On Monday morning, the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed a ruling that challenged the NCAA’s approach to student athletes, stating that the existing rules violate antitrust laws by placing limits on the education-related benefits that schools can provide.

Yesterday’s decision does not mean that schools can begin outright paying players, giving them luxury cars, or doling out many of the other frivolities and benefits that have gotten universities in trouble in the past. 

In writing the concurring opinion, Justice Kavanaugh was clear that “the NCAA’s remaining compensation rules also raise serious questions under the antitrust laws.” Kavanaugh went on to add that “the NCAA’s business model would be flatly illegal in almost any other industry in America.”

Despite the legalities and logic behind the court’s ruling, however, there are still many who lament their decision as the first step down a path that will fundamentally alter the sports and entertainment they hold so dear. 

But the presence of such concerns, in conjunction with the court’s unanimous decision, offers a helpful insight into how the Supreme Court is supposed to work that could prove important as we look to issues of religious liberty in the years ahead. 

How much does the culture influence the Supreme Court?

When it does its job well, the Supreme Court is supposed to decide cases on the basis of law rather than public opinion. And while religious liberty is clearly a more nebulous concept to many on the court than blatant violations of antitrust laws, it is still encouraging to be reminded that cultural whims do not have the final word on these issues.

At the same time, it’s worth noting that these shifts in NCAA rulings did not occur until they gained momentum with the populace at large. While the law of the land is meant to be above public opinion, the justices are still human. Moreover, because the cases they see have to work their way up through the less-insulated lower courts first, which cases arrive before the Supreme Court is often dictated to some degree by which issues are most important to the masses. 

Twenty years ago, it’s unlikely that challenges to the NCAA’s compensation of student athletes could have gotten the necessary momentum to make it all the way before the country’s most powerful court. But here we stand. 

Recent challenges to religious liberty have often followed a similar course. 

How will the Supreme Court decide religious liberty cases?

Many of the recent cases pertaining to LGBTQ rights, for example, are based on new interpretations of laws that date back much farther than the current outrage. It was only when they began to generate greater public support that they worked their way up through the legal system.

As such, while there is some room for encouragement in remembering that the justices who will ultimately pass judgment on these issues can, and should, be willing to do so in the face of powerful opposition, we should not take for granted that they always will. Moreover, they can only pass judgment on the laws brought before them, meaning what happens further upstream will always dictate, to some extent, the areas of the culture over which they will yield the most influence. 

That’s why the primary lesson we should take from this story is that it is, and always will be, foolish to place our hopes in the hands of other fallen people or the institutions they create. 

And that’s fine. 

In the roughly two thousand years since the time of Christ, God’s people have worked with varying degrees of help or opposition from their government. And while help is usually preferable, it’s not necessary. 

The advancement of his kingdom is not dependent upon friendly courts or laws that align with Scripture. It’s dependent on the faithfulness and obedience of his people. 

That should be good news. 

Is it for you? 

Denison Forum

Joe Duncan came home from working a twelve-hour shift as a cement technician to learn that his daughter was having difficulty breathing. His wife, Sara, wanted to take her to the hospital, but Joe had to return to a morning shift a few hours later. She encouraged him to stay home and rest, but he insisted on making the one-hour drive with his family to the hospital.

Their daughter received treatment and was cleared to go home after two hours. Sara found Joe napping on the hospital floor using the car seat as a pillow. She took his picture and wrote, “I was looking at him thinking how thankful I am for him and how I wouldn’t want to do this life without him.” Her post went viral.

Father’s Day gave us all an opportunity to thank our fathers and to thank our Father for our fathers. Being there, showing up, and doing life with our families is the foundation of fatherhood.

Sincerity is not enough

Here’s the problem with this wonderful story, however: being there is essential, but it’s not enough. Sincerity is not enough.

The Bible tells us that parents are to teach God’s word “diligently to your children . . . when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deuteronomy 6:7; cf. Ephesians 6:4; Proverbs 22:6).

God’s word also tells men how to be good husbands: “Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them” (Colossians 3:19; cf. Ephesians 5:25); “Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies” (Ephesians 5:28).

Sincerity is essential, but it is not enough. However, our secular culture disagrees.

Boris Johnson says he is a “very, very bad Christian”

US Catholic bishops announced on Friday that they had voted to prepare a document laying out conditions under which Catholic politicians who support abortion rights, including President Biden, may be denied Communion. Watching the media’s largely negative response, it is clear that many consider Mr. Biden’s apparent religious sincerity to be sufficient, regardless of his positions on official Catholic doctrine.

In other political news, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson recently married fiancée Carrie Symonds at Westminster Cathedral in London. The fact that they were married in a religious rather than secular ceremony interested the media, since the prime minister has been less than forthcoming about his personal religious views. He did, however, tell an interviewer for The Atlantic, “Christianity is a superb ethical system and I would count myself as a kind of very, very bad Christian. No disrespect to any other religions, but Christianity makes a lot of sense to me.”

In our culture, sincerity is enough. If the prime minister sincerely believes he is a Christian (albeit a “very, very bad” one), he must be a Christian. Just as I can be a fan of the Texas Rangers or Dallas Cowboys by declaring myself one, I can be a Christian by declaring myself one. Sincerity has replaced truth in our culture.

Why won’t this work?

The death of the president’s dog

One answer is logical: Our postmodern, relativistic culture rejects the existence of absolute truth, which is an absolute truth claim. In a brilliant new article I hope you’ll read, philosopher R. J. Snell observes, “One cannot deny our ability to know the truth without making truth claims and by that very act affirming the possibility and necessity of truth.”

Another is practical: I can sincerely deny that Boris Johnson exists, but my sincere opinion doesn’t change his reality. I can ignore the fact of death, but death won’t ignore me. Even the president of the United States is just as mortal as his beloved dog Champ, whose passing was marked with grief by the Biden family Saturday.

Iran’s new president is obviously sincere about his commitment to Shiite Islam. However, he has been accused of systematically sending as many as three thousand people to slaughter on orders of his religious leader, the former Ayatollah Khomeini. We can be sincere but sincerely and tragically wrong.

“Go back to your beginnings with God”

However, if our sincere faith is faith in the one true God, everything changes. Consider three biblical facts.

One: It’s not too late to come to Jesus.

The New England Aquarium honored a woman’s thirty-eight-year-old ticket that had been in her great-aunt’s wallet. Jesus is even more gracious: he will welcome your faith whether you are young (Matthew 19:14), old (Luke 2:25–38), or even at the end of your life (Luke 23:42–43).

Two: It’s not too soon to come to Jesus.

A new medical device is giving surgeons “x-ray vision” by fusing digitally enhanced images into the microscope of a surgical device. Jesus is even more omniscient (Luke 6:8) and will lead all who will follow into his providential and perfect will (Matthew 11:28–30).

Three: The best way to serve others is to help them follow Jesus.

A father’s best gift to his children is leading them to their Father. If we sincerely love others, we will want them to love our Lord. However, we cannot give what we do not have or lead others where we will not go.

To this end, let’s close by focusing our grateful sincerity on our loving Savior.

Billy Graham’s personal pastor, Don Wilton, told of a time he asked the famed evangelist, “Please tell me what I need to know as I try to serve the Lord.” He writes that Dr. Graham “looked at me for the longest time, and then he began to talk.” Dr. Graham advised him, “Go back to your beginnings with God. God will never be able to use you unless you are totally surrendered to him. A surrendered man never forgets where he came from as a sinner separated from Christ.

“From a heart of gratitude will flow loving the Lord with all your heart and soul and mind. From the act of surrender will come the love you have for your wife and children. From that same heart will flow the love with which you love your people and preach the Word.”

Would Jesus say you are surrendered to him today?

Denison Forum

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that could undermine Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion across America. The Wall Street Journal explains that the case in question is “a Mississippi abortion law that seeks to ban the procedure after fifteen weeks of pregnancy, a case that gives the justices an opportunity to revisit the court’s precedents protecting abortion rights.”

According to the New York Times, pro-life supporters are “expressing excitement at the court’s decision to consider the case, saying they hoped the justices would overturn Roe and allow states to restrict abortion at any stage of pregnancy.”

John F. Kennedy famously noted, “A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.” If anyone doubts the wisdom of his statement, they need look no further than the idea that led to legalized abortion in this country.

More than sixty-two million abortions have occurred since Roe v. Wade; 93 percent of abortions in the US are elective. This means that 57 million lives have been ended through abortion for reasons that have nothing to do with rape, fetal health, or the mother’s health.

Why you should “watch your thoughts”

Abortion is just one example of the power of ideas. The ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas is another: the latter was created in 1987 “for the purpose of liberating Palestine” from the former.

Article Thirteen of Hamas’ charter rejects all “so-called peaceful solutions” to its conflict with Israel and states, “There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except by Jihad” (holy war). Article Thirty-Three calls on all Muslims to continue this war “until liberation is completed, the invaders are vanquished, and Allah’s victory sets in.” Accordingly, its history is one of aggression and violence toward Israel and the Jewish people.

Another example is the idea that biological males who identify as females should be able to compete against females in sports. Female athletes who have lost to such competitors are now speaking out against regulations they consider unfair. The NCAA claims that strength and endurance advantages of transgender women “dissipate after about one year of estrogen or testosterone-suppression therapy,” but a study by the British Journal of Sports Medicine reports that such individuals continue to have a competitive advantage over female athletes.

The philosopher Lao Tzu warned us: “Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.”

Three steps to biblical thinking

In Monday’s Daily Article, I stated the importance of investigating truth claims before accepting them. We are to worship God “in spirit and truth” (John 4:24) as we “make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge” (2 Peter 1:5). “Fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Proverbs 1:7), but “the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding” (Proverbs 2:6).

In other words, to think effectively, we need to think biblically.

I recently studied a prayer in Psalm 119 that offers practical help in this regard. Here we find three steps to biblical thinking and living.

One: Choose to immerse ourselves in God’s word and worship.

The psalmist testified: “With my whole heart I cry; answer me, O Lord! I will keep your statutes” (v. 145). Obedience is the natural and joyful response of a person who worships God with passion. When last did you pray to God and obey his word with your “whole heart”?

Two: Meet God early and late.

The psalmist continued: “I rise before dawn and cry for help; I hope in your words” (v. 147). The best way to walk with God is to begin walking with God. The sooner we connect with the Spirit of God and the word of God, the sooner they can empower and guide us.

The psalmist then added: “My eyes are awake before the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promise” (v. 148). The best way to end the day is by meditating on God’s promises and presence.

Three: Seek God’s word for the challenges we face.

Being immersed in God’s word through the day does not prevent obstacles and challenges. Rather, it empowers us to face the temptations and opposition of a fallen world. For example, after the psalmist noted, “They draw near who persecute me with evil purpose” (v. 150), he claimed the biblical truth, “But you are near, O Lord, and all your commandments are true” (v. 151).

Like Jesus, who confronted the wilderness temptations of Satan by reciting biblical truth (Matthew 4:1–11), we should know God’s word and use its wisdom to defeat our enemy and glorify our Father.

Billy Graham’s pastor

Thinking and living biblically is the path to God’s best for our lives and for our culture. The less popular God’s word becomes, the more God’s word is needed. And the more we need to think and live biblically to glorify the One who has given us his word and his Son.

