Late last night, President Trump signed into law a spending package that reopened the US government, drawing the record-long forty-three-day shutdown to a close. The package includes:

• Funding for the federal government through January 30.
• Full-year funding for the Agriculture Department, military construction, and the legislative branch.
• Language guaranteeing the reversal of federal layoffs initiated by the Trump administration during the shutdown and a moratorium on future cuts.
• Paychecks for federal employees, including air-traffic controllers, which will send thousands of furloughed government workers back to the job.

However, the bill postponed the issue that was central to the standoff until later this year: how to address the expiration of enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies. Democrats refused to fund the government without assurances that the subsidies would be extended; Republicans wanted to fund the government and then debate the subsidies.

The debate highlighted a strange feature in our federal governance. Democrats are in the minority in both the House and the Senate, so Republicans could presumably have outvoted them and passed the legislation they wanted. They did so in the House; the measure they approved yesterday and sent to the president for his signature passed 222 to 209, largely along party lines.

But they could not do so in the Senate, even though they hold a 53–47 majority. Only after eight senators (seven Democrats and one Independent) agreed to vote with the Republicans could they pass the legislation to the House, which then passed it and sent it to the White House.

The reason is the “filibuster,” a strange component in the Senate’s governance. You probably didn’t get up this morning hoping I would write on it. Nor did I. I had a very different article planned, but after reading today’s news of the government reopening and considering what led to it, I decided to write what follows.

The reason, as I’ll explain, has more to do with our souls than with our governance.

Why the “filibuster” is significant

On September 22, 1789, Pennsylvania Senator William Maclay wrote in his diary that the “design of the Virginians . . . was to talk away the time, so that we could not get the bill passed.” This occurred in the very first session of the US Senate. The Virginia senators utilized the right of unlimited debate, a tactic that came to be known as the “filibuster” (from the Spanish filibustero, which ironically means “lawless plunderer”).

By the mid-nineteenth century, filibusters became more common as a way for an individual senator or minority party to prevent legislation from proceeding. This led to demands for “cloture,” a method for ending debate and bringing a question to a vote.

In 1917, the Senate adopted a rule allowing for debate to be closed with a two-thirds vote. In 1975, the number of votes required for cloture was reduced to sixty, where it stands today. However, the Senate adopted new precedents in the 2010s to allow a simple majority to end debate on nominations; the sixty-vote practice remains for legislation.

Over the years, when a party has held the majority, some within it have called for abolishing the sixty-vote requirement to end debate. After all, the voters elected the majority; to allow the minority to block their legislative decisions seems undemocratic. Others have warned that when the other side regains the majority in the future, the current majority will be unable to block legislation to which they object.

This may seem like an “in the weeds” discussion of an arcane political practice, but the issue has very real and practical consequences. The fifty-three Republicans in the Senate could not pass legislation reopening the federal government without the support of eight Democrats (Republican Sen. Rand Paul voted against the bill). From food stamp payments to air traffic issues to furloughed workers, millions of Americans were directly affected as a result.

Why minority rights matter

The Founders created a democratic republic in which the minority has significant rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights. If you are ever in the minority on a significant issue, you’ll be grateful for this arrangement.

For example, when the so-called Equality Act was adopted by the Democrat-led House a few years ago, it failed in the Democrat-led Senate because Democrats could not obtain enough Republican support for the sixty votes needed to overcome the filibuster. There were adamant calls by some Democrats to suspend the filibuster to pass the legislation by simple majority. However, Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema refused to do so, which ensured that the Act would not proceed.

Since I agree with those who consider the Equality Act “the most invasive threat to religious liberty ever proposed in America,” I am deeply grateful for this outcome.

Now to the larger purpose behind this “civics lesson” I didn’t intend to write this morning.

Why we have laws, and why they are not sufficient

The whole reason humans construct laws to govern our behavior is that we cannot be trusted to act morally without them. The oldest known surviving law code dates to 2095 BC and includes laws against murder, robbery, and kidnapping. From Cain and Abel to today, sinful people have behaved in sinful ways.

