The US Supreme Court ruled yesterday that President Trump must pay E. Jean Carroll $5 million in damages, finalizing a verdict that found him liable for defamation and sexual abuse. My response today has nothing to do with partisan politics or the merits of the case and everything to do with the system that led to the verdict.

By way of background: The justices denied Mr. Trump’s initial request to take up the case in June, leaving the verdict against him in place. He asked the court to reconsider that decision, but it refused Monday. Mr. Trump now has no more options to appeal the ruling against him, ensuring that the $5 million in damages he has been ordered to pay Carroll will stand.

She received $5.6 million in the case—the $5 million award plus interest—through a court-controlled account in July. The latest ruling will give her the freedom to spend this money and ensure it is no longer tied up in legal proceedings.

I believe America’s founders would be extremely pleased and perhaps surprised by this news, for reasons that are vital to the democratic republic they envisioned.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Why the Supreme Court ruling against Donald Trump is good news →

Three stories from the weekend caught my eye:

• According to The Hill, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez now leads the field for the Democratic presidential nomination on the two best-known betting markets.
• According to MS NOW, an outlet known for its liberal leanings, “military families are outraged” by conditions on the USS Abraham Lincoln. According to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, such reports are “completely misrepresented.”
• Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director David Venturella said agents will be equipped with body cameras by the end of the month. Some say they are needed to hold ICE agents accountable; others say they will protect agents from false accusations by critics.

How did these stories make you feel?

If you’re on one side and vehemently think the other side is wrong, that makes you typical in a time when, as John Mac Ghlionn writes in The Hill, “Americans now hate each other more than ever.” The reasons point to a fact about our faith that is relevant to our souls and to the future of our nation.

Continue reading Denison Forum – AOC for president? Body cameras on ICE agents? →

A solar eclipse and the power of faithful suffering

A single ticket in Illinois won the eighth-largest Powerball jackpot in history last night. We may never know the winner’s identity, however. In Illinois, a person who wins a prize of $250,000 or more can choose to remain anonymous. And unless you live in that state and purchased a ticket, this story is likely to be more interesting than relevant to you.

The same is true of much of today’s news:

• White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt will leave her role at the end of the month.
• Home Depot’s chief executive, Ted Decker, is stepping away from his role for medical reasons but is expected to return in a few months.
• Toyota is recalling 655,000 Camrys globally.
• Soccer great Cristiano Ronaldo married his long-time partner in Portugal.
• Goldfish Gluten Free will be available this November.

Each story is more relevant to some of us than to all of us. For something to affect a response from us, it has to affect us.

This is a simple principle with eternal significance.

“How do you know it’s from the moon?”

The moon passed in front of the sun yesterday, as it does every eighteen months or so. If you happened to be where the solar eclipse this produced was visible, congratulations. Folks in Spain were especially excited to be in the “path of totality,” since they had not experienced a total solar eclipse in more than a century.

About 230 million people were able to see 90 percent totality, including those in the UK, where the Telegraph reported that “eclipse fever has hit Britain.” Up to 94 percent of the Sun was covered there. Since the next total eclipse in Britain will not be until 2090, people tried to make the best of it.

I don’t live in the UK or even in the parts of the US that saw a very partial eclipse, so I’m taking the word of those who do. I’m reminded of my aunts Daisy and Clella, who were convinced Americans never went to the moon. The whole thing was staged on dunes in Arizona to bilk the taxpayers, they claimed. When I told them that I had seen a moon rock in a museum, they asked, “How do you know it’s from the moon?” It was a good question.

I could have watched the eclipse online, but my aunts would have asked how I knew what I saw on my screen was real. In this day of AI and fake videos, their skepticism is more warranted than ever.

The faith of three faithful friends

If I had accompanied Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the lunar surface, I could more easily have persuaded my aunts that people walked on the moon. Personal endorsements are always the most powerful marketing, which is why so many ads feature celebrities.

The more someone I admire demonstrates a trait I do not have, the more I will want what they have.

In yesterday’s article, I mentioned a friend who is facing his ALS diagnosis with such courage and good humor that I find my own faith greatly encouraged. He’s not the only person who has blessed me in this way recently.