Don Wilton has served as pastor of First Baptist Church in Spartanburg, South Carolina, since 1993. He was also Billy Graham’s personal pastor. I am reading his new book, Saturdays with Billy, in which he describes his weekly visits with Dr. Graham.

As Dr. Wilton told the Christian Post, humility was a constant theme of his encounters with Dr. Graham. The world-famous evangelist’s life reflected Galatians 6:14, a verse that was posted in a number of places around his home. It reads: “Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”

If we take time to immerse our minds in this biblical truth, it will become true in our lives and our legacy.

Why not today?

Denison Forum

A pet tiger that had been wandering around a Houston neighborhood for several days has been found safe. It was taken to an animal sanctuary yesterday morning, and for good reason: there really is no such thing as a “pet” tiger. As the Humane Society notes, attacks by captive tigers have killed children and adults.

What is true physically is even more true spiritually: “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). He has clearly been roaring lately, as a scan of the headlines shows:

• A four-year-old boy was found dead Saturday morning on a street in Dallas. Police said he died in a violent manner and have arrested a suspect in connection with his death.
• The Biden administration is seeking ways to prevent cyber threats such as the ransomware attack that caused havoc for Americans on the East Coast.
• Economists are concerned about rising inflation and disappointing jobs reports.
• As the conflict in Israel continues, observers report that Hamas is winning the battle for leadership of the Palestinian national movement, with significant consequences for the future of peace in Israel.

If you and I were all-knowing, all-loving, and all-powerful, we would not allow tigers to attack humans or humans to mistreat tigers. We would not allow children to be harmed, much less murdered. We would not allow attacks of any kind on innocent people, or inflation to threaten our financial wellbeing, or military conflicts and their inevitable destruction.

And yet, our all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful God does. Obeying God’s word when we don’t understand his ways is one of the great challenges of the Christian life and a significant obstacle to faith for many skeptics. In a culture with greater scientific progress and technological sophistication than ever before in human history, it is easy to deceive ourselves into believing that we should not believe what we cannot understand.

However, with God the opposite is actually true. To paraphrase the classic song, the less we understand his hand, the more we need to trust his heart.

The miracle of medicinal mud

John 9 finds Jesus in the Temple precincts, where he had been debating with the religious authorities. As he left, he and his disciples “saw a man blind from birth” (v. 1). The Great Physician responded to the man’s plight in a strange way: “He spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud and said to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam’” (vv. 6–7a).

If I were the man born blind, I would question both what Jesus did and what he asked me to do.

Using mud for medicinal purposes was common in the ancient world. So-called “medicinal clay” is described on Mesopotamian tablets around 2500 BC and by ancient Egyptians as well. It can draw toxic substances from the body, protect against bacterial infections, and help with skin diseases. But none of this would be true for a person born blind.

Nor does Jesus’ command to the man make sense in human terms. The pool of Bethesda was adjacent to the temple area; we visit it whenever I lead groups to Israel. The pool of Siloam, by contrast, was at the opposite end of the city. Formed by Hezekiah’s tunnel in 701 BC, it has been partially excavated and is a remarkable site. I have taught John 9 many times when visiting it.

But we make our way there on buses as sighted people. Imagine being blind, your face caked with mud, making your way through the city streets. None of this would make sense to you. But the man obeyed what he did not understand, with this result: “He went and washed and came back seeing” (v. 7b).

Obeying God’s will when we don’t understand his word is a common theme of Scripture. Noah built an ark to protect from a flood such as the world had never seen; Moses stood before a Red Sea that only God could part; Joshua and the people stepped into a flooded Jordan river that the Lord then stopped; the disciples who left their nets to follow Jesus had no idea they would become the spiritual forebears of billions of saved souls.

Each testifies today: when we do not see God’s hand, we can trust his heart.

Teaching calculus to a three-year-old

Where are you being asked to trust what you do not understand? What does God want you to do or stop doing in order to be more like Jesus? Who is he asking you to forgive? From whom is he calling you to seek forgiveness? Where is he calling you to use your influence and witness even more passionately and courageously for your Lord?

When it’s hard to trust God, remember this fact: human minds cannot understand divine sovereignty (Isaiah 55:8–9).

This should come as no surprise. If God is omniscient and our minds are finite and fallen, how should we understand his thoughts? He is not withholding explanations he could give if he wished—there are times when we simply are unable to understand his purposes and ways.

If we cannot explain calculus to a three-year-old, how much less can the King of the universe explain his thoughts to fallen humans?

Far from a problem for skeptics, this proposition should encourage faith in God. If our minds could fully understand God, either he would not be God or we would be. If we could understand every word of the Bible, we would have good reason not to believe that God inspired it.

I traveled in Turkey many years ago doing research for a book on the seven churches of Revelation. My driver and guide was a committed Muslim. During our conversations, he explained that he could not become a Christian because he could not understand the doctrine of the Trinity. I asked him: If there were no mystery to the nature of God, would he truly be God?

When you cannot see his hand

As we’ll see tomorrow, I am not asking you to suspend your intellect or to accept truth claims without investigation. Rather, I am encouraging us to believe that a Father who sent his Son to die on a cross so we could live eternally is a God who always wants our best.

I can testify both rationally and personally that it really is true: when we cannot see his hand, we can trust his heart.

Would you trust your greatest challenge to your Father’s heart today?

Denison Forum

“A struggle is now raging over the heart of Jerusalem,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated yesterday. He was addressing riots in the Old City of Jerusalem and on the Temple Mount. What sparked the violence?

Thomas Friedman explains in today’s New York Times: Jerusalem Day is an Israeli national holiday commemorating the reunification of Jerusalem and establishment of Israeli control over the Old City after the Six-Day War in 1967. It was celebrated with prayer services at the Western Wall beginning Sunday night.

It roughly coincided with Muslims’ Laylat al-Qadr, or “Night of Power”, commemorating the night when the first verse of the Qur’an was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad by the angel Gabriel. It is the most sacred night of the Islamic calendar and is marked by thousands of Muslims gathering at the al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount.

As Israelis celebrated Jerusalem Day, Palestinians threw rocks at them. Israeli police raided the mosque, where Palestinians had stockpiled stones. Hundreds of Palestinians were wounded; more than twenty Israeli police officers suffered injuries as well.

Yesterday’s violence was part of a weeks-long escalation. A month ago, Israel blocked some Palestinian gatherings at the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Then a plan to evict dozens of Palestinians from an East Jerusalem neighborhood engendered further conflicts.

The Palestinian militant group Hamas, which rules Gaza, has called for a new intifada—or uprising—in response. Hamas militants fired a barrage of rockets into Israel yesterday, one setting off air raid sirens as far away as Jerusalem. The Israeli military responded with airstrikes.

I have led more than thirty study tours to Israel and love the Holy Land deeply. I have lifelong Jewish friends in Jerusalem and Palestinian friends in Bethlehem. Out of my decades of travel to the region, I have a personal insight I’d like to share with you today. But first, let’s consider a very brief overview of the region from two perspectives.

The Jewish version

The Jewish people believe that the land we call Israel was promised to them through Abraham (Genesis 12:7). His grandson Jacob became the father of twelve sons who became the progenitors of twelve tribes. Under Joshua, these tribes took possession of the land of Canaan in obedience to God’s direction.

Around 950 BC, King Solomon completed the first temple atop Mt. Moriah (1 Kings 6) where Abraham had offered Isaac centuries earlier (Genesis 22). After that temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC, it was rebuilt when the Jews returned to their land from Babylonian captivity but was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70.

Following the second Jewish revolt in AD 132, Emperor Hadrian quashed their armies and scattered their people. He renamed the land “Palestine” (the Latin version of “Philistine,” the sea peoples that inhabited the Mediterranean coastal plain of the nation). Until 1948, the Holy Land would be known as Palestine and its inhabitants as Palestinians.

In AD 312, the Roman emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and legalized his new religion the next year. This began the Byzantine or “Christian” era in Israel. However, in AD 637, an Arab Muslim advance conquered Jerusalem and Palestine. The Muslim era continued until the Crusaders “liberated” and ruled the land from 1095–1291.

Egyptian Mamluks drove the Crusaders from Palestine and controlled the land until the Ottoman Turks gained control in 1517. They dominated Palestine until they were defeated by the British in World War I. In 1917, the British Empire was given control of Palestine. They left in 1947; on May 14, 1948, the modern State of Israel was born.

However, the eastern part of Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount (where the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque stand), remained under Jordanian control. In 1967, Israel gained control of all of Jerusalem. They allow Jordanian administration of the Temple Mount itself, while Israel controls the Western Wall and adjacent areas.

Nonetheless, Israel considers the entire, united city of Jerusalem to be its capital.

The Muslim version

Muslims tell the story very differently. They believe that Abraham offered not Isaac but Ishmael to God. Since they trace the Arab race to Ishmael, this makes the Arab nation God’s “chosen people,” not the Jews.

They also believe that the Prophet Muhammad was transported by God from Mt. Moriah to heaven and returned to Mecca the same night, making Mt. Moriah their third-holiest site (after Mecca, the birthplace of the prophet, and Medina, where he died). They completed the Dome of the Rock in AD 691 as a shrine over this location, followed by the al-Aqsa Mosque.

Arab Muslim residents of Palestine who were displaced by the creation of Israel in 1948 still claim the land as their own. Some, such as the leaders of Hamas, believe that the Jews should be driven from the region and the entire land reclaimed for a modern nation of “Palestine.” Many who reject the existence of Israel also claim that the Jewish temples never existed in Jerusalem.

Other Palestinians seek a “two-state” solution whereby Israel would keep some of the land and the Palestinians the rest. Both Palestinian groups claim East Jerusalem (including the Temple Mount) as the capital of a future nation of Palestine.

In recent years, Jewish settlers have been building homes and communities in the West Bank (an area located on the western bank of the Jordan river and including East Jerusalem). Many do not recognize the Palestinians’ right to the land; some claim the entire region as part of God’s mandate for the Jewish people. This land, however, is vital to a future Palestinian state, making the “settlements” extremely controversial and problematic.

“The way of peace they have not known”

As much as I love my Jewish and Palestinian friends in the Holy Land, I am convinced that the solution to their conflict lies with neither. Controlling the city of Jerusalem and its Temple Mount or finding a way for both peoples to live in one tiny region will not create the peace each seeks.

This is because we cannot have true peace with each other until we are at peace with God. Peace is one of the “fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22), God’s gift to those who have made his Son their Savior and Lord. Otherwise, as Paul explained, “all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin” (Romans 3:9) so that “none is righteous, no, not one” (v. 10) and “the way of peace they have not known” (v. 17).

The good news is that, according to friends of mine who are missionaries in the Middle East, Muslims and Jews are coming to faith in Jesus in unprecedented numbers. We can “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6) by praying for all who live in Jerusalem and the Holy Land to meet the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:7).

Would you join me in making this your daily prayer, beginning today?

Denison Forum

Let’s begin with some good news: you didn’t get hit by falling rocket debris yesterday.

Remnants of a Chinese rocket landed in the Indian Ocean on Sunday. Most of its components were destroyed upon entering the atmosphere. Parts that survived reentry crashed into the ocean west of the Maldives, a small island chain south of India.

However, we don’t need threats from space to endanger life on earth.

