What happens when people no longer trust their leaders?

I had planned to write today’s Daily Article about the continuing lack of information from the government regarding the mysterious drones in the night skies. I was not alone in my concern.

Podcaster Joe Rogan said he is “genuinely concerned” about them. One New Jersey lawmaker demanded that the federal government get to the bottom of this “very threatening situation,” stating that we should presume the drones are “not friendly.” Sen. Chuck Schumer called for the DHS to deploy better drone-tracking technology to identify the objects and their operators.

Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, told ABC’s This Week, “You can see why people are concerned, and it’s a lack of communication from the government at the federal and state level that’s at fault here.” He added, “We’re used to having [information] so rapidly. If you don’t fill the vacuum, then all the conspiracy theories get filled in there.” As a result, he stated, “The Biden administration and state authorities have to be more vocal and let people know exactly what they are doing.”

“We have not identified anything anomalous”

Then I heard an interview last night with John Kirby, spokesperson for the National Security Council, in which he stated that the mysterious drones are “legal” and “lawful.” He said officials have examined roughly five thousand sightings to date and determined that “lawful, legal, commercial hobbyist and even law enforcement aircraft activity” is responsible for them.

He added, “We’ve seen nothing . . . that indicates a foreign adversary, actor involved or any kind of pernicious national security threat.” He told CNN the same: “To date, [there is] no sense and no indication that there’s a national security or public safety risk posed by any of this activity.”

Kirby’s assurance mirrored a “joint statement” released last night by DHS, the FBI, the FAA, and the Department of Defense:

Having closely examined the technical data and tips from concerned citizens, we assess that the sightings to date include a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and stars mistakenly reported as drones. We have not identified anything anomalous and do not assess the activity to date to present a national security or public safety risk over the civilian airspace in New Jersey or other states in the northeast.

“People have a lot of anxiety right now”

If the drone controversy was unique, the story would be different. But it comes at a time when less than one in four Americans trust the federal government and only 15 percent believe it to be transparent.

Sen. Andy Kim (D–NJ) spoke for many: “I think this situation in some ways reflects this moment in our country. People have a lot of anxiety right now about the economy, health, security, etc. And too often we find that those charged with working on these issues don’t engage the public with the respect and depth needed.”

This issue goes to the heart of our democracy, since such a system of governance depends on the credibility of its leaders. When the people no longer trust their elected officials to do what they are elected to do, democracy itself is threatened, as the Wall Street Journal editorial board recently warned.

In a freedom-based society, such trust cannot be demanded but must be earned. Autocrats can try to enforce their edicts through force; kings can attempt to rule by “divine right” and hereditary power. But our system of governance stands and falls on the trust we invest in those who lead it.

“You first loved us so that we might love you”

Today’s discussion points to an even larger issue: the health and destiny of our eternal souls.

Like elected leaders in a democracy, our Father honors the freedom he has given us. Then, more than any human possibly can, he earns our trust through his sacrificial love. In response, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

The medieval theologian William of St-Thierry (1085–1148) responded to this text by praying:

“You first loved us so that we might love you—not because you needed our love, but because we could not be what you created us to be, except by loving you.”

William was right: You and I are created in the image of the God who is love (Genesis 1:27; 1 John 4:8). This means we must love to be who we are made to be.

However, as fallen people, we need God’s help to love as we are intended. This is one reason Christmas is so vital to our souls and our society: when we see the length and depth to which our Savior would go in coming to our world to pay for our sins, we are prompted to respond to his love with our love.

And when we see the length and depth to which he would go in dying for those sins, we are even more moved to respond to his love in kind, as William noted:

Everything he did and everything he said on earth, even enduring the insults, the spitting, the buffeting—the cross and the grave—all of this was actually you speaking to us in your Son, appealing to us by your love and stirring up our love for you.

You know that this disposition could not be forced on men’s hearts, my God, since you created them; it must rather be elicited.

What does such love elicit in your heart today?

NOTE: In addition to the Daily Article, I often respond to the news of the day with website articles. Yesterday, when news broke of the tragedy in Wisconsin, I wrote, “3 dead, 6 injured at Wisconsin Christian school shooting.” Earlier in the day I published, “Dick Van Dyke nearly died in Malibu fires,” “What Travis Hunter’s Heisman win says about our culture,” and “Kids correct Jill Biden’s ‘Happy Holidays.’” You can find these and other resources at our website, www.denisonforum.org. I hope you’ll visit it regularly.

Tuesday news to know:

• 15-year-old girl identified as shooter in a Wisconsin school
• Ukraine assassinates Russian chemical weapons chief in Moscow bombing
• US congressional negotiators aim to fund government through March 14, source says
• German government collapses at a perilous time for Europe
• On this day in 1777: France formally recognizes the United States

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote for the day:

“Jesus’ coming is the final and unanswerable proof that God cares.” —William Barclay

Denison Forum

Drone activity forced a New York runway to temporarily shut down Friday night. Former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland says he personally witnessed “dozens of large drones” flying above his home last Thursday evening. He wrote on X: “We are being told that neither the White House, the military, the FBI, or Homeland Security have any idea what they are, where they come from, or who has launched or is controlling them—and that they pose no threat. That response is entirely unacceptable.”

For weeks, objects that appear to be drones have been seen in the night skies, primarily in New Jersey but also in New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Ohio. Mysterious drones are being reported over American air bases in the UK and Germany as well. Some are blaming Russia, China, Iran, hobbyists, and even aliens for the strange sightings.

Last Thursday, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security released a joint statement declaring, “We have no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or public safety threat or have a foreign nexus.” However, the agencies still do not know the identity of the UAPs (unidentified anomalous phenomena), admitting that the reported sightings “highlight the insufficiency of current authorities,” though they believe many are manned aircraft rather than drones.

Yesterday, federal authorities repeated assurances that the drones are not a security threat, but they still do not know where they came from or who is responsible. However, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas pointed to a rule change by the FAA in 2023 that allows drones to fly at night, stating, “That may be one of the reasons why now people are seeing more drones than they did before, especially from dawn to dusk.”

“We’re in a very, very dangerous world right now”

It is certainly perplexing that, in this scientific day and age, our government is so perplexed about these sightings. But this is just one example of the frailty and finitude of humans in our chaotic world.

As warfare shifts to robots, drones, and satellites, our oceans will no longer protect us against invasion. As scientists continue to make unprecedented advances, “extinction-level” threats to humanity posed by artificial intelligence and biomedical engineering are unprecedented as well.

The level of conflicts around the world has doubled over the last five years. According to Mitch McConnell, “We’re in a very, very dangerous world right now, reminiscent of before World War Two.” In fact, a weekend essay in the Wall Street Journal asked, “Has World War III Already Begun?”

On the spiritual front, secularism continues to rise as religious affiliation wanes. Large majorities of Americans support abortion on demand and same-sex marriage and LGBTQ ideology. Entire denominations are declining as thousands of churches are closing.

When America has faced such threats in the past, great spiritual awakenings have resulted as millions turned to God for the strength and hope he alone can provide. For the same to happen today, however, we need to change how we see the One we need so desperately.

“Mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning”

In 1 Chronicles 17, we find a remarkable description of King David’s favor with God. The Lord promised, “I will make for you a name, like the name of the great ones of the earth” (v. 8). Accordingly, he promised to “subdue all your enemies” (v. 10) and to “raise up offspring after you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom” (v. 11).

In light of David’s exalted status before God, I found this statement surprising: “Your servant has found courage to pray before you” (v. 25). We might think that a person so beloved and blessed by God would not need “courage” to pray to him.

But David was right: It should take courage for us to pray to the omnipotent, holy God of the universe. He could alter every circumstance of our lives and even end our lives this very second if he chose. His every blessing and provision is a result of his grace, not our merit.

The fact that we so often pray so nonchalantly to God reveals our failure to understand his majesty and authority. If we would need courage to speak to the president or governor, how much more to the King of kings?

Annie Dillard wrote:

On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it?

The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.

“The day of the Lord will come like a thief”

When we think of the Christ of Christmas, we picture a nondescript baby in a manger. However, those who first met him “returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen” (Luke 2:20). When we think of him as a child, we picture a powerless toddler. When the Magi met him, “they fell down and worshiped him” (Matthew 2:11).

Don’t confuse God’s forbearance with apathy or his grace with impotence. He is delaying his judgment against our sinful world only because he is “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

But make no mistake: “The day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed” (v. 10). In the meantime, we are to live with “holiness and godliness” (v. 11) as we wait for “the coming of the day of God” (v. 12).

To find the God we need so desperately in these chaotic days, we must turn to him in humble desperation. To experience his omnipotence, we must admit our frailty. To follow his omniscience, we must acknowledge our finitude. To be made holy, we must repent of our sinfulness.

All of God there is, is in this moment.

Monday news to know:

• ABC News to pay $15 million to settle defamation suit with Donald Trump
• South Korea’s president is impeached after martial law crisis
• Syrian Christians attend services, schools reopen a week after Assad’s overthrow
• Colorado two-way star Travis Hunter wins Heisman Trophy as college football’s top player
• On this day in 1773: the Boston Tea Party

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote for the day:

“The fact that Jesus will sit upon the throne of judgment will be the consternation of his enemies and the consolation of his people.” —John Murray (1989–1975)

Denison Forum

Beware “the things you don’t know you don’t know”

I am taking a risk today by beginning this Daily Article with a story many of you won’t care about and hoping you’ll stay with me anyway. I never imagined I would write about this topic with the Dallas Cowboys, either. In fact, that’s my point, as I’ll explain shortly.

The Dallas Cowboys are having a terrible year. Their fans like me can’t wait for it to be over. One play from last Monday night’s loss to the Cincinnati Bengals seemed to sum up their season: A Cowboys player deflected a Bengals punt late in the game. Per the rules, once the blocked ball crossed the line of scrimmage, if the Cowboys left it alone it would be theirs. They could then drive for a game-winning score. However, if one of their players touched the ball and fumbled it, the Bengals could recover it.

So, of course, one of their players touched and fumbled the ball. The Bengals recovered it, then scored a touchdown to win the game.

Cowboys fans were furious. How could the player be so dumb? How could the coaches fail to teach him such a basic football rule? The Dallas media and football social media have been scathing and unrelenting.

Then I read an article in which a Dallas Cowboys coach explained that the player, who was executing his assigned block with his back to the play, had no way of knowing that the punt had been blocked. He could not tell if it was a fumble or just a bad punt. When he saw the ball, he reacted as he had been trained to do, a fact the player later confirmed. While his fumble was an obvious miscue, his attempt to field the ball was not.

I was wrong about him, but I didn’t know that I was wrong.

“There are also unknown unknowns”

In Rumsfeld’s Rules: Leadership Lessons in Business, Politics, War, and Life, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld writes:

There are known knowns: the things you know you know. There are known unknowns: the things you know you don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns: the things you don’t know you don’t know.

The last category can be the most dangerous, in war and in life.

Israel didn’t know that it didn’t know Hamas was preparing for the October 2023 invasion that massacred more than a thousand Israelis and changed the course of the Middle East. Hezbollah didn’t know that it didn’t know Israel was weaponizing pagers to kill many of its leaders. The US didn’t know that it didn’t know Japan was preparing for Pearl Harbor or al Qaeda for 9/11.

It’s bad enough when we don’t know what we need to know, such as whether bird flu will become a pandemic or AI will threaten humanity. It’s worse when what we think we know turns out to be wrong, such as Israel’s certainty that Hamas did not have the capability to stage the October 7 invasion.

And it’s even worse when we know parts of the truth and are therefore erroneously but emphatically convinced that we know the whole truth (a misconception known as the “Baconian fallacy”).

Watching the Cowboys game from the overhead vantage point of the TV cameras, I knew they had blocked the Bengals’ punt and therefore assumed the Cowboys player who touched and fumbled the ball knew what I knew. I was convinced I was right. But confusing an opinion for a fact doesn’t make the opinion factual.

The man who denies the sunrise doesn’t harm the sun—he just exposes his ignorance.

Inoculated against the “real thing”

I was talking last Sunday with a friend who spent many years in the foreign mission field. He told me that he found evangelism much easier there than here. The people he met overseas had never heard the gospel and thus had no misperceptions about it. The people he meets here think they know what Christianity is all about and have already decided they don’t need what it offers. They are also much less open to hearing a message that contradicts their assumptions.

To illustrate: Before I went to East Malaysia as a college missionary, I was vaccinated against malaria. The vaccine used in those days gave me a mild form of the disease which my body then reacted against with antibodies that protected me from the “real thing.”

