A ten-point buck sought shelter inside a southern Michigan church on Monday, the opening day of the state’s firearm deer hunting season. A video shows the animal wandering around the church auditorium, at one point climbing stairs to a balcony. It eventually leapt through a window and back out into the wild.

Unfortunately, not everyone is finding the same sanctuary inside churches these days. 

A Barna Group survey released Tuesday reports that 38 percent of US pastors have considered quitting full-time ministry in the past year. This percentage is up nine points since Barna asked church leaders the same question at the beginning of 2021. 

A Barna official explains: “All the chaos, all the pressure, the magnifying glass of social media, the pandemic, the politics, the hyperdigital context, it makes sense that you have a lot of pastors saying, ‘Is this really what I signed up for? Is this what I was called into?’” 

Pastors are not alone in needing help these days. Federal researchers reported yesterday that more than one hundred thousand Americans died of drug overdoses in the twelve-month period ending in April, up almost 30 percent from the prior year. Overdose deaths have doubled since 2015 and now surpass the toll of car crashes and guns combined. 

We live in the most advanced technological age in history. We have more wealth and means than previous generations could have imagined. What, then, explains the anxiety epidemic of our age? 

Why Ben Carson is an advocate for life 

Dr. Ben Carson was the keynote speaker for the Twentieth Annual Celebrating Life Luncheon in Dallas yesterday. The event was sponsored by the Council for Life, one of the most effective organizations supporting life I have ever known. I am honored to serve on their Advisory Board and to encourage their mission and ministry. 

The previous evening, the Council held a dinner for board members and invited guests. Matthew West provided worship music for the evening and for yesterday’s luncheon. I was privileged to interview them both as part of the program. 

As you may know, Dr. Carson was an award-winning pediatric neurosurgeon, named by CNN and Time magazine as one of America’s twenty foremost physicians and scientists and selected by the Library of Congress as one of eighty-nine “Living Legends” on its two-hundredth anniversary. He then became a candidate for president of the United States before serving as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. He founded and leads the American Cornerstone Institute in promoting and preserving individual and religious liberty and serving all our citizens. 

During our conversation, I asked Dr. Carson how he had come to be such an advocate for life. He explained that he grew up in a very liberal worldview, one that was furthered by his education at Yale, the University of Michigan, and Johns Hopkins. While he told us that he did not agree with abortion personally, he also believed that he had no right to force his belief on women. (This is the most common pro-choice explanation I have heard over the years.) 

However, he came to understand that abortion, which treats an unborn child as less than fully human, is very similar to slavery, which treats a person of a different race as less than fully human. Then he asked himself: “What if abolitionists had taken the same position on slavery that I am taking on abortion? What if they had said, ‘I don’t believe in slavery personally, but I don’t want to force my beliefs on slaveholders?’ Where would I be today?” 

Dr. Carson told our group that this reasoning led him to advocate passionately for all life, beginning at conception.  

Our perennial temptation 

Reflecting on his remarkable observation, I realized that the temptation to make others a means to our ends is endemic to fallen human nature and, therefore, every dimension of human experience. Like our first parents in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:5), you and I face this temptation every moment of every day. 

For example, God intends sexual relations to be the celebration of covenant love between a husband and a wife, while the so-called sexual revolution objectifies others as a means to our sexual pleasure. Our Creator makes each human in his image as a person of sacred worth, while pornography, prostitution, and sex trafficking make them objects of lust and greed. 

If murderers valued their victims as God does, what would be the impact on our homicide epidemic? If liars, thieves, and other criminals did the same, what would be the result? 

Slave traders and owners justified their horrific sin by viewing Africans as inferior to white people. White supremacists similarly denigrate Jews and ethnic minorities today. Over decades of pastoral experience, I have often met church members who objectify their pastor and staff ministers as their employees, measuring their value by their utility rather than their intrinsic worth as God’s children and servants. 

Three prayers that would change the world 

The way forward is found in Jesus’ Great Commandments (Mark 12:29–31), where we are taught to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. On this basis, you and I should pray three prayers every day: 

One: “God, help me to love you fully in response to your unconditional love for me.” 

