In 1968 presidential candidate, Hubert Humphrey, declared: “The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy, and the handicapped.” As a Christian, it is difficult for me to disagree with that statement.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 stipulates the vital importance of parents in educating their children: There is to be a formal structure where parents teach their children facts, ethical standards and doctrinal truth. Parents 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. Ideally today, parents, the church and the school should network together to accomplish this goal of moral and spiritual formation. However, in 2024 moral and spiritual formation has been replaced by indoctrination and the pursuit of personal autonomy in much of public education.

It has been said that Israel has always “lived in a tough neighborhood.” That was true in the Ancient world when Israel was surrounded by the Philistia, Edom, Moab, Ammon, Phoenicia; to the south ancient Egypt; and to the east Assyria, and later Babylonia. Today, Israel enjoys a peace treaty with Egypt and Jordan but faces Hezbollah to the north (in Lebanon), Hamas to the west (in Gaza) and, of course, Iran to the east. Both Hezbollah and Hamas are supported by and funded by Iran. Together, these three entities pose an existential threat to modern Israel. In this Perspective, I want to focus on Hezbollah and Hamas.

In April of 2024, Iran launched a series of unprecedented drone and missile strikes against Israel, raising the specter of a war that could incinerate large parts of the Middle East, collapse the global economy and eventually involve the United States and other major powers. For now both Israel and Iran have avoided further escalation but no one really believes that this will last. Karim Sadjadpour, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, speculates that “As long as Iran is ruled by an Islamist government that puts its revolutionary ideology before the national interest, the two countries will never know peace, and the Middle East will never know meaningful stability.”

We live in troubling times. The Western world is under severe pressure, facing challenges from Russia, Iran and China. And the leader of the Western world is faltering in its leadership. The confusion, disorder and unsettledness currently dominating American politics are causing other western allies to doubt the reliability of the US in its obligations as an ally. The two current candidates for president do not yield any degree of confidence or certainty about this reliability: One candidate is an America-first isolationist and the other lacks the decisive courage to lead the Western world. Our enemies know this and relish the continued decline, as they perceive it, of the West. For them the future belongs to the axis of evil centered in Russia, Iran and China, not the West.

In April 1976 Christianity Today declared, “Christians in particular ought to be concerned about the ethical and religious convictions of those who aspire to the presidency. The basis upon which a leader makes his decisions is more important than what side he takes in current transient controversies.” Furthermore, in the midst of the late-1990s Clinton scandal, a group of evangelical Christian scholars issued a “Declaration Concerning Religion, Ethics and the Crisis in the Clinton Presidency

In early May 2024, President Biden’s Justice Department began reviewing marijuana’s classification as a Schedule I drug, moving to reclassify it as a less dangerous Schedule III drug—on par with anabolic steroids and Tylenol with codeine—which would provide tax benefits and a financial boon to the pot industry. This action merely reflects the national trend of accommodating American culture to the legalization of marijuana. In 2014, for example, an editorial on the front page of the New York Times argued intensely for the legalization of marijuana and the removal of all penalties against the manufacturing and distribution of marijuana, let alone the possession of marijuana in its many forms.

One of the key elements of the new world order emerging in the 21st century is Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Putin is a delusional tyrant who is building a fascist state that loathes democracy, freedom and individualism. He is not a friend; he is not to be emulated; he is not a defender of Christian values. He is a ruthless dictator, who regards Stalin as a Russian hero who needs to be restored to his rightful place as the savior of Russia. The war in Ukraine is the beginning of his delusional vision of a new world order. These delusional ambitions of Putin, the fascist tyrant, cannot be ignored.

For those of us who lived through the anti-apartheid protests in the 1980s, or the Vietnam War demonstrations of the 1960s and 1970s, the current tumult—and the way it has collided with broader social and political upheaval—echoes some especially tense times in our country’s history. But, these demonstrations also raise a profoundly important question: Why has the war in Gaza so galvanized American college students in the first place, compared with other crises or conflicts where pressure on American leaders may have had more potential for effect?

At the heart of the pro-life movement is the deep-seated conviction that from the moment of conception, an unborn child is a separate human life. Although the baby is completely dependent on the mother, it is still a separate human life. The baby’s life is not more important than the mother’s—which is why the best-drafted pro-life laws protect the life and physical health of the mother—but it possesses incalculable worth nonetheless. “Absent extreme circumstances, the unborn child must not be intentionally killed. And while pro-life Americans can disagree about how to protect unborn children—whether it’s primarily through legal restrictions, primarily through measures meant to reduce the demand for abortion, or primarily through a combination of abortion restrictions or financial assistance to mothers and families—there has long been agreement on that one core claim: From the moment of conception, an unborn child is a person worth protecting.”