will walk away learning the wrong lessons and that something like this will happen again.

The backstory: What happened at Cornell?

On September 28, New York prosecutors officially reopened the case of a woman—referred to as Jane Doe in the court documents—who claimed that she was sexually assaulted by seven men at a Cornell University frat house in October of 2024. Local police did not press criminal charges initially because Jane Doe’s sworn statement back then “described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual.”

Continue reading Denison Forum – Searching for truth in the 2024 Cornell sexual assault case →

Pope Leo XIV spent a peaceful night at the Gemelli Hospital in Rome after undergoing surgery for lung cancer, the Vatican said this morning. The seventy-one-year-old pontiff was diagnosed Tuesday with adenocarcinoma after doctors removed the lower lobe of his right lung.

The Vatican has not disclosed the size of the tumor or whether the disease had spread. The pope is expected to remain in the hospital for about a week; his public engagements have been cancelled until October 20.

Leo is known for an active and healthy lifestyle that includes swimming and tennis. He has never smoked. The New York Times quotes one of his biographers: “Leo has the profile of someone who takes care of himself. So that has added to the shock.”

Continue reading Denison Forum – Pope Leo diagnosed with lung cancer following surgery →

Last week, a man with what appeared to be an open wound on his face walked in and casually ordered a latte in my local coffee shop. His cheek, ear, and eyebrow were flayed. It looked like skin grafts from a motorcycle accident. Looking at his wound was difficult, but looking away was equally challenging.

Also last week, we moved into a new house. At night, we opened a drawer and discovered a live cockroach amongst our Tupperware. Our sleep was troubled by the imagery of a colony living in and under our bungalow. (Thankfully, it was a one-off.)

Horror exists in real life, in the minor ways mentioned above, and in far worse ways, as in war, serial killings, and chronic illness. As Christians, we know supernatural horror, as in demon possession, also exists.

However, in recent decades, some Christians have objected to movies that instill horror. So, what does the Bible say about horror movies? Should you watch them or avoid them? In what ways might they be dangerous?

Continue reading Denison Forum – What does the Bible say about horror movies? →

A recent 60 Minutes interview highlighted the “McVay Way” as the driving force behind NFC West contender and 2021 Super Bowl Champion Los Angeles Rams. Head Coach Sean McVay believes that emphasizing relational connection, transparency, open communication, and putting people first are the vital elements in building and sustaining a culture of continuing growth, expectancy, accountability, and success.

I watched with interest because the McVay Way is far from the only way coaches and leaders have claimed to guide an organization. For example, there’s IBM executive Buck Rodgers and The IBM Way, Nick Saban and The Process, Jeff Bezos and the Day 1 Mentality, or Bill Belichick’s New England Patriots organizational mantra, Do Your Job. Through experience, observation, education, trial, and error, each of these successful coaches and leaders have developed a philosophical approach that they consider the most effective “way” to maximize individual performance and, thus, organizational outcomes.

Having an undergraduate degree in business management with a minor in marketing, and being a sports chaplain for nearly 40 years—15 of those with Texas Tech football—I have long held a keen interest in the driving forces behind successful teams, businesses, organizations, and the varied methodologies and approaches taken to create value and buy-in for every individual within any given system, especially those of sustained preeminence.

When success isn’t enough

Within every one of these “success” stories, however, lurks the underlying fallacy that achieving a desired end, such as winning the Super Bowl, the National Championship, or being regarded as an industry titan, will bring sustained gratification and fulfillment. And that’s what made Sean McVay’s interview so interesting.

Sean McVay knows otherwise. Winning the Super Bowl in 2021 didn’t have the effect he anticipated. “The lies I told myself were, ‘I won’t be happy until I…until we win one.’ Or, ‘Until I win one,’” McVay said.

Expressing embarrassment for the selfishness of those words, McVay continued, “It revealed a lot of insecurities that I had. My identity was so tied up in winning and losing games, and that was where I felt like my self-worth lied. It was very revealing how fragile I was and all the insecurities that I did have.”

McVay is not alone. Testimonials abound of those who have labored and driven themselves with unrelenting discipline and sacrifice to achieve the pinnacle of success in their respective field, only to find depression, anxiety, uncertainty, and crises at the end of their rainbow.

