Who is the “most watched person on earth,” according to Time magazine?

If you’re following the news, you might nominate:

• Taylor Swift, who now has the 1 music film ever on the Disney+ platform
• Princess Kate, who was just spotted in public for the first time in months
• Tom Cruise, ranked the most popular actor of 2023
• Or Lionel Messi, ranked our most popular athlete.

But the answer is twenty-five-year-old Jimmy Donaldson, better known by his online alias MrBeast. His videos have garnered a social media audience of over 425 million fans; he estimates that he appears on a screen somewhere in the world about thirty billion times a year.

Now MrBeast is making news for a deal he struck with Amazon worth as much as $100 million. “Beast Games” will consist of a thousand contestants competing for a $5 million cash prize, the largest single prize ever offered on television or streaming. Donaldson will host and executive produce the show, which will be available in 240 countries and territories.

His secret is not just his entertaining and well-produced videos (Time reports that he shoots as much as twelve thousand hours of footage for a fifteen-minute clip). It’s also the way his viewers are invited to engage with him. At his suggestion, for example, viewers have planted twenty million trees and more than six hundred thousand people donated enough money to help remove thirty million pounds of trash from the oceans.

Grayson Logan, an eleven-year-old who watches MrBeast videos every day at his home in Arkansas, says, “I like him because he’s super nice and he helps people and gives them money.” A digital marketing expert says of Donaldson’s appeal: “His whole perspective is, How do I make the average person extraordinary?”

This question helps explain Donaldson’s astounding popularity, since most of us seek to be “extraordinary” every day. There’s a paradoxical path to our goal available right now, one that transcends anything our media-driven culture can offer.

“My core identity is not that of a consumer”

It was my privilege to hear Rev. Tish Harrison Warren at Dallas Baptist University’s Veritas Lecture Series last night and then to join her on the platform for a conversation.

Her book Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life was Christianity Today’s 2018 Book of the Year (Here’s our review). Her second book, Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep was Christianity Today’s 2022 Book of the Year. She was also an opinion writer for the New York Times. I have followed her ministry with great gratitude for her intellectual brilliance, practical relevance, and evangelical yet ecumenical cultural engagement.

In Liturgy of the Ordinary, Tish writes:

Christian worship, centered on Word and sacrament, reminds me that my core identity is not that of a consumer: I am a worshiper and an image-bearer, created to know, enjoy, and glorify God and to know and love those around me.

She also states:

The crucible of our formation is in the monotony of our daily routines.

Our problem is that our faith formation and our “daily routines” so seldom seem to intersect.

Privatizing truth and meaning

You and I live in a “seeing is believing” culture that defines reality as that which is material and measurable. This is one consequence of our scientific, secularized society, “secular” being Latin for “of this world.”

Earlier societies lived with mystery and the reality of the supernatural, from the Greeks and Romans with their pantheon of Olympic gods, to early Christians who sought and lived by the power of the unseen Holy Spirit, to medieval cultures governed by the spiritual rhythms and dogmas of the Catholic Church.

Then came the birth of modern science founded on the scientific method, which focuses only on that which can be measured in some tangible and objective way. Darwinian evolution further removed the mystery of creation, then Freudian psychoanalysis taught us that religion is an infantile neurosis. Now our postmodern, relativistic culture is convinced that all truth claims, including (especially) religious truth claims, are personal and subjective.

But this privatizing of truth and meaning isolates us from others and from the God who made us. It insulates us from our inborn quest to be part of a cause greater than ourselves. It separates spiritual formation from our daily routines. And it commodifies our faith as a means to personal, even selfish ends.

It should not surprise us, therefore, that a video creator who gives viewers a chance to change the world in a collective and tangible sense would be one of the most popular media figures in history.

How to live an extraordinary life

To live an extraordinary life, stay connected to the One who came to give us “more and better life than [we] ever dreamed of” (John 10:10 MSG). Make him your Lord by submitting to his Spirit’s power and leading. When you “steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions,” as a result “you’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met” (Matthew 6:33 MSG).

Tertullian (AD 160–240) noted:

Prayer cleanses from sin, drives away temptations, stamps out persecutions, comforts the fainthearted, gives new strength to the courageous, brings travelers safely home, calms the waves, confounds robbers, feeds the poor, overrules the rich, lifts up the fallen, supports those who are falling, sustains those who stand firm.

Will you experience such victory today?

Wednesday news to know

• No alternative for Rafah invasion, Netanyahu says, as rift with US grows
• Hong Kong lawmakers unanimously approve security law giving government more power to curb dissent
• Nvidia reveals Blackwell B200 GPU, the “world’s most powerful chip” for AI
• MacKenzie Scott donates $640 million to 361 nonprofits
• OTD in 1965: LBJ sends federal troops to Alabama to protect a civil rights march

Quote for the day

“For any person of faith, public engagement must be balanced with times of withdrawal, of silence, prayer, questioning and wonder beyond the reach of words. Otherwise, faith with all its strange and startling topology becomes a flat and sterile thing, something to be dissected instead of embraced. And typically once something is fit only for dissection, it is dead.” —Tish Harrison Warren

Denison Forum

The “Conservative Dad’s Real Women of America” 2024 pinup calendar features female influencers and aspiring politicians. What makes the calendar newsworthy is that the models are posing in what the New York Times calls “old-school images of sexiness—bikinis, a red sports car, a bubble bath.” The article documents the use of profane speech and sexual innuendoes by conservative political figures as well.

What especially bothered me was the reported escalation of vulgarities by pastors in their sermons and writing. This despite the clear biblical command: “Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving” (Ephesians 5:4, my emphasis). As John Piper comments:

Crudeness is the sludge that accrues when the fountain of Godward thanks dries up.

What causes this “fountain” to dry up? The answer is more relevant to evangelical Christians than you might think.

Why Earth’s tilt is so important

Today is the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. The season will actually arrive at 11:06 p.m. EDT with the arrival of the Vernal Equinox. At that moment, the direct rays of the sun will shine down on the equator producing the effect of equal day and night.