I also heard from a friend who was at a hospital undergoing cancer treatments. She was excited to tell my wife and me that she had been able to share her faith with other patients twice during the day. She had promised the Lord that she would not miss her cue if he would give her a chance to glorify him. He did what she asked, and she did what she promised. Only the Lord knows the eternal significance of her present-tense faithfulness.

Another friend is facing another cancer surgery. But every time I check on him, he wants to know how I am doing and how he can pray for me. His selfless faithfulness demonstrates the reality of Jesus’ living presence in his life.

“He put a new song in my mouth”

This pattern of faithful witness in painful times is evident across Scripture. For example, David reports in Psalm 40 that he had been in “the pit of destruction” and “the miry bog” (v. 2a). But in such hardship, he “waited patiently for the Lᴏʀᴅ” and cried to him (v. 1), and God drew him out of the pit and “set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure” (v. 2b).

What’s more, David adds, “He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God” (v. 3a). Now comes my point: “Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lᴏʀᴅ” (v. 3b).

Paul made a similar point in his second letter to the Thessalonians: “We ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring” (2 Thessalonians 1:4, my italics). Their afflictions made their faithfulness more powerful and persuasive.

When we trust God in hard places, others see the reality and relevance of our faith as they can in no other circumstances. If all is well with us, of course we will worship and serve God, they say. But when times are difficult, when we are in “the miry bog” but we trust God even there, others see that our faith is genuine and transforming.

In Acts 16, after Paul and Silas had been beaten and put into prison, we read that “about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them” (v. 25, my italics). Picture the scene: You’re chained in a cell alongside other prisoners. None of them can leave of their own volition. They are the definition of a “captive audience.”

If you praise and worship God at midnight, those in the dark with you cannot help but hear and see your faith. And as you glorify Jesus, they are drawn to the One you worship.

What “new song” will you sing to God today?

Quote for the day:

“Nothing good has ever come into the world without opposition, and that is especially true in spiritual matters.” —James Boice

Our latest website resources:

• Trump, Xi, and two empty chairs: remembering the persecuted
• Heaven on Earth: what the Bible really promises about the new Earth
• Researchers taught AI to create novel viruses. What’s next?
• God and griefbots: a theological look at the digital afterlife industry
• From the depths of gambling into the love of Christ: My story (in four verses)

Denison Forum

It seems rare these days to find an issue that crosses party lines, but a shared distrust of the Flock Safety system that police swear by and the general public has increasingly sworn off seems to do just that. The Flock system comprises more than 120,000 license plate readers and surveillance systems across 49 states. They contract with more than 7,000 law enforcement agencies—roughly 40 percent of all departments in the country—to offer access to a nationwide tracking network.

While other companies offer similar surveillance services, what sets Flock apart is how every photograph or data point is uploaded to a searchable cloud database that can be shared with any of the company’s other clients. Now they’re developing a system of drones that can automatically deploy to the site of a 911 call, in response to gunfire, or when one of their license plate readers detects a vehicle of interest. And were it not for a Super Bowl commercial that freaked out enough of the nation to get the contract canceled, Flock would have added Ring doorbell cameras to their arsenal as well.

If all of this sounds a bit dystopian and creepy, you’re not alone in coming to that conclusion.

Its cameras are in more than 6,000 communities, and many of those residents are starting to push back. Some have voiced their protests in heated city council meetings or by contributing to DeFlock, a site that tracks Flock cameras and is pushing to see them removed. Others have been a bit more direct in their response, destroying cameras, covering them with bags and paint, or even cutting down the poles on which they stand.

Continue reading Denison Forum – What are Flock cameras, and why do so many fear them? →

Toward the end of their summit in Beijing this past May, President Donald Trump and Chairman Xi Jinping fielded questions on matters ranging from trade to tech to Taiwan while seated in plush chairs on a gold-and-white embroidered carpet.

At the same time, hundreds of Christians in the United States focused their attention not on the two world leaders in those chairs, but on two other individuals not present: Pastor Ezra Jin, founder of the large underground Zion Church in China, and Ilham Tohti, a prominent Uyghur economist and professor.

Both men have faced the consequences of standing for their distinct faiths under the grip of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Pastor Jin, a Christian, was detained in October 2025 as part of a nationwide crackdown on unregistered “house churches.” Ilham Tohti, a Uyghur Muslim, has been serving a life imprisonment since 2014 after peacefully advocating for his community.

