Congregation Beth-Israel is a Jewish synagogue in Colleyville, thirty minutes west of my home in Dallas. Saturday morning, the rabbi and three others were taken hostage. Late that evening, FBI agents cleared the building and rescued the hostages. The attacker was killed during the operation.

Yesterday, the FBI identified the suspect, a forty-four-year-old British national named Malik Faisal Akram. His family stated that he was “suffering from mental health issues” but added that they “apologize wholeheartedly” and condemned his action. “There was nothing we could have said to him or done that would have convinced him to surrender,” they said in a statement.

It was surreal to watch the national news cover an event so close to my home. All day, I prayed for God to protect the hostages and bring their attacker safely to justice. If he had surrendered, the Lord would have been able to answer both of my prayers. The attacker apparently did not, so God could not.

This is the nature of free will. God created us to love him and our neighbor (Matthew 22:37–39). However, love requires freedom to choose not to love. When we misuse our freedom to harm others and ourselves, God allows us the consequences of our decisions.

One of the most important articles I have read in years demonstrates the relevance of this fact to our secularized culture today.

“America is falling apart at the seams”

David Brooks has been writing for the New York Times since 2003. Last week, he published an article titled “America Is Falling Apart at the Seams.” It profiles a culture in crisis.

Brooks reports that reckless driving is rising, the number of altercations on airplanes is exploding, the murder rate in cities is surging, drug overdoses are increasing, Americans are drinking more, and nurses say patients are becoming more abusive.

Teachers are facing a rising tide of disruptive student behavior; drug deaths have risen continuously for twenty years but shot up especially during the pandemic. The FBI states that hate crimes have surged to the highest level in twelve years. Meanwhile, giving to charity is steadily declining both to religious and secular causes.

Brooks sees “a long-term loss of solidarity, a long-term rise in estrangement and hostility” and adds, “This is what it feels like to live in a society that is dissolving from the bottom up as much as from the top down.”

“I just know the situation is dire”

Brooks asks what is going on, then answers: “I don’t know. I also don’t know what’s causing the high rates of depression, suicide, and loneliness that dogged Americans even before the pandemic and that are the sad flip side of all the hostility and recklessness I’ve just described.”

He notes that church membership has fallen below 50 percent for the first time in US history and cites a report that our nation has the world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households. He also cites a Washington Post headline, “America Is a Nation of Narcissists, According to Two New Studies.”

Then he adds: “There must also be some spiritual or moral problem at the core of this. Over the past several years, and over a wide range of different behaviors, Americans have been acting in fewer pro-social and relational ways and in more antisocial and self-destructive ways. But why?”

Brooks concludes his article: “As a columnist, I’m supposed to have some answers. But I just don’t right now. I just know the situation is dire.”

Are we experiencing God’s permissive judgment?

My initial response was to ask: What would you expect in a culture that has been rejecting biblical truth and morality for decades?

• 79 percent of Americans say “people can believe whatever they want, as long as those beliefs don’t affect society.” Only 35 percent believe moral truth is objective and absolute.
• 69 percent say any kind of sexual expression between two consenting adults is acceptable.
• In 2004, 60 percent of Americans opposed same-sex marriage. Fifteen years later, 61 percent support it.
• The fastest-growing religious demographic in America is those who have no religious affiliation.

God cannot lead those who will not follow or give what we will not receive. Nor can a holy Father bless that which harms his children.

It is clear to me that, as was apparently true with the Colleyville hostage-taker, our culture is in the permissive phase of divine judgment where God allows us the consequences of our decisions. Romans 1 offers an example: “God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves” (v. 26). Paul adds: “Since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done” (v. 28).

The results read like Brooks’ article: “They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless” (vv. 29–31).

If we still refuse to repent, we will experience God’s punitive judgment whereby he initiates punishment for sin. The Exodus, as well as the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests of Israel, are biblical examples. The prophet warns us: “The nation and kingdom that will not serve [God] shall perish” (Isaiah 60:12).

