Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s Middle East envoy, joined US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee on a visit to a US-backed aid operation in Gaza on Friday. The Israeli military said two hundred trucks of aid were distributed by the UN and other organizations on Thursday, with hundreds more waiting to be picked up from border crossings inside Gaza. Food is now being airdropped into Gaza by six countries, including for the first time France, Spain, and Germany.

By way of background: In March, after a cease-fire with Hamas fell apart, Israel stopped the entry of all goods and supplies into the Gaza Strip in a move aimed at pressuring the terror group to accept a new proposal to extend the ceasefire. Many in Israel also viewed the agency that had been aiding the Palestinians as complicit with Hamas and terrorism.

However, as the Wall Street Journal reports, “Photos of starving children have proved too much for most of Israel’s leaders to withstand.” As a result, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “reportedly bypassed extremists in his cabinet to expand opportunities for the delivery of vital supplies.”

I must begin by stating the obvious: the suffering of even a single person grieves the heart of the God who made them. But there’s more to this tragic story in Gaza, a factor that is relevant to the way we see all conflicts and all peoples today.

 “Hamas Wants Gaza to Starve”

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib is a native of Gaza and a political analyst. His recent article in the Atlantic is titled, “Hamas Wants Gaza to Starve.” He writes:

Despite the surge of hundreds of trucks into Gaza over the past four days, very few supplies have made it into warehouses to be distributed to the population. Aid shipments are being seized by a combination of desperate civilians, lawless gangs, clan-affiliated thugs, and merchants of death. Chaos and apocalyptic scenery are the norm, not the exception.

Alkhatib reports that he has spoken with “dozens of Gazans who are furious about what is unfolding around them. . . . But their anger is directed primarily at Hamas, which they hold responsible for putting the people of Gaza in this position, and for its continued refusal to end the war that it started.”

In his analysis,

Hamas actually wants a famine in Gaza. Producing mass death from hunger is the group’s final play, its last hope for ending the war in a way that advances its goals. Hamas has benefited from Israel’s decision to use food as a lever against the terror group because the catastrophic conditions for civilians have generated an international outcry, which is worsening Israel’s global standing and forcing it to reverse course.

Since its horrific October 7 invasion that started Gaza on this road to ruin, Hamas has refused to return all its hostages unless Israel withdraws its forces and allows the terrorist group to remain in power. This, of course, would only prepare the way for another Oct. 7. Now Hamas is using the starvation of its own people to leverage its power as a platform for continued attacks on the Jewish state.

Even the Arab world recognizes Hamas for the terrorists they are. Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt have called for the group to disband and give up power, joining fourteen other countries in signing a statement that condemned the Oct. 7 attacks.

Why Hitler wanted to eradicate the Jews

Over my many travels to Israel, I have met some Israelis who view a Palestinian state as an existential threat to the Jewish people. They fear that if the Palestinians have their own nation, some will use it as a platform from which to attack Israel. Some, therefore, support Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank and view the subjugation of the Palestinian people as necessary for the security of Israel.

For example, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich want Israel to block all humanitarian aid into Gaza as long as Hamas holds Israeli hostages, whatever the consequences for the Palestinians there. They have called for the war to continue and seek the “voluntary” migration of Gaza’s population of two million Palestinians.

Hamas, by contrast, exists for the purpose of destroying Israel and the Jewish people. They are convinced that Jews are hostis humani generis, the enemies of humankind itself. Nor do they care for the people they are supposed to be serving, using Palestinian civilians as human shields and as pawns in their quest for power. The son of a founding Hamas leader said, “They don’t care for the Palestinian people. They do not regard human life.”

Viewing humans as a collective rather than as individuals is at the heart of this conflict.

For historical precedent, Wall Street Journal editorial writer Barton Swaim points to historian Thomas Weber, who notes that Hitler wanted to eradicate the Jews not because he thought individual Jews were evil. Rather, it was “because of their racial destiny or racial determination, which made it impossible for them to act in any other ways than parasitically.”

Why my father fought the Japanese

Reducing people to their race or the nation they occupy greatly simplifies geopolitics. We can then support or reject them as a collective without the hard work of understanding their individual needs, stories, and merits.

This is tragically necessary in war, of course. My father fought individual Japanese soldiers in World War II just as his father fought individual German soldiers in World War I, both as a means to defending America from Japan and Germany.

But whenever we can, however we can, we must resist the human tendency to devalue other humans by categorizing them as anything other than individuals made in the image of their Maker (Genesis 1:27). If you have children, you love each of them as if there were only one of them. Their Heavenly Father does the same.

So, please join me in praying for Palestinians who are suffering as a result of Hamas’s invasion of Israel and Israel’s response to it. Pray for the hostages still being held in horrific conditions by the terrorists. Pray for this tragic conflict to end in a way that protects both Palestinians and Israelis from future violence.

And pray for all Palestinians and all Israelis to meet the One who died for them and whose love will give them the peace their hearts seek most.

How a Satanist became a Christian

I once heard a former Satanist tell how he came to faith in Christ. He hated Christians with a passion, one in particular. But nothing he did could dissuade this believer from continuing to love him, pray for him, and seek to serve him.

At one point, the Satanist became so angry that he struck the Christian, knocking him to the ground. The believer touched his hand to his bleeding face, held it up to his persecutor, and said, “If you’re good enough for Jesus, you’re good enough for me.”

That’s the gospel. Who will hear—and see—it from you today?

Quote for the day:

“When you know how much God is in love with you, then you can only live your life radiating that love.” —Mother Teresa

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Denison Forum

Why climate change may save more lives than it costs

Lee Zeldin, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator, announced earlier this week what he described as “the largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States.” The new ruling argues that Congress has not given the EPA the necessary authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, methane from oil and gas companies, or a host of other pollutants.

The shift stands in contrast to how the EPA has approached these issues since the Clean Air Act ostensibly established a legal basis for such regulation back in 2009. However, the basis for that law was the “endangerment finding,” which argued that greenhouse gases represent a sufficiently large threat to public health and welfare to necessitate government intervention. Zeldin and his team are questioning that conclusion.

Given the way government agencies typically function, it may seem odd for one to actively try to limit the scope of its authority. However, shortly after his nomination to lead the EPA, Zeldin stated that his goal was to drive “a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion” by going after the regulations used to support it.

And this is hardly the first time that conservatives—or even President Trump—have sought to chip away at these protocols. During his first term, Trump undid many of the regulations from Obama’s tenure in the Oval Office, only to see them reinstated by Biden. However, if the endangerment finding were overturned, then it would be far more difficult for future presidents to do the same.

But while Zeldin and others in the administration have argued the cost of these regulations outpaces the environmental gains, their primary focus is less on the science behind climate change and more on the argument that Congress took shortcuts in granting regulatory powers to the EPA in the first place. Largely avoiding the quagmire of debate around shifting temperatures and humanity’s impact is seen as an easier path to deregulation.

Whether that assessment proves accurate will be for the courts to decide, but the attempt has sparked fresh debate over both climate change in general and the government’s role in combating it more specifically. And when it comes to that debate, relying on facts over narratives is essential.

To that end, I found a recent article by Jonah Goldberg in The Dispatch to be particularly helpful.

Data-driven or agenda-driven?

In his article, Goldberg argues that—at least in the short to intermediate term—climate change may actually save more lives than it costs. He points to how, in Europe, for example, 8.3 times more people die from cold weather than from heat. If that fact is surprising, it may be because heat-related deaths get nine times more media coverage.

Goldberg is quick to clarify: “I think climate change is real and a problem—even if I think it is also overhyped and used to justify a political and economic agenda that is not entirely about dealing with the problem. So I don’t want to be too dismissive.”

However, he goes on to point out that these changes manifest more in the form of warmer winters than hotter summers, which could lead to greater crop yields, faster reforestation, and fewer cold-related deaths. Moreover, carbon emissions from heating are four times greater than the emissions from air conditioning, meaning that colder climates exacerbate the problem far more than warmer ones.

Yet, despite those factors, many continue to focus only on climate change’s potential consequences—many of which are both real and troubling—while ignoring the possible benefits. And this trend is seen most clearly in Europe, where the rising temperatures have proved particularly painful because the people there are often ill-equipped to handle them.

In Switzerland, for example, government approval is required to install air conditioning. In France, as of a few years ago, roughly three-quarters of all homes were unair-conditioned, and the prevailing narratives throughout their culture aim to keep it that way.

A recent Wall Street Journal article described how “In France, media outlets often warn that cooling a room to more than 15 degrees Fahrenheit below the outside temperature can cause something called ‘thermal shock,’ resulting in nausea, loss of consciousness and even respiratory arrest.”

As someone who has spent most of my life in Texas, I can assure you that is not the case.

But while it is easy to deride claims of “thermal shock” and an ever-evolving list of climate-related doomsday predictions—or their counterparts that claim nothing is actually changing—the truth is that all of us are tempted at times to downplay the truth when it proves inconvenient to the narrative we would prefer to believe.

And, as Christians, that is a mistake we cannot afford to make.

Itching ears and false teachers

One of the most tragic examples of this mistake in Scripture comes from the scribes and Pharisees who opposed Jesus throughout the Gospels. For the most part, these were well-meaning, well-educated, God-fearing men who dedicated their lives to helping people know how to be right with the Lord.

The problem was that their understanding of what made a person right with God was wrong. So when Jesus came preaching about the need for repentance and looking beyond right actions to focus on getting your heart right, they rejected him.

They built their lives, their ministries, and even their very identities around a false idea, and their dependence upon the lie was so strong that not even God incarnate could correct them.

But while the Pharisees are a famous example of this fault, all of us are prone to the same mistake. Moreover, it is just as damaging to our relationship with God and as easy to fall victim to today as it was two thousand years ago.

Our culture fits well into Paul’s warning that “the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (2 Timothy 4:3–4).

Fortunately, the advice that follows is just as relevant as well: “But as for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry” (2 Timothy 4:5). In short, choose what’s true no matter the cost and never waver from our calling to help others do the same.

So, what false narratives are you prone to believing today? Are there any areas of your life where your ears are itching for convenient myths over inconvenient truths?

All of us have our blind spots where we are vulnerable to that temptation. The key is knowing yours and then learning to rely on the Lord to help you choose his reality over one of your own making.

Will you ask for his help in making the right choice today?

Quote of the day:

“The word of God hidden in the heart is a stubborn voice to suppress.” —Billy Graham

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Denison Forum

Five ethical issues and the path to courageous faith

According to the Cleveland Clinic, mitochondrial diseases are “a group of genetic conditions that affect how mitochondria in your cells produce energy.” They can cause developmental delays in children, profound muscle weakness, hearing loss, blindness, strokes, and heart failure. Those with the worst symptoms die earliest, often before the age of three.

Now there’s a way to prevent the transmission of these diseases to the next generation.

Researchers in the UK reported recently on the birth of eight babies, each of whom was conceived using one sperm and two eggs. They took the combination of the mother and father’s DNA from a fertilized egg with sick mitochondria and inserted it into a surrogate egg with healthy mitochondria stripped of its own DNA. (Think of extracting the yoke from a chicken egg and inserting it into an egg whose yoke had been removed.)

The children produced in this way will avoid the mitochondrial diseases they would otherwise have inherited. What’s not to like about this news?

A good deal, as it turns out.

Five ethical issues

I serve as resident scholar for ethics with one of the largest not-for-profit healthcare systems in the country. In the healthcare context, I understand the appeal of this procedure. If we could remove malignant tumors, why not remove diseased mitochondria to produce healthy babies?

However, I see at least five issues with three-parent embryos.

First, the mitochondria from the surrogate eggs transmitted their own DNA to the children. While only 1 percent of the total, this DNA can influence brain development and affect everything from lifespan and height to kidney and liver function, blood counts, and the development of diabetes or multiple sclerosis.

And this means that the children have three genetic parents. What are the ethical implications here?

Second, we should consider the IVF procedures utilized. A large number of embryos are typically created in the lab and tested for viability; those that are not used are frozen or discarded. If you believe life begins at conception, as I do, then you see these unused embryos as human lives and their demise as a form of abortion.

Third, what are the future consequences of babies created from three parents? They will transmit their genetics to their offspring. Is the human race being altered?

Fourth, will this technique lead to customized children? Will the DNA of persons of unusual capacities (intellectual, athletic, etc.) be sought for inclusion in the future? Will this be a form of eugenics?

Fifth, will three-parent babies become the norm for lesbian couples? Using donor sperm, the DNA of one partner could be combined with the mitochondria of the other so that both are the genetic “parents” of their children.

“I don’t believe in heaven and hell”

Three-parent embryos are intended to prevent disease and death caused by genetically inherited diseases. They are an example of the fact that many people today will do nearly anything to avoid death, whatever the moral issues or consequences at stake.

A data researcher recently noted that “over the course of the last century, something has dramatically changed in how our species thinks about life and death.” Studies show that young people drink less, fight less, have less sex, and commit fewer crimes than any generation in recorded history. Healthcare spending is escalating while motorcycle ridership and extreme sports participation are plummeting.

