Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce caught six passes as his Chiefs defeated the New York Jets last night in a game that was closer than many expected. However, all eyes were on one particular fan in the stands.

Taylor Swift has been generating headlines for years, but now that she and Kelce are dating (or so it seems) and she is attending his games, public attention is riveted on her in a whole new way. She’s apparently not interested in him for his money; his annual salary is $12.3 million, but her US Eras Tour brought in $13 million per night from ticket sales.

Such numbers are unfathomable for most of us. Many are just glad the government averted a shutdown that could have harmed the economy further. Americans continue to be frustrated by inflation and slow economic growth and worry about rising crime and illegal immigration. As historian George H. Nash notes, we yearn for freedom, virtue, and safety. Fully two-thirds of us believe the nation is “off on the wrong track.”

But there’s a deeper story at work here.

Why we seek “a new, optimistic future”

Richard Haass, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, writes that “the global outlook appears bleak and is about to get bleaker.” For example, “the UN’s most important component, the Security Council, is sidelined and will remain so, given that one of its veto-holding members is waging a war that violates the UN Charter’s most fundamental principle.”

Gerard Baker, Editor at Large of the Wall Street Journal, observes that the “new moral order” built on “globalism, climate-change alarmism, and cultural self-annihilation” is “already crumbling.” British Home Secretary Suella Braverman recently warned against the “failed dogma of multiculturalism” and predicted that British culture will “disappear” without migration controls.

Closer to home, Americans blame both political parties for the current situation. In the view of the Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley A. Strassel, voters want to be “inspired by a new, optimistic future.”

Here’s a fact you won’t find in the secular media: this “future” begins not with secular culture but with spiritual rebirth. And that cannot begin in our culture if you and I do not take two vital steps today.

Golfing advice from a bad golfer

The God who made us loves us passionately. He “waits to be gracious to you” (Isaiah 30:18) and sent his Son so we “may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).

Here’s the problem: people judge Christ by Christians. They will not follow our faith unless we follow it. In Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America, Russell Moore writes: “We see now young evangelicals walking away from evangelicalism not because they do not believe what the church teaches, but because they believe the church itself does not believe what the church teaches.”

I would not accept golfing advice from a bad golfer or dental care from a person with bad teeth. Would you hire a financial advisor who is bankrupt or an attorney who is in jail?

Here’s the point: If we speak against the sins of our culture, we must take heed lest we commit similar sins ourselves. After describing in detail the sins of the decadent Roman culture (Romans 1:24–32), Paul asked his fellow Christians, “Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God?” (Romans 2:3).

For example, we should stand against homosexual sin (cf. Romans 1:26–27), but heterosexual sin is just as sinful (cf. Matthew 5:28). “It is time for judgment to begin at the household of God” (1 Peter 4:17). We earn the right to warn against the failures of our day by living in a way that demonstrates the difference our faith makes in our lives.

However, my purpose today is not to exhort you simply to try harder to do better.

The myth of the self-made hero

The self-made hero is one of the enduring myths of Western culture. Indeed, God calls us to exercise “self-control in all things” (1 Corinthians 9:25) and to “live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age” (Titus 2:12).

However, “self-control” is a “fruit” of the Spirit (Galatians 5:23). Therefore, here’s the first key to the spiritual renewal our culture needs so desperately: “Walk in the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). Here’s the second key: we “walk in the Spirit” most effectively when we do so in accountable community.

A coal taken from the fire goes out. We are told to love our Lord and our neighbor (Matthew 22:37–39) because each empowers the other.

If we want our “manner of life” to be “worthy of the gospel of Christ” (Philippians 1:27a), we must “[stand] firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel” (vv. 27b). Stated differently: “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:24–25).

For the sake of our spiritual and national future, let me ask you: Who is encouraging you to “walk in the Spirit”?

Whom will you encourage today?

Denison Forum

Rex Colubra is a Wisconsin diver who has developed a unique relationship with a wild, smallmouth bass he named Elvis. Colubra was exploring a lake in 2021 when “all these fish were coming up to me,” he explains. “I noticed one was sticking closer than the rest.” When he returned to the lake a few weeks later, he brought crawfish snacks for his new friend.

