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

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

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

What happens when we kill God

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Did you have a good time?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is God a divine egotist?

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

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

Listen to the prophet:

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

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

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

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

“Let go of riches and gather virtues”

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

She once heard her Lord say,

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

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

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

Quote for the day:

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

Our latest website resources:

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

Denison Forum

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

Many are asking the same thing.

“They’re trying to silence people”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Amusing ourselves to death”

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

I’m not so sure.

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

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

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

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

The media business is a business

Why is this a problem?

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

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

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

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

Malcolm-Jamal Warner drowns at age 54

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

I believe this to be a deception of the enemy.

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

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

In fact, we have not a moment to lose.

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

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

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

Why not today?

Quote for the day:

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

Our latest website resources:

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

Denison Forum

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why would someone call him that?

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

“My identity is secure forever”

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

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

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

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

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

What does this say about our culture?

When God is your partner

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

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

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

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

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

“Where there is nothing, there is God”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Scottie Scheffler would agree.

Would you?

Quote for the day:

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

Our latest website resources:

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

Denison Forum

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why are Americans so generous?

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

What explains this?

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

In Leithart’s view,

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

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

Religion is still at the heart of American generosity today:

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

The First Great Awakening and the birth of America

Now we have a choice to make.

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

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

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

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

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

Worshipping in my high school auditorium

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

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

Have you?

Quote for the day:

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

Our latest website resources:

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

Denison Forum

A paradoxical way to confront our fears in faith

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

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

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

The fiction of proximity compassion

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

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

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

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

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

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

Circles, an arrow, and dots

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

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

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

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

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

“Worry is like riding in a rocking chair”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Exchanging an arrow for a throne

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

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

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

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

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

Are you “anxious” about “anything” today?

Denison Forum

Why God’s omnipotence is good news in hard places

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why the Greeks had so many gods

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

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

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

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

But this is just what the New Testament assures us:

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

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

Three reasons to pray

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All of God there is, is in this moment.

Why is this good news for you today?

Denison Forum

The Jeffrey Epstein files saga is leading the news again.

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

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

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

Why are people rewatching old TV shows?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Putting gasoline in a diesel engine

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thus the distrust and anxiety in our secularized culture.

If we want what God wants

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s my point:

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

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

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

John MacArthur on “true discipleship”

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

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

Will you be a “true” disciple today?

Quote for the day:

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

Our latest website resources:

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

Denison Forum

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

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

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

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

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

The bullet that passed through Lincoln’s hat

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

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

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

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

Four approaches to divine sovereignty

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

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

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

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

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

The mystery at the heart of the issue

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

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

Nor would I expect to.

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

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

“The whole reason why we pray”

Two consequences follow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

As the saying goes,

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

Both are miracles.

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

Quote for the day:

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

Our latest website resources:

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

Denison Forum

Why AI is both a helpful tool and an existential threat

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AI in education

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

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

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

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

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

A generational threat?

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

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

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

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

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

The person God created you to be

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Will you commit to that calling today?

Quote of the day:

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

Our latest website resources:

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

Denison Forum

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

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

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

Three reasons we assign blame after tragedies

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

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

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

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

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

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

“The way to pay for the priceless”

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

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

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

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

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

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

In each case, as they worked, God worked.

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

“The one purpose worth living for”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quote for the day:

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

Our latest website resources:

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

Denison Forum

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A new path for Palestinians?

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

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

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

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

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

If Christians must account for evil

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

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

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

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

“Though the fig should not blossom”

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

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

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

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

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

When faith “receives the impossible”

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

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

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

Will you take your next step into such faith today?

Quote for the day:

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

Our latest website resources:

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

Denison Forum

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Deceive yourself no longer”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Three pathways to faith

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

The first is rational:

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

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

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

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

“Beauty for brokenness, hope for despair”

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

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

The British songwriter Graham Kendrick prayed:

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

Will you help answer his prayer today?

Quote for the day:

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

Our latest website resources:

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

Denison Forum

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

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

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

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

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

When deterrence doesn’t work

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

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

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

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

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

Termites of the soul

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

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

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

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

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

Sinners in the hands of an angry God?

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

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

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

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

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

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

No greater gift we can give

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

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

Our job is to be faithful and obedient.

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

And stay ready to be used.