The rise of secularism in our post-Christian culture is a clear factor here. When religious belief declines, this world becomes all there is. As George Clooney famously stated,

I don’t believe in heaven and hell. I don’t know if I believe in God. All I know is that as an individual, I won’t allow this life—the only thing I know to exist—to be wasted.

In this context, I find this comment in Hebrews 2 fascinating: through Jesus’ death, he came to “deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (v. 15). Such deliverance transformed his followers, enabling them to embrace missional purpose and significance in this life with no fear of death but only anticipation of reward on its other side.

The fisherman who cowed before a serving girl in fear later stood courageously before the very men who arranged Jesus’ crucifixion (Matthew 26:69–70; Acts 4:5–12). Paul could risk his life for Christ again and again (cf. 2 Corinthians 11:23–33) because he was certain that “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).

I have seen pastors in Cuba imperil their families and future to preach God’s word fearlessly. I watched a teenage girl in East Malaysia be baptized in the knowledge that because of her public declaration of faith, she could never go home again. I met a young boy in Singapore whose father beat him for going to church but who continued to live at home because he wanted his family to know about Jesus.

How to “be prepared to live”

Now we have a binary choice. If we are not delivered from the “fear of death,” we will be “subject to lifelong slavery” to it. We will choose sins of commission that promise temporal benefits with no concern for their eternal consequences (cf. Mark 7:20–23). We will also choose sins of omission by refusing to sacrifice in the present for the sake of our witness and our Lord (cf. James 4:17).

However, as Jesus warned, “Everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). When we fear our death more than we fear our Lord, avoiding death becomes our lord.

Our other choice is to trust our fear of death to Jesus, asking to be freed from slavery to it and empowered to live courageously for him. Then, when such fear strikes, we can “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might” (Ephesians 6:10; cf. Isaiah 41:13). We can claim Jesus’ promise, “Everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:26).

We can embrace the logic of missionary Jim Elliot’s famous declaration, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” And we will learn to agree with Charles Spurgeon’s assertion:

“To be prepared to die is to be prepared to live.”

Are you “prepared to live” today?

Quote for the day:

“All the glories of midday are eclipsed by the marvels of sunset.” —Charles Spurgeon

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Denison Forum

Does your health matter to God? Every year, millions of people make goals to get healthy and/or lose weight. Dieting is a billion-dollar industry. As of December 2024, around 55% of Americans try to lose weight, though only 27% are actively trying. Meanwhile, the prevalence of obesity remains high—40.3% of American adults are classified as obese, including 9.4% with severe obesity (CDC, 2023 cycle).

There is no shortage of information on how to improve your health. It takes a simple Google search to find the latest science on how movement and nutrition impacts your health. Every health expert has an opinion. Every nutritionist and personal trainer has the “magic cure” to our health goals.

But what does the Bible have to say about the importance of physical health for believers?

Does your physical health and how you take care of it matter to God?

The idolatry of eating—and dieting

Your body was made intricately and deliberately. You are not just a physical being; you are a three-in-one creation. Your heavenly Father was purposeful about his creation.

So many of your internal processes are connected to one another. When you are mentally nervous, you may experience the sensation of physical “butterflies” in your stomach. That is your brain talking to your gut via the vagus nerve. When you choose to be grateful, you can decrease the amount of the stress hormone cortisol being pumped into your bloodstream.

So much of what you think and how you think affects the physical processing in your body. (In fact, your thinking plays a central role in your mental health as well. Read Dr. Lane Ogden’s article, “What does the Bible say about mental health?” for more.) That is on purpose. It is all part of the beautiful design that makes us human.

In 1 Corinthians 6:19–20, the Apostle Paul says that “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you. . . . so glorify God in your body.” This verse is a reminder of two things.

One, your purpose is to glorify your Creator.

Two, how you take care of your temple can be an external manifestation of glorifying God. It is another aspect of stewarding what you have been entrusted with here on earth. How you steward what you’re given matters; Jesus devoted many parables to this topic.

I often find that there are two types of people, two extremes, when it comes to this issue of taking care of our temples.

On one hand, there are those who are overly vigilant about their health. They exercise every chance they get, monitor every bite that goes into their mouth, and worry about fat, calories, sugar, and whatever else is currently being demonized by the nutrition world.

On the other hand, there are those who have no self-control or mindfulness when it comes to eating. They consume more than necessary in order to cope with stress and unpleasant emotions.

Neither perspective is healthy.

One turns optimal health into an idol. The other elevates food and the act of eating to a level of idolatry in the form of gluttony and/or addiction. Both extremes are dangerous.

If you say food is only for fuel and for nourishing your health, you will miss out on the enjoyment that can be had in food during times of celebration or when you need comfort. If you only choose food as comfort or a coping mechanism, you’ll miss an opportunity to turn to your heavenly Father as the true source of comfort and healing.

What does the Bible say about eating?

When you look to the Bible for examples of how to eat and enjoy your food, it is clear that food is a gift that brings pleasure, but the mindset you have about your food is also important.

For example:

• “Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.” (Ecclesiastes 9:7)
• “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a fattened ox and hatred with it.” (Proverbs 15:17)
• “Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do.” (1 Corinthians 8:8)
• “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4)
• “All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful.” (1 Corinthians 10:23)

From these verses, we can see that what we consume may not be an issue of morality, but how and why we consume it can be.

This lines up with the biological processes that occur in your body when you’re eating. When you’re in a state of gratitude and peace, your body digests food better. When you’re stressed or in a state of “fight or flight,” your body will shut down important processes, like digestion, in order to survive the stressor.

Stressing about your physical health, what you’re eating, or talking about “good” or “bad” food, affects the way you digest and use the nutrients you’re provided. I often say, “A body in stress will not digest.” When you turn to food as an idol, whether to see it as a savior or to soothe emotional pain, you don’t just hinder your spiritual growth. It impacts your physical health as well.

Two questions to ask yourself about your physical health

As believers, we have freedom as to what we consume and how we move our bodies. Within freedom, we have choices. There is a way to find balance in our healthy resolutions and learn to steward our physical bodies in a way that honors God.

When you feel well, you serve well. You are able to have the physical and emotional energy to do what God has called you to do. Thanks to many increasing studies on the gut-brain axis, we know that what we eat impacts our mental health and how we think—and how we think impacts every single thing we do.

This new year, instead of asking questions about what diet you should start or what eating or fitness plan you need to implement, ask the following questions:

1. How can I honor my temple without turning it into an idol?
2. How can I receive food with thanksgiving and work to restore my physical health this year without unhealthy extremes or obsession?

Five suggestions for better “temple” care

First, unprocess your diet.

God knew what he was doing when he gave us everything we needed on this earth for physical nourishment. When you consume food that is as close to its whole food source as possible, your body digests it better.

My advice? Start with five different vegetables a day.

How can you introduce more greens and more colorful items like broccoli, bell peppers, tomatoes, or squashes? When you overconsume processed foods that have been chemically altered to be more palatable or addictive (like chips, bars, and candy), you may often lose your taste for food in its natural state. You can hijack the pleasure response in your brain so that you’re constantly desiring that “hit” of sugar or processed carbohydrates that make you feel so good in the short term but can be harmful for your body in the long term.

Second, listen to the body you’ve been given.

When you chronically overeat and use food as emotional comfort, you can alter hunger hormones that help your sense of hunger or fullness. You can also warp your natural hunger hormones by adhering to strict food rules that cause you to put all your trust in some magical, one-size-fits-all plan for eating. You may overcomplicate eating and obsess over what you are or are not having. You may often take on the “last supper mentality” and eat everything in sight before starting a new eating plan because you worry that you will not get to experience pleasure from your food in the future.

Instead, let’s acknowledge that we have been given “everything we need for a godly life” (2 Peter 1:3 NIV). Trust God’s provision for you through the food you have available to nourish you and the many processes he has given you to listen to your body’s cues for fullness and digestion.

Third, be grateful.

Be mindful when you’re eating. Take time to breathe between bites and chew your food longer to help activate the digestion process. Stop stressing over the bread and start obsessing over the Bread of Life. We were not given food to replace our relationship with Jesus. Your faith in the next nutrition plan should never outweigh your faith in the Lord’s nourishment.

Fourth, make movement an act of worship.

Go on a prayer walk. Add in joyful movement, not because you have to, or because you feel forced to start a new workout routine, or because you need punishment for eating food you feel guilty about, but as another act of gratitude for the body you have.

Plenty of physical benefits come from movement, but my favorite side effect is an increase in brain-derived neurotrophic factor. Through BDNF, you can impact the growth of new pathways in the brain, repair aging cells, and protect healthy cells. When you have higher levels of BDNF in your brain, you can think more clearly, and you are even less likely to become depressed. It’s another example of the beautiful way God created our physical bodies to impact our mental and spiritual health.

Finally, ask the Holy Spirit to lead you to healthy habits that will strengthen your body and make you fit to serve his kingdom, however that looks for you as a unique individual.

Ask him to show you where you are making your health into an idol or maybe where you need to make it more of a priority. Ask him to lead you to people, resources, and information that will guide you along on your journey in the new year.

The answer to “does my health matter to God” becomes evident when we look to the Bible. My prayer for you is the same as Paul’s for the Thessalonian church two millennia ago: “May God Himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, put you together—spirit, soul, and body—and keep you fit for the coming of our master, Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:23 MSG).

Related articles:

• “A Christian response to ‘living my truth,’” Erin Kerry
• “How to practice biblical self-care,” Erin Kerry
• “Does the Bible say being anxious is bad?,” Erin Kerry
• “How does a healthy shepherd model rest?,” Erin Kerry
• “What does the Bible say about mental health,” Dr. Lane Ogden

Denison Forum

French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte have filed a US defamation lawsuit against an influencer and podcaster who has said France’s first lady “is in fact a man.” The 218-page lawsuit, filed in Delaware yesterday, accuses Candace Owens of publishing “outlandish, defamatory, and far-fetched fictions,” among them the claim that Brigitte Macron was born male under the name Jean-Michel Trogneux.

According to the court filing, Owens has also said that the French president and his wife are blood relatives and that Emmanuel Macron is a product of a CIA human experiment or a “similar government mind control program.” People have viewed Owens’s series, Becoming Brigitte, more than 2.3 million times on YouTube.

I, however, am not one of them.

Prior to seeing this story, I had no idea about these allegations. Now, because of the Macrons’ lawsuit, I know about Owens and her assertions on a level I assume the Macrons would wish I did not.

If they remained silent, however, their decision not to defend themselves could be interpreted as a lack of defense. And choosing not to hold their accuser accountable could only embolden and escalate such accusations.

This is the conundrum of digital media. The good news is that this issue leads to news that is good in a new way today.

The “tragedy of modern man” may surprise you

I am old enough to remember when publishing any content required a publisher who would employ fact-checkers and editors before publication.

Years ago, for example, I wrote a book on the most challenging intellectual issues of our day. Included were four chapters on what happens to those who never hear the gospel. My editor insisted on reducing these four chapters into one. This was frustrating for me because this was my book, but she understood her publishers’ audience and correctly knew that I had written more than they would care to read on the subject.

That was then, this is now. I could write anything in this article that I wish, since our ministry owns this platform and can produce what we choose to produce. We don’t do this, of course—my editor is brilliant not only at copy proofing and fact-checking but also at noting any content she finds questionable. And our mission is to provide biblical responses to cultural issues rather than personal commentary or partisan opinion, a calling to which our board holds us accountable.

But my point is that anyone with internet access can now produce content that others can read, hear, or see, no matter how truthful or untruthful it might be.

Artificial intelligence is already making this situation even worse. Because it collates and summarizes online content in answering queries, it depends on the algorithms and analytics with which it has been programmed. And since the ideological positions of many media companies are clearly progressive, AI-generated content often follows suit.

None of this would be what it is if our culture had not decided long before the advent of the internet that truth is itself personal and subjective. Now we have jettisoned not only objective truth but the quest for objective meaning that depends upon it.

As Os Guinness observed, “The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life, but that it bothers him less and less.”

God will lead us “where we should want to go”

All of this makes the authority of Scripture and the interpretive power of the Holy Spirit wonderful news in new ways.

For much of Christian history, truth was understood to be the product of the Catholic Church’s doctrines as they interpreted the Bible, church tradition, and papal statements. The Reformation narrowed the focus of truth to sola Scriptura (“only the Scriptures”) as our supreme authority and embraced the “priesthood of all believers” as the Spirit leads us to biblical truth.

Now, however, we have shifted from “all truth is God’s truth” to “all truth is your truth.”

Nothing could be more disorienting for humans and for society at large. No wonder anxiety, depression, loneliness, and suicide rates are so high while trust in our core institutions is so low. We have a cultural case of vestibular dysfunction whereby the central nervous system of society fails to process correctly the information of our lives, leaving us dizzy and confused.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. As C. S. Lewis noted, God will lead us “where we should want to go if we knew what we wanted.”

