Is it true that Santa Claus’ red costume was created by the Coca-Cola Company for publicity?

Italian Bishop Antonio Stagliano reportedly made this comment during a recent religious festival at which he also said Santa does not exist. Now his diocese in Sicily is apologizing to outraged parents. Apparently, the bishop was trying to underline the true meaning of Christmas and the story of St. Nicholas, a Christian leader who gave gifts to the poor and was persecuted by a Roman emperor.

While I would never want to be on the wrong side of Santa Claus, I also appreciate the bishop’s desire to ground the hope of Christmas in truth and history. We clearly need such hope today.

Pastor and wife shot at vigil

The Kentucky governor stated yesterday afternoon that Friday night’s tornado outbreak killed at least seventy-four people in his state. With around eight hundred thousand deaths from the coronavirus pandemic in the US, the New York Times reports that one in one hundred older Americans have died from the virus.

Britain is battling an Omicron “tidal wave” as infections double every two or three days and the first death from the variant was recorded. And CNN reports that cities across the US are breaking all-time homicide records this year.

One example stands for the rest: a pastor and his wife were shot while attending a vigil in the Houston area being held by a mother for her son, who was killed at his home a couple of weeks ago. The drive-by shooting Sunday evening killed one person and injured at least thirteen others.

Napoleon Bonaparte observed, “Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment.” Psychologists tell us that hope is essential to managing stress and anxiety as we cope with adversity.

In these difficult days, where can we turn to find the hope our hearts need most?

The 4 “comings” of Jesus

I was privileged to talk with Chris Brooks on his national radio show yesterday. We discussed the tornado outbreak and the recent high school shooting in Michigan that occurred not far from the church where he serves as pastor.

Chris made the profound point that God uses suffering to point us beyond this world to the next and to call us from our finitude to his omnipotence. I agreed and noted that “Advent” (from the Latin adventus, “coming”) is a season when the church has historically focused not just on Jesus’ first coming but on his Second Coming as well.

In fact, as I noted with Chris, there are four “comings” of Jesus in our world:

• The first was at Christmas when God “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).
• The second is when Christ comes into believers’ lives by his Spirit at salvation (Ephesians 1:13–14).
• The third is when, if his return to earth tarries, he comes for us at death to bring us with him to heaven (John 14:3).
• The fourth is when he comes back to this fallen planet (Acts 1:11) as our King of kings and Lord of lords (Revelation 19:16).

If you are a Christian, you are living between Jesus’ second coming and his third or the fourth. Every day that passes is one day closer to that day when we go to him or he comes for us. In the meantime, it is vital that we share the compassionate grace of our suffering Savior wherever and whenever we can. Each day’s news proves again that “you do not know what tomorrow will bring” (James 4:14), which is why “now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2).

Every day is God’s invitation to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), remembering with Mark Dever that “today is what the Lord has prepared you for.”

A daughter’s tribute to her fallen father

To prove that God can empower us to share his love in the most painful of circumstances, I’ll close with a tribute I will never forget.

My community has been grieving the death of Richard Houston II, a twenty-one-year veteran of the police department in Mesquite, a suburb of Dallas. He was fatally shot December 3 while responding to a domestic dispute.

Officer Houston received forty-eight letters of commendation during his career, two Life Saving Awards, and one police commendation bar. But his greatest achievement was the way he lived for Jesus. The married father of three “walked with God each day,” as Mesquite Assistant Police Chief Doug Yates stated at his funeral.

His eighteen-year-old daughter Shelby exemplified her father’s faith with a tribute I urge you to watch. At one point she stated:

“I remember having conversations with my dad about him losing friends and officers in the line of duty. I have heard all the stories you can think of, but I’ve always had such a hard time with how the suspect is dealt with. Not that I didn’t think there should be justice served, but my heart always ached for those who don’t know Jesus—their actions being a reflection of that.

“I was always told that I would feel differently if it happened to me. But as it’s happened to my own father, I think I still feel the same. There has been anger, sadness, grief, and confusion. And part of me wishes I could despise the man who did this to my father. But I can’t get any part of my heart to hate him.

“All that I can find is myself hoping and praying for this man to truly know Jesus. I thought this might change if the man continued to live. But when I heard the news that he was in stable condition, part of me was relieved. My prayer is that someday down the road, I’d get to spend some time with the man who shot my father, not to scream at him, not to yell at him, not to scold him. Simply to tell him about Jesus.”

The same Spirit who empowered Shelby to speak these miraculous words lives in you as well. Would you ask him to give you the compassion and the courage to share the hope of Jesus with someone today?

Denison Forum

There were at least fifty tornado reports during a horrific outbreak this weekend. More than eighty people are feared dead in Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee. Kentucky was hit especially hard: homes were demolished, businesses were leveled, and rescuers scrambled to find survivors. A massive Amazon warehouse in Illinois was also smashed by a tornado, killing at least six people.