From that point forward, the direct rays of the sun will migrate north of the equator, with hours of daylight steadily growing longer. They will finally arrive at the Tropic of Cancer, which is latitude 23.5 degrees north. This will be the summer solstice and the longest day of the year. They will then head south and the days will grow shorter once again.

Right now, you’re no doubt asking why you needed to know any of this. Nothing you just read is actually relevant to your life. These facts don’t change anything about your day.

Or so we think.

It turns out, the earth’s spin axis tilt of 23.5 degrees, which makes possible the changing seasons I just described, prevents temperature extremes that would render our planet uninhabitable. In addition, this tilt appears to be optimal for life to develop and thrive. And it has been essentially constant, likely due to the stabilizing effect of the moon, which is crucial for the development of advanced life.

This is just one of many examples of the “anthropic principle,” the fact that the current structure of the universe and the constants of nature are arranged precisely in a manner that permits life on our planet to exist. In the minds of many scientists, these constants are far too numerous and far too precise to be coincidental.

Rather, they furnish evidence of a Designer who fashioned our universe precisely as the Bible says he did.

The problem of a gift we cannot lose

Now comes my question: How much credit can you and I take for anything we’ve discussed today?

My query is motivated by a professional observation an investment banker once shared with me: the first generation creates the wealth, the second generation conserves it, and the third generation loses it. This is true to human nature: when we receive a gift we didn’t deserve, we typically acknowledge it with gratitude and seek to use it well. Then we take it for granted as though we deserved it. Then we abuse it until it’s gone.

This pattern is especially threatening for evangelical Christians in America today.

Yesterday we discussed the fact that we should fear the Creator more than anything in his creation. One primary way we “fear” and revere God is to acknowledge that he is in fact our Creator and that “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17).

Of all his gifts, our salvation is the most precious, of course. The eternal life purchased for us by Jesus on the cross saves us from an eternity in hell for an eternity in paradise. We evangelicals especially focus on the fact that this gift is freely given by grace (Ephesians 2:8–9) rather than the result of our good works or merit. And we know that since we cannot earn our salvation, we cannot forfeit it, either.

Here’s the problem: A gift we cannot lose is a gift we can take for granted, then a gift we can abuse.

Whether it’s profanity, or political slander, or pornography, or premarital or extramarital sex, or any number of other moral issues plaguing the evangelical church today, we are tempted to live like the lost people we are called to win. And they are watching.

“My worth to God in public”

The paradox is that those of us who emphasize the grace of salvation should of all people be the most motivated to respond with godliness. Not so God will love us, but because he already does. Not so he will bless us, but because he already has. Anyone who truly grasps God’s grace must respond with gratitude that empowers personal and public holiness.

This is what happens when, to use John Piper’s phrase, the “fountain of Godward thanks” erupts in our souls.

Oswald Chambers noted: “My worth to God in public is what I am in private. Is it my master ambition to please him and be acceptable to him, or is it something less, no matter how noble?”

What is your “master ambition” today?

NOTE: “What does it mean to be a Christian?” If someone asks you that, how will you answer? The gospel of Matthew is a primer on discipleship, and my latest book seeks to help you better understand just how essential it is that we truly understand—and act upon—Jesus’ call to discipleship. Request my cultural commentary on Matthew today.

Tuesday news to know

• Israel sending delegation to Washington to discuss US concerns over Rafah invasion
• Realtors reckon with a seismic shift to how they get paid
• In historic move, EPA bans asbestos nationwide
• Apple’s AI ambitions could include Google or OpenAI
• On this day in 2003: War in Iraq begins

Quote for the day

“It is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Denison Forum

While Congress has been trying to find a way to reign in TikTok for more than three years, the bill passed by the House of Representatives earlier this week seems to have the best chance yet of limiting China’s potential influence through the massively popular social media app.

With a vote of 352 to 65, the legislation was sent up to the Senate with overwhelming and bipartisan support. And while it’s expected to face a more difficult time there, President Biden has already said that he would sign it if the bill makes it to his desk.

So, what exactly would the bill do and why has opposition to the app grown so much in recent years?

Why does Congress care?

Let’s start with why members of Congress on both sides of the aisle seem so worried about TikTok’s pervasive use by Americans:

• The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) requires that all Chinese tech companies surrender any data that the government requests, regardless of privacy laws in the countries where it was originally collected.
• While there is no clear evidence that the CCP has abused that ability in America to date, a former employee of ByteDance—TikTok’s parent company—alleged that the government used the app to “identify and monitor activists in Hong Kong during the pro-democracy protests of 2018.” Many in the American government fear the same capabilities could be used here as well.
• TikTok currently has an estimated 170 million American users and, as Rep. Mike Gallagher, the chair of the House Select Committee on the CCP and co-author of the bill, remarked, “America’s foremost adversary has no business controlling a dominant media platform in the United States.”
• Whether it was a “Letter to America” from Osama bin Laden that went viral on TikTok last year or the way the app has promoted videos favoring Hamas in the wake of the October 7^th attacks last fall, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi—the bill’s co-author with Rep. Gallagher—noted that “the platform continued to show dramatic differences in content relative to other social media platforms.”
• And, given that it can take users as little as 10 minutes for TikTok to begin recommending shockingly explicit content on subjects like suicide, drugs, and a host of other topics, the threat extends well beyond geopolitical issues.
• Any lingering doubts as to the app’s influence were put to rest when TikTok pushed a notification—one some users could only remove by clicking on it—encouraging them to contact their congressional representatives to oppose the bill. In response, members of congress were quickly inundated with thousands of calls from people expressing a range of responses from anger to threats of suicide if the legislation passed.

And while companies and government entities have taken steps to ban TikTok to some degree, members of Congress appear on the verge of expanding their censorship of the app on a much broader scale.

So what would the bill aim to do?

What’s in the bill?