Satan loves to do the same, “inoculating” us with just enough of the truth that we become immune to the One who is the Truth (John 14:6).

We see this at Christmas. As I noted yesterday, many people think the beautiful secular traditions of the season are all that Christmas is about. Growing up, I thought the same. If there had been no such thing as “Christmas,” I would have been more interested in the biblical story of Jesus’ birth. As it was, I already “knew” the Christmas story, so I had no desire to learn more.

This “Baconian fallacy” goes a long way toward explaining why the miracle of Christmas does not change our world as it changed those who first experienced it. People in the first century were shocked and thrilled to learn that this child was truly Immanuel, meaning “God with us” (Matthew 1:23). By contrast, we see him as a figure in a Nativity scene to be displayed during the holidays and stored in the attic the rest of the year.

“They fell down and worshiped him”

Now comes my point: If we are not seeking a daily, transforming encounter with the living Lord Jesus, we are committing the Baconian fallacy ourselves. We are settling for parts of the truth rather than the Truth, assuming that what we have experienced of Jesus is all we can experience of him.

When the Magi met him in Bethlehem, “they fell down and worshiped him” (Matthew 2:11). When John met him on Patmos, he “fell at his feet as though dead” (Revelation 1:17).

When last were you awed by Jesus?

Why not today?

NOTE: Time magazine has named Caitlin Clark its Athlete of the Year. For my response, “What Caitlin Clark and Jesus Christ have in common,” go here.

Thursday news to know:

• Biden commutes roughly 1,500 sentences and pardons 39 people in biggest single-day act of clemency
• FBI Director Chris Wray to resign before Trump takes office
• North Carolina announces 5-year deal with Bill Belichick to take over as coach of the Tar Hells
• Only about 2 in 10 Americans approve of Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter, an AP–NORC poll finds
• In 1980: da Vinci notebook sells for over $5M

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote for the day:

“Jesus Christ, the condescension of divinity, and the exaltation of humanity.” —Phillips Brooks

Denison Forum

Four scenarios and the path to true peace

NOTE: Events in the ongoing Syrian conflict are changing by the hour. The following comprises what we know as of this writing, but the larger scenarios discussed are relevant even as further developments unfold.

Over the weekend, Syrian rebel forces seized control of the capital of Damascus, forcing the long-time dictator, President Bashar al-Assad, into exile in Russia. You are probably more or less interested in a country on the other side of the world depending on the degree to which you consider it more or less relevant to your personal world.

In one scenario, this news is good news for Americans.

In three others, it could lead to global war.

A timeline of the conflict

A civil war against Assad’s brutal regime has been ongoing in Syria since 2011. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed; half the population has been displaced.

By way of geography: Syria is bordered on the north by Turkey, on the east and southeast by Iraq, on the west by the Mediterranean Sea, on the southwest by Lebanon and Israel, and on the south by Jordan.

Consider a brief timeline of the Syrian conflict:

• In 2013, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy, came to Assad’s support, halting rebel momentum against the regime.
• In 2014, US forces intervened in the civil war to fight ISIS forces in the country. The US continues to support Kurdish forces opposed to the Islamic State and to Assad. There are approximately nine hundred American soldiers in Syria today.
• In 2015, Russia joined the war on Assad’s side with air strikes that turned the conflict against the rebels for years to come.
• In 2016, Turkey launched an incursion against Kurdish advances on the border.
• In 2017, Israel acknowledged air strikes against Hezbollah in Syria, seeking to degrade the growing strength of Iran and its allies in the area.
• In 2020, Russia backed a government offensive that ended with a ceasefire with Turkey. Assad held most territory and all main cities; rebels held the northwest; a Turkey-backed force held a border strip; Kurdish forces controlled the northeast.
• In 2023, Hamas attacked Israel, triggering fighting between Israel and Hezbollah that ultimately reduced the group’s presence in Syria and fatally undermined Assad.

On November 29, rebel forces launched a new assault on Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city. Eight days later, the rebels took most major cities and entered Damascus, driving Assad from power.

Abu Mohammed al-Golani, a former al Qaeda chief, led Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in this successful offensive. Though it cut ties with al Qaeda in 2016, the group has been designated a terrorist organization by the US.

Are we on “the cusp of a world war”?

Now, why is this conflict relevant to the US? To answer this, we need to understand the larger geopolitical motives at work in Syria.

Iran has been supporting the Assad regime for many years, engaging their proxy Hezbollah and other Shiite militias in its defense and utilizing its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to train Syrian forces. This was part of Iran’s “axis of resistance” against Israel, a nation its leaders have sworn to defeat and even annihilate to hasten the return of the Mahdi, their Islamic messiah.

Russia has supported the Syrian regime in part to project geopolitical power and status, in part to keep Muslim extremists in check in the North Caucasus, and in part to protect its naval facility at the Mediterranean port of Tartus and its sizable airbase in northwest Syria. The naval facility has been used to support its invasion of Ukraine; the airbase is used to fly its military contractors in and out of Africa.

Meanwhile, China is Iran’s largest trade partner and the largest market for its oil exports. China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran are all part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a NATO-like alliance. In a variety of ways, they have been building an “Axis of Upheaval” to coordinate their widening conflict with the US and its allies in the West.

In light of these developments, Retired Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster, who served as Donald Trump’s second national security adviser from 2017–2018, thinks we’re already on “the cusp of a world war.” Philip Zelikow, who served as executive director of the 9/11 Commission and counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from 2005 to 2007, agrees: “I think there is a serious possibility of what I call worldwide warfare.” And this was before the fall of the Assad regime.

Three scenarios

I have taught on Islam with four seminaries, traveled widely in the Middle East for many years, and written several books and numerous articles on the region. However, I would be the first to admit that I cannot predict with certainty the future of this crucial and vitriolic “hinge of history.”

But I do think we can summarize possible outcomes of the current conflict in four scenarios.

In what I will call Scenario A:

1. Israel determines that Iran is responding to the fall of Assad by accelerating its quest for nuclear weapons and launches a preemptive strike.
2. Russia, China, and North Korea then defend Iran by striking back at Israel.
3. The US comes to Israel’s defense.
4. American forces are then attacked, and NATO fulfills its treaty obligations by joining the war on our side.

This is clearly a pathway to a world war, one that could come quickly.

In Scenario B, the rebels now controlling Syria comprise an existential threat against Israel, drawing the US and the West into the conflict.

After rebels took control of Syria, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the collapse of the Assad regime a “historic day in the Middle East,” one that “offers great opportunity but is also fraught with significant dangers.” Such “dangers” exist because the rebels, with their blend of nationalism and Islamism echoing the ideology of the Taliban and Hamas, are already regarded by Israel as a dangerous threat.

On Sunday, Israeli forces took control of a buffer zone on the Syrian border, which Netanyahu called a “temporary defensive position until a suitable arrangement is found.” Earlier today, Israel confirmed that it carried out air strikes on Syria targeting suspected chemical weapons and missile sites to keep these weapons from falling “into the hands of extremists.”

Now imagine that the Syrian rebels determine that armed aggression against Israel is in their best interest.

• Would this bring the support of Iran and Hezbollah to their cause?
• Would this then cause Israel to accelerate military actions in Syria and Lebanon?
• Would this bring Russia and China to Iran’s defense, triggering Scenario A above?

In Scenario C, the rebels controlling Syria align with terrorist groups in the area.

US forces conducted dozens of airstrikes Sunday on more than seventy-five sites in central Syria, including known “ISIS leaders, operatives, and camps.” The barrage is intended to keep such terrorists from gaining power in the country.

As mentioned earlier, the group now controlling Syria began as an al Qaeda offshoot. While it claims to seek a more moderate future, such statements can be deceptive, as Dr. Ryan Denison warns in his recent article on the Syrian conflict. The Taliban, for example, is continuing to enforce a horrific form of extremism in Afghanistan, contradicting earlier claims to the contrary.

If the fall of the Assad regime leads to renewed terrorist activity in Syria, would this lead to Scenario B and even Scenario A?

A “new Middle East”?

In Scenario D, none of this comes to pass.

• The rebels seek to govern Syria in a responsible manner and leave Israel in peace.
• Iran sees the folly of building a nuclear threat against Israel.
• Russia, already embroiled in its invasion of Ukraine, decides to stay out of the conflict.
• Israel is able to conclude its conflict with Hamas, rescuing the hostages and moving into a stable relationship with its Palestinian neighbors.
• Saudi Arabia then joins the Abraham Accords, helping to rebuild Gaza and create a “new Middle East.”

We should most certainly pray for this outcome, but we should not pin our hopes for lasting peace on human efforts. There will be “wars and rumors of wars” until our Lord returns (Matthew 24:6).

Billy Graham was right:

In the same proportion that the world has trusted Christ, it has peace. There can be no lasting peace until Christ has come to the hearts of all people and brought them his peace.

There is no discord in Heaven, there is no strife in Heaven, for Christ reigns supreme there. Similarly, in the heart where Christ abides and reigns, his words become a reality: “Peace I leave with you” (John 14:27). The truth of these words has been proven in human experience over and over again.

Accordingly, let us “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6) and the world, then join the angels in proclaiming that the Christ of Christmas alone can bring true and lasting peace on earth (Luke 2:14). And let’s model this peace by making the Prince of Peace our Lord and king (Isaiah 9:6).

As the prophet foretold, “Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end” (v. 7).

May it be so for you and me today, to the glory of God.

Denison Forum

“A monument that transcends religion”

NOTE: The Syrian government fell yesterday, ending the fifty-year rule of the Assad family. As more is known, I will be responding later this morning with a Daily Article Special Edition after this article on Notre Dame Cathedral. For a biblical perspective on Syria’s ongoing crisis, see Dr. Ryan Denison’s Friday Daily Article, “Civil war in Syria escalates as rebels take Hama.”

President-elect Donald Trump joined America’s First Lady Jill Biden, Britain’s Prince William, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday to formally reopen the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

The five-year restoration has been beset with controversies, but the cathedral is ready to resume its status as a symbol of “the spirit of Paris,” the site of notable coronations (including that of Emperor Napoleon), and “a monument to the highest aspirations of artistic achievement that transcends religion and time.”

The last description caught my attention: Doesn’t it seem paradoxical for a church building to “transcend” religion?

And yet, this disconnect between places of worship and acts of worship is happening with great cathedrals all across Europe. I have attended services in England where the choir outnumbered the congregation and visited beautiful historic churches in Germany and Switzerland where only a handful worship on Sunday. Many European churches are being repurposed into hotels, rock-climbing businesses, dance halls, and even Muslim mosques.

When 60 Minutes recently reported on Notre Dame’s reconstruction, there was virtually no reference to the structure as a place of worship. Since less than 2 percent of people in France attend Sunday mass and only 44 percent of the population even believe in God, this is less surprising than it might at first appear.

Of course, this pattern is by no means confined to France. Secularism is advancing across Europe and America; by one estimate, as many as one hundred thousand churches in the US will likely close in the next few decades.

A barking dog and the Great Commandments

I was recently walking past a neighbor’s backyard when their dog began barking at me while rushing to the fence that separated us. This happens every time I walk past this yard. Other dogs in other yards on my walking path do the same thing. If I could speak canine, perhaps I could convince these animals that I am no threat to their domains and this is therefore an unnecessary effort on their part.

Then the thought occurred to me: They are simply doing what they were made to do. So are the trees that tower around me and the turtles floating in the lake before me and the birds flying in the skies above me.

The only part of God’s creation that does not habitually do what it was created to do is me. And you.

What were we made to do?

Jesus’ Great Commandments are a good place to start, calling us to love our Lord and love our neighbor as unconditionally as we love ourselves (Mark 12:29–31).

Jesus’ sinless example is another (Hebrews 4:15): He did just this in all he did.

My personal experience is yet another: In the days I spend loving God and others, I feel myself to be whole and at peace. Otherwise, my Augustinian heart is “restless until it rests in him.”

Serving my friend so he will serve me

Why is it so hard for me to remember this simple truth? It is not as if it is hidden in Scripture or opaque to my daily experience. The obvious answer, at least for me, is that I don’t want to.

I want to love myself. And when my sinful heart senses a competition between what it wants and what loving God and others entails, my sinful heart all too often wins.

On my better days, I recognize this destructive pattern and admit its fruitless and fallacious nature. In truth, the best thing I can do for myself is to spend myself loving God and others. This, as I just noted, is the path to my best, most fulfilling life.

The problem is that when I love God and others as a means to loving and serving myself, I am not truly and unconditionally loving God and others.

And so I conclude that C. S. Lewis was right: it is better to forget about myself altogether.

