As you know, former First Lady Rosalynn Carter died Sunday afternoon at the age of ninety-six. Former President Jimmy Carter said, “Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished.”

A tireless advocate for mental health services, Mrs. Carter was instrumental in passing the Mental Health Systems Act of 1980 and continued her work on this vital cause for decades after. In 1982, she and her husband founded the Carter Center, a nonprofit dedicated to a range of issues from improving global health to monitoring democratic elections to negotiating peace agreements. She could often be found volunteering with Habitat for Humanity along with her husband in building homes for those in need.

In a day when many leaders use their public platforms for personal celebrity, Rosalynn Carter used hers to serve others.

“A kind of private barn of money”

According to Guido Alfani, an economic history professor at Bocconi University in Milan, the wealthiest members of society have often in Western history been expected to use their riches “to support their societies in times of crises like plagues, famines, or wars.” For example, the Tuscan humanist Poggio Bracciolini wrote in 1428 that “many greedy individuals” should “constitute a kind of private barn of money able to be of assistance to everybody.”

Those who gave charitably were not being entirely altruistic, however. Alfani notes that they wanted to allay the unfavorable way they were viewed by others and also saw such charity as contributing to “the benefit of their souls.”

Such transactional benevolence is rooted in fallen human nature. For example, after Jesus announced his intention to go to Jerusalem where he would “be killed, and on the third day be raised” (Matthew 16:21), Peter “began to rebuke him, saying, ‘Far be it from you Lord! This shall never happen to you’” (v. 22). Jesus responded: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man” (v. 23).

Why did Jesus say this to Peter?

The apostle wanted Jesus to be a military messiah who would overthrow the hated Romans, not a suffering servant who would die on their cross. Even after Jesus’ resurrection, Peter and the other disciples asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6). They wanted him to do what they wanted, using him as a means to their ends. In this way, Peter was “setting his mind” not on the “things of God” but on “the things of man.” He was serving Jesus so Jesus would serve him.

This is what fuels Hamas in its drive to eradicate Israel so its Mahdi (a messianic figure) will return to rule the world for Muslims, including themselves. It fuels Christian nationalists who want God to bless America for the advancement of their communities and aspirations.

I say all of that to say this: an excellent test of character is to see how sacrificially we serve others when such service does not benefit us personally.

The paradoxical problem with our focus on evangelism

Jesus is Exhibit A of such character. He testified that he “came not to be served but to serve” (Mark 10:45a). Then he proved it when he “[gave] his life as a ransom for many” (v. 45b). This fact highlights a foundational reason for Thanksgiving this holiday week: expressing gratitude to Christ for his selfless, sacrificial love.

A practical way we can thank Jesus for his grace is by sharing that grace with others. After washing his disciples’ feet, he called them to “wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14). We demonstrate our love for our Lord by our love for our neighbor (Matthew 22:37–39). The best way you can serve me is to serve my family.

Here’s the problem: we evangelicals tend to focus more on experiencing grace in salvation (Ephesians 2:8–9) than on God’s call to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18, my emphasis). Paradoxically, this omission limits our evangelistic effectiveness since we need such intimacy with Christ that his Spirit transforms us into his character (Romans 8:29) and manifests his grace to others (Galatians 5:22–23).

Exhibiting such character is vital if we are to reach our skeptical, post-Christian culture with the good news of God’s love.

The “three worlds of evangelicalism”

Aaron Renn was a partner at Accenture and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research before turning to a career as a writer on cultural issues. His February 2022 First Things article on the “three worlds of evangelicalism” was especially significant and urgent.

In it, he shows that American evangelicals have moved from the “positive world” (pre–1994) in which we were largely viewed as contributing to society, to the “neutral world” (1994–2014) in which we were viewed as one option among many, to the “negative world” (2014–present) in which we are seen as a threat to the public good and the new public moral order. In my book The Coming Tsunami I document this shift as well.

In such an antagonistic culture, it is even more imperative that you and I manifest our Lord’s selfless, sacrificial spirit of service:

• When skeptics reject us, we know that they especially need our intercession and we “pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44).
• When they reject our message, we know that they especially need to know God’s love and we redouble our sacrificial efforts to share our Lord with them (cf. Acts 4:8–12; 5:29–32).
• When people need resources we possess, we choose to “do good to everyone” (Galatians 6:10), remembering that we are “serving the Lord Christ” (Colossians 3:24; cf. Matthew 25:40).

To this end, let’s make time this Thanksgiving week to offer Jesus our worship and gratitude for his sacrificial love for us. Then let’s see opportunities to serve our family, friends, and others as invitations to demonstrate his selfless character in our compassion.

St. Fulgentius of Ruspe (AD 460–533) described the transformation God intends for his children: “They are enlightened and converted, thus passing from death to life, sinfulness to holiness, unbelief to faith, and evil actions to holy life.”