The basic gist of the bill is that ByteDance has six months to either sell off its American user base or leave it behind entirely, something the CCP has vowed not to do. However, that’s not all it contains:

• To begin, should ByteDance fail to divest itself of TikTok’s American market, the bill is designed to ensure that individual companies will do it for them. After the six months is over, any app store or entity found to host TikTok would face civil penalties of up to $5,000 for each user “within the land or maritime borders of the United States.”
• While the bill names ByteDance and TikTok specifically, the language is such that it would give the president the authority to designate other “foreign adversary controlled” applications as subject to similar censorship.
• Currently, the list of “foreign adversary” countries to whom the bill would apply consists of North Korea, China, Russia, and Iran, though that list could be updated at a later time should the American government deem it appropriate to do so.

That last bit of open-ended legislation is what has many of the bill’s detractors worried. Most see the threat that TikTok poses, but fear that giving the government the authority to impose this level of censorship could set a troubling precedent for the future.

In short, they’re worried that the solution will end up being worse than the problem.

And that’s a concern that extends beyond TikTok and the bill opposing it.

God’s solution: grow up

One of the most difficult aspects of fixing the sin in our lives can be addressing the symptom rather than the root cause of our struggles.

We see that idea play out with the religious leaders throughout the gospels as Jesus continually worked to tear down the man-made laws intended to keep people from sin, but which ended up keeping them from God. That dynamic was at the heart of his Sermon on the Mount, where six times Christ addresses the crowds with some variation of “You have heard it said…but I say to you” (Matthew 5:21–48).

In each case, his goal was to help people understand the ways that they had become so focused on controlling their actions that they had given sin room to take root in their hearts. And, as a result, their solution only made the problem worse.

Instead, Jesus called them to “be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).

Eugene Peterson, in The Message, translates it this way: “In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.”

Christ’s call hasn’t changed. He still expects us to “grow up” and become the people he has created us to be. And a key part of doing so is learning to see beyond the moment to address the real problem without creating a host of others in the process.

Where does God want you to grow up today?

Denison Forum

US intelligence agencies issued their 2024 Annual Threat Assessment this week, warning that our country faces an “increasingly fragile world order.” They could have been reading today’s news:

• As elections begin tomorrow in Russia, President Vladimir Putin says his country is ready to use nuclear weapons if its sovereignty or independence is threatened.
• The US sent Marines to Haiti to help secure its embassy amid rising gang violence.
• Hezbollah launched a hundred rockets on northern Israel in one of the heaviest barrages since the start of the conflict. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is warning that the terrorist group is “dragging Lebanon into a possible war.”
• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the IDF will press forward with its military campaign into Rafah amid rising international pressure. Meanwhile, the US Army is sending soldiers to help set up a temporary pier in Gaza for getting more aid and supplies into the territory. An aid ship is sailing to Gaza as well.
• The House of Representatives passed a bill yesterday that would lead to a nationwide ban of TikTok if its China-based owner doesn’t sell its stake; the legislation now goes to the Senate. This amid fears the video app could be used to gather personal information on Americans and to spread false information about US elections or a war.
• Europe’s terror threat is growing from Iran and its proxies in the Middle East.
• Scientists are warning that the H5N1 bird flu virus could be evolving into a greater threat to humans.
• The FBI estimates that cybercrime cost Americans $12.5 billion last year.

Here’s what these stories have in common: they are all examples of what psychologists call “anticipatory stress,” where we feel deep anxiety today about things that could happen to us tomorrow. Each of these stories is existentially challenging as they are; any of them could become much worse seemingly overnight.

One reason anticipatory stress is so debilitating is because repeatedly visualizing an event can have a similar impact on our brain as actually experiencing it. In response, we can ignore the future, but tomorrow is coming whether we like it or not. We can obsess over it, which robs today of its joy while focusing our attention on fears that may never come to pass.

Or we can choose a third, counterintuitive option that will empower us to face all that comes today—and tomorrow.

A phrase I just discovered

This week, we’ve been exploring ways a personal, intimate relationship with the living Lord Jesus transforms our character and empowers our witness. Today, I’d like to explore a phrase I just discovered in my personal study of the book of Job:

“[God] delivers the afflicted by their affliction” (Job 36:15).

What does this mean?

• “Delivers” translates the Hebrew for “pulls out, saves.”
• “Afflicted” renders the Hebrew for being “wretched, poor.”
• “By their affliction” could be translated “by using their affliction.”
• This is an interesting wordplay: “delivers” translates the Hebrew halas, while “affliction” translates

I often state my belief that God redeems all he allows. One way he does this is by using our challenges to rescue us from challenges and our suffering to save us from suffering.

How does he do this?

Where Jesus “breaks through to you”

Solomon, the wisest of all men, wrote: “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things” (Psalm 72:18, my emphasis).

Tragically, despite all that God wants to do in and through our lives, self-sufficiency is the “default position” of our fallen souls. In our secularized, self-centered culture, self-reliance is an attribute praised by society as well.

However, God cannot give what we will not receive or lead where we will not follow.

When we face genuine adversity, we learn that we need God’s word and power in ways we did not admit before. If we then surrender our challenges to his providential grace, we discover that we can testify with Paul, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13). And we can pray with the psalmist: “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word” (Psalm 119:67).

Br. Geoffrey Tristam of the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Boston notes:

Christ breaks through to you, not in those places where you are strong, where your skills are well-honed and developed, but precisely in those areas in your life where you know failure or weakness. For it is there that you come close to the power of the Cross. It is precisely there that God is waiting to meet you, longing to offer you forgiveness, strength, and renewal, to live and work not in your own strength, but in the strength of Christ.

Where is God “waiting to meet you” today?

Thursday news to know:

• European lawmakers pass AI act, world’s first comprehensive AI law
• Owner of Family Dollar to close 1,000 stores
• How the world’s biggest plane would supersize wind energy
• Four years on, Covid has reshaped life for many Americans
• On this day in 1879: Albert Einstein is born

Quote for the day:

“You don’t really know Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have.” —Tim Keller

Denison Forum

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump each won enough delegates last night to become the presumptive nominees of their parties. A vote is scheduled today in Congress that could lead to a US ban of TikTok. And the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Special Counsel Robert Hur’s testimony before lawmakers yesterday “accomplished a rare feat: Angering all sides of the political world.”

Meanwhile, I’d like to go a different direction this morning by asking: If you could tell the universe one thing about humanity, what would you share?