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

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

Denison Forum

Is national pride a problem?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“An inverted American revolution”

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

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

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

As Bari Weiss notes:

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

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

Christian or American?

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

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

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

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

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

Which are you today?

Quote of the day:

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

Our latest website resources:

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

Denison Forum

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

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

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

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

But with an enormous caveat.

Protesting outside George Washington’s home

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

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

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

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

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

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

An Oxford mathematician on the role of faith in society

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

His argument centers on two assertions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr. Lennox concludes:

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

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

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. agreed:

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

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

Quote for the day:

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

Our latest website resources:

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

Denison Forum

The future consequences of present choices

Mark Zuckerberg is creating a new “Superintelligence” AI division within Meta Platforms and recruiting artificial intelligence (AI) experts to lead it. He is racing to build AI technology that is smarter than humans, seeking to advance what he calls “a new era for humanity.” He plans to spend upward of $70 billion on capital expenditures, largely on AI investments.

Is creating AI that is smarter than its creators a good idea?

Recent tests have shown that several advanced AI models will act to ensure their self-preservation when confronted with the prospect of their own demise. They will sabotage shutdown commands, blackmail engineers, or copy themselves to external servers without permission.

For example, when Palisade Research tested various AI models by telling each one it would be shut down after it completed a set of math problems, one of the models fought back by editing the shutdown script in order to stay online. Another, upon receiving notice that it would be replaced with a new AI system, tried to blackmail the engineer by threatening to reveal an extramarital affair.

Other research shows that advanced AI models are increasingly willing to evade safeguards, resort to deception, and attempt to steal corporate secrets in fictional test scenarios. Many of the models were even willing to cut off the oxygen supply of a worker in a server room if that employee was deemed an obstacle and the system was at risk of being shut down.

We cannot always know the future consequences of present choices. However, when we can, we are wise to make our decisions in their light.

To this end, let’s continue a conversation we began yesterday on one of the most consequential issues our society faces today.

Three ways we know everything we know

The Bible commands us to “set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:2). Accordingly, we are to “put to death therefore what is earthly in you” (v. 5a). First on the list are “sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire” (v. 5b). Only then does Scripture add covetousness, anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscenity, and deceit (vv. 5c–9).

“Sexual immorality” translates porneia, the Greek word from which we get “pornography.” It refers to all sexual sins, from lust to premarital sex and adultery.

Why should we “put to death” this sin?

We know everything we know in three ways: practically, rationally, and intuitively. We start a car practically; we do math rationally; we like or dislike people intuitively. Consequences of “sexual immorality” can be identified in all three categories.

Practically:

• Pornography is highly addictive and correlated with depression and other mental health issues. Sex trafficking victims are often exploited by pornographers; online child pornography has escalated fivefold in six years.
• Premarital sex increases the chances of divorce two- to threefold and is significantly linked to depression, attempted suicide, and sexually transmitted diseases. In addition, 87 percent of women in the US who have abortions are unmarried; accordingly, of the 625,978 abortions reported by the CDC in 2021, 554,600 were to unmarried women. In other words, half a million babies died that year as a consequence of premarital sex.
• Adultery is a factor in 75 percent of divorces; those who commit adultery are also 350 percent more likely to commit fraud. Over half of Americans with sexually transmitted diseases contracted them from partners who cheated.

Rationally: The Bible commands us to “flee from sexual immorality” (1 Corinthians 6:18). Because the Author of Scripture is all-knowing and all-loving, this command must be best for us. Conversely, because Satan is a deceiver who hates us (Revelation 12:9), the consequences of this sin must be greater than any benefit they promise.

Intuitively: The psalmist testified, “Great peace have those who love your law” (Psalm 119:165), but “corruption” and grief result from sin (Galatians 6:8). This is especially true with sexual sin due to its emotional nature and consequences.

When God will “tax the last limit of the universe”

Given the devastation caused by sexual immorality, why would any Christian fall prey to this temptation?

Because of two other temptations.

One is to think we can always confess our “private” sin later and be forgiven without public consequences. But this is another lie: While God forgives all we confess to him (1 John 1:9), we remember our failure and are plagued with guilt. And we forfeit the power and joy of obedience in this life and eternal reward in the next (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:12–15).

Another is to believe in the moment that the present “benefits” of sin outweigh their eventual consequences. But if this were true, the God who forbids such sin is a liar, and the devil who tempts us in this way is telling the truth. Do you believe this?

