“Babies, women, the elderly were dragged outside of their homes, were taken hostage. Civilians were shot and most were massacred in cold blood walking on the streets. This is something that, I mean, is truly unprecedented.” This is how Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan described the surprise attack Hamas launched on Israel by air, land, and sea early Saturday morning.

“This is our 9/11,” he added.

At this writing, more than 700 Israelis and about 413 Palestinians have died in the conflict; more than 2,200 have been injured. After declaring war for the first time since the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Israel launched retaliatory strikes against military compounds and locations connected to Hamas’s leadership in Gaza. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) announced this morning that it has retaken control of all communities around the Gaza Strip.

I have led more than thirty study tours to Israel, taught world religions at several graduate schools, and written books and numerous articles on Israel and Islam. In this context, I will view this tragedy with you today through the prism of geopolitical and religious narratives. Let’s ask why this is happening, then close with a practical and urgent way we must respond today.

Why did Hamas attack Israel?

Hamas called its attack “Operation Al-Aqsa Deluge” and claimed it was acting in retaliation for Israel’s “desecration” of the Temple Mount, but we should look beyond its words to its foundational beliefs.

“Hamas” is an Arabic acronym for “Islamic Resistance Movement.” The terrorist group is part of a movement of radical jihadists who claim that the State of Israel stole its land from its rightful Muslim owners. They believe the Qur’an requires them to defend Islam by attacking Israel and anyone who supports the Jewish people (cf. Qur’an 2:190; 9:5). Since Israel is a democracy, they view its Jewish citizens, whom they consider “apes and swine” (Qur’an 5:60; see 2:65; 7:166), to be complicit in this “attack” on Islam.

Hamas has therefore been in conflict with Israel since seizing control of Gaza in 2007. Its goal is more than aggression against Jews, however.

Hamas published its official charter in 1988, calling for the destruction of Israel and raising “the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine.” Its founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, stated that “reconciliation with the Jews is a crime” and claimed that Israel “must disappear from the map.”

To accomplish this goal, Hamas would need to do three things.

One: Prevent Muslim nations from supporting Israel.

The Abraham Accords brought the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain into normalized relations with Israel in 2020. More recently, Saudi Arabia has been considering steps to normalize relations with Israel in exchange for a defense pact with the US.

Saturday’s attacks were clearly intended to sabotage such talks. They apparently achieved their goal, at least in the short term, when the Saudi government issued a statement blaming the conflict on “the deprivation of the Palestinian people of their legitimate rights.”

Two: Provoke a response that draws other Muslims into the conflict.

Hamas says its attacks are only the beginning and stated, “It is possible that the battle would involve regional parties.” How could this happen?

By committing horrific atrocities, including taking dozens of hostages, Hamas is inciting a response it can characterize as an attack on all Palestinians and Muslims. Since the Qur’an requires Muslims to defend Muslims (4:75; 22:39), Hamas apparently hopes other Muslims in the region will then join its war on Israel.

This could include Hezbollah, a heavily armed militant group controlling southern Lebanon that briefly exchanged artillery and missile fire with Israel after the attacks began. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in the north and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza and the West Bank are other jihadist groups that could join the conflict.

A former Israeli security advisor warned that Israel will face an “existential threat” if Hezbollah, Iranian militias in Iraq and Syria, and Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank join the fighting. It will be crucial to see if the conflict with Israel expands beyond Hamas in the coming days.

Three: Engage other nations in the widening conflict.

Senior Hamas and Hezbollah members said Iranian security officials helped plan the attack on Israel and gave it the green light last Monday. According to the Wall Street Journal, these officials described their broader plan to create the multi-front threat I described above.

Many Iranian leaders believe the Mahdi (the Twelfth Imam, their version of a Messiah) will appear to govern the world for Islam after the Muslim world destroys the Jewish state. Some believe that this war with Israel will occur after a world war, viewing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as this necessary prelude.

However, Iran does not stand alone: its military and economic ties with Russia have strengthened significantly since the latter invaded Ukraine. How could the war with Israel benefit Russia? New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman noted: “If Israel is about to invade Gaza and embark on a long war, Ukraine will have to worry about competition from Tel Aviv for Patriot missiles as well as 155-millimeter artillery shells and other basic armaments that Ukraine desperately needs more of and Israel surely will, too.”

Friedman quoted Vladimir Putin’s statement last Thursday that Ukraine was being propped up “thanks to multi-billion donations that come each month.” Putin added, “Just imagine the aid stops tomorrow.” In that case, Ukraine “will live for only a week when they run out of ammo.”