Six people were killed yesterday morning during a birthday party in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The suspected shooter, believed to be a boyfriend of one of the victims, is dead as well. One of America’s largest pipelines was shut down late Friday after being hit by a cyberattack and is still offline this morning.

Last Saturday afternoon, three bystanders were shot in New York City’s Times Square when a man arguing with other people fired wildly into the crowd. One of the victims was a four-year-old girl who was toy shopping with her family and was hit in the left leg. 

Speaking of children: the Walt Disney Company has unveiled the Rainbow Disney Collection. Designed to honor the annual Pride Month in June that celebrates the LGBTQ community and movement, the catalog of apparel and toys features T-shirts, Mickey Mouse ears, mugs, and even baby apparel, all adorned with rainbows.

This is just one way Disney seeks to introduce children to LGBTQ ideology. The 2020 Disney-Pixar animated film Onward had a minor character who was a lesbian; Pixar’s short film Out featured a gay lead character; and the Disney Channel cartoon series The Owl House featured a bisexual main character.

In 2018, Cartoon Network featured a same-sex wedding proposal on the animated series Steven Universe. The network is working to create comic strips asserting that there are multiple gender identities. Earlier this year, the Nickelodeon series Blue’s Clues and You! unveiled a song teaching children the alphabet while promoting LGBTQ advocacy.

“The stronger the emphasis, the fewer the Christians”

If you’re like me, you read such news and feel frustrated that the church is not doing more to impact the culture. If we are “the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world” (Matthew 5:13–14), why is our salt and light not doing more to season and enlighten our culture? Why, in fact, are churches and Christian institutions sometimes the problem more than the solution?

In an article published yesterday, David French makes a vital distinction between Christendom and Christianity. As he explains, “Christianity is the faith, Christians are believers in the faith, and Christendom is the collective culture and institutions (universities, ministries) of the faith.”

French cites the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, who saw the Christian institutions of his day as hurting rather than helping the faith. Kierkegaard issued the compelling warning that imitating Jesus “is really the point from which the human race shrinks. The main difficulty lies here; here is where it is really decided whether or not one is willing to accept Christianity.”

He then explained the problem: “If there is emphasis on this point, the stronger the emphasis, the fewer the Christians. If there is a scaling down at this point (so that Christianity becomes, intellectually, a doctrine), more people enter into Christianity. If it is abolished completely . . . Christianity spreads to such a degree that Christendom and the world are almost indistinguishable, or all become Christians; Christianity has completely conquered—that is, it is abolished!”

In other words, we can make the imitation of Jesus into doctrines about Jesus and then build institutions to proclaim these doctrines. But we should remember James’s warning: “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!” (James 2:19).

Doctrines and institutions that do not lead people to know and imitate Jesus personally will never change the culture. That’s because the culture changes when people change. And people are changed not by our words but by God’s Spirit.

People tempted by LGBTQ attraction and ideology are liberated not by protesting against Disney (though we should clearly stand against unbiblical morality) but by the transformation Jesus brings to a life yielded fully to him (2 Corinthians 5:17). For people being tempted by other forms of immorality in our broken culture, the answer is the same: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6).

The earliest image of Jesus

A two-thousand-year-old marble head of Emperor Augustus has been discovered in a town in Italy. It was originally part of a statue towering at least six feet seven inches. I have seen many such statues of Augustus in museums, each depicting the emperor in power and glory.

Now contrast these statues with the earliest image of the Savior born in Bethlehem when Augustus ruled from Rome (Luke 2:1–7). It was made in mockery of the Christian faith and depicted a donkey-headed Christ on his cross. Other early images made by Christians show Jesus as a shepherd and a healer. Not until the fourth century do we find images of him ruling in authority.

This is not because his earliest followers knew Jesus to be anything less than King of kings and Lord of lords (cf. Revelation 19:16). Rather, their depictions call us to serve our King by serving others. The more we love Jesus, the more we will love those he loves. And he loves everyone.

The Holy Spirit uses changed people to change the world. The apostles could impact the Sanhedrin by their preaching because their lives had been impacted by its truth (Acts 4:13). Paul could call multitudes to Jesus because he had been transformed by Jesus (cf. Acts 22:1–21).

Churches and institutions can call our culture to imitate Jesus to the degree that those who comprise these churches and institutions imitate Jesus.

The “visible absence” and “invisible presence” of God

If you and I will meet with our risen Lord each day in worship, submitting to his Spirit (Ephesians 5:18) and asking him to manifest the character of our Lord in our lives (Galatians 5:22–23), he will answer our prayer. If, like Jesus, we will seek to serve rather than to be served (Mark 10:45), our Lord will use us to draw others to himself.

In Telling the Truth, Frederick Buechner speaks of the “visible absence” and the “invisible presence” of God in the world. I would add a third category: the “visible presence” of God in the world through the people of God in the world.

Whom will you serve today?

Denison Forum

Kyra Peralte is a mother of two in Montclair, New Jersey. A year ago, she started keeping a journal about the challenges of juggling marriage, work, and motherhood during a global crisis. She found the experience cathartic and wondered how other women were dealing with the overwhelming stress of the pandemic.

So she decided to invite women from around the world to fill the remaining pages of her composition notebook with their own pandemic stories. She wrote an article about her idea, then created a website so participants could add their names to the queue. Each person was allowed to keep the diary for up to three days and fill in as many pages as they wished, then mail it to the next person, whose address Peralte provided.

Her journal became “The Traveling Diary,” traversing the globe via snail mail and collecting handwritten stories. A year later, seven notebooks have circulated in locations from the United States to Australia, Canada, and South Africa. So far, 115 women have signed up to participate.

Creating a way for people to deal with their challenges in community is just what a mother would do.

The help mothers need

Mother’s Day is this Sunday. Anna Jarvis initiated the idea of a Mother’s Day in 1905 to honor the memory of her deceased mother. Nine years later, President Woodrow Wilson made the day a national observance. By Ms. Jarvis’ death, forty-three countries around the world had joined in the holiday.

The impulse behind such a day is obvious: except for Adam and Eve, every human being in human history had or has a mother. While some never knew their mothers and others had very difficult childhoods, most of us experienced the kind of compassion Kyra Peralte modeled. And we are grateful for a day to express our gratitude.

Godly mothers especially deserve our support in these challenging days.

According to a national poll, 46 percent of parents say their teenagers’ mental health has worsened during the pandemic. A report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the proportion of twelve- to seventeen-year-olds visiting emergency rooms for mental health reasons rose 31 percent in 2020 compared to 2019. This is in addition to the ongoing mental health crisis among young people and other challenges mothers have been facing during the pandemic.

Where can they find help? A research study of more than two thousand mothers reported that being well-adjusted as a mother depended largely on how much emotional support was available from other people in their lives. The study showed that mothers especially need to feel unconditionally loved for their “core” selves with a reliable source of emotional comfort and authentic relationships with family and friends.

Here’s the good news: No matter how family and friends encourage or discourage us, our heavenly Father will always love us for who we are. He is always there for us. He seeks nothing other than an authentic relationship with us.

A lesson from a gas cap

As we close our weeklong focus on personal spirituality as the basis for public courage in the face of an antagonistic culture, let’s apply our discussion to mothers and families.

During one of my pastorates, I borrowed our church van to drive to a distant university for a board meeting. Unfortunately, I failed to pick up the gas cap key from the church office before leaving. When the van needed gas, I had no ability to open the cap and had to find a locksmith. I learned practically what every driver knows intellectually: vehicles need the fuel they were designed to use.

It is the same with our souls.

Most mothers can identify with Mark 6:31: “‘Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.” Jesus’ purpose in calling us from the world is to call us to himself. He promises that those who “abide” in him will bear “much fruit,” but he also warns us that “apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

Oswald Chambers was right: “Every element of self-reliance must be slain by the power of God. Complete weakness and dependence will always be the occasion for the Spirit of God to manifest his power.”

Our Father’s invitation to mothers is his call to us all: identify our challenges, admit that we cannot face them without God’s help, bring them to him in faith, and trust him for the resources and encouragement we need.

Finding “the world of spiritual beauty”

Henri Nouwen observed: “Contemplative life is a human response to the fundamental fact that the central things in life, although spiritually perceptible, remain invisible in large measure and can very easily be overlooked by the inattentive, busy, distracted person that each of us can so readily become.

“The contemplative looks not so much around things but through them to their center. Through their center he discovers the world of spiritual beauty that is more real, has more density, more mass, more energy, and greater intensity than physical matter. In effect, the beauty of physical matter is a reflection of its inner content.”

Whatever our circumstances, Jesus will reveal the empowering “world of spiritual beauty” within them to all who make time to seek it with him.

Will you accept his invitation today?

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Emily Smith is an epidemiologist at Baylor University, the wife of a Baptist pastor, and a mother. She has been working hard to help her fellow evangelicals understand the urgency of getting vaccinated against COVID-19.

Though she has received vociferous criticism and even death threats, she is committed to her calling: “I just feel such a sense of obligation, especially from a Christian perspective, to be the Good Samaritan, and hopefully get people to band together and still wear their mask and get a vaccine.”

Jamie Aten is executive director of the Humanitarian Disaster Institute at Wheaton College. In his work, he has helped his fellow evangelicals deal with hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, and other disasters. His ministry has been widely received with gratitude.

When he began urging his fellow evangelicals to get vaccinated against COVID-19, however, some of the responses he received were ugly. He even had to file a report with the sheriff’s office where he lives after getting an email claiming his work on vaccines was “punishable by death.”

Biblical citation labeled “hate speech”

C. S. Lewis observed that “courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.”

A new policy in China went into effect last Saturday. It requires all clergy and religious leaders in China to “support the leadership of the Communist Party of China, support the socialist system,” and “practice the core values of socialism” while adhering to the “autonomous management of religion.” As a result of this policy, Chinese Communist officials removed Bible apps and public Christian WeChat accounts. Bibles in hard copy are no longer available for sale online.

Communist authorities recently closed Catholic Church-run children’s homes and orphanages and have ordered Christians to fly the Chinese flag and sing patriotic songs in their services. A recent publication includes China among sixty-two countries, comprising two-thirds of the world’s population, that violate religious freedom.

Finland is not on the list, but a member of its parliament is facing six years imprisonment for allegedly committing three crimes, including “hate speech.” A medical doctor and the mother of five, she has publicly voiced her opinion defending biblical sexual morality. One of her “crimes” was quoting Romans 1:24–27, a tweet for which she was accused of hate speech and interrogated by the police.

“I will not back down from my views,” she said. “I will not be intimidated into hiding my faith. The more Christians keep silent on controversial themes, the narrower the space for freedom of speech gets.”

“God’s story, my story, and their story”

Jacob Bland is the new president and CEO of Youth for Christ, a ministry that began in 1944 when Billy Graham served as its first full-time staff member. Today, it operates in over one hundred nations and has more than 160 chapters across the US. Bland explained his organization’s strategy in a way I found compelling: “The way we look at it, there are three stories that are overlapping: God’s story, my story, and their story.”

To advance God’s kingdom, we learn the stories of those who need Jesus, then we share his story by showing how he has changed our story and can change their story.

In yesterday’s Daily Article, I described the urgency of defending biblical morality in an increasingly antagonistic culture. I also noted the importance of living the truth we proclaim, knowing that our lives must be the first sermon we preach.

How can we be the change we wish to see? Paul’s letter to a church in an antagonistic culture offers us clear and compelling guidance.