However, in the moment, such logic may not be sufficient. Remembering what we have discussed today regarding the practical, rational, and intuitive consequences of sexual immorality may not be enough.

In that moment, we can call on our Father to help us choose to obey his word. We can ask for his Spirit to empower our spirit.

And we can know that his will never requires what his grace cannot supply.

In today’s reading in My Utmost For His Highest, Oswald Chambers defines sin as “the disposition of your right to yourself.” Then he assures us:

The moment you are willing that God should alter your disposition, his recreating forces will begin to work. The moment you realize God’s purpose, which is to get you rightly related to himself and then to your fellow men, he will tax the last limit of the universe to help you take the right road.

The biblical scholar Spiros Zodhiates observed,

“Peace of heart is the natural outcome of purity of heart.”

Will your heart experience such peace today?

Quote for the day:

“I would sooner be holy than happy, if the two things could be divorced. . . . To be free from the power of sin, to be made to love holiness, is true happiness.” —Charles Spurgeon

Our latest website resources:

• How much will the Bezos–Sánchez wedding cost?
• The courage to encourage
• Should I attend a same-sex wedding?
• Trump bombs Iran, NYC election shocker, Bezos wedding & casual-dining favorites
• What happens when a theoretical physicist finds faith in Christ?

Denison Forum

“Modern porn is unlike anything else in history”

The Supreme Court last Friday upheld a ruling that allowed Texas to enforce a state law requiring pornography sites to verify the age of their users before providing access. Nearly half of all states have passed similar laws to keep children under the age of eighteen from seeing online pornography.

Such laws are crucial because, as the Gen Z writer Freya India warns, “Modern porn is unlike anything else in history. Children are learning about sex for the first time from social media algorithms designed to drag them toward ever-more degrading content.”

She reports that in the US, the average age of first exposure to pornography is twelve. Parents can block porn sites, but many children and teenagers access it on Instagram, X, Snapchat, Discord, Twitch, and TikTok.

According to India,

My generation was taught to see each other not only as content to consume and products to shop through, but as categories, sex objects, things to get pleasure from. We grew up watching what were often sex trafficking victims, likely seeing rape and abuse—and are somehow expected to file that away, to fall in love in the real world, to have romantic experiences just the same as previous generations did, to be tender and loyal, to know how.

We learned the wrong things about love.

Her generation is not alone.

A malignancy of the mind

Studies show that pornography use alters brain connectivity and impairs cognitive performance. It is strongly linked to psychological distress such as anxiety, depression, lower relationship satisfaction, and lower self-esteem. It is highly addictive and often leads to extramarital affairs and divorce.

In many ways, it is a malignancy of the mind. And the disease is spreading in our society.

Years ago, online pornography became so ubiquitous that one writer called it “the defining art form of the late twentieth century.” But this was a massive social problem long before the Internet. In 1977, when VHS players first went on the market, up to 75 percent of the tapes being sold were pornographic. In 1985, Americans rented seventy-five million adult videos; ten years later, that number had increased almost tenfold. Today, 78 percent of men and 73 percent of teenagers consume porn.

Pornographic images are as old as Paleolithic cave paintings. When I toured the first-century Italian city of Pompeii, there were erotic depictions on walls that I had to turn away not to see.

But that’s the point: I could turn away from them. I can choose not to rent movies or look at websites, magazines, or television shows with pornographic content. However, pornographers are now coming after us, especially our children. They hide porn using thumbnails with Disney characters and other cartoons; with a simple search for such a character, a child can be bombarded with pornographic content within seconds.

The domain “whitehouse.com” has often been used in the past to display pornography. Predators send text messages with links to porn sites. And AI-generated nude photos are escalating; many are sent by so-called friends.

I was shocked that I was not shocked

But there’s more: You and I live in a society that has normalized sexual immorality on a level many of us scarcely realize.

Polyamorous and homosexual relationships are increasingly just as acceptable to Americans as heterosexual marital monogamy. Women who choose to remain virgins until marriage are viewed by society as strange and sometimes ostracized for their decision. Public nudity has become so pervasive that ordinances are now needed to regulate it.

I was watching a television show the other day in which the couple has sex on their first date. After a moment, I was shocked to realize how unshocked I was.