Last, there is China, whose relations with Russia after the invasion of Ukraine are now at a “historic high.” China clearly seeks to take Taiwan and its high-tech manufacturing so essential to the global economy. According to Atlantic writer Graeme Wood, “If war breaks out generally around Israel, and questions arise about Israel’s very survival, the United States will have to start counting its ammunition. How much is left for Israel, after Ukraine has taken its share? And what about Taiwan, now third in line?

“These are hard questions, and Iran, Russia, and China would be thrilled, collectively and separately, to force them on the United States.”

“A Pearl Harbor and a 9/11 all together”

We will obviously continue this conversation tomorrow. For today, I will close by asking you to join me in praying urgently for the innocent victims of this horrific war.

I have very dear friends of many years living in Israel; one of them has a grandson who began his military service just a week ago. A pastor friend and a group of university colleagues were also in the country when the attacks began; I am praying for their safety and safe return.

They are just a few of the multitudes of people who are affected by this war. Hundreds are dead, thousands are wounded, and the atrocities by Hamas now being reported are horrifying. A spokesman for the IDF said, “We have had the worst day in Israeli history when it comes to casualties. . . . In American terms, this is a Pearl Harbor and a 9/11 all together.”

God’s call to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6) has never been more urgent than it is today.

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Did Taylor Swift join Travis Kelce for his birthday yesterday? Will she attend his game this weekend? Heinz has created a custom sauce in response to a viral photo of her at a recent Chiefs game. Their friends say she is “really enjoying getting to know Travis” and that he is “completely smitten” with her.

Now you know everything I know and don’t know about this “pop cultural moment,” as the NFL describes the couple and its coverage of their reported romance.

Now consider these headlines on this morning’s Wall Street Journal website: “Violent Crime Is Surging in DC”; “US Jet Shoots Down Turkish Drone Over Syria”; “GM Has at Least 20 Million Vehicles With Potentially Dangerous Air-Bag Parts”; “Army Plans Major Cuts to Special-Operations Forces”; “China Is Becoming a No-Go Zone for Executives.”

Which story would you rather think about today?

A world that is all about us

In Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, the American writer and educator Neil Postman warned that television was transforming our engagement with the world from one in which we process information actively to one in which we experience entertainment passively. He argued that a particular medium can only communicate a particular kind of idea. Print is essential for rational inquiry and argument, in his view, while televised images are most useful for evoking emotions and entertaining viewers.

He pointed to television news as an example, with its use of theme music, journalistic actors, and highly produced images and videos. The result for viewers is less that they are informed than that they are entertained and thus susceptible to consuming what is being advertised, which is the real goal of such programming.

Postman issued his critique in 1985. What would he say of a culture dominated by social media and TikTok videos?

Now add the influence of consumption-driven capitalism: consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of the entire US economy, which means our financial system depends on convincing us that we need to buy what advertisers are selling. From morning to night, we live in a culture that centers on us as the customer. We get to choose the news we consume, the entertainment we experience, the products we buy and use.

Paradoxically, however, we feel more anxious, depressed, and lonely than ever. In a world that’s all about us, why is this?

“Until the nation pays homage again to God”

Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920) was Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 1901 to 1905. Previously, he served as a newspaper editor and Parliament member before founding the Free University of Amsterdam, which took the Bible as its foundation for every area of study and knowledge.

His famous declaration answers our question: “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’” In his book To Be Near Unto God, he explained:

The fellowship of being near unto God must become reality, in the full and vigorous prosecution of our life. It must permeate and give color to our feeling, our perception, our sensations, our thinking, our imagining, our willing, our acting, our speaking. It must not stand as a foreign factor in our life, but it must be the passion that breathes throughout our whole existence.

Consequently, Kuyper described the ruling passion of his life:

That in spite of all worldly opposition, God’s holy ordinances shall be established again in the home, in the school, and in the State, for the good of the people, to carve as it were into the conscience of the nation the ordinances of the Lord, to which Bible and Creation bear witness, until the nation pays homage again to God.

“Lord, open the King of England’s eyes”

The Bible resoundingly proclaims that our God is the Lord and ruler of every dimension of every part of the universe in every moment of every day. You and I were created by our Creator for a holistic relationship with him. The splitting apart of soul and body, spiritual and secular, religion and the “real world” that so dominates Western life originated with pagan Greek philosophers, not biblical truth.

Consequently, when we make the world about us rather than our Maker and segregate him to the merely “religious” moments of our week, we take up a weight we cannot bear. We become our own Atlas, the Greek god whose task of holding the sky on his shoulders was a punishment rather than a privilege.

Is it any wonder that we choose the distractions of pop culture over the hard work of responding thoughtfully and redemptively to the critical issues we face?