“Who has God, lacks nothing”

Tomorrow we will focus on ways to respond with compassionate courage and truthful grace. For today, let’s close by asking whether we are part of the problem or part of the solution.

Would you ask the Spirit to reveal to you any areas of your life where you are experiencing the permissive judgment of God? Are you sheltering any unconfessed sin or unyielded obedience? Are you experiencing less than God’s best because you are giving him less than your best?

St. Teresa of Avila encouraged us: “Let nothing frighten you. Who has God, lacks nothing. God alone is enough.”

Every person who has trusted Jesus as Lord “has God.” 

How fully does he have you today?

Denison Forum

D. A. Carson, a distinguished theologian and author, got the idea for his book The Intolerance of Tolerance on the college lecture circuit.

Whenever he spoke on the subject, the crowds were large and the discussion lively. Eventually, as he continued to mull over the topic, he realized he had to put his thoughts into book form.

“It does not take much cultural awareness to see that the difficulties surrounding this subject are eating away at both Western Christianity and the fabric of Western culture,” he wrote.

In his view, a seemingly subtle shift in the way we define tolerance, from the old meaning of “accepting the existence of different views” to the new one of “accepting different views,” has had profound cultural implications.

“To accept that a different or opposing position exists and deserves the right to exist is one thing; to accept the position itself means that one is no longer opposing it,” he wrote. “The new tolerance suggests that actually accepting another’s position means believing that position to be true, or at least as true as your own. We move from allowing the free expression of contrary opinions to the acceptance of all opinions; we move from permitting the articulation of beliefs and claims with which we do not agree to asserting that all beliefs and claims are equally valid. Thus we slide from the old tolerance to the new.”

And anyone who believes in absolute truth is considered intolerant.

Why Christians should read “The Intolerance of Tolerance”

You will gain a greater understanding of why biblical truth is under assault and be better equipped to defend it.

The big takeaway

In this era of moral relativism, when your truth is considered just as valid as mine, tolerance is regarded as the supreme virtue.

In their own words

“This older view of tolerance makes three assumptions: (1) there is objective truth out there, and it is our duty to pursue that truth; (2) the various parties in a dispute think that they know what the truth of the matter is, even though they disagree sharply, each party thinking the other is wrong; (3) nevertheless they hold that the best chance of uncovering the truth of the matter, or the best chance of persuading most people with reason and not with coercion, is by the unhindered exchange of ideas, no matter how wrongheaded some of those ideas seem.”

“The new tolerance argues that there is no one view that is exclusively true. Strong opinions are nothing more than strong preferences for a particular version of reality, each version equally true.”’’

“Christians do think that Jesus is the only way to God. But does that make them intolerant? In the former sense of ‘intolerant,’ not at all; the fact remains, however, that any sort of exclusive truth claim is widely viewed as a sign of gross intolerance. But the latter depends absolutely on the second meaning of ‘tolerance.’”

Read the first chapter

Denison Forum

I’d like to do something different today. Rather than focus on the “big issues” of the day, I’ll begin with some news that appealed to me personally:

• “Toddler Goes Viral Shredding Slopes”: I clicked on the video hoping to be entertained and was not disappointed.
• “A ‘potentially hazardous’ asteroid more than twice the size of the Empire State Building will make close pass by Earth next week”: I read the story hoping we are not in imminent danger of planetary destruction.
• “Oreo is celebrating its 110^th birthday with a first-ever flavor”: Now I wanted to know the flavor. I bet you do as well.
• “Why one tech startup is going all in on the 4-day workweek”: I was obviously curious to see how relevant this might be to our ministry.
• “Israeli scientists have trained goldfish to drive, in a scene out of a Dr. Seuss book”: This seemed impossible until I watched the video.
• “Hungry badger may have uncovered Roman coins in Spanish cave”: Since I’ve been studying Roman history for many years, this was personally interesting.
• “Jerome Powell says report on digital currencies is ready to go”: Since I understand very little about such currencies, I’m excited to learn more.