When Paul came to the Greek city of Thessalonica, a mob responded to the gospel by attacking followers of Jesus (Acts 17:1–10). Nonetheless, the apostle encouraged Thessalonian Christians to “stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us” (2 Thessalonians 2:15). He reminded them that their salvation came “through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth” (v. 13), that divine-human partnership by which we accept God’s word as true and the Spirit uses that truth to transform our lives.

The basis for our salvation is “our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace” (v. 16). Paul could therefore pray for the Lord to “comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word” (v. 17).

Four empowering imperatives

This passage calls us to four simple commitments that are transforming for us and our influence:

One: Remember that God is love (1 John 4:8). Because he “loved us” in the past, he has given us “good hope through grace” for the present and “eternal comfort” for the future. No matter who you are or where you are, God loves you.

Two: Believe God’s word is truth (John 17:17). What the Bible says about sexuality or any other issue we face is the unchanging, life-giving truth of God.

Three: Submit to the sanctification of the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18; 1 Peter 1:2). He alone can make us like Jesus (Romans 8:29), transforming us into the kind of people whose lives will draw the world to our Lord.

Four: Stand firm for your Lord (1 Corinthians 15:58; 16:13). The greater the opposition to Jesus, the greater the opportunity for courage that glorifies our Lord.

A song on the radio

As we choose to follow Jesus with courage, it is vital to remember that we need God’s grace just as much as anyone who rejects God’s grace. The other day, I was driving home from the office and heard a powerful song by Sidewalk Prophets on the radio. Titled “You Love Me Anyway,” it includes these lyrics:

I am the thorn in your crown
But you love me anyway
I am the sweat from your brow
But you love me anyway
I am the nail in your wrist
But you love me anyway
I am Judas’ kiss
But you love me anyway

Will you celebrate and share this love today?

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A gay man who is also a drag queen was recently confirmed by a Methodist church in Illinois as a candidate for ordained ministry. He wore wigs and full makeup while participating in his church’s “Drag Sunday” in April.

Another Hillsong pastor resigned last week after sharing explicit photos on social media. A Southern Baptist pastor in North Carolina resigned after being arrested and charged with child pornography.

And Josh Duggar, a former star of the television series 19 Kids and Counting and a very public Christian, appeared in court last Friday after he was arrested and charged with receiving and possessing child pornography. Though he pleaded not guilty, he has confessed to adultery and viewing pornography in the past.

My father served in World War II and never attended church again. As a result, I grew up without a church and with all my father’s faith questions. If I had read these stories before I became a Christian as a teenager, I would have seen them as excellent reasons to not become a Christian.

Should President Biden be able to take communion?

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone released a letter last Saturday calling for public figures who support abortion to be barred from taking communion. He serves in San Francisco and is thus archbishop for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who is an ardent abortion supporter. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops is likewise considering a document that would advise Catholic politicians who support abortion to not receive communion.

Here’s why this is such an urgent issue for them: Catholic theology teaches that the communion wafer and wine (also known as the Eucharist), when presented by the priest at the altar during Mass, become the body and blood of Christ (a doctrine known as “transubstantiation”). The Church states that this “sacrament” is “the source and summit of the Christian life” and that “in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church.” The Church also teaches that abortion is a “moral evil” and “gravely contrary to the moral law.”

As a result, we would expect the vast majority of American Catholics to agree that public officials who support abortion should not take communion. But we would be wrong.

According to a new poll, 87 percent of Catholic Democrats believe President Biden should be allowed to receive communion, despite his passionate support for the “moral evil” of abortion. Only 44 percent of Catholic Republicans agree.

Why “we are losing a generation”

In my Daily Article last Friday, I discussed our society’s belief that sexual freedom and “authenticity” are essential to personal and social flourishing. In this view, the biblical worldview is dangerous to society and must be replaced with a secular vision for the future.

As Christians respond to this unprecedented threat to public biblical morality, it is absolutely vital that we demonstrate personal biblical morality.

Ethicist Russell Moore is right: “The problem now is not that people think the church’s way of life is too demanding, too morally rigorous, but that they have come to think the church doesn’t believe its own moral teachings.” He adds: “We are losing a generation—not because they are secularists, but because they believe we are.”

This is why you and I need a transforming, intimate, daily relationship with our risen Lord. And why our enemy will do all he can to keep us from one.

“Satan demanded to have you”

On Maundy Thursday, Jesus warned Simon Peter: “Behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat” (Luke 22:31). “You” is plural in the Greek, referring to all the disciples. Satan wanted to “sift” them, meaning to shake them so violently that they would fall and fail.

Jesus continued: “But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail” (v. 32a). The “I” is emphatic; “you” is singular, referring to Peter alone. Jesus prayed that his faith (“faithfulness” in the Greek) would not “fail” in the sense of a complete and final denial of his Lord.

Jesus knew that Peter would experience a temporary failure but that God would redeem it: “And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers” (v. 32b). Following Peter’s denial of his Lord (Matthew 26:69–74), he would repent and would “strengthen” the other disciples after their similar failures (John 21:15–19).

Peter responded, “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death” (Luke 22:33). However, the opposite occurred: “Jesus said, ‘I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day, until you deny three times that you know me’” (v. 34). And so it was (Matthew 26:75).

The key to being like Jesus

How can this event help us experience the holiness in our lives we wish to see in the world?

First, expect temptation to find you. If Satan would attack your Lord (Matthew 4:1–11) and his lead disciple, he will attack you (1 Peter 5:8).

Second, pray for help to the One who is praying for you (Romans 8:34). If Peter had been more humble, he would have been more holy (cf. Micah 6:8).

Third, offer others the grace you have received (Matthew 28:19). Peter’s post-Easter ministry encourages each of us to be “beggars helping beggars find bread.”

The key to being like Jesus is staying close to Jesus. Oswald Chambers is right: “A great many Christian workers worship their work. The one concern of a worker should be concentration on God.” He added: “The only responsibility you have is to keep in living, constant touch with God and to see that you allow nothing to hinder your cooperation with him.”

Would Jesus say you are in “living, constant touch” with him today? If not, why not?

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The American media continues to cover President Biden’s Wednesday night address to Congress and the reactions to it. Meanwhile, another politician is making news in ways that are deeply encouraging.

Scott Morrison is the prime minister of Australia and a very public Christian. He spoke recently to the Australian Christian Churches’ national conference, where he shared his personal faith and sense of call to his position.

The Guardian reports that “Morrison is far from alone among Australian prime ministers either in holding religious beliefs or in talking publicly about them. But he is unusual in modern times in expressing such a direct sense of divine calling to the office of prime minister.”

The article takes a decidedly skeptical view of this “divine calling.” This is unsurprising, since the prime minister’s holistic faith conflicts directly with the narrative that now dominates our culture.

A threat “the church has not encountered before”

One of the transformative consequences of stepping away from our daily lives is an enlarged perspective when we return. Like a helicopter sightseeing tour that shows us a beautiful location from a higher view, retreating from the routine can help us see ourselves more clearly from God’s perspective.

One of the clear messages I sensed from God in recent days is that his people must prepare more urgently than ever for the challenges that are coming. We are in the early stages of a movement the church has never faced before, one which threatens us in ways that are now becoming clearer.

Sociologist Philip Rieff describes the era when the Christian movement began as the “first culture.” It was dominated by a pantheon of gods whose followers were content with their religion and not missionary toward the larger world. According to Rieff, the Christian movement sparked a monotheistic and evangelistic “second culture” which swept away the “first culture.”

Now we are in what Rieff calls the “third culture,” which Australian pastor Stephen McAlpine describes as “hermetically sealed off from anything transcendent.” It “recognizes only horizontal identity constructions, not vertical ones. Here is where meaning is determined, and here is where authority lies. It is ours to construct—and deconstruct.”

McAlpine adds: “This third culture is highly evangelistic and actively hostile to second-culture values.” For example, it considers sexual “freedom” and “authenticity” to be vital to personal and social flourishing. Biblical morality is therefore seen as dangerous to society and potentially deadly to LGBTQ individuals. The same vitriolic stance is taken with regard to abortion, euthanasia, or any other personal “freedoms” that are “threatened” by biblical faith.

According to McAlpine, this is a “new religion” and rival gospel “the church has not encountered before.” It seeks nothing less than to replace Christianity with its secular vision for a better future.

“My soul pants for you, O God”

What seems to be very bad news is actually the shadowside of very good news.

Every human being is made in God’s image for personal relationship with our Maker (cf. Genesis 1:27). Nothing in secular culture can fill this “God-shaped emptiness” that Pascal described. The further our society moves from biblical truth, the more people will hunger for biblical truth.

Therein lies our opportunity and our challenge.

Frederick Buechner noted, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” “The world’s deep hunger” is to hear from God. Not just about him—from him. The storms our culture faces are so grave, we cannot navigate them without divine leadership, provision, and protection.

You and I are conduits through whom our Lord speaks to our world. But we cannot give what we do not have. We cannot speak a word from God unless we hear a word from God. To meet “the world’s deep hunger,” we must first meet with God.

Our “deep gladness” comes from such intimacy as well: “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God” (Psalm 42:1). David testified: “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water” (Psalm 63:1).

More than at any time in my lifetime, evangelical Christians need to follow David’s example today. As we face the cultural challenges that lie ahead, we desperately need a transformative, empowering connection with our Lord. I plan to say more about this connection next week; for today, let’s close by choosing to make it our first priority as the people of God.

“I don’t have time to sharpen my ax”

Ecclesiastes 10 offers this remarkable insight: “If the iron is blunt, and one does not sharpen the edge, he must use more strength, but wisdom helps one to succeed” (v. 10).

The story is told of a newly hired lumberjack who felled more trees on his first day than anyone else. By the fourth day, however, his output had fallen so far that his supervisor asked him what was wrong.

The man said, “I don’t understand. I’m working even harder than before but cutting less timber.” The supervisor asked the lumberjack how often he sharpened his ax. He replied, “I have too many trees to cut—I don’t have time to sharpen my ax.”

When last did you sharpen your “ax” with God? When next will you?

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The Constitution requires the president to “from time to time give to the Congress Information on the State of the Union.” Though technically not a State of the Union address, President Biden fulfilled this obligation last night in front of a joint session of Congress. While most recent presidents have delivered such an address earlier in the year, the Coronavirus and other factors combined to delay last night’s report.

Biden began his speech with an update on where the country stands with vaccines before moving on to a general overview of his legislative priorities going forward. Among the most discussed were jobs, healthcare, immigration reform, climate change, foreign policy, and education.

He spoke for just over an hour and took a generally optimistic and conciliatory tone, with the phrase “the country supports it” used several times to portray a general agreement among Americans on several of the issues he discussed.

But while Americans may agree on the problems that need to be addressed, there remains a general lack of consensus on how to best address them. Tim Scott, in his response to the president on behalf of the Republican party, emphasized that reality on several occasions.

Scott spent much of his speech lamenting the partisan divides that still exist and outlining how the disparate views on how to move forward have often been at the heart of such conflict. He argued for a greater emphasis on taking a bipartisan approach to crafting legislation rather than just in support of legislation as a key component of the solution.

That emphasis is one of two I would like to highlight from last night’s affairs that can help us better understand how God is calling us to serve others and advance his kingdom today.