What we need is a holistic, unifying life mission, a purpose that gives meaning to every moment and dimension of our lives. God has such a calling for us, one that unites body and soul, mind and spirit, and infuses us with joy-filled abundance no matter the challenges we face.

Consider William Tyndale, the man more responsible than any other for the English Bible you and I read today. Condemned for his efforts to give his people a version of God’s word they could read for themselves, he was strangled on this day in 1536, then his dead body was burned at the stake. His last prayer was “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes.”

And God did: three years later, Henry VIII required every parish church in England to make a copy of the English Bible available to its parishioners.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. proclaimed, “If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, in a sense he is not fit to live.”

Are you “fit to live” today?

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The Forbes 400 is out, listing the wealthiest Americans in 2023, and unless you’re worth $2.9 billion, you’re not on it. Here’s another reason to feel excluded: according to a recent Barna survey, only a third of young adults are more likely to support a nonprofit organization with Christian values. Nearly the same percentage said having Christian values would make them less interested in supporting a nonprofit.

This after a Texas LGBTQ advocacy group claimed a federal judge cannot be “fair and impartial” because of his Christian beliefs. And 47 percent of adults in an Associated Press survey said liberals have “a lot” of freedom to express their views on college campuses, while just 20 percent said the same of conservatives.

Yesterday we discussed the urgency of declaring and defending biblical sexual morality, not just because it is biblical but because our Creator’s principles are best for every person he creates. The more our culture rejects biblical beliefs, the more urgently we need to share them. The sicker the patient, the more urgent the treatment.

Here’s the problem: it is human nature when facing opposition and rejection to oppose and reject those we face. The “fight or flight” response is our automatic physiological reaction to events that are perceived as stressful or frightening. Psychologists say this response increases our chances of survival in threatening situations. But it is precisely the wrong way for Christians to respond to our cultural opponents.

And it is precisely the way our spiritual enemy wants us to react to them.

Ronald Reagan had no enemies

When Jesus drew near to Jerusalem, knowing that its people would reject him and the city would be destroyed as a consequence, “he wept over it” (Luke 19:41). When Paul addressed the Ephesian elders, he told them that he had served the Lord “with all humility and with tears” (Acts 20:19).

When Nehemiah learned that his hometown of Jerusalem was “broken down” and “its gates [were] destroyed by fire,” here was his response: “As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven” (Nehemiah 1:3–4).

Foreseeing the judgment of his nation, Jeremiah wrote: “My joy is gone; grief is upon me; my heart is sick within me” (Jeremiah 8:18). He added: “For the wound of the daughter of my people is my heart wounded” (v. 21).

President Ronald Reagan reminded his staff that they did not have political enemies, only opponents. Our true enemy is the one who has deceived our spiritual and cultural opponents (2 Corinthians 4:4) and seeks their death and destruction (John 10:10).

Is your “heart wounded” for them today?

Paul’s pointed question

Our first practical step in responding to our broken culture is to grieve for it, praying for the “gift of tears” so that what breaks our Father’s heart breaks our heart as well.

Our second is to be godly so we can call others to be godly.

Paul asked pointedly: “You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?” (Romans 2:22). For example, heterosexuals who oppose homosexual sin must not commit heterosexual sin. We need to be the change we wish to see, or our sin normalizes and encourages sin for others: “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you” (v. 24).

Our third step is to build relational bridges of grace. Jesus wants to make us “fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19), which requires us to go to those we are to “catch” for Christ. What is your strategy for reaching those God has entrusted to your influence? How are you investing your time and compassion? With whom are you sharing God’s love and truth these days?

Our fourth step is to pray for the Spirit to change the hearts of those we know. Human words cannot save human souls. But the Spirit “will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment” (John 16:8), including the lost people you know. For whom are you praying by name?

“This is the identity you have to accept”

St. Augustine testified: “I shall recall the straying; I shall seek the lost. Whether they wish it or not, I shall do it. And should the brambles of the forests tear at me when I seek them, I shall force myself through all straits; I shall put down all hedges. So far as the God who I fear grants me the strength, I shall search everywhere. I shall recall the straying; I shall seek after those on the verge of being lost.”

To share God’s love with those who reject his word, it helps to remember that our personal worth is not determined by their response. Henri Nouwen reminds us: “Your true identity is as a child of God. This is the identity you have to accept. Once you have claimed it and settled in it, you can live in a world that gives you much joy as well as pain. You can receive the praise as well as the blame that comes to you as an opportunity for strengthening your base identity, because the identity that makes you free is anchored beyond all human praise and blame.

“You belong to God, and it is as a child of God that you are sent into the world.”

Where in the world has God sent you today?

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