The more we remember our Father’s sacrificial, passionate, absolute love for us, the more we will want to love him in the same way. 

Two: “God, help me love myself as you love me.” 

The more we remember what Jesus did to restore our relationship with our Father, the more we will find our self-worth, not in our possessions, popularity, or performance but in his never-ending, never-changing love for us. 

Three: “God, help me love my neighbor as you love me.” 

The more we experience God’s transforming love, the more we will be empowered and motivated to share it with every person we can. And the more we will love them as we are loved. 

Imagine the difference it would make in the world if Christians were known for loving others as God loves us. 

Now imagine the difference for the next person you meet. 

Denison Forum

Greater Mount Calvary Holy Church, a megachurch in Washington, DC, held their first-ever “Gas on God” event last Saturday morning, giving 250 drivers $20 each to help pay for gas. The church’s executive pastor explained that “our desire has always been to meet the needs of the community” and hoped the commuters they helped “felt God’s love for them in a tangible way.”

That’s a church I would like to join.

There’s more good news in the news:

• The California School for the Deaf in Riverside, California, has made the New York Times due to their undefeated season as the highest-ranked team in their division.
• Sesame Street debuted Ji-Young, the show’s first Asian-American puppet.
• Chicago billionaire Ty Warner, who manufactures Beanie Babies in China, has responded to supply chain problems by booking more than 150 cargo planes to airlift the toys more than six thousand miles to Chicago for Christmas sales.
• A Jewish community is being rebuilt in Poland nearly eighty years after the Holocaust.
• And an emotional support duck ran the recent NYC Marathon in custom webbed sneakers.

Each story illustrates the same theme: news outlets know that people are grateful when we make public our personal values and victories. With one major exception.

Three seasons in my neighborhood

Walking in my neighborhood early yesterday morning, it seems like we are living in three seasons simultaneously. American flags left over from Veterans Day are still dotting some front lawns. Thanksgiving decorations and pumpkins are much in evidence. And more houses every day are displaying Christmas lights. Not to mention the signs and banners proclaiming allegiances to various high schools and colleges.

Why do we do this? Those inside these houses cannot see what they are displaying outside them. Unlike political posters that are persuasional by design, I cannot imagine that those who put out such holiday displays are trying to make those who pass by more patriotic, thankful, or supportive of Christmas.

One explanation is that there is something in us that wants to make public what matters to us personally. And our culture affirms this practice.

Even though there are more Americans with no religious affiliation than ever before, I am not aware of an effort to ban Christmas decorations lest we offend the irreligious among us. Even though some claim that the Pilgrims did far more harm than good to the Native Americans they encountered, I have not seen a national strategy to cancel Thanksgiving. Some proponents of the 1619 Project view America as endemically racist and flawed from its inception, but no one I know fears offending them by displaying American flags on Veterans Day.

However, if evangelical Christians seek to share their faith in public, a rising tide of opposition brands us as intolerant, discriminatory, and even dangerous.

A very troubling report

It is conventional wisdom today that all truth is personal and subjective. As a result, sharing Christ in public is viewed as the imposition of our beliefs on others. I have no right to tell you that you should like classical music, any more than you have the right to impose your love for ballet on me.

This view of truth extends especially to the claim that non-Christians need to trust Christ to escape hell for heaven (Acts 4:12). Such a claim is increasingly seen as intolerant in the extreme, a view that is affecting and infecting Christians as well as the larger secular culture.

For example, a very troubling Barna report recently showed that 47 percent of practicing Christian Millennials say it is wrong to share our personal beliefs with someone of a different faith in hopes that they will one day share the same faith.

As we move closer to Thanksgiving and Christmas—once religious holidays that are now broadly and deeply secularized—how should Christians respond in ways that draw people closer to Christ?

Balancing boldness with discernment

During his first missionary journey, Paul was stoned in Lystra and left for dead (Acts 14:19), but he revived and “rose up and entered the city” to continue preaching (v. 20). When he faced opposition in Corinth, he nonetheless remained in the city for eighteen months, “teaching the word of God among them” (Acts 18:5–11).