This fact pertains not only to citizens governed by our laws but also to those who construct them. Presidents, governors, mayors, legislators, and judges are no less fallen upon their ascension to office than the rest of us. Checks and balances that prevent leaders from exercising unaccountable power, as laborious and frustrating as they may be at times, are essential to protecting some of us from the rest of us.

Here we find yet another reason why the gospel is such “good news.” Human laws cannot change human hearts, but Jesus can. Unlike any other world religion, worldview, or system of government, he forgives every sin we confess (1 John 1:9), separates our sins from us “as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12), buries them in “the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19), and “remembers your sins no more” (Isaiah 43:25 NIV).

But Jesus not only forgives sins—he remakes sinners. When we make him our Lord, he makes us a “new creation” as the “children of God” (2 Corinthians 5:17; John 1:12). When we submit our lives daily to his Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), he sanctifies us and manifests the character of Christ in us (2 Thessalonians 2:13; Romans 8:29; Galatians 5:22–23).

This is why living in the Spirit is the key to the abundant life of Christ. And it is why sharing Christ with our broken culture—however we can, whenever we can—is our greatest service to our fellow Americans.

Our nation’s future and flourishing depend not on human governance but on divine grace. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).

It never will.

Quote for the day:

“There is no greater communication of love than proclaiming the gospel of God.” —Alistair Begg

Our latest website resources:

• Shutdown ends, Democrats’ identity crisis, Pelosi update, MLB pitchers indicted & Nico Harrison fired
• Two federal judges use AI to draft judicial decisions: Why accountability is our first responsibility
• What can we learn from Africa’s growing church amid trial and persecution?
• A Veterans Day reflection on a debt we can never repay
• If spreading the gospel was as easy as ‘67’

Denison Forum

Legislation that would reopen the US government advanced through the House Rules Committee early this morning; the full House of Representatives is expected to vote on the bill this evening. The eight Democratic senators who made this possible are being vilified or thanked, depending on the news outlet you happen to read.

In fact, the news is much in the news these days. Perhaps you have followed the controversy embroiling the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) after the Telegraph, a British media outlet, published an exclusive report showing that the BBC doctored a Donald Trump speech to make him appear to encourage the Capitol Hill riot on January 6. The version the BBC aired quoted Mr. Trump:

We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you and we fight. We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not gonna have a country anymore.

However, the first sentence was spoken fifteen minutes into the speech, while the second sentence came fifty-four minutes later. In addition, the BBC edited out what Mr. Trump said following the first sentence: “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

The BBC has since apologized; two of its top executives have resigned; Mr. Trump has threatened legal action; there have been calls to defund the BBC; and the network’s future direction and government support could be in doubt.

In a day when the public’s trust in mass media is at an all-time low, this story is not likely to encourage our faith but to reinforce our skepticism.

However, our doubts about the media are themselves reflective of even more foundational doubts that affect all of us, all of the time.

Welcome to the “Polycene” era

According to The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, we are now in the “Polycene” era. His in-depth article is a fascinating recap of recent years in technology and culture.

• With regard to computer and AI, the “silicon foundation” for the Polycene is “multiple intelligences, seamlessly networked, co-improving and co-evolving in real time.”
• With regard to natural disasters and geopolitics, we’re in an era of “poly-crisis.”
• With regard to global migration, immigration, and sexual and gender distinctions, we’re in an era of “polymorphic communities.”
• With regard to global trade and interconnected commerce, we’re in an era of “poly-economic networks.”

In a Polycene world, Mr. Friedman concludes, “most of the problems we face do not have ‘either/or’ answers: they have ‘both/and’ answers.” As a result, “Key actors must be able to occupy multiple states, and hold competing ideas in tension, at the same time.”

In a sense, Christians have been living in a Polycene worldview for twenty centuries. We believe that God is three persons in one essence; the incarnate Christ was fully God and fully man; God is sovereign while humans are free; the Bible is divinely inspired and humanly written. My first theology professor in seminary assured our class that if we cannot live with theological tension, we cannot do good theology.

