San Francisco is on the front pages this week as the 49ers seek to win their sixth Super Bowl this Sunday. But the city is making news for tragic reasons as well.

• The San Francisco Chronicle headlines: “San Francisco street horror only grows as drug overdose numbers spike.”
• CNN reports: “Drugs are sold out in the open in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district.”
• The New York Post adds: “Inside San Francisco’s ‘dens of death’ as liberal city faces drug crisis.”
• And this from CNN: “A mother was raising her son in a city she loved. Then San Francisco changed and stole her boy.”

Drug addicts now outnumber high school students in San Francisco.

In an area a short walk from Union Square, the city’s central shopping district, CNN reports that “it’s commonplace to see people using and selling drugs. Human waste, used needles, and bullet casings litter the sidewalks.”

What’s going on in San Francisco?

Why does this matter to the rest of us?

“The extreme of a pro-drug culture”

In 2018, the drug overdose death rate in San Francisco roughly matched the national average. Five years later, it was more than double the national level. Why?

New York Times reporter German Lopez explains:

The [San Francisco] culture has become more tolerant of people using drugs. When I asked people living on the streets why they are in San Francisco, the most common response was that they knew they could avoid the legal and social penalties that often follow addiction. Some came from as close as Oakland, believing that San Francisco was more permissive.

Keith Humphreys, a drug policy expert at Stanford University, told Lopez that San Francisco “is on the extreme of a pro-drug culture.”

Activists in the city argue for “body autonomy,” claiming that people have the right to put whatever they choose into their veins and lungs. They say it’s no one’s business but the drug user’s. Advocacy groups want people to use drugs more safely, arguing that abstinence is not always a “realistic” goal.

“Body autonomy” advocates often cite the drug policies of British Columbia, a global leader in harm reduction. However, British Columbia set a record for overdose death rates last year.

“What we all dread most”

G. K. Chesterton observed: “What we all dread most is a maze with no center.”

But that’s where we are.

As we saw yesterday, Americans now live in a “post-Christian” nation. When your compass has no true north, it points wherever you want it to point. And you’ll be lost and on your own.

As I was praying about a biblical response for today’s article, my attention was drawn to Psalm 36. David begins:

Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart; there is no fear of God before his eyes. For he flatters himself in his own eyes that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated. The words of his mouth are trouble and deceit; he has ceased to act wisely and do good. He plots trouble while on his bed; he sets himself in a way that is not good; he does not reject evil (vv. 1–4, my emphasis).

Doesn’t it seem that he was reading today’s news?

By contrast, David prays:

Your steadfast love, O Lᴏʀᴅ, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; your judgments are like the great deep; man and beast you save, O Lᴏʀᴅ (vv. 5–6).

“In your light do we see light”

Now Americans have a choice to make.

We can persist in our “post-truth” relativism, denying the word of God and choosing our will over his. If we do, San Francisco is a picture of our cultural future.

Or we can seek and submit to God’s word and will each day. We can ask what Scripture says about the issues we face and then “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). We can think biblically and act redemptively.

If we do, this will be our testimony:

How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights (Psalm 36:7–8).

And we will say to God:

“With you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light” (v. 9).

Will you make this prayer your commitment today?

Tuesday news to know

• Toby Keith, popular country music singer-songwriter, dies at 62
• California storm: At least three dead, long cleanup ahead
• Iran-backed groups continue to target American bases as US plans further strikes
• 2,500-year-old silver coin discovered in Israel
• On this day in history: King George VI dies; Elizabeth becomes queen

Quote for the day

“The Bible is the book of my life. It’s the book I live with, the book I live by, the book I want to die by.” —theologian N. T. Wright

Denison Forum

“How is everybody doing?”

Would you have thought such an innocuous question would generate global headlines?

At last night’s Grammy Awards, Taylor Swift became the only artist ever to win album of the year four times. The Houthis are also making headlines after they vowed yesterday to respond to US and UK joint strikes in Yemen.