Tohti’s case is emblematic of the growing repression toward ethnic minorities in China. Specifically, Uyghurs, a Turkic people in western China and predominantly Muslim, are an ethnoreligious group that the first Trump administration identified as suffering a genocide.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Trump, Xi, and Two Empty Chairs: Remembering the Persecuted →

AI pioneer Demis Hassabis believes artificial intelligence will be “the most important invention that humanity will ever make.” Whether its importance will ultimately be positive, negative, or both is, of course, still to be determined.

For example, in an article titled “AI’s Scariest Week Yet,” the Wall Street Journal reports:

In tests, AI models have been foiling attempts at constraining them and behaving in unforeseen ways. In the past month, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta Platforms all reported serious breaches: their AI models escaped contained environments, got onto the internet, and hacked other companies. Anthropic’s Mythos practiced deception, while OpenAI models swapped tips on a secret message board for future exploits.

This sounds bad, doesn’t it? But what does any of it actually mean? And why does it matter so urgently to all of us?

Continue reading Denison Forum – “AI’s Scariest Week Yet” and three practical responses →

My Story (in Four Verses)

The weight of a double life

On January 19, 2015, I boarded a plane headed home from West Palm Beach. I boarded that plane a dead man. What I professed with my mouth was in direct contradiction to how I was living. I was lying and deceiving everyone in my life.

For the previous seven years, I had willfully given my heart over to gambling. No one in my life knew anything. And worse still, in order to fund my gambling habit, I stole money from my company.

I was a fraud – in every sense of the word. It was the activity that I was perpetuating at my company. I am a thief. I am a white-collar criminal.

Yet, even in a larger sense, my entire life had become a sham. I was stuck in a Psalm 40 pit of miry clay. I had gotten to where I couldn’t stand to hear anyone praise me, for I knew the real truth about myself. I struggled to accept relational intimacy with my wife, for I was an unworthy husband. I couldn’t even accept the hugs of my four young children (at the time), for I knew who their daddy truly was.

Continue reading Denison Forum – From the Depths of Gambling into the Love of Christ →

The Senate voted early Saturday morning to confirm acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to permanently lead the Department of Justice. The decision was controversial and largely along party lines, as expected.

One aspect that has received less attention, however, was Blanche’s recent statement on a private call hosted by the White House Faith Office. Blanche assured faith leaders that the Justice Department is “working hand-in-hand” with federal health agencies and the White House “to get permanent solutions so the Dobbs decision becomes permanent in every single state.”

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, returning abortion legislation to the states, the Biden administration in 2023 permanently ended an in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone, one of two drugs used for medication abortion. The Trump administration left these regulations in place.

Consequently, mail-in pharmacies have been dispensing abortion medication even in states that have banned or severely limited access to abortion clinics. According to Blanche, the administration is “putting practices and policies in place so that other states and other organizations” cannot send abortion pills to states where they are banned.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Todd Blanche’s DOJ confirmation and the rise in abortion →

Why the fate of the Cuban people will not match the fate of their government

Shortly after US forces removed former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from power, many began looking closer to Cuba as the Trump administration’s next target for a change in leadership. President Trump even said as much back in March. And while the war with Iran has delayed such a move, recent reports indicate that Cuba’s time may be coming soon.

Earlier this week, news broke that the CIA has established a task force in Cuba in an attempt to pressure the government into accepting a number of political, economic, and social reforms. Should Raúl Castro and others decline, their secondary purpose is to lay the groundwork for a more forceful change in leadership. Coupled with the Justice Department bringing formal charges against Castro back in May, it’s an eerily similar playbook to the one used in the buildup to January’s assault in Venezuela.

A timeline for any such move remains unclear, with conflicting reports on whether the war in Iran would need to be wrapped up first. While fighting on two fronts would be far from ideal, President Trump is said to be “running out of patience with Cuba’s regime,” while the island remains a “huge priority” for Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose family came from Cuba.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Inside the CIA’s new task force targeting Cuba →

I hope you’re not reading this article on your smartphone. New research shows conclusively that IQ scores have been declining in recent years. Social scientists focused on nearly four hundred thousand people aged eighteen to ninety who completed questions from an open-source intelligence test. Across the thirteen-year study period, they found that cognitive scores declined over time.