Since then, he has visited Elvis about a dozen times, documenting their reunions for his 174,000 TikTok followers. “He’s completely obsessed with me,” Colubra states. “He follows me around and just stares me in the eyes.” Skeptics might wonder how the diver knows Elvis from the other fish, but he says the fish has a “unique mouth disfigurement,” likely from a fishing hook.

Colubra refers to Elvis as “my underwater lover,” “aqua puppy,” and “buddy beneath the waves.” In a November 2022 Instagram post, he states, “My closest friend is a fish.”

Loneliness is as dangerous as cigarettes

New York Times columnist David French reports that between 1990 and 2021, the percentage of Americans reporting that they had no close friends quadrupled. Almost half of all Americans surveyed reported having three close friends or fewer.

The Wall Street Journal notes that 27 percent of respondents to a recent survey reported symptoms of an anxiety disorder, up from 8 percent in 2019. Half of eighteen-to-twenty-four-year-olds report anxiety or depression symptoms.

What is the source of our discontent?

Our political divisiveness is one factor: 65 percent of us say we always or often feel exhausted when thinking about politics. Rising crime and violence are another: Target has closed nine stores in four states because of rampant crime, for example. Financial fears are another contributor: the markets have been falling in September, as they often do; on this day in 2008, the Dow suffered the largest single-day drop to that point in its history.

As a reflection of culture, our music is getting sadder. Gen Z loneliness is so bad that some young adults are spending thousands of dollars trying to make friends through social clubs and gym memberships. Research shows that people who are socially disconnected have a 29 percent higher risk of heart disease, a 32 percent greater risk of stroke, and a 50 percent increased risk of dementia for older adults.

According to a recent advisory from the US Surgeon General’s office, loneliness can increase the risk of premature death as much as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day.

“When men choose not to believe in God”

Here’s what I think is going on: our secularized worldview is victimizing us.

Gerard Baker said it well in the Wall Street Journal this week: “Over the past thirty years, the values of Judeo-Christian belief that had inspired and sustained Western civilization and culture for centuries have been steadily replaced in a moral, cultural, and political revolution of the postmodern ascendancy. But the contradictions and implausibilities inherent in this successor creed have been increasingly exposed.”

He points to the rejection of national borders, a “quasi-biblical belief in climate catastrophism,” and a “wholesale cultural self-cancellation in which the virtues, values, and historic achievements of traditional civilization are rejected.” There’s more to his profound article than I have space to report, but I want to elaborate theologically on his third sociological factor.

We were made for relationship with God and each other. This is why St. Augustine’s famous prayer—“Our heart is restless until it rests in you”—strikes such an evocative chord in our souls. And it is why Satan does all he can to lead us into sin, knowing that it will drive us away from God (Genesis 3:8) and each other (v. 12).

Now that we are living in a culture that rejects the very notion of “sin,” our enemy must be very pleased. When there are no speed limits, lane markers, or guardrails, crashes are inevitable. The Belgian author and poet Émile Cammaerts was right: “When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing. Then they become capable of believing in anything.”

“Consequences have compound interest”

Commenting on the prophetic warning, “They sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind” (Hosea 8:7), Max Lucado writes: “Consequences have compound interest. You determine the quality of tomorrow by the seeds you sow today.”

No matter how far our secularized society drifts from God, it is still true that the gospel is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16). It is the only power of God for salvation. It is the only spiritual chemotherapy for the spiritual malignancy that afflicts every human being.

Therefore, as spiritual oncologists, it would be malpractice for us to offer any other therapy but this. Our job is to show people they have cancer, point to the only therapy that can save them, and teach them how to receive and share it.

If you and I were medical oncologists, we would know that our work is urgent for saving lives. As spiritual oncologists, we can know that our work is even more urgent for saving eternal souls before they perish into eternal separation from God in hell.

To recast Robin Williams’ observation in biblical terms: The greatest gift is eternal life, and the greatest sin is to return it unopened.

With whom will you share it today?

Denison Forum