The mission of Issues in Perspective is to provide thoughtful, historical and biblically-centered perspectives on current ethical and cultural issues.

In previous editions of Issues in Perspective, I have cited evidence of spiritual revival within American Culture.  This is especially true among Generation Z (those born between 1997 and 2012). Daniel Williams, associate professor of history at Ashland University, observers that “About a third of Gen Z-ers are nonreligious. Thirty-eight percent never go to church — a mark of the rise of the Nones, or Americans with no religious affiliation . . . [But] According to survey data from the Barna Group, a Christian research organization, Gen Z-ers who go to church are more frequent attendees than churchgoers from older generations. Twenty-four percent of Gen Z-ers go to church every week (a slightly higher rate than for millennials and Gen X-ers).”

Williams makes several additional observations about Gen Z:

• Gen Z is clouded by despair. It’s not hard to imagine how young people traumatized by the isolation imposed by Covid and disillusioned by the perceived emptiness of secular liberalism might be drawn to a relationship with God and a purpose in life.
• The Christian right of Gen Z is different from that of their parents’ or grandparents’ time. Members of those generations largely came of age starting in the Eisenhower era, when civil religion was so strong that the president led a prayer at his inauguration and signed legislation adding “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance. Schools in many regions started the day with classroom prayer or Bible reading.  Then came the cultural shocks of the 1960s and ’70s. Many conservative evangelicals didn’t like what they imagined second-wave feminism, the sexual revolution and the gay rights movement would do to their families. They started political campaigns to return America to the civil religion and moral conservatism of the 1950s. Ronald Reagan was their champion.  But Gen Z Christians don’t seem to have a Reaganite confidence in the free market or a Sun Belt-influenced optimism.
• While the Christian right of the 1980s was largely led by Baptists, the Gen Z Christian right is much more likely to be charismatic. One study showed that approximately half of Gen Z and millennial churchgoers attended charismatic churches. (By contrast, only 24 percent of older respondents attended charismatic churches.)  The nondenominational or charismatic church option is also appealing to some Black and Hispanic Gen Z Christians, who may shed their family’s traditional Democratic identity when they gravitate toward multiracial megachurches that are more politically conservative.
• Young male churchgoers now outpace young female churchgoers in weekly attendance, and for the first time in modern American history, they are more religious than their female peers.

Although the evidence of some kind of spiritual awakening among Gen-Zers is encouraging, there are several major concerns as well.  Mitch Daniels laments this “this century’s rapid collapse of long-standing norms in the public square. Like it or not, standards of both conduct and discourse have shifted unmistakably and radically downward.  A large majority of the rest of the country, spanning the ideological spectrum minus its fevered edges, seems weary and discouraged. We may nurture the hope that the decadence is temporary, but we must accept the reality that in many respects it is likely here to stay. Surveying the wasteland, we wonder, are we looking at a pendulum or a ratchet?”

Why does Daniels express this concern?

• Allow me to start at the relatively trivial end of the list. Profanity is suddenly mainstream. Once unacceptable words, specifically the one you know I’m thinking of, are everywhere. From comedians who apparently couldn’t get laughs without them, to politicians who must think it makes them look tough, the grossness has now infected even our formerly proudest and most stately publications.
• The infantilization of political debate, and personal demonization of opponents, may similarly have ratcheted downward, although on this score one can imagine some recovery. At some point, the public could tire of playground insults and asinine nicknames, and start asking for a little more substance from those elected to serve them. Interminable stalemate, especially when the country enters a stretch of serious economic or national security difficulty, could trigger a collective demand to “Grow up.”
• The current moves to redraw congressional lines for nakedly partisan ends still offend the traditional American sense of fair play. The fact that the two parties are equally culpable and shameless about it has sparked broad back pressure.
• Cronyism has enjoyed a good run lately. The Biden administration’s lavish funding of politically aligned unions and nonprofits has been succeeded by pay-to-play favoritism of the old-fashioned kind. For the moment, the public is passively tolerant.
• Finally, there is lawfare. Both sides’ hands are filthy, and the ugly game of tit-for-tat may continue. But here, there is the opportunity for the nation’s courts to play both a restraining and a tutorial role. And again, one sees the chance that a commitment to simple fairness might override vengeful tribalism.