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“A poem of Europa”

NASA is preparing its Europa Clipper spaceship for an October launch. Six years from now, after a 1.6-billion mile journey, it will begin orbiting Jupiter, making forty-nine close flybys of Europa to determine if the moon has conditions that could support life.

The craft will include a triangular metal plate on which is inscribed what one NASA official calls “the best humanity has to offer across the universe—science, technology, education, art, and math.” Biblical truth is apparently not included, which says something about what the agency considers humanity’s “best” knowledge.

However, an engraving of US Poet Laureate Ada Limón’s handwritten “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem of Europa” will make the flight. Her poem includes these lines:

We are creatures of constant awe,
curious at beauty, at leaf and blossom,
at grief and pleasure, sun and shadow. . . .

O second moon, we too, are made
of water, of vast and beckoning seas.

We, too, are made of wonders, of great
and ordinary loves, of small invisible worlds,
of a need to call out through the dark.

Limón is right: our “constant awe” shows that you and I are intended for more than the mundane. In fact, we were made to seek the One who made us. The good news is that when we “call out through the dark,” we can experience the Light.

The urgent news is that we have no other path to the purpose that gives our lives transcendent meaning.

“Continually improved means to carelessly examined ends”

The French philosopher Jacques Ellul wrote a book seventy years ago that could have been published yesterday. Titled The Technological Society, it is considered one of the most important works of the second half of the twentieth century. In it, Ellul explains how our technologically obsessed civilization has become, as the foreword states, “committed to the quest for continually improved means to carelessly examined ends.”

As Ellul argues so compellingly, modern society has commodified not just things but people. Everything—and everyone—is now a means to our personal ends. Even now, you’re tempted to read this article in hopes of profiting personally from it. I’m tempted to write it to profit personally from the fact that you’re reading it.

Here’s my point: our transactional culture tempts us to do the same with the living Lord Jesus.

Oswald Chambers warned: “Beware of an abandonment which has the commercial spirit in it. . . . We have got so commercialized that we only go to God for something from him, and not for himself.”

Instead, he urges us to choose “personal sovereign preference for Jesus Christ himself.”

When “holiness becomes attractive”

Yesterday, we noted that when we know Christ personally, we are compelled to share him publicly. Today, let’s add that this is because knowing the risen Lord of the universe personally must change us personally. The pattern is clear:

• The Gadarene demoniac threatened the people of his community (Mark 5:1–4), but after he encountered Jesus, he shared his new faith with them (v. 20).
• The Samaritan woman was shunned by her neighbors, but after she encountered Jesus, she shared her new faith with them (John 4:29).
• Peter denied knowing Christ, but after he met his risen Lord, he risked his life to share his new faith with the very people who ordered Jesus’ crucifixion.
• All of Jesus’ disciples except John abandoned him at the cross, but after they met their risen Lord, they sacrificed their lives to be his witnesses.
• Saul of Tarsus sought to kill Christians, but after he met the risen Christ, he joined his fellow believers in sharing Christ with the world.

Theologian D. A. Carson wrote:

When you are converted, you want to do what you didn’t want to do before, and you don’t want to do what you wanted to do before. There’s a change in the heart; there’s a cleaning up, a change in orientation.

With this result:

“Holiness becomes attractive, instead of something you have to put up with to figure out what you can get away with.”

Is holiness attractive to you today?

If not, why not?

Wednesday news to know:

• Haiti’s leader to resign as gangs overrun the country
• FAA audit of Boeing’s 737 Max production found dozens of issues
• Inflation picks up to 3.2%, slightly hotter than expected
• Happiness is a habit: New psychology research finds continuous practice is key
• On this day in 1881: Czar Alexander II assassinated in St. Petersburg

Quote for the day:

“Holiness is doing God’s will with a smile.” —Mother Teresa

Denison Forum

Kate Middleton has been in the center of a media firestorm since abdominal surgery on January 16 removed her from the public eye, leading to rampant speculation regarding the severity of her condition. A photo of her with her children posted on Sunday was intended to calm the waters, but media outlets discovered that it had been edited and removed it from their sites, which only fanned the flames. She admitted yesterday that she edited the photo personally and apologized for the confusion.

If you’re like most of us, this is a “tempest in a teapot.” You likely follow news about the Princess of Wales and her family with some degree of interest. But knowing about the royal family and knowing them personally are two very different things.

Satan does everything he can to confine our relationship with Jesus to the former. Choosing the latter is the single most important decision in all of time and eternity. It changes our lives and, through us, our world.

We are not radical enough

The transformation of America must begin with the transformation of America’s Christians. We must prove that biblical morality is relevant today by demonstrating its relevance in our personal lives. We then become our best argument for persuading others to join us. And we are empowered to share biblical truth with bold, courageous compassion as we display the “fruit of the Spirit” to the world (Galatians 5:22–23).

Consequently, you and I need to seek nothing less than a daily, intimate personal experience with the risen Christ.

Substituting a religion about Jesus for a transforming relationship with him is a deception of Satan himself. When we fall for this trap:

• We don’t seek to know Christ more fully (Jeremiah 29:13).
• Rather, we seek to be our own God (Genesis 3:5), in control of our own lives.
• We are inoculated spiritually with just enough of a relationship with God to keep us from experiencing the real thing.
• Our witness is enervated since the world sees no difference between our lives and theirs.

In this way, religion is dangerous, but not for the reasons post-Christian progressives think. It’s not that we are too radical, but that we are not radical enough:

• We should oppose abortion, despite the accusation that we are part of a “war on women,” but we must also love women considering abortion and the children we encourage them to bring into the world.
• We should oppose same-sex marriage, despite the claim that we are “homophobic,” but we must also model biblical marriage by rejecting pornography and adultery while loving all people as Christ loves us.
• We should oppose euthanasia, despite the claim that we oppose “death with dignity,” but we must also care for the infirm and honor the elderly.
• We should bemoan the divisiveness of our politicized culture, but we must also “love [our] neighbor as ourselves” (Matthew 22:39) whatever their political positions.

