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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

My wife and I have found that the daily news is a ceaseless burden. The supreme optimist, Steven Pinker, observes that if you were “to read the news every day for a few decades it would be easy to miss the progress that had been made over that span.” Part of the explanation for this is the time period in question: good things usually happen incrementally, bad things (like natural disasters or murders) happen in shorter chunks of time. The “bad things” oddly, get more coverage.

American civilization is in trouble. One troubling symptom is what sociologists are now calling “tribalism” within our civilization. In one sense, the state of our civilization resembles the period between 1850-1860, when the battle lines between the north and the south hardened, which ultimately produced the Civil War (1861-1865). But, the tribalism of 2021 is different. It is not about slavery and the direction of America—slave or free. It is much deeper.

Colonial America saw the founding of important institutions of higher education, all of which stressed preparing men for leadership in the colonies, especially spiritual leadership: Harvard (1636), Yale (1701), the College of William and Mary (1693), the College of New Jersey [later known as Princeton University] (1746), and the Academy of Philadelphia [later known as the University of Pennsylvania] (1755). As each developed a unique intellectual identity, each wrestled with Puritan theology or Anglican theology, as well as the 18th century Enlightenment, which by the 1740s was penetrating all facets of American intellectual life. Each produced the key leaders of the American movement towards independence from Great Britain (e.g., Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Madison). These educational institutions were centers of both Protestant Reformation thinking and Enlightenment thinking. The tension that arose between these two intellectual and theological revolutions shaped the development of America.