It helps to see this paradoxical pattern in other dimensions of life. Serving my friend so he will serve me is not truly serving him and is therefore unlikely to engender his service in response. Even serving my health as an end rather than a means is unhealthy, provoking stress over calories, workout regimens, and weight that is damaging to my well-being.

So in life itself, as Jesus said, “Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25).

Why you are reading this article

How does this help us respond to declining religiosity in the secularized Western world?

The answer is found at the Christmas manger. Here Bethlehem shepherds personally encountered the infant Christ (Luke 2:16) and immediately “made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child” (v. 17). When they met the living Lord Jesus, they could not help but tell their world. They became the first evangelists and missionaries in Christian history.

What happened at the first Christmas can happen again this Christmas. When we truly, intimately, passionately love our Lord, we must love our neighbor. And no matter how secularized our culture and how empty our cathedrals, hearts hungry for such love will respond.

You are reading this article because many years ago, I encountered a group of Christians who deeply and genuinely loved Jesus and each other. I wanted to experience such love personally.

I still do.

Don’t you?

Monday news to know:

• NYPD releases 2 new photos of man sought in killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO
• South Korea’s ex-defense chief is detained over martial law episode
• “Wizard of Oz” ruby slippers sell at auction for a record $28 million
• Juan Soto reportedly breaks Shohei Ohtani’s record with monster $765 deal with Mets
• On this day in 1990: Lech Walesa elected president of Poland

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote for the day:

“Jesus is the God whom we can approach without pride and before whom we can humble ourselves without despair.” —Blaise Pascal

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Wrestling with complicated truths and simple lies

The civil war in Syria began in 2011, however, the conflict has remained largely frozen since Turkey and Russia agreed to a ceasefire in 2020. That all changed when rebel forces—now led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)—attacked and took control of the pivotal city of Aleppo last week.

At the time, the speed and success with which they regained their former stronghold surprised most, and it was generally unknown whether they would seek to consolidate their power there or continue to press further south.

That question was answered Thursday when HTS took the nation’s fourth-largest city, Hama, with similar ease.

The Syrian government’s official line was that their forces withdrew in order to “preserve the lives of civilians,” but it was relatively clear that the armies that had controlled the region since the start of the conflict were simply overwhelmed by the rebel forces. And their victory at Hama could prove even more important than taking Aleppo.

While Aleppo was a significant loss for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and meant a great deal symbolically to the rebel forces who lost the city in 2016, controlling Hama will make it much more difficult for the Syrian forces to retake any of the lands they’ve ceded over the last week. Moreover, Hama is also where Assad’s father killed tens of thousands who sought to enact a similar regime change in 1982, and where the current war began in 2011 after Assad was similarly forceful in putting an end to the protests against his reign.

For all his recent losses, Assad remains in a fairly secure position for the time being. Much would have to change for HTS to have a chance at taking Damascus, the Syrian capital.

However, should the rebels gain control of Homs—a major city roughly 25 miles south of Hama—that picture would look much different. And the reason why is relevant beyond the Syrian borders.

The most important battle is yet to come

HTS leadership has already pledged to continue their advance, so it would appear we won’t have to wait long to find out just how fragile Assad’s defenses truly are. But the primary reason the fate of Homs will be instructive for where the war goes from here has little to do with the Syrian army.

The civil war stopped being a fight primarily between Assad’s armies and those of the rebels fairly early on in the conflict. Rather, it served more as a proxy war with Russia and Iran on the Syrian side and Turkey on the other. That’s why the ceasefire between Russia and Turkey in 2020 was able to put a stop to the fighting between the other armies.

While Aleppo and, to an extent, Hama were important cities for Turkey’s plans, Homs is crucial to the way Russia operates within Syria. Should HTS take control of that region, they will potentially cut Damascus off from the Russian naval and air bases located near the Mediterranean Sea. Though such a loss would make it more difficult for the Syrian army to continue the fight, the message it would send regarding Russia’s commitment—or lack thereof—to Assad’s regime would be far more significant.

What happens at Homs is likely to offer the clearest indication yet as to whether the civil war in Syria is just heating back up or possibly coming to a close.

However, which of those outcomes would be preferable is not as apparent as you might think.

The problem with good vs. evil

On the one hand, the civil war has already resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and the displacement of millions of people. From that perspective, an end to the conflict would obviously be better than the perpetuation of violence and destruction.

Yet, at least from the perspective of America and its closest ally, Israel, a Syrian government led by either Assad or HTS would appear to be problematic for the prospect of peace in the region.

It’s easy to recognize the issues posed by the Syrian side remaining in power, considering that they’ve used chemical weapons on civilians and are propped up by Russia and Iran. But assuming that automatically makes their opponents worth supporting is how you find yourself overlooking a history of “arbitrary detentions, executions of opponents and other human rights violations in HTS-controlled areas.”

While HTS has endeavored to change its global image in recent years, the group is still designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and the UN. There is some reason to hope they would rule Syria differently than the Taliban is currently governing Afghanistan, but there’s perhaps more to indicate that the results would be similar.

All of that is why US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan recently said of HTS, “We have real concerns about the designs and objectives of that organization,” though he went on to add that “we don’t cry over the fact that the Assad government, backed by Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, are facing certain kinds of pressure.”

Many in Israel share that assessment. While they delight in seeing Iran and, to a lesser extent, Russia stretched thin, they also fear that HTS would stand against them should they gain power. At the moment, both share common enemies, but that is rarely the basis for a long-term alliance.

Ultimately, the situation is complicated, and, as is often the case in war, the sides don’t fit neatly into our preferred boxes of good vs. evil. And learning to accept that reality is important for reasons that extend far beyond the conflict in Syria.

Complex truths or simple lies

Attempting to fit complicated issues into simple boxes is one of the most common reasons people stumble into error. After all, life often seems easier when it’s simple. However, settling for anything less than the truth will always leave you worse off in the end.

The need to see all wars as a battle between good and evil is among the most apparent ways people have made that mistake in our culture today. Whether it’s the fight between Russia and Ukraine, Syria and HTS, or many other global conflicts, war tends to bring out the worst in people, and that often plays out in how it’s waged.

But the need to accept complicated truths over simple lies is also essential when it comes to our personal beliefs.

The vast majority of heresies that have plagued the church throughout its history stem from the desire to fit our infinite God into boxes that our finite minds can fully comprehend. Yet the reality is that there are a number of truths we simply have to take on faith.

Now, God has revealed more than enough of himself to conclude that it is reasonable to take his truths on faith—he’s not looking for blind or unthinking faith. But there will still be some areas where we have to accept that our understanding will fall short of where we might like it to be. When that happens, how we choose to proceed will often determine how close we can walk with the Lord.

So whether it’s nations, people, or ideas, remember that the boxes through which we try to understand our world are often far too small to reflect reality. And while it won’t always be that way (1 Corinthians 13:12), learning to rely on God’s understanding to fill the gaps in our own is one of the best ways to draw closer to him.

Where do you need his understanding today?

Friday news to know:

• Authorities release image of United Health Care CEO’s alleged shooter
• A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck off the California coast
• British police recover a stolen van with 2,500 pies worth an estimated $32,000
• The Roman Colosseum and Airbnb are partnering to let 32 people spend two days training to be gladiators
• On this day in 1884: The Washington Monument is completed

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote of the day:

“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.” —Winston Churchill

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Celebrating Advent in four tenses

Three stories are dominating the news this morning: yesterday’s Supreme Court hearing on transgender hormone regiments for adolescents, the continued fallout in South Korea over its president’s brief martial law declaration, and the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson yesterday morning outside a hotel in Midtown Manhattan.

Each, in its own way, illustrates the unpredictability of the future, whether in cultural, political, or personally tragic ways.

After psychologist Philip Tetlock evaluated several decades of predictions about political and economic events, he found that “the average expert was roughly as accurate as a dart-throwing chimpanzee.” The recently-deceased Lance Morrow, one of my favorite journalists, said it this way:

As mankind penetrates further into the twenty-first century, the future becomes ever more difficult to manage or even to imagine—politically, biologically, electronically, environmentally, existentially. No one knows what lies ahead, or what it will mean, or where it will wind up. The possibilities are extreme. At the far edge of the moral imagination, we hear the future’s sucking sound, pulling the world toward God knows what.

Morrow’s closing colloquialism is actually good theology for these unpredictable days.

“God knows what,” indeed.

The four “comings” of Christ

Jesus rode into Jerusalem the first time on a humble donkey (Matthew 21:1–11); he will return on a conqueror’s white horse (Revelation 19:11–16). St. Cyril of Jerusalem (313–86) observed:

At the first coming he was wrapped in swaddling clothes in a manger. At his second coming he will be clothed in light as in a garment. In the first coming he endured the cross, despising the shame; in the second coming he will be in glory, escorted by an army of angels.

We look then beyond the first coming and await the second.

However, with all due respect to the great theologian and everyone who refers to Jesus’ return as the “second coming,” I’d like to suggest that his ongoing engagement with our world should actually be understood in four “comings.”

• At his first, he entered the world for the purpose of purchasing our salvation by his death on the cross (1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 2:2; Revelation 13:8 NKJV).
• At his second, he enters humans individually when he becomes our Savior (John 1:13) and his Spirit takes up residence in our lives (1 Corinthians 3:16).
• At his third, he comes for humans individually when he takes us to heaven (John 14:3).
• At his fourth, he will return to the world as the King of kings and Lord of lords (Revelation 19:16).

Let’s think about these monumental events for a moment. Would you agree:

• That Jesus’ first coming and his atoning death for our sins is a transforming gift to the fallen human race?
• That his third coming, his transportation of humans through death to heaven, is a transforming gift to us personally?
• That his fourth coming, his ultimate redemption of our fallen planet (Revelation 21:1–5), is a transforming gift to our world?

Why, then, would we not equally celebrate his second coming for our personal salvation and its present-tense, transforming significance for our souls?

Why Easter predates Christmas

Many people are surprised to learn that Christmas did not become a Christian holiday until the fourth century. The date when Jesus was physically born was less consequential than the fact of his atoning death and triumphant resurrection, which is why Easter predated Christmas as a holiday by centuries.

The abiding relevance of Christmas is not just that Jesus was born into a human family, but that because of Christmas each human can be “born again” into the family of God (John 1:12–13, 3:5). As St. Irenaeus famously noted, he became one of us that we might be one with him.

As a result, each of us can—and should—experience the living Lord Jesus as personally as those who were present at the Bethlehem manger. He longs for us to encounter him every day in prayer, Bible study, and worship, practicing his presence with transforming intentionality.

When we do, predicting the future becomes less important because the One who holds tomorrow also holds us (John 10:28). And we know that whatever comes to us in this life, our Lord’s third “coming” will one day take us to the eternal reward he is preparing for us now. Or his fourth “coming” will turn this world into “a new heaven and a new earth” where “death shall be no more” as he makes “all things new” (Revelation 21:1, 4–5).

Either future should fill us with present joy and transforming hope.

“A mind through which Christ thinks”

In the meantime, our lives are Jesus’ manger, our worship his shepherds, and our witness his angels as the Child of Christmas continues his transforming work in the world through us. St. Augustine observed,

“A Christian is: a mind through which Christ thinks, a heart through which Christ loves, a voice through which Christ speaks, and a hand through which Christ helps.”

Will you be such a “Christian” today?

Thursday news to know:

• French government falls after national assembly approves no-confidence vote
• 2 kindergarteners in “extremely critical condition” after Christian school shooting
• Saudi Arabia is losing its iron grip on global oil markets
• Millions in Cuba remain in dark after nationwide blackout
• On this day in 2013: South African president Nelson Mandela dies at 95

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote for the day:

“The same Jesus who turned water into wine can transform your home, your life, your family, and your future. He is still in the miracle-working business, and his business is the business of transformation.” —Adrian Rogers

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“Only God satisfies, he infinitely exceeds all other pleasures”

Bible sales are up 22 percent in the US through the end of October compared with the same period last year. By contrast, total US print book sales were up less than 1 percent in the same period.

What accounts for the rising popularity of God’s word?

According to Jeff Crosby, president of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, “People are experiencing anxiety themselves, or they’re worried for their children and grandchildren. It’s related to artificial intelligence, election cycles … and all of that feeds a desire for assurance that we’re going to be OK.”

Cely Vasquez, a twenty-eight-year-old artist and influencer, recently bought her first Bible, explaining: “I felt something was missing. It’s a combination of where we are in the world, general anxiety, and the sense that meaning and comfort can be found in the Bible.”

Much of what worries us in the world hasn’t changed. As Paul Powell observed, “It’s not that people are worse—the news coverage is just better.”