We can and should do all we can to protect ourselves and our children against the rising tide of sexual immorality in our broken culture. Software can be installed that tracks and prevents porn use on our computers and other devices. Accountability relationships can help us refuse sexual temptation and find help when we fail.

But whether we struggle with pornography or not, we live in a sexualized culture that relativizes truth and rejects biblical morality. The good news is that every one of us can experience “victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57), but only “through” him.

A “tin soldier” or a “little Christ”

1. C. Sproul observed that “to love a holy God requires grace, grace strong enough to pierce our hardened hearts and awaken our moribund souls.” This grace is available to us in the Spirit who can foster a passion for Christ in our hearts stronger than the sinful passions of “the world, the flesh, and the devil” (cf. Ephesians 2:2–3).

Our Father promises us, “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). We “walk by the Spirit” when we submit our minds and lives every day to him (Ephesians 5:18), encounter God in his Word, worship, and prayer, and choose to live consciously and intentionally in his presence (cf. Colossians 2:6–15).

Then his Spirit produces the “fruit” of love for our Lord in our hearts and souls (Galatians 5:22). And the more we love Jesus, the more we love what he loves and hate what he hates. With this result: His Spirit empowers us to “cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 7:1).

God wants to “sanctify you completely” (1 Thessalonians 5:23). Such holiness is his intention for every one of his children (1 Thessalonians 4:3). Jesus died not only so we could be forgiven for our sins but live in victory over them (Romans 8:37) as we manifest his character in the world (Romans 8:29).

Accordingly, C. S. Lewis wrote that Jesus is working right now to turn us “permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in his power, joy, knowledge, and eternity.”

As Lewis explained, Jesus is turning us from “tin soldiers” into real people. However, “The part of you that does not like it is the part that is still tin.”

Do you want to stay a “tin soldier” or become a “little Christ”?

There is no third option.

Quote for the day:

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

Our latest website resources:

• How much will the Bezos–Sánchez wedding cost?
• The courage to encourage
• Should I attend a same-sex wedding?
• Trump bombs Iran, NYC election shocker, Bezos wedding & casual-dining favorites
• What happens when a theoretical physicist finds faith in Christ?

Denison Forum

The Supreme Court is expected to announce major decisions this morning on birthright citizenship, age verification for pornography sites, and several other contentious issues. However, its ruling yesterday is already making headlines: the court handed down a decision that could pave the way for states to defund Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the US.

The Court did not address the organization directly. Rather, the justices ruled that beneficiaries of Medicaid cannot sue if they believe their right to a free choice of healthcare provider has been violated. States are therefore free to stop providing Medicaid taxpayer funds to organizations whose services they do not wish to underwrite. Since nearly half of those treated at Planned Parenthood use Medicaid, this could significantly defund the organization in states that oppose abortion.

Those of us who believe life begins at conception will be grateful for legal rulings that protect the preborn. But we are unwise to base our hopes for our culture on such decisions.

When the Supreme Court overturns the states

For example, yesterday marked the tenth anniversary of Obergefell v. Hodges, the US Supreme Court’s ruling that discovered a right to same-sex marriage in the US Constitution. The ruling legalized so-called “marriage equality” even though, as Axios reports, thirty-two states have constitutional and/or legislative bans against it.

Measures in Idaho, Michigan, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota have been introduced that would reverse the decision. In Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas, lawmakers have introduced bills creating a category called “covenant marriage.”

Obergefell is akin to the Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that discovered a right to abortion in the Constitution. At the time, thirty states had laws prohibiting abortion; twenty others permitted it only under certain circumstances.

The two rulings highlight the tension inherent in our legislative and political system: When should the Supreme Court overrule laws passed by states?

The former is comprised of unelected justices who serve lifetime appointments; the latter are the product of lawmakers elected by the people they represent. In a democratic republic, you would think the latter would prevail over the former. But in rulings such as the 1967 Loving v. Virginia decision legalizing interracial marriage, the Court sometimes overturns state laws in ways that many of us consider to be appropriate.

The “indispensable supports” of democracy

The question points to a topic we have reason to discuss often in this space: How do we best promote the morality that is foundational to democracy?

As I noted yesterday, our nation’s founders believed that, in the words of George Washington, “religion and morality are indispensable supports” to our system of governance. This is because we are ruled not by kings or theocrats but by laws our leaders enact, our courts interpret, and our authorities enforce. Because “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), the leaders we elect are as fallen as the people who elect them, and the laws they produce will often reflect this fact.