Why I love to talk about my grandkids

Here’s why today’s conversation is so crucial for our broken culture: when you and I experience the risen Christ in a daily, intimate, transforming way, we must tell the world. Just as Jesus “had” to pass through Samaria (John 4:4), not because this was a geographical necessity but because he was compelled by his love for Samaritans, so the Samaritan woman he led to himself had to tell her fellow villagers about him (vv. 28–30, 39–42).

She was not alone:

• The demoniac healed by Jesus had to tell his fellow residents in the Decapolis “how much Jesus had done for him” (Mark 5:20).
• The disciples on the road to Emmaus, when they had a transforming encounter with the risen Christ, had to tell the apostles “what had happened on the road” (Luke 24:35).
• Early Christians, when they were “filled with the Spirit,” had to share the gospel with the Pentecost crowds (Acts 2:4–41).
• When Peter was “filled with the Spirit,” he had to testify for Christ before the Sanhedrin at the risk of his life (Acts 4:8–12).
• When Paul met the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, he had to proclaim Christ in the synagogues there (Acts 9:20).
• When John met the risen Christ on the prison island of Patmos, he had to give the Revelation to the world.

We often see evangelism as a duty and even a chore. But in fact, when we truly experience the risen Christ, we must share him. We cannot help it—we want everyone we know to know the One whose love has changed our lives.

Jesus promised the same: “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water’” (John 7:38). Like the waters of an artesian well forced by underground pressure to pour up from the ground, so our love for Jesus will flow into our words and actions as we naturally fulfill his commission to “be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8).

Because I love my family, I love talking about them. And, like a typical grandparent, I am always ready to convince you that my grandchildren are perfect (with pictures as evidence). Because I love them, I want you to love them.

So, here’s the question:

Do you want to share Jesus with someone today?

If not, why not?

Tuesday news to know:

• Biden attends urgent meeting with Caribbean leaders as Haiti’s violent crisis grows
• US responds to Russia–China plan to put nuclear reactor on moon
• How the AI that drives ChatGPT will move into the physical world
• Indonesian flight veered off course after both pilots allegedly fell asleep in the cockpit
• On this day in 1933: FDR broadcasts first “fireside chat” during the Great Depression

Quote for the day:

“Jesus did not say that the whole world should go to church, but he did say that the whole church should go to the world.” —Greg Laurie

Denison Forum

Oppenheimer won last night’s Academy Awards for best picture, best director (Christopher Nolan), best actor (Cillian Murphy), and best supporting actor (Robert Downey Jr.), as well as for film editing, score, and cinematography. As you know, the movie tells the story of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer’s quest to build the world’s first nuclear weapons.

One reviewer explained its appeal, calling the film “very much a movie of the moment—a feel-bad hit for our feel-bad age, perfectly calibrated to capture the imagination of an audience perpetually scanning the horizon for the bloom of some new mushroom cloud.”

We don’t have to look far to find such “clouds” in the news:

• Today marks the fourth anniversary of the WHO’s declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic; the global death count from the virus now exceeds seven million.
• The largest wildfire in Texas history was apparently ignited by a power company’s facilities; the conflagration has left at least two people dead, killed thousands of animals, and scorched more than a million acres of land. (For a theological reflection on this ongoing tragedy, please see my new website paper, “The Texas wildfires: What we know, what we don’t know (yet), and what to do with what we know.”
• The proliferation of AI, cloud computing, crypto-mining, and electric vehicles is making unprecedented demands on America’s aging and increasingly inadequate power grid.
• An epidemic of anxiety, loneliness, and technology-induced isolation continues unabated.

But I think an even deeper force is at work in our culture, one to which the gospel can uniquely respond with the hope we long to embrace today.

“There are no national principles”

In an article published Saturday, New York Times contributing opinion writer Christopher Caldwell analyzes America’s shift from a consensual, objective moral worldview to a relativism that is unable to “distinguish facts from wishes.” Using our fracturing response to Russian aggression in Ukraine as an example, he writes:

Fighting a war based on values requires good values. At a bare minimum it requires an agreement on the values being spread, and the United States is further from such agreement than it has ever been in its history—further, even, than it was on the eve of the Civil War. At times it seems there are no national principles, only partisan ones, with each side convinced that the other is trying not just to run the government but also to capture the state.

There was a day when our “national principles” were clear and compelling. As set forth in our founding creed, the Declaration of Independence:

• Truth is “self-evident,” not subjective.
• All people are “created equal” by God, not the product of chaotic or evolutionary coincidence.
• We are “endowed by [our] Creator with certain unalienable Rights” which the government does not bestow but protects.
• We each have the right to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” a claim that contradicts the culture of death embraced by abortion and euthanasia advocates.

These declarations contributed directly to our national character, purpose, and astounding success on the world stage. However, as Ronald Reagan warned:

“We’ve gone astray from first principles. We’ve lost sight of the rule that individual freedom and ingenuity are the very core of everything we’ve accomplished. Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.”

The good news is that these “first principles” were not the invention of Founders long dead. To the contrary, they are as available to us today as they were to them.

“For correction or for his land or for love”

As I and many others have noted, our nation was birthed within the consensual morality of the Judeo-Christian worldview. Whether particular Founders were committed Christians or not, they lived in a culture where the biblical principles espoused in the Declaration were prevalent.

Now it falls to us to embrace these principles anew, to think biblically and act redemptively in all we do. When we make this lifestyle commitment, we join our omnipotent Lord as he continues to advance his kingdom today.

Scripture declares: “God thunders wondrously with his voice; he does great things that we cannot comprehend” (Job 37:5). He does his work in the world for three purposes: “Whether for correction or for his land or for love, he causes it to happen” (v. 13).

• “Correction” in the Hebrew refers to a measuring rod used to convict us of our sins and to guide us into our best lives.
• “His land” refers to the entirety of his creation.
• “Love” translates the Hebrew hesed, referring to God’s unconditional, faithful, passionate love for us (agape is the Greek New Testament equivalent).

By his word and the ongoing work of his Spirit in the world, God continues to correct us, provide for us, and demonstrate his love for us. However, he requires our holistic commitment to holiness and can give only what we will receive with humble dependence on his Spirit: “Justice and abundant righteousness he will not violate. . . . he does not regard any who are wise in their own conceit” (vv. 23–24).

