Anyone who is involved in education or in pastoral ministry has observed that over the last several decades the family has been undergoing enormous stress and change. And the children who attend school or get involved in the church or Sunday school manifest the consequences of these changes. I recently came across a briefing paper for the Council on Contemporary Families written by Philip Cohen of the University of Maryland. It is a masterful summary of the new normal for families in the United States.

When the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy of the early 20th century was brewing, one of Christianity?s greatest minds, J. Gresham Machen, wrote a book entitled Christianity and Liberalism which was published in 1921. In my judgment, it remains one of the most important books of the 20th century. It is relevant today for it reminds all of us who name the name of Christ, that the Christian faith is not only a faith commitment to Jesus Christ, but is also a set of doctrinal beliefs.

ISIS or ISIL (The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria [or in the Levant]) is arguably the most dangerous and ruthless expression of the doctrine of Islamic jihad in modern times. ISIS (or what is now more commonly referred to as simply the Islamic State) is a breakaway from al Qaeda and can only be understood in contrast to al Qaeda. Understanding ISIS is the main thrust of this edition of Issues in Perspective.

The Middle East is in chaos right now. The political/military nature of this chaos also has a religious dimension to it. There is an intense persecution of Christians that accompanies this chaos and this persecution is causing a massive displacement of populations in areas associated with the early church. Further, this chaos is spilling over into Europe where there is a growing anti-Semitism. There are several interconnected developments that resemble Europe before World War II or the Middle East before World War I.

The war of attrition being waged by Hamas against Israel grinds on. There is every evidence that Israel is clearly winning this war, but it grinds on nonetheless. In this conflict, the world?s response to this war of attrition is interesting. In fact, the world?s response is a study in hypocrisy, for it holds Israel to a standard to which it holds no other nation.

One of my favorite columnists is New York Times columnist David Brooks. In one of his columns in May he wrote: ?In 1966, 86% of college freshmen said that developing a meaningful philosophy of life was essential or very important. Today, less than half say a meaningful philosophy of life is that important. University of Michigan studies suggest that today?s students score about 40% lower in measures of empathy than students did 30 years ago.?

According to a recent article in Time magazine, the next dimension of the postmodern sexual revolution, indeed the next civil rights movement, is the transgender one. Kay Steinmetz, author of the Time article writes, ?Transgender people?those who identify with a gender other than the sex they were ?assigned at birth,? to use the preferred phrase among trans activists?are emerging from the margins to fight for an equal place in society.?

In a recent article in The Atlantic, Matt Gross and Theodore Ross offer a poignant description of a typical dad on a television commercial: ?The hapless, bumbling father is a stock character in product marketing. He makes breakfast for dinner and is incapable of handling, or sometimes even noticing, a soggy diaper. He tries desperately to hide the crumb-strewn, dirt-streaked evidence of poor parenting before the mother gets home . . .

Genesis 1:26ff explains that humans are God?s dominion stewards over His world. In fact, as this text makes clear, this stewardship responsibility is part of being in the image of God. Humans are accountable to God for this stewardship. It is therefore only common sense that it is not good for humanity to be spewing tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Managing the environment is important and to wantonly destroy or do harm to God?s world is irresponsible and hardly pleasing to God.

Two and a half years ago, President Obama declared, as America exited Iraq, that Iraq was now a ?sovereign, stable and self-reliant? state. Today, radical jihadists are destroying Iraq. Over the last two weeks, Iraq has been invaded by fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).