That Russia is committing war crimes against the Ukrainian people is an indisputable fact. Consider what Putin’s forces are doing to evangelical churches in Ukraine […] Russian war crimes in Ukraine are incontrovertible.

In mid-March 2023, Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to reestablish diplomatic relations and reopen embassies after seven years of conflict and tension. The major diplomatic breakthrough negotiated with China lowers the chance of armed conflict between the Mideast rivals — both directly and in proxy conflicts around the region (e.g., Yemen). The deal, struck in Beijing amid its ceremonial National People’s Congress, represents a major diplomatic victory for the Chinese as Gulf Arab states perceive the United States slowly withdrawing from the wider Middle East.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 stipulates the vital importance of parents in educating children: There is to be a formal structure where children are taught facts, ethical standards and doctrinal truth. They are also to model these virtues, values and standards before their children. Parents are thus central in the moral and spiritual formation of their children. In America, parents, the church and the school should be cooperative and supportive in accomplishing this goal of education. But moral and spiritual formation has been replaced by indoctrination and the pursuit of personal autonomy. It is difficult to be optimistic about the future of public education in the US. Christian parents need to take seriously their responsibility before God in educating their children.

The Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is upon us. It is a transformation of human thought and interaction with machines unprecedented in human history. Many are talking about AI but few understand it and even fewer are wrestling with the ethical implications of this revolution. Recently, Henry Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google and Daniel Huttenlocher, Dean of the Schwarzman College of Computing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, published an article in the Wall Street Journal that profoundly impacted me personally.

In 1963 Betty Friedan published her bombshell, The Feminine Mystique, which argued, among other things, that traditional gender roles had compartmentalized women as homemakers—to their detriment. Arguably, Friedan’s book was the manifesto of the feminist revolution. Laws and cultural norms changed as equal treatment of and more professional opportunities for women increased—many changes which were welcomed and long overdue. But what has been the effect of all of this on men and women? Has it all been positive?

Sports’ betting, illegal outside Nevada for decades, is all the rage now. The sports gambling industry’s explosion is the outcome of a Supreme Court decision in 2018, Murphy v. NCAA. In that decision a 7-to-2 majority ruled that a law passed by Congress and signed by George H.W. Bush in 1992, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, violated the 10th Amendment’s anti-commandeering principle. The law barred sports gambling in states that did not already allow it.

For most of human history, the universe was considered timeless and unchanging; no longer. At the Space Telescope Science Institute, on the Johns Hopkins University campus, a constant torrent of data pours in from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Launched 13 months ago, Webb is orbiting 940,000 miles above the earth.

The Social Media phenomenon is staggering in its cultural impact. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and other media forums dominate the time, the energy and the psychology of so many! For many teens, life without social media is unimaginable. When this phenomenon began, only a few years ago, no one envisioned how powerful it would become. Social media is not evil, per se, but it can be both enslaving and harmful. I am reminded of the Apostle Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 6:12: “’All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful’ for me, but I will not be dominated by anything.” [ESV]

To fully understand the development of American civilization, one must come to terms with the strategic role revivals have played. Colonial America was shaped and transformed by the First Great Awakening of the 1740s and the Methodist revival that followed. America of the early national period (1815-1850) was impacted by the Second Great Awakening. You cannot understand the energy for the abolition of slavery, the passion for women’s rights, the temperance movement and other social reform movements without coming to terms with this revival. But what about what is now being called the Asbury Revival in Wilmore, Kentucky? Is this the first major spiritual revival of the 21st century?

The Bible has much to say about the careful management of money, property and about wisely preparing for the future. Scripture affirms the wisdom of a balanced budget—whether talking about an individual, a business or the government: Significant debt is unwise and foolish! A few years ago, columnist and economist Robert Samuelson poignantly observed that “It’s getting harder and harder to write these budget columns, because it must be obvious to almost everyone by now that hardly anyone in Washington (or perhaps any place) cares about the budget deficits.