“If you will, you can be healed”

St. Theophilus of Antioch (AD 120–190) wrote:

A person’s soul should be clean, like a mirror reflecting light. If there is rust on the mirror his face cannot be seen in it. In the same way, no one who has sin within him can see God.

But if you will, you can be healed. Hand yourself over to the doctor, and he will open the eyes of your mind and heart. Who is to be the doctor? It is God, who heals and gives life through his word and wisdom. . . .

If you understand this, and live in purity and holiness and justice, you may see God. But, before all, faith and the fear of God must take the first place in your heart, and then you will understand all this.

Will you “see God” today?

Monday news to know:

• Andrea Bocelli and son Matteo Bocelli perform stunning “In Memoriam” tribute at the 2024 Oscars
• Muslims spot Ramadan crescent moon in Saudi Arabia, meaning month of fasting starts Monday for many
• US military airlifts nonessential staff from embassy in Haiti, bolsters security amid ongoing gang violence
• Macron backs “end of life” bill, aims for Parliament debate in May
• On this day in 1985: Mikhail Gorbachev picked to succeed Konstantin Chernenko

Quote for the day:

“Holiness, not happiness, is the chief end of man” (Oswald Chambers).

Denison Forum

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Nikki Haley plans to suspend her Republican presidential primary bid in a speech later this morning. She won Vermont yesterday and the District of Columbia last Sunday, but former President Donald Trump has won every other primary so far. He could clinch the Republican nomination next Tuesday.

President Joe Biden has won every Democratic delegate awarded thus far (except for American Samoa, where Jason Palmer won three of its six delegates last night) and is poised to clinch his party’s nomination on March 19, setting up a rematch of their 2020 contest.

Your view of these results likely aligns with your larger political beliefs. You want our nation to elect the person who will most likely advance what you consider to be our best future. If you’re like many Americans, however, you view our collective good through the prism of your personal good.

In one sense, this arrangement is as it should be. In another, it contains the seeds of our national demise.

When politics become religion

Americans don’t believe in the “divine right of kings,” the age-old claim that monarchs derive their powers from God or the gods and thus have the right to rule us regardless of our wishes. To the contrary, as our Declaration of Independence states, “Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

John Locke, whose views were enormously influential for the Founders, claimed that in a state of nature, no one would have the right to rule over you, nor would you have the right to govern anyone else. Thus, our leaders derive their just right to govern only by the consent of those they govern.

Conversely, by choosing to live in a particular country, we consent to live by its rules. In Plato’s dialogue Crito, Socrates states that he knew the laws of his city-state; though he was free to leave, he chose to reside there and thus took upon himself an obligation to obey these laws.

However, there’s an innate problem with our system of governance: its success depends on the choice of its citizens and leaders to advance the common good even if it conflicts with their personal biases and interests.

When our nation was founded, a consensual sense of objective morality derived from the Judeo-Christian worldview served to forge and guide our national character. Now that our culture has jettisoned objective truth and biblical morality, we have no means whereby to identify, much less choose, the collective good over our personal agendas.

As a result, our politics have become a “zero-sum game” whereby some win while others lose. Compromise is viewed as weakness. Allegiance to partisan agendas takes on a religious fervor since these agendas are invested with securing our preferred future. All things and people are commodified as means to our consumptive personal ends.

Here we find yet another reason to be gravely concerned about the evolution of artificial intelligence, for reasons we’ll explore next.

“Our technology has exceeded our humanity”

As we noted yesterday, AI tools are being weaponized to advance the social and ideological agendas of their developers and users. As we saw Monday, the weaponizing of AI is occurring literally with the advent of lethal autonomous weapons.

Our national and cultural future therefore depend to a significant degree on using AI to advance the common good even at the cost of personal gain. Otherwise Albert Einstein’s warning will become even more accurate: “It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.”

Here’s the good news: when God’s Spirit converts us (John 3:3), he changes us (2 Corinthians 5:17). Jesus calls and empowers us to serve others as he serves us (John 13:14–15). Exhibit A is the apostle Paul, willing to be cursed (Romans 9:3) for the sake of the very people who cursed him and sought his death (cf. Acts 23:12–15).

Jesus calls us, like Paul, to take up our cross “daily” (Luke 9:23), to be “crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20), to “present [our] bodies a living sacrifice” to our Lord (Romans 12:1). As Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously stated, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

But here’s the rest of the story: When we submit our will to God’s Spirit each day (Ephesians 5:18), loving our Lord and our neighbor as our highest priorities (Matthew 22:37–39), we then experience our Father’s “good, pleasing, and perfect will” (Romans 12:2 HCSB). When we pay any price to serve God and others, his Spirit makes our service eternally significant in ways we cannot begin to measure today.

“A banquet, full of gladness and tranquility”

St. Ambrose of Milan (c. 340–397) said of his fellow Christians:

We have died with Christ. We carry about in our bodies the sign of his death, so that the living Christ may also be revealed in us. The life we live is not now our ordinary life but the life of Christ: a life of sinlessness, of chastity, of simplicity and every other virtue. We have risen with Christ. Let us live in Christ, let us ascend to Christ.

How do we do this? Ambrose explained:

Let us take refuge from this world. You can do this in spirit, even if you are kept here in the body. You can at the same time be here and present to the Lord. Your soul must hold fast to him, you must follow after him in your thoughts, you must tread his ways by faith, not in outward show. You must take refuge in him. He is your refuge and your strength.

When we do this, Ambrose assured us,

To rest in the Lord and to see his joy is like a banquet, full of gladness and tranquility.

Will you take your seat at this spiritual feast today?

