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

Of all the political maps and charts relative to last week’s election, the one that struck me the most came from the New York Times. The map is composed of red arrows pointing to the right where US counties moved in the Republicans’ direction and blue arrows pointing to the left where counties moved in the Democrats’ direction. The map is awash in red with only a few nearly indiscernible spots of blue.

The accompanying article states: “Of the counties with nearly complete results, more than 90 percent shifted in favor of former President Donald J. Trump in the 2024 presidential election.”

This direction is obvious to those on both sides of the election. “America is different,” New York Times writers David French and Patrick Healy lamented the night of the election. Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan was glad to agree: “America, after its long journey through the 2010s and ’20s, is becoming more conservative again.”

For those whose values could be considered more conservative than progressive or liberal, this news perhaps indicates that our nation has not devolved from our Judeo-Christian moral foundations as far as many feared.

But there is a cloud in this silver lining.

“Civil war carried on by other means”

Following last week’s election, I have been thinking of numerous Christians in public service I have known over the years. Each was grateful for the efforts of believers who worked to help them win their election. Without exception, however, each was frustrated that these same believers did not then become more involved in the communities and governments their leaders were elected to serve.

As several told me, it was as if Christians thought they did all they needed to do by voting for candidates they thought would advance their values. They did not understand that in a democratic republic, elected officials can only do so much to change society.

In his classic book, The Naked Public Square: Religion and Democracy in America, Richard John Neuhaus observed, “In a democratic society, state and society must draw from the same moral well.” Americans do not have autocrats or theocrats ruling us from values we may not share or understand. To the contrary, we elect leaders to do what we wish them to do.

In a democracy, our leaders cannot lead us where we are unwilling to go or give us what we are unwilling to receive, which is why Thomas Jefferson observed, “The government you elect is the government you deserve.”

Accordingly, if Americans do not coalesce around the consensual morality that was foundational to the beginning of our nation, we can expect our political divisions and rancor to persist. As Neuhaus warned, “In the absence of a public ethic, we arrive at the point where, in Alasdair MacIntyre’s arresting phrase, ‘politics becomes civil war carried on by other means.’”

“Where liberty under law and justice can triumph”

On this Veterans’ Day, we have reason to give profound thanks for the millions of men and women who served our nation and defended our freedoms. But the cause for which they served and many died is a cause that must be served by every generation.

As Ronald Reagan famously warned in his 1967 Inaugural Address as governor of California, “Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction.”

Earlier in that address, Mr. Reagan also stated:

It is inconceivable to me that anyone could accept this delegated authority without asking God’s help. And I pray that we of the legislature and the administration can be granted the wisdom and the strength beyond our own limited powers. That with divine guidance we can avoid easy expedience. That we can work to build a state where liberty under law and justice can triumph, where compassion can govern and wherein the people can participate and prosper because of their government and not in spite of it.

Now the path we chart is not an easy one. It demands much of those chosen to govern, but also from those who did the choosing.

“Quite a different house from the one you thought of”

This same “path” lies before our nation today.

Here’s the problem: It is difficult to motivate people to be more moral than they already are. In a democracy, the only way to effect lasting change is to inspire people to want to change.

To this end, what America needs most is for America’s Christians to be the actual presence of Christ. Nothing less than Christlike character will do. Nothing less than Christlike compassion, courage, wisdom, evangelism, and ministry will suffice.

As the brilliant sociologist James Davison Hunter demonstrates persuasively in To Change the World, culture is changed most effectively not by winning elections, building large churches, or gaining social popularity, but by people who achieve their highest place of influence and then live there effectively. He calls this manifesting “faithful presence.”

My prayer is that you and I settle for nothing less than lives so transformed by God’s Spirit that our secularized society wants the change they see in us.

In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis made my point in a powerful and poignant way:

Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what he is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is he up to?

The explanation is that he is building quite a different house from the one you thought of—throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage, but he is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it himself.

Are you so submitted to God’s Spirit that he can build nothing less than a “palace” with you today?

Monday news to know:

• Trump wins Arizona to sweep swing states and secure 312 total electoral votes
• Trump and Biden to meet in Oval Office on Wednesday
• Amsterdam bans protests for three days following violent attacks on Israeli soccer fans
• Ukraine launches “massive attack” on Moscow, shutting down airports
• On this day in 1918: Armistice Day: World War I ends

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

Quote for the day:

“I know of no other way to triumph over sin long-term than to gain a distaste for it because of a superior satisfaction in God” —John Piper

Denison Forum

A warning to Christians from the 2024 election

In the wake of Tuesday’s election, members of the Democratic Party have spent a great deal of energy trying to explain why Kamala Harris lost and Donald Trump won. And while most perspectives have covered the gamut from “America is racist and sexist” to “President Biden should have dropped out sooner,” some less beholden to the party line are urging Democratic leaders to take a step back and be a bit more introspective.

Brett Stephens, for example, perceptively assigns blame to “three larger mistakes of worldview”:

First, the conviction among many liberals that things were pretty much fine, if not downright great, in Biden’s America — and that anyone who didn’t think that way was either a right-wing misinformer or a dupe. Second, the refusal to see how profoundly distasteful so much of modern liberalism has become to so much of America. Third, the insistence that the only appropriate form of politics when it comes to Trump is the politics of Resistance — capital R.

There is truth to all three, but the first point in particular seems crucial to any objective understanding of Tuesday’s results.

You see, America has always been a divided nation to some extent. While we can, at times, unite around a common goal, even then, the diversity that exists within our society will inevitably lead to some fairly clear lines between the various groups that make up the nation.

And that’s all right. After all, diversity cannot exist without differences, and God made each of us unique. However, he also intended for us to share a common foundation as people made in his image (Genesis 1:27).

It should not come as a surprise that, as our culture increasingly rejects that foundation, we’re struggling to keep our differences from becoming divisive.

As a result, we’re facing what David Brooks calls “a crisis of respect.” And while he sees those issues as playing out primarily on the left, I think it’s fair to say that all of us struggle at times to show respect to those who think differently than we do on the issues we find most important.

Fortunately, we’re not the first group to struggle with that problem.

First-century problems today

In a recent article for Christianity Today, Julien C. H. Smith looked to Paul’s letter to the Romans for guidance on how to deal with division in a way that honors both God and those with whom we disagree.

He notes that, for the first-century church in Rome, the division between Gentile and Jewish Christians over issues like the dietary laws threatened to tear their community apart. Both sides were convinced that not only were they correct, but that the other side was simply too ignorant and obstinate to see the truth.

Does that sound familiar?

In Rome, it led them to see their fellow believers as more of a problem to solve than a person to love. We’re seeing the same approach in our culture today. Smith notes that the problem only gets more acute when the people with whom we disagree are an unavoidable part of our lives:

When our enemies are distant, the question of loving them can be conveniently ignored. But when the enemy is across the table, in the same committee meeting, or in a group project, the countercultural wisdom and necessity of Jesus’ commands—love your enemy, who is your neighbor (Matt. 5:43–44)—becomes apparent.

Perhaps that need for distance is why so many in our culture retreat to echo chambers and cling so tightly to their mischaracterizations of the other side. But God has no intention of allowing us to live that kind of life. Instead, he’s called us to be salt and light, changing our culture from within rather than lobbing Bible verses and judgment from the relative safety of like-minded communities.

And Paul argued that the best place to start is by welcoming others as Christ has welcomed us (Romans 15:7). So how do we do that?

Three ways to be welcoming

One: No one needs to earn kindness

The first step is remembering that our call to be kind and welcoming toward others has nothing to do with whether they have earned such accommodation. Rather, it is meant to be an act of obedience, done in gratitude for the way God has welcomed us.

That doesn’t mean we should act foolishly or recklessly welcome every passing stranger into our home. But the reminder that we are to treat others with respect and dignity because that’s how Christ has treated us should make it easier to look past our disagreements to see people as God does.

Two: People are more than their politics

The second step—one that is incredibly important in our current climate—is to remember that people are more than their politics. To be sure, there are some crazies out there who have made politics their new religion and worship at the feet of whatever party leader best represents their views at a given moment. But most people have a better grasp on reality than that, and how they voted (or if they voted) should not define the way we see them.

So if Tuesday’s election comes up in conversation at the office, among friends, or at the Thanksgiving table in a few weeks’ time, don’t let politics become the primary lens through which you view someone. They are no more the sum of their political views than you are, which leads us to the last point we need to keep in mind.

Three: Differences are an opportunity to learn from each other

The third and final step in welcoming others as Christ has welcomed us is to entertain the possibility that those with different views than our own can have something to teach us.

Of all the ways in which our society has suffered as a result of the “crisis of respect” we’re currently facing, the inability to learn from one another has to be toward the top of the list. Engaging with people who think differently than you is often the best way to evaluate your own beliefs.

Even if the conversation serves only to reinforce that your thoughts are correct, testing them against their ideological counterparts can help you to better understand why they are true. And more often than we may care to admit, those conversations will reveal blind spots or holes in our argument. When that happens, treating the corrections as an opportunity rather than a threat is key.

As Christians who serve the God who is Truth, we do the gospel and our witness a disservice when we earn the reputation as a people who are closed-minded and unwilling to engage with beliefs that are different from our own.

So the next time you are given the opportunity to talk with someone whose views differ from yours, recognize it as a chance to grow and potentially help the other person to do the same.

Will you pray that God will give you just such an opportunity today?