At the same time, a world facing the threats of nuclear annihilation, global war, and runaway artificial intelligence is objectively more dangerous. And American society possesses fewer tools for dealing with such crises than ever before.

“Its peripheries were ready to peel away”

Journalist Timothy Burke notes that the Soviet Union was an empire rather than a nation, meaning that “the Soviets did not aim to integrate the country’s diverse peoples and cultures into a single unified national identity” (his emphasis). As a result, once Russia itself was visibly weakened, “its peripheries were ready to peel away,” leading to the collapse of the USSR.

By contrast, Yuval Levin observed that America’s founders united our disparate states and cultures around a constitutional system rather than autocratic rulers. As John Adams stated, America is “a government of laws, not of men.”

However, the founders knew that no nation could construct enough laws or employ enough police officers to legislate morality. Human laws cannot change human hearts, which is why, despite enacting some three hundred thousand federal statutes across our history (there are so many that no one knows the precise number), crime still persists.

It was the same in the biblical era. The Ten Commandments led to 613 recognized laws in Judaism. Written laws were later interpreted by oral laws that were eventually compiled into the sixty-three tractates of the Babylonian Talmud; the English version fills a shelf and a half in my library.

And yet it remained (and remains) true that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). This is why America’s founders were so adamant that, in the famous words of John Adams, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Now that postmodern relativism has jettisoned objective truth and biblical morality, like the Soviet empire of old, our “peripheries” have “peeled away,” leaving us with a broken culture that has no means of repairing itself and no inherent hope of a better future than the chaotic present.

“More than they wanted or hoped for”

However, my purpose today is not to discourage you but to encourage you, and in the most paradoxical way.

Paul noted, “Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20). Because this world is not our home, nothing that happens to Christians in this life can keep us from the paradise that awaits us in the next.

To the contrary, as the third-century bishop St. Cyprian wrote:

When the day of our homecoming puts an end to our exile, frees us from the bonds of the world, and restores us to paradise and to a kingdom, we should welcome it. What man, stationed in a foreign land, would not want to return to his own country as soon as possible?

St. Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225–74) explained that on that day,

The blessed will be given more than they wanted or hoped for. The reason is that in this life no one can fulfil his longing, nor can any creature satisfy man’s desire. Only God satisfies, he infinitely exceeds all other pleasures. That is why man can rest in nothing but God. As Augustine says: “You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our heart can find no rest until it rests in you.”

How can we be sure? Because of Christmas.

“What wondrous love is this”

Is it less a miracle for a Savior to save us when we die (John 14:3) or for a King to return in triumph to our planet (Revelation 19:16) than for the omnipotent God to become a fetus? If the Creator of the universe would be born as a helpless baby and die on a Roman cross, what won’t he do for you? What temptation won’t he defeat? What sin won’t he forgive? What need won’t he meet? What grief won’t he lift? What pain won’t he heal?

To see the love of Christ at Christmas, turn from the cradle to the cross and remember Jesus’ anguished cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). Quoting this text, Max Lucado asks,

“Why did Jesus scream these words? Simple—so that you’ll never have to.”

If Christ is your Lord, the beloved hymn is your story:

What wondrous love is this,
O my soul! O my soul!
What wondrous love is this!
O my soul!
What wondrous love is this!
That caused the Lord of bliss!
To send this precious peace,
To my soul, to my soul!
To send this precious peace
To my soul!

Then, one day you will testify:

And while from death I’m free,
I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on,
And while from death I’m free,
I’ll sing on.
I’ll sing and joyful be,
And through eternity
I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on,
And through eternity
I’ll sing on.

This is the Christmas promise of God.

Wednesday news to know:

• South Korea lawmakers defy president and block martial law as crowds protest
• Zelensky signals he’s open to negotiating a peace deal
• Transgender medicine comes to the Supreme Court
• Agricultural giant Cargill to lay off thousands of workers
• On this day in 1991: hostage Terry Anderson freed in Lebanon

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote for the day:

“God proved his love on the cross. When Christ hung, and bled, and died, it was God saying to the world, ‘I love you.’” —Billy Graham

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“It’s one thing to be grateful. It’s another to give thanks”

If you’re like most Americans, your Thanksgiving meal today will include oven-roasted turkey, stuffing, gravy, potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin or pecan pie. In previous generations, however, your table would have been laden with devilled turkey, oysters, boiled chestnuts, sweet potato balls, green bean pudding, vinegar pie, and cranberry wine.

While I’m partial to oysters, I’ll otherwise take our menu over theirs. At the same time, I’m not sure all progress is worthy of the name.

• Dining rooms are disappearing, in large part due to the pandemic when such areas became classrooms, offices, and gyms. Since I’m terrible at balancing a plate on my knees, I’m glad our dining table is still available today.
• More than half of those surveyed said they plan to eat out at a restaurant for their main holiday meal; 82 percent of those choosing to dine out do so to reduce the stress of preparing the meal. Since Janet does the cooking at our house (for culinary reasons and to protect the lives of our guests), I can’t speak to the latter fact. But I’m glad our family will have time together undistracted by a crowded restaurant.
• More than a third of Americans will watch football today. While this sport-spectating tradition dates back to 1876, the game is more popular around the world than ever. I’m a lifelong football fan, but I’m glad Janet will make us pause the game for the family meal (especially if the Cowboys are losing).

Here’s another way I hope we’ll go back to our past: while Thanksgiving these days is all about food, football, and frenzied shopping, its antecedents were anything but.

“A profound and heartfelt gratitude to God”

Billy Graham writes:

The Pilgrim Fathers who landed at Plymouth to settle in what became the United States of America can teach us an important lesson about giving thanks.

During that first long winter, seven times as many graves were made for the dead as homes were made for the living. Seed, imported from England, failed to grow, and a ship that was to bring food and relief brought instead thirty-five more mouths to feed but no provisions. Some Pilgrims caught fish, and others hunted wildfowl and deer. They had a little English flour and some Indian corn.

Yet William Brewster, rising from a scanty dinner of clams and water, gave thanks to God “for the abundance of the sea and the treasure hid in the sand.”

According to today’s standards, the Pilgrims had almost nothing, but they possessed a profound and heartfelt gratitude to God for his love and mercy.

Their example reminds us that thanksgiving depends not on what we have but on being grateful for what we have. Not only are we called to “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:18, my emphasis); we are also told to “give thanks for everything to God the Father” (Ephesians 5:20 NLT, my emphasis).

How can we be grateful “for everything”?

“When I fall, I shall rise”

On Monday, we focused on what Jesus did for us in the past by purchasing our salvation. In response to his sacrifice, we are called to “continually offer up a sacrifice of praise” to God (Hebrews 13:15).

On Tuesday, we explored what Jesus is doing for us in the present as he prays for us, heals us, guides us, and meets our needs by his grace. When we remember such provision, we are moved to present-tense gratitude even in the hardest places of life:

• “The Lᴏʀᴅ is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer … I call upon the Lᴏʀᴅ, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies” (Psalm 18:2–3).
• “The Lᴏʀᴅ is my light and my salvation—so why should I be afraid? The Lᴏʀᴅ is my fortress, protecting me from danger, so why should I tremble?” (Psalm 27:1 NLT).
• “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me?” (Psalm 56:3–4).

Yesterday, we considered what Jesus will do for us in the future. He will take us to be with him in heaven one day (John 14:3); in the meantime, he will lead us into his “perfect” will (Romans 12:2) and redeem all he allows for his glory and our good (Romans 8:28).

We can therefore say with the prophet: “When I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lᴏʀᴅ will be a light to me” (Micah 7:8). And we can pray with Henri Nouwen:

Even when it seems that things are not going my way, I know that they are going your way and that in the end your way is the best way for me. O Lord, strengthen my hope, especially when my many wishes are not fulfilled. Let me never forget that your name is Love.

“Thanksgiving is what you do”

Across this Thanksgiving week, I’ve been thinking about Tim Keller’s observation:

“It’s one thing to be grateful. It’s another to give thanks. Gratitude is what you feel. Thanksgiving is what you do.”

For all Christ has done, for all he is doing, and for all he will do, what will you “do” in response today?

NOTE: On this Thanksgiving Day, I want to express my gratitude to all who read the Daily Article and to all who partner with us financially to make our ministry possible. It is a wonderful privilege to share this calling with you each day. “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you” (Philippians 1:3).

Thursday news to know:

• A battered and diminished Hezbollah accepts a cease-fire
• Multiple Trump appointees targeted by bomb threats, swatting
• US secures release of 3 Americans in prisoner swap with China
• Northern lights may be faintly visible across parts of the US on Thanksgiving
• On this day in 1520: Ferdinand Magellan reaches the Pacific

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote for the day:

“Keep your eyes open to your mercies. The man who forgets to be thankful has fallen asleep in life.” —Robert Louis Stevenson

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“If we stop to think, we’ll be more thankful”

Which job would you guess is the most satisfying vocation in America? According to a researcher quoted by the Washington Post, Americans want a fulfilling job at “a place that gives them time and respects and encourages and wants them to be good citizens in their community.” As a result, those who work in “community and social services” rank highest for job satisfaction, far above categories that typically pay much higher salaries.

And among those in this top category, religious workers are the most fulfilled.

What is your “happiest place on earth”?

This should be unsurprising since Americans list religious and spiritual activities as the happiest, most meaningful, and least stressful things they do. In fact, they rank these activities some 50 percent higher than “work and work-related activities.” And they list “place of worship” as their “happiest place on earth,” while “your workplace” comes in next to last.

This latest study correlates with a volume of research demonstrating that religiousness and spirituality are consistently linked with positive indicators of well-being. Religious people are reportedly “happier and more satisfied with life than non-religious individuals” and even live longer on average.

This despite significant animosity against Christianity in Europe and the US. Tim Keller observed:

We are entering a new era in which there is not only no social benefit to being Christian, but an actual social cost. In many places, culture is becoming increasingly hostile toward faith, and beliefs in God, truth, sin, and the afterlife are disappearing in more and more people. Now, culture is producing people for whom Christianity is not only offensive, but incomprehensible.

Why are active Christians happier and more fulfilled in a secularized society that increasingly disparages our beliefs and denigrates our witness?

I asked the same question over my many trips to Cuba, where believers face far worse persecution than we encounter in the US, yet the Christians I met there were clearly more joyful than anyone else I encountered. I saw the same visiting with underground church leaders in Beijing and believers in East Malaysia and other Muslim nations.

The answer relates directly to our weeklong Thanksgiving focus on Jesus and points the way to the transcendent joy we all long to experience every day.

A star rotating 716 times per second

Researchers have discovered a neutron star in the Sagittarius constellation that rotates 716 times per second. In related news, astronomers witnessed a two-million-mile-per-hour collision between galaxies. One of the galaxies was traveling eight hundred times faster than a jet fighter. And a team of scientists recently mapped the distribution of nearly six million galaxies across eleven billion years of the universe’s history.

Who knows what lies beyond what they can see?

You and I know the answer: By Christ, “all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible” (Colossians 1:16). The prophet said of him, “His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed” (Daniel 7:14).

Jesus’ incarnational ministry made visible the presence of the One who measures the universe with the palm of his hand (Isaiah 40:12), the Creator who delights in his people (Isaiah 62:4) and redeems us in our darkest days (Isaiah 43:1).

As Phillips Brooks noted, Jesus is truly “the condescension of divinity and the exaltation of humanity.”

“Every kind of thing will be well”

All Americans have cause for gratitude this week, as President Reagan noted so eloquently:

Above all other nations of the world, America has been especially blessed and should give special thanks. We have bountiful harvests, abundant freedoms, and a strong, compassionate people. . . . Today we have more to be thankful for than our pilgrim mothers and fathers who huddled on the edge of the New World that first Thanksgiving Day could ever dream. We should be grateful not only for our blessings, but for the courage and strength of our ancestors which enable us to enjoy the lives we do today.

While Americans are truly blessed, followers of Jesus have far greater cause for gratitude. Not only are we engaged in work that brings the highest degree of satisfaction and purpose available in this world—we have the joy of knowing that “this world is not our permanent home” (Hebrews 13:14 NLT). In fact, “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived” is the eternal home “God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9 NIV).

The fourteenth-century mystic Julian of Norwich was given a “spiritual sight” into our Lord’s love for us:

I saw that he is to us everything which is good and comforting for our help. He is our clothing, for he is that love which wraps and enfolds us, embraces us and guides us, surrounds us with his love, which is so tender that he may never desert us. And so in this sight I saw truly that he is everything which is good.