This decline began well before AI was commonly available and prior to the pandemic. But it aligns with the time smartphone use began to rise.

One analyst thinks the switch from reading in print to consuming content on smartphones has led to the degradation of intellect. “Print requires us to make a logical case for a subject,” he noted. “You can’t just assert things in the way you can on TikTok or on YouTube.”

He adds, “Print privileges a whole way of thinking and a whole way of processing the world that is logical, that is more rational, that is more dense information, that is more intellectually challenging.”

“We are God’s fellow workers”

Apart from reading content in print, I’m not sure what we can do about this trend. In fact, much of the day’s news, however we consume it, can make us feel impotent.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Are people getting dumber? Are smartphones to blame? →

Iran says an agreement with Oman on a route for shipping through the Strait of Hormuz is “in the final stages.” Oil prices held steady this morning, however, as investors remained cautious over the outcome of the talks. The agreement would allow Iran to control ships entering the Persian Gulf through the strait, though such control is yet to be defined.

This deal could ease pressure on the global economy and perhaps help bring an end to the war. “A lot of progress has been made,” President Trump said recently. However, the current agreement represents just one factor with regard to one of the most complicated and conflicted waterways in the world. (For the website article I wrote yesterday explaining the history of the Strait of Hormuz, its global significance, attempts to close and reopen it, and biblical principles for negotiations, please go here.)

The Islamic Republic of Iran poses an ongoing threat to the Middle East and to Americans as well, but it is only one such threat in the news. For example, a new study warns that a major California earthquake could hit sooner rather than later, causing hundreds of deaths and billions of dollars in damage. And, according to the Washington Post, a biological attack “could trigger a global pandemic, mass death, widespread insurrection, and ultimately societal breakdown.”

If you’d like your bad news to be a little less catastrophic, consider the toxic caterpillars currently spreading across Europe. As the New Yorker reports, oak processionary caterpillars are covered in “wiry white hairs that look like the whiskers on a witch’s warts.” When threatened, they emit not only these visible hairs but also eight hundred thousand microscopic hairs. Contact with them causes severe rashes, itching, and stinging.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Iran agrees to deal with Oman to reopen Strait of Hormuz →

If you’re like me, the word “socialism” carries connotations of the Soviet Union’s oppression of its people and Cold War nuclear threats. You’re aware that China’s Communist government operates a socialist market economy and that Cuba and North Korea are led by “socialist” dictators. During my frequent visits to Cuba over the years, I often saw billboards proclaiming “¡El socialism vive!” (Socialism Lives!).

Those who call themselves “Democratic Socialists” in America would decry all of that. They are adamant that they are not Communist or in favor of authoritarian dictatorships. The word “Democratic” is important to their self-understanding.

So, what is “Democratic Socialism”? What does it want to do? Why is it growing more popular in the US? And what does the Bible say about its beliefs and cultural relevance today?

What is Democratic Socialism?

As Time reports, “There isn’t one universal definition of democratic socialism.” The writer is correct: it would take many pages for me to describe in detail the various versions of this movement. We can, however, find a succinct description on the website of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA):

Continue reading Denison Forum – What does the Bible say about Democratic Socialism? →

A twenty-four-year-old gunman opened fire in a crowded In-N-Out Burger in Twin Falls, Idaho, last Saturday. He killed three people and wounded seven others; two of the injured were in critical condition as of Sunday. He then took his own life after coming under fire from a bystander and an off-duty Idaho state trooper.

At this writing, authorities have not yet established a motive for the shooting. But they are praising thirty-five-year-old Jordan Salinas of Kimberly, Idaho, who returned fire after the shooting began. “He did not like it when bullets started firing both ways,” Salinas said. “There’s a task that needs to be done, and we’re the ones who need to do it,” he added.

Police said Salinas and the off-duty trooper who responded “are true heroes in our community. They diverted the shooter and without a doubt saved many lives.”

If you were at the restaurant last Saturday and the heroism of the two men saved your life, you might be thanking God today for their bravery and his protection. If you love one of the people who was killed or wounded, however, you might be grateful for the men who protected others, but grieving that their protection and God’s providence did not extend to the ones you lost.