 Friday news to know:

• President-elect Trump names Susie Wiles as his Chief of Staff
• Florida, South Dakota, and Nebraska become the first states to vote not to expand abortion rights since Roe v. Wade was overturned
• California wildfires force thousands to flee their homes
• Ancient Babylonian tablet may reveal the resting place of Noah’s Ark
• On this day in 1895: German scientist accidentally discovers X-rays

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

Quote of the day:

“You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” —Anne Lamott

Denison Forum

Why we want more of what we want most

Former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove called Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election “the most astonishing campaign in modern history.” After reading scores of reports on the results, I cannot find anyone who disagrees.

Analysts are citing the economy in general, inflation in particular, President Biden’s ego, Kamala Harris as a candidate, her failure to distinguish herself from Mr. Biden, vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, the Democratic Party, the media, and the American electorate.

However, one of the most insightful critiques I have found takes a completely different approach.

“This was no ordinary contest”

Daniel McCarthy is the editor of an intellectual journal called Modern Age: A Conservative Review. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, USA Today, the Spectator, the National Interest, and a variety of other publications. Immediately following Donald Trump’s re-election, he published a guest essay in the New York Times titled, “This Is Why Trump Won.”

He writes:

This was no ordinary contest between two candidates from rival parties: The real choice before voters was between Mr. Trump and everyone else—not only the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, and her party, but also Republicans like Liz Cheney, top military officers like Gen. Mark Milley and Gen. John Kelly (also a former chief of staff), outspoken members of the intelligence community, and Nobel Prize-winning economists.

Framed this way, the presidential contest became an example of what’s known in economics as “creative destruction.” His opponents certainly fear that Mr. Trump will destroy American democracy itself.

To his supporters, however, a vote for Mr. Trump meant a vote to evict a failed leadership class from power and recreate the nation’s institutions under a new set of standards that would better serve American citizens.

In this view, those who gave Mr. Trump and his party such a strong mandate want them to forge a different and better future for our nation than previous administrations from both parties have been able to create. I am not only convinced Mr. McCarthy is right—I think his explanation provides a vital, even crucial insight for Christians seeking to serve Jesus in our post-Christian culture.

We want more of what we want most

One sentiment all humans share is a longing for more. Even on our best days, we want more of what we want most. Plato explained this as our “soul” remembering its preincarnate life. An evolutionary approach would suggest that we seek to improve ourselves and our world to propagate ourselves and our species. Psychologists might point to the “idealized self,” the person we wish to be and strive to convince others that we are.

A biblical explanation is that we were created by God for a personal relationship with him in a perfect paradise. Our sin led to our expulsion from Eden; the story of humanity is our striving to return. This is by divine design—despite our fallen state, we still possess a deep desire for the “abundant” life our Father wants for his children (John 10:10).

What priorities does our Lord intend this longing to produce?

One: Improve this world for the common good.

Jeremiah’s letter to the exiles in Babylon is equally relevant to spiritual exiles wherever we live: “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lᴏʀᴅ on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jeremiah 29:7).

Two: Depend on God to do what we cannot.

The more we strive for a better world, the more frustrated we become when we fail. And the more we should then turn to the One who alone can change human hearts (2 Corinthians 5:17). Praying for the lost to be saved and for the saved to be sanctified is the most powerful way to serve both.

Three: Use this world to prepare for the eutopia to come.

1. S. Lewis observed, “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” As we serve the common good with the help of God, we realize that the good we seek most is available only in the world to come (cf. Romans 8:18). We then use this life to serve life eternal.

“People who have come to know the joy of God”

Here’s the problem: Satan loves to pervert all that God creates. In this context, he tempts us to invert our three priorities to align with our secularized culture:

1. Improve this life for self-serving purposes.
2. Depend on ourselves to do what others cannot.
3. Strive to make a utopia of this world.

Now you and I must choose every day between Satan’s strategy and our Father’s priorities. It’s not enough to want the latter—we must intentionally and strategically enact them and measure success by them every day.

The further our culture drifts from God’s word and favor, the more urgent such priorities become—for us and for the nation we’re called to reach with biblical truth and grace.

To this end, let’s consider an observation from Henri Nouwen:

People who have come to know the joy of God do not deny the darkness, but they choose not to live in it. They claim that the light that shines in the darkness can be trusted more than the darkness itself and that a little bit of light can dispel a lot of darkness. They point each other to flashes of light here and there, and remind each other that they reveal the hidden but real presence of God.

They discover that there are people who heal each other’s wounds, forgive each other’s offenses, share their possessions, foster the spirit of community, celebrate the gifts they have received, and live in constant anticipation of the full manifestation of God’s glory.

Will you “come to know the joy of God” today?

NOTE: What if this Christmas could be your most meaningful one yet? My wife Janet’s The Perfect Christmas devotional will guide you through daily reflections to help you reconnect with the true joy of Advent. When you give today, your generosity will help keep this Daily Article email coming to your inbox — and we’ll send you this 25-day book to thank you for your support.

Thursday news to know:

• Dow surges 1500 points to record, bonds tumble after Trump is elected president
• Iran’s currency falls to an all-time low as Trump clinches the US presidency
• German government coalition collapses as Scholz sacks Finance Minister Lindner
• Coal recovered from the Titanic and thousands of other historic shipwreck artifacts are going to auction
• On this day in 1944: FDR wins unprecedented fourth term

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

Quote for the day:

“For Christians, the present life is the closest they will come to hell. For unbelievers, it is the closest they will come to heaven.” —Randy Alcorn

Denison Forum

Viewing this moment through the lenses of history, culture, and Scripture

Donald Trump has been elected the forty-seventh president of the United States.

• The New York Times estimates he will win the Electoral College 312–226.
• At this writing, he is leading the popular vote 51 percent to 47 percent.
• Republicans are projected to take back the US Senate and posted early gains as they seek to retain control of the House of Representatives.
• Of the US counties with nearly complete results, more than 90 percent shifted in favor of Mr. Trump.

As more is known, we will have ample opportunity to analyze this historic outcome. For today, let’s step back for some larger perspective, seeking to view our nation and this moment through the lenses of history, culture, and Scripture.

Convening in the church choir loft

In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt issued a Thanksgiving Day Proclamation in which he stated: “In no other place and at no other time has the experiment of government of the people, by the people, for the people, been tried on so vast a scale as here in our own country.” His words are still true 121 years later.

America has now conducted its sixtieth presidential election, beginning with George Washington’s unanimous victory in 1789. However, our system of self-governance goes back much further: the colony of Jamestown elected “burgesses” (citizens who represented a “borough” or neighborhood) in 1619. The group then convened in the church choir loft.

Elective democracy both expresses and forges our national character. It is the natural outgrowth of our founding creed that “all men are created equal,” offering us a way to govern ourselves through a system that constrains autonomous authority while rewarding consensual leadership and morality.

However, it seems that the bonds of trust essential to our democratic experiment are weaker than at any time in my lifetime.

• Before yesterday’s election, security fencing was erected around the White House, the US Capitol, and Vice President Kamala Harris’ residence in Washington, DC.
• A large network of activists organized to monitor the elections, seeking either to protect the integrity of the results or to promote false claims of fraud, depending on your perspective.
• Survivalist communities have been established around the country, storing supplies and preparing for what they think could be a second civil war.
• Fears about the future of the nation are now our highest source of stress.

What explains such distrust and disillusionment?

Beware the “cult of happiness”

America’s founders intended our system of checks and balances to prevent a return to monarchy through unchecked individual power. But fallen human nature, with our “will to power” and drive to be our own gods (Genesis 3:5), cannot be fully constrained by human governance. Laws cannot enforce morality; politics cannot change human character.

In addition, today we can employ a vast array of tools for wielding power in ways the founders could never have envisioned. Social media platforms give our personal opinions unfiltered access to the world; artificial intelligence enables heretofore unimaginable tools for deception; advances in genomics could equip us to “edit” babies and “improve” our species.

Not to mention the growing secularization, materialism, and commercialization of our post-Christian society. In a brilliant essay analyzing our cultural moment, Walter Russell Mead warns:

The cult of happiness as interpreted by a society organized around the excitation and satisfaction of demand in a consumer economy is one of the most destructive features of the contemporary world.

Clearly, Mr. Trump is facing monumental challenges to the vibrancy and even the validity of our democracy. What can Christians do to help most effectively?

Where religion “ought to be brought”

Charles Spurgeon stated:

“I often hear it said, ‘Do not bring religion into politics.’ This is precisely where it ought to be brought.”

How do we “bring religion into politics” in our post-Christian, even anti-Christian culture? By first bringing politicians to our Lord. We are assured, “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” (James 5:16). To this end, I invite you to offer these biblical prayers for our president and nation:

• Pray for President Trump to seek God’s wisdom and to lead with biblical priorities and a servant’s heart. Pray for God to use him to unify our nation and to protect him and his administration from evil and to empower them for good (1 Timothy 2:1–2).
• Pray for Congress and other elected leaders to be women and men of godly character who set aside personal and partisan agendas to work together for the common good (John 13:14).
• Pray for America’s Christians and Christian leaders to be people of prayer, humility, and grace. Ask that we be empowered to speak the truth to our fallen culture in love (Acts 4:29–31; Ephesians 5:18).
• Pray for all Americans to honor our leaders, love each other, and “fear God” (1 Peter 2:17).
• Pray that you would be the change our nation needs to see today (Romans 12:1–2).

After thanking God for the provisions of liberty extended to America, Theodore prayed “for strength, and light, so that in the coming years we may with cleanliness, fearlessness, and wisdom, do our allotted work on the earth in such a manner as to show that we are not altogether unworthy of the blessings we have received.”