Will those you see this week see this transformation in you?

Denison Forum

NOTE: Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter died yesterday at the age of ninety-six. I will be reflecting on her life and legacy in tomorrow’s Daily Article.

On November 4, 1979, Iranian students seized the US embassy in Tehran and captured fifty-two Americans, holding them hostage for 444 days. I remember the “Iran Hostage Crisis” very clearly. The hostages were headline news seemingly every day. Millions of us prayed for their safety, health, and release. Ten days after they were finally freed, they were given a ticker tape parade in New York City.

On October 7, Hamas terrorists took more than 240 people hostage. Among them are babies, children, women, the elderly, and the disabled.

Unlike the Iranian hostage crisis, Hamas’s hostages have been a back-page story in this unfolding crisis. When four were released and one was rescued by Israeli special forces, their stories made the news briefly, but the world’s attention has been far more focused on Palestinian civilians in Gaza and charges of genocide and brutality leveled against Israel.

Now we are learning that negotiators are nearing an agreement with Hamas to release fifty hostages in exchange for Israel allowing more aid and fuel into Gaza, along with a limited pause in fighting.

Why have the two hostage crises been reported and viewed in such starkly different ways?

What does this question say about our culture on this Thanksgiving week?

“What is the meaning and purpose of life?”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and a former senior fellow at Harvard Kennedy School. She speaks six languages and has written numerous bestsellers. Raised a Muslim, she lived for many years as an atheist before announcing a few days ago that she is now a Christian.

She set her decision in cultural context:

Western civilization is under threat from three different but related forces: the resurgence of great-power authoritarianism and expansionism in the forms of the Chinese Communist Party and Vladimir Putin’s Russia; the rise of global Islamism, which threatens to mobilize a vast population against the West; and the viral spread of woke ideology, which is eating into the moral fiber of the next generation.

In her view, our secularized society’s response through military, economic, diplomatic, and technological means is failing. She explains why: “We can’t fight off these formidable forces unless we can answer the question: What is it that unites us?” Ali then answers her question: “The only credible answer, I believe, lies in our desire to uphold the legacy of the Judeo-Christian tradition.”

She finds in this tradition “an elaborate set of ideas and institutions designed to safeguard human life, freedom, and dignity—from the nation state and the rule of law to the institutions of science, health, and learning.” She cites Tom Holland’s book Dominion to claim that “all sorts of apparently secular freedoms—of the market, of conscience, and of the press—find their roots in  Christianity.”

She adds that she turned to Christianity because “I ultimately found life without any spiritual solace unendurable—indeed very nearly self-destructive. Atheism failed to answer a simple question: What is the meaning and purpose of life?”

“Christianity” nowhere appears in the Bible

Ali’s announcement has sparked two very different responses: while many Christians are happy for her and grateful for her endorsement of our faith, others have noted that her article focuses on Christianity as a contributor to society rather than on Christ. She says nothing about a personal experience with Jesus. Her conversion could be described as having faith in faith.

In a subsequent interview, Ali did in fact focus more on the story of Christ and its personal significance for her decision. But her article celebrating the social benefits of Christianity omits this central fact: there is no Christianity without Christ.

The word Christianity nowhere appears in the Bible. In fact, the word Christian is found only three times in Scripture: Acts 11:26; Acts 26:28; and 1 Peter 4:16. The latter two references seem to suggest that the term was used derisively.

By contrast, the word disciple appears in the Gospels and the Book of Acts 261 times. Clearly, biblical Christianity is about following Christ as a learner follows their teacher. When we do this, Jesus produces in and through us the benefits of Christianity that Ali commends. Christians do not change the culture—Christ does.

It is when we are “in Christ” that we become a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). It is “Christ in you” that is our “hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). The Bible says of Christ, “in [him] are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). His Spirit produces the “fruit” that our secularized society so desperately lacks, the “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, [and] self-control” that we need for cultural flourishing (Galatians 5:22–23).

A vital question to begin Thanksgiving week

When we truly love our Lord, we love our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 22:37–39). People take precedence over politics.

And, with regard to my earlier question, hostages become more important than ideologies.

Tragically, in the decades since the Iranian hostages were released, our culture has been taken hostage by the “woke ideology” Ali describes as “eating into the moral fiber of the next generation.” People have become a means to the end of political narratives and personal advancement. Even among many Christians, as Dallas Willard noted, “The idea of having faith in Jesus has come to be totally isolated from being his apprentice and learning how to do what he said.”

Consequently, across this Thanksgiving week we’ll focus in my Daily Articles on Jesus. We’ll identify reasons to give thanks for who he is every day in every circumstance.

Let’s begin today. When last did you thank Jesus, not just for what he does, but for who he is?

When last did you tell him you love him?

Why not now?

Denison Forum