As a result, she assured us: “All will be well, and every kind of thing will be well.”

“If we stop to think”

I hope today’s reflections encourage you to make time this Thanksgiving week to express genuine gratitude to your Savior. As Billy Graham observed,

“Our English words thank and think come from the same word. If we’ll stop to think, we’ll be more thankful.”

Will you “stop to think” today?

Wednesday news to know:

• Israel–Hezbollah ceasefire takes effect, civilians head back to south Lebanon
• Ukraine says Russian attack sets a new record for the number of drones used
• Walmart becomes latest—and biggest—company to roll back its DEI policies
• Biden proposes Medicare and Medicaid cover costly weight-loss drugs for millions of obese Americans
• On this day in 1095: Pope Urban II orders first Crusade

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote for the day:

“I have a Creator who knew all things, even before they were made—even me, his poor little child.” —St. Patrick

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“It is only with gratitude that life becomes rich”

The Israeli ambassador to Washington says a ceasefire agreement to end fighting between Israel and Hezbollah could come “within days.” Israel’s security cabinet is set to vote today on a proposed deal. The agreement comes after Israel achieved its stated strategic war aims with Hezbollah and will allow hundreds of thousands of civilians on both sides of the border to return home over time.

In other headline news, special counsel Jack Smith moved yesterday to abandon two criminal cases against Donald Trump. His team emphasized that the move did not reflect on the merit of the cases but recognized that Mr. Trump’s return to the White House will preclude attempts to federally prosecute him.

Ten-year-old calls 911 for help with math

While these stories are dominating the news today, I’d like to point you to three others that you might otherwise miss:

• A ten-year-old boy in Wisconsin called 911 to say that he needed help with his math homework since his family “wasn’t very good at math.” The dispatcher explained that 911 was not the appropriate number to call for such assistance, but then put out a call to see if a deputy was in the area. Deputy Sheriff Chase Mason came to the rescue, helping to solve the boy’s decimal-related math problem.
• A blind man tripped while getting onto a train in England, so a group of travelers helped him to his seat. Once the man sat down, he realized he was missing a shoe which had slipped between the platform and the train. When he panicked, another rider took off his shoe and gave it to the man.
• A seventy-nine-year-old grandmother broke her leg during a hike in Mount Rainier National Park. A group spotted her and called 911, but was told a search-and-rescue team would take five hours to reach their location. Then US Air Force Airman Troy May appeared on the scene and carried the elderly woman down the mountain on his back.

These stories will not reshape the conflict in the Middle East or become a part of American political history. They did not directly affect anyone except the people who were helped and perhaps their immediate families. But how did you feel when you read them?

The sociologist Peter Berger identified “signals of transcendence,” dimensions of our lives that point to realities that transcend us. Among them, he listed our capacities for order, play, hope, morality, and humor.

What if selfless service is another? What if stories of incarnational compassion point us to the supreme gift and Giver of grace?

“A grinning thief walking the golden streets of heaven”

Yesterday we identified our primary reason for giving thanks to God this week: the salvation purchased by his Son on the cross as he paid our debt, died our death, and rose to bring us eternal life.

However, what Jesus did for us twenty centuries ago was just the beginning. Consider some of the ways he is still serving us today:

• He is “interceding for us” right now (Romans 8:34; cf. Hebrews 7:25; 1 John 2:1).
• He is holding us in his omnipotent hand (John 10:28).
• He is healing by his power and grace (cf. Acts 3:6–7).
• He is guiding us by his “yoke” (Matthew 11:28–30).
• He is empowering us to do “all things” (Philippians 4:13).
• He is continuing his earthly ministry through us, his “body” (1 Corinthians 12:27).
• He is preparing our eternal home (John 14:2–3).
• One day, he will take us there (v. 3).

Max Lucado wrote:

It makes me smile to think there’s a grinning thief walking the golden streets of heaven who knows more about grace than a thousand theologians. No one else would have given the thief on the cross a prayer. But in the end, that is all he had. And in the end, that’s all it took.

Mistaking the reflection for the real

I was walking around a lake near our home the other day and noticed the reflection of the surrounding trees on the surface of the water. The question occurred to me: What if somehow I could see only these reflections and not the trees themselves? Like the prisoners in Plato’s cave analogy who can see only their shadows projected on the wall before them, I would believe that these reflections are the entire reality of what we call “trees.”

My question highlights this fact of human finitude: We do not know what we do not know.

Imagine a world in which we were fully aware of all that Jesus is doing for us right now. Would we “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:18)? Would we perpetually “offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving” (Psalm 50:14)? Would every day be Thanksgiving Day?

If not, is it because Jesus has changed? Is it because his continued ministry in our lives is any less real or transforming? Or is it because we have taken his mercy and grace for granted? Since we cannot see him visibly at work, do we fail to credit him for all he does for us every day?

“Yet I will rejoice in the Lᴏʀᴅ”

Seeking to live a life of gratitude positions us to see the hand of Jesus in every dimension of our lives. It then empowers us to find his grace at work even in the hard places of our days. In this way, we discover with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “It is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.”

One of the most powerful faith statements in all of Scripture is the declaration of the prophet Habakkuk at the end of the book bearing his name:

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 (Habakkuk 3:17–18).

As a result, he can testify:

“God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places” (v. 19).

Will you tread on your “high places” today?

Tuesday news to know:

• Trump threatens to impose sweeping new tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China on first day in office
• Judge delays resentencing hearing for Menendez brothers
• Thanksgiving winter storms forecasted across the US—here’s where travel could be disrupted
• Iran’s Khamenei calls for death sentence for Israeli leaders
• On this day in 1922: Archaeologists enter tomb of King Tut

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote for the day:

“We ought to give thanks for all fortune: if it is good, because it is good; if bad, because it works in us patience, humility, and the contempt of this world and the hope of our eternal country.” —C. S. Lewis

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Understanding the difference between productive trust and empty loyalty

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz was always going to be the most difficult of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet selections to get through the Senate confirmation process. He was nominated under a shroud of investigations by the Department of Justice in 2020 and, more recently, the House Ethics Committee on accusations of illicit drug use, paying for sex—including sex with a minor—and obstruction of government investigations. Gaetz’s conduct gave reason to doubt his worthiness to be the government’s top attorney, despite the charges being dropped in his DOJ case and the House investigation not yet concluded when he had resigned to pursue the AG nomination.

There was some speculation that his nomination was part of why Trump broached the topic of recess appointments last week. Yet, Gaetz was in Washington on Thursday morning, working with Vice President-elect JD Vance to build support for his approval. Eventually, however, it became clear that such approval wasn’t coming.

After the race in Pennsylvania was finally called in favor of Republican Dave McCormick, the GOP will have a fifty-three-seat majority in the Senate, with only fifty votes needed for Trump’s nominations to be approved. Thursday’s conversations confirmed that at least four Republicans were already firm in their opposition, with several more inclined to vote no. Given that no Democrats were expected to vote in Gaetz’s favor, that left intervention from Trump as his only viable path to the position.

Faced with that reality, Gaetz chose to withdraw from consideration, posting on X that:

While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition. There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle, thus I’ll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General. Trump’s DOJ must be in place and ready on Day 1.

News broke Thursday evening that Trump has already pivoted to former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi for the cabinet position. So, who is Pam Bondi, and will her path to confirmation be any simpler than that of Gaetz?

Who is Pam Bondi?

Pam Bondi has been a prominent figure in Republican circles for some time now and was elected attorney general in Florida in both 2010 and 2014. After serving the maximum two terms, she left in 2019 to help defend Trump in his first impeachment trial after he was accused of attempting to tie the offer of further military assistance for Ukraine with help in investigating Joe and Hunter Biden.

Bondi then continued her role as part of Trump’s legal team during the 2020 election before leaving to become the chair of the Center for Litigation at the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank staffed with several former Trump administration officials. She resumed her role working more closely with Trump in the buildup to the 2024 election and spoke at one of his final rallies earlier this month.

The President-elect said of Bondi,

“For too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans—Not anymore. Pam will refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting Crime, and Making America Safe Again. I have known Pam for many years — She is smart and tough, and is an AMERICA FIRST Fighter, who will do a terrific job as Attorney General!”

And many of those she will have to convince in order to succeed where Gaetz did not seem to agree with Trump’s assessment.

Will Bondi be approved?

Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) predicted that Bondi “will be confirmed quickly because she deserved to be confirmed quickly.” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) echoed those sentiments, stating that “She’ll be an incredible Attorney General.” Sen. Tommy Tubberville of Alabama and Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota were similarly effusive in their praise.

And while, as of this writing, the senators who led the charge against Gaetz’s approval have yet to comment, the prevailing opinion seems to be that Bondi will be confirmed. Should that happen, she will become yet another of Trump’s former and current allies to be given a prominent role in his Cabinet.

Of all the qualities that come up most frequently with Trump’s Cabinet picks, loyalty and trust seem to be among the most common. And it’s understandable why he would prize those characteristics, given the opposition he’s faced in the past. Yet, loyalty and trust are only valuable insofar as they enable someone to speak hard truths and be heard.

If Trump surrounds himself with people who will simply tell him what he wants to hear, he is likely to fail as president. However, if he surrounds himself with people who can deliver honest critiques in a way he can trust, he is set up to succeed.

And that same principle applies to each of us as well.

What kind of God are you looking for?

When you think about the inner circle of people who have the most influence on your life, how would you describe them? Are they people who tell you what you want to hear, or people you can trust to tell you what you need to hear?

And, even more importantly, when you go to God for guidance, which of those two outcomes are you most hoping for? Do you want a God that will affirm your desires or a God that will guide you to a life he can bless, even if it requires walking down some paths you would prefer not to tread?

I’m guessing most of us would like to say we want the latter relationship with the Lord, but is that truly reflected in the way you live? Do you surround yourself with people God can use to speak his truth into your life? And do you pray looking for a particular answer, or are you open to whatever the Lord wants to say?

Be honest in how you answer those questions, as there are few people more damaging to lie to than yourself.

So take some time today to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal which is true for you, even—and especially—if you may not want to hear his answer. Then make whatever changes are necessary to build a relationship with him and with others based on productive trust rather than empty loyalty.

Let’s start today.

Friday news to know:

• Iran continues to stockpile near weapons-grade uranium despite international opposition
• International Criminal Court issues arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant
• For a majority of evangelical churches, giving has not kept up with inflation
• How bees are helping African farmers avoid conflict with elephants
• On this day in 1963: President John F. Kennedy is assassinated

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote of the day:

“If we are full of pride and conceit and ambition and self-seeking and pleasure and the world, there is no room for the Spirit of God, and I believe many a man is praying to God to fill him when he is full already with something else.” —DL Moody

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Why the temptation he faced is relevant to us all

Tony Campolo, the world-famous evangelist and social justice preacher, died Tuesday at the age of eighty-nine. When I heard the news, I debated whether or not to write on it.

Many of you may be too young to know why Campolo’s ministry matters. Those of us familiar with him know that his story is problematic on several levels. I worried that my comments might violate the biblical warning, “Do not speak evil against one another, brothers” (James 4:11).

Then I decided that there is a larger principle at work here that applies to each of us, whatever we know or think about Rev. Campolo and his legacy.

“Trying to see the world as he saw it”

Tony Campolo was born a second-generation Italian immigrant in 1935. His family attended an American Baptist congregation in West Philadelphia until it shut down as white people fled their African American neighbors for the suburbs. Tony’s father then took his family to a Black Baptist church nearby, where they worshiped.

As a student at Eastern College (now a university), Campolo studied John Wesley, the father of Methodism, in a class on “Christian classics.” He said he was moved by the Wesleyan revival with its “social consciousness, attacking slavery, championing the rights of women, ending child labor laws.” He added: “The Wesleyan vision was warm-hearted evangelism with an incredible social vision. Trying to see the world as he saw it changed me greatly.”

As a young pastor, Campolo experienced racism in his church and community. He left his church to get a doctorate in sociology and took a teaching position at Eastern in 1964, where he encouraged students to volunteer with children in Philadelphia. He also helped start a school in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. To recruit students and raise money for ongoing projects, he began accepting speaking invitations. At one point he was speaking five hundred times a year.

Campolo clearly identified with evangelicals, writing in 2015: “I surrendered my life to Jesus and trusted in him for my salvation, and I have been a staunch evangelical ever since.” He also said, “I believe the Bible to have been written by men inspired and guided by the Holy Spirit.”

Why he affirmed same-sex marriage

However, in 1985, Campolo was charged with heresy. In his book A Reasonable Faith, he urged Christians to care for others by stating that Jesus lives in all people, whether or not they are Christians. He also wrote that human-ness and God-ness are one and the same.