Focus on the issues

President Biden began his speech by stating, “Tonight, I come to talk about crisis and opportunity.” And while segments of his speech sought to depict a unifying path forward, he could not seem to consistently avoid relying on unnecessarily extreme rhetoric and examples to help elucidate how he views our current situation as a country.

In his depiction of the January 6th assault on the Capitol, for example, he stated it was “the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.” While what occurred that day was both embarrassing for our country and frightening for what could have happened, placing it above events like the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the September 11th attacks is needlessly reckless and inaccurate.

Senator Ted Cruz’s description of what Americans could expect from the speech, published in an opinion piece yesterday morning, was not much better. The tone and content of the article, in which he began by stating “Let me save you an hour of your time this evening and sum up President Biden’s speech in three words: boring, but radical,” included little intended to bring Americans together unless they were coming together in opposition to the president.

In both cases, we see either the inability or the disinterest of political leaders to disagree in a way that does not give the other side cause to disengage from the conversation. And while that hardly makes either man unique in recent times, it does reinforce that we should probably look elsewhere for our examples of how to engage with others.

Fortunately, the Bible gives us a much better option.

As Christians—literally, “little Christs”—our example is Jesus. And while he was hardly above engaging in spirited debate with others, he never did so in a way that deviated from the truth or inaccurately maligned the other person. He kept his focus on the most important issues and spoke in such a way as to foster understanding and growth for everyone involved.

If we can learn to model that in our conversations with others, even if they choose not to return the favor, then we are far more likely to give God room to use that discussion to advance his kingdom.

Find real solutions

Our second point for today is closely related to the first.

Conducting our conversations in a way that avoids extreme examples and demeaning characterizations, while important in its own right, will make the greatest impact if those discussions are intended to find real solutions.

One of Senator Scott’s critiques in his response to President Biden’s speech was that, in regard to the problem of racism, “My friends across the aisle seemed to want the issue more than they want a solution.”

While that may be true for some, it is an approach that is hardly unique to the Democrats. Abortion and immigration, for example, are issues that Republicans rely heavily upon to generate support in their campaigns, but often seem less concerned about when it comes time to craft policy.

And it’s understandable why this approach would be tempting: it tends to work.

Unfortunately, it also makes it difficult to trust that either side really wants the changes they so eloquently describe.

Are we any different, though, when we spend more time complaining about a problem or lamenting its existence than we do trying to fix it?

If you hear of a need at your church or a hurting family in your neighborhood, is your first instinct to talk with other people about how tragic the situation is, or do you take steps to help make a real difference? It could be that such conversations are an important first step, but if that’s where our commitment level ends, then it’s quite possible that we have stopped short of God’s will.

Model what you wish to see

George Bernard Shaw once noted that “Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.”

Regardless of what you think about President Biden, Senator Scott, or the speeches they gave, last night served as an important reminder that our political climate is largely a reflection of our culture. Perhaps it’s because the issues in Washington are often easier to see than the ones in our own communities, but we must learn not to focus so much on the speck in our politicians’ eyes that we ignore the plank in our own (Matthew 7:3–5).

Far too often, we make a habit of the very same behavior that we lament in others. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

So take some time today and ask the Lord to help you reflect on your recent interactions to see how closely they align with the example of Christ. Then commit to making whatever changes are necessary to model the conduct you wish you could see in others.

After all, chances are good that it won’t be long before God gives you the chance to do just that.

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President Joe Biden made history this past weekend when he became the first sitting US president to recognize the massacre of as many as 1.5 million Armenian Christians by the Ottoman Empire—present-day Turkey—in the early twentieth century as a genocide.

It’s taken this long for the United States to officially describe horrific slaughter with accurate terminology because Turkey has long been seen as an important ally in the Middle East, and they are predictably hesitant to accept that classification. That the genocide is relatively unknown compared to those that occurred in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany—both of which seemed to be working from the Ottoman playbook—has helped give cover to minimizing the gravity of what actually occurred.

But, as noted conservative Ben Shapiro stated in praising Biden for the decision, rectifying the omission has been “long overdue.”

To understand why this decision is important for us today, though, we must first know a bit more about what happened and why the Ottomans systematically killed so many Armenians.

What is the Armenian Genocide?

The Armenian Genocide refers to a period starting around April 1915, when the Ottoman Empire began to arrest and deport the Armenian population within its borders to concentration camps in the desert. But many never made it that far. Instead, the Ottoman civil and military officials oversaw the systematic mass murder of somewhere between six hundred thousand to well over one million Armenian Christians across the journey.

To understand why the Armenians were targeted, however, requires going back several centuries.

The Armenians maintained a relative level of independence within the region until the Ottoman Empire conquered them during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. While their relationship with the Ottomans was seldom easy in the years that followed—experiencing varying degrees of oppression based on who was in charge and a host of other factors—some Armenians began to rise to economic and political prominence within the empire during the 1700s. As Ronald G. Suny writes, “The prominence and influence of the well-educated and cosmopolitan Armenian elite had a drawback, however, in that it became a source of resentment and suspicion among Muslims.”

When a group of Armenians from Russia began agitating for independence in the late 1800s—a call most Ottoman Armenians rejected—it gave many within the empire’s leadership the provocation they were looking for to begin cracking down on the Christian minority within their borders. Over the next decade, minor uprisings were met with a decisive and harsh response, resulting in tens of thousands of Armenian deaths.

The situation began to escalate in earnest when, in 1913, a more extreme group within the ruling Young Turks movement came to power and increased their oppression of the Armenians by spreading rumors that they were collaborating with foreign powers and blaming them for the empire’s defeat in the First Balkan War (1912–1913).

When the Ottomans joined with Germany and Austria-Hungary a year later in World War I, they attempted to coerce the Armenians among their ranks into convincing their brethren across the Russian border to fight on the Ottomans’ side. The Armenians refused, however. After suffering a resounding defeat to the Russians in 1915, the empire placed the blame squarely on the Armenians and began either killing or deporting the Christians en masse.

By the time the war ended, over 90 percent of the empire’s Armenian population had left or died, and most of the surviving remnant were forced to either convert to Islam or face a similar fate. Their homes and property were divided up amongst Muslim refugees and any remaining traces of their existence were erased from the culture.

Why President Biden’s statement is significant

To this day, Turkey refuses to accept the historically accurate depiction of what occurred between the Ottomans and the Armenians during World War I. While they admit some Christians were deported and killed, they deny that any sort of systematic execution took place. Moreover, they argue that the action was warranted because the Armenians were rebels and represented a risk to national security.

Given that modern-day Turkey—under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan—desires to recreate the Ottoman Empire and reclaim its position of international significance, their approach to this issue is notable. Moreover, their increased oppression against dissenters, restrictions on free speech, strict censorship of news and internet sources, and recent history of violence against the Kurds and others demonstrate a willingness to use manipulation and force to maintain their authority.

And while the systematic extinction of those in their way remains further down that path than where they stand today, the similarities between the nineteenth-century Ottoman government and that of modern-day Turkey are notable. All of which makes President Biden’s decision to reclassify the atrocity as genocide both significant and commendable.

That he and his administration are willing to risk the further fraying of our relationship with Turkey to bring awareness and context to the country’s history also demonstrates a tacit awareness that their current trajectory must not be allowed to continue unchecked.

Why this news should matter to us

But, as horrific as the actions of the Ottoman Empire were and as potentially dangerous as Turkey’s present course may be, why should President Biden’s decision to officially acknowledge the genocide as a genocide matter to each of us?

To start, what happens in the Middle East seldom stays in the Middle East. As America prepares to withdraw our remaining troops from Afghanistan in the coming months, present trends—in Turkey and elsewhere—make it easy to imagine a scenario in which their stay back home is relatively short lived.

Will you please join me in praying that tensions in Turkey specifically, but also the region as a whole, decrease? Will you also pray that the spiritual awakening currently bringing thousands of people in the Middle East to Christ each day continues and can be part of that stabilizing force?

Finally, the genocide that killed more than a million Christians a little over a century ago was far from the last time believers were persecuted in that region. Despite the growth of the faith—and perhaps because of that growth—the Middle East remains a very dangerous place to serve our Lord. So as we acknowledge the genocide perpetrated against believers long ago, let that memory fuel your prayers for the believers in harm’s way today as well.

What happened before can happen again.

Let’s pray right now that it doesn’t.

Denison Forum

Pixar Animation Studios has become perhaps the most preeminent name in children’s entertainment. They have been a mainstay at the Oscars for more than two decades and, this year, developed two of the five movies nominated for Best Animated Feature Film. Soul took home the award, becoming the eleventh such Pixar property to do so.

The success of their recent offerings is not the only reason they are in the news today, however.

Last week, word began to circulate that they were looking to cast someone to voice the character Jess in an upcoming project. Jess is described as someone who is “compassionate, funny, and always has your back.” They are looking for a 12–17-year-old who is “enthusiastic, outgoing, funny, and energetic” who also feels “comfortable acting in front of a microphone” and can “authentically portray a 14-year-old transgender girl.”

If that last part caught you by surprise, that’s kind of the point.

As of this writing, we don’t know much about the character’s role, the size of the part, or even if the project will be a feature-length or short film. But when it airs, Jess will become the first openly transgender character in a Pixar project. And while the company started heading this direction by including the first openly homosexual character in Onward last year—a cyclops cop named Officer Specter—it’s still a big step that caught many by surprise.

So how should we respond to this news?

To answer that question well requires looking at the issue on a couple of different levels.

Know what you don’t know

To start, it’s important to acknowledge what we don’t know.

As referenced above, Pixar has not given details on the size and prominence of the transgender character’s role, but history would seem to indicate it will be minor. The homosexual cop in Onward had one scene in the movie, and the only reason her sexual orientation was revealed is that a quick line mentioned her “girlfriend.”

When news broke that the live-action Beauty and the Beast would include a “gay moment,” many quickly denounced the film and called for its boycott. To this day, it’s not completely clear when that moment occurred, and the most likely scene is when two men bump into each other on the dance floor at the conclusion of the film.

My point in referencing both of those examples is this: if word had not leaked prior to the screening of each movie that they would contain a homosexual character, most people—and almost every child—who watched it would have never noticed.

It’s unclear if Jess’ transgender identity will be clearly noticeable, but it seems likely that at least part of the reason the story is making the rounds now is so that when it actually occurs, people will be looking for it.

The inclusion of characters in children’s programs who overtly embrace a lifestyle that runs counter to God’s truth as revealed in the Bible should not be taken lightly. The first such instances are often a test to see how far companies can push the limits before it begins to hurt their bottom line.

At the same time, the reaction—and overreaction—from Christians to announcements of LGBTQ characters in the past has often done more to publicize and advance that agenda than if a more measured approach had been taken. Blanket outrage usually does little more than temporarily rile up those who already agree with you, only to then make it seem like that anger was misplaced if the reality ends up being relatively minor and otherwise difficult to notice.

Let’s not make the same mistake this time.

There’s no harm in waiting for more information before deciding how you will react. In fact, far greater harm is likely to come if you don’t.

Should you see the film?

But while we wait for more information, many of us will already begin struggling with whether or not we will see the film when it’s released.

As the parent of two kids who are most likely going to want to see this movie, this discussion hits pretty close to home. And while there’s a lot that goes into that decision, ultimately there is not a one-size-fits-all answer. Just be sure to include God in the discussion as, if you are open to his guidance and committed to following it, he will let you know what to do.