Wes Fowler, pastor of First Baptist Church in Mayfield, Kentucky, walked through what remained of his church building Saturday morning and said: “What I’ve already told our church is we teach and preach it and now we have to live it—the campus and facility is not the church. It’s the people.”

He added, “I really think the Lord will somehow use this tragedy for good. I just don’t know how yet.”

“Why, O Lᴏʀᴅ, do you stand far away?”

Tragedy is a tragic fact of life. From horrific events such as the truck crash in Mexico that killed fifty-five migrants Thursday evening to the escalating loneliness epidemic that now affects 31 percent of Americans every day, it is normal and natural for us to ask with the psalmist, “Why, O Lᴏʀᴅ, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (Psalm 10:1).

But the fact is, God does not hide himself in times of trouble. He grieves as we grieve (cf. John 11:35) and walks with us through the “waters,” “rivers,” and “fire” of our broken world (Isaiah 43:2). Because “the Lᴏʀᴅ is near to the brokenhearted” (Psalm 34:18), you and I can claim the fact that “the Lᴏʀᴅ is near to all who call on him” (Psalm 145:18).

God proved his solidarity with suffering humanity when he entered the human race. Unique among the world’s religions is the Christmas miracle whereby “Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:6–7).

In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis explained the incarnation this way: “The Eternal Being, who knows everything and who created the whole universe, became not only a man but (before that) a baby, and before that a fetus inside a woman’s body. If you want to get the hang of it, think how you would like to become a slug or a crab.”

Henri Nouwen experienced the miracle of such grace: “It is hard to believe that God would reveal his divine presence to us in the self-emptying, humble way of the man from Nazareth. So much in me seeks influence, power, success, and popularity. But the way of Jesus is the way of hiddenness, powerlessness, and littleness. It does not seem a very appealing way. Yet when I enter into true, deep communion with Jesus, I will find that it is this small way that leads to real peace and joy.”

“Let us now hold onto the Word”

Our greatest gift we can give suffering people is to invite them to share Nouwen’s experience by pointing them to the Christ of Christmas.

John the Baptist understood well the privilege and urgency of this calling. When invited to claim the status of Messiah for himself, he was adamant: “I am not the Christ” (John 1:20). Rather, he said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said” (v. 23).

In a sermon on John the Baptist’s ministry, St. Augustine noted: “John [was] a voice; the Lord, however, in the beginning was the Word (John 1:1). John a voice for a time, Christ the eternal Word from the beginning. Take away the word, and what is a voice? Where there is no meaning, it’s just an empty noise. A voice without the word knocks at the ear, it doesn’t build up the intellect. . . .

“So the sound, having conveyed the word to you, doesn’t the very sound seem to say, ‘It is necessary for him to grow, but for me to diminish’? The sound of the voice rang out to perform its service, and departed, as if saying, ‘This joy of mine is now complete’ (John 3:30, 29).

“Let us now hold onto the Word, let us not lose the Word conveyed in the very marrow of our minds.”

“Christianity or Christ?”

St. Augustine is right, of course: we must “hold onto the Word” personally if we are to convey him to others.

This fact was made clear to me recently in an account of the Shantung Revival of the 1930s in China, one of the greatest movements of the Holy Spirit in the twentieth century. C. L. Culpepper’s stirring account of this remarkable awakening begins with the desperation of the people. Seventy churches had died; many others were dying.

The best-known evangelist in the region, on the point of despair, expressed his fear that more than a thousand church members “had been converted to Christianity, not to Christ.” In response, Christians began to call on God for a mighty movement of his Spirit, and the revival was the result.

If Satan cannot keep us from becoming Christians, he will do all he can to lead us to be committed to Christianity rather than to Christ. He knows that the key to the spiritual transformation we need so desperately is not a religion about Jesus but an intimate, transforming relationship with him.

Are you being tempted in this way? Would the Holy Spirit say you are committed to Christianity or to Christ?

“Our firm anchor still holds fast”

Our best Christmas gift for hurting people is helping them experience Christ. Who do you know who needs the Jesus you know? How will you give them what has been given to you?

What trials and tempests are you facing personally? Will you name them and bring them to the One who came at Christmas just for you?

The hymn writer offers us the hope our storm-tossed souls need:

In the world’s despair and turmoil
One firm anchor still holds fast,
God is on his throne eternal,
He alone the first and last.

Who or what is your anchor today?

Denison Forum

A World War II bomb exploded at a construction site in Munich on Wednesday, injuring four people, one of them seriously. According to the Associated Press, such bombs are still found frequently in Germany seventy-six years after the end of the war.

This is just one way events in the past can still profoundly affect the present.