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, Olympic Gold Medal winner and world record holder Michael Phelps, comedian Jim Carrey, actress Nicole Kidman, along with many others from a variety of professions, have been transparent about the mental struggles they dealt with at what we would have recognized as their finest hour.

The irony is that every way designed by man to achieve success becomes, itself, an expression of human frailty and man’s inability to attain the transcendent longings of the human heart. In other words, every man-made construct is bound to the earthly. As such, we should long for more. We are certainly designed for more.

Ambition isn’t the problem

As C.S. Lewis stated in The Weight of Glory: “Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak.”

Perhaps this is one reason why the Wisdom writer offers this counsel: “There is a way which seems right to a person, but its end is the way of death” (Proverbs 14:12).

While some would identify an ambitious drive or a competitive spirit as the culprit in these unexpected outcomes after achieving success, I would not. Whether it’s building a profitable company, winning a championship, discovering a cure, scientific advancement, parenting well, being a good friend, or being a loving spouse, even working out our salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12-13), nothing of significance is ever accomplished apart from an ambitious determination to see it done.

Even McVay stated in his interview, “We are wired to achieve.” Indeed, we are.

When the disciples were discussing which of them was the greatest (Matthew 18:1-4; Mark 9:33-37; Luke 9:46-48), Jesus didn’t condemn their ambitious nature but redefined true greatness as a humility made evident in a life of serving others and redirected their energies toward that end:

“If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all” (Mark 9:35).

Kingdom objectives, then, become the greatest ambition and the highest good to which we aspire as believers, to make manifest the power and presence of Christ in all things.

Who’s “way” are you pursuing?

Jesus, certainly, wasn’t lacking in his ambition and determination to see the Father’s will accomplished, expressing the necessity of diligence in fulfilling the work of the kingdom:

“We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when now can work” (John 9:4).

It is a deliberate, disciplined, and determined task to work out the salvation God is accomplishing; that is, outwardly making evident the inward reality of Christ in you. As such, I find detrimental the often-recurring form of spirituality that perpetuates the notion that to be a follower of Christ is to be without drive and determination.

James Bryan Smith, professor of theology at Friends University, in his 2009 book The Good and Beautiful God: Falling in Love With the God Jesus Knows, wrote, “The number one enemy of Christian spiritual formation today is exhaustion.”

While intuitively, I would have guessed sin to be the greater factor, my question to his declarative statement would be, “Exhausted from what?”

In the history of the church, there is an insidious form of spiritual expression that, at different times, raises its head and preoccupies itself with rest and an aversion to anything associated with drivenness, and what might be called a work ethic. While normally associated with the Academy, monastic orders, and High Church traditions, it is too often co-opted by the lazy and unmotivated, and spiritualized as some noble and virtuous discipline.

Scripture makes a far more compelling argument for industry, contributing, and building, even calling on the sluggard to consider the industrious ways of the ant (Prov. 6:6-11).

Paul certainly set the standard, saying he worked harder than all the other apostles (1 Cor. 15:10).

Perhaps the exhaustion, of which so many complain, comes not from having worked too hard, but from having worked so hard on things that were never worth doing.

“Therefore,” Paul writes, “my beloved brothers and sisters, be firm, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58).

“No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him” (2 Timothy 2:4).

As followers of Christ, holding to a biblical worldview, ours is a Way of unwavering resolve to do all things as unto the Lord and not man (Colossians 3:23). Instead of chasing after the outcomes that please the subjective whims, opinions, and preferences of fickle humanity, the believer’s sole ambition should be to please him (2 Corinthians 5:9), the One who will say to his faithful children, “Well done good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21).

In this pursuit, God’s Way has proven superior to the ways of man.

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Hurricane Isaias made landfall Friday night as a dangerous Category 2 storm, striking near Destin, Florida. It brought damaging winds, heavy rain, and a life-threatening storm surge to the Gulf Coast, killing at least four people and causing power outages for hundreds of thousands. Remnants of the hurricane caused flooding and landslides in the same region of North Carolina that was hit hard by Hurricane Helene in 2024; forecasters warned that flooding could stretch as far as the Appalachians.

Here’s the part of the story that surprised me: Before Isaias made landfall, Yahoo! News reported that officials were “urging coastal residents from Mississippi to the Florida Panhandle to take the season’s first Atlantic hurricane seriously.”