What we should not do, however, is pretend that shielding kids from a single film will shield them from the broader issue.

The days when it was safe to simply hand your child the TV remote and walk away ended a long time ago. While Pixar may be the biggest name in the children’s entertainment business to recently go down this path, they are far from the first. Fortunately, a quick Google search is usually enough to learn everything you need to know to make an informed decision.

While researching parental reviews for children’s programming may seem strange, it’s becoming an essential part of the parenting—and grandparenting—experience. After all, it’s worth taking an extra two minutes before telling your kids yes to help protect them from material they may not be old enough to process well.

And if they are old enough to have those conversations, perhaps viewing a film as a family could offer a better introduction than waiting for school or friends to have the first word on the subject.

Reacting with wisdom

Tony Evans once said that “wisdom may be defined as the ability to take spiritual truth and consistently apply it to life’s realities.”

As we prayerfully search for ways to respond well to the increasing attempts to render spiritual truth secondary to cultural norms, it will be of even greater importance to seek wisdom to apply God’s word to life’s realities in a way that is both relevant and faithful to Scripture. 

Pixar’s latest project could be a great opportunity to practice that wisdom in your family, with your friends, and on your social media. But as you do, remember that wisdom and outrage seldom coexist well. One usually ends up dominating the other.

Which will you choose today?

Denison Forum

While the world waited in anticipation for the final verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial on Tuesday, sixteen-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant was shot and killed by police in Columbus, Ohio. Hours later, the body cam footage was released and appears to show that the officer delivered the fatal blow moments before Bryant, who was holding a knife, could do the same to another young woman.

Do those circumstances alter the tragedy of Bryant losing her life at such a young age? Absolutely not. But they do give it context, and that context is important for understanding what really happened and how we should respond.

You see, even the few hours between when the news of Bryant’s death was first reported and when the footage was released were enough for many to form and voice very strong opinions about the heartbreaking event. And for many, those opinions were not greatly changed by the video.

NBA star LeBron James, for example, was among the most prominent and controversial voices to weigh in. On Wednesday he tweeted and then quickly deleted a picture of a Columbus police officer with the caption “You’re next. #accountability.” He later explained that he removed the tweet because people used it “to create more hate” and that “ANGER does (not do) any of us any good and that includes myself! Gathering all the facts and educating does though. My anger is still here for what happened that lil girl. My sympathy for her family and may justice prevail!”

As the protests over Bryant’s death in the days since demonstrate, many share LeBron’s anger and frustration. And while we can debate the degree to which those emotions are warranted and well-placed in this instance, I’d like to focus our attention today on a different question, one that pertains to a problem that has been building across our culture for some time now and shows few signs of changing anytime soon.

Know why you’re speaking

While discussing the shooting on-air Wednesday night, CNN’s Chris Cuomo praised Don Lemon’s initial response of choosing to be “cautious about it . . . because there was a lot of emotion, and understandably so. You’ve got a sixteen-year-old kid who’s gone.” The two then went on to describe the challenges police face when called to a scene where, whether or not the officer fired his weapon, “I think that someone’s life probably would have ended.”

In highly charged situations, such as the shooting in Ohio, responding with reason rather than emotion is an essential but difficult task. It becomes even more challenging, however, when making a fast response is more important than making an informed response, which unfortunately is often the case in today’s cultural climate.

As Christians, we cannot afford to fall into that trap, as doing so drastically increases the chances we will speak, tweet, or post something that quickly looks foolish or offensive (often because it is).

Fortunately, there is a fairly simple question we can ask ourselves to help avoid that temptation: Why do I feel the need to share this thought with others?

It may sound simplistic, but so many of the mistakes we make in conversations on a variety of platforms come about because we are either trying to contribute to a conversation we don’t fully understand, earn points with friends and those we admire, or vent our frustrations at a given topic.

Knowing why you feel the need to speak is a big part of making sure you won’t regret what you say. And it’s a principle Jesus modeled well throughout his ministry.

Think before you speak

In John 8:1–11, for example, we find Jesus teaching at the temple when, in an effort to test him, the scribes and Pharisees dragged a woman in front of him and asked, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now, in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?”

Instead of answering right away, Jesus bent down and started writing on the ground with his finger. When he was finally ready to answer, he stood and said, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” He then knelt back down and continued writing in the dirt.

Over time, what had begun as a tense and emotionally charged situation eventually de-escalated to the point that he was left alone with the woman.

While Jesus could have responded correctly without hesitation—an ability we often lack—by taking a moment to collect his thoughts, he not only ensured that his words were chosen carefully but also waited until at least some of the initial furor had died down. He was then able to bring God’s wisdom and perspective to bear on the situation in a way that otherwise would not have been possible.

A challenge for you today

The national conversation surrounding the death of Ma’Khia Bryant could have been far more productive if there were more voices that prioritized speaking reasonably rather than rapidly.

Unfortunately, it’s rare if we make it more than a few days before the next social calamity provides us the chance to try again.

When it does, will you take a moment to ask yourself why you feel the need to share your thoughts before you do so? How you answer that question often has a direct correlation to how much God is able to use those thoughts to advance his kingdom.

Choose them wisely.

Denison Forum

The attention of the nation has been understandably fixed on the aftermath of Derek Chauvin’s trial and the jury’s verdict that he is guilty of all three charges. As such, other significant events in our culture have largely gone overlooked.

And while I’m not sure I would normally classify the Academy of Country Music Awards as an event of significance, this year’s show qualifies. The ACM made an effort to highlight diversity within their industry, tabbing Mickey Guyton as the first Black woman to co-host the awards show—she shared the evening’s duties with Keith Urban—and capping the night with a performance by the Brothers Osborne, whose lead singer came out as gay last year.

What struck me most, however, was that out of all the storylines and performances that defined the evening, it was the gospel music performance by Carrie Underwood and CeCe Winans from the former’s new album My Savior that stole the show by most accounts. (For more on the album, please read Minni Elkins’ excellent article.)

Now, I feel like I need to say upfront that I’m not a fan of country music. Maybe it was an act of rebellion after moving back to Texas in Junior High or perhaps it’s a character flaw I have yet to fully rectify, but the 2021 Academy of Country Music Awards was among the last things I expected to be writing about this week.

Underwood and Winans’ performance, however, goes beyond country music. The response it has received from various media and news outlets offers two important lessons for us to consider today.

Excellence is easy to appreciate

Some of the same outlets that praised Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s performance of “WAP” at the Grammys last month as “show stealing” and “incredible” described Underwood and Winans’ musical journey through the gospel message in similar terms. And after listening to the latter duo’s stirring performance, it’s easy to understand the appreciation it has garnered.

Both Underwood and Winans demonstrated remarkable vocal range and a clear passion for the songs they shared. Whether it was Carrie’s stirring acapella rendition of “Amazing Grace” or the duo’s collaboration on “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” and “The Old Rugged Cross,” it would be difficult to deny the excellence of their performance, even for those who may not ordinarily have given a second thought to the content of what they sang.

But while few can replicate both women’s vocal brilliance, each of us can aspire to their commitment to using the unique set of gifts that God has granted us to the best of our ability and to the pursuit of his glory. Fortunately, that’s precisely what he asks of us.

You see, there is something about the pursuit of excellence that is easy for people to notice and appreciate, regardless of the context in which it occurs. Perhaps it is easier to recognize when it comes to music, athletics, or other more public displays, but the principle applies to our work, our relationships, and our personal pursuits as well.

We see this pattern displayed in the Bible throughout the course of Daniel’s life.

From the time he was brought to Babylon, Daniel’s commitment to excellence and fulfilling his God-given potential attracted the notice and praise of others. Whether it was as a young man with Nebuchadnezzar after he excelled in his training (Daniel 1) or toward the end of his life with Darius (Daniel 6), Daniel modeled Paul’s instruction to the Colossians: to treat every task and every facet of his life as an opportunity to serve God by pursuing excellence in his service to others (Colossians 3:23–24).

And while that unwavering commitment made enemies among those who looked on with jealousy, it also enabled him to share the message of God in ways that would have otherwise been impossible. That, in turn, leads us to our second point of consideration.

Excellence earns the opportunity to share the gospel

While Carrie Underwood and CeCe Winans are exceptional singers, the music industry is filled with gifted musicians and they would be among the first to tell you that there are others who can at least rival their vocal abilities. Yet, it’s difficult to see many others being given a platform at a secular award show to spend more than seven minutes singing hymns about the Lord.

Granted, country music tends to be a bit more open to lyrics that speak of God than many other genres, but it is still noteworthy that, on a night when they made a point of celebrating their diversity, the faith often seen at odds with certain elements of that diversity was given such a showcase.

Underwood, however, has spent the better part of two decades building a reputation as one of the industry’s brightest stars, winning sixteen ACM awards throughout her still-thriving career. She has also earned the respect of legends like Dolly Parton, who introduced the performance by saying “I have always admired Carrie’s incredible talent, but I am just as impressed with her personal qualities—compassion, kindness, generosity, and, most of all, the powerful faith that we both share.”

As such, she was given the freedom to “TAKE US TO CHURCH,” as the ACM Awards’ official Twitter account described it. And that’s just what she did, sharing the message of our need for God’s grace, the Lord’s unwavering faithfulness, and his offer of salvation through the gift of “The Old Rugged Cross” before concluding with a powerful invitation to celebrate his greatness.

Everyone who witnesses that performance walks away having encountered the gospel. They may not fully realize it, but the seeds have been planted for the Holy Spirit to work through those lyrics to help people encounter the Lord, perhaps for the first time. And it was her consistent commitment to excellence that earned her that opportunity.

What is your motivation?

A. W. Tozer once wrote that “It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it. The motive is everything. Let a man sanctify the Lord God in his heart and he can thereafter do no common act.”

If we will commit to serving the Lord in excellence, offering our best to him in recognition of the fact that he has offered his best to us, then there is no limit to what he can accomplish through our lives. And each day offers us a new opportunity to do just that.

What will God be able to accomplish through your life today?

Denison Forum

Almost eleven months after George Floyd’s death, a jury of his peers found Derek Chauvin guilty of second- and third-degree murder as well as second-degree manslaughter. Sentencing will occur in eight weeks, but his time in prison has already begun.

As one might expect, reactions to the result have varied.

George Floyd’s brother Philonise described it as “a day of celebration” while others, such as Rev. Jesse Jackson, stated that the result is “a relief, but the celebration is premature.” Pointing to the decision as a potential turning point in police accountability, Tulsi Gabbard tweeted “Thankfully on the verdict of George Floyd’s murder, justice has prevailed. Moving forward this must be the norm—not the exception.”

President Biden and Vice President Harris praised the decision before quickly pivoting to the work left to be done. And Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison went a step further, stating that the guilty verdict “isn’t justice, it’s just one step towards it;” thoughts echoed by the state’s governor, who added that “justice for George Floyd will come through real systemic change, to prevent this from ever happening again.”

On the other side of the spectrum, Tucker Carlson described the trial’s outcome as the jury’s cry of “Please don’t hurt us.” Candace Owens termed it the result of “mob justice,” pointing to the statement by Rep. Maxine Waters in which she urged protestors to “get more confrontational” in the event of an acquittal as evidence of undue pressures placed on the jury to find Chauvin guilty.