Conversely, when city leaders in Philippi asked the apostle to leave, he complied (Acts 16:39–40). And when crowds erupted against him in Thessalonica, he escaped the city by night (Acts 17:1–10).

Here’s the principle: balance boldness with discernment.

We are to “speak the word of God with boldness” (Acts 4:31) and courage (1 Corinthians 16:13). At the same time, we are to seek God’s leading as to where we go and what we say, knowing that his Spirit will give us the discernment to know when we are in Corinth and when we are in Thessalonica.

We must not be presumptuous, jumping from the temple and expecting angels to catch us (Matthew 4:5–7). But neither are we to shrink from the calling and privilege of sharing the only news that can save souls and change hearts (2 Corinthians 5:17).

If we will seek God’s leading at the start of each day and then through the day, he will guide us, empower us, and use us to speak his truth and model his grace.

When earth is “a part of heaven”

If we truly love Jesus, we will love everyone he loves enough to pay any price to help them love our Lord. We will seek the Spirit’s discernment in showing that love in its most effective ways to those we influence, but we will also testify with Paul, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16).

The key factor to remember is that eternity is in the balance here. Every person you meet today will live forever in God’s presence in heaven or separated from him in hell. No price we pay to help them find salvation in our Savior is too high.

In The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis noted: “Earth, I think, will not be found by anyone to be in the end a very distinct place. I think earth, if chosen instead of heaven, will turn out to have been, all along, only a region in hell; and earth, if put second to heaven, to have been from the beginning a part of heaven itself.”

Which will be true for you today?

Denison Forum

Russia made news over the weekend when they launched a missile into space and blew up one of their now-defunct Soviet-era satellites. The debris from the downed satellite is expected to remain floating in space for at least the next few years, complicating missions for astronauts at the International Space Station and anyone else who journeys beyond Earth’s atmosphere. 

As General James Dickenson, leader of the U.S. Space Command, described it, “Space activities underpin our way of life, and this kind of behavior is simply irresponsible.” He then added, “Russia is developing and deploying capabilities to actively deny access to and use of space by the United States and its allies and partners . . . . Russia continues to pursue counter space weapon systems that undermine strategic stability and pose a threat to all nations.”

Irresponsible seems like the operative word in that assessment.

You see, we can’t fully know what motivated Russia to launch that missile but, even if we could, it wouldn’t change the practical consequences of their decision. The debris would still be there, and every other country with aspirations of working in space will now have to deal with that new reality. 

The same is often true in our lives. 

Consequences beyond ourselves

It’s been said that we tend to judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their actions. Most of the time, that statement seems to be made in an effort to encourage people to have more grace for the mistakes of others and to try to see things from their perspective. And that’s a valid application. 

It’s also true, however, that it should help us remember that our intentions don’t change the consequences others must face when we make a mistake. It should motivate us to be a bit more introspective and a bit more aware of the fact that every choice we make has consequences beyond ourselves, and we need to be mindful of those consequences when deciding how to act in a given situation. 

As Christians, we are called to “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:3—4). 

That “selfish ambition” is not always the result of simply not caring about the needs of others. More often, it comes from an ignorance of the needs of others and how our actions will impact them.

So as you go through your day, ask God to help you be aware of how your decisions will affect those around you. Be intentional about considering the needs of others when assessing how you will act in a given situation. 

While I doubt any of us are planning to launch a missile into space anytime soon, the way that you approach your family at home, the coworker next to you, or the person driving next to you can still have practical implications that extend well beyond whatever your intentions might be. 

Denison Forum

In July 1969, Theodore John Conrad showed up for work as a bank teller in Cleveland. According to authorities, at the end of his shift, the then twenty-year-old stole $215,000 (the equivalent of $1.7 million today), stuffed it in a paper bag, and vanished.

Friday, the FBI announced that it had identified the man considered one of the nation’s most wanted fugitives. He had been living in Boston since 1970 under the name Thomas Randele. Investigators had chased tips in California, Hawaii, Texas, and Oregon. His case was featured on America’s Most Wanted and Unsolved Mysteries.