To this end, he prayed that “our hearts may be roused to war steadfastly for good and against all the forces of evil, public and private.”

Would you take a moment right now to pray his words for yourself, our president, and our nation?

NOTE: For more on the urgency of this cultural moment, please see my latest website article, “Is God on the ballot or are we? A reflection on divine judgment and our national future.”

Wednesday news to know:

• Netanyahu fires Gallant, names Israel Katz as defense minister
• “Walking pneumonia” is surging ahead of cold and flu season
• Ukraine’s Zelenskiy says clashes with North Korean troops “open page” to instability
• Tropical Storm Rafael expected to become a hurricane
• On this day in 1860: Abraham Lincoln elected president

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

Quote for the day:

“Pray for great things, expect great things, work for great things, but above all pray.” —R. A. Torrey

Denison Forum

What our fears about the future say about the future of our nation

Politicians and pundits on both sides of our deep partisan divide are warning us that if their party does not win tomorrow’s election, our democracy will be imperiled. Others are confident that this is not true. Renowned Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan assures us, “This intense season will pass, the losers will feel crushed, and we will forge our way through” as we have so often before. She reminds us that we’ve not given up on each other in the past and encourages us to keep our faith in democracy and in one another. Representing a different point on our political spectrum, McKay Coppins writes in the Atlantic, “This is not the end of America,” noting that democracy is less an institution than the people it serves.

On the eve of one of the most unique and consequential elections in American history, I’d like to suggest a third perspective, one that points to the hope transcending all that happens in and to our nation this week.

Two competing realities and three forms of governance

America’s founders were vitally aware of two competing realities. On one hand, as our Declaration of Independence declares, “All men are created equal,” an expression of the biblical fact that “God created man in his own image” (Genesis 1:27).

At the same time, they knew that as fallen people, none of us could be trusted with autonomous power. That’s why they created three separate but equal branches of government, each holding the other in check. This system can produce gridlock and 50–50 political divisions that some lament, but as political analyst Yuval Levin has noted, it also ensures that all are represented and none can have an unfair monopoly over others.

Of the three forms of governance—autocracy, theocracy, and democracy—the third is truest to our sacred but fallen human nature. The first depends on a single individual to rule well. The second depends on humans to infallibly interpret and exercise the divine will. The third depends on humans governing themselves and each other within the rule of law.

As America’s history shows, this model can see us through world wars, economic depressions, civil unrest, and massive technological and cultural disruptions.

“The deepest habit of mind in the contemporary world”

But there’s a potentially fatal flaw in this system: since we have no king or theocratic ruler greater than ourselves, since our government is “of the people, by the people, for the people,” we have no authority or power greater than ourselves to trust when confronting challenges greater than ourselves.

This fact can draw us closer to the One who alone can sustain, protect, and bless us, as it did for so many of our Founders. Or it can encourage an intensified but misguided faith in humanity.

Tragically, we are choosing the latter, replacing God with ourselves and a confidence in “progress” that C. S. Lewis called “universal evolutionism.” He described it this way:

The very formula of universal progress is from imperfect to perfect, from small beginnings to great endings, from the rudimentary to the elaborate, the belief which makes people find it natural to think that morality springs from savage taboos, adult sentiment from infantile sexual maladjustments, thought from instinct, mind from matter, organic from inorganic, cosmos from chaos.

According to Lewis, “This is perhaps the deepest habit of mind in the contemporary world.” In this view, science and human effort will solve our problems and things will inevitably get better.

But things are not inevitably getting better.

In recent days we’ve learned more about the threats of generative AI, another potential pandemic, Iranian nuclear weapons, North Korean missiles, Russian bioweapons, Chinese space weapons, continued terrorism, the rise of global war, and the growing menace of nuclear annihilation.

No wonder Americans are “weary, troubled, and nervous” and more fearful about the future than at any time in recent history. It’s not just that the threats seem greater—they are exposing the fallacy of trusting in ourselves to face them.

“There is nothing coming next”

The Wisdom of Sirach is a second-century BC book included in some versions of the Bible. Whether it should be considered canonical or not, its warning is both prescient and relevant:

Do not rely on your wealth or say, “I have enough.” Do not follow your inclination and strength in pursuing the desires of your heart. Do not say, “Who can have power over me?” (5:1–3).

A better approach is to declare with the prophet: “Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lᴏʀᴅ Gᴏᴅ is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation” (Isaiah 12:2).

In Brave by Faith: God-Sized Confidence in a Post-Christian World, pastor and author Alistair Begg writes:

God’s kingdom, and not my nation, is where we belong and where we will be at home, and if we confuse the two, we open ourselves up to confused loyalties and a compromised faith. We are in Babylon—and God is sovereign even here. Nothing is actually out of control and nothing is about to get out of control.

Unfortunately, he adds: “Too much of the public face of evangelicalism is characterized by vociferous, angry venting or panicking, rather than prayerful, humble, calm, and confident belief in a sovereign God who is in control of things.”

Instead, we should remember:

“We are being used to build the only kingdom that will last forever. There is nothing coming next. So, give your best to this kingdom. It may feel small, but it is never in vain, for this kingdom is eternal, and it is God’s.”

Whose kingdom will you trust and serve today?

Monday news to know:

• Rockets from Lebanon wound 11 in Israel
• Quincy Jones, giant of American music, dies at 91
• Spain’s flash flood victims caught in “worst natural catastrophe”
• Citing the pandemic, TGI Fridays files for bankruptcy
• On this day in 2008: Barack Obama elected as America’s first Black president

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

Quote for the day:

“God has a sovereignty over all his creatures and an exclusive right in them, and may make them serviceable to his glory in such a way as he thinks fit, in doing or suffering; and if God be glorified, either by us or in us, we were not made in vain.” —Matthew Henry

Denison Forum

Why a Roman Catholic conference offers an important lesson for all Christians

The Synod on Synodality sounds more like something from Monty Python or The Babylon Bee than a real gathering of church leaders. Yet, as Father Robert Sirico describes, some considered it to be “the most significant global event in the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s [and] will likely be the defining moment of Pope Francis’ pontificate.”

The Synod, which officially ended this past weekend, was a multi-year series of meetings in which the Catholic Church attempted to “reshape how the church functions by embracing a ‘synodal’ model—one where openness, transparency, and dialogue are central.”

Many understood synodal to mean a shift away from the emphasis on a “universal church” to one that saw Catholicism as more of a “communion of churches.” The move was intended to recognize the increasing diversity within the church and, as Father Giacomo Costa put it, help it to “serve as a hub where people of different backgrounds find unity as brothers and sisters, children of one Father.”

However, in the aftermath of the Synod’s conclusion, the question remains as to how well it achieved that goal.

Where diversity matters most

One of the most significant changes in emphasis from previous synods is that men and women from the church’s laity were invited to take part in the discussions and have their voices heard alongside the bishops. Moreover, representatives from Catholic churches around the globe were present as well to ensure that no region went without a voice in the proceedings.

Yet, a common refrain among many participants was that “for all the talk of openness, the synod’s process was, in fact, carefully controlled.” For example, while the participants reflected the diversity of the church, the leadership did not. Rather, the synod’s drivers hailed primarily from the more progressive side of Catholicism in terms of theology. And that ideological divide is just as, if not more, important than nationality, gender, or a host of other markers of diversity.

One of the primary reasons that the Catholic Church is trying to make room for greater diversity is that the divide between its progressive and conservative wings is nearing a potential breaking point. Schism is a word that has been floated far more frequently in recent years, and it’s not difficult to see why.

German priests started their own version of the synod in 2019 in an effort “to bring pressure on the synod in Rome to address some of the church’s most controversial issues: the decentralization of church authority, questions surrounding sexuality, the role of women, and the life and celibacy of priests.” The result of their meeting was a document calling for the adoption of more progressive views on each of those topics—views that align well with the culture in Europe and much of North America, but that are quite anathema to the rest of the world.

And while the final document from the Synod on Synodality largely avoided discussing such issues, the tension between those two parties should serve as a warning to Christians from every denomination.

When the culture moves on

You see, the progressive wing of the Catholic Church is responding largely to the precipitous drop in both membership and clergy in their areas of the world. Last year, Germany’s Bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck spoke of how in his fourteen years as the bishop of Essen, he has “buried almost 300 priests and ordained fifteen.” And that decline is mirrored in the larger population as well.

The culture seems to have moved on from the more traditional doctrines of the church, and the bishops feel the need to try to catch up in order to survive. However, in so doing, they have increasingly moved away from the traditions of the Catholic Church and, more importantly, the truth of Scripture. And the numbers would seem to indicate they have gained little for doing so.

After all, the only parts of the world where the Catholic Church is still growing and demonstrating consistent fruit are the parts that have not wavered in their commitment to biblical teaching on these more controversial issues. It would seem that attempts to placate the culture do little to make it more receptive to the gospel.

As Father Sirico perceptively noted, “It is a stark reminder that when the church loses its focus on its primary mission, it also risks losing its ability to speak meaningfully to the world.”

Maintaining that focus can be difficult, however, when fear begins to drive our decisions.

The church’s greatest strength

Paul’s admonition that “God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” is among his most oft-quoted teachings (2 Timothy 1:7). Yet, the context for that statement seems particularly relevant to our topic today.

It was only after reminding Timothy of the legacy of faithfulness that he received from his grandmother and his mother (2 Timothy 1:5) that Paul encouraged him to act from a place of God’s power, love, and self-control rather than from his fears. That legacy was meant to remind him that, regardless of his present difficulties, his faith was trustworthy and had proven itself effective in the past.