A group chaired by the renowned theologian J. I. Packer determined that Campolo’s unbiblical assertions were “evangelical inadvertence rather than any wish to insinuate universal salvation or justification by works.” Campolo responded by clarifying his belief that “saving grace . . . comes only in surrender to the Lordship of Christ.”

Campolo was active in the Democratic Party, running unsuccessfully for Congress in 1976 and working with President Bill Clinton to develop AmeriCorps in the 1990s. He also served as one of Clinton’s personal spiritual advisors during the Monica Lewinski scandal. In 2007, he and author and activist Shane Claiborne founded Red Letter Christians to highlight the “red letter” words of Christ in Scripture and thus his social and ethical teachings.

In 2015, he came out in favor of same-sex marriage ahead of the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision. He explained that he had changed his mind after spending time with LGBTQ Christians in committed, monogamous relationships and reflecting on the fundamental purpose of marriage. In his view, marriage exists primarily for sanctification; if a same-sex marriage encouraged people to grow in the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23), he believed that the church should affirm it.

“Captive to the word of God”

I heard Tony Campolo speak several times and was always moved by his prophetic critique of evangelicals with regard to those in need. His call for us to mobilize our resources to serve “the least of these” mirrors Jesus’ call to us all (Matthew 25:31–46). I also understand his desire to impact society through political engagement and his compassion for LGBTQ persons.

At the same time, his story highlights a temptation we all face: interpreting God’s word through the prism of our personal experiences, values, and passions rather than interpreting our lives through the prism of Scripture.

The deeper our passions, the greater this temptation.

We must not revise our biblical theology to align with our personal passions, no matter how strong they may be. This is not only because God’s word, like God’s character, is timeless and unchanging (Malachi 3:6; James 1:17; Hebrews 13:8; Isaiah 40:8; 1 Peter 1:25). It is also because God’s word possesses a transformative power no other words can claim.

We are “born again . . . through the living and abiding word of God” (1 Peter 1:23) as “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). “The implanted word . . . is able to save your souls” (James 1:21) as the Holy Spirit uses the word of God to convict us of our sins (John 16:8), bring us to salvation (cf. Acts 10:44), and grow us in sanctification (1 Thessalonians 2:13).

As I told my seminary students, the only word God is obligated to bless is his word.

If we do not speak the authoritative word of God to the issues we face, no matter how difficult this may be, we rob people of that truth which can most encourage, liberate, and transform them. If we alter God’s word to fit our culture, we rob those we seek to serve of God’s best for their lives.

Martin Luther, in explaining his Protestant commitment to sola Scriptura (“only the Bible”) as the source of his theology and life, testified:

“My conscience is captive to the word of God.”

Is yours?

Thursday news to know:

• Venezuelan migrant found guilty of killing Laken Riley in Georgia
• Killer mom Susan Smith denied parole 30 years after drowning sons
• Biden agrees to give Ukraine anti-personnel mines
• US envoy to travel to Israel in bid to seal Hezbollah ceasefire
• On this day in 1877: “Scientific American” announces Thomas Edison’s “wonderful invention”—the phonograph

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote for the day:

“We should read the Bible as those who listen to the very speech of God.” —F. B. Meyer

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The peril of idolatry and the promise of biblical faith

Tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson receives blood transfusions from his teenage son, undergoes regular gene therapy injections, and adheres to a strict diet, all in his $2-million-a-year effort to live forever. His face recently became so gaunt, however, that he injected fat from a donor into it. His body rejected the fat, sparking a severe allergic reaction that took a week to subside.

Think how he’ll feel if:

• An epidemic like bird flu or mpox sickens him;
• Thieves like the masked raiders who struck Windsor Castle attack him;
• “Noise bombing” like the auditory barrage being waged by North Korea against South Koreans finds him;
• A nuclear war like the one Vladimir Putin is threatening breaks out;
• Or storms like the winter weather looming over Thanksgiving travel jeopardize his life.

In other words, no matter how much money Bryan Johnson or the rest of us spend, none of us is guaranteed another day on this fallen planet.

In such a world, you’re either being buffeted by the storm, in the eye of the storm with its temporary calm, or facing the next storm. As we have noted this week, one response to our chaotic culture is to double down on partisan confidence, trusting in our political “tribe” and its leaders while rejecting all others.

But as we’ll see today, asking people to do what only God can do is idolatry that threatens our very future.

“How to subdue reality to the wishes of men”

1. S. Lewis wrote in The Abolition of Man: “For the wise men of old, the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For [mankind today], the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men” through the use of science and technology.

He wrote these words in 1943. What would he say of us today?

Artificial intelligence and genetic editing are being developed as ways of subduing reality to our wishes on a level unprecedented in human history. But each in its own way could end humanity as we know it. As could advances in nuclear weapons: the use of less than 1 percent of such weapons currently in the world could disrupt the global climate and threaten two billion people with starvation. (For more, see Dr. Ryan Denison’s new website article, Russia lowers nuclear weapons threshold after latest attack.)

Idolatry is trusting anyone or anything to be and do what only God can be and do. It is among the gravest of sins and is forbidden by God’s word in the strongest terms (cf. Exodus 20:3–6; Leviticus 19:4; 1 Corinthians 10:14; 1 John 5:21).

Despite such warnings, idolatry in all its forms is a tragic theme of Scripture and human history.

“Idols skillfully made of their silver”

I was reading through the book of Hosea recently and found America in chapter thirteen. Consider the Lord’s indictment of the people:

Now they sin more and more, and make for themselves metal images, idols skillfully made of their silver, all of them the work of craftsmen (v. 2).

However, because they trust what they make rather than the God who made them,

They shall be like the morning mist or like the dew that goes early away, like the chaff that swirls from the threshing floor or like smoke from a window (v. 3).

This is because they have rejected “the Lᴏʀᴅ your God” beside whom “there is no savior” (v. 4). Their prosperity has led them to such idolatry:

When they had grazed, they became full, they were filled, and their heart was lifted up; therefore they forgot me (v. 6).

What is to come of such a rebellious people?

Though he may flourish among his brothers, the east wind, the wind of the Lᴏʀᴅ, shall come, rising from the wilderness, and his fountain shall dry up; his spring shall be parched; it shall strip his treasury of every precious thing. Samaria shall bear her guilt, because she has rebelled against her God (vv. 15–16).

As a result, the prophet pleaded with his people:

Return, O Israel, to the Lᴏʀᴅ your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity” (Hosea 14:1).

He called them to declare,

Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride on horses; and we will say no more, “Our God,” to the work of our hands (v. 3).

But they refused his plea. Not long after the prophet uttered these words, the nation fell to Assyria in 722 BC and was no more.

“In returning and rest you shall be saved”

I am not writing to predict the same for this country I love. But I do know that every word of Scripture was inspired and preserved by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21) because it was relevant not just for the biblical era but for all the generations to follow (Romans 15:4; 1 Corinthians 10:11).

Accordingly, what threatened the ancient nation of Israel still threatens nations today. What led to their demise as a culture can lead to the demise of any culture.

By contrast, the repentance that spared Nineveh (Jonah 3:6–10), the king of Babylon (Daniel 4), and the nation of Judah (2 Chronicles 30) is available to all Americans today: “The Lord . . . is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

The place to begin is with our own hearts. Are we trusting in elected leaders and political parties to do what only God can do? Are we trusting in material prosperity for happiness? Are we trusting in our abilities to face our challenges and forge our future?

Here is God’s invitation to us all:

“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength” (Isaiah 30:15).

Why do you need this “strength” today?

Wednesday news to know:

• The US confirms Ukraine fired long-range ATACMS into Russia for the 1^st time
• “Bomb cyclone” with heavy rain and wind threatens Northern California and Pacific Northwest
• After meeting US envoy, Lebanese parliament speaker says deal “is good in principle”
• Iran sharply expands stockpile of nuclear fuel ahead of Trump’s return
• On this day in 1945: Nuremberg trials begin

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote for the day:

“Let us renew our trust in God, and go forward without fear.” —Abraham Lincoln

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The anniversary of the Gettysburg Address and “a country worth dying for”

Second Lieutenant Thomas V. Kelly Jr. was one of eleven crew members on the B-24 bomber nicknamed Heaven Can Wait. On March 11, 1944, Lt. Kelly’s plane was shot down by Japanese antiaircraft gunners off the coast of the Pacific island of New Guinea. All eleven crew members died.

Last spring, a team of elite Navy divers and archaeologists found the crash site and recovered the remains of three men. Last Friday, the Defense Department announced that Lt. Kelly’s remains had been positively identified through dental and anthropological analysis. Divers also found his Army Air Forces ring and two of his dog tags.

In one of his last letters home to his parents, Lt. Kelly wrote:

I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. I’m just telling you to appreciate what you have. Even if you don’t think it is much. It is so much. The men fighting here for everyone, they’re doing it for your freedom.

When I read the story over the weekend, it moved me deeply. I became emotional again typing these words just now.

“A dying empire led by bad people”

These days, Americans are disparaging each other more than at any time in my memory.

One woman is canceling Thanksgiving and Christmas at her home since her husband and his family voted for Donald Trump. A father is refusing to pay his Trump-supporting sons’ college tuition.

On the other side, rural areas in Illinois, a state with vast swaths of red counties and a few blue cities, are seeking to “leave Illinois without moving.” Their goal is to redraw state lines to constitute themselves as “New Illinois.” Conservatives in California, Idaho, and Oregon would like to do something similar.

According to a recent poll, young voters overwhelmingly believe that almost all politicians on both sides are corrupt and that the US will end up worse off than when they were born. The lead pollster said, “Young voters do not look at our politics and see good guys. They see a dying empire led by bad people.”

I will always remember meeting a veteran whose face and hands were scarred by fire and other wounds sustained in battle. When I thanked him for his sacrifice, he said, “Just make America a country worth dying for.”

How can we be the nation Lt. Kelly was fighting to defend?

The “greatest speech in American history”

When my wife and I visited Gettysburg National Military Park, we could feel the ominous and historic weight of the fields surrounding us. We could imagine the cannons as they roared and the soldiers as they fought and died in the Civil War’s deadliest battle.

On this day in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln spoke at a ceremony to dedicate the Soldiers’ National Cemetery on this sacred ground. His brief address has been called the “greatest speech in American history.”

In honoring “those who here gave their lives that [our] nation might live,” he called Americans to “take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion” so that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

More than seven thousand men were killed at Gettysburg. More than 1.1 million men and women have died in the service of our country across our history. Now it falls to us, in Mr. Lincoln’s words, to “highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.”

Mark Twain’s definition of patriotism

Yesterday I noted that if Americans cannot get along, America cannot get along. In a democracy where we vote for each other, hold each other accountable through our elections and legal systems, do commerce with each other, and live in community with each other, divisiveness and divisions threaten our collective future and common good.

But disparaging America and Americans does even more: It threatens the cause for which so many Americans have sacrificed so much.

Mark Twain observed, “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.” The bitterness of our political environment transcends appropriate criticism of the government—many claim that the American project itself is racist and discriminatory to its core. And many see the “other side,” whoever they are, as evil and dangerous to democracy.

This is one place where Christians can—and must—take the lead.

“Whatever disunites man from God”

Agape is the Greek word for unconditional love that enables us to love those who hate us and to forgive those who harm us. It is the only kind of love that can heal divisions such as those we face today.

And it is uniquely the “fruit” of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). When we make Christ our Lord and his Spirit comes to dwell in us (1 Corinthians 3:16), he can then manifest this fruit in our relationship with our Lord, our neighbors, and ourselves (Matthew 22:37–39). And when we love others as sacrificially and fully as we are loved (Romans 8:35–39), hearts are healed, families are mended, and societies are transformed.

Edmund Burke was right:

“Whatever disunites man from God also disunites man from man.”

However, the converse is also true: Whatever unites man to God unites man to man.

Imagine a room whose walls are lined with people. Put a chair in the middle of the room. The closer those in the room draw to the chair, the closer you draw to each other.

And when that chair is a throne, and when the King of kings is reigning there, all of creation will bow and “every tongue [will] confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10–11).

How will you hasten that day, today?

Tuesday news to know:

• A wistful Biden says goodbye in a closing appearance on the world stage
• “War of robots”: how 1,000 days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine spurred an automation boom
• Boeing to lay off over 2,200 workers in US states of Washington and Oregon
• Man is accused of killing 2 in random stabbings in Manhattan
• On this day in 1985: Reagan and Gorbachev hold their first summit meeting

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote for the day:

“In the twilight of our life, God will not judge us on our earthly possessions and human successes, but on how well we have loved.” —St. John of the Cross

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With the election finished and the Republicans in control of both the presidency and Congress, much of the national attention has shifted to what the government will look like going forward. To that end, President-elect Donald Trump’s picks to fill out his administration have led the news in recent days.