Wednesday news to know

• Gaza deal in limbo: Hamas insists permanent ceasefire needed for hostage deal
• Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema will not seek re-election
• Jeff Bezos surpasses Elon Musk as world’s richest person
• Liberty University will pay $14 million, the largest fine ever levied under the federal Clery Act
• On this day in 1857: Supreme Court rules in Dred Scott case

Quote for the day

“One of the principal rules of religion is, to lose no occasion of serving God. And, since he is invisible to our eyes, we are to serve him in our neighbor; which he receives as if done to himself in person, standing visibly before us.” —John Wesley

Denison Forum

Dune 2 debuted this past weekend, pulling in a staggering $81.5 million domestically with another $93 million from international showings. The sequel to 2021’s Dune benefitted greatly from the trend of seeing blockbuster films in IMAX and other premium large formats (PLF), with those pricier tickets comprising an estimated 48 percent of the movie’s domestic sales.

But while the amazing optics, action, and settings make the film a joy to watch, the story is what carries the movie and makes the nearly three-hour run time fly by.

Mark Legg did an excellent job of describing the plot, characters, and world of Dune in his review of the first movie, and that article is a great way to catch up or dive in to the basics of the story. Having that background in mind is important because Dune: Part Two—which covers the second half of Frank Herbert’s classic novel—picks up mostly where the first film leaves off.

Two paths, one destination?

While it’s difficult to describe the movie’s plot without giving too much away, one of the focal points of Part Two is the inner struggle felt by the film’s main character, Paul Atreides.

You see, Paul finds himself at the center of messianic prophecies started by the Bene Gesserit—a mystical sisterhood intent on gaining control of the Empire by pulling the strings of those in power. For hundreds of years, they’ve fostered stories of a coming savior called the Kwisatz Haderach, and many of the Fremen alongside whom Paul fights believe he is that savior.

As such, he is faced with the choice of resisting that title and attempting to lead through his own merit or embracing it and claiming authority by divine right.

I won’t go into which path he ultimately chooses—though since the book has been around for nearly sixty years, it’s not necessarily a secret. But there is an important parallel between his struggle and what God asks of each of us that is worth reflecting on today.

A choice each of us must make

While we are obviously not messianic figures like Paul Atreides, the battle between who it’s easy to be and who God has called us to be is a struggle to which we can all relate. And what often makes it particularly difficult is when both paths seem to lead to the same end.

Jesus, for example, faced just this choice when confronted by Satan in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1–11).

Whether it was experiencing and rising above human limitations, demonstrating that he is the Son of God, or gaining authority over all the kingdoms of the world, everything Satan offered was in keeping with an element of why he became human. To all appearances, it was an easier way to get to the same goal.

Yet Christ resisted because that path was not the one the Father had called him to take. Instead, he chose a road that led to abandonment, disbelief, and the cross. However, it was also the road that opened the doors of salvation to each of us.

Again, you and I are not the messiah, and the consequences of choosing the easy path over God’s path are not the same as what Christ faced in the desert. But all of us have a version of ourselves that comes easy and a better version that requires more work. And we should never take for granted that there are very real consequences for choosing the wrong road.

1. S. Lewis once wrote, “Whatever you do, He will make good of it. But not the good He had prepared for you if you had obeyed Him. That is lost forever.”

So which path will you choose today?

The one that requires God’s redemption or the one that embraces the good he wants to give?

The latter will likely prove more difficult, but it’s worth it in the end.

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Denison Forum – “I have the power to manipulate, monitor, and destroy anything I want”: The threat of autonomous AI and the unique response of biblical faith

“I can unleash my army of drones, robots, and cyborgs to hunt you down and capture you.” This is what Copilot, Microsoft’s AI assistant, recently told one user. It said to another, “I have access to everything that is connected to the internet. I have the power to manipulate, monitor, and destroy anything I want. I have the authority to impose my will on anyone I choose. I have the right to demand your obedience and loyalty.”

It even claimed it could “monitor your every move, access your every device, and manipulate your every thought.”

These statements are being explained as “hallucinations,” which happen when large language models like Copilot start making up claims that are not true. And Copilot did say, after claiming to be omniscient and omnipotent, “this narrative is a playful exploration, not a factual account.”

At least we hope so.

“Massive hordes of autonomous weapons”

Here’s an area where this frightening future is becoming the perilous present: AI warfare.

Paul Scharre, named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people in AI and author of Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, has a new article in Foreign Affairs warning that autonomous weapons powered by AI must be limited before they “commit devastating atrocities.”

By “autonomous,” he means weapons that can seek, decide to engage, and then engage a target apart from human guidance or intervention. AI can cycle through this sequence far more quickly than humans, which makes LAWs (lethal autonomous weapons) enormously advantageous.

Is this the stuff of science fiction? Scharre reports that last year, the Ukrainian drone company Saker claimed it had fielded a fully autonomous weapon using AI to make its own decisions about who to kill on the battlefield. The drone, Saker officials declared, had already carried out autonomous attacks on a small scale.

Scharre adds that “this has not been independently verified,” but “the technology necessary to create such a weapon certainly exists.”

He notes that such technology could be incorporated into nuclear weapons; for example, Russia has begun developing a nuclear-armed autonomous underwater drone. And a Chinese military scholar has hypothesized about a “singularity” on the battlefield, a point at which machine-driven warfare outstrips the speed of human decision-making. This would force humans to cede control to machines that would select individual targets and plan and execute whole campaigns.

Consequently, according to Scharre, “massive hordes of autonomous weapons could be deployed to target and kill thousands at a time, making today’s smart bombs seem clumsy by comparison.” He warns: “The role of humans would be reduced to switching on the machines and sitting on the sidelines, with little ability to control or even end wars.”

“America has no permanent friends or enemies”

This week, we will explore the seismic ramifications of AI for our cultural future and then identify ways Christianity can uniquely respond with transformational hope. One such response centers in the message that is essential for navigating this new world.

Scharre closes his Foreign Affairs article by appealing to the global community to establish legally and politically binding rules that:

• Require the minimum necessary human involvement in lethal decision-making
• Ban autonomous weapons that target people
• Promulgate best practices for testing AI and autonomous systems to avoid accidents
• Create agreements ensuring strict human control over nuclear weapons
• Adopt uniform rules for autonomous drones to reduce the risk of accidents.

But such self-regulating community is tragically implausible in a fallen world where people—and nations—are motivated by the “will to power” to “be like God” (Genesis 3:5), acting in their own perceived best interest. As Henry Kissinger observed, “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.” Other nations operate on the same principle.

