Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed a joint session of the US House and Senate yesterday. In today’s Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove calls his speech “an extraordinarily powerful historic moment” and says that he and the Ukrainians are “defining courage for our time.”

Mr. Zelensky’s remarks were so significant that I will devote this Daily Article to them. 

Among his statements were these very perceptive observations: “Russia has attacked not just us, not just our land, not just our cities. It went on a brutal offensive against our values, basic human values. It threw tanks and planes against our freedom, against our right to live freely in our own country, choosing our own future, against our desire for happiness, against our national dreams, just like the same dreams you have, you Americans.” 

After delivering most of his speech in Ukrainian through a translator, Mr. Zelensky closed by speaking in English. He told the members of Congress, “Peace in your country doesn’t depend anymore only on you and your people. It depends on those next to you and those who are strong. Strong doesn’t mean big. Strong is brave and ready to fight for the life of his citizens and citizens of the world. For human rights, for freedom, for the right to live decently, and to die when your time comes, and not when it’s wanted by someone else, by your neighbor.” 

As Mr. Zelensky delivered these statements in English, Senator Angus King said later, “There was a collective holding of the breath.” 

“I wish you to be the leader of the world” 

President Zelensky closed his historic address with statements that deserve to be read in their entirety: “Today, the Ukrainian people are defending not only Ukraine, we are fighting for the values of Europe and the world, sacrificing our lives in the name of the future. That’s why today the American people are helping not just Ukraine, but Europe and the world to give the planet the life to keep justice in history. 

“Now, I am almost forty-five years old; today, my age stopped when the hearts of more than one hundred children stopped beating. I see no sense in life if it cannot stop the deaths. And this is my main issue as the leader of my people, great Ukrainians. 

“And as the leader of my nation, I am addressing the President Biden, you are the leader of the nation, of your great nation. I wish you to be the leader of the world; being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace. 

“Thank you. Glory to Ukraine. Thank you for your support. Thank you.” 

Peace “depends on those next to you” 

In its simplest form, human life can be reduced to two options: we can live for ourselves, or we can live for each other. We can be Cain slaying Abel, or we can be Joseph forgiving his brothers. We can be Peter denying Jesus, or we can be Peter preaching to the Pentecost crowds. 

We can make the war in Ukraine the Ukrainians’ problem, or we can make it our problem. We can say with Volodymyr Zelensky that our hearts stop when the hearts of children stop beating. We can fight “for human rights, for freedom, for the right to live decently, and to die when your time comes.” 

Said differently, we can embrace the self-evident truths “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” 

Paradoxically, the best way to assure these personal freedoms is to ensure the world’s freedom. Mr. Zelensky was right: “Peace in your country doesn’t depend anymore only on you and your people. It depends on those next to you.” 

As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. so perceptively noted in Letter from Birmingham Jail, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” 

“Let justice roll down like waters” 

When we seek “justice everywhere,” we stand on the right side of history. In accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, Dr. King stated, “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.” 

The word of God agrees. Scripture assures us that “God will judge the righteous and the wicked” (Ecclesiastes 3:17). He calls us to join him: “Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression” (Isaiah 1:17). We are to “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24).  

As a biblical philosopher, my purpose today is not to take a personal position regarding political or military responses to the war in Ukraine. Rather, it is to make the biblical case that what is happening in Ukraine matters as much to God and should therefore matter as much to us as if it were happening in America. 

I agree with Volodymyr Zelensky that his people are “fighting for the values of Europe and the world.” They are “sacrificing [their] lives in the name of the future,” our future. It is incumbent upon us to join them. 

“Our most basic common link” 

Today is St. Patrick’s Day. In addition to parades and parties, we should remember his story: kidnapped from his native England by Irish invaders, he was enslaved for several years before escaping and returning home. However, years later, God called him to return to Ireland as a missionary. He led more than one hundred thousand people to faith in Christ and became the patron saint of Ireland. His death on March 17, 461, is remembered each year on this day. 

But there’s more to his story: Irish Christians who were spiritual descendants of St. Patrick’s ministry sailed to Britain in the following century, where they evangelized the heathen who had overrun the country. According to Thomas Cahill’s How the Irish Saved Civilization, they “single-handedly refounded European civilization throughout the continent.” 

As a result, every American owes a debt to St. Patrick’s courageous ministry in Ireland and his spiritual descendants who preserved the benefits of Western civilization we enjoy today. This fact is just one more reminder that President John F. Kennedy was right: “Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet.” 

What happens to any of us should therefore matter to all of us. 

God assures us, “Blessed are they who observe justice, who do righteousness at all times!” (Psalm 106:3). 