If Paul could say that based on the gospel’s effectiveness over a few decades, how much more should we believe it today nearly two thousand years later?

Is interest in the gospel declining across much of Europe and North America? Unfortunately yes. But is the problem with the gospel? Absolutely not.

So, as we attempt to help demonstrate our faith’s relevance and validity to the lost around us, we must be sure that we don’t compromise God’s truth in the process. To quote Father Sirico one more time:

“In a world that is increasingly fragmented and uncertain, the church’s strength lies not in its ability to adapt to every cultural shift, but in its steadfast commitment to the truth it has carried for over two millennia. The future of the church—and perhaps of the civilization it helped to build—depends on whether it can hold fast to that identity, even as it navigates the complexities of the modern world.”

Amen.

Friday news to know:

• PhD student discovers lost Mayan city in the jungles of Mexico
• Israel continues attacks outside of Beirut overnight.
• JD Vance sits down with Joe Rogan for a three-hour interview
• Dodgers and Yankees World Series gets the highest ratings in seven years
• On this day in 1512: The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is opened to the public

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

Quote of the day:

“Tradition means giving a vote to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead.” —GK Chesterton

Denison Forum

Spiritual warfare and our “primal identity”

You know you’re getting to a certain age when you are not familiar with a single one of the top Halloween costumes for this year. At the top of the list is Bob, a shrunken-headed ghost from the recent Beetlejuice sequel. Next comes viral breakdancer Raygun with the green and yellow tracksuit worn during the Australian’s controversial Olympics performance. In third place is CatNip, the cat-like monster from the video game series “Poppy Playtime.”’

You have to get to No. 11, “Chipotle burrito,” to find something I recognize. Sadly, Godzilla, one of my childhood favorites, has fallen to No. 25 on the list.

Here’s a Halloween theme with which I am unfortunately very familiar: the subject of spiritual warfare. Halloween always brings questions regarding Satan and the demonic. Long after the candy is consumed and the costumes are forgotten, these issues will be relevant to every heart and soul.

Spiritual battles are an inevitable part of life on this fallen planet. After Jesus defeated Satan in the wilderness, the devil “departed from him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13). Like Jesus, “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12).

If you’re like most of us, you win some of these battles and lose some. All the while, your soul longs for a way to sustain victory in the spiritual battles we face.

I discovered a step in this direction recently in a familiar story that impacted me in a new way.

“He is the living God, enduring forever”

In Daniel 6, the Babylonian king’s corrupt counselors persuaded him to issue a decree that the entire nation must pray only to him (v. 7). Daniel’s response, whereby “he got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously” (v. 10, my emphasis) cost him the lions’ den but led to God’s greater glory and the prophet’s greater service.

Note the words I italicized: Daniel was already in this habit and discipline, so when the test came, he could fall back on what he already knew and did.

Even King Darius knew that Daniel served God “continually” (vv. 16, 20). Daniel’s influence on the king was so profound that while Daniel spent the night in the lions’ den, the king spent it “fasting” as “sleep fled from him” (v. 18).

Of course, Daniel had no idea this was happening. When we are faithful to God, others see our faithfulness even when we are unaware of our influence. Oswald Chambers was right: the river touches shores the source never sees.

The result, as we know, was that Daniel was spared, his enemies were destroyed, and Darius made a new decree that “in all my royal dominion,” people were to pray not to him but to “the God of Daniel” (v. 26). This “pagan” king then testified:

He is the living God, enduring forever; his kingdom shall never be destroyed, and his dominion shall be to the end. He delivers and rescues; he works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth, he who has saved Daniel from the power of the lions (vv. 26–27).

Wouldn’t you love to have Daniels’ faith and spiritual power? Here’s the question: What motivated him to serve God so “continually” that he turned to him at the peril of his life?

“The farther away you are from the devil”

Years ago, I learned from Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline that the various spiritual disciplines do not earn God’s favor—they position us to experience his best. Like Daniel’s prayer life, they are the key to the spiritual power we need to defeat the Enemy.

But keeping these various disciplines can be a real challenge, especially in a culture that not only does not reward such faithfulness—it finds biblical truth and spirituality dangerous and actively opposes it.

The key is being able to say with the psalmist, “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day” (Psalm 119:97). The more we love God’s law, the more we will study it and be transformed by it. The writer could say this because he had come to delight in biblical truth: “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (v. 103). He could therefore pray, “Through your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way” (v. 104).

As we study God’s word, pray, worship, and experience other spiritual disciplines, we come to love the God whose word we study, to whom we pray, and whom we worship. Then our love for God empowers the disciplines by which we know him and make him known.

We act into feeling and, eventually, we experience feelings that empower our actions and godliness that defeats Satan is the result. As Billy Graham noted: “Stay close to Christ—because the closer you are to him the farther away you are from the devil.”

Claiming your “primal identity”

But what do we do when we don’t want to pray, read Scripture, or practice other spiritual disciplines in our daily lives? What do we do when we don’t love God enough to love his word and want to obey his will?

When David was fleeing from King Saul in the wilderness of Judea, he could nonetheless tell God, “My mouth will praise you with joyful lips” (Psalm 63:5). This is because he remembered what God had done for him in the past: “You have been my help” (v. 7a). He thought of what God will do for him in the future: “In the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy” (v. 7b). And he focused on what God was doing for him in the present: “My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me” (v. 8).

When we remember all that God has done, will do, and is doing in our lives, we are encouraged to love him in response to his love.

Henri Nouwen said of us, “You are not what others, or even you, think about yourself. You are not what you do. You are not what you have.” Rather, your “primal identity” is the “beloved daughter or son of a personal Creator.” He therefore encouraged us:

Try to choose to remain true to the truth of who you really are. Look in the mirror each day and claim your true identity. Act ahead of your feelings and trust that one day your feelings will match your convictions. Choose now and continue to choose this incredible truth.

When we know how deeply we are loved, we are empowered to love the One who loves us. This love then empowers our desire to read and obey his word. Reading and obeying his word equips us to resist temptation and defeat the Enemy.

Such a lifestyle offers sustained victory by which we can declare daily,

“We are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).

So here’s the question: Will you “remain true to the truth of who you really are” today?

Denison Forum

“You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”

I seldom encourage readers to avoid particular movies, fearing that the added attention may hurt more than it helps. But I want to urge you not to see Conclave, despite the acclaim and even Oscar “buzz” the film is receiving.

My warning stems from reading the book upon which the movie is based. Robert Harris is one of my favorite novelists; his blending of historical facts and plot twists has made him a bestselling author. But Conclave, which focuses on the event of that name during which a new pope is elected, could not be more disparaging of the Catholic Church (one Catholic reviewer called it “a mockery of our faith”). Or more “woke” in its wildly implausible ending.

But that’s not the main reason I hope you won’t see the film (or read the book).

“Take every thought captive to obey Christ”

Scripture urges us to guard our minds against deception:

• “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things (Philippians 4:8).
• “We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).
• “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:2).
• “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2).

In this context, my primary concern with Conclave is that the book and movie are so well done that they are highly convincing and effectively deceptive. Like Dan Brown’s equally misleading and damaging novels/movies (The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons), we want the stories to be true. We feel compelled to believe the deceptions we are being told.

This is intentional. Edward Berger, who directed Conclave, told the New York Times:

In the end, not everything is known, but that gives you license to interpret and invent, and that’s what I love in filmmaking. It’s not necessarily the truth, but it resembles your interpretation of the truth, and ideally, I can take you on that journey and have you be engaged (my emphasis).

Remember: Christ is “the truth” (John 14:6, my emphasis). God’s word “is truth” (John 17:17; note the present tense). Jesus promised us, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31–32, my emphases).

The most dangerous lies are the ones that seem closest to the truth. Why is this fact so urgent?

Four responses to our broken culture

Today is Halloween, the eve of All Saints Day, and Reformation Day. Let’s consider the spiritual differences between them.

Halloween is one of America’s most popular holidays; retailers expect us to spend more than $12 billion on it this year. It is also a secular holiday with little reference to biblically redemptive themes (as my wife’s latest blog humorously and effectively points out). In fact, while trick-or-treating can be innocent fun, we should also remember that we are prohibited by Scripture from engaging in the occult (Leviticus 19:31) or doing anything that would glorify Satan (John 8:44; 10:10). (For more, I invite you to listen to my podcast with Dr. Mark Turman, “Should Christians celebrate Halloween?”)

Tomorrow is All Saints Day, observed each year on November 1. (The term Halloween is derived from “All-Saints Eve.”) Catholics and other Christian traditions will use the day to remember the saints of Christian history and learn from their examples. Hebrews 11, with its famous “hall of faith,” is a biblical example of such inspiration.

October 31 is also Reformation Day, marking the day in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Chapel in Germany. As Dr. Ryan Denison notes, Luther did not intend to lead a movement out of the church, but rather to help correct its abuses and faults. Only when the authorities rejected his call for reform was he forced into the movement that became the Protestant Reformation.

Our conversation to this point offers four ways to respond to our anti-Christian culture:

1. We can oppose the church and its message as persuasively and deceptively as possible.
2. We can ignore its teachings, focusing on secular traditions instead.
3. We can celebrate the best of the church without considering its weaknesses and faults.
4. We can seek to correct and reform the church—and ourselves—so that we are what God wants us to be.