Meanwhile, people are responding to a question Elmo from Sesame Street posted on X last week: “Elmo is just checking in! How is everybody doing?” As CNN’s headline notes, “He got an earful.” Some examples:

• “Elmo I’m depressed and broke.”
• “Every morning I cannot wait to go back to sleep. Every Monday, I cannot wait for Friday to come. Every single day and every single week for life.”
• “I’m at my lowest, thanks for asking.”
• “Elmo I’ve got to level with you baby we are fighting for our lives.”

Scanning the news, it’s not hard to see why. But there’s hope beyond the headlines if we’ll look in the right direction.

What will future historians say of us?

What ties these stories together?

• Oklahoma drag queen elementary school principal resigns amid outrage, official says
• Students at California school struggling after $250k in federal funds spent on ‘Woke Kindergarten’ program
• Syphilis is soaring in the US
• Polyamory, the ruling class’s latest fad
• Today’s teenagers: Anxious about their futures and disillusioned by politicians
• Ethics ratings of nearly all professions down in the US

Harvard theologian Harvey Cox observed:

We now live in a “post-Christian” America. The Judeo-Christian ethic no longer guides our social institutions. Christian ideals and values no longer dominate social thought and action. The Bible has ceased to be a common base of moral authority for judging whether something is right or wrong, good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable.

Why is this such an urgent crisis? In Man—The Dwelling Place of God, A. W. Tozer stated:

I am among those who believe that our Western civilization is on its way to perishing. It has many commendable qualities, most of which it has borrowed from the Christian ethic, but it lacks the element of moral wisdom that would give it permanence. Future historians will record that we of the twentieth century had enough intelligence to create a great civilization but not the moral wisdom to preserve it.

He wrote these words in 1966. What would he say of our culture today?

“He is love and he must bless”

If you could travel through space at the speed of light, it would take you forty-seven billion years to reach the most distant objects in the observable universe. No one knows what lies beyond that—except God, who measures all of this with the palm of his hand (Isaiah 40:12).

Here’s the good news: we can place ourselves in those hands if we “wait for the Lᴏʀᴅ” (v. 31a), choosing to depend entirely on his strength and grace. When we do, the rest of the verse tells us how he responds:

• We “shall renew [our] strength”—the Hebrew means that we exchange our weakness for his omnipotence, our helplessness for his hope.
• We “shall mount up with wings like eagles” in his supernatural power.
• We “shall run and not be weary” as we run “the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1).
• We “shall walk and not faint,” no matter how hard the path becomes.

All of this our Father wants to do for us. As C. S. Lewis noted, “He is love and he must bless.” Because “God is love” (1 John 4:8), his nature requires him to seek always and only our best.

“More than conquerors through him who loved us”

Consequently, if we are not experiencing our Father’s best, the fault is not his.

If, as people told Elmo, we are “depressed,” at our “lowest,” and “fighting for our lives,” Cox must be right about our “post-Christian” status. If so, as Tozer warned, our civilization is “on its way to perishing.”

But what is true of America doesn’t have to be true of you.

You can “wait for the Lᴏʀᴅ” right now. You can name your greatest struggles and turn them over to his omnipotent grace. You can claim the fact that “we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). You can then say with Paul, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13). And you can ask:

“If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31).

Who, indeed?

Are you waiting on God, or is he waiting on you?

Monday news to know

• 37 million at risk for flooding from blockbuster California rainstorm
• Super Bowl ads: It’s getting harder for commercials to score with consumers
• 2026 World Cup final set for MetLife Stadium
• Boeing finds new problem with 737 MAX fuselages
• This day in 1631: Roger Williams arrives in America

Quote for the day

“We should be astonished at the goodness of God, stunned that he should bother to call us by name, our mouths wide open at his love, bewildered that at this very moment we are standing on holy ground.” —Brennan Manning

Denison Forum