Daniels concludes that “We may have ‘outgrown’ our capacity for revulsion in popular culture and maybe even in the way we expect our political leaders to talk and behave. But if Americans conclude that our political class stayed busy hurling third-grade insults at each other, and feathering their own nests, as the national debt and national security dangers turned catastrophic, a pendulum will swing. And it will have a sharp edge on it. The kind that ends political careers.”  I hope he is correct!

Finally, there is the profound concern I have about Tucker Carlson.  What is Tucker Carlson trying to do? “He is certainly elevating antisemitic ideas on the political right, most recently through his friendly interview with the Hitler-admiring influencer Nick Fuentes that roiled the conservative movement.”  But as Jason Willick argues, “Carlson’s fixation has taken a different and more explicitly religious form. The former Fox News host is targeting a distinctively American, 20th-century concept: The Judeo-Christian consensus . . . A recent theme of the podcaster is that the Old Testament (the part of the Bible subscribed to by both Jews and Christians) is dark and tribal, while the New Testament (the part subscribed to only by Christians) is the fount of enlightened Western values.  Carlson explained in an August podcast that on a recent reading of the Old Testament, he ‘was pretty shocked by — as I think many people who read it are — shocked by the violence in it, and shocked by the revenge in it, the genocide in it.’ By contrast, he explained this month as the Fuentes controversy raged, ‘Western civilization is derived from the New Testament.’ He added: ‘The core difference between the West and the rest of the world — not just Israel but every other country — is that we don’t believe in collective punishment because we don’t believe in blood guilt.’”

Carlson is trying to heighten what he sees as contradictions between the Old and New testaments — and by implication between Judaism and Christianity . . . Carlson’s archenemy, the conservative pundit Mark Levin, recently made a plea for the concept’s continued vitality: “If you reject Judaism and Christianity, and the brotherhood and the sisterhood of the two, not only are you rejecting our Founding, you’re rejecting our country.”

The continuity between the Old Testament and the New Testament is a clear teaching of the Bible. That continuity is seen in Jesus Christ.  The New Testament declares forcefully that Jesus’ death was a substitutionary death as prophesied in the Suffering Servant passage of Isaiah 53:13-53:12. And, in doing so, He fulfilled the Old Testament Law.  He did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it! God the Father poured out His wrath on His Son as an act of His magnificent grace.  Redemption was thereby secured and justification (the declaration of God’s righteousness) was now available by faith and faith alone.  Although Rome carried out the execution, it was merely the instrument God used to accomplish His stunning act of salvation.  Jesus’ subsequent resurrection validated that the payment had been made and salvation procured.  Death no longer had authority and its power had been broken.  In Galatians 3:7-9, the Apostle Paul argued that when God said to Abraham, “In you all the nations will be blessed” (Genesis 12:3), He was speaking of the blessing of salvation–now available to every human being through faith in Jesus Christ.   For that reason, Jesus Christ understandably bifurcates human history, connecting the covenant promises of the Old with the fulfillment in the New.  Things would never be the same!

It is John’s Gospel that most connects Jesus’ death, burial, resurrection and His ascension with the New Order.  Not only was Jesus the fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant and the Abrahamic Covenant, but He was also the agent for the inauguration of the New Covenant.  In the Upper Room Discourse of Jesus (John 14-16), He declared that His ascension was absolutely essential, for then the Holy Spirit would come.   God’s Law would be on the hearts of His people, and the Spirit would indwell, teach, guide and fill those who followed Christ.  The language of this Discourse resonates with the language of Jeremiah 31:31-37 and Ezekiel 36:22-32.  The coming of the Spirit of Truth was nothing less than the dawning of a New Order: There would be a new dynamic to prayer, spiritual sustenance, and intimacy with God, such that His people would now call Him “Abba.”  Spiritual enablement and nourishment would flow as between a vine and its branches.  From the Spirit as Helper and Counselor would come a new power, a new energy and a new obedience, all motivated by deep-seated love for God.  A new Order had indeed begun.

Tucker Carlson is a dangerous demagogue. Evangelical Christians should ignore him.  He is a deceptive purveyor of error.

See Daniel K. Williams in the New York Times (20 October 2025); Mitch Daniels, “Public norms have been warped. Is the damage permanent?” Washington Post (12 November 2025); Jason Willick, “Tucker Carlson targets the ‘Judeo-Christian’ tradition” Washington Post (16 November 2025).