We can access the omniscient wisdom of Almighty God any time we read and obey his word in the leading and empowering of his Spirit. We can be transformed into the character of Jesus so completely that we manifest his holiness in our broken world (Romans 8:29). We can live the abundant life of Christ so fully that in every circumstance “we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (John 10:10; Romans 8:37).

All of this is what God wants for every one of us. Holistic holiness and victorious Christian living constitute what Watchman Nee called the “normal Christian life.”

“The one marvelous secret of a holy life”

My fear is that you and I will settle for vestibular dysfunction as our cultural norm. Like a person whose vision gradually fails until their world dims without their conscious knowledge, we can shrug our spiritual shoulders at the sexual sin and moral confusion that pervades popular media and contemporary society.

This week, my wife and I watched a detective series on television in which the protagonist sleeps with the neighborhood lifeguard whenever she gets depressed. It bothered me when I realized that this did not bother me.

The English philosopher John Stuart Mill observed, “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends than that good men should look on and do nothing.” This is true not just of our society but of our souls.

So, let’s settle for nothing less than the holistic holiness of Jesus in the transforming power of the Spirit. Our Lord was adamant: “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing” (John 6:63 NASB). When we yield to his sanctifying power, we experience what Oswald Chambers called “the one marvelous secret of a holy life,” which “lies not in imitating Jesus, but in letting the perfections of Jesus manifest themselves in my mortal flesh.”

If manifesting the “perfections of Jesus” in your life seems too high a goal, your goal is too low.

Quote for the day:

“Sanctification is not drawing from Jesus the power to be holy; it is drawing from Jesus the holiness that was manifested in him, and he manifests it in me. Sanctification is an impartation, not an imitation.” —Oswald Chambers

Our latest website resources:

• Colbert canceled, theology of Israel, Coldplay cam & a movie star game
• Following Christ in a sports-obsessed world
• In “Talking Back to Purity Culture,” Rachel Joy Welcher takes the purity movement to task for missing the point of biblical sexuality
• Epstein backlash, Christianity is growing, Chip and Joanna Gaines controversy & Scottie Scheffler’s introspection
• A tropical storm, the “Big One,” and a Cascadia tsunami: A paradoxical way to confront our fears in faith

Denison Forum

Ozzy Osbourne died yesterday at the age of seventy-six.

He was especially famous (or infamous) for biting the head off a dead bat during a concert in Des Moines. This is unsurprising; the Associated Press calls him “the gloomy, demon-invoking lead singer” of his band (tellingly titled “Black Sabbath”) and the “drug-and-alcohol ravaged id” of heavy metal. His band’s eponymously-titled first album was released in 1970 and sold nearly five million albums; Black Sabbath sold more than seventy-five million albums total.

Osbourne was known as the “Prince of Darkness,” a term employed in John Milton’s Paradise Lost to refer to Satan as the embodiment of evil. To understand the cultural insight Osbourne’s career illustrates, ask yourself whether his music celebrating themes of horror, doom, paranoia, drug abuse, and the occult would have been popular (or even possible) twenty years earlier.

What happens when we kill God

Now let’s turn to our second news item: Monday was the one-hundredth anniversary of the Scopes Monkey Trial conclusion.

At issue was Tennessee’s law prohibiting the teaching of evolution in public schools. The high school teacher being prosecuted, John T. Scopes, was found guilty and fined $100, although the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned his conviction on a technicality while upholding the law against evolution as constitutional.

In many ways, the cultural conflict revealed by the trial has been exacerbated by the normalization of evolutionary theory that it produced for many.

From then until now, battles over abortion, sexual “liberation,” and LGBTQ ideology have been won resoundingly by their proponents. Even the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade did not lower the number of abortions in America.

This is tragically logical: If human life is the coincidental product of chaotic evolutionary forces, there are no external or objective authorities by which to value or protect it. Mothers are then free to abort their babies (“My body, my choice”); people are free to have sex with anyone who consents (“If it feels good, do it”); marriage is whatever we define it to be (“Love is love”).

Friedrich Nietzsche accused atheists of his day of having no idea of the significance of their atheism. As historian Carl Trueman notes, “Killing God, [Nietzsche] points out, requires that his assassins themselves rise to the challenge of being gods, of becoming those who create meaning and value.”

You don’t have to listen to the nihilism of a Black Sabbath song to know how this is working out for us.

“Did you have a good time?”

I fear that American religion has been partly to blame for the moral trajectory of American society, especially in recent years.

In Rome Before Rome: The Legends that Shaped the Romans, Oxford historian Philip Matyszak reports, “The Romans felt that their gods helped those who helped themselves.” Benjamin Franklin would popularize their sentiment; 82 percent of Americans would come to believe that “God helps those who help themselves” is in the Bible.

And why not? This assertion is the essence of American self-reliant religion.

Our Declaration of Independence asserts that we have the “inalienable” right to “the pursuit of happiness”; George Washington later identified “religion and morality” as “great pillars of human happiness.” Both statements are true, of course. But when “human happiness” becomes our purpose, religion becomes merely a means to this end.

Across American history, religious fervor has risen in times of need and fallen in times of prosperity. (This is known as the “existential insecurity theory.”) The Sunday after 9/11, the 2200-seat sanctuary of the church I pastored in Dallas was packed for both services. Two Sundays later, when it had become clear that the horrific attacks were not part of a sustained assault on our country, attendance returned to normal.

A longtime children’s Sunday school teacher told my wife that when she began teaching years ago, parents would pick up their children and ask, “What did you learn?” Now they ask, “Did you have a good time?”

Is God a divine egotist?

The Bible, by contrast, declares that God is not a means to our ends. To the contrary, he testifies that we are “created for [his] glory” (Isaiah 43:7) and warns, “My glory I will not give to another” (Isaiah 48:11). We are commanded, “Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).

Does this make God a divine egotist? The opposite is true: he knows that seeking the glory of anything or anyone (especially ourselves) rather than his is idolatry. And he knows that no idol can do what his omnibenevolent omnipotence can do in our lives and world.

Listen to the prophet:

Every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols, for his images are false, and there is no breath in them. They are worthless, a work of delusion; at the time of their punishment they shall perish. Not like these is he who is the portion of Jacob, for he is the one who formed all things (Jeremiah 10:14–16).

Consequently, “Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lᴏʀᴅ” (Psalm 32:10). A culture that would embrace Ozzy Osbourne’s occultic idolatry desperately needs such “steadfast love” today.

So know that, Darwin to the contrary, you are here on purpose for a purpose: God created you “to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29). Here’s our role: “Beholding the glory of the Lord, [we] are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

The more we seek to glorify Jesus, the more we become like Jesus. And the more we become like Jesus, the more the light of Jesus “shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).

“Let go of riches and gather virtues”

St. Bridget, patron saint of Europe, died on this day in 1373. From the age of seven, she had mystical visions of the crucified Christ. These visions drove her to compassion for others mirroring the compassion of her Savior.

She once heard her Lord say,

You ought to be like a person who lets go and like one who gathers. You should let go of riches and gather virtues, let go of what will pass and gather eternal things, let go of visible things and gather invisible. . . .

In return for the possession of goods, I will give you myself, the giver and Creator of all things.

What will you “let go” to glorify Jesus today?

Quote for the day:

“The world would have peace if only men of politics would follow the Gospels.” —St. Bridget of Sweden

Our latest website resources:

• A cultural commentary on “Superman”: From modernism, to postmodernism, to metamodernism
• Epstein backlash, Christianity is growing, Chip and Joanna Gaines controversy & Scottie Scheffler’s introspection
• President Trump diagnosed with vein condition: The mystery and privilege of praying for our leaders
• A tropical storm, the “Big One,” and a Cascadia tsunami: A paradoxical way to confront our fears in faith
• What do Cal Raleigh and Superman have in common?

Denison Forum

Last night, Stephen Colbert responded to CBS’s shocking announcement that The Late Show will end next May. In his monologue, he cursed President Trump, called himself a “martyr,” and asked rhetorically, “How could it be purely a financial decision if The Late Show is No. 1 in ratings?”

Many are asking the same thing.

“They’re trying to silence people”

CBS stated that it was retiring The Late Show franchise for financial reasons “not related in any way to the show’s performance, content, or other matters happening at Paramount,” the network’s parent company. Advertising revenue for the show has dropped 40 percent since 2018. Fifteen years ago, a popular late-night show could earn $100 million a year, but The Late Show has been losing $40 million a year.

However, the decision came just days after Colbert accused the network owner of bribing President Trump to approve a merger. Since Colbert has been such an outspoken critic of the president, the announcement sparked speculation that the network might have pulled the plug for political reasons.

• Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders responded, “Stephen Colbert, an extraordinary talent and the most popular late-night host, slams the deal. Days later, he’s fired. Do I think this is a coincidence? NO.”
• Actress Jamie Lee Curtis said, “They’re trying to silence people, but that won’t work. It won’t work. We will just get louder.”
• Vox theorized that Colbert’s political slant had become “too dangerous for late-night.”

For his part, President Trump responded on Truth Social, “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings.”

However, ESPN and MSNBC veteran Keith Olbermann, himself a vociferous Trump critic, noted that if the network was pulling Colbert’s show for political reasons, they would not be keeping him on air until May.

Another theory is that the cancellation is just one symptom of a broader decline in late-night TV. Several shows like Colbert’s have been pared down or canceled in recent years. However, Fox News’s Gutfeld! averages three million viewers, 50 percent more than Colbert’s 1.9 million total viewers. While other late-night talk shows are struggling, Gutfeld!’s audience grew 32 percent in the last year.

“Amusing ourselves to death”

I would think that many evangelicals, especially those who are strong supporters of President Trump, have read to this point with a visceral sense of satisfaction. “Liberals” are losing cultural influence and platforms while “conservatives” are gaining both, or so it would seem.

I’m not so sure.

Studies show that younger viewers are turning to streaming, video, and social media, while older viewers are staying with broadcast television. Younger viewers lean left while older viewers (Fox News’ largest audience) lean right. So the story could be more about demographics than cultural transformation.

Therein lies the larger point I want us to consider today.

In his 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, author and educator Neil Postman warned that the television age has turned us from active citizens engaging complex social issues into passive consumers of entertaining sound bites. Digital technology exacerbates this trajectory even more today, since we can watch whatever we want for however long we want to watch it.

Since there is far too much content available for anyone to consume, we filter it by our preconceived biases. If we align ourselves with the “right” and hear that our audience is growing, we must be winning. And in a zero-sum partisan conflict, if we are winning, the other side is losing.

The media business is a business

Why is this a problem?

The media business is a business. Wherever those who make a living in this business come down on the political spectrum, they exist to sell advertising or otherwise make a profit. The more effectively they identify the audience they seek to reach and then appeal to that audience, the more profitable they become.

A platform or personality may align with our values, which is always encouraging. But we need to be aware that they are selling even so. They are entertaining and/or informing us as a means to the end of increasing their audience and revenues.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this, of course. In our day, media is a product like any other, intended for its audience’s consumption and its producers’ profit.

This scenario becomes problematic, however, when Christians confuse “winning” the culture wars with winning souls.

Malcolm-Jamal Warner drowns at age 54

There was a day when media, including late-night television, was politically neutral. I watched Johnny Carson interview political figures for decades with no real idea whether he was liberal or conservative in his personal politics. But today, when our partisan views are gaining in media advocates and audience, Christians can feel that the Christian “side” is winning.

I believe this to be a deception of the enemy.

He cannot have our souls, so he seeks to steal our witness. The last thing he wants is for us to share the gospel persuasively and passionately with our friends, neighbors, and colleagues. So he encourages us to substitute culture wars for the hard but joyful work of personal evangelism.

Our calling is to “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). This faith alone, not any political party or partisan position, leads to salvation in Christ. For followers of Jesus, nothing should be more urgent than helping others know our Lord.

In fact, we have not a moment to lose.

We learned yesterday that Malcolm-Jamal Warner, best known for playing Theo on The Cosby Show, drowned while swimming on a family vacation in Costa Rica at the age of fifty-four. A military jet crashed into a college in Bangladesh yesterday as well; at least nineteen people were reportedly killed and over a hundred others were injured.

Every soul on our planet is one day closer to eternity than ever before. Including every person you will meet today.

To this end, I need to ask you a personal question: When last did you pray for the salvation of a lost person you know? When last did you share the gospel with them?

Why not today?

Quote for the day:

“God forbid that I should travel with anybody a quarter of an hour without speaking of Christ to them.” —George Whitefield

Our latest website resources:

• A cultural commentary on “Superman”: From modernism, to postmodernism, to metamodernism
• Epstein backlash, Christianity is growing, Chip and Joanna Gaines controversy & Scottie Scheffler’s introspection
• President Trump diagnosed with vein condition: The mystery and privilege of praying for our leaders
• A tropical storm, the “Big One,” and a Cascadia tsunami: A paradoxical way to confront our fears in faith
• What do Cal Raleigh and Superman have in common?