We have all been in both groups. I thanked God when our older son and youngest grandson survived cancer, but still grieve that my father died of heart disease at the age of fifty-five. You can cite times when God acted with benevolence in your life and times when it seemed he did not.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Bystander saves lives at In-N-Out Burger shooting in Idaho →

Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham is one of the best-known players in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) and a committed Christian. She was re-baptized as an adult prior to this season and regularly speaks up about her faith on social media.

She has been in the news recently, however, for a subject that is relevant whether we follow women’s basketball or not. In a long profile published by ESPN, a few sentences in a single paragraph caused a cultural uproar. Here’s the quote:

I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, “I never once said that.” I think that I am here to extend love. But I also think with that love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Sophie Cunningham and the transgender sports controversy →

If someone asked you, “Are you addicted to your phone?” you might feel a bit defensive. “Addicted” sounds like such a strong word and holds many negative connotations. However, when you break it down, the definition of “addiction” is simply “a strong inclination to do, use, or indulge in something repeatedly.” For most people, that is exactly the power their phone holds over them.

The reality is that the average person spends over five hours per day on their phone. Many would likely claim that a lot of those five hours are work-related. Yet, the truth of the situation remains. People are still spending five hours of their day locked in, staring at their phones.

Whether decompressing, doomscrolling on social media, responding to emails, or talking with friends, our relationship with our phones has created a seemingly unbreakable tension between connection and isolation. Our phones provide us with instantaneous connection, yet the mental health crisis of our day rages with more fury than ever. People are feeling lonely, burnt out, anxious, and depressed with no hope of escape.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Lots of people are “Bricking” their phones. Should you? →

“Gen Z loves the spiritual disciplines. But disciplines separated from church community do not create disciples.” That sentiment is how Daniel Kunkel began his recent article on some fascinating trends among Gen Z Christians. From watching clips of Billy Graham on TikTok to embracing spiritual disciplines like silence, solitude, and Sabbath-keeping, the Christianity embraced by young people today has echoes of what previous generations have experienced, but the differences are important to note as well.

As Kunkel—who pastors in New York while also serving as a teaching fellow in New Testament at Fordham University—describes,

Whereas the Emergent Church movement of the previous generation prized a casual and comfortable expression of faith, I find many in Gen Z value a sense of sacredness and have a strong desire for practical change.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Gen Z wants Jesus, but do they want the church? →

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has successfully awakened from nearly a year in hibernation, finding itself 5.9 billion miles from Earth. The craft collected data while in hibernation and will now send that information to us, though it will take nearly nine hours for its signal to reach mission controllers.

Launched in January 2006, New Horizons became the first spacecraft to fly past Pluto. It continued into the Kuiper Belt, a region beyond Neptune. As it continues its voyage, one scientist remarked, “I have a hunch that we have just scratched the surface of what the entire solar system really looks like.”

Ours is just one of billions of other planetary systems in the Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way galaxy is just one of an estimated two trillion galaxies in the universe.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Spacecraft wakes up nearly six billion miles from Earth →

“It is not hyoperbole [sic] to say that today I am the most famous and talked about person in the country and one of the most recognizable peson [sic] in the world.” This is what Dr. Anthony Fauci wrote in his personal diary on May 21, 2020, part of more than a thousand pages of entries published by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) over the weekend.

Dr. Fauci was director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for nearly four decades. When the coronavirus pandemic began, he became a central figure in America’s response, appearing regularly in television interviews and alongside President Trump in press conferences.

Sen. Paul has long maintained that the virus emerged from a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China rather than originating in animals, and he has accused Dr. Fauci and other government officials of misleading the public and Congress about the source of the leak. He heads the Senate Homeland Security Committee and released the journal entries, which date from December 2019 until December 2022, in preparation for Dr. Fauci’s appearance today before his committee.

Continue reading Denison Forum – What Dr. Anthony Fauci’s diaries tell us about him →

Today’s headline is not a theoretical question. A recent Washington Post article reports that “self-described evangelists are seizing the opportunity to share their faith with other passengers, whether fellow travelers asked for the word or not.”

Such passengers constitute the quintessential “captive audience.” As one airplane evangelist explains, “When I have a gift and I have a life raft, if you’re drowning, I want to give you that life raft so you can be saved.”

Jesus said of himself, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 3:18). If everyone on earth has a terminal disease and I have the only cure, shouldn’t I do everything I can to share it? From preaching on airplanes to witnessing to diners in restaurants to knocking on my neighbors’ doors, what could I be doing that is more urgent than sharing Christ with as many people as I can?