But unlike our postmodern, relativistic culture, we “hold competing ideas in tension” on a foundation of authoritative biblical truth:

• We believe God is both three and one because the Bible declares him to be so (cf. Matthew 28:19; John 14:26).
• We believe Jesus came as fully God and fully man because the Bible demonstrates both to be true (Colossians 2:9; Hebrews 4:15).
• We believe the Bible is divinely inspired and humanly written because it tells us so (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:21).
• We believe God is sovereign while we are free because Scripture teaches both (Psalm 115:3; Acts 3:19).

And we are commissioned to declare the unchanging truth of Scripture to our fallen culture (2 Timothy 4:2), to “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).

“Those who call evil good and good evil”

This week, we have discussed the necessity of faith in Christ and the importance of encouraging others to embrace such faith. Both stand on the foundation of biblical revelation, the absolute truth declared by God in his word.

Such truth is no more popular today than it has ever been.

Seven centuries before Christ, the prophet declared, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!” (Isaiah 5:20–21).

Long before postmodern philosophers convinced our culture that “truth” is the result of our subjective interpretation of our subjective experiences, Jesus explained the root of the problem: “This is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and the people loved darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (John 3:19).

I am no different.

I want to focus on the parts of the Bible that reinforce what I want to do while ignoring the parts that do not. I can easily declare biblical truth concerning same-sex attraction, for example, because I do not struggle with this temptation. But there are other temptations with which I do struggle, sins about which the Bible is just as clear but subjects which I am prone to look past.

Here’s the good news: when I submit these temptations to the truth of Scripture and ask the Spirit to empower my obedience, I experience a victory that verifies the veracity of God’s word and empowers me to share its transforming truth with my fellow strugglers on the road.

“During times of universal deceit”

The more our “post-truth” culture rejects biblical truth, the more it needs it.

Paul warned that for some, “Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame” because they have “minds set on earthly things” (Philippians 3:19, my emphasis). For believers, by contrast, “our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (vv. 20–21).

Now we are commissioned to “proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9) so that all may experience the transforming grace of Christ. The English novelist George Orwell warned:

“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”

Let’s be revolutionaries together today, to the glory of God.

Quote for the day:

“If the world is against the truth, then I am against the world.” —Athanasius (d. AD 373)

Our latest website resources:

• A Veterans Day reflection on a debt we can never repay
• If spreading the gospel was as easy as ‘67’
• Tariffs on trial, Nigerian Christian persecution, Dick Cheney, Mamdani and Dems win big & NFL trades
• How can Christians respond to persecution and defend religious freedom?
• Trade deals, East Wing destroyed, NBA gambling scandal, election day preview & scented stamps

Denison Forum

NOTE: I invite you to join me in honoring our veterans today by praying for them, their families, and our nation. I am sharing a personal reflection in an article we will publish on our website this morning.

The US Supreme Court announced yesterday that it will not revisit its landmark 2015 ruling that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. The Court rejected an appeal from Kim Davis, a former Kentucky county clerk who was ordered to pay compensation to a same-sex couple after denying them a marriage license due to her religious beliefs.

For those of us who believe in Jesus’ definition of marriage (Matthew 19:3–6; cf. Genesis 2:18–25), this news is disappointing but not surprising. Whether the issue is abortion, adultery, divorce, pornography, euthanasia, or a host of other moral concerns, we should not expect a secular democracy to guide itself by biblical morality.

How is such secularism working for our culture?

The popularity of “ethical non-monogamy”

Among Millennial and Gen X respondents to a recent survey, more chose “ethical non-monogamy” over monogamy as their relational style preference. In case you’re not familiar with “ethical non-monogamy” (and I hope you aren’t), the term refers to “romantic or sexual relationships where all partners consent to having multiple intimate relationships.”

Of course, for those of us who believe biblical morality, the term is as oxymoronic as “minor surgery” (there’s no such thing for the patient), an “unbiased opinion,” or the “Civil War.” (An elderly member of the church I pastored in Atlanta cautioned me against the latter term, reminding me that “there was nothing civil about it.”)

