President Biden delivered a speech on voting rights in Atlanta yesterday afternoon. He called for the Senate to amend its filibuster rules to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which the Washington Post describes as restoring “the federal government’s authority to review certain state voting laws to prevent discrimination,” and the Freedom to Vote Act, which the Post calls “a broader bill that would create national rules for voting by mail, early voting, and other parts of the electoral process.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell disagrees with the Democrats’ efforts to amend the filibuster, of course. He threatens to place a spate of Republican-backed bills on the legislative calendar in response, stating, “Since Sen. Schumer is hell-bent on trying to break the Senate, Republicans will show how this reckless action would have immediate consequences.”

So, which side is right? 

Your answer probably depends on which side is yours.

Why the founders intended political conflict

Why does your answer depend on your side? 

Because “sides” are an intentional part of our governance. Humor me with a very brief Civics 101 overview.

America is not a true “democracy.” If it were, the majority would win every argument. Rather, we are a republic in which the minority has guaranteed rights as well. We have therefore chosen to govern ourselves through political leaders we elect to represent us. Members of the House of Representatives represent geographical districts within the various states; members of the Senate represent the states that elected them; and the president represents the entire nation.

Our elected officials are supposed to advocate for us as if we were in Washington advocating for ourselves. When you wish the government would do something I wish it would not do, our representatives are supposed to find compromises that advance the common good in a collective manner. But when my position cancels yours, as is the case for so many of our issues today, compromise becomes difficult to find.

For example, evangelical Christians have First Amendment religious liberty protection to lead their ministries according to their biblical convictions with regard to LGBTQ issues, or they do not. (The so-called Equality Act says they do not.) Abortion on demand is either a constitutionally guaranteed “privacy right” or it is not. (The Supreme Court will rule on this question later this year.)

Why our divisions are deeper than ever

Add the fact that fewer Americans than ever before trust the “other side” to do the right thing. For instance, CNN reports that the percentage of Americans who strongly dislike the opposition party has risen by 400 percent in the last two decades.

Social media plays an outsized role here as well. Christianity Today public theologian Russell Moore recently pointed readers to a relevant article by Robert Wright, who in turn quoted psychologist Leon Festinger: “People who make public commitments to a position are going to be motivated to bolster it. They’re going to become better and better at generating reasons why they’re right and their would-be critics are wrong.”

As Wright then observes, this is a greater problem than ever. Thirty years ago, it was difficult to make such public commitments. You had to get on television or radio, get a book or article published, and so on. Now anyone with a cell phone can be “on stage.” They can (and often do) voice their opinions on any subject they wish to address. And once they do, they become hardened in defending their position against its critics. And they are more likely to build “echo chambers” whereby they listen only to those who agree with them.

Rather than the consensual process of compromise for the greater good that our founders envisioned, we have a “zero-sum” battle of adversaries who can win only if the other side loses.

Why the God of the Bible is relevant today

Why is the God of the Bible uniquely relevant to such a conflicted culture?

Because this God loves “the world” (John 3:16). He proved it when he chose us long before we chose him: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

Whatever your position on abortion, this God loves you. Whatever your thoughts about same-sex marriage and LGBTQ activism, he loves you. Even if you reject his love or deny his existence, he loves you.

Unlike any other supposed deity or entity in the universe, “God is love” (1 John 4:8, my emphasis). Because he is love by his intrinsic nature, there is literally nothing you can do to make him love you any more or less than he does at this moment.

Furthermore, the God of Scripture calls his followers to follow his example: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7).

Why our faith is vital to America’s future

This is why a spiritual awakening is so urgent for America’s future. Consensual governance requires consensual morality. If we cannot agree on our most fundamental goods and rights (or even if there are fundamental goods and rights), how can we govern ourselves accordingly?

Our founders knew that, as John Adams stated, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” He noted that “the happiness of a people and the good order and preservation of civil government essentially depend upon piety, religion, and morality.”

And he warned, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net.”

Is this what we are witnessing today?

Will you ask God’s Spirit to fill you with God’s love even (and especially) for those with whom you disagree?

Will you ask him to help you use your influence to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15) wherever and however you can today?

Will you be part of the problem, or will you be part of the solution to the glory of God?

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On average, 7,708 Americans die each day. Most of them are known primarily to their families, friends, coworkers, and so on. But when a space heater sparks a fire in the Bronx that kills seventeen people, including eight children, the nation grieves, as we should. When a cliff collapses on tourist boats in Brazil, killing ten people, the world watches the video in shock. 

