The Economist commented in early December that “Unfortunately, America is tiring of its role as guarantor of the liberal order. The giant has not exactly fallen asleep again, but its resolve is faltering and its enemies are testing it. Vladimir Putin is massing troops on the border with Ukraine and could soon invade. China is buzzing Taiwan’s airspace with fighter jets, using mock-ups of American aircraft-carriers for target practice and trying out hypersonic weapons. Iran has taken such a maximalist stance at nuclear talks that many observers expect them to collapse. Thus, two autocratic powers threaten to seize land currently under democratic control, and a third threatens to violate the Non-Proliferation Treaty by building a nuclear bomb. How far would America go to prevent such reckless acts?”

In early December, the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case, which could result in the Court overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. The normal procedure for the Court is to hold a preliminary vote on the decision, after which the Chief Justice, John Roberts, assigns a member of the majority to write the decision, which is then reviewed and amended by the Court; a decision no doubt will be handed down in late June 2022. At this point, it is uncertain what that decision might be. Permit me this opportunity to review the history of abortion since 1973 and then analyze the possible scenarios of what might occur in June.

Russell Moore, Christianity Today’s chair of theology, recently wrote that “Many have referred to the past couple of years as an ‘apocalypse.’ Some use the word just to mean ‘akin to a dystopian movie.’ But others, mostly Christians, have pointed to the word’s actual meaning—an unveiling. We have seen awful things uncovered. People we thought were prophets and pastors turned out to be predators. Thousands of our neighbors died gasping for air, while others screamed at one another about whether to wear masks or get vaccines. Churches and denominations and even families split in a way we never would have imagined a decade ago.” COVID and how to respond to it has divided families, churches and neighbors. Its effect has been pernicious and incredibly disruptive. On top of everything else, COVID has further divided an already polarized nation.

Sometime during the 2021 Christmas season, you have no doubt heard the reverberating words from George Friderich Handel’s imposing oratorio, Messiah. Written in just twenty-four days in 1741, Messiah has three distinct sections: part one, the “Christmas Story;” part two, “The Redemption Story”; and part three, “The Resurrection and Future Reign of Christ on Heaven and Earth.” Initially, Handel’s oratorio was performed more during the Easter holiday, but gradually it became associated with Christmas, such that today it is almost always performed sometime in December by community, church and college choirs throughout the nation.

The Bible affirms the value and worth of human life in all of its diversity. The Bible provides no basis for favoring or discriminating against any group of people on the basis of their backgrounds; rather, the Bible views all human beings as worthy of honor and respect, because all are created in the image of God. In God’s eyes, there is an essential unity of all human beings. Ephesians 3:1-10 makes clear that God’s purpose is for His church to become living examples of racial unity and harmony, welcoming and including people from all racial and ethnic backgrounds in full and equal fellowship in the body of Christ.

The Economist, a conservative British publication (in the historic British “liberal” tradition of Edmund Burke and Walter Bagehot), first made the case for assisted dying in 2015. It argued that freedom should include the right to choose the manner and timing of one’s own death, while also cautioning that the practice should be carefully monitored and regulated to avoid abuses.

The Northwest Ordinance of 1785 and the subsequent Land Ordinance organized the territory the United States gained by the 1783 Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War. Among other things, these acts organized the territories into townships and set aside one section in each township for a public school. In the early decades of the new republic called the United States, it was understood that public schools would be a cooperative effort between the parents, the church and the school itself. Indeed, in these early decades well into the 19th century, schools were often held in the churches.

In 2017, Yair Rosenberg, an American journalist and an authority on anti-Semitism, cogently summarized five myths about anti-Semitism. Anti-Jewish bigotry is alive and well in 2021—and it must be dealt with frankly and conclusively.

In the 1992 Supreme Court case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Justice Anthony Kennedy penned his famous “mystery passage”: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” Robert Bork called the phrase indicative of “New Age jurisprudence”; William Bennett derided it as an “open-ended validation of subjectivism” that paves the way for drug abuse, assisted suicide, prostitution, and “virtually anything else”; George Will said it was “gaseously” written; Michael Uhlman labeled it a “thing of almost infinite plasticity”; the editors of First Things called it the “notorious mystery passage.” What seems clear is Kennedy’s underlying conception of human beings as autonomous individuals, choosing their own values and mapping out their own life courses.

With the end of the Cold War, many assumed the world would enter a period of stability and relative peace. With the growth of Islamic terrorism and the rise of China as a formidable economic and military power these assumptions died. The US remains a world power and is the only power that has the ability to check both the growth of Iran and China. Both are genuine threats to the US and to the world. Permit me an overview of these two alarming powers threating the stability and peace of the world.