The deal to avert the fiscal cliff has been made, averting for the short term another fiscal crisis for America. But there is little doubt that this deal represents one of the greatest failures of leadership in recent years. It is nothing to be proud of. Let me explain.

Since the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan, evangelicals have played a major role in presidential politics. They played a decisive role in Reagan?s 1980 election, his 1984 reelection, the Republican victories in 1994 and the Bush victories in 2000 and 2004. But the evangelical influence appears to be waning and the 2012 presidential election adds credence to that claim. Despite the fact that 79% of white evangelicals voted for Romney (about the same percentage Bush received in 2004) this November, Obama won a decisive victory. On top of that victory, four states voted to legitimize same-sex marriages. What is going on?

As a nation, the monstrous evil in Newtown, Connecticut will haunt us during the 2012 Christmas season. It is unimaginable that someone could kill 20 children, all of them either 6 or 7 years old. How could this occur? How could God, who is good, permit such horror? This despicable act of evil will now doubt affect public policy decisions on gun control and mental health care. But it also serves to remind us that nowhere is truly safe. Evil will always find a way to raise its ugly head. To help us process this indescribable terror, I am drawing on some comments of several months ago on Issues in Perspective. May these comments give us a context and help us as we pray that God will bring good out of such sadness and loss.

The recent conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza is a portent of a much more serious crisis looming on the horizon for Israel. It is a crisis that has political, military and profound security implications for Israel. In this edition of Issues in Perspective, I seek to place this entire conflict in a proper context.

One of the many precious liberties we enjoy as Americans is freedom of religion. Indeed, the First Amendment to the US Constitution reads, ?. . . Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. . .? This Amendment guarantees that America will never have a state church and it also guarantees that the state will always protect the freedom of religious expression. It is the ?free exercise? clause that is so dear to us, especially to Christians. . . . [R]eligious freedom in our nation is coming under a sustained and rather relentless attack. What is the evidence for this claim? Matthew J. Franck, Director of the William E. and Carol G. Simon Center on Religion and the Constitution at the Witherspoon Institute, offers several poignant examples of this claim:

As I am writing this, the 2012 national election is only days away. With the ridiculously long primary season, we have been in this presidential cycle for nearly two years! That this is one of the more important elections in recent memory is a given. Whoever becomes the next president and whoever is elected to the House and the Senate will face challenges of historic proportion . . . It is imperative that we remember we will also be voting for other national offices. In addition, we will vote for state officials and local officials, all of whom will represent us at various levels . . . In this Perspective I offer several broad guidelines and principles. Much of my analysis will focus on the presidency, all the while remembering that there are other significant offices for which we will vote.

Recently a Harvard Divinity School scholar, Karen L. King, published a paper, provocatively entitled, ?The Gospel of Jesus? Wife,? on a 4th century 1 ½ by 3 inch Coptic papyrus scrap that, she argues, contains the phrase, ?Jesus said to them, ?My wife. . . .?? Indeed, she announced her research in the Vatican?s front yard at a Coptic Studies conference at the Catholic Church?s Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum in Rome?Written in Coptic, an Egyptian language that uses Greek letters, the fragment is in the opinion of several scholars who have seen it, not a forgery. What should we make of this papyrus scrap? Does it provide evidence that Jesus did indeed have a wife? How should we think about this provocative thesis? Several thoughts.

Evangelical Christians are often charged with preaching the doom-and-gloom of the coming apocalypse predicted in Revelation. There is little doubt that this teaching is often overdramatized. But there is an environmental apocalypse that also needs critical evaluation. Since 1972, we have been told that environmental disaster is imminent and those warnings are usually accompanied by the language of the apocalypse. Such predictions framed in apocalyptic language have spawned much of the modern environmental movement. How should we think about this?

The security of the nation-state of Israel has been one of the centerpieces of US foreign policy since the administration of Harry Truman. Perhaps at no time since the 1967 war has the security of Israel been such a viable matter of concern. Unfortunately, it is now a part of the political culture of the 2012 presidential election. In addition to the obvious threat of Iran, whose nuclear capability grows each week, and the growing instability of Syria, which is on the verge of civil war, there are other real threats to Israel?s security. For that reason, it is imperative to summarize the current volatility of the Middle East and the genuine threat this all poses to Israel?s security.

Each time I travel to Washington, D.C., I make it a point to visit the Lincoln and the Jefferson memorials; they are my favorite places in our nation?s capital. Each memorial causes me to think of great men, who exercised power in the service of high ideals and who knew how to use power for the good of others. But, as the columnist David Brooks argues, recent memorials in our nation?s capital have avoided memorializing the topics of strength and power in leadership. These recent, terribly unfortunate memorials in Washington reflect a significant shift in cultural values?and that shift has not been positive. Let me explain.