Denison Forum

To no one’s surprise, Scottie Scheffler won The Open Championship yesterday in convincing fashion. His victory was so dominant that, according to CNN, it left his rivals “awestruck.”

But it’s what happened before the tournament in Northern Ireland began that made global headlines.

Often called the British Open, it is the oldest golf tournament in the world. Its winner is crowned “Champion Golfer of the Year,” a title dating to the first Open in 1860. I have watched it each year for many years.

This is the first year I can remember when news preceding the tournament overshadowed the tournament itself. But that’s what happened last Tuesday.

Scheffler, the world’s No. 1 golfer, has won more tournaments and majors than anyone over the last three years. Nonetheless, in what the Associated Press called “an amazing soliloquy,” he said, “This is not a fulfilling life. It’s fulfilling from the sense of accomplishment, but it’s not fulfilling from a sense of the deepest places of your heart.”

He added: “I love the challenge. I love being able to play this game for a living. It’s one of the greatest joys of my life. But does it fill the deepest wants and desires of my heart? Absolutely not.” Then he asked, “Why do I want to win The Open Championship so badly? I don’t know. Because, if I win, it’s going to be an awesome two minutes. Then we’re going to get to the next week.”

He often says golf doesn’t define him as a person. In fact, he said if the sport ever affected his life at home, “that’s going to be the last day that I play out here for a living.”

Scheffler’s statements regarding the ultimate value of the game he plays garnered national coverage. An article in the New York Times even called him “Nihilist Scottie.” (A “nihilist” believes life has no purpose or meaning.)

Why would someone call him that?

And why is the question relevant for you and me today?

“My identity is secure forever”

The AP article asks rhetorically, “So where does fulfillment come from if it’s not winning?” The writer then answers: “Scheffler is grounded in his faith, in a simple family life with a wife he has been with since high school, a fifteen-month-old son, three sisters, and friends that are not part of the tour community.”

I have followed Scheffler’s golf career over the years with great interest, in part because he and our sons graduated from the same high school in Dallas. But primarily because I am deeply impressed with the way his faith influences his life.

He met his caddy, Ted Scott, at a Bible study. Last December, he co-hosted an annual retreat for members of the College Golf Fellowship, a faith-based ministry. Before winning the Masters last year, he stated, “It doesn’t matter if I win this tournament or lose this tournament. My identity is secure forever.”

Scottie’s sense of self is clear: “I believe in Jesus. Ultimately, I think that’s what defines me the most.”

But such faith is not what defines achievement in our secularized culture. To deny the ultimate significance of temporal success is “nihilism” for those who measure success only in this way. A person who values his faith and family above his golf career is therefore a “nihilist.”

What does this say about our culture?

When God is your partner

In a sense, the Times writer is correct: those who make Jesus their King should be nihilists with regard to anything valued more highly than their Lord.

Jesus was clear: “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (Matthew 6:24, my emphasis). As Os Guinness noted, “Either we serve God and use money, or we serve money and use God.”

Here’s the paradox: When we use temporal things to serve God, temporal things take on eternal significance and acquire a joy and purpose they could never possess otherwise.

Those who play golf for God’s glory find that they have God for a partner. He guides and encourages them as they play and shares their successes and failures as if they were his own. He endows their temporal work with the joy of the Lord and power of the Spirit.

This does not guarantee that they will become the best golfer in the world, like Scottie Scheffler. But it does mean that they will become the best versions of themselves. And every day they spend in this world plants seeds of significance in the world to come.

“Where there is nothing, there is God”

To be a “nihilist” like Scottie Scheffler, let’s make his worldview our own. He testifies, “I’ve been called to come out here, do my best to compete, and glorify God. That’s pretty much it.”

• He knows the place God has assigned him: “I’ve been called to come out here.” Like Scottie, you and I have a kingdom assignment uniquely suited to our spiritual gifts, life experience, and personal capacities.
• He knows the power by which to be effective: “Do my best to compete.” As sociologist James Davison Hunter has shown, serving with excellence is the key to cultural impact.
• He knows the purpose of his work: “and glorify God.” There is room for only one person on the throne in every human heart. We must choose each day to dethrone ourselves, submit our lives to God’s Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), and “ascribe to the Lᴏʀᴅ the glory due his name” (Psalm 29:2).

If living this way is “pretty much it,” everything else becomes nothing else.

The New York Times article calling Scheffler “Nihilist Scottie” makes my point. The writer later states:

The emptiness Scheffler feels between who he is and the game he plays does, in fact, have a place in his faith. Take a look at Ecclesiastes. Or just leave it to an Irish poet to sum things up.

As W. B. Yeats put it: “Where there is nothing, there is God.”

Scottie Scheffler would agree.

Would you?

Quote for the day:

“As modern people, we have too much to live with and too little to live for.” —Os Guinness

Our latest website resources:

• President Trump diagnosed with vein condition: The mystery and privilege of praying for our leaders
• A cultural commentary on “Superman”: From modernism, to postmodernism, to metamodernism
• Epstein backlash, Christianity is growing, Chip and Joanna Gaines controversy & Scottie Scheffler’s introspection
• A tropical storm, the “Big One,” and a Cascadia tsunami: A paradoxical way to confront our fears in faith
• What do Cal Raleigh and Superman have in common?

Denison Forum

Last night, President Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to ask a court for the release of all relevant grand jury testimony from the prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein. Bondi responded that she is “ready to move the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts.”

Mr. Trump has been under intense pressure after the Department of Justice (DOJ) released a two-page memo last week stating that Epstein left no “client list” of those involved in his abuse of underage girls. The department also stated that no further evidence would be released and no additional charges would be brought against third parties.

However, only 3 percent of those surveyed are satisfied with the amount of Epstein information that has been released; in another survey, 63 percent disapprove of the Trump Administration’s handling of the issue. House Republicans agreed last night to lay the groundwork for a potential vote calling on the DOJ to release material from its investigation of Epstein.

In totalitarian countries, this wouldn’t be an issue. What people want to know about their government doesn’t affect their government.

According to a recent report, 72 percent of the world’s population—5.7 billion people—live under authoritarian rule. When I traveled in Russia and China, I was told to assume that the government was bugging my hotel room and listening to my conversations. In my many trips to Cuba, I had to be careful never to criticize the Communist Party, or the pastors and churches we served would face persecution after we left.

But America is founded on the belief that “all men are created equal” and that our government should therefore be “of the people, by the people, for the people.” As a result, we are free to criticize our leaders and seek transparency in their actions.

Why are Americans so generous?

People are responding to the Central Texas floods with a massive outpouring of financial support and personal engagement. This should not surprise us: Americans are by far the most generous people in the world. Our annual private philanthropy as a percentage of GDP is twice that of Canada, four times that of the UK, and fifty times that of China.

What explains this?

According to theologian Peter J. Leithart (PhD, University of Cambridge), the Great Awakenings and other revival movements “fundamentally shaped the shape of the church” in America. This emphasis on the individual’s relationship with God stood apart from institutional Christendom with its clergy-driven liturgical collectivism.

In Leithart’s view,

Revivalism is the main source of the uniquely vibrant social activism of American Christianity. Temperance, urban renewal, prison ministry, abolitionism, and education reform were all energized by awakenings. . . . Thanks to revivalism, Americans donate a larger portion of their money to charities than any other people on the planet. . . .

Without revivalist Christianity, America would have rolled over and succumbed to secularism long ago. Without the unchurchy American church, we’d be so much more like Europe.

Religion is still at the heart of American generosity today:

• Those who attend religious services twice a month or more give over four times more to charitable causes than those who never attend religious services.
• Among Americans who have volunteered within the last year, three-quarters belong to a religious organization.
• The US states that are the most religiously active are the most generous; some of our wealthiest but less religiously active states are the least generous.

The First Great Awakening and the birth of America

Now we have a choice to make.

The revivalism that has produced sacrificial generosity has also shaped the larger American culture. For example, the First Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s made a huge impact on colonial society, encouraging the notions of individual rights that became embedded in our Declaration of Independence and US Constitution.

But absent spiritual renewal, our individual rights become ends rather than means. We engage in political activism to advance political agendas but confine our service to secular outcomes. We climb the ladder of individualistic faith only to kick it out from beneath us.

The reason is simple: Our innate desire to help those in need is a reflection of our creation in the image of the God who is love (Genesis 1:27; 1 John 4:8). However, our created character is deeply at odds with our fallen nature and our quest to be our own god at the expense of others (Romans 3:23; Genesis 3:5).

The good news is that Jesus can not only forgive our sins but remake our sinful hearts (2 Corinthians 5:17) so that we are “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). His Spirit will produce the selfless character of Christ in every Christian who truly wants to be like their Lord.

Then, the more we become like Christ, the more altruistically and sacrificially we serve others as he serves us. The more secularized our culture becomes, the more urgent and unique our service. And the more we attract others to the Source of our differences.

Worshipping in my high school auditorium

When I was a teenager, I joined the Christian Student Union at my very secular high school. We met before class in the balcony of the auditorium, where we would pray and sing worship choruses. One especially inspired me: “They’ll know we are Christians by our love.”

Over the decades and across the six continents I have traveled, I have yet to witness a more powerful way to change the culture.

Have you?

Quote for the day:

“It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing. It is not how much we give, but how much love we put in the giving.” —Mother Teresa

Our latest website resources:

• President Trump diagnosed with vein condition: The mystery and privilege of praying for our leaders
• Why pastors are especially prone to “Toxic Stress Load” and what to do about it
• Epstein backlash, Christianity is growing, Chip and Joanna Gaines controversy & Scottie Scheffler’s introspection
• A tropical storm, the “Big One,” and a Cascadia tsunami: A paradoxical way to confront our fears in faith
• What do Cal Raleigh and Superman have in common?

Denison Forum

A paradoxical way to confront our fears in faith

This Washington Post headline is just what we didn’t need to hear: “The states that could be hit by a tropical storm this week.” The story informs us that “a tropical storm may form in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday, bringing the potential for heavy rain, flash flooding, and severe thunderstorms from Louisiana to Florida.”

In other news, a giant swarm of earthquakes recently struck Southern California near a major fault line that could unleash the infamous “Big One,” decimating the West Coast. The earthquakes were just a few dozen miles from several active fault lines running through California, including the San Andreas fault.

And there’s this headline: “A 100 ft ‘mega tsunami’ could hit the US at any moment. And that’s only the beginning.” The Cascadia Subduction Zone, a massive fault line stretching from northern California to British Columbia, could trigger a colossal earthquake and accompanying tsunami that would kill more than thirteen thousand people and cause $134 billion in damage.

The fiction of proximity compassion

All of this on the heels of the devastating Central Texas floods seems like too much to take in. It feels safer to believe that the potential tropical storm in the Southeast wouldn’t strike where I live in Texas. Nor would the Big One in California or the Cascadia quake.

My reaction is a form of what could be called “proximity compassion,” our innate response of heightened empathy for that which comes closest to us. If my grandchildren were missing in the Camp Mystic floods, I would not be writing articles about them—I would be there doing all I could to help find them. You would do the same.

On one hand, this is a necessary way of filtering the fallen world. If we mourned every death as if it were a family member, we would be incapacitated. If we feared and prepared for every potential natural disaster as if it were about to strike us personally, we’d do little else.

On the other hand, proximity compassion is largely a fiction. If major floods strike the Southeast, they’ll affect the rest of us in everything from air travel to roads to shipping and services. The “Big One” or the Cascadia quake would decimate our national economy, affecting the entire country for many years to come.

Not to mention our innate solidarity with our fellow humans. As John Donne wrote,
Any man’s death diminishes me, Because I am involved in mankind.” Ultimately, I dull my compassion for those I do not know at the risk of my compassion for those I do.

I believe there is a better way to respond to the inevitable consequences of life on this fallen planet.

Circles, an arrow, and dots

When I taught philosophy of religion at various seminaries, we always spent time on three ways civilizations have visualized history:

• An “Eastern” mindset can be cyclical, following the repetitions of the seasons and emphasizing the doctrines of karma and reincarnation. I would illustrate by drawing circles on the whiteboard, some on top of each other, and others moving directionally.
• A “Western” mindset has often been linear, viewing history as a steady progression from the past to the future. I would illustrate this by drawing an arrow pointing upward to signify progress.
• A contemporary existentialist mindset pictures life as chaotic, with no past or future, only the present. I would illustrate this by drawing dots on the whiteboard randomly.

I would then associate the Western, linear view of history with biblical teaching, reminding us of the narrative from creation and fall to redemption in this world and glory in the next. One consequence of this worldview, whether we consider the existence and providence of God or not, is the innate belief that what we do today prepares the way for tomorrow.

Such a mindset is vital to progress in nearly every dimension of human endeavor. Scientific and medical breakthroughs in the present lead to better lives in the future. Conversely, preparing for diseases and disasters before they strike can often prevent them from occurring or mitigate their effects.