Another is the discovery in the US Constitution of a right to abortion by seven members of the Supreme Court in 1973. Since that time, more than sixty-two million babies have been aborted in the US. Forty-one times more babies die from abortion each day than from all other causes combined.

In response to Wednesday’s Supreme Court hearing that could determine the future of legalized abortion in the US, I have defended on biblical, scientific, and secular grounds my assertion that abortion takes a human life. Today, we’ll take up my second claim: that abortion should therefore be illegal.

I am writing today’s Daily Article for those who agree with my first assertion but question the second. If you are in their number or know someone who is, I hope what follows will persuade you to defend the cause of life with compassionate courage.

4 arguments separating life and legality

A few months ago, I was discussing the abortion issue on Equipped with Chris Brooks. Chris is a brilliant thinker and pastor and one of my favorite radio hosts. During our conversation, a listener called in to make the statement, “I disagree personally with abortion, but I also believe it should be the decision of the mother rather than the government.” Over the years, I have met many people who would agree. Let’s identify and respond to some of their arguments.

1: A woman should be free to make her own healthcare and reproductive decisions. “My body, my choice” is a mantra we often see on signs at pro-abortion rallies. However, the state does not allow women to make all their own healthcare choices—the decision to use illegal drugs is an example—since it has a compelling interest to protect them from physical harm.

In addition, those who agree that abortion takes a human life should logically agree that the government has a compelling interest to protect that life. This interest obviously extends to female babies (around 140 million women are believed to be “missing” around the world, the victims of gender-biased abortion). “My body, my choice” is a claim an aborted child is not permitted to make.

Chris responded to the caller by asking if she supported the mother’s right to end her newborn baby’s life. She assured him that she did not. He then asked what changes biologically with the baby when it moves from inside the mother’s womb to outside it. She agreed that nothing changes. Why, then, he asked, would you support her right to kill her baby before it is born but not afterward?

2: Men should not be making personal decisions for women. Some would say that as a male, I have no right to speak to this issue. I would offer three responses. First, seven male Supreme Court justices legalized abortion when they voted for Roe v. Wade. One of the current court’s strongest abortion supporters is a male (Justice Breyer). Second, abortion affects male babies who are aborted, the biological father, males in the extended family, and men in society at large. Third, to be consistent, we must then segregate all legal issues into strictly male or female categories regarding those affected, a highly implausible strategy.

3: The state should not legislate personal morality. For example, while most would agree that adultery is immoral, it is not therefore illegal. However, as I noted yesterday, all laws are in some sense a legislation of morality. And the right to life itself is “unalienable,” as our Declaration of Independence notes: a bedrock, fundamental human right. Should the state not then legislate its protection?

4: The Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade recognized abortion as a fundamental right of women. This assertion was repeated by an attorney arguing against the Mississippi abortion law before the court. As a Christian, I am commanded to “be subject to the governing authorities” (Romans 13:1). Thus, some claim that I should not seek to make abortion illegal even though I object to the practice personally, any more than I should seek to make Muslim worship illegal even though I disagree with Islamic theology.

However, the apostles refused to obey laws that conflicted with biblical morality and their missional commission (cf. Acts 5:29). Christians such as William Wilberforce led the fight to overturn legal slavery. Ministers such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led the fight to overturn legal segregation and racial discrimination. In his famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Dr. King quoted St. Augustine: “An unjust law is no law at all.”

Two fascinating Washington Post articles

My articles this week have focused on the abortion issue from biblical and secular perspectives. Let’s close with two practical imperatives for believers.

1: Continue using our influence to engage the culture.

Jesus’ call for us to be “salt” and “light” is clear and unequivocal (Matthew 5:13–16). Neither functions unless it is applied where it is needed.

Is America advancing toward biblical morality or receding from it? Does our culture desperately need courageous, compassionate Christians who speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15)? Given the examples of Joseph, Mordecai, Nicodemus, William Wilberforce, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and many others, does God call his people into political leadership, legal and judicial service, and other places of enormous cultural influence?

If them, why not you?

2: Find ways to serve those in need and trust God to use your influence for good.

I was gratified to read in the Washington Post that evangelicals in Texas are creating a “maternity ranch” and finding other life-affirming ways to help pregnant women. I was also deeply impressed to read in the Washington Post about the racially inclusive congregation of Bethlehem Apostolic Temple in Wheeling, West Virginia.

Its pastor, Rev. Darrell Cummings, notes: “We’re not a Black church or a white church. We’re just a church.” The article adds that the church “floods social services into the community.” Rev. Cummings explains: “We’re just showing love.”

The Washington Post is a highly influential but highly “progressive” platform. If evangelical Christians can catch its eye by serving those in need, God can use your influence in cultural ways that might surprise you.

“The source of national purpose”

John F. Kennedy stated: “I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, human liberty as the source of national action, the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas.”

Let’s speak the truth in love to all four, to the glory of God.

Denison Forum