When a beloved actor like Sidney Poitier dies, his passing makes international headlines. It was the same with television actor Bob Saget, who died Sunday, and with Betty White after she died a few days ago. 

Other deaths make the news less for who they were than for how they happened. A father in Virginia tried to walk home in a snowstorm last week; his body was discovered three days later. The body of a skier missing since Christmas was found last weekend. A Los Angeles Taco Bell worker was fatally shot last Saturday during an argument over a fake $20 bill. 

Why aren’t Americans afraid of death? 

As the news constantly reminds us, any of us could die at any time. And yet, if you ask Americans to name their top fears, their personal death ranks surprisingly low. More than half of us either are “not very afraid” (27 percent) or “not at all afraid” (25 percent) of death. Only 11 percent of us are “very afraid” of death, while 31 percent are “somewhat afraid” to die and 7 percent “don’t know.” 

We are more afraid of the way we might die than the fact of our death. In a list of our “top ten fears,” “mass shootings” comes in at #3, followed by “terrorism” at #5 and “becoming terminally ill” at #7. Each points to how we might die rather than the fact of death itself. 

Why are we mortals not more afraid of our mortality? 

The answer is tragically not that we are prepared to meet God. Only 35 percent of American adults believe salvation comes through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And yet, 54 percent believe they will go to heaven, many of them because they think they have earned their place in paradise through their good works. 

What of the rest? 

• 15 percent say they don’t know what will happen after they die.
• 13 percent say there is no life after death.
• 8 percent expect to be reincarnated.
• 8 percent believe they will go to a place of purification prior to entering heaven.
• Just 2 percent believe they will go to hell.

“I don’t believe in the queen of England” 

I remember a day when an intense fear of hell was commonplace. Even though our family never attended church before I heard the gospel at the age of fifteen, I have strong memories of fearing what would happen to me if I died. Evangelists and pastors could present the “plan of salvation” in the knowledge that most who heard them wanted to know and then follow that “plan.” 

However, one of the many ways Satan is using the postmodern denial of objective truth is to convince millions that their opinion of the afterlife determines the afterlife they will experience. A man once confidently told me “I don’t believe in hell” as if that changed the existence of hell. 

We would not make this assumption in any other dimension of reality. Imagine your response if I assured you that the queen of England does not exist because I don’t believe in her existence. On the contrary, we know that denying reality typically harms us far more than it helps us, as when a doctor tells us we have cancer or the meteorologist warns of severe weather. 

But “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). This is because “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). 

Unlike those who are directionally lost and stop for directions, most who are spiritually lost don’t know they are lost. If Satan has his way, they will persist in this condition until it is too late. 

Four empowering prayers 

What can we do to help them? 

I doubt your first response is to inform them that they are lost and destined for hell. If a Muslim told you that you would go to hell unless you converted to Islam, would this make you more or less interested in his faith? While lost people definitely need to know their peril and need for salvation, four preceding steps can make this news much more effective. 

1. Ask God to make our lives consistent with our message (cf. Romans 12:1–2). 

People are far more likely to believe our faith is relevant to them when it is obviously relevant to us. 

2. Ask our Father to give us his love for the lost. 

We will risk anything for those we love. When we love others as Jesus loves us (cf. John 13:34–35), our words will be empowered and inspired by compassion and grace. While no one wants to be told they are wrong and we are right, everyone wants to be loved. 

3. Ask the Spirit to lead us to those he has prepared for our witness. 

He is actively cultivating the minds and hearts of the lost to hear the good news of God’s grace. He is thus preparing someone specifically for your compassionate witness today. 

4. Ask the Spirit to inspire your words and actions. 

He knows just what this person needs to hear and see from you. If you submit to the Spirit each day (Ephesians 5:18), even when facing skeptics and critics, your words will be God’s words because “it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you” (Matthew 10:20). 

If we will make these four requests of our Lord every day, our lives and our witness will be transformed. We will know Jesus and make him known with passion and compassion out of the overflow of his Spirit in our hearts. 

The late Senate chaplain Richard Halverson noted, “New Testament Christians did not witness because they had to but because they could not help it.” 

Will you join them today?

Denison Forum

Harvard’s “Study of Adult Development” followed two groups of men over eighty years to “identify the psychosocial predictors of healthy aging.” Beginning before World War II, they interacted with over seven hundred men as they scrutinized blood samples, performed brain scans, and collated surveys.