Most of his early picks garnered praise—or at least acceptance—by the bulk of his fellow Republicans. However, more recent selections like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the US Health and Human Services leader, Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, and Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense have been a bit more controversial. Yet each of their paths to office looks simple when compared with Matt Gaetz—Trump’s choice for attorney general.

Shortly after news broke that Gaetz would be Trump’s pick for AG, he resigned from the House, where he’d served as the representative for Florida’s 1^st congressional district since 2017, which some have seen as a sign of confidence that he will be approved for the position. Yet, Gaetz’s resignation also means that he’s no longer under the jurisdiction of the House Ethics Committee, which was mere days away from releasing the report of their investigation into Gaetz on allegations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, and a number of other accusations.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn—one of the party’s leading figures and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee—has since spoken for many in arguing that the report should be part of the deliberations into whether Gaetz will be approved for the post of attorney general.

Concerns that his preferred choices will not be approved could be part of why, earlier this week, Trump urged Senate leaders to be willing to agree to recess appointments in order to expedite the process.

But what are recess appointments, and why has the notion proved so controversial in recent days?

What are recess appointments?

Recess appointments are a constitutional provision that allows the president to appoint officials without Senate approval while the congressional body is not in session. In the nation’s early days, it could take senators weeks to travel to Congress, and the legislature would only meet for a short period of time before going into recess. In that environment, it made sense to give the president the authority to make appointments on his own when the situation warranted a quick decision.

But despite the circumstances being drastically different in modern times than in the late 1700s, recess appointments continued to be a tool used by both Republican and Democratic presidents to circumvent the Senate. That began to change, however, in 2014 when the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that President Obama had stepped beyond his authority in recess-appointing four members of the National Labor Relations Board. Justice Antonin Scalia went so far as to say the practice’s “only remaining use is the ignoble one of enabling the President to circumvent the Senate’s role.”

The Court also set a ten-day minimum for how long the Senate would need to be in recess before any such appointments could be made without their approval. Ever since, the Senate has routinely scheduled “pro forma” sessions every few days during recess periods. Pro forma sessions are where a single representative will show up for a few minutes to start a session before then closing it without doing anything.

So while it is within Trump’s authority to ask the Senate to go on recess, actually taking that route seems unlikely.

To start, it would mean essentially shutting down the legislature for at least eleven days at the start of his presidency, thereby limiting how much he could accomplish in his first weeks back in office. Moreover, at least fifty senators would have to agree to go into an extended recess in order to clear the way for him to be able to make recess appointments. Considering that’s the same number needed to simply approve his recommended candidates, the most likely scenario is that his call for recess appointments was more of an attempt to set the tone for the next four years.

While there is some merit to establishing that precedent early, if Trump attempts to proceed with his insistence on recess appointments, he may also learn that what can be done and what should be done are not always the same. And that’s a lesson that each of us would do well to remember, particularly when it comes to our relationship with God.

Pursuing a life God can bless

The difference between “Can I do this?” and “Should I do this?” may seem subtle, but what it reveals about our focus and frame of mind is often quite telling. For example, if I finish dinner and see ice cream in the freezer, I’m far more likely to ask, “Can I have some?” than “Should I have some?” In that circumstance, whether or not it’s best for me to have a delicious dessert matters far less than if I can get away with eating one.

While that’s a relatively minor example, the principle is important to recognize. And that’s particularly the case when we’re asking the question of God, as it reveals whether our focus is more on what we want or what he wants for us.

You see, in most circumstances, there are multiple choices we could make that will not necessarily put us outside of God’s will or lead us into sin. However, just because God doesn’t punish us for the choice doesn’t mean that he will bless it.

One of the primary temptations we face as Christians is to settle for living in God’s permissive will rather than striving for a life he can actively bless.

It’s easy to think that, so long as I’m not sinning, I must be doing the right thing. But God wants far more for us. He wants us to live a life that he can bless, but that means asking him what we should do rather than what we can do. It means prioritizing what he wants for us over what we want for ourselves. And it means learning to rely upon his guidance in every facet of our lives rather than just those we’re comfortable surrendering to him.

So which question will you ask of God today? Will you settle for what you can do, or pursue what the Lord says you should do?

The decision is yours. Choose wisely.

Friday news to know:

• Federal judge blocks enforcement of Louisiana’s Ten Commandments Law
• Congress holds another hearing about UFOs
• Florida sues FEMA for skipping Trump supporters when offering aid.
• Tech company creates AI grandma to keep phone scammers preoccupied
• On this day in 1988: Yasser Arafat and the Palestine National Council declare independence for a Palestinian state

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote of the day:

“God never gave a man a thing to do, concerning which it were irreverent to ponder how the Son of God would have done it.” —George Macdonald

Denison Forum

With the election finished and the Republicans in control of both the presidency and Congress, much of the national attention has shifted to what the government will look like going forward. To that end, President-elect Donald Trump’s picks to fill out his administration have led the news in recent days.

Most of his early picks garnered praise—or at least acceptance—by the bulk of his fellow Republicans. However, more recent selections like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the US Health and Human Services leader, Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, and Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense have been a bit more controversial. Yet each of their paths to office looks simple when compared with Matt Gaetz—Trump’s choice for attorney general.

Shortly after news broke that Gaetz would be Trump’s pick for AG, he resigned from the House, where he’d served as the representative for Florida’s 1^st congressional district since 2017, which some have seen as a sign of confidence that he will be approved for the position. Yet, Gaetz’s resignation also means that he’s no longer under the jurisdiction of the House Ethics Committee, which was mere days away from releasing the report of their investigation into Gaetz on allegations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, and a number of other accusations.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn—one of the party’s leading figures and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee—has since spoken for many in arguing that the report should be part of the deliberations into whether Gaetz will be approved for the post of attorney general.

Concerns that his preferred choices will not be approved could be part of why, earlier this week, Trump urged Senate leaders to be willing to agree to recess appointments in order to expedite the process.

But what are recess appointments, and why has the notion proved so controversial in recent days?

What are recess appointments?

Recess appointments are a constitutional provision that allows the president to appoint officials without Senate approval while the congressional body is not in session. In the nation’s early days, it could take senators weeks to travel to Congress, and the legislature would only meet for a short period of time before going into recess. In that environment, it made sense to give the president the authority to make appointments on his own when the situation warranted a quick decision.

But despite the circumstances being drastically different in modern times than in the late 1700s, recess appointments continued to be a tool used by both Republican and Democratic presidents to circumvent the Senate. That began to change, however, in 2014 when the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that President Obama had stepped beyond his authority in recess-appointing four members of the National Labor Relations Board. Justice Antonin Scalia went so far as to say the practice’s “only remaining use is the ignoble one of enabling the President to circumvent the Senate’s role.”

The Court also set a ten-day minimum for how long the Senate would need to be in recess before any such appointments could be made without their approval. Ever since, the Senate has routinely scheduled “pro forma” sessions every few days during recess periods. Pro forma sessions are where a single representative will show up for a few minutes to start a session before then closing it without doing anything.

So while it is within Trump’s authority to ask the Senate to go on recess, actually taking that route seems unlikely.

To start, it would mean essentially shutting down the legislature for at least eleven days at the start of his presidency, thereby limiting how much he could accomplish in his first weeks back in office. Moreover, at least fifty senators would have to agree to go into an extended recess in order to clear the way for him to be able to make recess appointments. Considering that’s the same number needed to simply approve his recommended candidates, the most likely scenario is that his call for recess appointments was more of an attempt to set the tone for the next four years.

While there is some merit to establishing that precedent early, if Trump attempts to proceed with his insistence on recess appointments, he may also learn that what can be done and what should be done are not always the same. And that’s a lesson that each of us would do well to remember, particularly when it comes to our relationship with God.

Pursuing a life God can bless

The difference between “Can I do this?” and “Should I do this?” may seem subtle, but what it reveals about our focus and frame of mind is often quite telling. For example, if I finish dinner and see ice cream in the freezer, I’m far more likely to ask, “Can I have some?” than “Should I have some?” In that circumstance, whether or not it’s best for me to have a delicious dessert matters far less than if I can get away with eating one.

While that’s a relatively minor example, the principle is important to recognize. And that’s particularly the case when we’re asking the question of God, as it reveals whether our focus is more on what we want or what he wants for us.

You see, in most circumstances, there are multiple choices we could make that will not necessarily put us outside of God’s will or lead us into sin. However, just because God doesn’t punish us for the choice doesn’t mean that he will bless it.

One of the primary temptations we face as Christians is to settle for living in God’s permissive will rather than striving for a life he can actively bless.

It’s easy to think that, so long as I’m not sinning, I must be doing the right thing. But God wants far more for us. He wants us to live a life that he can bless, but that means asking him what we should do rather than what we can do. It means prioritizing what he wants for us over what we want for ourselves. And it means learning to rely upon his guidance in every facet of our lives rather than just those we’re comfortable surrendering to him.

So which question will you ask of God today? Will you settle for what you can do, or pursue what the Lord says you should do?

The decision is yours. Choose wisely.

Friday news to know:

• Federal judge blocks enforcement of Louisiana’s Ten Commandments Law
• Congress holds another hearing about UFOs
• Florida sues FEMA for skipping Trump supporters when offering aid.
• Tech company creates AI grandma to keep phone scammers preoccupied
• On this day in 1988: Yasser Arafat and the Palestine National Council declare independence for a Palestinian state

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote of the day:

“God never gave a man a thing to do, concerning which it were irreverent to ponder how the Son of God would have done it.” —George Macdonald

Denison Forum

Redeeming the crises of our day with transforming hope

If you’re in need of some advice or encouragement, you might consider visiting the Grandma Stand, a mobile station in New York City. Here you’ll be able to talk with a real grandmother ready to listen to your troubles and offer timely wisdom.

Today’s news offers much to discuss:

• Chinese officials are discussing the weaponizing of viruses far deadlier than COVID-19 to be used for “specific ethnic genetic attacks.”
• Multiple climate disasters have triggered the first-ever Red Cross disaster insurance payout.
• Henry Kissinger and his co-authors are warning that “AI can save humanity—or end it.”
• Iranian leaders, panicked over the election of Donald Trump and the success of Israel’s recent attacks, may push to develop nuclear weapons.

Various populations across the centuries have faced crises that threatened their future. But now, for the first time in human history, humans have the capacity to end human history.

• Weaponized viruses could conceivably spread beyond containment and destroy our species.
• The UN leader warns that climate disasters could render our planet uninhabitable.
• Artificial intelligence could become sentient, determine humans to be a threat to itself, and take measures to wipe us out.
• Nuclear weapons have been in existence for generations, but they were controlled by nations deterred by “mutually assured destruction”—if one launched on the other, the other would retaliate in ways that would destroy the instigator. But some Islamic theologians claim that if Iran attacked Israel and its collaborators in the West, their Mahdi (a messianic figure) would then reappear to protect Muslims. And autocrats in China and Russia may consider the deaths of millions of their people to be a price worth paying to achieve global hegemony for themselves and their empires.

Why would God allow such unprecedented existential challenges?

How would he redeem them for his glory and our good?

Both questions lead to the same hope.

The higher the mountain, the harder the climb

It is endemic to our fallen human nature to trust our fallen human nature. Our “will to power” drives us to try harder and work longer to overcome any obstacle we face.

We draw inspiration from calls to action such as Theodore Roosevelt’s stirring praise for “the man who is actually in the arena . . .  who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”

The higher the mountain, the harder the climb but the greater the reward. Or so we tell ourselves.

But what if Oswald Chambers was right to assert, “Holiness, not happiness, is the chief end of man”?

What if the Westminster Shorter Catechism is correct when it claims, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever”?

What if the challenges of our world are therefore intended by our Maker to draw us from self-sufficiency to Spirit-dependence?

We could then conclude that if we will not trust God with our small challenges, he must allow us to face dangers so cataclysmic that we must abandon our self-reliance and admit that we are “so far down we can look nowhere but up.”

A hinge point in history

Seen in this light, the gravest problems we face are worth their cost if they motivate us to submit to the One who alone can make our lives eternally significant. Ten thousand millennia after the last election has been held, the last war has been fought, and the last article has been written, eternity will only have begun.