The five “solas” of our faith

My wife and I attend a Bible study each Sunday morning at our church. Last Sunday, our teacher reminded the class of the five solas central to Luther’s Reformation:

• Sola Scriptura: The Bible is our sole authority.
• Sola Fide: Salvation is found by faith in Christ alone.
• Solus Christus: Salvation is found in Christ alone.
• Sola Gratia: Salvation is the gift of God’s grace, not the result of human merit.
• Soli Deo Gloria: Salvation is the work of God for his glory.

Reformation Day is a good day to measure ourselves by these vital tenets of our faith. Are we thinking and living biblically at all personal costs? Are we claiming our status as God’s beloved solely on the basis of his grace and not our merits? Are we seeking his glory over our own?

If so, God will use us to continue reforming his church and proclaiming his truth to our deceived and deceiving culture. And we can claim the promise of Isaiah’s prayer:

“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you” (Isaiah 26:3).

Will you experience God’s “perfect peace” today?

NOTE: For more on today’s theme, I invite you to read my latest website article, “What are the top Halloween costumes this year? Spiritual warfare and our ‘primal identity.’”

Thursday news to know:

• Supreme Court allows Virginia to purge voter rolls ahead of the election
• US economy grew at a 2.8% pace in the third quarter, less than expected
• Job openings plunge to lowest level since 2021 as US labor market loses steam
• How the Houthis went from ragtag rebels to global threat
• On this day in 1776: King George gives first parliamentary address after the Declaration of Independence

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

Quote for the day:

“The providence of God is the way in which he governs everything wisely, first for the glory of his own name, and second for the ultimate blessing of his children.” —Sinclair Ferguson

Denison Forum

How and why to trust God when we don’t understand him

More than 69 percent of Americans say they are stressed over next week’s presidential election. Here are five reasons:

1. Our elections are longer and more expensive than ever before, causing many to tire of all the ads and worry about the influence of donors on politicians.
2. Over 70 percent of Americans are concerned about election violence and the future of democracy.
3. Trust in the media to report election news fairly and accurately has fallen to an all-time low; the recent furor over newspaper endorsements illustrates the controversy in which many in the media find themselves.
4. Three-fourths of Americans are worried about the future of our nation and the economy.
5. Nearly half of all voters are skeptical that self-governance is working in America today.

Yesterday we distinguished between the secularist ambition to create a humanistic utopia that does not exist and the biblical ambition to advance a spiritual eutopia (meaning “the good place”) that improves the present while preparing for the eternal. Today we are faced with a third option: a dystopia in which “people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives.”

How do we pray effectively in times like these?

“A door slammed in your face”

If you’re like me, there have been times when you prayed in the midst of pain and adversity, but God did not give the answers for which you pled. It seems that sometimes, as C. S. Lewis felt in grieving the death of his wife, there is “a door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence.”

Why is this?

Paul wrote, “We do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26). Commenting on this text, St. Augustine noted that Paul suffered a “thorn in the flesh” that led him to pray three times for God to remove it (2 Corinthians 12:7–8). However, God did not answer Paul’s prayer as he asked, but instead taught him, “My power is made perfect in weakness” (v. 9).

According to Augustine, this episode shows that “when we are suffering afflictions that might be doing us either good or harm, we do not know how to pray as we ought.” As a result, we should pray and trust God for what is best, since “it might be that what we have been asking for could have brought us some still greater affliction, or it could have brought us the kind of good fortune that brings corruption and ruin.”

His wise words remind me of the time Billy Graham asked a young woman to marry him. She accepted his proposal but later rejected him. He was heartbroken and could not understand why God allowed this. Then he met Ruth.

One day in heaven, and perhaps long before then, you and I will be able to understand why God answered our prayers in the ways he did (cf. 1 Corinthians 13:12). In the meantime, we can bank on the fact that “God is love” (1 John 4:8) and that his character does not change (Malachi 3:6). His nature therefore requires him to answer us in whatever ways are best, whether we understand his answers on this side of paradise or not.

What are some practical ways this conversation can help us in hard times?

Two facts to remember for “unanswered” prayers

One: God loves us even when it seems he does not.

No one blames me when they contract cancer. But imagine I had an antidote that would heal any malignancy but refused to give it to anyone who asked for it. Isn’t this how we sometimes feel about God when he doesn’t seem to meet our needs? At such times, remembering that our Father’s character requires him to act only and always for our best can be the assurance that sustains us. The fault is neither with him nor with us.

One day Charles Spurgeon was walking with a friend through the English countryside when they came upon a barn with a weather vane on its roof. At the top of the vane were the words, “GOD IS LOVE.” Spurgeon remarked that this was inappropriate, stating, “Weather vanes are changeable, but God’s love is constant.”

His friend replied, “You misunderstood the meaning. The sign is indicating a truth: regardless of which way the wind blows, God is love.”

Two: God gives us what we ask or whatever is best.

A corollary question arises in challenging times: What if I don’t know how best to pray? What if I’m asking for the wrong things or not asking for the right things?

John Wesley claimed, “God does nothing except in response to believing prayer.” I’m not sure this is always true—Jesus healed a demoniac before the man had the capacity to pray, for example (Mark 5:1–20). But to the degree it is, we worry that prayers that are seemingly unanswered are therefore wrongly prayed (cf. James 4:2–3).

However, as Augustine noted, we can know that God’s answers are always for our best. If what we ask could have brought us “some still greater affliction” or “the kind of good fortune that brings corruption and ruin,” we can be grateful that he did not give us what we asked.

“Though he slay me, yet will I trust him”

But, there’s a but: What about horrible, heinous things that happen to God’s people? Surely the Christians who were beheaded by ISIS prayed for deliverance, as did their families. What about believers who similarly prayed to be spared the wrath of recent hurricanes but lost everything?

Here I must fall back on what I know of God’s character: He is omniscient, knowing our every need (Matthew 6:8); he is omnipotent, able to meet our every need (Philippians 4:19); and he is omnibenevolent, wanting only our best (1 John 4:8; Psalm 86:15). I also know that his thoughts are higher than my thoughts (Isaiah 55:9), so that there are many times when I am unable to understand his providence.

And I believe that God redeems for a greater good all he allows. I must therefore believe that our Father redeems even horrible grief and tragedy, whether we can understand his redemption in this life or not. In the meantime, I know that he grieves as we grieve (John 11:35) and walks with us through the hardest places of life (Isaiah 43:1–3).

It comes to this: When God does not do what we want him to do, we can reject him in pain and doubt, or we can bring our pain and doubt to him, trusting his heart when we do not see his hand (cf. Mark 9:24). If we choose the former, we forfeit what his omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent grace can do for us. If we choose the latter, saying with Job, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him” (Job 13:15 NKJV), we experience his best within his eternal providence.

St. Augustine advised us:

“Trust the past to God’s mercy, the present to God’s love, and the future to God’s providence.”

Will you do all three today?

Wednesday news to know:

• Hezbollah announces Naim Qassem as new leader
• Astronauts on the ISS warned of urgent evacuation as NASA monitors 50 “areas of concern” including 5-year leak
• Historic Biltmore Estate, “largest home in America,” will reopen in time for holidays post-Hurricane Helen impact
• North Korea and Russia send political shockwaves with Ukraine war moves
• On this day in 1938: Orson Welles’s “War of the Worlds” radio play is broadcast

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

Quote for the day:

“More secret than diplomacy, deeper than the investigations of the wise, and mightier than all the kingly power, is the providence of God.” —John Broadus

Denison Forum

What George Washington can teach us about reliance on Providence

For ninety-eight years, Neiman Marcus published a gift catalog they’ve called the “Christmas Book.” This year, for the first time, it will be known as the “Holiday Book.”

The Dallas Morning News reports that the book’s name was changed “in the spirit of inclusivity as it welcomes customers of all backgrounds, religions, and traditions to celebrate the season.”

To which we might ask: Without Christmas, what “season”?

Imagine publishing a wedding or baby gift book without acknowledging the existence of weddings or babies. But such is the logic of secularism: it “frees” us as creatures to deny the existence or relevance of our Creator, to imagine ourselves as the masters of our lives even though we did not bring ourselves into this world and cannot prevent the day we leave it.

Despite our obvious and painful finitude, we somehow believe we have the freedom and power to assess the past, control the present, and imagine the future according to our personal beliefs. From those who are reinterpreting American history through their critical theory lenses to those who feel free to define marriage as they wish, end the lives of preborn babies as they choose, and reject faith in “God as described in the Bible,” we are increasingly a post-Christian and even post-Christmas culture.

How did we get here?

What can we do about it today?

“Utopia” or “eutopia”?

Cultural commentator Jonah Goldberg recently wrote that the Judeo-Christian worldview bequeathed to Western culture a number of foundational tenets, including science (from the belief that a single creator made a universe that is predictable and rule-driven) and universal brotherhood (from the belief that we are “all sons of God”). However, there’s an unpopular side to the biblical worldview: It also claims that humans are finite and fallen, a perspective that Goldberg calls the “tragic” vision.

In his telling, we need “custom, tradition, experience, history, religion, and social hierarchy” (a list he borrows from Edmund Burke) to improve our state in this broken world. Nor does human nature change for the better over time. As Goldberg notes, “We can get better—or worse—at making cathedrals and skyscrapers, but the bricks never stop being bricks.” The social and cultural progress we have made is “not stored in our genes, but in institutions and traditions.”

By contrast, what Goldberg calls the “utopian” vision claims that humans using unaided reason and the tools of science can improve themselves and their world without relying upon the institutions and traditions they insist are holding us back. Many point to damage caused by these institutions and traditions (Jim Crow laws, clergy abuse, etc.) as evidence for their position.