From abortion to marriage to euthanasia, we are watching Western society continue to slide down this slippery slope today.

We can and should enact laws that protect society against our fallen natures and worst impulses. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. observed, “Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.” I’m glad we have laws forbidding murder and theft—even though such laws do not transform those who would kill and steal, they make it more difficult for them to act on their desires.

But as the persistence of crime shows, no amount of human effort can change the human heart. And when society as a whole embraces unbiblical immorality, the laws it enacts can reinforce sin rather than restraining sinners.

“Knocking on the door of an empty house”

Here we find a foundational reason the gospel is so necessary and so urgent.

A drowning person can only be saved by someone who is not drowning. Only the Christian faith offers us a sinless Savior whose salvation makes us a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17) as the “children of God” (John 1:12).

Two simple but sanctifying consequences follow.

One: Our greatest service to humanity lies in persuading humans to trust in Jesus. Everything else we can do for our fellow man is done best as a means to this end. We are not to be cultural warriors trying to defeat our ideological enemies but cultural missionaries committed to “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15) wherever and however we can.

As T. J. Green noted, “Words not spoken in love are like knocking on the door of an empty house. You can make a lot of noise, but no one will respond.”

Two: We can best speak the truth in love when we recognize our deep personal need for such love. I am no less a sinner than Ali Khamenei. I am just as tempted by immorality as those who champion elective abortion and same-sex marriage. The transformation begun by the Spirit at my salvation must continue today as I submit to him and seek his will over my own.

Paul advised us, “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). There is no way to experience the latter without choosing the former, but choosing the former always accomplishes the latter.

Oswald Chambers noted, “Sanctification means being made one with Jesus so that the disposition that ruled him will rule us. It will cost everything that is not of God in us.” But this is a price well worth paying.

As the Puritan Thomas Watson observed,

“Till sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet.”

Will Christ “be sweet” to you today?

Note: For practical ways to join God in the transformation of our minds and hearts, please see my latest website article, “Is artificial intelligence ruining our brains?”

Quote for the day:

“Sanctification is the real change in man from the sordidness of sin to the purity of God’s image.” —William Ames (1576–1633)

Our latest website resources:

• Is artificial intelligence ruining our brains?
• Trump bombs Iran, NYC election shocker, Bezos wedding & casual-dining favorites
• Shooter assaulted church filled with children for VBS: Four reasons to trust Jesus at all costs
• What happens when a theoretical physicist finds faith in Christ?
• Israel vs. Iran, MAGA’s divide, AI warnings & the Pentagon Pizza Index

Denison Forum

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the first novel in the Harry Potter series, hit bookshelves in the UK on this day in 1997 after being rejected by twelve publishers. I reference this despite the fact that I have never read one of the novels or seen one of the movies made from them. I am focusing instead on their author, JK Rowling, who has been in the news in recent years for defending her belief that sex is determined by biology. As a result, she has been vociferously castigated as anti-trans and her work has been “cancelled” by many.

Add Pedro Pascal to the list. One of the most popular actors working today, his profile in the latest Vanity Fair is compelling. Pascal was nine months old when his parents fled Chile as political refugees. He struggled financially as a young actor and was twenty-four when his mother died by suicide. The article lauds his “emotional depth onscreen and exuberance everywhere else” and calls him “a star unlike any other.”

But here’s the part that is making headlines: In support of his transgender sibling, Pascal said of Rowling in the interview, “Bullies make me [expletive deleted] sick.” He has also called her a “heinous loser.”

It’s been said that “a candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.” However, as the pastor and author Nate Pickowicz noted, “John the Baptist lost his head for having a biblical view of marriage.”

Our founding “moral principles” may surprise you

Clemson political science professor C. Bradley Thompson has been a visiting scholar at Harvard, Princeton, and the University of London. In a recent blog, he writes, “The United States of America is the first nation in history to be founded explicitly on moral principles.”

However, he shows that these are not the moral principles you and I might assume them to be.

As his extensive research and writing in the area demonstrates, many of America’s founders were deeply influenced by the European Enlightenment and its emphasis on the natural rights of individuals. Accordingly, their Declaration of Independence embraced the equality of all people and our unalienable Rights to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

According to Thompson, the founders sought “a new kind of society that affirmed the individual’s right to pursue a flourishing life.” This was because they believed that pursuing rational self-interest “was moral and produced a virtuous and civil society.”