Here’s what these stories have in common: they all promise something that will potentially benefit me personally. I am in no sense unique in this regard: research shows that appealing to an audience’s emotions or otherwise offering more of what they already want is the key to getting “clicks.”

How is this fact related to knowing Jesus and then making him known?

Why “the Christian truth is attractive and persuasive”

Psychologist Abraham Maslow made famous the “hierarchy of needs” model:

Public domain image via Wikipedia

As you can see, our highest needs are for “self-actualization” and then “transcendence.” Maslow understood the former as our desire to realize our full potential. As he said, “What a man can be, he must be.” He defined the latter as our desire to give ourselves to something beyond ourselves, as in altruism or spirituality. He equated this “need” with the quest to reach the infinite.

In the entire universe, Jesus is the best source of both.

Because he made us (Colossians 1:16), he knows us better than we know ourselves. Because he loves us unconditionally and passionately (Galatians 2:20), he only and always wants our best for us.

Because he dwells in us by his Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16), he can empower us to fulfill our potential in a way no one else can (Romans 12:2). Because he is God, he can lead us to oneness with the infinite (John 10:28–30).

Pope Francis is right: “The Christian truth is attractive and persuasive because it responds to humanity’s deepest needs.” Human nature does not change. The word of God is perennially relevant because the needs it addressed millennia ago are the same needs we feel today. The promises it made are promises God still keeps.

Why, then, do many Christians not experience in Christ the meeting of our deepest needs?

Breathing out, breathing in

The fault is not his but ours, of course.

When we compartmentalize our spiritual and “secular” lives, we insulate and partition him from the latter and miss the fullness of the former. When we “cherish iniquity in our heart,” we block the Holy Spirit’s ability to work powerfully in our lives (cf. Psalm 66:18). When we refuse to love our neighbor, we show that we have not fully experienced the love of our Father (cf. Matthew 22:37–39; 1 John 4:19).

But when we spend time in the presence of Jesus, listening to his voice in his word and world, worshiping him with gratitude for his grace, confessing all he brings to our thoughts and cherishing his love for us, we must be different as a result. We cannot meet deeply and intentionally with the King of kings and leave the encounter as the same person. We cannot hear “God preaching” in the Bible (to use J. I. Packer’s description) and remain unchanged.

And when we share Christ with others, we experience more of Christ. When we breathe out, we can breathe in more deeply. When we empty our hands to others, we can be filled with the gifts of God.

Jesus told his first followers, “Freely you received, freely give” (Matthew 10:8 NASB). The converse is true as well: the more we give, the more we receive.

“For God alone my soul waits in silence”

To this end, I will close by recommending a neglected spiritual practice for the new year that I believe positions us to experience God in self-actualizing and transcendent ways. 

A Presbyterian minister in Waco, Texas, named Chris Palmer wrote an article recently for Christian Century that I found deeply impactful. Titled “A worship practice Zoom can’t replicate,” it is a call for intentional and contemplative silence as a regular part of the Christian life.

Palmer believes that we need regular, extended times of personal silence to listen to God’s voice through his Spirit, word, and creation. But he also believes that we need times of corporate silence in our worship services so we can hear his voice together.

He cites David’s testimony: “For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation” (Psalm 62:1). Because David made this time for silence with his Lord, he could then write the next verse: “He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken” (v. 2).

If we listen to God, he will speak. If we hear the voice of the omnipotent God of the universe, we cannot be the same. We will be empowered to give what we receive. And “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it” (John 1:5 NLT).

When last did meeting with God change your life?

NOTE: On January 25, I’m hosting a virtual book launch Q&A to celebrate the launch of my most pivotal work to date, my book The Coming Tsunami — and I’d love for you to attend. During the Q&A, I’ll go in depth about Critical Race Theory, one of the four major “earthquakes” I talk about in The Coming Tsunami that are seismically shifting our world. To gain access to the live Q&A, please pre-order a copy of The Coming Tsunami today. Thank you.

Denison Forum