Many secularists think they can invent new rituals to do what religion used to do. Like Aristotle, they believe they can locate the transcendent in the imminent, using what is human to do what was once thought to be divine.

But take the “Holiday Book” as an example. Are materialistic gifts really the deepest meaning of Christmas? Can presents that perish give the gift of eternal life? And who, by using unaided human reason, would have conceived of a God who became one of us that we might be one with him? Of a Creator of the universe who chose to be born as a helpless baby and die on a cruel cross for your sins and mine?

According to Goldberg, we must choose between striving for utopia (which literally means “no place” because it cannot exist) and eutopia (which means “the good place”). The eutopian “looks at the world as it is in front of his or her face and says, ‘I can make this better.’”

The question, of course, is how.

“When I fall, I shall rise”

The graphic designer and illustrator Seymour Chwast noted: “If you dig a hole and it’s in the wrong place, digging it deeper isn’t going to help.”

In a time of grave immorality (Micah 6:16–7:6), when it seemed that “there is no one upright among mankind” (v. 2), the prophet responded: “As for me, I will look to the Lᴏʀᴅ; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me” (Micah 7:7). He then boldly declared:

“Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lᴏʀᴅ will be a light to me” (v. 8).

No matter how deep your darkness, you can make Micah’s declaration yours today.

If you forsake self-reliance for Spirit-dependence, turning from “holidays” to “Christmas” and from Santa Claus to Jesus Christ, asking your Father to sustain you in your challenges and redeem your trials for his glory and your good, he will “supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

And you’ll help build eutopia in this world, leading to utopia in the next.

When George Washington was “wearied almost to death”

I’ll close with an example.

According to historian Douglas Bradburn, the British army fighting in the American War for Independence grew to 190,000 soldiers toward the end of the conflict. The British also had the largest navy in the world, with over five hundred ships.

By contrast, the Americans had no navy at all. George Washington never commanded more than sixteen thousand healthy troops at one time. He was typically outnumbered at least two-to-one in every battle he contested. While he fought seventeen different battles during the war, he won only six.

At one point at the end of 1776, when his army had dwindled to about three thousand men and he was being chased by the British across New Jersey, he wrote a letter to his brother in which he despaired of the future, saying, “I am wearied almost to death with the retrograde motion of things.”

As a result, Washington regularly invoked divine authority for help because he thought the war effort was otherwise impossible. He wrote, “I look upon every dispensation of Providence as designed to answer some valuable purpose.” And he sought to “inculcate a due sense of the dependence we ought to place in that all-wise and powerful Being, on whom alone our success depends.”

On whom does your “success” depend today?

NOTE: For more on the urgency of depending fully on God, please read my latest website article, “Trading the ‘American Dream’ for the ‘heavenly vision’: The antidote to financial stress.”

Tuesday news to know:

• US approves $2 billion in arms sales to Taiwan including advanced missile defense system
• Fires set in drop boxes destroy hundreds of ballots in Washington and damage 3 in Oregon
• Israel wants more peace deals with Arab countries after war, Netanyahu says
• On a hurricane-ravaged Appalachian Trail, vast damage and uncertainty
• On this day in 1998: John Glenn returns to space

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

Quote for the day:

“I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.” —Martin Luther

Denison Forum

When Johanna Olson-Kennedy and her team began their research into the effects of puberty blockers on children in 2015, the research was supposed to last for two years. Yet, as Azeen Ghorayshi of The New York Times reports, neither she nor her team have published their findings nearly a decade later.

When asked why, Olson-Kennedy stated, “I do not want our work to be weaponized.” Those concerns stem from the fact that the study found the 95 children recruited to participate did not show signs of improved well-being as a result of the puberty blockers.

In response, Olson-Kennedy argued that the lack of impact was due to the children being well-adjusted before beginning the trial. In 2020, however, she stated that roughly a quarter of the kids were depressed with significant anxiety and suicidal tendencies.

The negative response toward the decision to withhold the results of “the largest grant that’s ever been awarded in the US on the subject” isn’t sitting well with the scientific community, including those who are generally supportive of transgender rights.

Erica Anderson, a clinical psychologist and transgender youth expert, noted that Olson-Kennedy’s refusal to publish her findings is “contrary to the scientific method. You do research, and then you disclose what the results are. You don’t change them, you don’t distort them, and you don’t reveal or not reveal them based on the reactions of others.”

And that is especially the case when negative reactions to the research appear to be justified. After all, Olson-Kennedy’s research is not the first to point to puberty blockers being a poor way to address gender dysphoria in kids.

The US trails the world

Similar research was conducted in England a little more than a decade ago, and both were attempts to mirror the findings of a study from the Netherlands in the 1990s and 2000s. That study, released in 2011, found that children with persistent gender dysphoria experienced fewer depressive symptoms and improved behavioral and emotional states after receiving puberty blockers.

As Ghoravshi describes, “The findings were highly influential even before they were published, and clinics around the world opened to treat transgender adolescents with puberty blockers and hormones.”

The problem is that no other study has been able to replicate those results. In fact, the only consistent findings are that puberty blockers can negatively impact bone growth and result in fertility loss in the children who take them.

As a result, the National Health Service in England has stopped prescribing them outside of clinical trials, and several other European countries have done the same.

In fact, the United States is one of the few countries left where puberty blockers are still used to treat children who claim to have gender dysphoria. And, at this point, it seems clear the decision to do so is motivated by politics more than science or a genuine desire to help hurting kids.

The line between confidence and conceit

I bring this story up today because I believe it’s important, particularly on politically and culturally charged issues, to remember that there are empirical reasons to believe that the Bible is correct. Whether it’s transgenderism, abortion, homosexuality, or a number of other topics about which Scripture disagrees with the views of modern America, we don’t simply have to take God’s Word on faith. And that should give us the confidence necessary to hold fast to his Word, regardless of what those around us may think.

That said, the line between confidence and conceit can become awfully fine when we get defensive in the face of attacks from those who disagree. And staying on the right side of that line is crucial to maintaining our witness in the world around us.

After all, as important as these issues are—and I do believe they are very important—they are not essential to salvation, and we err when elevating them to a higher level of significance than God does.

Scripture clearly states that the only beliefs necessary for salvation are that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9). And keeping that list of essentials as short as Scripture does is important for two primary reasons.

Unessential does not mean unimportant

First, only God gets to decide what’s essential to the gospel. His word is quite clear that any attempts—regardless of how well-intentioned they may be—to add to it places us in opposition to the Lord. For proof, we need look no further than the Judaizers, who genuinely believed that they were helping Gentile believers by elevating some of the most historic and widely agreed upon elements of the Law to the gospel that Paul taught (Galatians 2).

When we add a particular belief about transgenderism, abortion, social justice, or any of the other hot-button issues of our day to the core teachings of the gospel, we make a similar mistake. And, ironically, we often diminish their importance in the process.

Second, only what God’s Word deems essential should be central to our beliefs. You see, we need to keep the list of essentials as small as Scripture does because if we elevate beliefs beyond where the Bible places them, it reduces the significance of any topic that does not make our list.

Unessential does not mean unimportant, yet that is how it often seems when every issue that is important to us is deemed a key determinant of who is saved and who is not. The truth is that every false belief we have about God lowers the ceiling on how close we can be in our walk with him. As such, there is no unimportant belief when it comes to who he is or how he calls us to see the world around us.

Even though Christians can disagree on these issues without having to question the other’s salvation, getting them right is still crucial to a thriving relationship with God. That’s why it’s part of our calling to not only hold to a biblical view on these subjects but also to help others do the same (Matthew 28:20).

We just need to be careful not to confuse those subjects with the gospel in the process.

NOTE: In just a few days, your opportunity to receive the Respectfully, I Disagree and How Does God See America? political resource bundle will be gone. And while the election will soon be over, the noise and chaos won’t stop — no matter who wins the White House. Receive these impactful resources as our gift to thank you for your donation of $25 or more. Don’t miss out — get your political bundle today.

Friday news to know:

• North Korean soldiers have joined the fight against Ukraine
• Former President Trump to appear on Joe Rogan’s podcast
• Billy Joel is selling his $49.9 million mansion on Long Island
• Russell Moore on the dangers of “cheap hope”
• On this day in 1400: Geoffrey Chaucer—author of The Canterbury Tales—dies in England

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

Quote for the day:

“Christians have to discern between the bad traditions we must change and the inconvenient truths that must change us. Scripture is our guide, not the world and our individual ‘truths.’” — Justin Giboney

Denison Forum

The downside of legislating morality and God’s path to joyful transformation

A new analysis shows that abortions have increased in nearly every state that banned abortion, as women responded to these bans by traveling to clinics in states where abortions were legal or ordering abortion pills online.

Legislating morality is essential to a functioning society, or we cannot have speed limits and prohibitions against murder. But it doesn’t necessarily make us more moral. For example, despite laws against sex trafficking, prostitution, and abusing the elderly and those with disabilities:

• Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO has been arrested on sex trafficking and interstate prostitution charges.
• Popular culture is continuing to normalize prostitution, euphemistically calling it “sex work.”
• Elderly dementia patients are unknowingly fueling political campaigns.
• American Airlines has been fined $50 million for mistreating passengers with disabilities.

If laws are not enough, how do we change a broken culture?

Why we don’t know what we don’t know

One approach is called the “October Theory.” The Wall Street Journal explains that “people are using the beginning of fall as the best time to reset their goals and values.”

Another approach is to treat politics like religion. New York Times columnist David Brooks observes: “In an increasingly secular age, political parties are better seen as religious organizations that exist to provide believers with meaning, membership, and moral sanctification.” Many invest in political parties and candidates in the belief that they will make the world that is into the world they wish to see.