To be sure, they emphasized the role of religion in helping people be virtuous. John Adams was adamant that “our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people” and “is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” George Washington similarly attested, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.”

But as Thompson shows, many found “religion and morality” to be a means of producing people whose self-interest and self-reliance could then flourish in the new nation founded to provide such freedom.

Now that our post-Christian, “post-truth” culture has largely abandoned both Christian religion and objective morality, all we have left are self-interest and self-reliance. And those who stand for “religion and morality” can expect to be labeled intolerant, bigoted, and worse.

When “neutrality is movement”

Truthless “spirituality” that capitulates to the culture is one way to respond. William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, saw this day coming: “I consider that the chief dangers which confront the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.”

Our secularized society subtly but incessantly insists that we join them in separating faith from life. Joel Berry is right: “We’re all in a culture in a leftward-flowing river. Neutrality is movement.”

The good news is that the gospel has thrived most fully across Christian history when the culture has been most antagonistic to its truth. For example, even though the religious authorities rejected Jesus’ resurrection and viewed Christianity as heresy (Acts 5:27–28), the apostles chose to “obey God rather than men” (v. 29) and “a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith” (Acts 6:7).

The fastest growing church in the world is in Iran. Christianity is growing exponentially in the Muslim world. Over my many trips to Cuba, I have witnessed personally the joyful courage God gives his faithful people when they face persecution.

“This willing conversion of ink back to blood”

Now it’s our turn.

Barbara Brown Taylor said, “The whole purpose of the Bible, it seems to me, is to convince people to set the written word down in order to become living words in the world for God’s sake. For me, this willing conversion of ink back to blood is the full substance of faith.”

What God did at Pentecost in enabling early Christians to speak languages they did not know, he can do today by enabling us to live with miraculous joy and courageous faith. St. Antony of Padua (1195–1231) observed:

The man who is filled with the Holy Spirit speaks different languages. These different languages are different ways of witnessing to Christ, such as humility, poverty, patience, and obedience; we speak in those languages when we reveal in ourselves these virtues to others. Actions speak louder than words; let your words teach and your actions speak.

As a result, “Our humble and sincere request to the Spirit for ourselves should be that we may bring the day of Pentecost to fulfillment, insofar as he infuses us with his grace, by using our bodily senses in a perfect manner and by keeping the commandments.”

Charles Spurgeon testified:

“We shall not adjust our Bible to the age; but before we have done with it, by God’s grace, we shall adjust the age to the Bible.”

Do you agree?

Quote for the day:

“Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.” —St. Augustine

Our latest website resources:

• Trump bombs Iran, NYC election shocker, Bezos wedding & casual-dining favorites
• Shooter assaulted church filled with children for VBS: Four reasons to trust Jesus at all costs
• What happens when a theoretical physicist finds faith in Christ?
• An update from Israel: Let my people sleep
• Israel vs. Iran, MAGA’s divide, AI warnings & the Pentagon Pizza Index

Denison Forum

Let’s take a break from conflict in the Middle East to have a conversation about events closer to home. Andrew Cuomo conceded in yesterday’s New York City mayoral Democratic primary to Muslim socialist Zohran Mamdani. A Democratic strategist called the former governor’s loss the “biggest upset in modern New York City history.” Mamdani made headlines with his strong support for Palestinians and criticism of Israel.

With five likely candidates, including incumbent mayor Eric Adams running as an independent, the general election in November could be “the strangest local election in at least half a century.”

An election with thirty-nine parties

In America, anyone meeting legal qualifications can run for political office. The same is true in Israel, where any Israeli citizen over the age of twenty-one (with a few exceptions) can form a political party and run for the Knesset, their parliament. In their latest elections, thirty-nine parties participated and fifteen won enough votes for their candidate to be seated.

Contrast these open elections with politics in Iran. Their Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei recently named three senior clerics as candidates to replace him if he were to die in the conflict with Israel. In that event, he instructed his nation’s Assembly of Experts, the clerical body responsible for appointing the supreme leader, to choose his successor from these names.