Why would anyone need someone to encourage them to take one of nature’s most destructive phenomena “seriously”? The answers are relevant beyond Isaias and apply to us all today.

“Alarm fatigue” and “groupthink”

One reason people in the path of the hurricane could disregard official warnings could be “recentism,” the tendency to give more weight to the most recent events and news. An unusually strong El Niño contributed to a relatively quiet Atlantic hurricane season prior to Friday; by now there are typically fourteen named storms, with the first usually making landfall in August.

If a bad thing doesn’t happen when we expect it, we can stop expecting it.

Another is “alarm fatigue,” defined in medical context as “a consequence of sensory overload due to frequent nuisance alarms from physiologic monitoring devices.” In meteorological context, it refers to past warnings of storms that turned out not to be as severe as predicted.

If a bad thing didn’t happen when we expected it, we can stop expecting it.

And there is “opinion solidarity” or “groupthink,” which occurs when people prioritize the opinions of their peers over those of outsiders. If long-time residents are convinced that a hurricane won’t be as severe as predicted, we can choose their local experience over distant “experts.”

If people we trust say a bad thing won’t happen, we can stop expecting it.

Beware an escaped boa constrictor

Some warnings are easy to heed since doing so comes with little cost. For example, when officials warned recently that a seven-foot boa constrictor was loose in a North Carolina neighborhood, all residents had to do was stay away from the area. As one person noted, such snakes “don’t range far. Meters, not miles.”

Other warnings come at a significant cost. I grew up in Houston and remember times when my parents responded to hurricane warnings by boarding up our windows and taking us to stay in hotels out of the path of the coming storm. Since they were self-employed, time away from work affected our income. They also worried that our home would be looted before we returned.

In those days, however, people tended to believe what the authorities said. Those days are not these days. Unsurprisingly, partisan politics are affecting our trust in elected officials as well.

“His tragedy, in turn, became our own”

Since less than a fifth of Americans live in areas most vulnerable to hurricanes, our conversation thus far may seem less than relevant to you. But there’s more to the story.

Yale historian Beverly Gage won the Pulitzer Prize for her brilliant 2022 biography, G Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century. In it, she charts the path by which the legendary FBI director fell from widespread public acclaim to his current notoriety.

Hoover served in eight presidential administrations and championed what we call “conservative” values today. From the Hays Code governing morality in movies to juvenile delinquency, anticommunism, free markets, and the importance of marriage and family, Hoover used the weight of his office and agency to advance ideals he considered vital to the nation.

As he warned in 1948, “Whenever the American people, young or old, come to believe that there is no such thing as right or wrong, normal or abnormal, those who would destroy our civilization will applaud a major victory over our way of life.”

However, after Hoover’s death in 1972, reports began to surface regarding his personal sexuality, racist views (he denounced Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as the country’s “most notorious liar”), and abuse of his office and its enormous power. Over the years, he has gone “from hero to villain” in public opinion. As Dr. Gage writes, “If there is a tragic element to Hoover’s story, it is that he failed to abide by his own best principles. And his tragedy, in turn, became our own.”

Our generational slide from absolute truth to subjective “post-truth” and from consensual morality to relativistic immorality illustrates her point.

“Praemonitus, praemunitus”

In a culture where you have your truth and I have mine, it’s easier than ever to equate opinion with reality to justify doing what we want to do. But reality is real, whether we recognize it or not. Hurricanes devastate those who ignore them more than those who prepare for them. The “sexual liberation” movement victimizes those who participate in it more than those who do not.

A practical way to think about this subject is to ask ourselves, What sins am I tempted to justify through the fallacy of “post-truth” tolerance today? As the Latin phrase praemonitus, praemunitus reminds us, to be “forewarned” is to be “forearmed.” If we then ask the living Lord Jesus to help us think biblically and live redemptively, he promises that his Spirit will “guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13).

The theologian Jan Hus (1369–1415) was an important forerunner of the Protestant Reformation. When he was burned at the stake for his biblical convictions, he declared, “In the truth of the gospel I have written, taught, and preached; today I will gladly die.” He therefore had the right to urge us:

“Faithful Christian, seek the truth, listen to the truth, learn the truth, love the truth, speak the truth, adhere to the truth, and defend truth to the death.”

Will you be a “faithful Christian” today?

Quote for the day:

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not to his own facts.” —Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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