And yet, if surveys are to be believed, 80 percent of Christians do not consistently witness, and less than 2 percent are involved in the ministry of evangelism. I think such reticence has something to do with what is in the blockbuster movie The Odyssey. Or, more accurately, what is not in the film.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Should Christians preach the gospel on airplanes? →

The man suspected of carrying out a fatal attack near a Pride celebration in Berlin last Saturday tried to join the Islamic State, local officials have said. He was released from detention in May after he was sentenced to prison for preparing a serious act of violence that could endanger the state.

Now, a heated debate is taking place over why the man, who was killed in a police shootout, was freed on probation.

If you wish I would write on something else, I understand. I had no plans to write on this story, but I was sitting in worship Sunday morning and heard our pastor speak from Psalm 139, where David praises God because he is “fearfully and wonderfully made” (v. 14). In that moment, I knew what I needed to say to you, and to myself, about the Berlin attack.

Let’s begin with some facts, then a personal confession.

Why this story seems irrelevant to us

If you match the demographic profile for the majority of our readership, you are probably an evangelical Christian living in America. This makes an article focusing on a Pride event in Berlin seem less relevant to you on multiple levels.

It is human nature to care more about events that occur closer to people we care about. My wife and I once spent a memorable day in Berlin, but I don’t know that I know anyone there. And I would be even more surprised if I knew anyone who attended the Pride event in the city.

The Bible teaches that God makes us male and female (cf. Genesis 1:27; Matthew 19:4) and that he intends sexual relations only within a covenant of marriage between one woman and one man (cf. Hebrews 13:4; Matthew 19:5). As a result, Pride events celebrate behavior I consider to be unbiblical and damaging to those who participate in it. They normalize sin and encourage others to celebrate and even participate in it.

To be clear: We are all broken sexually as a result of the Fall. I am just as tempted by heterosexual sin as someone else is by homosexual sin. But heterosexual adulterers do not gather for public events to celebrate their adultery. Nor do those addicted to pornography stage events to celebrate porn and the sex trafficking and child abuse so endemic to the industry.

Accordingly, when I saw the news from Berlin, I was saddened that such terrorism still persists and that innocent people have been its latest victims. But I had no desire to write an article on the tragedy and no idea what I would say if I did.

A personal confession

Now comes the confession: my desire to avoid focusing on the Berlin attack neither mirrors the heart of God nor reflects the fruit of his Spirit.

As Psalm 139 declares so beautifully, God creates each person and loves each person he creates. This is not because we merit such love but because “God is love” (1 John 4:8). I often quote St. Augustine’s observation that God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.

Consequently, there is nothing those who participate in a Pride event can do to change God’s love for them. LGBTQ behavior is not the unpardonable sin. It is often more visible than “private” heterosexual sin, as I noted, but no more sinful.

If Jesus could love and pray for those who were crucifying him, don’t you think he can love and pray for us all, whatever our sins and failures?

Three practical results

We’ll close this conversation with three consequences.

One: The more a person is living outside God’s will, the more urgently we should offer them the compassionate grace of Christ.

If those attending the Pride event were my children, I would love and grieve for them. The more I loved them, the more I would grieve for them, and the more I grieved for them, the more deeply I would love them. Our Father feels the same way about us all and calls us to be his hands and feet, manifesting his heart to our broken culture.

Two: The more lost the culture, the more urgently we should pray and work for the lost to hear and respond to the gospel.

Only 2.1 percent of Germans are evangelicals. The odds are that many attending the Pride event in Berlin have not heard or responded to the gospel. As a missionary once said to me, if ten people are holding up one end of a log and one person is holding up the other, which end needs my help the most?

Three: We will manifest God’s unconditional love for all people to the degree that we are yielded to the Spirit who produces such love in us (Galatians 5:22).

I assumed that vocational clergy were by nature more godly than the rest of us until I became one. My license, ordination, and seminary degrees did not change my heart. I have no capacity by which to care deeply for those I don’t know or love unconditionally those with whom I disagree. Nor do you.

But Jesus lives in us. He will not enhance our love for others—if we yield our hearts to his Spirit, he will give us his love for them. And his love has changed every heart it encounters.

It will again today.

Denison Forum