But there’s more: Not only does God want to use our existential threats to draw us to himself—he then wants us to seek his omniscience and omnipotence in facing them together. He is a loving Father who cares not only about our eternal souls but also our temporal lives.

To illustrate: Jesus healed so many bodies during his earthly ministry that he is often called the “Great Physician.” Such healings frequently led to spiritual outcomes, such as the man born blind who received his sight and then worshiped him as Lord (John 9:38). But some of his miracles had no such recorded outcomes.

For example, after Jesus healed a man’s withered hand, “the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him” (Matthew 12:14). When he healed a blind man, “he sent him to his home” with no apparent spiritual results (Mark 8:22–26).

I say this to make the point that our Lord cares deeply about the crises we face, from viruses to climate challenges to the future of AI to geopolitical nuclear threats. He has wisdom we cannot begin to comprehend and power we cannot begin to match.

I therefore believe that future historians (if mankind survives long enough) will point to these days as a crucial hinge point in history—a time when we turned to the King of the universe in a great spiritual and moral awakening, or the time when our society’s ongoing spiritual and moral collapse began spiraling to a grievous end.

“He is no fool”

If America is to choose the first before it’s too late, Christians like you and me must lead the way. We must repent of self-reliant idolatry that uses spiritual means to achieve selfish ends. We must instead submit our lives unconditionally to the will and Spirit of God (Romans 12:1–2; Ephesians 5:18), remembering with the martyred missionary Jim Elliot that “he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

The more passionately you “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,” the more your Father can ensure that everything else “will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33).

The Italian political philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli wrote:

“Never waste the opportunity offered by a good crisis.”

Will you heed his advice today?

NOTE: For more encouragement to trust God’s power and love, I invite you to read my new website article, “’Nature’s Best Photography Awards’ and grandeur in the sky: What creation tells America about our Creator.”

Thursday news to know:

• Trump nominates Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general in surprise pick
• Thune wins contested race for Senate GOP leader
• Mike Johnson wins GOP nod to remain House speaker with Trump’s backing
• Republicans win House, delivering Trump a trifecta
• On this day in 1914: Ottoman Empire declares a holy war

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote for the day:

“If our lives are easy, and if all we ever attempt for God is what we know we can handle, how will we ever experience his omnipotence in our lives?” —Anne Graham Lotz

Denison Forum

Why divisiveness threatens our democracy and the gospel is our hope

A federal disaster relief official reportedly ordered workers to bypass the homes of Donald Trump’s supporters as they surveyed damage from Hurricane Milton in Florida. As a result, when FEMA workers identified residents who could qualify for federal aid, at least twenty homes with Trump yard signs or flags were not given the opportunity to qualify for assistance. The official was later fired.

Donald Trump and Joe Biden will meet in the White House today, but the rancor between their parties will endure long past last week’s election.

And like Trump supporters passed over for help in Florida, there will be victims all around.

The enemy is the other party

American elections are typically won by candidates who convince voters that (1) they are facing an enemy they cannot defeat and (2) the candidate will defeat their enemy if they vote for him or her. At various times, this “enemy” has been a foreign belligerent, such as Germany, Japan, or the Soviet Union, or a domestic challenge such as economic downturns.

Today, the “enemy” is the other party.

One side sees itself as the defender of preborn babies and traditional morality. The other side sees itself as the defender of women’s reproductive freedom, civil rights, and equality for all. These are crucial causes that far transcend electoral politics.

Many on each side are convinced that for them to win, the other side must lose. Not only because the other side’s causes are wrong, but because those who hold them are dangerous to America.

This is a different form of prejudice than I have seen in my lifetime. Discrimination against Jews and other racial minorities is a tragic fact of life across the world, an issue I discuss at some depth in my new website article, “A visit that marked me for the rest of my life: Four roots of antisemitism and three urgent calls to action.” As I note, people typically discriminate against those they envy, consider to be succeeding unfairly, or see as inferior to themselves.

But to disparage and even despise another American because of their political affiliation and the assumption that they are therefore hazardous to our nation—that is something else.

And an ominous threat to the future of our democracy.

If this divisiveness persists

If you and I were living in a monarchy, we would need to get along with the monarch more than with each other. If we were living under communism, we would need to get along with communist officials more than with our neighbors.

But we live in a democratic republic where we elect each other to office, hold each other accountable through elections, jury trials, and the media, support the state with our taxes, trade with each other in commerce, and live with each other in community.

As a result, the more polarized we become, the less functional our society becomes.

If our divisiveness persists, the day will come when we won’t trust the validity of our elections or the character of those we elect. We won’t trust the justice of our courts or the veracity of our media. We won’t trust the integrity of our financial systems or the goodwill of our neighbors.

We will therefore see increasing attempts to restrict the freedom of speech of those we consider dangerous (here’s one post-election example). Crime will escalate as criminals see others not as victims but as means to their ends. People will congregate in communities, schools, businesses, and churches that share their political ideology and listen only to media with which they agree, further fragmenting the social fabric of our nation. And our consensual democracy will become more endangered with each passing year.

But the good news is that the gospel is the good news we need most.

Roman soldiers and Jewish priests

Jesus’ first followers were anything but a homogeneous lot.

Matthew collected taxes for the Roman Empire, while Simon the Zealot was aligned with a guerrilla movement seeking its overthrow. In a day when Jews and Gentiles despised each other, Jesus’ movement included both. In a society where women were devalued, women were among his most visible followers. Demoniacs were healed, adulterers were forgiven, and both were welcomed into his family of faith.

His movement soon encompassed people from fifteen different language groups (Acts 2:9–11). It came to include Roman soldiers and jailers along with Jewish priests and Pharisees.

Was this because people in the first century were more gracious, forgiving, and charitable than we are? Or was it because there’s something transformative and unifying about the message they embraced? And something attractive about their lives once they embraced it?

“With Christ joy is constantly born anew”

Tim Keller encapsulated the message of Jesus:

The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.

If I truly believe that I am “loved and accepted in Jesus Christ,” I am free to love and accept you as I am loved and accepted by my Lord. But if I do not embrace this fact, I am as susceptible to the divisiveness of our day as anyone.

I feel deeply the weight of our moral issues and see those with whom I disagree as deeply and tragically wrong. It is only when I embrace the transforming truth of the gospel that I can see others as God sees them. It is only then that I can be a cultural missionary who speaks the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15) rather than a cultural warrior who must defeat his enemies.

Only Jesus can turn hearts inflamed by animosity into hearts empowered by grace. Only he can inspire us to choose forgiveness over vengeance. Only he can replace the cycle of retribution with the joy of community. Pope Francis was right:

The joy of the gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness, and loneliness. With Christ joy is constantly born anew.

For the sake of our democracy and the health of your soul, will you take time to “encounter Jesus” again today?

Wednesday news to know:

• Archbishop of Canterbury resigns over UK church abuse scandal
• Who will be the next Senate majority leader?
• Trump picks Kristi Noem to be Homeland Security Secretary
• Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor, is Trump’s choice for ambassador to Israel
• On this day in 1982: Vietnam Veterans Memorial dedicated

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote for the day:

“You could join a church. You can go through a religious ceremony. You can say a prayer and not be changed. But if you really encounter Jesus, you will be changed. No one encounters Jesus and remains the same.” —Derek Prince

Denison Forum

Antisemitism and the wrath of Almighty God

Israeli soccer fans were in Amsterdam last Thursday night for a game between a club from Tel Aviv and a Dutch club. Suddenly, mobs unleashed a wave of violence against them, chasing Jews through the streets on motorbikes and beating them. According to Dutch authorities, the campaign was organized beforehand and the attackers were equipped for their onslaught. The messaging app Telegram was used to talk about “going on Jew hunts,” Amsterdam’s mayor later reported. One Israeli soccer fan said, “They knew exactly where we stayed. They knew exactly which hotels, which street we were going to take. It was all well-organized, well-prepared.”

The site of the attacks was especially ironic: Amsterdam once had a large and thriving Jewish population, but 75 percent of them perished in the Holocaust. Jewish teenager Anne Frank hid for years in the city before she was arrested in 1944 and died in a Nazi concentration camp.

Now violence against Jews in Amsterdam is rising again along with Holocaust denial. But there is more to the story.

Antisemitism reaches record highs in the US

In a recent survey, 96 percent of Jews from thirteen European countries said they had encountered antisemitism in their daily lives even before the ongoing war in Gaza. Most who responded said they worry for their own (53 percent) and their family’s (60 percent) safety and security. Unsurprisingly, Europe’s Jewish population has dropped 60 percent in the last fifty years.

Lest we think this cannot happen in America, we need to know that it is happening in America.

According to a new report from the Anti-Defamation League Center for Extremism:

• Antisemitic incidents in the US reached a record high since last year’s Hamas attack in Israel.
• More than ten thousand incidents were reported from October 7, 2023, to September 24, 2024, a more than two hundred percent increase compared to the same period a year earlier.
• This is the highest level of antisemitism since the ADL began tracking such incidents in 1979.

Jonathan S. Tobin, editor-in-chief of Jewish News Syndicate, warns:

In essence, every college with an anti-Israel encampment or a campus culture where pro-Israel Jews find themselves ostracized and targeted by faculty and students is an example of how pogroms like that in Amsterdam become a possibility.

The takeover of American education by those advocating for toxic Marxist myths like critical race theory and intersectionality, which falsely label Jews and Israel as “white” oppressors who are always in the wrong and deserve whatever violence is directed at them, has led to the indoctrination of a generation that sees the barbaric atrocities of Oct. 7 as justified “resistance.”

But there is even more to the story.

Three reasons Satan inspires antisemitism

The devil is the author of antisemitism. How do I know?

1. Satan seeks “only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10). Antisemitism steals from the Jews their security, cultural status, prosperity, and often their possessions. It kills them in the millions; it destroys their communities and seeks to eradicate their race.

2. Satan wants us to strive to be our own god (Genesis 3:5). Antisemitism claims an innate superiority to Jews and a “right” to persecute them, reinforcing the “will to power” at the heart of humanity’s fallen condition.
3. Satan hates God but cannot attack him, so he attacks those whom God loves (cf. Luke 22:31; 1 Peter 5:8). The best way to grieve me is to harm my children. Our Father feels the same about each of us, both Jews and Gentiles (Galatians 3:28).

But there is even more to the story.

Why we must “pray for the peace of Jerusalem”

Antisemitism, like all racism, is an affront to the God who made each of us in his image (Genesis 1:27) and “loves each of us as if there were only one of us” (St. Augustine). Accordingly, throughout Scripture and human history, the Lord invariably and inevitably must bring judgment against those who sin against humanity in this way.

• The Egyptian pharaoh mercilessly enslaved and persecuted Jews, but his army was destroyed in the Red Sea and Moses led the people of Israel to their Promised Land.
• The wicked Haman sought to eradicate the Jews of Persia but was hanged on the scaffold he built for their leader, Mordecai (Esther 7).
• The Assyrian, Babylonian, Greek, and Roman Empires that mercilessly persecuted Jews are no more, but Jews continue to thrive.
• Hitler’s “final solution” murdered six million Jews, but his Third Reich was destroyed and the modern State of Israel was born in response to the Holocaust. More than one million Jews in the Soviet Union were murdered; now the Soviet Union is no more.

Similarly, Abraham Lincoln stated prophetically in his Second Inaugural Address that the Civil War was divine punishment for the sin of slavery, a sin in which all Americans were complicit. From then to today, those who perpetuate the heinous sins of antisemitism and racism against their fellow humans must face the loss of God’s favor and the incursion of his wrath.

So, let us urgently “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” today (Psalm 122:6). By this, let us ask Almighty God to protect Jews and all other oppressed minorities around the world. Let us seek his direction and strength as we seek to answer our prayer with our actions.

And let us remember John Donne’s sober warning:

“Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee.”

NOTE: For an up-to-the-minute look at life in Israel today, I invite you to listen to a podcast I recorded last week with Danny Lampel, our long-time guide in the Holy Land and one of my dearest friends. Dr. Mark Turman and Dr. Mike Fanning joined me in talking with Danny about the challenges he and his fellow Israelis are facing and his hopes for the future. I believe you will find our conversation sobering, challenging, and inspiring.

Tuesday news to know:

• Trump expected to name Sen. Marco Rubio as Secretary of State
• Trump names Thomas Homan “border czar” with a wide portfolio
• Army private is identified almost 80 years after death in World War II
• A record 13 women will be governors next year after New Hampshire elected Kelly Ayotte
• On this day in 1954: Ellis Island closes

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote for the day:

“The denial of human rights anywhere is a threat to the affirmation of human rights everywhere.” —Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Denison Forum