But here’s where our linear view of life steers us astray: it teaches us that we can prepare for what cannot be prepared for.

“Worry is like riding in a rocking chair”

You and I cannot prevent pancreatic cancer, ALS, or a host of other diseases. We cannot prevent and often cannot predict tornadoes, flash floods, or a host of other natural disasters. We cannot predict earthquakes or tsunamis, or do much to prevent their consequences.

But admitting our frailty and finitude in the face of an unpredictable future runs counter to our linear confidence in inevitable progress and the power of human resolve. So, when we cannot predict or prevent disasters, we worry about them. When we cannot protect our children from harm, we fear for them.

All the while, we subconsciously believe we are at least doing something about dangers we cannot otherwise do something about.

Since we cannot do this with every potential disease or disaster, we also practice proximity compassion, focusing our worries and fears most fully on those dangers that affect us most directly.

Of course, none of this actually changes our fallen world.

I once saw a cartoon in which the character is swaying back and forth in a rocking chair above the caption, “Worry is like riding in a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you anywhere.”

Exchanging an arrow for a throne

A better approach is to abandon our linear belief in inevitable progress through human effort for a different model, one that replaces a line representing history with a throne representing eternity.

When we make Christ our king each day, we enthrone the only One who can see the future better than we can see the present. We trust the only One whose omnipotence can counter any challenge and meet any need. We depend upon the only One who “is” love and who can only want our best.

With regard to our fears for the future, we ask him to show us how to prepare for what only he can see, then trust the rest to his providential grace. As we work, he works. And we know that we are doing all we can while partnering with the One who can do what no one else can.

Said differently, this article is a long way of encouraging us each day to accept our Father’s invitation:

The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:5–7).

Are you “anxious” about “anything” today?

Denison Forum

Why God’s omnipotence is good news in hard places

The funerals for those who died at Camp Mystic and other Central Texas flood locations are being held and are breaking the hearts of everyone who attends and many who are praying for those who attend. Not to mention those grieving for more than one hundred flood victims who are still missing at this writing.

Many of us are struggling with the perennial question: Since God created the natural world and can intervene whenever he wishes, why didn’t he prevent this tragedy? However, I’d like to take a moment to look at the natural world from a different perspective, one that I hope can offer hope for our hurting hearts.

100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets

My thoughts are prompted by this headline in today’s news: “Astronomers discover giant alien planet 35 times more massive than Earth hiding in a known star system.”

They named the newly found exoplanet Kepler-139f. Despite its giant size, it had evaded detection until now. One of the co-authors of the study reporting the discovery added, “It is likely that many planetary systems host unseen worlds, especially in their outer regions.”

Scientists now estimate that there are 100 sextillion planets in the universe. To put that number in numeric terms, they believe there are 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets like ours, many of them many times larger than Earth.

But they are only a small part of the galaxies in which they reside. And scientists estimate that there are between six and twenty trillion galaxies in the universe. (Let’s not pass over “trillion”—there are one thousand millions in a billion and one thousand billions in a trillion.)

If all of this “boggles your mind,” so to speak, that’s my intent.

Why the Greeks had so many gods

Like you, I am frustrated and grieved whenever God does not intervene in the natural world to prevent natural disasters and tragedies. But let’s not overlook the fact that he can.

The Judeo-Christian tradition is unique among world religions in its emphasis on a single deity who not only created the universe but also interacts with it today. Most religions known to history are polytheistic, comprised of deities limited to specific realms or locations. The Greeks and Romans had their god of the sea, for example, but he had limited agency in wartime over their god of war.

This is why they had so many gods. When a specific need arose, it was important to identify the particular deity who could help and then find a way to persuade them to act.

Even monotheistic religions such as Islam typically emphasize the sovereignty and distance of God over his personal engagement with humans. And none but Christianity dares to suggest that the God who made the universe then entered it so he could enter our lives today.

But this is just what the New Testament assures us:

• By creating our immeasurably large universe, our God shows that he possesses all the omnipotence we need to meet our needs (cf. Isaiah 40:12).
• By entering our world through the Incarnation, he shows that he can be present at every moment in every place in our world (cf. Matthew 28:20).
• By calming storms, healing the sick, and raising the dead, he shows that he is willing to intervene in nature.
• By virtue of his nature as the Supreme Being, he is unchangeable (Malachi 3:6) and thus can do anything he has ever done.
• By virtue of his character as the God who “is” love (1 John 4:8), he can only want what is best for us.
• By virtue of his Spirit who dwells in every believer now (1 Corinthians 3:16), he can do in and through us all that his omnipotence chooses to do.

All of this encourages us to say with Paul, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).

Three reasons to pray

None of this tells us why our Father does not always intervene in nature as we wish he would. But it does assure us that he can. And it therefore encourages us to continue to pray for such intervention when the need arises.

But you might be asking: If we cannot be sure that God will do what we ask, why ask? Let’s consider three responses.

One: Prayer positions us to receive whatever grace chooses to give. 

Because God honors the free will he gives us, he will enter the door of our lives only when it is opened to him (Revelation 3:20). This is why Scripture says, “You do not have, because you do not ask” (James 4:2).

Two: Prayer connects us with God as one of the primary ways his Spirit molds us into the character of Christ (Romans 8:29). 

Right now, you and I are thinking about God. If we were praying, we would be talking to him. Such a connection enables him to shape and sanctify us by the transforming power of his Spirit. Prayer does not change God, but it is a powerful means by which he changes us.

Three: Prayer enables us to respond to crisis as the body of Christ. 

While you and I cannot do miracles, we can be the means by which miracles are done as we pray and then engage in the world (cf. Acts 3). And we can be the hands and feet of Jesus by which he weeps with those who weep and comforts those who mourn. When we pray, his Spirit directs us, empowers us, and works through us for God’s glory and our good.

All of this is possible because our Father is the omnipotent Lord we have been discussing in this article. And all of it is relevant because he loves us as much right now as when he sent his Son to die for us.

All of God there is, is in this moment.

Why is this good news for you today?

Denison Forum

The Jeffrey Epstein files saga is leading the news again.

To make a long story short, many people have believed for years that Epstein was at the heart of a child sex trafficking ring that involved blackmailing prominent people on a worldwide “client list.” Many also doubt the government’s statement that Epstein died by his own hand when he was jailed in 2019.

However, a memo by the Department of Justice and the FBI stated last week that such a client list does not exist and that no credible evidence that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals has been found. Reaction from longtime conservatives especially has been furious. Now comes news that Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend who is currently in prison on child sex trafficking offenses, is willing to tell Congress what she knows about Epstein.

Clearly, as many are warning, this story is not going away.

Why are people rewatching old TV shows?

Don’t you wish you could trust everyone who makes and reports the news?

According to Gallup, fifty years ago, 70 percent of Americans said they trusted the mass media. Today, less than half that number agree, an all-time low. Only 22 percent of US adults say they trust the federal government to do the right thing just about always or most of the time.

Office workers are feeling paranoid about job security, with fears of layoffs and being replaced by AI. Conversely, some are turning to AI therapy bots even though, as a Stanford study found, they fuel delusions and give dangerous advice.

As a sign of the times, The New York Times reports that many people are rewatching television shows made in the early twenty-first century. The article cites the shows’ quality and the nostalgia of watching them again. I also think they are popular in an unpredictable world because we like stories that we already know we like and know we like the way they turn out.

Numerous studies show that people value their earthly lives more today than ever before: we are willing to spend far more on healthcare, cutting back on teenage driving and motorcycles, reducing participation in extreme sports, and taking fewer social risks than ever. One explanation is especially foundational:

For most of human history, death wasn’t the end—it was a transition. Whether you believed in heaven, reincarnation, or joining our ancestors, mortality had an escape clause.

But as traditional religious belief declines, this life becomes all there is. The stakes of mortality go from high to infinite (their italics).

Putting gasoline in a diesel engine

When our boys were young, they found my father’s old manual typewriter in a closet. They pulled it out, tried to make it work, then gave up and asked me, “What is it?” If you’ve never seen one before, you might have the same question. It could function as a doorstop, a large paperweight, or a bookend. But it was designed to do what people of a certain age understand its function to be.

Why did our Maker make us? For what purpose are our lives intended?

God creates humans “in his own image” (Genesis 1:27). Like children who inherit their father’s DNA, we are made to be like our Father as members of his family.

Accordingly, he intends us to be “conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:29). Our Father wants us to have such an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus that we become like him. He forgives our sins and saves us from hell not just so we can spend eternity with him in heaven but so we can extend his family as his Christlike children. As Jesus’ best friend said of his Lord, “Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked” (1 John 2:6).

To be like Christ is why we exist. Nothing less will give our lives purpose and joy, because this is the joyful purpose for which we were designed.

If we live for any other purpose than this, our lives fall into brokenness and grief. Like a diesel truck fueled with gasoline, our engine fails and the truck stalls. We can push it ourselves, use it as a storage closet, or park it in front of our house as a decoration, but it doesn’t do what it was made to do.

Thus the distrust and anxiety in our secularized culture.

If we want what God wants

If you and I want what God wants for us, we want to know Christ so fully that we become like him and thus make him known to the world.

We may want far less. We want God to forgive our sins and save us from hell for heaven. We want him to answer our prayers and meet our needs. We may even want him to use our lives in significant ways in the world.

But how many of us get up every morning with the goal to be more like Christ today than ever before?

Imagine a world in which every government official and every reporter covering them acted with the integrity and servant heart of Jesus. Imagine a world in which the rest of us did the same. There would be no Jeffrey Epstein scandals, no sexual immorality or crime or wars to report.

Before you dismiss such a possibility as hopelessly naïve, remember that the Holy Spirit indwells every Christian for just this purpose. As Oswald Chambers noted, “The Holy Spirit is determined that we will manifest Christ . . . in every domain of life.”

Are you saying the Spirit is incapable of doing what the Father intends him to do?

Here’s my point:

The Spirit will see to it that we become as much like Jesus as we want to be like Jesus.

He will manifest the “fruit” or character of Christ in every life that is fully yielded to him (Galatians 5:22–23; Ephesians 5:18; John 15:5). He will empower us to resist temptation (1 Corinthians 10:13) and live as “more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).

And as with his first followers, the world will know that we have “been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).

John MacArthur on “true discipleship”

Rev. John MacArthur, one of the best-known evangelical preachers and pastors of our generation, died last night at the age of eighty-six.

In his 1981 sermon, “Christlikeness: The Goal of Discipleship,” he quoted Jesus’ statement, “Everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher” (Luke 6:40). Then he defined “true discipleship” very simply: “You are a learner growing toward Christlikeness.”

Will you be a “true” disciple today?

Quote for the day:

“There are many who preach Christ, but not so many who live Christ. My great aim will be to live Christ.” —Robert Chapman (1803–1902)

Our latest website resources:

• Mother, daughter shot while cooking lunch at their church
• When God doesn’t seem to keep his promises
• How to talk to your kids about the flooding at Camp Mystic
• Texas floods, responding faithfully to tragedy, Epstein list fallout & best movies of the 2000s
• Pastor: Is your spiritual life on cruise control?

Denison Forum

On July 13, 2024, a twenty-year-old sniper named Thomas Crooks fired an AR-15-style rifle from the roof of a building around four hundred feet from the stage where Donald Trump was holding a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. He killed a fifty-year-old fireman named Corey Comperatore, who died shielding his family, and critically injured two others.

The moment he fired, Mr. Trump turned his head to the right to point to a chart showing illegal border crossings. This caused a bullet to skim his right ear rather than hitting his head and killing him.

Secret Service agents tackled him to protect him, but when he stood to his feet again, he pumped his fist in the air. With blood running down his face, he shouted, “Fight! Fight! Fight.” Two days later, Mr. Trump made a triumphal entry at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

The day after the shooting, Mr. Trump told journalist Salena Zito, “It was the hand of God. He was there.” A month after returning to the White House, he said, “I feel, I feel even stronger. I believed in God, but I feel much more strongly about it.”

Yesterday’s anniversary of the shooting raises again the question: Did God save Mr. Trump’s life?

The bullet that passed through Lincoln’s hat

Let’s begin with the biblical fact that he clearly could have.

The Bible proclaims, “Kingship belongs to the Lᴏʀᴅ, and he rules over the nations” (Psalm 22:28). Even a sparrow does not fall to the ground apart from his providential knowledge (Matthew 10:29). He sent an angel to free the apostles from prison (Acts 5:17–21) and to spare Peter from Herod’s execution (Acts 12:6–11).

The list of US presidents who survived assassination attempts is long. Among the most notable is a lone rifle shot fired in August 1864 by an unknown sniper that passed through Abraham Lincoln’s hat as he rode in the late evening, missing his head by inches. Another is the bullet fired by John Hinckley that lodged an inch from Ronald Reagan’s heart in March 1981.