Many more likely find themselves caught somewhere in between: aware that Chauvin’s actions were reprehensible, but perhaps unsure if the outcome of the trial was truly just and mostly just grateful that the proceedings ended with a relatively peaceful response.

Regardless of where you might fall along that spectrum of thought, chances are that it’s relatively close to where you sat before the trial ever began. And while that tendency is natural, especially in a case where so much has been litigated through the media as part of the national discourse for nearly a year, it reveals two potential dangers of which we must be aware.

Don’t trade difficult truths for convenient lies

The first issue is that when we approach a situation with a preconceived notion of what should occur, it becomes very easy to prioritize the truths that best fit with what we want to believe while either ignoring or minimizing those that would challenge our preferred perspective.

For example, those who saw nothing wrong with the calls to violence in the case of an acquittal and argued that they couldn’t have possibly swayed the jury’s conclusions were not viewing the situation objectively. However, those who recognized the potential dangers associated with those threats and concluded that they were the only reason the jury rendered a guilty verdict made a similar error. In both cases, people approached the situation so confident that their point of view was correct, they either distorted or ignored legitimate factors because such realities challenged their preferred understanding of events.

We cannot afford to make that same mistake.

Whether it’s in our response to the Derek Chauvin trial or in any other facet of life, we must remain more committed to the truth than to our preconceived notions.

And every day presents us with the opportunity to do just that. After all, few people in history have defied expectations and circumvented the boxes into which people tried to place him as frequently as the rabbi who preferred the company of sinners over self-proclaimed saints and the messiah who chose the cross over an earthly crown. As Christians called to follow his example, we must avoid the temptation to accept convenient lies over difficult truths, even—and especially—when doing so would better fit with our preferred version of reality.

Shifting goalposts

The second danger against which we must guard is closely related to the first. When we become the foundation upon which our understanding of reality is built, what we want to believe functions as the lens through which we view the world around us. That, in turn, can make it tempting to try to constantly redefine reality to better suit that perspective.

With the Derek Chauvin trial, for example, many of those who have spent the last eleven months rightly crying out for justice on behalf of George Floyd quickly redefined what that justice should look like once the final verdict was read. Floyd became a martyr whose legacy could only be honored if officers involved in other shootings received the same fate as Chauvin or when law enforcement has been completely reformed.

And while the police should be held accountable when they unjustly take a life and there are systemic issues within law enforcement that need to change, shifting the goalposts simply because we need something else to continue driving us and giving us a purpose will ensure that we never experience the peace and fulfillment we crave.

That’s an exhausting way to live.

When Jesus said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you . . . For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light,” that endless pursuit of our self-defined goals is an example of what he wanted to help us avoid (Matthew 11:28–30). It’s only when we accept his yoke and allow him to steer us toward the goals he desires that we can find real peace and the ability to adapt with our circumstances, rather than try to make them adapt to us.

Shaped by God’s truth

Charles Stanley once said, “We are either in the process of resisting God’s truth or in the process of being shaped and molded by his truth.”

A quick glance at our culture reveals which path most people have chosen, and the results speak for themselves.

As the fallout from the Derek Chauvin trial continues to build over the coming days, let’s choose the better path and allow God’s truth to shape our response and equip us to help others do the same.

Denison Forum

Closing arguments were heard yesterday in the trial of Derek Chauvin following three weeks of testimony. It is now up to the jury to decide whether or not Chauvin is guilty of the charges for which he stands accused in relation to his role in the death of George Floyd: second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter.

For many, Chauvin’s guilt was decided as soon as the video of the tragic event went viral shortly after Floyd’s death on May 25^th of last year. Chauvin’s fate, however, is not in the hands of the masses but rather in those of twelve of his peers. As such, what they decide over the coming days will reverberate across the nation and around the world in a way that may shape much of the discourse on issues of race, police conduct, and justice for quite some time.

In light of those potential repercussions, today I’d like for us to focus on how we can best pray for those on the jury, the crowds gathered in anticipation of their verdict, and for our fellow believers to respond in accordance with God’s sense of justice rather than our own.

Why only God can be truly just

Justice can often seem like an elusive concept in our culture. Rarely will multiple people look at the same event or the same outcome and come away with a unanimous understanding of what a just response would look like. And while there are many reasons this is the case—varying degrees of personal proximity to the issue, differing views on the need for grace versus accountability, etc.—the chief factor is that God’s justice is measured out according to a fair and accurate understanding of our sins. We, as fallen humans, lack that ability. 

The third chapter of Genesis offers a helpful example of this distinction.

In this chapter, we see God’s response to the sin of Adam and Eve. He addresses directly what they’ve done wrong, disciplines them in a way that reinforces the gravity of their mistake, but does so from a place of holy opposition to sin rather than a desire to see them suffer. 

Now think back to the last time you were hurt or witnessed an event that filled you with anger and the desire to see justice done. Were you able to respond as the Lord did, administering discipline in accordance with the sin committed? Or did your reaction cross that boundary and come from a place of anger or resentment rather than holiness and the desire for redemption?

If it was the latter, the reason is most likely that when anger leads us to action, the result is often akin to a volcano that has been building toward eruption over a long period of time. Whatever or whomever it is that finally leads us across that threshold to action is likely to receive more than their fair share of our wrath.

As Dallas Willard remarked, “The explosion of anger never simply comes from the incident. Most people carry a supply of anger around with them.” As a result, it is next to impossible for us to justly judge the actions of one person or a group of people when our response is likely determined, at least in part, by the unrelated actions of others as well.

Owning those limitations enables us to better understand why we need the Holy Spirit to help us seek God’s justice for a given situation rather than rely on our own.

Embracing that reality will be essential to justice being done with regards to the outcome and aftermath of Derek Chauvin’s trial as well. As such, let’s close for today by looking at three groups for whom we must pray in light of the need for the Lord’s justice to be done, both in the trial’s outcome and in the aftermath that follows.

First, pray for the jurors

The first group for whom we must pray are the jury members who will soon render the verdict that will ultimately decide Chauvin’s fate. Even without the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the trial, determining if the prosecution has presented a strong enough case that the accused should be found guilty would be a challenging task. When factoring in the outside pressure to come to such a conclusion, their job becomes immeasurably more difficult, even if Chauvin should be found guilty.

Couple that with the temptation to judge Chauvin not just for his role in the death of George Floyd but also as a proxy for other high profile police killings, such as with Breonna Taylor, and, more recently, Duante Wright. Limiting their judgment to the case at hand will likely prove a monumental task.

As such, we must pray that the Lord will give them the ability to judge rightly and fairly based on the evidence presented to render a just decision.

Second, pray for the crowds

And the same is true with regards to the crowds in Minnesota and across the country who have gathered in anticipation of the court’s verdict.

Many see the current trial as an extension of the larger, and often valid, problems with police conduct in this country. To them, Derek Chauvin stands accused not just of killing George Floyd but as a representation of the officers who either have already been acquitted or have yet to stand trial for their roles in the deaths of others. As such, their understanding of justice in this case may not line up with that of the Lord’s, even if their assessment of Chauvin is proven correct.

Pray not only that God’s justice will be rendered in the trial, but that it will prove satisfactory to the masses of people who already seem to have determined what that justice should look like. It is an essential responsibility for us today.

That responsibility, in turn, leads to the last point of prayer we must discuss.

Third, pray for yourself and fellow believers

As followers of Christ, we are tasked with being peacemakers in an often unpeaceful world (Matthew 5:9). It’s important to note, however, that being a peacemaker does not mean simply attempting to limit the presence of conflict in a given situation, though we should seek to avoid actions that would escalate it. Rather, it means being the embodiment of God’s presence and an ambassador for his justice in order to help others look to him for the proper perspective in a given situation. 

Over the coming days, it seems likely that conflict will escalate around the country and social media will once again be filled with people who feel the need to express their views on the situation. Our challenge as believers will be to pray before we post and make sure that we run any and all comments through the lens of Scripture and the Holy Spirit before they escape into the larger world. 

So as we conclude, please join me in committing to make prayer a priority throughout the day. Pray for the jury, pray for the crowds, and pray for yourself and your fellow believers. Do so any and every time the Lord places them on your heart or the news brings them to mind. 

Will you start right now?

Denison Forum

Don Muchow recently ran from Disneyland in Southern California to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida—a trip of more than two thousand five hundred miles. He completed his cross-country trek to bring awareness to Type 1 diabetes, a disease with which he has been living since 1972.

Eight years ago, Heather Abbott was standing near the finish line at the Boston Marathon when two bombs exploded. Four days later, her left leg was amputated below the knee. She received a prosthesis for walking, but insurance would not cover additional prostheses for other activities. When she learned of this problem, she created the Heather Abbott Foundation, which has now raised more than $1 million and helped provide customized prosthetic devices to more than forty-two amputees across the US.

Queen Elizabeth II has announced that she will allow self-guided tours of the historic Buckingham Palace gardens for the first time in the palace’s history. Members of the public will be able to enjoy meadows “carpeted with primroses and bluebells . . . flowering camellia, magnolia and azalea shrubs and trees,” according to the press release.

A paradoxical point of redemption

There is good news to celebrate, but there is bad news to grieve as well.

Three people were shot and killed in Austin, Texas, yesterday. Three other people died in a shooting early yesterday morning in Wisconsin.

The global COVID-19 death toll passed three million on Saturday as cases surge worldwide. A couple was preparing to celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary when the husband was killed in the FedEx mass shooting last Thursday. And a grieving pastor and his wife are asking the public to help police catch whoever killed their daughter in a Birmingham, Alabama, park on Easter Sunday.

Both sides of the news provoke discouragement in me. I cannot run continents, raise millions of dollars for amputees, or offer historic gardens to the public. I cannot stop the pandemic, prevent shootings, or solve the murder in Birmingham.

Here’s the paradoxical point I would like us to consider today: God wants to redeem such discouragement for his highest glory and our greatest good.

This ministry exists to help people respond biblically and redemptively to our fallen culture. But such responses can feel like an exercise in frustration and futility. The moral trajectory of our society is clearly downward; our political divisions are deepening; street violence is threatening; Christian influence seems to be waning.

But when we recognize our inability to make a transforming difference in our broken world, that’s when we can be used by the One who can.

“When I am weak, then I am strong”

Today’s Daily Article was sparked by Br. Todd Blackham’s recent devotional for the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Boston: “The paradox, the crux of our faith, is God’s power being made perfect in weakness. When we can face the sober reality of our helplessness, our powerlessness over sin and separation from the source of life, that’s when Jesus can step in to lift us up.”

When Paul asked the Lord to remove his “thorn in the flesh,” God refused and instead told his apostle, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9a). Paul responded, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (v. 9b). He had learned the source of transforming strength: “When I am weak, then I am strong” (v. 10).

I believe the greatest challenge we face in engaging our fallen culture lies not in the culture but in ourselves. All that Jesus has ever done, he can still do. All of God there is, is in this moment. But he can do through us only what we allow him to do in us.

Self-reliance constricts the Holy Spirit. He can use fully those who depend fully on him. His best for us is far better than our best for ourselves.

Why God gives us discernment

History turns on tiny hinges formed by sacrificial service.