The country regularly holds elections for president and other offices, but they have far less power than the Supreme Leader, who rules essentially as an autocratic dictator. In addition, their elections are especially influenced by the Guardian Council, an unelected body that disqualifies any candidate it deems insufficiently loyal to the clerical establishment.

The Assembly of Experts empowered to appoint the Supreme Leader is chosen through elections, but its candidates must also be approved by the Guardian Council. And the Guardian Council’s members are appointed directly or indirectly by the Supreme Leader.

“Iran is not important. Islam is important.”

Iran’s theocracy is built on the belief that the nation should be governed by Sharia law. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, postulated that as the clergy have the greatest understanding of Islamic law, they should be the guardians of state power until the return of the Mahdi, their messiah.

Accordingly, the Supreme Leader holds final religious and political authority over all affairs of the state, ruling essentially by divine right. He can oppress his own people and lie to the world about his intentions in the service of advancing Islam as he understands it, or so he thinks. In Khamenei’s view, “Iran is not important. Islam is important.”

This concept is not new.

The Divine Right of Kings doctrine states that a monarch’s authority is derived from God rather than the people or their elected representatives. It developed during the Middle Ages but accelerated when, as a result of the Protestant Reformation, many religious reformers rejected the authority of the Pope and the Catholic church.

For example, England’s King James I (ruled 1603–25), the monarch to whom the King James Version was dedicated, asserted that “the State of MONARCHIE is the supremest thing upon earth” and stated that kings are “GOD’S Lieutenants upon earth.”

The American Declaration of Independence was therefore revolutionary in claiming that “all men are created equal” with “certain unalienable Rights” to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Its words catalyzed the American Revolution to institute a government “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Why do you believe in democracy?

Perhaps you believe people are innately good and capable of solving our greatest problems. As President Clinton asserted in his first inaugural address, “There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.”

In this view, democracy is the best form of governance since, in contrast to the “divine right of kings” or Iran’s theocracy, we deserve the right to govern ourselves.

Or perhaps you believe that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). We sin by commission and by omission: “Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” (James 4:17). To deny our sinfulness is itself a sin: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8).

In this view, we are not good people who sometimes do bad things but fallen people who sometimes do good things. Accordingly, democracy is valuable because none of us can be trusted with autonomous power over others. We cannot discern the mind and will of God so perfectly that we should be empowered to enforce our theocratic beliefs on others. And we cannot rule so justly that we should not be accountable to the voters who elect us and the laws and jurisprudence of the nation we serve.

But maybe not today

Let’s close by making our conversation confessional.

You will not be surprised to learn that I agree with the Bible and therefore see the value of democracy in holding sinful leaders accountable to the people they are intended to serve. I don’t want theocrats or kings to rule over me, since I know them to be as fallen as I am.

Now comes the confession: I do, however, believe all too often that I am capable of governing myself. I want to live in my own personal democracy where I get to vote for what I want and then empower myself to do it. I don’t want others to rule my life because I want to rule it myself.

I know that such self-enthronement is just as foolish as enthroning kings and theocrats—if all other humans are too sinful to rule me, as a human I am too sinful to rule myself.

But maybe not today, I tell myself. Maybe I can handle this temptation, overcome this obstacle, seize this moment, be my own god just this once. And today becomes tomorrow, and how I spend my days is how I spend my life, as Annie Dillard noticed.

So, today is a good day for a dethronement. A. W. Tozer was right:

In every Christian’s heart there is a cross and a throne, and the Christian is on the throne till he puts himself on the cross; if he refuses the cross, he remains on the throne. Perhaps this is at the bottom of the backsliding and worldliness among gospel believers today. We want to be saved, but we insist that Christ do all the dying. No cross for us, no dethronement, no dying. We remain king within the little kingdom of [ourselves] and wear our tinsel crown with all the pride of a Caesar; but we doom ourselves to shadows and weakness and spiritual sterility.

Now we can see why Jesus declared,

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).

Will you “come after” Jesus today?

Quote for the day:

“Jesus is not our life coach—he is our Lord.” —Michael Koulianos

Our latest website resources:

• Shooter assaulted church filled with children for VBS: Four reasons to trust Jesus at all costs
• What happens when a theoretical physicist finds faith in Christ?
• An update from Israel: Let my people sleep
• Israel vs. Iran, MAGA’s divide, AI warnings & the Pentagon Pizza Index
• Five questions pastors should be asking

Denison Forum