However, we must obviously add that we have no biblical revelation by which to interpret the shooting in Butler or other assassination near-misses. We are left to employ what we do know of God’s character from Scripture as we seek to understand the events of that day or of any other.

Four approaches to divine sovereignty

One position is that God causes all that happens. The Lord declares, “I will accomplish all my purpose” (Isaiah 46:10). In this view, free will is only apparent but not real. As Solomon noted, “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lᴏʀᴅ; he turns it wherever he will” (Proverbs 21:1).

If this is our only approach to the events of our world, we can credit God for saving Mr. Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, but we must blame him for the death of Mr. Comperatore. We can credit him when a natural disaster spares us, but we must blame him for the horrific July 4 floods in Central Texas.

The opposite position is that God causes nothing that happens. Deists believe that God created the universe as a clockmaker who then watches it run on its own, refusing to intervene in the natural world. Of course, the numerous miracles described in Scripture from Genesis to Revelation clearly teach otherwise.

A middle position is that God honors the free will he gives us, so the consequences of our sins are not his fault but ours (cf. Deuteronomy 30:19). But the Lord intervened to protect Peter from Herod, just as some think he intervened to protect Donald Trump from his would-be assassin in Butler.

Another middle position is that God allows nature to take its course, but he intervenes when necessary according to his providential purposes. Not every storm is his fault, but he can on occasion calm the storm (cf. Matthew 8:23–27).

The mystery at the heart of the issue

For reasons I explain in detail in a website article, I believe that both middle positions are correct: God honors our free will and the natural laws he created, but sometimes intervenes with both.

This leads to the mystery at the heart of the issue. If he spared Donald Trump or Ronald Reagan, why not Abraham Lincoln in Ford’s Theatre or John F. Kennedy in Dallas? If he rescued some at Camp Mystic and the other sites ravaged by the Central Texas floods, I don’t know why he did not rescue everyone else.

Nor would I expect to.

We know that “all Scripture is breathed out by God” (2 Timothy 3:16) as its authors were “carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21). But the Bible is now a closed canon. None of us can claim revelatory knowledge with the certainty of God’s word. I cannot say with the prophets, “Thus says the Lord . . .” Nor can you.

If I claimed that God had declared audibly to me that he spared Donald Trump’s life a year ago in Butler, you would have as much right to doubt my testimony as I would if you made such a statement. I cannot think of any way the Lord could prove that it is so, either to me or to you.

“The whole reason why we pray”

Two consequences follow.

First, beware of conforming God’s will to ours.

If you are a partisan supporter of Donald Trump, you might wish I would more definitively agree with those who are convinced God spared his life miraculously a year ago. If you are a partisan opponent of the president, you might wish for the opposite. But neither opinion changes reality. God’s ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:9) and not subject to our subjective wishes.

Accordingly, the purpose of prayer is not to conform God’s will to ours, but the reverse. As Julian of Norwich noted, “The whole reason why we pray is to be united into the vision and contemplation of God to whom we pray.”

A second principle follows from the first: the purpose of life is to know God and make him known.

If we pray for him to use every circumstance and challenge we face as a means to this end, he will always answer our prayers. He may take us to heaven, where we know him as we are known (1 Corinthians 13:12). He may heal us or spare us. He may answer us by using our suffering to draw us into greater dependence on himself (cf. 2 Corinthians 12:8–10).

And God will help us know him so we can make him known to the world. Wounded healers are the most effective healers. He comforts us so we can comfort others (2 Corinthians 1:4).

As the saying goes,

“Sometimes God calms the storm, but sometimes he lets the storm rage and calms his child.”

Both are miracles.

Will you trust him for the one you need most today?

Quote for the day:

“I am certain that I never did grow in grace one-half so much anywhere as I have upon the bed of pain.” —Charles Spurgeon

Our latest website resources:

• When God doesn’t seem to keep his promises
• How to talk to your kids about the flooding at Camp Mystic
• Texas floods, responding faithfully to tragedy, Epstein list fallout & best movies of the 2000s
• Why a good God must allow suffering—even innocent suffering—to exist
• Why does God allow disasters like the Texas Hill Country floods?

Denison Forum

Why AI is both a helpful tool and an existential threat

Last month, an imposter created a Signal account pretending to be US Secretary of State Marco Rubio using the display name “Marco.Rubio@state.gov.” The perpetrator then used AI to simulate Rubio’s voice and contacted three foreign ministers, a US governor, and a member of Congress. The actor left voicemails for some while sending invites to others to communicate through the Signal app.

Upon learning of the scam, the State Department sent a message warning those who may have been contacted. An official claimed that the hoax was “not very sophisticated” and had been unsuccessful, but they thought it “prudent” to raise awareness just in case.

However, this was not the first time AI has been used in an attempt to trick high-level diplomats and government representatives. A similar incident occurred in May involving Susie Wiles, President Trump’s chief of staff. While that effort was similarly fruitless, it’s only a matter of time before those behind the scams improve enough to succeed.

As Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California at Berkley who specializes in digital forensics, warns:

You just need 15 to 20 seconds of audio of the person, which is easy in Marco Rubio’s case. You upload it to any number of services, click a button that says “I have permission to use this person’s voice,” and then you type what you want him to say.

You don’t have to be the secretary of state or a member of the president’s inner circle to become the target of these attacks. Global cybercrime—much of it fueled by innovations in AI—is projected to cost upwards of $10.5 trillion this year, and that number is only going to rise as the technology improves.

But while we are increasingly aware of the risks AI poses for crime, large parts of our society seem willing—and even excited—to welcome its use in ways that could pose an even greater risk.

AI in education

The American Federation of Teachers, the second-largest US teachers’ union, announced recently that Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic have invested a combined $23 million to help create an AI training hub for educators. This is the latest example of tech companies attempting to make inroads into schools and universities to help teachers and students learn how to use—and become dependent on—AI to augment their studies.

Chris Lehane, Open AI’s chief global affairs officer, hopes that AI will eventually join reading, writing, and arithmetic as a core skill everyone must learn. And, as scary as that sounds, there is something to the idea that learning how to use AI well is important given the costs of using it poorly.

For all the advances the industry has made, hallucinations and lies are still an unavoidable part of the technology. A recent study by law school professors found that AI tools made “significant” errors that posed an “unacceptable risk of harm” when asked to summarize a law casebook.

Moreover, Microsoft found that using AI chatbots to research and write could hinder critical thinking. That one of the creators of these artificial intelligence models would help to publicize such a conclusion is notable considering such tasks are how an increasing number of people, both in the classroom and outside of it, use the technology.

And that risk to critical thinking is, in my estimation, the greatest threat AI poses.

A generational threat?

Aaron MacLean, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, cautions, “The substitution of Large Language Models for genuine thinking is a generational threat. At stake is no less than the life of the mind.”

While that sentiment is perhaps a bit exaggerated, he makes a powerful argument for why the small, everyday ways in which AI has become a staple of people’s lives could have dramatic and devastating effects on people’s ability to reason and interact with their environment in the future.

To illustrate his point, MacLean recounts a time during his freshman year of college when a classmate told their professor, “I know what I think, I just can’t get the words down on the page,” to which the professor responded, “Well, you don’t actually know what you think, then. The act of writing the thing is the same thing as the thinking of it. If you can’t write it, you haven’t actually thought it.”

Now, you have to have a thought before you can write it down, but the professor’s point was that there is something in the struggle of taking ideas and learning to convey them in a way that makes sense that is instrumental to developing our ability to think and reason well. Taking disparate thoughts and turning them into a coherent argument requires a mastery of information that goes beyond the simple possession of data.

AI makes it possible to get to the answer—or at least something approximating it—without having to do the work, and that’s a problem.

The person God created you to be

Ultimately, for all its downsides, AI can be a helpful tool. It excels at accumulating information, though it’s far less trustworthy when it comes to knowing what to do with it. Moreover, there are a number of questions that just need a simple answer, and relying on AI for those—with the caveat that you check its sources—is fine.

But, increasingly, that’s not how it’s used.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that people would be enticed to take the easier path. And that’s especially true when, as is the case in many circumstances, the final product can be just as good or better than what we could do on our own.

ChatGPT is going to write a better paper than most college freshmen. It may even create a better presentation or write better emails than many professionals.

What it cannot replicate are the unique thoughts and Holy Spirit-given insights that God will only give to people. Nor can it help you learn to hone and develop skills that the Lord may want to use to advance his kingdom in the future.

Even Jesus had to grow “in sophia”—the Greek word for “the art of using wisdom”—as part of the Father’s will for his life (Luke 2:52). If that was true of the incarnate God, it is most certainly true for each of us as well.

However, that process requires that we place a higher value on the people we will become by committing to the work than on the chance to finish the work quickly. And that is a difficult ask when we face a seemingly endless list of demands on our time and attention.

So, when you are next forced to make that choice, what will you do?

Again, AI has its place, and the Lord can use it to help facilitate his calling in our lives. But it must remain a tool and nothing more, or we risk becoming more reliant on artificial intelligence than on our God-given intelligence.

That is a line we cannot afford to cross, but also a line that will continue to blur as AI gets smarter and the masses who become overly reliant on it go in the opposite direction.

So please don’t settle for the person it’s easy to be rather than the person God created you to be. He has gifted and called you to something greater than that.

Will you commit to that calling today?

Quote of the day:

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them.” —Galileo

Our latest website resources:

• Why a good God must allow suffering—even innocent suffering—to exist
• Pastor: Is your spiritual life on cruise control?
• Texas floods, responding faithfully to tragedy, Epstein list fallout & best movies of the 2000s | CB Ep. 27
• Elon Musk announces the “America Party”
• Why Michael Madsen’s death gave me pause

Denison Forum

Last Friday morning, several storm cells merged and then stalled over Kerr County in Central Texas. As a result, an entire summer’s worth of rain fell in some areas—a one-in-one-hundred-year rainfall event for the region. The Guadalupe River, which runs alongside several summer camps, rose from about three feet to thirty feet.

A flash flood emergency was issued at 4:03 a.m., but the darkness of the night made it difficult to see rising water levels. Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly said the area floods frequently, but officials “had no reason to believe that this was going to be anything like what’s happened here. None whatsoever.”

Nonetheless, critics are implicating the Trump administration, Texas state officials, local officials, and the National Weather Service in the disaster.

Three reasons we assign blame after tragedies

When tragedy strikes, it is never long before people begin looking for someone to blame. Why is this?

One positive reason is to prevent future tragedies. If storm detection technology and early warning systems can be improved, lives might be saved when future floods strike. Obviously, we should always strive to get better at protecting ourselves from natural disasters.

A second element is that politics are now a constant factor in nearly every dimension of American society. Many in our post-Christian culture have replaced consensual morality with political “solutions” they advocate through partisan tribalism. If floods strike in “red” states or wildfires in “blue” states, we can expect partisan politicians and media to leverage them for political purposes.

A third factor is our innate desire to control the future. If we convince ourselves that people could have prevented the July 4 floods, we can convince ourselves that people can prevent future floods. I have known parents who lost children and blamed themselves for years to come. Their reaction is not just grief—if they admit that they could not have prevented their child’s death, they are tacitly admitting that they cannot prevent the deaths of their other children.

Religion is often used for this purpose. The many altars I have seen in Ephesus and Athens attest to the transactional religion of their culture—sacrifice to the god of war so he will protect you in battle, and so on.

Christians are by no means immune. When our oldest son was diagnosed with cancer, I was surprised at the subliminal anger I felt toward the Lord. I had prayed for my son’s welfare from the moment we knew he had been conceived. My theology taught me that such prayers are no guarantee, that “in the world you will have tribulation” (John 16:33). Nonetheless, I realized that I had felt I had done my part for my son, but God had not done his.

“The way to pay for the priceless”

In the face of an unpredictable and uncontrollable future, we have three options.

One obvious response is to double down on ourselves, to try even harder to exert more control over our lives and world.

In my latest website article, I note David Brooks’s argument that we need an “education in morals” that “involves the formation of the heart and the will as much as the formation of the rational mind.” His appeal is commendable, but I responded in the words of the famed psychiatrist Karl Menninger: Whatever became of sin? Fallen humans cannot transform human hearts, which is why the gospel is so vital to our flourishing. Nor can education control the future, which is why we must trust our omniscient and omnipotent Father.

A second response is to abandon hope, choosing nihilism and chaotic existentialism in its place. However, as researchers continue to demonstrate, hope is crucial for mental health, resilience, and meaningful lives.

This is why our best way to face a perilous future is to work as God works. When we submit to his empowering and follow his leading (Ephesians 5:18), we join him as he advances his providential kingdom in our fallen world.

• When the priests stepped into the flooded Jordan river, its waters “were completely cut off” and the entire nation crossed over into their Promised Land (Joshua 3:14–16).
• David testified, “I pursued my enemies and overtook them” because God “equipped me with strength for the battle” (Psalm 18:37, 39).
• Paul could say of himself, “With toil and labor we worked night and day” (2 Thessalonians 3:8), but he knew that he worked “with all [God’s] energy that he powerfully works within me” (Colossians 1:29).