The Battles of Lexington and Concord took place on this day in 1775. Eight Americans were killed at the Battle of Lexington: John Brown, Samuel Hadley, Caleb Harrington, Jonathan Harrington, Robert Munroe, Isaac Muzzey, Asahel Porter, and Jonas Parker. They died never knowing that their sacrifice would spark the American Revolution and change history.

The next time you encounter something in the news that discourages you, embrace that feeling. Don’t turn off the news or turn away in despair. Instead, name the hopelessness you feel and the inadequacy it incites in your spirit.

Now turn your weakness into a request for God’s strength. Ask him to give you words to pray and say, steps to take, compassion to offer.

Oswald Chambers reminded us that “God never gives us discernment so that we may criticize, but that we may intercede.” When we choose to pray and serve despite all opposition and discouragement, we experience the power of God in ways that will change our lives and our culture.

One of my great privileges as a pastor in Dallas was to develop very close friendships with two other pastors in our community. I was eating lunch with them one day when we began discussing the persecuted church around the world and the joy that believers experience when they suffer for Jesus.

One of my friends made this profound point: “When Christianity is easy, it is hard. When Christianity is hard, it is easy.”

Which is true for you today?

Denison Forum

Eight people were shot and killed and several others injured Thursday night in a mass shooting at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis, Indiana. Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Officer Genae Cook told a media briefing that the scene was an active shooter situation when officers arrived just after 11 p.m. local time.

Police reported that the alleged shooter “has taken his own life.” Multiple victims were transported to various hospitals in the area. One person was in critical condition, according to police. 

“This is a sight that no one should see,” Cook told the media briefing. The identity and motive of the shooter have not been released as of this hour, nor have the names of the victims been publicly released. 

Every day could be our last day 

At the moment of this writing, 46,500 people have died so far today. By the time you read these words, the number will have continued to escalate. Death is a present reality every day we live. For example: 

• On this day in 2017, a college senior killed thirty-two people on the campus of Virginia Tech before taking his own life.
• On this day in 2014, the South Korean ferry Sewol capsized and sank, killing 304 people, most of whom were high schoolers.
• On this day in 2011, a Taliban sleeper agent detonated a vest of explosives hidden under his uniform, killing six American soldiers, four Afghan soldiers, and an interpreter.
• On this day in 1947, a ship carrying ammonium nitrate blew up in the harbor in Texas City, Texas. A nearby ship carrying ammonium nitrate and sulfur caught fire and exploded the following day. The blasts and fires killed nearly six hundred people.
• On this day in 1945, a Soviet submarine in the Baltic Sea torpedoed and sank the MV Goya, which Germany was using to transport civilian refugees and wounded soldiers. It is estimated that up to seven thousand people died.

These calamities from the past remind us that every day could be our last day. Tragedies such as the FedEx shooting especially affect us because they strike close to home. While we do not know the motive of the shooter at this time, we do know that what happened at the FedEx building could happen nearly anywhere to nearly anyone. Including you and me. 

What I do not know today 

Does God’s word offer us help and hope as we respond to another mass shooting and as we face our own mortality?  

The Bible explains crimes such as the FedEx shooting as the tragically sinful misuse of human freedom that began in the Garden of Eden and continues today. It promises God’s presence and empathy with all who suffer as a result of such sin or any other calamity in this fallen world. It calls God’s people to be his instruments of intercession, compassion, and ministry for those affected by such tragedy. 

However, it does not tell us why innocent people are so often the victims of sin or calamity that is not their fault. I don’t know why my father died from heart disease at the age of fifty-five or why my oldest son had to suffer from cancer. 

A FedEx employee told reporters after the shooting, “Thank God for being here because I thought I was going to get shot.” What of those who were? 

I do not know why the innocent victims of this tragedy had to suffer and die. I do not know why some survived and others did not. But there is much that I do know that is relevant to us today. 

Five promises we can claim today 

I read daily from Daily Light for Every Day, a compilation of biblical readings by Anne Graham Lotz. Anne writes: “Without fail, the verses selected for a particular day’s reading seem to speak specifically to that day’s needs. In fact, God has spoken to me more often through the verses in Daily Light than through any other book, except the Bible.”  

After reading this morning of the tragedy in Indianapolis, I read verses in her volume for today that teach these life principles: 

One: We can speak to God honestly about our fear, confusion, and doubts. 

David told the Lord, “I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold: I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me” (Psalm 69:2). We can name our pain and tell God about it. 

Two: We can know that God hears us when we call. 

David testified: “I had said in my alarm, ‘I am cut off from your sight.’ But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy when I cried to you for help” (Psalm 31:22). God hears us when we do not hear him. 

Three: We can fight fear with faith. 

The writer of Lamentations said, “Water closed over my head; I said, ‘I am lost.’ I called on your name, O Lord, from the depths of the pit; you heard my plea, ‘Do not close your ear to my cry for help!’ You came near when I called on you; you said, ‘Do not fear!’” (Lamentations 3:54–57). He offers us the same assurance today. 

Four: When we struggle to find hope in the present, we can remember God’s faithfulness in the past. 

The psalmist asked, “Will the Lord spurn forever, and never again be favorable? Has his steadfast love forever ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?’” (Psalm 77:7–9). Then he responded: “I said, ‘I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High.’ I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your wonders of old” (vv. 10–11). 

How has God been faithful to us in the past? Since he does not change (Malachi 3:6), we can claim his faithfulness today. 

Five: We can trust God for a better future in the midst of present tragedy. 

David testified, “I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!” (Psalm 27:13). Since we are the child of God and nothing can take us from his omnipotent hand (John 10:29), we can claim David’s promise today. 

“Weep with those who weep” 

I invite you to make these promises yours wherever you need the assurance of God’s love and grace in your life today. Then please join me in praying for the victims of the FedEx shooting and their families. Pray that God’s Spirit working through God’s people will make these promises real and relevant for them. Pray for them to have the faith to believe that God is redeeming this tragedy in ways we may see and ways we may not on this side of eternity (1 Corinthians 13:12). 

God’s word calls us to “weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15). The Savior who “always lives to make intercession” for us (Hebrews 7:25) is grieving right now (John 11:35). 

Let’s join him on our knees. 

Denison Forum

Christianity Today is profiling a woman who was nearly aborted in 1989. Claire Culwell’s mother had an abortion at twenty weeks that killed Claire’s sibling. Soon thereafter, she discovered that she was still pregnant (she had not known she was carrying twins). She returned for a second abortion, but it never took place due to complications from the first.

Claire is now a wife, the mother of four children, and an activist for the cause of life.

In 1989, there were reportedly 1,396,658 abortions in the US. When you read Claire’s story, do you resonate with gratitude that she was not one of them? That sentiment is a God-given belief that every life is intrinsically valuable, a fact Christians call the “sanctity of life” doctrine.

We see this doctrine on display every day. For example, nationwide grief over the deaths of George Floyd and Daunte Wright continues to make headlines. We have seen tributes to Jackie Robinson, who broke baseball’s color barrier on this day in 1947.

We have seen the good news that a federal court has upheld an Ohio law banning abortions on babies with Down syndrome. And we have seen the tragic news that a father drowned last Saturday while rescuing two sons from a riptide on the Texas coast.

Each story is another reminder that, as St. Augustine noted, “God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.”

Remarkable good news about faith 

I have been making a case for Christian optimism in recent days based on these facts:

• It is always too soon to give up on God’s grace.
• Jesus is as active in our world today as when he first rose from the dead.
• God’s capacity to change our fallen world depends not on our finitude but on his omnipotence.
• Secularism fails to keep its promises, demonstrating our need for faith in a transcendent God.

Today, let’s consider a fifth factor: our lives are lived best in relationship with our Maker, a fact that demonstrates the abiding relevance of our Lord to our broken world.

As you may know, Gallup recently announced that church membership in America has fallen below 50 percent for the first time. The Boston Globe is responding with two paradoxical reports. One is that “the unwavering faith and passion of true belief is increasingly being channeled not into religious observance but into identity politics and the culture wars.” This can be problematic on a variety of levels.

The other part of the article is far more positive. It states (with links to substantiating research) that “regular worshipers tend to live longer, to suffer lower levels of stress, to have fewer symptoms of depression, and to have better cardiovascular and immune function. Similarly, the data suggests that religious worshipers tend to be happier, to drink less, to have lower rates of drug abuse, and to give to charity and donate blood at above-average rates.”

The article adds: “Amid the uniquely difficult circumstances of the coronavirus pandemic, a survey of self-reported health conditions found that Americans who attended religious services regularly were the only demographic group that appeared to avoid a decline in their mental health in 2020.”

It then offers this sobering response: “To the extent that religious practice across America is weakening, it seems only too likely that those benefits will fade too.”

They “recognized that they had been with Jesus” 

It stands to reason that those who experience the “abundant life” of Jesus will demonstrate the results of that life to the world (John 10:10). For example, I was drawn to the Christian faith by the faith of Christians. I did not ask my tenth-grade Sunday school teacher how I could be saved, regenerated, or justified—I asked her how I could have what she had. She sat down with me and led me to Jesus.

When the Spirit fell at Pentecost, Peter declared the word of God just as his Savior had earlier (Acts 2; Matthew 5–7). When he and John met a “man lame from birth,” they cared for him just as Jesus had earlier cared for a lame man (Acts 3:1–10; John 5:8–9). When Peter and John refused to stop preaching the gospel, the religious authorities saw their “boldness” and “recognized that they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).

If others don’t see the difference Jesus makes in our lives, they have the right to question whether Jesus will make a difference in their lives. Conversely, if we are controlled by the Spirit who empowered our Lord (Ephesians 5:18; Acts 10:38), Jesus will fulfill his promise that “whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do” (John 14:12).

Here’s the bottom line: if God’s people will seek the power of God’s Spirit to speak God’s word and share God’s love, our lives must inevitably impact our secular culture in ways we can see and ways we cannot.

“Death couldn’t handle him, and the grave couldn’t hold him” 

I was honored to bring the keynote address at the 57^th Annual Louisiana Governor’s Prayer Breakfast on Tuesday. It was deeply moving to hear Gov. John Bel Edwards describe his faith so personally and to join legislators and Christian leaders as they prayed for their state and our nation. 

The purpose of my address was to invite those present to a deeper commitment to the kingship of Jesus than they had ever known so God can use their influence to shape their culture in transformative ways. I closed with quotations from one of the greatest sermons of the twentieth century, a message delivered by Dr. S. M. Lockridge on the kingship of Jesus. The brilliant preacher said this of our risen Lord:

“He’s the centerpiece of civilization. He’s unparalleled. He’s unprecedented. He’s preeminent. He’s the loftiest idea in literature. He’s the fundamental doctrine of true theology. He’s the key of knowledge. He’s the wellspring of wisdom. He’s the doorway of deliverance. He’s the gateway of glory. He’s the pathway of peace. He’s the roadway of righteousness. He’s the highway of holiness. 

“The Pharisees couldn’t stand him, but they found out they couldn’t stop him. Pilate couldn’t find any fault in him. Herod couldn’t kill him. Death couldn’t handle him, and the grave couldn’t hold him!”

The pastor closed with this declaration: 

“He’s the master of the mighty. He’s the captain of the conquerors. He’s the head of the heroes. He’s the leader of the legislatures. He’s the overseer of the overcomers. He’s the governor of governors. He’s the prince of princes. He’s the King of kings, and he’s the Lord of lords. That’s my king!”

Is he your king?

Denison Forum