Yet another approach is to define ourselves by what we do and then work hard at it. Psychologists call this “enmeshment.” In this view, our value lies in what we achieve, so the more we achieve, the more valuable we become. And the more we engage with the world, the better the world becomes.

Each of these approaches centers on the belief that humans can improve humanity if we only try hard enough for long enough. One source of this belief goes back to Plato, who saw the human soul as comprised of a white horse, a black horse, and a man as the “charioteer” driving himself through life. As a rational “lover of wisdom,” he controls the darker self (motivated by desires such as greed, vanity, and short-term gain) and the lighter self (representing honor and nobility).

The problem comes when the charioteer cannot control both horses. In our “post-truth” culture, we have an even greater problem when we cannot distinguish one from the other.

The Dunning-Kruger effect states that people who lack expertise in something will necessarily lack the knowledge needed to recognize their own limits. In other words, we don’t know what we don’t know. Now research is demonstrating a corollary fact: People have a strong tendency to believe that they already have enough data to make an informed decision, whether they actually have that information or not.

In other words, we don’t know what we don’t know, but we think we do.

“The hungry soul he fills with good things”

David offered a better charioteer reference than Plato’s famous analogy: “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lᴏʀᴅ our God” (Psalm 20:7). Why should we join him?

The Bible proclaims that “the Lord God Omnipotent reigns!” (Revelation 19:6 NKJV) and that his “kingdom is an everlasting kingdom” (Psalm 145:13). Because he can “do all things” (Job 42:2), “what is impossible with man is possible with God” (Luke 18:27).

This is good news because “the Lᴏʀᴅ is good to all” (Psalm 145:9) since his “steadfast love endures forever” (Psalm 107:1). We are therefore assured that “he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things” (v. 9).

Even when “some were fools through their sinful ways, and because of their iniquities suffered affliction” (v. 17), “they cried to the Lᴏʀᴅ in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction” (vv. 19–20). Accordingly, you and I can “be strong and courageous” since we know that “with us is the Lᴏʀᴅ our God, to help us and to fight our battles” (2 Chronicles 32:7, 8).

“No other explanation for our joy”

We have focused this week on the transformation only the living Lord Jesus can make in our lives. When we yield every day to God’s Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), asking Jesus to continue his earthly ministry through us, he changes us and he changes the world through us (cf. Colossians 1:27).

One telltale result is the joy that the Spirit produces in us (Galatians 5:22), whatever our circumstances might be. In First15, our ministry’s daily devotional resource, we read:

We are not designed to have joy in ourselves. Rather, such joy comes by the dwelling of the Holy Spirit within us. As the disciples began to be filled with the Holy Spirit, their lives changed dramatically. They went from fearful, fair-weathered followers of Jesus to joy-filled, sacrificial, and empowered world changers. They had joy in the midst of intense persecution because they had the Holy Spirit filling them with the fruit of his indwelling.

We have the same Holy Spirit the disciples had, and he longs to do the same kind of works in you and me today as he did in them thousands of years ago. He longs to fill us with joy in the midst of any trial or pain. He longs to heal and transform our hearts into greater reflections of God’s goodness. He longs to make us a people so joyful that there is no other explanation for our joy other than God is with us.

When Jesus is living his joyful life in us, we are able to testify to the world,

“The joy of the Lᴏʀᴅ is your strength.”

What—or Who—is your “strength” today?

NOTE: For more on transforming power to worship and trust God in even the worst of days, please see my new website article, “The deep-sea service that keeps your internet running.”

Thursday news to know:

• McDonald’s Quarter Pounder linked to severe E. coli outbreak in US
• Terrorist attack hits major defense facility in Turkey
• LeBron, Bronny James play together in Lakers season opener; first father-son duo to share court in NBA history
• Shohei Ohtani’s 50^th home run ball sells for record-setting $4.392 million in auction
• On this day in 1945: the United Nations is born

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

Quote for the day:

“Upon a life I did not live, upon a death I did not die, I risk my whole eternity on the resurrection.” —Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Denison Forum

Choosing what we want most over what we want now

Nearly six thousand students recently gathered for a mass worship event at Mississippi State University this month. In September 2023, five thousand students attended a mass worship service at Auburn University’s Neville Arena, and two hundred were spontaneously baptized. The event sparked a movement called “Unite US.” Over two thousand salvations and more than eight hundred baptisms have taken place at its events on American campuses over the last year.

We should rejoice at such good news at a time when pro-Palestinian protests and “woke” ideology continue to embroil many schools.

“We have such a need for love”

Charles Dickens famously wrote, “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” He could have been reading today’s news:

• Yahya Sinwar’s death was “a good day for Israel, for the United States, and for the world,” but Hezbollah and Iran vowed to escalate their war against Israel.
• Migrant crossings have plunged at the US–Mexico border, but the border crisis has led to an explosion in forced prostitution of immigrants in the US.
• The Economist calls America’s economy “bigger and better than ever,” but an aging population, the rise of artificial intelligence, and the “rewiring of the global economy” threaten our future.

The juxtaposition of good news and bad, of pleasure and pain, illustrates C. S. Lewis’s observation: “Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.”

Here’s our cultural dilemma: since secularized people see these “inns” as, in the words of George Clooney, “the only thing I know to exist,” they “mistake them for home.” According to Henri Nouwen, this fallacy is “the source of much of the suffering in our contemporary society”:

We have such a need for love that we often expect from our fellow human beings something that only God can give, and then we quickly end up being angry, resentful, lustful, and sometimes even violent. As soon as the first commandment is no longer truly the first, our society moves to the edge of self-destruction.

The way off this “edge” is both countercultural and deeply transformative.

“Walk by faith, not by sight”

God uses suffering to show us that this world is neither our home nor a reliable source of happiness. He does this because, as C. S. Lewis noted in The Problem of Pain, “God, who has made us, knows what we are and that our happiness lies in him.” He therefore must remove false sources of happiness so we will turn to the only one that is true.

I have experienced this principle personally. So long as I can trust in any source of happiness but God, I tend to do so. This is because I want to be my own god (Genesis 3:5), to exercise my “will to power” to attain the happiness I long to experience. I don’t want to give up control of my life to a God whose idea of happiness may be different than mine. Nor do I want to pay a price for happiness that seems greater than the reward it brings.

But this is only because I so often forget who I am and who God is. I forget that my mind is finite while his is omniscient and that my desires are sinful while his are holy. I forget that the God who “is” love (1 John 4:8) loves me more than I can love myself and that he can only want what is my absolute best. And I forget that the cost of trusting and serving him is always less than the benefit to me and to his kingdom.

In such times, I must choose what I want most—to love and please my Father—over what I want now. I must choose to “walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7).

“Rebels who must lay down our arms”

Such obedience is not only vital to our happiness—it is also the only path to knowing God fully and making him known to the world. One of my mentors encouraged me to “stay faithful to the last word you heard from God and open to the next.” Scripture illustrates the wisdom of his words:

• Abraham followed God’s call “not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8), and God used him to establish the Jewish nation.
• The disciples obeyed Jesus’ command to “stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49), and they soon experienced the Pentecost miracle that sparked the Church and changed the world (Acts 2).
• Paul followed God’s “Macedonian call” (Acts 16:6–10) and brought the gospel to the Western world.
• John was “in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day” (Revelation 1:10), and he met the risen Christ and received the book of Revelation.

If you and I want to experience the abundant life of Christ in this world (John 10:10) and the praise and reward of God in the next (Matthew 25:23), if we would know Christ and make him known in ways that transform our souls and our society, we must agree with Lewis:

“We are not merely imperfect creatures who must be improved; we are, as Newman said, rebels who must lay down our arms.”

The more holistic our submission to our Lord, the more we become like our holy Lord (Romans 8:29) as he continues his earthly ministry through us. Then, no matter the challenges we face, we discover that “we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (v. 37).

“The work for which I am best fitted”

Let’s close with an example.

Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky (1831–1906) was born in Lithuania. He went to Germany for rabbinic studies, where he became a Christian. He then emigrated to America, trained for the priesthood, and in 1859 was sent by the Episcopal Church to China. He spent 1862 to 1875 translating the Bible into Mandarin. Two years later, he began translating the Scriptures into Wenli (the classical Chinese style of writing).

He developed Parkinson’s disease, became largely paralyzed, and spent the rest of his life completing his Wenli Bible, the last two thousand pages of which he typed with the one finger that he could still move. Four years before his death he said, “I have sat in this chair for over twenty years. It seemed very hard at first. But God knew best. He kept me for the work for which I am best fitted.”

Will you do the work for which you are “best fitted” today?

Monday news to know:

• Netanyahu says he is undeterred after reported drone attack on his home
• 3 killed and 8 injured by gunfire following a Mississippi school’s football game
• Multiple people killed after helicopter crashes into radio tower in Houston
• Cuba restores power to one-fifth of population after nationwide blackouts
• On this day in 1959: Guggenheim Museum opens in New York City

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

Quote for the day:

“Use me, God. Show me how to take who I am, who I want to be, and what I can do, and use it for a purpose greater than myself.” —Martin Luther King Jr.

Denison Forum

Last year, the FDA approved the first nonprescription daily oral contraceptive. Now the Biden administration is proposing a rule that would make over-the-counter birth control and condoms free for the first time.