In each case, as they worked, God worked.

Our best response to our Father’s grace is to pay it forward. As G. K. Chesterton noted, “The way to pay for the priceless is to live lives worthy of the gift.” Then God anoints those he appoints and equips those he calls. As Martin Luther observed, “Good works do not make a good man, but a good man does good works.”

“The one purpose worth living for”

Ask God how he wants you to join him in responding to suffering in the present and fears for the future. With regard to the Central Texas floods, be especially mindful of people you know who have previously lost children. As my wife wrote in her blog yesterday, they are reliving their tragedy once again in these tragic days.

And remember that our ultimate purpose in life is not to be happy or healthy, but to experience personally the God who made us. Brother David Vryhof of the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Boston is right:

“The one purpose worth living for is the end for which we were created, namely, to know God, to love God, and to serve God.”

To this “end,” let’s close with a reflection by Frederick Buechner that speaks honestly to our questions and pain but then offers a word of transcendent hope. Preaching at the 200th anniversary of the Congregational Church in Rupert, Vermont, Buechner quoted Psalm 23 and commented:

“I shall not want,” the psalm says. Is that true? There are lots of things we go on wanting, go on lacking, whether we believe in God or not. They are not just material things like a new roof or a better paying job, but things like good health, things like happiness for our children, things like being understood and appreciated, like relief from pain, like some measure of inner peace not just for ourselves but for the people we love and for whom we pray.

Believers and unbelievers alike go on wanting our whole lives through. We long for what never seems to come. We pray for what never seems to be clearly given.

But when the psalm says “I shall not want,” maybe it is speaking the utter truth anyhow. Maybe it means that if we keep our eyes open, if we keep our hearts and lives open, we will at least never be in want of the one thing we want more than anything else. Maybe it means that whatever else is withheld, the shepherd never withholds himself, and he is what we want more than anything else.

What—or whom—do you “want more than anything else” today?

Quote for the day:

“The depths of our misery can never fall below the depths of mercy.” —Richard Sibbes (1577–1635)

Our latest website resources:

• Texas floods, responding faithfully to tragedy, Epstein list fallout & best movies of the 2000s
• Why a good God must allow suffering—even innocent suffering—to exist
• Why does God allow disasters like the Texas Hill Country floods?
• Elon Musk announces the “America Party”: What is the best path to our best future?
• How do the arts and sciences reveal the genius of God?

Denison Forum

“If your heart is broken, I assure you God is near”

If you’re like me, you’re ready to think about some good news this morning.

My wife and I, like so many others, have been living in grief since the news broke last Friday of the floods in Central Texas and the devastating loss of life. As of this morning, at least 111 have died; according to Gov. Greg Abbott, another 161 remain missing in Kerr County, including five campers and a counselor from Camp Mystic.

But in the midst of unspeakable tragedy, stories of survival and hope are emerging as well.

A family of thirty-three and a woman and her two dogs are among the survivors of one of the deadliest flood disasters in Texas history. Rev. Jasiel Hernandez Garcia, who was in charge of receiving survivors from Camp Mystic at the reunification center, witnessed children “being offloaded from the bus, missing shoes, having dirt all over them, being hungry, seeing their parents from a distance and their weeping out of joy.”

In addition, many who are grieving their losses are using their platform of suffering to share their hope in Christ with the world. Tavia Hunt, wife of Kansas City Chiefs CEO Clark Hunt, posted that their family lost a young cousin. She nonetheless wrote:

If your heart is broken, I assure you God is near, he is gentle with your wounds. And he is still worthy, even when your soul is struggling to believe it. Trust doesn’t mean you’re over the pain; it means you’re handing it to the only One who can hold it with love and restore what was lost. For we do not grieve as those without hope.

It was my privilege to be their family’s pastor for many years. Knowing them as I do, I am not surprised that they are using this tragedy to encourage others to trust in their Lord.

A new path for Palestinians?

Now let’s turn to other good news from a part of the world where it is often in short supply.

President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had dinner at the White House Monday night and met again yesterday afternoon. Mr. Netanyahu met with House Speaker Mike Johnson yesterday and will meet with a bipartisan group of senators this afternoon. All of this to discuss the monumental changes in the Middle East that have occurred in recent weeks.

Among them is news that a group of leading Palestinian sheiks have signed a letter pledging peace and full recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. Their plan is for their city of Hebron, the West Bank’s largest city located south of Jerusalem, to break out of the Palestinian Authority (PA), establish an emirate of its own, and join the Abraham Accords.

The sheiks note the terrible exploitation of their people by their leaders (PA President Mahmoud Abbas is personally worth $100 million) and are seeking a new way forward that would guarantee the security of Israel and the Palestinians.

This could perhaps pave the way for normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which could lead other Arab nations to join the alliance and bring peace to the region.

If Christians must account for evil

Whatever comes of this possibility, it at least points to a fact relevant to the tragedies of recent days: If Christians must account for evil, skeptics must account for good.

When people use innocent suffering to claim that God cannot be all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving, they must then explain the altruistic, sacrificial good (apart from God) to be found in so many places, even in the midst of suffering. Evolutionary theories cannot account for the hundreds of volunteers who are risking so much to search for survivors and victims of the floods, or the financial and prayerful support being marshalled across the country.

For every good in the world, we can ask why there is evil; for every evil in the world, we can ask why there is good.

So, here’s a better approach: rather than interpreting the character of God by the circumstances of our broken world, let’s interpret our circumstances through the prism of his character.

“Though the fig should not blossom”

Habakkuk said to God, “You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he?” (Habakkuk 1:13). And yet he closes his book:

Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lᴏʀᴅ; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. Gᴏᴅ, the Lord, is my strength (Habakkuk 3:17–19).

Paul pleaded three times with the Lord to remove his “thorn” in the flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7–8) before learning that God’s “power is made perfect in weakness” and trusting his pain to his Father’s providence (v. 9).

Jesus cried from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46) before praying as he died, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” (Luke 23:46).

They each chose “to know and to believe the love that God has for us” (1 John 4:16). “To know” in the Greek means to understand intellectually; “to believe” means to trust fully and personally. I can know that my surgeon is eminently qualified to operate on my back; it is only when I trust myself to his skill that I experience it for myself.

When faith “receives the impossible”

This is why Tavia Hunt is so right in encouraging us to give our pain to “the only One who can hold it with love and restore what was lost.”

Corrie ten Boom, who lost her parents to the Nazis and had to watch her sister starve to death in their Holocaust camp, nonetheless testified,

“Faith sees the invisible, believes the unbelievable, and receives the impossible.”

Will you take your next step into such faith today?

Quote for the day:

“Little faith will bring your soul to heaven; great faith will bring heaven to your soul.” —Charles Spurgeon

Our latest website resources:

• Why does God allow disasters like the Texas Hill Country floods?
• How do the arts and sciences reveal the genius of God?
• Why Michael Madsen’s death gave me pause: A reflection on simplification in life and preparation for eternity
• “Alligator Alcatraz” and the power of deterrence
• Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan explain the uniqueness of America

Denison Forum

Shortly after I published yesterday’s Daily Article, Camp Mystic confirmed that at least twenty-seven campers and counselors were killed in flash floods last Friday, with ten children and one counselor still missing. As of this morning, the death toll across the area has now climbed to at least 104 people. The massive search continues for survivors and victims.

We are continuing to see tragic stories of those lost, such as Chloe Childress, a recent high school graduate who was set to attend the University of Texas at Austin this fall. She was co-president of her school’s honor council, ran varsity cross country, and founded a club devoted to helping senior citizens. Her death is a devastating loss to all who knew her and to the world she would have served so well.

In other heartbreaking news, the bodies of two sisters from Dallas, ages thirteen and eleven, were found fifteen miles from where their cabin was swept into the river. Their hands were locked together. They are just two of so many stories so grievous that our minds and hearts feel overwhelmed with unspeakable sorrow.

At the same time, heroic stories are emerging as well.

• Emma Foltz of Alexandria, Louisiana, has been a counselor at Camp Mystic for three years and helped evacuate fourteen of her campers to safety.
• Jonathan McComb, who lost his wife and children in a 2015 flood in Wimberly, Texas, is one of hundreds of volunteers helping search for victims.
• Petty Officer Scott Ruskan, a Coast Guard swimmer, rescued 165 people at Camp Mystic.

So, here’s the question: If they did all they could do to rescue victims, why didn’t our omnipotent God do all his power enables him to do to prevent this tragedy from happening?

“Deceive yourself no longer”

The Bible says of our Lord, “You make springs gush forth in the valleys; they flow between the hills” (Psalm 104:10). Not only does God make the waters, but he can still control them today. The Savior who calmed the stormy Sea of Galilee could have done the same on the Guadalupe River last Friday (Mark 4:39).

Christians believe our Father to be all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful. When tragedy strikes, we need ways to trust him when we don’t understand his ways.

Here’s what we must not do: we must not settle for easy answers to innocent suffering. They are not only the wrong answers—they are the opposite of the hope we need today.

Secularists who consider faith in God irrelevant or outdated will obviously dismiss the question. Others will reject Christianity or deny God’s omniscience or his omnipotence.

However, in the face of tragedy, most of us do not question God’s existence, knowledge, or power, so we are left to question his love.

We love people enough to do all we can to help them, especially at times like this. If God does not follow suit, it must be because he does not love them enough to do so—or so we fear. We would never say this out loud, but it is the whispered doubt at the back of our grieving hearts.

I have often quoted C. S. Lewis’s response to the death of his wife from cancer:

Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about him. The conclusion I dread is not “So there’s no God after all,” but “So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.”

Three pathways to faith

If we deny God’s love, power, or knowledge, we “solve” our problem by creating a greater problem. Rather than settling for easy answers that offer no hope, let’s consider three pathways to faith today.

The first is rational:

• If God is the Supreme Being (cf. Revelation 4:8), circumstances cannot make him less or more than he is; in either case, he would no longer be unchangingly supreme (Malachi 3:6). Therefore, nothing that happened last Friday can make him any less the omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent King of the universe.
• If we are finite and fallen, our minds by definition cannot understand his mind and ways (Isaiah 55:8–9).
• Because he is all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful, his character requires him to redeem all he allows (cf. Romans 8:28). We may never understand such redemption on this side of eternity, but one day we will “fully know” what we only know in part today (1 Corinthians 13:12).
• If we allow the question of innocent suffering to drive us from God, we turn from the Source we need when we need him most. The greater our pain, the more we need our Great Physician.

The second is practical: The Bible does not always tell us all we want to know, but it does tell us what we need to know. For those who are suffering, understanding why last Friday’s tragedy occurred may be less relevant than responding to it in practical ways. By praying for them and helping financially and in other ways, we become an instrument of the grace they need. And the more we serve God, the closer we draw to him and find the hope and help of his Spirit.

The third is intuitive: All relationships require a commitment that transcends the evidence and becomes self-validating. If we choose to believe that God is who we hope him to be and trust him with our questions, doubts, and pain, we experience his presence in such a transforming way that “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).

(For more, please see the podcast I recorded yesterday with Dr. Mark Turman, “Why does God allow disasters like the Texas Hill Country floods?”)

“Beauty for brokenness, hope for despair”

Let’s close with this: Many of you have your own stories of unexplained suffering, as do I. If you have chosen to continue believing in the God who believes in you, you can now “comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Corinthians 1:4).

If you live where the floods have devastated so many, you know your mission field. If you do not, you nonetheless know someone who needs the sustaining grace you have experienced. You can now be the hands and feet of Jesus in the broken world he died to save.

The British songwriter Graham Kendrick prayed:

Beauty for brokenness
Hope for despair
Lord, in your suffering world
This is our prayer
Bread for the children
Justice, joy, peace
Sunrise to sunset
Your kingdom increase!

Will you help answer his prayer today?

Quote for the day:

“Peace isn’t a place to arrive at but a person to abide in.” —Ann Voskamp

Our latest website resources:

• Why does God allow disasters like the Texas Hill Country floods?
• Why Michael Madsen’s death gave me pause: A reflection on simplification in life and preparation for eternity
• “Alligator Alcatraz” and the power of deterrence
• Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan explain the uniqueness of America
• One thing church members have never asked me to do

Denison Forum

My family and I visited Alcatraz Island off the California coast a number of years ago while on vacation. One of the reasons the prison there was considered impervious to escape was that the guards told inmates that the waters surrounding the island were filled with man-eating sharks. (This turns out not to be true, but that’s another story.)

Here we find an example of the purported power of deterrence.

Another is “Alligator Alcatraz,” the immigration detention center built on an airstrip in the Florida Everglades. The center opened this week and was toured by President Trump. The $450 million, one-thousand-bed facility of trailers and tents is the largest of its kind.

Surrounded by the wetlands of the Big Cypress National Preserve next to Everglades National Park, the facility is almost dead center between the east and west coasts of Florida. The Trump administration sees the surrounding wildlife, including alligators and pythons, as a natural barrier stopping migrants from being able to escape.