According to psychiatrist Robert Waldinger, the director of the research project, “The clearest message that we get from this eighty-year study is this: Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period.”

However, as Dr. Waldinger clarifies, “It’s the quality of your close relationships that matters. Not the quantity.”

Here’s what the Harvard study overlooked: there is one relationship that is most crucial to our flourishing. According to a report published last month in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, “Anxiety or a lack of certainty about one’s relationship with the divine represents a threat to psychological well-being.”

Oswald Chambers turns out to be right: “There is only one relationship that matters, and that is your personal relationship to a personal Redeemer and Lord. Let everything else go, but maintain that at all costs, and God will fulfill his purpose through your life.”

Why is this?

“People will go a bit nuts”

The biblical answer to our question is clear: God made us in his image (Genesis 1:26) for personal relationship with himself (cf. Revelation 3:20). As the Westminster Shorter Catechism states, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.”

St. Augustine spoke for all of us when he said to God, “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you” (Confessions 1.1).

But what could I say to the person who discounts both the Bible and those who believe in its truth? An option would be to ask how we are doing in a culture that refuses to “rest” in God. How “restless” are our hearts as a result?

Andrew Sullivan summarizes the core thesis of a new book called Stolen Focus by Johann Hari: “Create a throw-away consumeristic civilization, break families into ever smaller units, add a tech revolution, online addiction, economic precariousness, breakneck social change, endless work, and the collapse of religion and meaning, and yes, people will go a bit nuts. They’ll become depressed; they’ll seek out escapes through opiates or meth; they’ll disappear down rabbit holes of online fanaticism; they’ll seek meaning through work or fame; they’ll tear each other down with glee; they’ll lose the skills for family, friendship, constancy, discipline, and love.”

“They all strive towards this goal”

Blaise Pascal (1623–62) was a genius. He wrote an essay on geometry at the age of seventeen that aroused the envy of Rene Descartes. Two years later, he developed the first digital calculator. He also invented the syringe, created the hydraulic press, and laid the foundation for the modern theory of probabilities.

Pascal’s understanding of human experience was as brilliant as his scientific expertise. For instance, in the Pensees, he observed: “All men seek happiness. There are no exceptions. However different the means they may employ, they all strive towards this goal. The reason why some go to war and some do not is the same desire in both, but interpreted in two different ways. The will never takes the least step except to that end. This is the motive of every act of every man, including those who go and hang themselves.”

He asked, “What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace?” Then he responded to his question: “This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words, by God himself.”

Pascal concluded: “God alone is man’s true good, and since man abandoned him, it is a strange fact that nothing in nature has been found to take his place: stars, sky, earth, elements, plants, cabbages, leeks, animals, insects, calves, serpents, fever, plague, war, famine, vice, adultery, incest. Since losing his true good, man is capable of seeing it in anything, even his own destruction, although it is so contrary at once to God, to reason and to nature” (Pensees 425).

“Embrace something with your heart”

God’s timeless word and today’s headlines agree: Humans cannot flourish apart from an intimate, personal relationship with our Creator. This fact explains much of the suffering in our secularized culture. But it also applies to you and me just as much as to any lost person we know.

If you have trusted Christ as your Lord, the fact that you have received eternal life through him does not guarantee that you are experiencing that life today. In fact, the opposite can be the case: we think that because our eternity is secure, our temporal lives need little spiritual attention.

The Harvard study is true for you: the quality of your relationship with Jesus is the single greatest determiner of your happiness and flourishing. Neglecting this relationship is indeed a “threat to psychological well-being.” But fostering it is the pathway to the abundant life Jesus died to give you (John 10:10).

Br. Curtis Almquist of the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Boston observed, “To believe is not ultimately to wrap your brain around some existential concept. To believe is to embrace something with your heart as if your life depended upon it. The English word believe comes from the same etymological root as the word belove, which is to hold dear, to love deeply.”

Do you believe in Jesus today?

NOTE: As we embark on a new year, I see on the horizon some seismic cultural shifts headed our direction. This is why I wrote my latest book, The Coming Tsunami, which releases on January 25. On this day, I’m also hosting a special virtual book launch Q&A, which I’d love for you to attend. So please pre-order your copy of The Coming Tsunami to gain exclusive access. I look forward to seeing you on January 25.

Denison Forum