In 1960, the FDA approved the first birth control pill, enabling women to have sex with less fear of an unwanted pregnancy. This was an early step in the so-called “sexual revolution.” Others followed:

• In 1962, Helen Gurley Brown’s book Sex and the Single Girl encouraged single women to be sexually active.
• Betty Friedan’s book The Feminine Mystique (1963) argued that women should find identity and meaning in their lives apart from their husbands and children.
• The legalization of abortion in 1973 further enabled women to have sex without having to raise unwanted children.
• Abortion pills are now widely available as well and are used in more than 60 percent of all abortions.

The first sexual revolution separated sex from marriage. The second sexual revolution is now separating sex from people. The plague of pornography and virtual reality porn is making it easier than ever for people to divorce sex from a physical relationship with others.

As we noted yesterday, medical and technological innovations continue to lower barriers to immorality that have existed for generations. We could try to erect new barriers, such as enacting laws that limit the availability of abortion and installing pornography blockers on our devices. These would be helpful, of course, but human efforts cannot truly change human hearts.

Rick Warren was right: “I want to change my circumstances. God wants to change me.”

How?

“The first godless culture in human history”

English writer Paul Kingsnorth recently published a brilliant analysis explaining how “modernity has descended into a spiritual void.” After charting the path that led us here, he writes that we now “live in a culture without faith.” He explains:

We believe in nothing. Most significantly, we are now even ceasing to believe in the ideas which arose to replace all the religions in the age of “Enlightenment.” Reason, progress, liberalism, freedom of speech, democracy, the enlightened rational individual, the scientific process as a means of determining truth: everywhere, these “secular” beliefs which were supposed to replace religion worldwide are either under fire or have already fallen too.

Accordingly, he notes, “We are perhaps the first godless culture in human history.” He adds, “Religious cosmologies have differed vastly across time and space, but no society has ever existed without one.”

Nonetheless, Kingsnorth offers hope:

Despite it all, we should be of good cheer. For the Void is, by its nature, a time-limited phenomenon. Precisely because it is empty, it cannot last. The Void is a phase; it is the place you come to after the end of a culture, and after the end of a theology. The challenge now is not to mourn, to cling or to look back. We are not in charge of this thing, after all. The challenge is for us to think about what comes next—and how to live in, through, and with it.

I agree that our “post-truth” culture cannot sustain itself. It is contradictory at its core: to claim there is no such thing as absolute truth is to make an absolute truth claim. And humans cannot live without truth and truths. We need speed limits and laws against murder and encouragement to treasure children and the aged. We need a compass to navigate by; the darker the storm, the more urgent the guidance.

“God will change us because he loves us”

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. claimed, “Only through an inner spiritual transformation do we gain the strength to fight vigorously the evils of the world in a humble and loving spirit.” He was right: humans are both frail and finite. “As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more” (Psalm 103:15–16)

It is therefore only logical to submit to God’s divine authority in every dimension of life:

• If God is our Creator, we must be his creatures, subject to his lordship.
• If he is omnipotent and we are not, his power must exceed ours.
• If he is omniscient and we are not, his wisdom must exceed ours.
• If he is omnibenevolent and we are not, his love and compassion must exceed ours.

As a result, the “inner spiritual transformation” we require is found not in anything we can do but in the living Lord Jesus who alone can save our souls and transform our lives. Tullian Tchividjian observed, “Legalism says God will love us if we change. The gospel says God will change us because he loves us.”

When we submit our lives to the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:18) and spend meaningful time in worship, prayer, Bible study, solitude, meditation, and other spiritual disciplines, we position ourselves to meet Jesus. He then changes us to be like himself (Romans 8:29) and we bear “much fruit” (John 15:5) as he works in us as his body in the world (1 Corinthians 12:27). (For more on God’s transforming and empowering grace, please see my new website article, “Why the Boston Celtics are under ‘zero pressure’ to repeat.”)

“To love God and live for him is heaven”

Paul testified: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). If we make his choice, we can have his experience. And when Jesus is living in us as fully as he lived in his earthly body, we experience his presence in ways that transform our lives and our world.

Frederick Buechner wrote:

“You do not love God and live for him so that you will go to heaven. Whichever side of the grave you happen to be talking about, to love God and live for him is heaven.”

Will you be in “heaven” today?

Wednesday news to know:

• Five family members shot to death in home outside Seattle
• Blinken in Israel in last big ceasefire push before US election
• Israel says it killed Nasrallah’s heir apparent
• Arkansas may have vast lithium reserves, researchers say
• On this day in 1983: Beirut barracks blown up

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

Quote for the day:

“Without absolutes revealed from without by God himself, we are left rudderless in a sea of conflicting ideas about matters, justice, and right and wrong, issued from a multitude of self-opinionated thinkers.” —John Owen

Denison Forum

Our broken moral compass and the path to inner transformation

American startup company Heliospect Genomics is offering to help wealthy couples screen their embryos for IQ, marketing their services at up to $50,000. While scientists warn that such genetic screenings are currently inconsistent and not technologically reliable, the story raises the question: If you could use genetic testing to select a baby based on IQ or other traits, would you?

Should you?

“Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis” is currently being used in conjunction with in vitro fertilization (IVF) to reduce the risk of passing on inherited conditions. Embryos created through IVF are tested for single-gene disorders such as cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, or polycystic kidney disease. The healthiest embryos are implanted in the mother; the others are frozen or discarded.

This practice raises enormous ethical issues of its own, especially for those of us who believe life begins at conception. However, in my work as an ethics consultant with a major healthcare system, I have also been anticipating the day when such testing could be used to select embryos based on IQ and a variety of other attributes. Such eugenic practices would clearly be attractive to many who could afford them.

This issue points to an even more fundamental cultural question that affects every one of us, regardless of our age or station in life.

“We no longer worship anything”

There was a day when couples could know little about their babies prior to birth. Ultrasound scanners were not widely available until the 1970s; the same was true for prenatal screening for Down syndrome.

Prior to this time, sex-selective abortions were obviously not possible; today, millions of babies (usually females) have been aborted on the basis of their gender. Down syndrome babies were not detectable in utero and thus not aborted; today, 90 percent of women whose unborn babies are diagnosed with Down choose to abort them.

We could have a similar discussion of nearly any ethical issue of our time. For example:

• There was a day when parents could more easily protect their children from pornography distributed by magazines and movies. Today, hard-core porn is available to anyone with internet access. And virtual reality is making porn more immersive and addictive than ever.
• Euthanasia was once illegal and difficult to obtain; now, “suicide pods” are making it easier than ever for people to take their own lives.
• Mass media was once distributed through platforms and networks that enforced editorial standards and ethical accountability. Today, anyone can broadcast and consume nearly any message through nearly any digital device, enabling “fake news” and “deep fake videos” to proliferate.

While we are facing unprecedented ethical challenges, our culture at the same time is jettisoning the resources it needs to face them. Richard Rorty, heralded on his death in 2007 by the New York Times as “one of the world’s most influential contemporary thinkers,” summarized our cultural worldview:

Once upon a time, we felt a need to worship something which lay beyond the visible world. Beginning in the seventeenth century, we tried to substitute a love of truth for a love of God, treating the world described by science as a quasi-divinity. Beginning at the end of the eighteenth century, we tried to substitute a love of ourselves for a love of scientific truth, a worship of our own deep spiritual or poetic nature, treated as one more quasi-divinity.

Now, according to Rorty, we have come to a place “where we no longer worship anything, where we treat nothing as a quasi-divinity, where we treat everything—our language, our conscience, our community—as products of time and chance.”

How’s that working for us?

“Jesus Christ rehabilitated the human race”

My obvious response is to urge you to love your Lord with all of your being and to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:37–39). The first returns God to his rightful place on the throne of our lives and world; the second causes us to venerate life from natural conception to natural death.

But for flawed and fallen people like you and me, both are easier said than done. Otherwise, why would abortion and pornography (as examples) be so prevalent among Christians? To this end, let’s close by pointing to a source of hope that transcends all our aspirations and efforts.

Oswald Chambers noted, “Sin is a fundamental relationship; it is not wrong doing, it is wrong being, deliberate and emphatic independence of God” (his emphasis). He added that, unlike other religions that deal with various sins, Christianity uniquely deals with our sin nature at the cross.

We often say that Jesus died for our sins, but Chambers explains that in fact “he took upon himself the heredity of sin which no man can touch. God made his own Son to be sin that he might make the sinner a saint.” Scripture agrees:

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Note that the text does not say that God made Jesus “to bear sins” but “to be sin.”

According to Chambers, “In so doing he put the whole human race on the basis of redemption. Jesus Christ rehabilitated the human race; he put it back to where God designed it to be, and anyone can enter into union with God on the ground of what our Lord has done on the cross.”

Now the choice is with us. Will we submit our lives this day to God’s Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), asking him to recreate the character of Christ in us (Romans 8:29), empower us to defeat any temptation (1 Corinthians 10:13), and transform us to be “more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37)?

Will you?

NOTE: Feeling disheartened by the state of our nation’s discourse? Respectfully, I Disagree and How Does God See America? are two timely resources designed to help you navigate these turbulent times with a heart aligned with God’s truth. These books are our gift to thank you for your donation of $25 or more. Secure your political bundle today.

Tuesday news to know:

• The US is investigating an unauthorized release of classified documents on Israel’s Iran attack plan
• Georgia authorities investigating a dock gangway collapse that killed 7 on a historic island
• Total 2024 election spending projected to exceed previous record
• Cuba grid collapses again raising doubts about a quick fix
• On this day in 1962: JFK’s address on Cuban Missile Crisis shocks the nation

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

Quote for the day:

“The Bible was not given for our information but for our transformation.” —Dwight L. Moody

Denison Forum