The nearly twenty-five-thousand-acre site is not pristine wetlands—it’s a one-runway airplane facility called the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport. Environmentalists nonetheless oppose the project because of alleged impacts on wildlife such as the endangered Florida panther. Immigration advocates and Democrats similarly oppose Alligator Alcatraz because they claim it is deliberately cruel to detainees.

When deterrence doesn’t work

Deterrence is just one way societies attempt to prevent crime and respond to criminals. The others:

• Retribution: repaying a person’s bad deeds in kind
• Incapacitation: incarcerating them
• Rehabilitation: helping them to change.

Criminologists say deterrence is ineffective because most people don’t expect to be caught if they break the law, and don’t know what their punishment will be if they are caught. This, however, would not seem to be a problem with Alligator Alcatraz—the detainees are already “caught” and know the punishment, in the form of alligators and snakes, if they try to escape.

The swamp around the center would seem to function like a moat around a castle, but in reverse—rather than keeping people out, it is intended to keep people in.

Whatever comes of the Florida detention center, we can focus on a spiritual principle that transcends this debate and applies to all of us, all of the time.

Termites of the soul

The Bible emphatically teaches that “all wrongdoing is sin” (1 John 5:17) and that “sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” (James 1:15) As Paul famously warned, “The wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23) If a lost person does not repent of their sin and turn to Christ as Savior, this death becomes eternal. (Revelation 20:15)

Like alligators and snakes we do not see until they attack, the consequences of sin are unseen until they manifest themselves in our lives. They are like termites that crawl into houses from the soil and damage them from within. By the time their presence is visible, the consequences are devastating.

Or consider cancer as another analogy: it always starts small and grows, eventually manifesting as tumors and otherwise disrupting our bodies. By that time, the disease is already far progressed.

This is why the old maxim bears repeating: Sin will always take you further than you wanted to go, keep you longer than you wanted to stay, and cost you more than you wanted to pay.

However, convincing a secularized culture that there are alligators and snakes waiting for their next sin is a tall order. Many do not believe “sin” exists to begin with. Others believe the lie that its consequences will not apply to them until they do. And then it is often too late to avoid the pain they inevitably bring.

Sinners in the hands of an angry God?

There was a day when preachers could warn sinners of their sins and gain a hearing. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” was one of the most powerful and persuasive sermons of the colonial era, in large part because Jonathan Edwards’ hearers believed both in sins and in an angry God who would punish them.

Today, such talk is dismissed as outdated, irrelevant, judgmental, and even dangerous to our “post-truth” culture.

How then are Bible-believing Christians to help our broken society avoid the swamps that surround our souls?

Paul taught, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:14) Making things worse, “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:4)

This is why “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12) Consequently, “praying at all times in the Spirit” is vital. (v. 18, my emphasis) “In the Spirit” means “in connection with the Spirit” or under his leading.

He knows the spiritual condition of the person for whom we are praying far better than we can. He knows what they need to hear, see, feel, and experience to be led from the deception of sin to the joy of salvation. He is already working on their hearts right now, convicting them of sin and seeking to draw them to Christ. (cf. John 16:8)

No greater gift we can give

Our job is to pray for them as the Spirit leads us, then be ready to answer our prayers as he leads.

We are not on trial, seeking to win a verdict for ourselves. Rather, Jesus is on trial, and we are called by the Spirit to the witness stand to testify as he directs us. He alone can win the trial and the soul of the “jury.”

Our job is to be faithful and obedient.

So, let me ask you to pray right now by name for someone who, to your knowledge, is spiritually lost. Pray for the Spirit to lead your prayers, then intercede as you sense his direction. Ask him to use you to answer your prayers in any way he wishes.

And stay ready to be used.

You and I cannot give our lost friends a greater gift than to pray and work for their eternal salvation.

If they only knew the spiritual alligators and snakes threatening their souls, wouldn’t they agree?

Denison Forum

Is national pride a problem?

Detailing the degree to which Americans are less proud to be American has become something of an annual tradition around this time of year. And in keeping with that trend, a recent poll found that a record-low 58 percent of US adults are either extremely (41 percent) or very (17 percent) proud to be American.

While those numbers represent a fairly significant drop, even from recent years, the downward trajectory doesn’t change the fact that nearly four out of five Americans are at least moderately proud to be a citizen of this country. Moreover, nine out of ten hold at least some measure of pride in that status. When we think about the state of our culture, it would be a mistake to let the 10 percent who hold no such pride outweigh the 90 percent who do.

At the same time, it’s worth noting that younger generations tend to be quite a bit more moderate in their pride for the nation than their elders.

As the Gallop report notes, “These changes have occurred mostly over the past decade, and have done so amid greater pessimism about the economic prospects for young people, widespread dissatisfaction with the state of the nation, greater ideological divides between parties, unfavorable images of both parties, and intense rancor during the Trump and Biden administrations.”

In short, fear and anger have become the default setting for far too many people, and it makes sense that those without a longer history of what it’s like to live in America would be more impacted by those feelings.

It may be tempting to dismiss many of these concerns, but the dissatisfaction points to some very real problems in our country. I would argue that the good still far outweighs the bad, but that doesn’t mean we should overlook these issues. As I wrote when discussing this trend a few years ago:

America’s flaws should not blind us to the blessings that come from living here. At the same time, those blessings should not blind us to the work that still needs to be done.

So, with that context in mind, how should we see the decline in national pride among many Americans? And is the trend a problem to correct or a symptom of something more?

For an answer, let’s look back to a time when national pride wasn’t a concern because there wasn’t yet a nation to be proud of.

“An inverted American revolution”

One of the most enduring images from America’s founding is the woodcarving of a snake chopped up into eight pieces with the caption “JOIN, or DIE.” Benjamin Franklin originally used the picture in 1754 to try to unite the colonies in the buildup to the French and Indian War.

Franklin hoped it would inspire them to join together in creating a united government—one still under the authority of the British at that point—to face a threat none of them could defeat on their own. While he would have to wait about twenty years to see that desire become a reality, the image played a crucial role in uniting the colonies against England and in securing the independence we celebrate today.

However, our need for such unity is just as real now as it was nearly 250 years ago.

As Bari Weiss notes:

Today there are those who tell us that we are not, in fact, a single people, but rather disparate tribes whose identities put us at odds with one another forever. They’ve divided us not into colonies or states or physical territories, but into identity groups and political factions vying for power and control . . . The effect of these illiberal ideologies is the same: They have sliced up the snake once more. From the one: many. An inverted American revolution.

Just as at our nation’s founding, each of us has a role to play in deciding whether America will be one or many. And, as Christians, we are uniquely positioned to help ensure it’s the former rather than the latter.

Christian or American?

As citizens of heaven before we’re citizens of America—or any other nation for that matter—our perspective on the culture and the country should be filtered through the lens of God’s word. As a result, where America lines up with Scripture, we can and should be proud to be Americans. Where it has deviated from God’s truth, we should be ready and willing to hold it accountable.

Moreover, our national pride doesn’t have to waver based on how well the country is doing because our identity as individuals is based first and foremost on our relationship with the Lord. It gets a lot easier to see America objectively and to recognize its faults without losing sight of its blessings when being an American is not the foundation of who we are.

That is a rare gift we can share with the rest of this nation, but only if that’s truly how we live.

So, as you celebrate America’s independence today, do you do so as a Christian living in America or as an American who happens to be a Christian?

Both our faith and our nation are important parts of who we are and how God has called us to serve him. But only one of those identities can be the bedrock of our lives.

Which are you today?

Quote of the day:

“We are a sometimes great, sometimes loathsome, eternally imperfect nation built on a set of ideas that are so fundamentally superior to anything else civilization has come up with that they’ve been copied and pasted across the globe.” —Isaac Saul (you can read the full article from which this quote comes here)

Our latest website resources:

• House passes the “One Big Beautiful Bill”
• “Alligator Alcatraz” and the power of deterrence
• One thing church members have never asked me to do
• Big Beautiful Bill, SCOTUS reshapes power, Diddy trial update & a July 4th poem | CB Ep. 26
• Sean “Diddy” Combs verdict is in

Denison Forum

Yesterday afternoon, the US Senate passed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” President Trump’s signature legislative priority. The tally was fifty-fifty, with Vice President JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote. The legislation now returns to the House, where voting is scheduled to begin later today.

Many are debating the contents and merits of the bill; I am interested today in the process by which it passed the Senate. When the group began voting on their forty-fifth amendment or procedural motion, this broke the record for the most votes during a “vote-a-rama,” a marathon session provided for under law governing the budget process in the Senate.

The process took so long in part because Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer forced the clerks to read the entire 960-page megabill on the Senate floor. The bill passed because Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski chose to support it after winning key concessions on federal health and food-aid programs for her state.

All of this—the marathon sessions, the scores of amendments, the forced reading, the pivotal significance of a single senator from a state of 740,000 residents, comprising 0.2 percent of America’s population—is a feature of American governance, not a bug. And that feature is foundational to our flourishing.

But with an enormous caveat.

Protesting outside George Washington’s home

In American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified our Nation—and Could Again, political scholar Yuval Levin demonstrates that the Founders intended a system of checks and balances so extensive that every dimension of the infant nation would be represented and included in its governance. This was vital for a country as manifestly diverse as ours, with immigrants from across the world and dramatic cultural differences between north and south, rural and urban, Protestant and Catholic and nonreligious.

Unlike most European nations, whose history and society were largely monolithic, America was founded on the principle of freedom for all, which means our governance must include all. As a result, discord and conflict have been part of our governance from its inception.

For example, when the US and Great Britain signed a treaty in 1794 preserving American neutrality in Britain’s ongoing war with France, public sentiment was vehemently negative. In preparation for Independence Day, my wife suggested that we rewatch John Adams, the Emmy Award-winning documentary about our nation’s second president. The scene in which the treaty is made public is telling: massive crowds gather outside President Washington’s home to shout their protests and burn objects in effigy.

This was the reaction against the man whose military leadership won our freedom as a country and became the only chief executive ever chosen by unanimous consent from the Electoral College. If the “father of our nation” could face such opprobrium, any American leader can.

And will. Our nation is more diverse now than ever, which means our elected leaders will be more diverse and the constituencies to whom they are responsible will be more conflicted with one another than ever.

All of this means that, on this Independence Day week, you and I have the privilege and responsibility of renewing our commitment to the patriotic role we can uniquely exercise on behalf of our nation.

An Oxford mathematician on the role of faith in society

Dr. John Lennox is Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University (emeritus) and an internationally renowned speaker on the interface of science, philosophy, and religion. In a recent address to the National Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast in Westminster (which I urge you to read in full), he claimed that removing God from politics would create a moral vacuum that secularism cannot fill.

His argument centers on two assertions.

One: “Everyone brings their faith in something into the public square.”

Dr. Lennox notes: “We all bring into our politics a whole set of beliefs that have been formed by a variety of influences,” religion only one among them. As a result, “If people of faith are to be kept out of the public square, then it will be empty.”

Two: “We need Christian faith in the public square.”

Dr. Lennox describes the “high moral ideals” of Western culture: “We believe in human equality, freedom, autonomy, and dignity. These values lead us to oppose slavery, racism, human trafficking, antisemitism, eugenics, infanticide, misogyny, and many other kinds of values. But these values are not given to us by science.”

Rather, as he notes, the atheist philosopher Jürgen Habermas recognized that such values are the direct legacy of the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love. Dr. Lennox cites historian Tom Holland’s agreement in noting that the letters of Paul, along with the four Gospels, are the most influential, impactful, and revolutionary writings to emerge from the ancient world.

Accordingly, the transformation only Christ can make in the human heart is the vital foundation of the morality so central to Western society.

“The end of life is to do the will of God”

Dr. Lennox concludes:

Christians are called upon to be salt and light in the world—to bear witness to the truth by reasoning in the public space, as Jesus and his apostles did, using persuasion and not coercion, never losing sight of the fact that those from whom they differ are fellow human beings made in the image of God.

Our “witness to the truth” is vital because you and I are “the” salt of the earth and “the” light of the world (Matthew 5:13, 14). The definite articles signify that there are no others. “Speaking the truth in love” is therefore the greatest gift of love we can give this nation we love (Ephesians 4:15).

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. agreed:

“I still believe that standing up for the truth of God is the greatest thing in the world. This is the end of life. The end of life is not to be happy. The end of life is not to achieve pleasure and avoid pain. The end of life is to do the will of God, come what may.”

Across this Independence Day week, how will you do “the greatest thing in the world”?

Quote for the day:

“Inside the Bible’s pages lie the answers to all the problems that mankind has ever known.” —Ronald Reagan

Our latest website resources:

• US Senate advances “Big Beautiful Bill”
• Why are some atheists becoming Christians?
• The courage to encourage
• Should I attend a same-sex wedding?
• What happens when a theoretical physicist finds faith in Christ?

Denison Forum