Pornography is becoming more violent and addictive than ever. Chatbots are becoming more sexually explicit as well. Without the constraints of network television FCC regulations, streaming services air movies regularly that are highly pornographic. (I won’t link to recent examples, nor will I watch them.) A recent Saturday Night Live host actually made jokes about sex trafficking, rape, and pedophilia. (Again, I won’t link to what she said due to its disgusting nature.)

At the heart of our cultural morass is our rejection of a cultural moral compass. It’s not just that we disagree about right and wrong—secular people no longer believe there is such a thing as right and wrong.

This has implications for our national future. As the eighteenth-century philosopher Edmund Burke noted, “Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.”

But it also has implications for our eternal future, an issue you and I urgently need to consider today.

JD Vance hopes his wife will become a Christian

My wife and I were watching when Vice President JD Vance recently addressed a group of students at a Turning Point USA televised event. When he was asked about his wife’s religion (she was raised Hindu), he said, “I believe in the Christian gospel, and I hope eventually my wife comes to see it the same way.”

The reaction was swift and vociferous, some branding Mr. Vance a “bigot” and worse. Such critics betray a basic ignorance of biblical teachings regarding the necessity of evangelism (cf. Matthew 28:18–20; Acts 1:8). But even more deeply, they point to the greatest danger of our tolerance-based ethos: the insistence that Christians tolerate what harms another person eternally.

Jesus said of himself, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 3:18). This is why he later testified, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

The apostles took Jesus’ words to heart when they risked their lives to proclaim concerning him, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Lest there be any question, consider this clear statement: “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:12).

“I loved you enough to say no”

Here is the biblical logic behind the claim that salvation comes through Christ alone:

• If God is the Supreme Being, he must be perfect (Isaiah 6:3). Otherwise, a more perfect being would be more supreme than he.
• Heaven must be perfect as well, or God cannot remain perfect while dwelling there (cf. Revelation 22:1–5).
• Every human being has sinned, committing mistakes and failures which break our relationship with our perfect Creator and must bar us from his perfect presence (Romans 3:23).
• The consequence of sin is death, since sin cuts us off from our holy Lord and thus the only source of eternal life (Romans 6:23).
• A person who would pay this debt on our behalf must be sinless himself, or their death could pay their debt but not ours (Romans 5:8).
• Jesus Christ is the only sinless person who has ever lived and the only one who died in our place to purchase our salvation (1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 2:2). No other religious leader or figure of history has ever claimed to be and do the same.
• When we ask Jesus to forgive our sins and become our Lord, he reconciles us to his Father and makes us the children of God (2 Corinthians 5:21; John 1:12). No other religion makes the same offer.
• If we reject our Father’s loving grace, we will spend eternity separated from him in a place the Bible calls “hell” (Matthew 10:28; cf. Revelation 20:15).

This was why Paul had “great sorrow and unceasing anguish” for his unbelieving Jewish brethren (Romans 9:2). It was why early Christians risked—and many gave—their lives to preach the gospel to “the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

Like them, we should no more tolerate the spiritual lostness of our secularized friends and neighbors than we would tolerate a terrorist who would murder them. The more they reject our message of salvation, the more they need it. And the more we love them, the more we will risk their temporary rejection for the sake of their eternal souls.

Author and humorist Erma Bombeck once wrote to her children,

“I loved you enough to say no when you hated me for it.”

How much will we love the people we influence today?

Quote for the day:

“Witnessing is that deep-seated conviction that the greatest favor I can do for others is to introduce them to Jesus Christ.” —Paul Little

Our latest website resources:

• If spreading the gospel was as easy as ‘67’
• Tariffs on trial, Nigerian Christian persecution, Dick Cheney, Mamdani and Dems win big & NFL trades
• How can Christians respond to persecution and defend religious freedom?
• Washington walks back attempts to single out Catholic clergy
• Trade deals, East Wing destroyed, NBA gambling scandal, election day preview & scented stamps

Denison Forum