Financial documents helped them finally identify Conrad. However, he had already died of lung cancer in May of this year at the age of seventy-one.

You may think you have nothing in common with Theodore John Conrad. You’ve likely never robbed a bank or lived under a fake identity. You’ve committed no crimes worthy of the FBI’s attention or national publicity.

But you and I are more like Mr. Conrad than we’d like to admit.

Could deer spread coronavirus to humans?

Veterinarians at Pennsylvania State University reported last week that they have found active SARS-CoV-2 infections in at least 30 percent of white-tailed deer tested across Iowa during 2020. Their study raises the urgent question: If the entire human population becomes immune to the virus, could deer then spread it back to us?

Scientists have not yet determined whether deer can actually transmit the virus to humans. However, since there are an estimated thirty million deer in the US, the answer is obviously vital.

Less obviously, the story also illustrates a vital spiritual principle.

Christians are a “new creation” in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). We have been “born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God” (1 Peter 1:23). But the virus of sin in our fallen world can still infect us.

Paul spoke for believers everywhere: “When I want to do right, evil lies close at hand” (Romans 7:21).

When we yield to temptation, however, we don’t want others to know it. We want to maintain the façade of external godliness. Like Theodore John Conrad, we’re living under a false identity, projecting an image to the world that is untrue to our real selves. And like Mr. Conrad, we think we are getting away with our “private” sin.

All the while, we continue to serve God publicly. We stand for the unborn and against abortion; we stand for biblical sexuality and against LGBTQ activism; we stand for biblical purity and against pornography and prostitution.

So long as no one sees our hidden sins, no one needs to know.

But Someone does.

A fact you may not have considered

Scripture attests, “The eyes of the Lᴏʀᴅ are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good” (Proverbs 15:3). There are no exceptions: “No creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13).

You know this to be true already. But here’s a biblical fact you might not have considered.

In Romans 2, Paul states: “In passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things” (v. 1). The apostle does not mean that we have heterosexual affairs or commit homosexual sins. He means that we commit our own versions of the same sins we condemn in others.

For example, “You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?” (v. 22a). According to Jesus, lust is adultery (Matthew 5:28) just as pornography or sex outside of marriage is adultery.

Paul continues: “You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?” (v. 22b). Idolatry is putting creation in the place of the Creator. It is valuing money more than our Master, pleasure more than moral principles, and personal promotion more than glorifying God. If we steal God’s creation for ourselves, we “rob temples.”

Then, when our personal lives contradict the faith we proclaim, secular people feel justified in continuing in their sins and in rejecting our Lord: “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you” (v. 24).

The vital question

In Zephaniah 1, we read of “those who bow down and swear to the Lᴏʀᴅ and yet swear by Milcom” (v. 5), the god of the pagan Ammonites. Commenting on this text, Charles Spurgeon wrote: “Duplicity is abominable with God, and hypocrisy his soul hateth.”

Then he added: “The idolater who gives himself to his false god has one sin less than he who brings his polluted and detestable sacrifice unto the temple of the Lord while his heart is with the world and the sins thereof.”

The great preacher concluded: “Christ will be all or nothing. God fills the whole universe, and hence there is no room for another god; if then he reigns in my heart, there will be no space for another reigning power. Do I rest on Jesus crucified, and live alone for him? Is it my desire to do so? Is my heart set upon so doing?”

The good news is that the Christ who reigns over the universe also lives in us by his Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16). If we ask him to show us any secret sins in our hearts, he will do so (John 16:8). If we confess them and ask him to forgive us and cleanse us, he always answers our prayer (1 John 1:9).

For every follower of Jesus, “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5). Now the Spirit will help us love Jesus so much that we hate sin. He will help us love our Lord so passionately that we want to please him privately and serve him publicly.

But our Lord can give only what we will receive (Revelation 3:20).

Here’s the vital question: Do you want to love Jesus so much that you love all that he loves and hate all that he hates today?

Denison Forum