As we respond to President Zelensky’s historic speech, will America be “blessed”?

Denison Forum

It is surreal to consider how different the world has become in three weeks.

As of this morning, more than three million refugees have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion began on February 24. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s speech to the US Congress later today “could be [the] most important by a foreign leader since Churchill in 1941.” The leaders of the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovenia traveled to Kyiv last night to meet with Mr. Zelensky to offer a broad package of support. The White House announced that President Biden will travel to Brussels for a March 24 NATO summit on the invasion. 

The Metropolitan Opera presented a benefit performance Monday night in New York City, with all ticket sales and donations going to support relief efforts in Ukraine. And a Russian television producer courageously interrupted a live TV state media broadcast on Monday to hold up a sign protesting the war. Her actions prompted others to protest; she was found guilty of organizing an illegal protest and fined. 

“World War III may already have arrived” 

It is obvious that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is changing the world far beyond Ukraine. The question is, how much of the world? 

Veronika Melkozerova, a journalist based in Kyiv, writes in the Atlantic, “Every night I close my eyes thinking I might be next on Putin’s death-toll list. Nowadays, you never know where the Russians will drop their bombs—onto a residential building, a kindergarten classroom, a monastery, or a maternity hospital.” She understands that people of the West “are scared of World War III” but adds, “Don’t you understand that World War III may have already arrived?” 

Putin clearly wants to rebuild a new Russian Empire, which could lead him to advance beyond Ukraine into NATO-allied countries and force the US into the conflict. I noted on Monday the growing concern that Russia could use “tactical nuclear weapons” to win its war with Ukraine; that same day, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters, “The prospect of nuclear conflict, once unthinkable, is now back within the realm of possibility.” 

China’s continued escalation of its nuclear capacities only adds to the growing danger. Adm. Charles Richard leads US Strategic Forces, which oversees the military’s nuclear arsenal. He told lawmakers last week, “Today, we face two nuclear-capable near peers who have the capability to unilaterally escalate to any level of violence, in any domain worldwide, with any instrument of national power, at any time.” 

How might God redeem the fears of these days? 

By now your stress level is probably higher than it was when you began reading this article. And we haven’t even considered that the world has now surpassed six million COVID-19 deaths as the US nears one million such tragedies. Vox has reported that “deaths of despair” (suicide, drug overdoses, and alcohol-related liver disease) “amount to the equivalent of a catastrophic pandemic every single year.” And now we are dealing with an enemy that might deploy nuclear weapons with unforeseeable global consequences. 

However, none of this surprises God. He is not reading these words with the same anxiety you and I might be feeling. 

Since I am convinced that the Lord redeems all he allows, I asked myself today how he might redeem the fears of these perilous days. Instantly a simple thought occurred to me: by showing us how deeply we need what only our Father can give. 

It is human nature to depend on human nature. From the first sin in human history to the last sin you and I committed, the common denominator has been the same: we want to be our own god (Genesis 3:5), to be king of our own kingdom. To show us our need for his redemptive grace, God then responds by allowing us the consequences of our misused freedom (cf. Romans 1:24–32). Inevitably, such self-exaltation comes at the expense of others. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is the latest in a line of murderous crimes extending to the dawn of human history (cf. Genesis 4:1–16). 

The defining question of our lives 

Denison Ministries Creative Director Josh Miller has a fascinating new article on our website titled “‘Blessed are the self-sufficient’: How the anti-Beatitudes explain our cultural anxieties.” After exposing the fallacy of living by our culture’s self-sufficient values, he asks, “What kingdom defines your life?” 

This is the defining question of our lives. You and I can seek to advance our own kingdoms, or we can “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” in the assurance that “all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33). 

When we turn our world and our fears over to the true king of the universe, what does he give us in return? Jesus assured us, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27, my emphasis). 

When we name our fears and trust them specifically and unconditionally to Jesus, we experience more than his help and hope—we experience him. We experience his peace, his joy (Hebrews 12:2), his abundant life (John 10:10). We can say with Paul, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). We can experience fully “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). 

Henri Nouwen observed: 

“We tend to emphasize the distance between Jesus and ourselves. We see Jesus as the all-knowing and all-powerful Son of God who is unreachable for us sinful, broken human beings. But thinking this way, we forget that Jesus came to give us his own life. He came to lift us up into loving community with the Father. Only when we recognize the radical purpose of Jesus’ ministry will we be able to understand the meaning of the spiritual life. Everything that belongs to Jesus is given for us to receive. All that Jesus does we may also do.” 

Do you “understand the meaning of the spiritual life” today? 

