The seven-year civil war in Syria is now an international conflict with proxies of the major powers fighting in a confused mix of alliances with often contradictory goals. It is a re-ordering of the Middle East. . . What is occurring in Syria today is a multidimensional conflict that is a fully regional one with all of the Syrian parties acting as a proxy for someone else. It is a volatile and dangerous mess with no clear end in sight. Let?s examine most of the constituent parts of this mess and how it is in effect re-ordering the Middle East.

It is difficult in 2018 to know whom to trust, what is accurate and where one should go to obtain reliable information and perspective on the state of things. In an era of Facebook, Instagram and ?Google-knowledge,? the worlds of politics and Pop culture are inextricably linked, it seems. As columnist Daniel Henninger observes, ?The culture of social media?a tireless preoccupation with fleeting surface effects?has changed all media.? Years ago, cultural critic and observer Marshall McLuhan predicted (at the dawn of the TV age) that mass media would engulf everything, for, he argued, ?the medium is the message.? Our social media culture has enhanced the confusion, the absurd and the tragic in our current culture.

The home-going of Billy Graham marks a watershed in American evangelicalism. He received a number of accolades during his life, but perhaps none is more endearing than ?America?s Pastor.? He had his critics, but, for the most part, Graham was universally admired as a man of integrity who preached a consistent, simple message of the Gospel?and that is the heart of his legacy. Why was he such an important figure in American evangelicalism? By the grace of God, why was he able to consistently maintain his reputation as a man of integrity?

Of all the issues facing American civilization today, none is more controversial and volatile than that of immigration. It is a legal issue, a social issue, a political issue, and it is a spiritual issue. In this Perspective, I hope to focus on the legal and the spiritual issues informing the immigration debate. Even as I set the boundaries, I am not naive. What I say will upset some Christians, but I am going to do my best to raise the important legal and biblical themes that deal with this issue.

Over the last year or so, Americans have been on a spending binge. The stock market has reached record levels. (Although, as I am writing, it is falling precipitously, having lost 1300 points in three days.) And the US Congress, at the insistence of President Trump, passed a massive tax cut. America?s GDP is stable, unemployment is low and wages are slowly increasing. But all of this is a façade. One of the significant risks, with all this spending, the tax cuts and rising wages, is inflation, which is one of the reasons the stock market is falling. What I hope to address in this Perspective are the underlying systemic challenges facing America. They are serious and potentially very destabilizing. Let?s review some of these systemic issues:

Since the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision 45 years ago, the pro-life (or anti-abortion) side of the debate has focused on the ethical issue that the baby growing in its mother?s womb deserves to be protected as any other human being having rights under the US Constitution.  Increasingly sophisticated technology is changing the nature of the debate.  Indeed, Emma Green in a recent issue of The Atlantic has argued that ?science is giving the pro-life movement a boost.?  In addition, columnist Michael Gerson suggests that the way the Court framed its 1973 decision created a tension between autonomy and inclusion, producing a conflict that ?will only be managed, not settled.?  Let me explain both of these observations.

Arguably, the most intractable Middle Eastern challenge is finding a way to settle the Israeli-Palestinian debate over land. Since Israel?s victorious 1967 War, it has controlled the West Bank and Old Jerusalem, and, since the Oslo Accords of 1993 and 1995, both the Palestinian Authority and the state of Israel have accepted the premise of and have been working towards what is called a ?two-state? solution, where Israel would retain its sovereignty over much of the land it has held since 1967 but negotiate to create a Palestinian state out of the West Bank and Gaza strip. As 2017 ended and as 2018 has begun, there is speculation that the two-state solution is dead. Why?

Late in year 2016, the Oxford Dictionaries selected ?post-truth? as the 2016 international word of the year. The dictionary defined ?post-truth? as ?relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.?

The 20th century witnessed two World Wars, the Holocaust and the rise of atheistic communism. That century changed the role of the United States in world affairs. Since the administration of George Washington, the US largely followed the doctrine of isolationism, which was forcefully articulated in the 1823 Monroe Doctrine. But it was Woodrow Wilson?s decision to enter World War I and his subsequent 14 Points, which championed the principle of national self-determination and set the agenda for the 1919 Versailles Treaty, which challenged this isolationism. The US was going to ?make the world safe for democracy.?

History demonstrates that a democracy is very fragile and the American democratic-republic is no exception. As we begin 2018, it is important to remember several salient facts about the American experiment. In a non-ideological way, I believe the case can be made that the American experiment is unique and exceptional, both in terms of its origin and its development.