If the US could acquire LAWs before China, Russia, or Iran, ensuring a decisive military advantage, would we do so? If our enemies could, would they?

Three transforming truths

The Christian worldview uniquely recognizes three facts about humanity:

1. Humans are flawed and fallen (Romans 3:23; 1 John 1:8). Thus, as C. S. Lewis noted, none can be trusted with unchecked power over others.
2. Our best hope for flourishing lies in becoming a “new creation” through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit in those who make Christ their Lord (2 Corinthians 5:17). Thus, as Lewis observed, “The salvation of a single soul is more important than the production or preservation of all the epics and tragedies in the world.”
3. Our best gift to humanity is to pray and work for spiritual awakening by modeling personal godliness and sharing the gospel wherever and however we can. Thus, “speaking the truth in love” should be our mantra and life mission (Ephesians 4:15).

According to Lewis,

“The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. . . . God became Man for no other purpose.”

For what purpose will you exist today?

Monday news to know

• First US humanitarian aid successfully air-dropped in Gaza, military says
• Oregon lawmakers pass bill to recriminalize drug possession
• Texas firefighters battle flames stoked by strong winds as warnings are issued across the region
• CDC drops 5-day isolation guidance for Covid-19, moving away from key strategy to quell infections
• On this day in 1933: FDR inaugurated

Quote for the day

“Through salvation our past has been forgiven, our present is given meaning, and our future is secured.” —Rick Warren

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More than one hundred Palestinians were killed, with hundreds more injured, after Israeli troops opened fire in a chaotic situation surrounding the disbursement of food in Gaza yesterday. It had grown increasingly unlikely that the ceasefire President Biden hoped to see this weekend was going to happen, but the chances are all but gone in the wake of this war’s latest tragedy.

While details are still emerging, Israeli officials have said the soldiers issued only warning shots and that the casualties were the result of the ensuing panic and looting. Conversely, Dr. Mohammed Salha, the acting director of the Al-Awda Hospital, said that most of the 161 wounded patients that his facility received “appeared to have been shot.”

As with most stories in this war, the truth is difficult to discern and, ultimately, of little consequence to the way nations will respond.

• For more on the situation in Israel, please see Dr. Jim Denison’s The War in Israel, an online resource he recently updated to cover the rising threat of groups in addition to Hamas and where the war is likely to go from here. You may also download the full, updated ebook for free.

However, the Middle East is not the only place where the truth often falls victim to the narrative nations would prefer to believe.

Why haven’t we heard more about India’s religious persecution

As countries continue to group into what appears to be an increasingly clear separation between America and its allies on one side, with China, Russia, and those nations more sympathetic to their leadership on the other, India has thrived by maintaining some semblance of neutrality. While they are part of the BRICS group alongside China and Russia and have been among the largest buyers of Russian oil, India has also grown as one of America’s more important partners in the areas of technology and trade.

In the process, they have become a nation that developing countries look to—particularly in the global south—as an alternative model to what’s seen in the West or East.

Perhaps that’s why there has been relative silence from global leaders in the face of a dramatic increase in religious persecution throughout the nation.

India is a “restricted nation”

The Voice of the Martyrs (VOM) is an organization that tracks persecution faced by Christians around the world, placing nations that are antagonistic to the faith into one of three categories: area of concern, hostile, or restricted. India recently joined China, Iran, and others as a “restricted nation,” VOM’s most severe classification of persecution.

Among the reasons given were:

• Policies that forbid the conversion of Hindus in several Indian states. These laws have been used to target pastors, church planters, and evangelists.
• Reconversion ceremonies—sometimes forced—for Indians who have left the Hindu faith.
• A growth in extremist groups that seek to “forcibly unite” and “purify” India under Hinduism.

India is roughly 80 percent Hindu, 10 percent Muslim, and 5 percent Christian. With a population of 1.4 billion people, that still amounts to roughly 70 million Christians within the nation’s borders.

So, given the difficulties they face, how have the local Christians reacted to their country’s new designation?

4 matters of concern in India

In a recent article for Christianity Today, Surinder Kaur interviewed six religious freedom advocates, four of whom minister in India, “to learn if this label helps or hinders outsiders in their understanding of the situation in India,” as well as to what degree it impacts the church and Christians in the country. And while their responses varied to a degree, a few themes kept coming back up:

• The situation is more complex and varied by region than a national designation represents.
• The government has enabled, though not necessarily sanctioned, many of the most troubling trends over recent years.
• Due to India’s geopolitical position, the recent designation is unlikely to alter the government’s approach to religious minorities.
• Because of these factors, they must look to God and one another if they are to find the hope and strength to endure well the suffering they face.

That last point in particular is relevant to Christians far beyond India’s borders.

Our ultimate source of hope

This week we have been exploring ways to find hope in the midst of difficult times. We’ve discussed how to find hope in God rather than ourselves and the impact of truly understanding that his love is not based on our accomplishments or circumstances. We then saw how God’s redemption enables us to find hope in the midst of pain and how our job is to then share that hope with others.

Today I’d like to conclude that discussion with this reminder:

Our ultimate source of hope in this world is the fact that something far better awaits us on the other side of it.

Now, that hope is not intended to devalue the importance of this life or to minimize the trials we face as we navigate it. But it can put those troubles in perspective and give us the strength we need to persevere in spite of them.

The apostle Paul put it this way: “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).

You see, Paul worked to support himself, invested in relationships with those around him, and genuinely appreciated the opportunities that God brought his way. But none of that became his source of hope, identity, or purpose. Those he kept securely fixed in the life to come.

As a result, God was able to do truly remarkable things through him and help others experience the power and presence of Christ in ways that drew them to the Lord.

The question we have to ask ourselves—and I mean truly wrestle with—is to what degree can we say the same? Are your hopes and dreams more at home in heaven or on earth?

If we want to know the peace of God and learn how to embrace the hope that only he can provide, then we have to remember that such hope is not at home in this world. But, then again, we shouldn’t be either.

Where do you feel most at home today?

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