Denison Forum

If Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has a face, it is the wounded pregnant woman who was taken on a stretcher from a maternity hospital bombed by Russia last week. Now the Associated Press is reporting that the mother and her baby have died.

Is Putin suffering from dementia? 

How much Ukrainian death and destruction will be enough for Putin? 

Does he want only to remove President Zelensky and install a puppet regime loyal to Moscow similar to the one in Belarus? 

He has already arrested the mayor of the southern city of Melitopol and replaced him with a new “acting mayor” who is urging residents to adjust to “the new reality” and end their resistance to Russian occupation. 

Does he want to control the entire country, making it part of a new Russian Empire as it was part of the old USSR? 

In justifying his invasion of Ukraine, he claimed that the very idea of Ukrainian statehood was a fiction and argued that “modern Ukraine was entirely and fully created by Russia.” 

Are his motives more personal? 

It has been widely noted that Peter the Great (1672–1725), the giant tsar (historians estimate he stood at least six-foot-eight) who is credited with transforming Russia into a feared world power, is Putin’s personal hero. For more on Putin’s military ambitions and personal background, please see Ryan Denison’s excellent new paper, “The inevitability of the Russian invasion of Ukraine: How Putin’s history reveals his destiny.”

Some experts are even wondering if Putin is suffering from dementia, Parkinson’s disease, or “roid rage” from potential cancer treatment that involves heavy steroid use. 

But there is another factor we must consider in seeking to understand Vladimir Putin’s motives for invading Ukraine and threatening the West so perilously. 

Putin’s “spiritual destiny” 

Yesterday we discussed a March 12 article by cultural commentator David French on the threat posed by Russian “tactical nuclear weapons.” Today, we’ll turn to another article by French, this one published on March 13.  

French refers to research by former National Security Agency analyst John Schindler describing an ideological “fusion” between the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and the FSB, Russia’s intelligence service. According to Schindler, Putin does not seek Russian greatness only out of a sense of secular national chauvinism, but also out of religious mission rooted in the ROC. 

Schindler notes that Patriarch Kirill, head of the ROC, considers the “main threat” to Russia to be “the loss of faith” in Western Christianity. ROC spokesmen constantly denounce feminism and LGBTQ activism as Satanic creations of the West that aim to destroy faith, family, and the nation. 

As a result, the ROC believes it has a “spiritual security” mission to defend Russia from Western spiritual influences in partnership with Moscow’s intelligence agencies. French cites Giles Fraser’s article on the British website UnHerd, which states that “Putin regards his spiritual destiny as the rebuilding of Christendom, based in Moscow.” 

Is Moscow the “New Rome”? 

Kyiv is centrally important to this narrative. 

The Russian news agency TASS quotes ROC Archbishop Kirill: “For us Kiev [the Russian spelling of Kyiv] is what Jerusalem is for many. Russian Orthodoxy began there, so under no circumstances can we abandon this historical and spiritual relationship.” The 2019 creation of a new Orthodox Church of Ukraine separated from the ROC further inflamed tensions as the ROC viewed this action as a direct attack on its “canonical territory.” 

We should add this historical note. The Roman Catholic Church is obviously based in Rome. In AD 324, the Roman Emperor Constantine declared the city of Byzantium the new capital of the Roman Empire, renaming it Constantinople and calling it the “New Rome.” When Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 (and was renamed Istanbul), many in Russia began claiming that Moscow became the “third Rome” and the spiritual heir of Jerusalem. 

French concludes: “Putin has fused Russian identity with the ROC, sees his nation and his church as a bulwark against western decadence, and is now not just attempting to seize his church’s ‘Jerusalem’ but potentially forcibly reuniting his church after a schism it rejects.” 

The peril of transactional religion 

When Christianity is used to advance secular aims, it ceases to be true Christianity. This is true whether these aims are Russian or American, your agendas or mine. 

Transactional religion was dominant in the Greco-Roman world; if a worshiper sacrificed on a god’s altar, the god could be persuaded to do what the worshiper wanted. We do the same when we go to church on Sunday so God will bless us on Monday or give money to the church so God will bless us financially. 

However, Jesus was clear: 

• “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). 
• We are to be “crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20), to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice” to our Lord (Romans 12:1). 
• The King of kings and Lord of lords does not exist as a means to our ends. Rather, we exist to glorify him: “To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever” (1 Peter 4:11). 

This mandate should be our daily aim: “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). 

Abraham Lincoln’s “greatest concern” 

Joe Carter noted in First Things that during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was purportedly asked if God was on his side. 

He replied, “Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side. My greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.” 

One day, “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lᴏʀᴅ as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14). 

How will you hasten that day today?

Denison Forum